Seizure (18 page)

“She's going on a trip for a month,” Thea said over Stephanie's shoulder. “She has to get ready.”

“No!” Tony said. “You can't go. Not yet! I got to talk with you. I was going to call you, but since you're here, face-to-face is better.”

“Then you'd better come in here on the double,” Stephanie said. “I really have to be on my way.”

“You'll wait until we're finished,” Anthony said. “Tony and I are talking business.”

“It's okay, Pop,” Tony said. He gave his father's knee a squeeze as he stood up. “What I have to say to Steph won't take long.”

Anthony grumbled as he reached for his discarded newspaper.

Tony walked back into the kitchen. He sat down backward
on one of the kitchen chairs and motioned for Stephanie to sit in one of the others. Stephanie hesitated for a moment. Tony had become increasingly peremptory since he'd assumed more of his father's roles, and it was irksome. To avoid making it an issue, Stephanie sat, but as a compromise with herself, she told her brother he'd better be quick. She also told him to put out his cigarette, which he did grudgingly.

“The reason I was going to call you,” Tony began, “is because Mikey Gualario, my accountant, told me that CURE is about to tank. I said that's impossible, because my kid sister would have told me. But he says he read it in the
Globe.
What's the scoop?”

“We're having financial difficulties,” Stephanie admitted. “It's a political problem that is holding up our second round of financing.”

“So the
Globe
wasn't making this all up?”

“I didn't read the article, but as I said, we are in rather a bind.”

Tony screwed up his face as if in thought. He nodded a few times. “Well, that's not such great news. I guess you can understand that I might be concerned about my two-hundred-thousand-dollar loan.”

“Correction! It wasn't a loan. It was an investment.”

“Wait a minute! You came to me crying that you needed money.”

“Correction again! I said we needed to raise money, and I certainly wasn't crying.”

“Yeah, well, you said it was a sure thing.”

“I said I thought it was a good investment, because it was based on a brilliant and fully patented, newly discovered procedure that promises to be a boon to medicine. But I said it wasn't risk-free, and I gave you the prospectus. Did you read it?”

“No, I didn't read it. I don't understand that kind of crap. But if the investment was so good, what's the problem?”

“What's happened that no one anticipated is the possibility of a congressional ban being enacted on the procedure. But I can assure you we're working on it, and we think we have it under control. The whole thing has been a bolt out of the blue for all of us, and proof of that is that both Daniel and I have invested every penny we have in the company, including
mortgaging Daniel's condo. I'm sorry that at the moment the investment looks less than rock-solid. I might add, I'm sorry we took your money.”

“You and me both!”

“What's going to happen about this indictment of yours?”

Tony batted the air as if shooing a fly. “Nothing. It's a bunch of nonsense. The DA is just trying to drum up publicity to get reelected. But let's not change the subject. You said you think you have this political problem under control.”

“We believe so.”

“Does this have anything to do with this monthlong trip your going on?”

“It does,” Stephanie said. “But I can't give you the details.”

“Oh, really?” Tony questioned sarcastically. “I got two hundred K involved here, and you can't give me the details. There's something wrong with this picture.”

“If I were to divulge what we're doing, it would jeopardize its efficacy.”

“Divulge, jeopardize, efficacy!”
Tony mimicked derogatorily. “Give me a break! I hope you don't think I'm going to be satisfied with a handful of ten-dollar words. Not a chance! So where are you going, Washington?”

“She's going to Nassau,” Thea said suddenly from where she was standing near the stove. “And don't you be nasty to your own sister. You hear me?”

Tony sat bolt upright with his hands dangling lifelessly at his sides. His lower jaw slowly dropped open in utter amazement. “Nassau!” he yelled. “This is getting crazier and crazier. If CURE's ready to tank because of a political bombshell, don't you think you should hang around and do something?”

“That's why we're going to Nassau,” Stephanie said.

“Ha!” Tony shouted. “What it sounds like to me is this so-called boyfriend of yours has it in his mind to pull off a scam.”

“That couldn't be further from the truth. Tony, I wish I could tell you more, but I can't. Hopefully, in a month things will be back on track, and at that time we'll be happy to consider your money a loan, and we will pay it back with interest.”

“I'll try to remember not to hold my breath.” Tony sneered.
“You say you can't tell me more, but I can tell you something. That two hundred grand wasn't all mine.”

“No?” Stephanie questioned. She sensed the unpleasant conversation was about to get worse.

“You painted it as such a sweet deal, I felt I had to share it. Half the money came from the Castigliano brothers.”

“You never told me that!”

“I'm telling you now.”

“Who are the Castigliano brothers?”

“Business partners. And I can tell you something else. They are not going to like hearing about their investment loan going south. They are not accustomed to that. As your brother, I think I should tell you it's not a good idea to go to the Bahamas.”

“But we have to.”

“You said that, but you're not telling me why. It forces me to repeat myself: You and your Harvard boyfriend better stay put and mind the store, because it looks like you're planning on frolicking in the sun with our money while we stooges freeze our asses here in Boston.”

“Tony,” Stephanie said in the calmest, most reassuring tone she could muster. “We're going to Nassau, and we are going to deal with this unfortunate problem.”

Tony threw his hands up into the air, palms up. “I tried! God knows I tried!”

 

Thanks to power steering, Tony only needed the index finger of his right hand to turn the steering wheel of his black Cadillac DeVille. With such a balmy evening, he had his window open with his left hand dangling outside, holding his cigarette. The distinctive crunching sound of the car tires on gravel drowned out his radio as he entered the parking area in front of the Castigliano Brothers Plumbing Supply building. It was a gray one-story, flat-roofed cinderblock structure that backed onto mudflats.

Tony came to a stop next to three vehicles similar to his own: All of them were Cadillacs, and all of them were black. He flicked his cigarette into a pile of rusting sinks and killed the engine. As he got out of the car, he was assaulted by the
odor of the salt marsh. It wasn't pleasant. With night rapidly approaching, the wind had shifted to the east.

The building's façade was in need of paint. In addition to the firm's name in block letters, there was a smattering of graffiti on the walls. The door was unlocked, and Tony walked in without knocking, as was his custom. A counter stood in the middle of the room. Behind the counter were rows of floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with plumbing materials. No one was in sight. A radio on the counter was tuned to a station playing music from the fifties.

Tony skirted the counter and walked down the center aisle. At the rear, he opened a second door that led into an office. In contrast to the supply area, this area was relatively plush, with a leather sofa and two desks on a threadbare Oriental carpet. Small, paned windows looked out onto the mudflats that were ringed with cattails and dotted with discarded tires and other debris. There were three men sitting in the room, one at each desk and one on the sofa.

Along with terse greetings, Tony shook hands with the two men at the desks first and then with the man on the sofa before sitting down himself. The men at the desks were the Castigliano brothers. They were twins named Sal and Louie. Tony had known them from the third grade, but by name only and not as friends. In high school they'd been scrawny, pimply kids who'd been teased mercilessly, and as adults they were still gaunt, with cadaverous cheeks and deeply set eyes.

The man on the sofa next to Tony was Gaetano Baresse, who'd grown up in New York City. He was built like Tony, but larger and with heavier features. He normally manned the plumbing supply counter in the outer room. As a side job, he was the twin's muscle. Most people thought he was around to make up for all the teasing the twins had weathered as schoolkids, but Tony knew better. Gaetano's strong-arm contribution was an occasional requirement with the twins' other business activities: some legal, some less so. It was in these business activities that Tony and the twins had become acquainted.

“First off,” Tony said, “I want to thank you all for coming out on a Sunday.”

“No problem,” Sal said. He was sitting to Tony's left. “I hope you don't mind that we invited Gaetano.”

“When you called and said there was trouble, we thought he should be included,” Louie added.

“No problem,” Tony said. “I just wish we could have had this get-together a little earlier, which I'll explain.”

“We did the best we could,” Sal said.

“My cell phone battery was dead,” Gaetano said. “I was at my sister-in-law's house, playing pool. I was hard to find.”

Tony lit up a cigarette and offered them all around. Everyone took one. Soon they were all smoking.

After taking a few deep drags, Tony put his cigarette down. He needed his hands to gesture while he talked. Thus prepared, he told the Castigliano brothers word for word as he remembered it the conversation he'd had earlier that afternoon with Stephanie. He left nothing out, nor did he mince words. He said it was his opinion and that of his accountant that Stephanie's company was going belly-up.

While Tony spoke, the twins became progressively agitated. Sal, who had been fiddling with a paper clip by bending it back and forth, snapped it in two. Louie angrily stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette.

“I don't believe this!” Sal said when Tony concluded.

“Is your sister married to this twerp?” Louie demanded.

“No, they just live together.”

“Well, I tell you, we're not going to sit around while this bastard enjoys himself in the sun,” Sal said. “No way!”

“We have to let him know we're not pleased,” Louie said. “He's either got to get his ass back up here and straighten things out, or else. You got that, Gaetano?”

“Yeah, sure. When?”

Louie looked at Sal. Sal looked at Tony.

“It's too late today,” Tony said. “Which is why I would have liked to have seen you guys earlier. They're on their way someplace before they head to Nassau. But my sister will be calling my ma when she's settled in the Bahamas.”

“You'll let us know?” Sal questioned.

“Yeah, sure. But the deal is, you leave my sister out of it.”

“Our beef's not with her,” Louie said. “At least, I don't think it is.”

“It's not,” Tony said. “Trust me! I don't want there to be bad blood between us.”

“Our beef's with him,” Sal said.

Louie looked at Gaetano. “I guess you'll be going to Nassau.”

Gaetano cracked the knuckles of his right hand with his left. “Sounds good to me!”

7:00
A
.
M
., Monday, February 25, 2002

 

“Stephanie!” Daniel called
softly as he gently shook her shoulder. “They are about to serve breakfast. Do you want any, or should I let you sleep until we land?”

Stephanie forcibly opened her eyes, rubbed them, and yawned at the same time. Then she had to blink rapidly a few times before she was able to see. Her eyes were dry from the plane's parched atmosphere.

“Where are we?” she asked in a husky voice. Her throat was dry as well. She sat up and stretched. Then she leaned over and looked out the window. Although there was a hint of dawn along the horizon, the ground below was still dark. She could see the lights of cities and towns dotting the landscape.

“My guess would be we're over someplace in France,” Daniel said.

Despite attempts at planning to avoid a last-minute rush, the night before had been an anxious scramble to get out of Daniel's apartment, get to Logan Airport, and get through security. They'd made the flight with less than ten minutes to spare. Thanks to Butler's money, they were flying Alitalia's
Magnifica Class and were seated in the first two seats on the left side of the Boeing 767 aircraft.

Stephanie raised the back of her seat from its reclined position. “How come you're so wide awake? Did you sleep?”

“Not a wink,” Daniel admitted. “I started reading these books of yours about the Shroud of Turin, particularly the one by Ian Wilson. I can see why you got hooked. It's fascinating stuff.”

“You must be exhausted.”

“I'm not,” Daniel said. “Reading about the shroud has kind of energized me. I'm even more encouraged about treating Butler and using the shroud's DNA fragments. In fact, it occurred to me that maybe after we finish with Butler, we should go ahead and treat another celebrity someplace offshore with the same DNA source, somebody who doesn't mind publicity. Once the story of the cure hits the media, no politician would dare interfere, and better yet, the FDA would be forced to alter their protocol for approval of the treatment.”

“Whoa!” Stephanie warned. “Let's not get ahead of ourselves. We need to concentrate on Butler for the time being. His cure is not a given by any stretch of the imagination.”

“You don't think treating another celebrity is a good idea?”

“I need to give it some thought to respond intelligently,” Stephanie said, trying to be diplomatic. “Right now my mind is a bit addled. I need to use the restroom, and then I want some breakfast. I'm starved. When my mind is firing on all cylinders, I want to hear what you have read about the shroud, particularly whether you have a hypothesis of how the image was formed.”

Less than an hour later, they landed at Rome's Fiumicino Airport. Along with a crush of other people arriving at the same time from various international destinations, they got through passport control and then managed to find their way to the gate for their connecting flight to Turin. At a nearby coffee bar, Daniel indulged himself with an Italian espresso that he bolted down like the local patrons. There was no Magnifica Class on this leg, and once they boarded the plane, they found themselves in a tight cabin filled with businessmen. Stephanie was in the middle seat and Daniel on the aisle, halfway down the aircraft's cabin.

“This is cozy,” Daniel commented. Thanks to his six-foot-one-inch frame, his knees were pressed up against the seat in front of him.

“How are you feeling now? Are you tired?”

“No, and especially not after that jolt of high-test coffee.”

“Then talk to me about the shroud! I really want to hear.” Thanks to the long line waiting to use the restroom on the flight from Boston to Rome, there hadn't been time for the subject to come up before they landed.

“Well, first off, I don't have any theory about how the image was formed. It's definitely an intriguing mystery, that much I'll agree, and I was particularly taken by the poetic way Ian Wilson described it as ‘a photographic negative waiting dormant like a time capsule for the moment of photography's invention.' But the idea of the image being evidence of the Resurrection as both you and he suggested, I don't buy. It's faulty scientific reasoning. You can't posit an unknown and counterintuitive process of dematerialization to explain an unknown phenomenon.”

“What about black holes?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Black holes have been posited to explain unknown phenomena, and black holes are certainly counterintuitive from our direct scientific experience.”

There was a period of silence, save for the muffled roar of the jet engines mingling with the rustle of morning newspapers and the tapping of laptop keyboards.

“You have a point,” Daniel admitted finally.

“Let's move on! What else caught your interest?”

“Quite a few things. One that comes to mind is the result of reflectance spectroscopy showing dirt on the images of the feet. It seemed to me to be such an ordinary discovery, until I learned that some of the granules were identified by optical crystallography to be travertine aragonite that had a spectral signature matching limestone samples taken from ancient Jerusalem tombs.”

Stephanie laughed. “Leave it to you to be impressed by one of the more arcane scientific details. I don't even remember that tidbit.”

“It strains one's credibility that a fourteenth-century
French forger would have gone to such an extent as to obtain and sprinkle such detritus on his supposed creation.”

“I couldn't agree more.”

“Another fact that caught my attention was that when one looks at the intersection of the habitats of the three Middle-Eastern plants whose pollens are the most prevalent on the shroud, it narrows the shroud's apparent origin to the twenty miles between Hebron and Jerusalem.”

“Curious, isn't it?”

“It's more than curious,” Daniel said. “Whether the shroud is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ or not is certainly not proved—nor, I might add, can it ever be—but in my mind the artifact came from Jerusalem, and it wrapped a man who had been scourged in the ancient Roman fashion, whose nose had been broken, who had thorn wounds on his head, and who had been crucified and suffered a lance wound to his chest.”

“What did you think of the historical aspect?”

“It was well presented and captivating,” Daniel acknowledged. “After reading it, I'm willing to entertain the idea that the Shroud of Turin and the Edessa Cloth are one and the same. I was particularly taken by the way the shroud's crease marks have been used to explain how it could have been displayed in Constantinople as merely the head of Jesus, as the Edessa Cloth was generally described, or Jesus' entire body, front and back, as described by the crusader Robert de Clari. He was the individual who saw it just prior to its disappearance during the sacking of Constantinople in 1204.”

“Which means the carbon-dating results are in error.”

“As troublesome as that sounds to me as a scientist, it seems to be true.”

Hardly had they gotten their orange juices before the seat-belt sign came back on, along with an announcement that the pilots were making their initial approach to Turin's Caselle Airport. Fifteen minutes later, they landed. As full as the plane was, it took them almost as long as the flight from Rome to get off the plane, walk the length of the concourse, and find the appropriate luggage carousel.

While Daniel waited for their bags to appear, Stephanie noticed a cell phone concession, and she went over to rent one. Before leaving Boston, she had learned that her stateside
cell phone would not function in Europe, although it would in Nassau, and to be sure she did not miss any emails from Butler while in Turin, she needed a European cell phone number. As soon as she could, she planned to set it up so Butler's emails would go to both numbers.

Emerging from the terminal with their luggage in tow and their coats on, they joined a taxi line. While they waited, they got their first glimpse of the Piedmont. To the west and north they could see snowcapped mountains. To the south, a mauve haze hung over the industrial part of the city. The weather was cool and not too dissimilar to what they had left in Boston, which made sense, since the two cities were at approximately the same latitude.

“I hope I don't regret not renting a car,” Daniel said, while watching the full taxis rocket away.

“The guidebook said parking in the city is impossible,” Stephanie reminded him. “The positive side is that Italian drivers are supposed to be good, even if they are fast.”

Once underway, Daniel held on with white-knuckle intensity as the driver lived up to Stephanie's description. The taxi was a postmodern Fiat with blocky styling that made it appear to be an amalgam of an SUV and a compact car. Unfortunately for Daniel, it was remarkably responsive to the accelerator.

Stephanie had been to Italy on several occasions and had specific expectations of what the city would look like. Initially, she was disappointed. Turin had none of the medieval or Renaissance charm she associated with places like Florence or Siena. Instead, it seemed to be an indeterminately modern city beset with suburban sprawl and, at the moment, caught in the clutches of morning rush hour. The traffic was heavy, and all the Italian drivers seemed equally aggressive, with lots of horn blowing, rapid accelerations, and equally rapid braking. The ride was nerve-racking, especially for Daniel. Stephanie tried to start a conversation, but Daniel was too engrossed with watching for the next close call out the windshield.

Daniel had booked a single-night stay in what his guidebook described as the city's best hotel, the Grand Belvedere. It was in the center of the old city, and as they entered that quarter, Stephanie's impression of Turin began to change. She
still wasn't seeing the kind of architecture she expected, but the city began to have its own unique charm, with wide boulevards, arcaded squares, and elegant Baroque buildings. By the time they pulled up in front of their hotel, Stephanie's disappointment had metamorphosed into a qualified appreciation.

The Grand Belvedere was the last word in late-nineteenth-century luxury. The lobby was embellished with more gilded putti and cherubs than Stephanie had ever seen in one place. Marble columns soared up to support archways, while fluted pilasters lined the walls. Liveried doormen rushed to carry in their luggage, which was a rather extensive collection, since they had packed for a month's stay in Nassau.

Their room had a high ceiling, a large Murano chandelier, and less ornamentation than the lobby, but it was just as glitzy. Gilded winged cherubs hovered in all four corners of the heavy cornice. The tall windows looked out onto the Piazza Carlo Alberto, on which the hotel was sited. Heavy, dark red brocade curtains with hundreds of tassels draped the windows. The furniture, including the bed, was all composed of massively carved dark wood. On the floor was a thick Oriental carpet.

After tipping the bellmen and the cutaway-attired receptionist who had accompanied them to their room, Daniel glanced around their digs with a satisfied expression on his face. “Not bad! Not bad at all,” he remarked. He glanced in at the marbled bathroom before turning back to Stephanie. “I'm finally living the way I deserve.”

“You're too much!” Stephanie scoffed. She opened her bag to get out her toiletries.

“Really!” Daniel laughed. “I don't know why I put up with being an academic pauper as long as I did.”

“Let's get to work, King Midas! How are we going to figure out how to call the Chancery of the Archdiocese to get ahold of Monsignor Mansoni?” Stephanie went into the bathroom. More than anything else, she wanted to brush her teeth.

Daniel went to the desk and began pulling out drawers, looking for a city phone book. When that wasn't successful, he looked in the closets.

“I think we should go downstairs and have the concierge
do it,” Stephanie called out from the bathroom. “We can have them set up a dinner reservation for this evening as well.”

“Good idea,” Daniel said.

As Stephanie anticipated, the concierge was happy to help. Producing a phone book in a matter of seconds, he had Monsignor Mansoni on the line before Stephanie and Daniel had decided who should talk with him. After a moment of confusion, Daniel took the phone. As instructed in Butler's email, Daniel identified himself as a representative of Ashley Butler and that he was in Turin to pick up a sample. In an attempt to be discreet, he wasn't any more descriptive.

“I have been waiting for your call,” Monsignor Mansoni answered with a heavy Italian accent. “I am prepared to meet with you this morning, if that is appropriate.”

“The sooner the better, as far as we are concerned,” Daniel replied.

“We?” the monsignor questioned.

“My partner and I are here together,” Daniel explained. He thought the term
partner
was sufficiently vague. He felt uncharacteristically self-conscious talking to a Roman Catholic priest who might be offended at his and Stephanie's living style.

“Am I to assume your partner is a woman?”