Chasing the Dragon (27 page)

What all this had to do with his father’s death, or his uncle’s, he did not know. But there was one place where he hadn’t yet had the opportunity to look.

Il Libro di Vita Segreta
.

There was an orderlies’ closet down the hall. He would wait until the next break. Then he would grab himself some street clothes and visit the rectory down at Washington Square.

Father Campanella’s apartment was in the back of the rectory on the second floor, overlooking the schoolyard. There was a rear entrance on the ground floor, but it was well bolted and there were bars over the window. The bars had been inset with the tamperproof screws, so Dante climbed onto the retaining wall, same as he had done as a kid. It was difficult maneuvering with his shoulder in a bandage, but the drugs helped keep the pain at bay. He found the fire escape and worked his way onto the roof. The skylight over Campanella’s quarters was open just enough to where he could get a grip beneath the edge, and with his good hand he pulled until the hinge popped. The plastic slid loose from the frame, and he dropped himself through.

He drew the curtain, then turned on the lights. A crucifix hung on the wall over the man’s bed, and there was a picture of Mary and of the church’s patron saints, and another picture of the souls tormented in hell, circling one another as they fell through the various levels of torment. To Dante, the souls seemed almost ecstatic in their misery, swirling through the vortex toward the waiting demon. The devil was scabrous and fiery-eyed. He crouched in anticipation, excrement at his feet, and in the excrement were the bones of the damned.

The priest’s desk had been stacked high with correspondence, and Dante went through it looking for his father’s
Il Libro
. Letters from fellow priests. Pamphlets and newsletters. Brochures for religious statues, for vestments and chalices and holy objects. Bank statements mixed in with correspondence from the penitentiary.

At length, he found what he was a looking for on a nearby bookshelf: a thick manila envelope with the name
MANCUSO
scrawled on the outside. Before he could examine it, though, he heard a noise behind him.

Father Campanella stood in the threshold.

“You couldn’t wait till morning?”

Dante didn’t know what to say. It was as if he and the priest had stepped back thirty years, to when Father Campanella caught Dante and his buddies on the school roof with a crucifix they’d stolen from the nunnery.

“There’s more going on here then meets the eye,” said Dante.

“Apparently so. Why don’t you sit down?”

“I thought you were out of town—and . . .”

“I returned this evening. I was in the chapel just now.”

“Oh.”

“Is there something you want to talk about?”

Another man might have expressed alarm, or outrage, at this invasion of his quarters. Or called the police. Campanella, though, whatever his flaws was not inclined toward unmediated action.

Dante gestured at the skylight. “I’ll make good on the damages.”

“Your arm . . .”

“A little accident. I slipped and fell.”

If the priest doubted him, he said nothing.

“I just need to look at what’s in here. At my father’s
Il Libro
.”

“Take your time.”

Father Campanella motioned to the armchair and Dante sat down. He feared the priest might come and look over his shoulder—Campanella could be nosey, and cloying, especially when it came to matters of the spirit—but instead he merely sat in the armchair opposite Dante, under the crucifix, and folded his hands.

Inside the book was a collection of articles and papers. Put together not by his father, Dante quickly realized, but by Strehli. A packet of photographs—the same ones his uncle had had the negatives for. A newspaper article about the discovery of the corpses in the container. A magazine biography of Ru Shen.

Also there was a journal, written in Chinese. Dante found a letter, tucked inside its bindings. Unlike the journal, the letter was in English, written in a quavering hand.

Dante felt the priest regarding him. Father Campanella had led the parish for some thirty years. Every day he took an afternoon stroll down Columbus and in the evening you could find him at Enrico’s having a drink. He was an effeminate man, with blue eyes and delicate hands, and people made the type of jokes you might expect.

“You talked to my father before he died.”

“Yes. He wanted me to give the
Libro
to you. He wanted to be sure you took possession.”

“Did you read this?”

“No. As you see, the package was sealed.”

“At the end, my father thought someone was trying to kill him. Did he mention this to you?”

“I believe he was having delusions. When a man dies, what a man feels guilty for, and what he has actually done . . .” Campanella paused, stumbling for the words. “What I am trying to say, the demons are often more grandiose than the crime.”

“What else did he say to you?”

“I’m afraid I have to claim silence on those things. I took a vow. But he died at peace, I assure you.”

“I’m not so sure.”

The priest’s eyes went soft and his lip quivered. Once upon a time Dante had been an altar boy. He had rung the Eucharist bells, three bells, three times, each. Then he had walked up to the altar with the wine and water, ten steps, and afterward rang the bells again. Meanwhile, Campanella had raised his hands and muttered the words of the transubstantiation, and Dante had rung the bells yet again: once for the Father, once for the Son, once for the Holy Spirit. Then he’d followed the priest, assisting with the communion, holding the paten beneath the parishioners’ throats as they took the host. More than once, when they were walking back to the altar, he’d seen the same weariness pass across Father Campanella’s face. The same softness, the same quiver of doubt.

“There was one thing I can pass along. Your father, he wanted you to forgive him.”

“For what?”

“He said he kept some things from you. But he only did so to protect you. He was worried, though, that he had made a mistake.”

“Who else visited with him before he died?”

“Your uncle, of course. And the doctor.”

“Anyone else?”

“The mayor. A number of his friends, but especially him. They were close, you know, from the old days. And Mayor Rossi—he came over more than once. To give him comfort.”

“Was it a comfort to him?”

“At such times, the Lord always finds a way.”

There was the same softness, though, the same quiver in the eyes. Dante didn’t know. Maybe the priest was right, and his father had died a natural death. But somebody had broken into his father’s house. Somebody had torn up his uncle’s office as well.

The journal
, Dante guessed.
That’s what they’d been looking for
.

Dante stood up to leave. He had another call to make. Father Campanella smiled then, extending his hand as he rose from the chair, and Dante realized what was coming.

“Would you like to pray with me?”

It was the double trap. If you turned down the priest at a time like this, at the closing of
Il Libro di Vita Segreta
, you were accursed. You betrayed the memories of the deceased. But if you prayed and pretended to believe when you had no faith, you were accursed twice over. In the end, there was little choice.

“All right,” Dante said.

He and the priest got down on their knees.

Our Father
. . .

Things had gone full circle. Seven years earlier, Dante had stood in the vestibule of Mayor Rossi’s house, high up on Russian Hill, and asked him to use his influence to set up a special investigation into the Strehli murder. The mayor had put his hand on Dante’s shoulder, affable as hell. He’d smiled and shrugged and given Dante a little talk on the separation of powers, and how he could not influence the shape of the judicial process even if he wanted.

“I’m only the mayor,” he had said. “Not the king. That’s the rub.”

Now Dante climbed the hill again. When Rossi opened the door, he saw the same blustery grin, the same glistening eyes, though there was also a certain wariness there, and the mayor’s face seemed worn from all the years of ingratiating smiles.

“What happened?”

The bandage on Dante’s shoulder had begun to leak, and the pain was returning—but Dante brushed the question aside. In his good hand, Dante held the packet he’d gotten from Father Campanella.

“La Vita Segreta,”
Dante said. “My father’s last words.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You knew there was something else behind the Strehli murder. You knew that seven years ago.”

The mayor shook his head. He glanced again at Dante’s shoulder.

“I understand you’re upset,” he said. “Your father’s death. Your uncle. But this obsession with Strehli—it’s ruining you.”

“Caselli was paid to confess. He didn’t kill Strehli.”

“You’re a bit single-minded, this time of the evening—”

“Strehli was killed because he’d discovered something in that shipping container. Before he was murdered, he sent this packet to my father. But I think you already know that.”

The mayor said nothing.

“My father came to you, didn’t he?” said Dante. “My father came to you seven years ago, looking for advice.”

“Your arm—”

“Tell me.”

Rossi took a nervous glance up the staircase behind him, as if afraid someone might hear. It was an elegant staircase and you could hear music coming from the rooms beyond, the swell of violins.

“My wife,” Rossi nodded toward the music. “Please, let’s talk in my den.”

Dante had been in the den, too, that evening seven years ago, and it was pretty much as he remembered it: a high-ceilinged room with sheer curtains, darkly furnished—a masculine room that smelled of mahogany and leather. On the wall hung mementos from Rossi’s years in public office. Honorary degrees. Medals of honor. Pictures of himself with dignitaries. News clippings telling the familiar story, the one every immigrant likes to tell: about the climb out of poverty, out of the mud and dirt, to this elegant room in this elegant house, with these remembrances on the wall. To this elegant room where pictures of his daughters, dark-haired and beautiful, sat on the rolltop desk. The mayor’s eyes glistened sadly.

“Your father did come to me seven years ago, yes. What happened, before Strehli died, he sent those photographs to your father. Your father looked at those photographs, and he was frightened of what might happen. Frightened for himself. And for you.”

“For me?”

“After Strehli was killed, you were dead set on finding out what was up. He was worried that if you investigated further, whoever killed Strehli, they would kill you, too. We talked about it a long time. In the end, I suggested he give me what Strehli had sent him. Then I would pass it along to the powers-that-be. And I would protect his identity. I would say it had all been passed to me anonymously. And that’s what happened. He gave me the file—the same one you have there, I assume. A few photos, a newspaper article, a letter allegedly written by Mr. Shen. But I see now—your father must have made copies.”

“And then?”

“I did as I said. I turned it all over to the appropriate authorities.”

“Who?”

The mayor held up a hand. It was the same hand he’d held up seven years ago. The same smile. The same shrug. “You know as a government official—even as a mayor—you brush up against security issues. I’m afraid I can’t tell you that. My suggestion is that you let this go. Your father’s concern—it was that you survive. The Strehli case was not your jurisdiction—and if you had pursued it . . .”

“You may have explained it to my father that way, but you had your own reasons.”

“That’s not fair.”

“And you let them set me up. You fed me to the lions.”

“Why would I do such a thing?”

“To protect yourself. Because you were afraid of what the Strehli investigation might uncover.”