Allan Folsom - Day Of Confession

Suddenly another face appeared, looking down at him, too. It was that of a woman. Dark skinned, maybe forty, her hair turned up in a bright bandana. Kneeling down, she touched his head, then reached across and lifted his left hand. It was bandaged heavily. Her eyes went to the man with the enlarged head, and she said something in a language Harry had never heard. The man nodded. The woman glanced back at Harry, then stood abruptly and left. After a moment there was a sound like a heavy door opening and then closing.

'You have the use of only one eye… But soon the other will come back. She has said so.' Hercules smiled again. 'I am to wash your wounds twice every day and to change the bandage on your hand tomorrow. The one on your head can remain for a time… She has told me that, too.'

Again came the rumbling and again the ground shook.

'This my house. Where I live,' Hercules said. 'A boarded-up part of the Metro, an old work tunnel. I have existed here for five years – and no one knows. Well, except for a few such as her… Pretty good, eh?' He laughed and then reached out and pulled himself up with an aluminum crutch. 'I have no use of my legs. But my shoulders are huge and I am very strong.'

Hercules was a dwarf. Three and a half feet, four feet tall at most. His head was large, almost egg shaped. And his shoulders were huge, as were his arms. But that was most all of him. His waist was tiny, his legs little more than spindles.

Limping to a darkened wall behind him, Hercules plucked something from it. When he turned back, he had a second crutch.

'You were shot…'

Harry stared blankly. He remembered none of it.

'Very lucky. The gun was small caliber. The bullet hit your hand and bounced off your head… You were in the sewer. I fished you out.'

Harry stared at him with his one good eye, uncomprehending, his mind straining to adjust, as if fighting to come out of a deep sleep, to move from an endless dream to reality. For some reason his thoughts went to Madeline, and he saw her, arms and legs askew, her hair floating out from her head in the black water under the ice, and he wondered if this was what it had been like for her – moving from some kind of terrifying reality to a dreamlike state, shifting back and forth between one and the other until she went finally into her last deep sleep.

'You do not feel pain?'

'No…'

Hercules grinned. 'Because of her medicine. She is a Gypsy who knows healing. I am not Gypsy, but I get along with them. They give me things, I give them things. We do favors. That way we respect and do not steal from each other…' A giggle erupted, and he let it run, then became serious again. 'Nor I from you, Father.'

'Father…?' Harry looked at him blankly.

'Your papers were in your jacket, Father Addison…' Hercules leaned on his crutches and swept his hand to the side.

Nearby, Harry's clothes hung on a makeshift rack to dry. On the ground next to them, carefully laid out to dry as well, was the envelope Gasparri had given him. Next to it were Danny's personal effects – his scorched watch, his broken glasses, his charred Vatican identification, and his passport.

Like an acrobat Hercules suddenly dropped the length of his crutches to sit on the ground next to Harry, face-to-face as before. As if he had abruptly pulled up a chair.

'We have a problem, Father. Decidedly you would want me to tell someone of your condition. Most probably the police. But you are not ready to walk, and I can tell no one you are here because then my home would be found out. Understand?'

'Yes…'

'Best you rest anyway. With good fortune, as early as tomorrow you will be able to stand and then go where you wish.'

Suddenly Hercules reversed his earlier motion and abruptly pulled himself up on his crutches.

'I am leaving for a time. Sleep without fear. You will be safe.'

With that he swung off and disappeared in the darkness, the sound of him echoing until there was the creak of wood, the same as when the woman left – a heavy door opening and closing.

Harry lay back and for the first time was aware of a pillow under his head and a blanket covering him. 'Thank you,' he whispered. Again he heard the vague rumbling and felt the ground shake as a Metro train passed in the distance. Then exhaustion overtook him and he closed his eyes and thoughts of Hercules and everything else faded away.

Beverly Hills, California. Thursday, July 9, dusk.

Byron Willis let out a deep breath and hung up the phone. Turning off Sunset and onto Stone Canyon Road, he switched on the Lexus's headlights and saw them illuminate the ivy-covered walls guarding the massive, elegant estates he wound past. What had happened was impossible. Harry Addison, his Harry Addison, the guy whom he brought into the firm and loved like a brother and who had an office down the hall, was suddenly on the run in Italy, wanted for the murder of a Rome detective. And his brother was accused of the assassination of the cardinal vicar of Rome. And it had happened bang, bang. Like an auto accident. Already the media were tying up the office switchboard, trying to get a statement from him and the other partners.

'Son of a bitch!' he enunciated angrily.

Whatever the hell had happened, Harry was going to need all the help he could get, and so was the firm. The night was going to be spent fending off the media and making certain their clients knew what had happened and telling them to say nothing when the reporters pounced. At the same time he would be trying to find Harry and get him the best legal representation in Italy.

Slowing, Byron Willis saw the satellite trucks and the gaggle of media gathered in front of the security gates of his home at 1500 Stone Canyon Road. Pressing the remote that opened the gates, he waited for people to clear, then drove through, waving politely, doing his best to ignore them. On the far side he stopped, making certain no one slipped past as the gates closed. Then he drove on, his headlights cutting an easy path through the darkness, illuminating the long, familiar drive up to his house.

'Dammit,' he breathed.

In an instant a friend's world was turned upside down. It only made him realize his own situation more. Another late meeting, another coming home after dark. His wife and two young sons were away at the family ski house in Sun Valley. A wife and two young sons whom, even when they were home, he barely saw, even on weekends. God only knew what lay around any corner. Life was rich and to be lived thoroughly, and the demands of work should not be allowed to take up so much of it. And in that moment he made a resolve that once the business with Harry had been worked through – and it would be worked through – he would cut his time at the office and begin to enjoy the unpretentious rewards life had presented him.

Another push of the remote, and the door to his garage swung open. Usually the garage lights came on when the door opened, but for some reason this time they didn't, and he didn't know why. Opening the door, he stepped out.

'Byron-,' a male voice said in the dark.

Byron Willis started and swung around to see the vaguest outline of a figure coming toward him.

'Who are you?'

'A friend of Harry Addison.'

Harry? What the hell did that mean? Suddenly, fear stabbed through him. 'How did you get in here? What do you want?'

'Not much.'

There was a dance of flame and the smallest sound, as if someone had spit. Willis felt something hit him hard in the chest. Instinctively he looked down, wondering what it was. Then he felt his knees begin to buckle. The sound came again. Twice. The man stood right in front of him.

Byron Willis looked up. 'I don't understand…'