Allan Folsom - Day Of Confession

'And you want me to help you-' Harry was incredulous.

'Not just me, Mr Addison. Yourself. What your brother knows – he's the only one who can get you off the hook. You know that as well as I do.'

Harry said nothing, just stared.

'If he is alive and in fear of his life. How would he know the video is fake? All he knows is that you want him to come in – and when he gets desperate enough, he's going to have to trust someone. Who better than you?'

'Maybe… But it doesn't matter. Because he doesn't know where I am. And I don't know where he is. Neither does anybody else.'

'Don't you think the police are meticulously backtracking through the people who were onboard the bus – both the living and the dead – to see what happened? Find out where he made the switch or where someone made it for him?'

'What good does that do me?'

'Adrianna…'

'Adrianna?'

'She is the ultimate professional. She knew about you the first day you came to Rome.'

Harry's gaze drifted off. It was why she'd picked him up at the hotel. He'd even accused her of it and tried to walk away. But she'd turned him inside out and back again. The whole time she was setting him up for the story. Not so much then, but for where it might lead. Yes, she was the ultimate professional, the same as he was. And he should have been aware of it all along, because it was the place where they both lived their lives. There, and almost nowhere else.

'Why do you think she called me as soon as she got off the phone with you? She knew what she wanted and what I needed and what I could do for you. She knew that if she played it right, it would work to all our advantages.'

'Jesus fucking Christ.' Harry ran a hand through his hair and walked away. Then he turned back.

'You've thought it all out. Except for one thing. Even if we did find out where he is, he can't come to me, and I can't go to him.'

Eaton took a sip of his drink. 'You could as someone else… New name. Passport. Driver's license. If you were careful, you could go anywhere you wanted…'

'You can do that…'

'Yes.'

Harry stared at him. Angry, manipulated, amazed.

'If I were you, Mr Addison, I would be jubilant. After everything, you actually have two people who want to help you. And can.'

Harry continued to stare. 'Eaton, you are one goddamned son of a bitch.'

'No, Mr Addison. I'm a goddamned civil servant.'

11 P.M.

Harry lay in bed in Eaton's apartment trying to sleep, the door locked, a chair propped under the knob, just in case. Trying to tell himself that it was all right. And that Eaton had been right. Up until now he had been alone in an impossible situation. Suddenly he had a place to stay and two people willing to help him.

Eaton had gone out, saying he would get Harry something to eat, suggesting that in the meantime Harry shower and wash his healing wounds as best he could. But not shave. For the moment the new beard was protecting him, making him someone else.

But he wanted Harry to think who he wanted to become. Something he might know if questioned, a law school professor or perhaps a journalist who wrote about the entertainment industry on holiday in Italy, or an aspiring screenwriter or novelist doing research on ancient Rome.

'I'll remain what I was, a priest,' Harry had said when Eaton came back with pizza and a bottle of red wine and some bread and coffee for the morning.

'An American priest is who they are looking for.'

'There are priests everywhere. And I would assume more than one is American.'

Eaton had hesitated, then simply nodded and gone into the bedroom and brought out two of his shirts and a sweater. Then, pulling a 35mm camera from a drawer, he'd loaded it with film and positioned Harry against a blank wall. He took eighteen photographs. Six with Harry wearing one shirt, six with the other, six with the sweater.

After that he'd left, telling Harry to go nowhere. That either he or Adrianna would be back by noon the next day.

Why?

Why had he chosen to remain a priest? Had he thought it out? Yes. As a priest, he could become a civilian at will by a simple change of clothes. And, as he had suggested, how unusual would it be to find any number who were American? Hercules had said, Hide in plain sight. Right next to them. He had, and it had worked. Any number of times. Once right under the nose of the carabinieri.

On the other hand Eaton had been right: the police were looking for Danny. And Danny was an American priest. A priest who spoke English with an American dialect would be a natural suspect. People would look at him and wonder if, despite the beard, the face wasn't familiar. And don't forget the reward. A hundred million lire. Some sixty thousand U.S. dollars. Who wouldn't risk a little embarrassment by taking a chance and calling the police, even if it turned out to be the wrong person?

Moreover, what did he know about the priesthood? What if another clergyman engaged him in talk? What if someone asked him for help? Still, the decision had been made, the photos taken, with Eaton certain to give him a background along with his papers.

A priest.

Outside, Harry heard the sounds of Rome at night. Via di Montoro was a side street and a great deal quieter than the din outside his hotel at the top of the Spanish Steps. But still the noise was there. Traffic. The incessant putt of motor scooters. People walking by outside.

Little by little it all became background, drifting into a distant symphony of nothingness. The shower, the clean bed, the whole of the ordeal carried Harry toward sleep, gently forcing him to accept his true exhaustion. Perhaps that was why he had chosen to stay a priest. Simply because it was easy. And because it had worked. And not at all for another reason… that he wished in some curious way to understand who Danny really was. To do as Hercules had offhandedly suggested. To, for a while at least, become his brother.

Closing his eyes, he began to drift off. As he did, he saw the Christmas card once more: the decorated tree behind the posed faces smiling from under Santa Claus hats – his mother and father, himself, Madeline, and Danny.

'MERRY CHRISTMAS from the Addisons'

Then the vision faded, and in the dark he heard Pio's voice. It whispered again the thing he had said in the car on the way back to Rome – 'You know what I would be thinking if I were you… Is my brother still alive? And if he is, where is he?

Marsciano was alone in his library, his desktop computer dark. The books, which filled every open space floor to ceiling, seemed, in his mood, little more than decorations. The only illumination was from a halogen lamp sitting near the back of his wooden desk. On top of it, and in the lamp's glow, was the envelope that had been delivered to him in Geneva in the package marked URGENTE. The same envelope he had brought back with him on the train. Inside it was the audiocassette he had heard that once but never played again. Why he wanted to hear it now, he didn't know. But he was drawn to it nonetheless.

Opening a drawer, he set a palm-sized tape player on the desk, then opened the envelope and slid the cassette into it. For a moment he hesitated, then deliberately he pressed the play button. There was a dull whirring as the tape came to speed. Then he heard the voice, hushed but perfectly clear:

'In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. May God, who has enlightened every heart, help you to know your sins and trust in His mercy.'

Then came another voice: 'Amen.'

'Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,' the other voice continued. 'It has been many days since my last confession. These are my sins -'