David Hewson - A Season for the Dead

“Runs in the family. Denney comes from some Irish-American family in Boston. Big in bootlegging in the early days, sidekicks to Joe Kennedy for a while. Moved into politics, finance, all that stuff. But they never could let everything go. It’s in their blood I guess. He was the kid they marked out for the Church while the rest stuck with the family business. Which was all Denney did for a while too and pretty well too. Made a name for himself working the Irish ghettos in Boston. Man of the people. Didn’t seem to be an act either. Then he hit the up escalator, came to Europe. By the time he’s thirty he’s in Rome. By the time he’s forty-five he’s wearing the red cap and suddenly it’s no more listening to some local jerk confessing to playing fuck-thy-neighbor. He’s gone business, running this bank and he’s pumping the Pope’s money all ways. Into IBM and General Motors. After a while into funnier places too, companies that are never going anywhere, ever, because that’s not why they’re there. Suddenly, it’s no longer about the Pope’s money. It’s stuff coming from all over, laundered by God knows who.” Rossi stared at the empty glass. “Why the hell am I telling you all this?”

“You’re keeping me up to date on the gossip.”

“Right,” the big man grumbled. “So according to this man of mine, along comes the new millennium and Denney’s bank’s doing like all the rest of them, not good. He’s been betting on these dotcom morons. He’s been hedging this by betting on the airlines and the telecom people too. In short, he’s losing his touch. One day in September he turns on the TV and sees a couple of planes fly into a couple of skyscrapers. And what do you know? Bad turns awful. Bad turns fucking disastrous. Word is that if this bunch was out in the open Denney’d be bust and in the slammer facing some serious incarceration. Which is bad news for him and for all those mob guys who thought they were banking on something that had the Holy Writ on the cover. They are people who do not like to lose their money.”

“This man of yours knows a lot,” Costa observed.

“He was a knowledgeable guy. What do I mean 'was'? Still is."

“And he says it in such a memorable way too. Where’s he working now?”

“Probably with some dumb smart-ass kid who doesn’t believe a word he says. Do I make myself clear?”

“In a particularly obscure way. Did he get the chance to arrest someone?”

“Like who? Lombardia isn’t officially bust yet. Just 'suspended'. All the money was passing through places like Liechtenstein and Grand Cayman. Try hunting that down. The finance people had one low-grade clerk in their sights, thought he might talk too if they offered him a deal. When they went to collect they found him floating facedown in the bath in his apartment in Testaccio. 'Heart attack'. Very convenient. Who knows? Maybe Denney had him done. Maybe now he’s got the taste he’s offing a few more people who took the money and didn’t come up with the goods.”

“Rinaldi did come up with the goods. He said the Vatican was right. About diplomatic immunity.”

“Didn’t work though, did it? Remember, Denney has contacts. To be honest, though, my guess is they’re none too keen on him either these days. Which gives him plenty more reasons to stay behind those walls where no one can touch him. Not until the Vatican people themselves wash their hands of the black sheep and kick him out onto the pavement. Yeah. Like that’s going to happen.”

Costa was baffled. “Why not? Why would the Church tolerate any of this?”

It could have been Falcone looking at him. Rossi’s expression said just one thing: Don’t be so dumb, kid. “This isn’t about the Church. It’s about the Vatican. Another country. Like I said. Mongolia, as far as we’re concerned. Unless it’s in their interests they won’t give us anything. Maybe Denney’s in some kind of purdah now they know what’s been going on. Maybe not. Either way for us it’s irrelevant. He daren’t set foot outside the Vatican. He knows we’d arrest him on the spot. He knows some of his shady friends might want a word too. They’re too picky about their own in there to hang him out to dry. But my guess is he’s not a happy little priest. This was a guy who used to hang out with presidents. The way things are going now he’s just going to wind up a sad old man stuck in a nice comfy prison for the rest of his life. Unless he gets a fit of conscience, of course, and decides to tell us everything. Which I find somewhat unlikely, to be frank.”

Costa was adamant. “We have to check it out.”

The big man wagged a finger at him. “No! Didn’t you hear Falcone clearly enough? I shouldn’t even have told you any of this. You are not going back to that place. Understand?”

“You said it was gossip. I found out someplace else.”

“What about the painting?” Rossi asked, trying to change the subject.

“Still want to see it?”

“My glass is empty. You’re starting to scare the shit out of me. You bet I want to see it.”

Costa led him out of the bar, across the busy main road into the warren of streets that stretched between the Pantheon and Piazza Navona. Rossi followed as the kid ducked into a nondescript church in one of the side roads.

“Who’d put a masterpiece in a dump like this?” Rossi demanded in the gloomy interior. “I’ve seen better churches in Naples.”

“This is San Luigi dei Francesi, big man. Here you’ve got two of the greatest works Caravaggio ever painted, exactly where he meant them to be, where he put them on the walls himself.”

“I get to see both?” He didn’t sound enthusiastic.

“One at a time,” Costa said, and walked forward to deposit some coins in the light meter. A set of bulbs came alive. Rossi blinked at the huge canvas in front of him. Most of it was set in shade: a group of men in medieval dress at a table, counting money. Three of them had turned to look at a pair of figures standing at the right of the scene. From behind came a shaft of revealing light. It burned brightly on the puzzled faces as they sat there, half-cowed, watching the newcomers.

“The Vocation of St. Matthew,” Costa said. “He’s the one in the middle, pointing to himself, as if to say, 'Who? Me?'”

“And the guys on the right?”

“Jesus, with his hand outstretched, indicating to Matthew he’s been chosen as an apostle. And by his side Peter, who symbolizes the Church which will come to be built on Matthew’s gospel.”

“So what’s this got to do with me losing it in an accident? That was your point, wasn’t it?”

Costa nodded. The big man wasn’t slow. “Look at the costumes. The men around the table are in what was, when it was painted, contemporary dress. Jesus and Peter look as if they’ve walked straight out of a biblical scene. Caravaggio was commissioned to record a specific scene but what he did was make a broader point. This is about a moment of revelation, a moment when, in Matthew’s case, he realizes there’s more to life than counting money on a table.”

“You sound like a priest,” Rossi grumbled.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“And this,” Rossi nodded at the painting, “is where you get your kicks?”

“I wouldn’t put it that way.” Costa thought about it. “It’s about looking for some meaning, looking for a reason to be alive. Not just working your way through the day and being glad you got to the other end.”

“That’s fine as far as I’m concerned.”

“Sure,” Costa replied. “Until you see something that says otherwise. And then you wind up working with me.”

Rossi sighed. He got the message. There was, Costa knew, no need to belabor it. “So you’re a Catholic? In spite of everything they say about your old man?”