Day of Confession (6 page)

10

The Hotel Hassler. Still Tuesday, July 7, 10:00
P.M
.

“GREAT! GREAT! I LOVE IT!… HAS HE CALLED in?… No, I didn’t think he would. He’s where?… Hiding?”

Harry stood in his room and laughed out loud. Telephone in hand, his shirt open at the neck, sleeves rolled up, shoes off, he turned to lean against the edge of the antique desk near the window.

“Hey, he’s twenty-four, he’s a star, let him do what he wants.”

Signing off, Harry hung up and set the phone on the desk among the pile of legal pads, faxes, pencil stubs, half-eaten sandwich, and crumpled notes. When was the last time he’d laughed, or even felt like laughing? But just now he’d laughed, and it felt good.

Dog on the Moon
was a monster hit. Fifty-eight million dollars for the three-day holiday weekend, sixteen million more than Warner Brothers’ highest estimates. Studio number crunchers were projecting a total domestic gross of upward of two hundred and fifty million. And as for its writer-director, Jesus Arroyo, the twenty-four-year-old barrio kid from East L.A. Harry had found six years ago in a special writing program for troubled inner-city teenagers and had mentored ever since, his career was blasting off the planet. In little more than three days he had become the new
enfant terrible
, his golden future assured. Multi-picture contracts worth millions were being overtured to him. So were demands for guest appearances on every major television talk show. And where was baby Jesus in all this? Partying in Vail or Aspen or up the coast looking at Montecito real estate? No? He was—
hiding!

Harry laughed again at the purity of it. Intelligent, mature, and forceful as Jesus was as a filmmaker, at heart he was really a shy little boy who, following the biggest weekend of his career, could not be found. Not by the media, not by his friends, his latest girlfriend, or even his agent—whom Harry had been on the phone with. No one.

Except Harry.

Harry knew where he was. Jesus Arroyo Manuel Rodriguez was his full name, and he was at his parents’ house on Escuela Street in East L.A. He was with his mom and his hospital custodian dad, and his brothers and sisters, and cousins and aunts and uncles.

Yes, Harry knew where he was, and he could call him, but he didn’t want to. Let Jesus have his time with his family. He’d know what was going on. If he wanted to be in touch he would be. Much better to let him celebrate in his own way and let all the other stuff, including the congratulatory call from his lawyer, come later. Business did not yet rule his life as it did Harry’s and the lives of most everyone else who was a success in the entertainment world.

There had been eighteen calls waiting for Harry 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 teamed 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 Danny had gone from the marines to the priesthood he didn’t know. 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

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 him 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 the 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.

SHE WAS SITTING alone at the bar when he came in. For a moment the long auburn hair and emerald green evening dress threw him off. But he knew the face; he’d seen her a hundred times on television, wearing her trademark baseball cap and L. L. Bean-type field jacket, reporting under artillery fire from Bosnia, the aftermath of a terrorist bomb blast in Paris, refugee camps in Africa. She was no actress. She was Adrianna Hall, top European correspondent for WNN, World News Network.

Under almost any other circumstance Harry would have gone out of his way to meet her. She was Harry’s age or a little older, bold, adventuresome, and, as the concierge said, very attractive. But Adrianna Hall was also media, and that was the last thing he wanted to confront now. How she found him he didn’t know, but she had, and he had to figure out what to do about it. Or maybe he didn’t. All he had to do was turn and leave, which was what he did, glancing around, acting as if he were looking for someone who wasn’t there.

He was almost to the lobby when she caught up with him.

“Harry Addison?”

He stopped and turned. “Yes…”

“I’m Adrianna Hall, WNN.”

“I know…”

She smiled. “You don’t want to talk to me…”

“That’s right.”

She smiled again. The dress looked too formal for her. “I’d had dinner with a friend and I was on my way out of the hotel when I saw you leave your key with the concierge…. He said you told him you were going for a walk. I took a chance you wouldn’t go too far—“

“Ms. Hall, I’m sorry, but I really don’t want to talk to the media.”

“You don’t trust us?” This time she smiled with her eyes. It was a kind of natural twinkle that teased.

“I just don’t want to talk…. If you don’t mind, it’s late.”

Harry started to turn, but she took his arm.

“What would make you trust me—at least more than you do now?” She was standing close, animated, breathing easily. “If I told you I knew about your brother? That the police picked you up at the airport? That today you met with Jacov Farel…?”

Harry stared at her.

“You don’t have to gape. It’s my business to know what’s going on…. But I haven’t said anything to anyone but you, and I won’t until an official okay is given.”

“But you want to see what I’m about anyway.”

“Maybe…”

Harry hesitated, then smiled. “Thanks—as I said, it’s late…”

“What if I told you I found you very attractive and that was the real reason I waited for you to come back?”

Harry tried not to grin. This was the kind of thing he was used to at home. A direct and very confident sexual come-on that could be done by either male or female—and taken by the other party either in fun or seriously, depending on one’s mood. Essentially it was a playful crumb tossed out to see what, if anything, would happen next.

“On the one hand I’d say it was flattering. On the other I’d say it was a particularly underhanded and politically incorrect approach to probing a story.” Harry put the ball back in her court and held his ground.

“You would?”

“Yes, I would.”

An elderly threesome came out of the bar and stopped beside them to talk. Adrianna Hall glanced at them, then looked back to Harry, dipped her forehead slightly and lowered her voice.

“Let me see if I can give you a slightly different approach, Mr. Harry Addison…. There are times when I just like to fuck strangers.” She never took her eyes from him when she said it.

HER APARTMENT WAS SMALL and neat and sensual. It was one of those things, sex that comes right up from nowhere. Heat that just happens. Somebody strikes a match and the whole place goes up.

Harry made it clear from the beginning—when he’d answered her and said, “So do I”—that the subject of either Danny or the murder of the cardinal vicar of Rome was off limits, and she’d agreed.

They’d taken a cab, then walked a half block, talking about America. Mostly politics and sports—Adrianna Hall had grown up in Chicago, moving to Switzerland when she was thirteen. Her father had been a player for the Chicago Blackhawks and later a coach for the Swiss national hockey team—and they were there.

There was a click as she closed the door. Then she turned and came to him in the darkness. Mouth open, kissing him roughly, her tongue exploring his. The back of his hands so gently and expertly running over the top of her evening gown, teasing her breasts. Feeling her nipples harden as he did. Her hands opening his slacks, taking down his shorts. Taking his hardness in her hand, stroking him, then lifting her skirt and rubbing him against the thin silk of her underwear. All the while kissing and deep breathing as if it were for all time. And Harry slipping off her underwear, sliding her dress over her head. Unhooking her bra and throwing it into the darkness as she eased him down onto the couch, slipping his shorts from his ankles and moving up, taking him into her mouth. His head rolling back, letting her, then raising up on his elbows to watch as she did. Thinking he had never felt so enormous in his life. Finally, after minutes, easing her head away, lifting her up, carrying her through the orderliness of the living room—a giggle in the dark as she gave him directions—down a short hallway to her bedroom. Waiting, vamping really, as she pulled a condom from a nearby drawer—swearing under her breath, struggling to tear open the foil—then, succeeding, taking it out, and easing it down around him.

“Turn over,” he whispered.

Her smile enraptured him as she did, so that she faced the head of the bed. And he mounted her from behind, feeling the insertion into her warmth, beginning the stroking, the slow in and out, that he sustained almost forever.

Her moaning stayed in his mind for a long time. By Harry’s count he’d come five times in two hours, not bad for a thirty-six-year-old. How, and if, she kept score of her own orgasms he had no idea. What he remembered was her not wanting him to fall asleep there. Just kissing him once more and telling him to go back to his hotel, because in two hours she had to get up and go to work.