Allan Folsom - Day Of Confession

There had been eighteen calls waiting for him to return when he'd checked in yesterday. But he'd answered none of them, just gone to bed and slept for fifteen hours, emotionally and physically exhausted, the idea of business as usual impossible. But tonight, after his encounter with Farel, work had been a welcome relief. And everyone he'd talked to had congratulated him on the big success of Dog and the bright future of Jesus Arroyo, and had been kind and sympathetic about his own personal tragedy, apologizing for talking business under the circumstances and then – all those things said – talking business.

For a time it had been exhilarating, even comforting, because it took his mind off the present. And then, as he'd ended the last call, he realized no one he had talked to had any idea that he was dealing with the police or that his brother was the prime suspect in the assassination of the cardinal vicar of Rome. And he couldn't tell them. As much as they were friends, they were business friends, and that was all.

For the first time, it came to him how singular his life really was. With the exception of Byron Willis – who was married and had two young children and still worked as many hours as Harry did and maybe more – he had no genuine friends, no soul mates of any kind. His life moved too quickly for those kinds of relationships to develop. Women were no different. He was part of Hollywood 's inner circle, and beautiful women were everywhere. He used them and they used him; it was all part of the game. A private screening, dinner afterward, sex, and then back to business; meetings, negotiations, telephones, maybe seeing no one at all socially for weeks at a time. His longest affair had been with an actress and lasted little more than six months. He'd been too busy, too preoccupied. And until now it had seemed all right.

Turning from the desk, Harry went to the window and looked out. The last time he'd looked, the city had been a dazzle of early-evening sun. Now it was night, and Rome sparkled. Below him, the Spanish Steps and the Piazza di Spagna beyond teemed with people – a mass congregation of coming and going and just being, with little collections of uniformed police here and there making sure none of it got out of hand.

Farther away he could see a convergence of narrow streets and alleyways, above which the orange-and-cream-colored tile rooftops of apartments, shops, and small hotels fingered out in ancient orderly blocks until they reached the black band of the Tiber. Across it was the lighted dome of St Peter's, that part of Rome where he'd been earlier in the day. Beneath it sprawled Jacov Farel's domain, the Vatican itself. Residence of the pope. Seat of authority for the world's nine hundred and fifty million Roman Catholics. And the place where Danny had spent the final years of his life.

How could Harry know what those years had been like? Had they been enriching or merely academic? Why had Danny gone from the marines to the priesthood? It was something he had never understood. Not surprising, because at the time they were barely talking, so how could he have asked at all without sounding judgmental? But looking out now at the lighted dome of St Peter's, he had to wonder if it was something there, inside the Vatican, that had driven Danny to call him, and afterward sent him to his death.

Who or what had he been so frightened of? And where had it originated? At the moment, the key seemed to be the bombing of the bus. If the police could determine who had done it and why, they would know if Danny himself had been the target. If he had been the target, and the police knew who the suspects were, then they would all be a major step closer to confirming what Harry still believed in his heart – that Danny was not guilty and had been set up. For some unknown reason altogether.

Once more, he heard the voice and the fear.

''I'm scared, Harry… I don't know what to do… or… what will happen next. God help me.'

11:30 p.m.

Harry wound his way down the Via Condotti to the Via del Corso and on, unable to sleep, looking in shop windows, just wandering with the late crowd. Before he'd gone out he'd called Byron Willis in L.A., telling him about his meeting with Jacov Farel and alerting him to the probability of a visit from the FBI, then discussing with him something deeply personal – where Danny should be buried.

That twist – one that, in the crush of everything, Harry hadn't considered – had come in a call from Father Bardoni, the young priest he'd met at Danny's apartment, informing him that, as far as anyone knew, Father Daniel had no will, and the director of the funeral home needed to advise the funeral director in the town where Danny was to be interred about the arrival of his remains.

'Where would he want to be buried?' Byron Willis had asked gently. And Harry's only answer was 'I don't know…'

'You have a family plot?' Willis had asked.

'Yes,' Harry had said. In their hometown of Bath, Maine. In a small cemetery overlooking the Kennebec River.

'Would that be something he would like?'

'Byron, I… don't know…'

'Harry, I love you and I know you're pained, but this is going to have to be your call.'

Harry had agreed and thanked him and then gone out. Walking, thinking, troubled, even embarrassed. Byron Willis was the closest friend he had, yet Harry had never once spoken to him of his family in more than a passing way. All Byron knew was that Harry and Danny had grown up in a small seacoast town in Maine, that their father had been a dockworker, and that Harry had received an academic scholarship to Harvard when he was seventeen.

The fact was, Harry never talked about the details of his family at all. Not to Byron, not to his roommates in college, not to women, not to anyone. No one knew about the tragic death of their sister, Madeline. Or that their father had been killed in a shipyard accident barely a year later. Or that their mother, lost and confused, had remarried in less than ten months, moving them all into a dark Victorian house with a widowed frozen-food salesman who had five other children, who was never home, and whose only reason to marry had been to get a housekeeper and baby-sitter. Or that later, as a young teenager, Danny had been in one scrape after another with the police.

Or, that both brothers had made a pact to get out of there as soon as they were able, to make the long grimness of those years a thing of their past, to leave and never come back – and promised to help each other do it. And, how, by different routes, both had done so.

With that in mind, how in hell could Harry take Byron Willis's suggestion and bury Danny in the family plot? If he wasn't dead it would kill him! Either that or he'd come up out of the grave, grab Harry by the throat, and throw him in instead! So what was Harry supposed to tell the funeral director tomorrow when he asked Harry where the remains should be sent after they and Harry arrived in New York? Under different circumstances it might have been amusing, even funny. But it wasn't. He had until tomorrow to find an answer. And at the moment, he hadn't a clue.

Half an hour later Harry was back at the Hassler, hot and sweaty from his walk, stopping at the concierge desk to get his room key, and still with no solution. All he wanted was to go up, get into bed, and drop into a total escape of deep, mindless sleep.

'A woman is here to see you, Mr Addison.'

Woman? The only people Harry knew in Rome were police. 'Are you sure?'

The concierge smiled. 'Yes, sir. Very attractive, in a green evening dress. She's waiting in the garden bar.'

'Thank you.' Harry walked off. Someone in the office must have had an actress client visiting Rome and told her to look Harry up, maybe to help take his mind off things. It was the last thing he wanted at the end of a day like this. He didn't care who she was or what she looked like.