The Assassini (19 page)

It wasn’t the sight of my father that bothered me. It was the black-robed nun bending over him, whispering to him like the angel of death making a pitch.

The nurse who’d brought me down the hall was a large, solid, florid, no-nonsense type. She went to the bedside, did some whispering, and the nun, an older
woman, nodded and swept past me with a whiff of the clean, soapy smell I remembered from the nuns of my childhood. As she passed me, her habit swishing, I thought I heard her speak my name, just
Ben
, but she was gone and the nurse was speaking to me in a low, well-practiced tone.

“He’s resting very comfortably. No longer comatose but he’s doing lots of sleeping. He’s hooked up there”—she motioned with her hand toward the beeping machine—“and we can monitor him out at the station. There really wasn’t any need for keeping him in ICU any longer. Dr. Morris will be getting him up in a day or two. The doctor will be sorry to miss you, Mr. Driskill. Well,” she went on, checking the leads attached to my father, plumping the pillows with a reflexive gesture, “I’ll leave you for a few minutes.”

“Nurse, you saw the priest with me? He’s going to want to speak to my father—”

“Oh, it’s only members of the family, I’m afraid—”

“Then perhaps you can tell me how I’m related to the nun who was hovering over my father here before he’s altogether cold?”

“Oh, well, I’m sure I don’t know. She’s been here every day, morning and afternoon. I just assumed, I don’t know, she was given permission by someone—”

“The priest with me, you see, is a personal emissary from Rome, sent by Pope Callistus. I don’t think we should ship him back to Rome empty-handed, as it were—do you?”

“Of course not, Mr. Driskill.”

“And I’d appreciate your checking out that nun.”

“Of course, Mr. Driskill.”

“Now leave me with my father, please.”

She closed the door behind her and I stood with my back to the window, watching him, my shadow across his face.

“That’s telling the old busybody. Good lad, Ben.” My father’s left eye opened slightly. “Never have a heart attack, that’s my advice. Feels like an MX missile hit you in the chest. Don’t do it unless you do it properly and cash in your chips.”

“You sound pretty fit,” I said. “You scared hell out of me.”

“Falling down the stairs?”

“No. Speaking up just now. I didn’t expect—”

“It’s all an act,” he said.

“What’s an act?”

“My chipper act. I feel dreadful. Lifting my arm is the work of half a day. I don’t talk to the doctors much. They’ll have me up and running in place, blasted sadists.” He was breathing with a raspy noise, the intakes of air shallow, quick. “Ben, I keep dreaming about Val … you remember the day Gary Cooper sketched her, the two of you?”

“I was thinking about it just the other day.”

“My dreams are full of the dead, dammit. Val, Gary Cooper, your mother …” He coughed softly. “I’m glad you’re here, Ben. Give your father a kiss.”

I leaned over and pressed my cheek to his. He felt warm and dry and had a bit of stubble which may have explained some of the grayness. “Take my hand, Ben,” he said, and I did. “You’re a difficult chap, Ben. You know that. Difficult. Always will be, I suppose.” I leaned back and told him I looked upon my nettlesome nature as part of my charm. “You would, you would,” he said.

“You’ll be delighted to know that the pope’s emissary is waiting outside.”

“Oh, my God, am I that bad off?”

“He’s come for Val, too. A doubleheader.”

“Ben, you’re a sacrilegious man. A sinner, I’m afraid.”

“He won’t go away until you see him, you know.”

“I suppose. Well, Ben, have you satisfied yourself that I’m still alive and kicking?” I nodded. “Don’t be such a stranger. I’ve been wondering when you’d come by.”

“They told me you were in a coma.” I smiled at him. “So you’re lucky I came at all.”

“Just my luck.” He grinned weakly.

“So who’s this private, personal nun you’ve got hanging around?”

He shook his head. “Water, Ben. Please.”

I held the plastic pitcher while he sipped through the straw. Then he said, “Let’s get the pope’s man in here. I’m damn tired. Come see me again, Ben.”

“I will,” I said. I was almost out of the room when he spoke again.

“Ben … is there any word on the killer? Val, Lockhardt, Andy—they catch anybody?”

I shook my head. “Same gun, though. Same killer.”

He closed his eyes. I went back to the waiting room.

Sandanato was smoking a cigarette, staring out into the courtyard of the old redbrick building. Rain verging on sleet was falling again, and lights had come on in the gathering darkness. He had napped but didn’t look any more rested for it. He was a long way from Rome and looked every mile of it. “He’s awake,” I said. “You’d better grab the chance.”

He caught my eye, nodded, stubbed out the cigarette, and headed down the corridor.

Elizabeth came back to the waiting room, the elderly nun from my father’s room beside her. The contrast was striking. The older woman, I was sure, could not imagine being a nun and living Elizabeth’s life. Elizabeth looked at me, spoke to the nun. “So you must know this badly lapsed specimen.”

“Oh, yes,” she said. Her face was so fine in bone structure and texture, she might have been a piece of old porcelain whom age had made only more valuable. Her hair was hidden, of course, her face framed with white. She was so handsome now, I thought how beautiful she must once have been. It was always my luck to find the pretty ones. Those with warts on their noses and beards on their chins I seemed always to forget. “I’ve known Ben for forty years.” There was mischief in her eyes. “But he seems to have forgotten me.”

It came to me in the nick of time, a flicker of memory.

“Forget you? Sister Mary Angelina? The very idea! Sister Mary Angelina got me through my very first crisis of faith.”

Elizabeth said, “Too bad she couldn’t have followed you around for the rest of your life, picking you up each time you stumbled.” She smiled sweetly, eyes flashing.

“Whatever do you mean, Benjamin?” Sister Mary Angelina fixed me with a look of utter curiosity. “What am I forgetting?”

“One day at school I got fed up with the whole business. You took a ruler to my knuckles and I ran away, hid in the school yard, then I made a break for it and you nabbed me. I figured the jig was up and I was really going to get it … but instead you put your arms around me, patted me, and told me everything was going to be all right. I’ve never quite gotten over it. And I’ve never quite understood what was going on. So, you may be sure I won’t forget you, Sister.”

“Isn’t it odd,” she said, “I don’t remember it at all. Not a bit of it. Still, I’m nearly seventy, and maybe I’m beginning to lose a marble or two.”

“I suppose it was all in a day’s work for you.”

“Well, one does have so many pupils over the years.”

“I didn’t know you knew my father so well.”

“Your father and your mother. Yes, we were always friends. I was visiting Mrs. Francis the day your father was stricken and you brought him in—it was such a shock. Your father, well, one just expects men like Hugh Driskill to go on and on and on.” She searched my eyes, then turned to Elizabeth. “Some men are like that. It’s as if they lack the mortality gene … but of course we’re all in the same boat when it comes to that, aren’t we?” She sighed through a nice fixed nun’s smile. “Ben, it’s good to see you. And you have my deepest sympathy. Sister Valentine, she was such a dear child. But at least your father is coming along very nicely. You will, all of you, be in my prayers.”

Sister Elizabeth tugged at my sleeve when we were alone, and when I looked at her she was smiling at me shyly. At just that moment I wondered what I’d be doing without her there.

“Val used to tug at my sleeve,” I said.

“I’m sorry.” She dropped my sleeve.

“No,” I said. “I liked it. It felt … right.”

“Are you going to behave yourself now?” Her voice was so soft.

“Why start now?” I said. “It’s much too late for that.”

We were in the car when a thought crossed my mind.

“Sister Mary Angelina,” I said. “I wonder if she knew Father Governeau? If she was around back then and if he liked the ladies, she might have known him. Or is that stupid?”

“I wonder,” she said.

She wouldn’t let me sleep. She burned a hole in my night, in the darkness, in the very idea of rest. I closed my eyes and there she was, her face, almost as if she were coming to me in a dream. But it was no dream. I was wide awake and that was just the way Val wanted it.

It was as if she’d given me the days to weather the shock of her death. Now she was coming to me and meaning business. So much for grieving, she as much as yelled at me. Now, big brother, what are you going to do about it? Some miserable bastard blows the back of my head off, what are you going to do about that? In my mind she wasn’t taunting me, she wasn’t playing games: she wanted an answer. She was a creature full of action, ready to go. And I’ve done my part, she was saying to me, I’ve taken the risks, I’ve gotten myself killed for my trouble, and I’ve left you enough clues to stock a mystery story.… I’ve raised the issue of Father Governeau and I hid the picture in the drum.… Now, for God’s sake, pick up the ball and run with it.… Oh, big Ben, why can’t I get through to you, you’re such a goof.… Be brave for me, Ben, raise holy hell!

Along about midnight, with the house asleep, I’d had just about enough of my dear dead sister. Even her ghost was noisy. I should have known it would be. In death she was alive as ever, insistent, determined. I got up and slipped into a robe. She wasn’t going to leave me alone and I was talking to myself when she interrupted me. You’re burying me tomorrow, Ben, you’re burying me … then I’ll really be gone, gone, gone for good.…

“Don’t pull that on me,” I muttered. “I’ll never be free of you, little sister, and we both know it and wouldn’t
have it any other way.” I could hear her calling me a goof, fading away.

I needed some brandy. Maybe it would help me sleep, or put Val to sleep, if she were—as a ghost—some projection of my own psyche. I went downstairs, hearing the house creaking and moaning in the wind, all the ghosts scuttling about.

There was a light on in the Long Room.

Sandanato was sitting in one of the mustard-colored leather chairs, turned with its back to the cold fireplace.

“It’s freezing in here,” I said.

There was a bottle of brandy on the table beside him. A snifter held in both hands rested on his chest. A cigarette burned in the ashtray. He slowly looked at me. His eyelids drooped low and his face was haggard with sleeplessness. He showed no surprise at my appearance. “I couldn’t sleep,” he said. “And I’m afraid I found the brandy. Did I wake you?”

“No, no, I couldn’t sleep either. Thinking about the funeral tomorrow. It’s going to be crazy around here. Half the mourners are expecting my sister to rise from the dead and proclaim salvation for all good Catholics, the other half are figuring she had a pact with Satan and has gone directly to eternal hellfire. More or less. My nerves are on edge.”

He nodded. “You sound as if you have nearly as many problems as I—may I offer you some of your own brandy, Mr. Driskill?”

“Indeed you may.” He poured a generous measure and I suggested he pour some more. “And … when.” He stopped pouring and handed me the snifter. “Thank you, Monsignor. May sleep find us in due time.” We drank to that.

“May I ask, are you the painter? It is a remarkable work. Quite remarkable. True feeling. Spirituality.”

For a moment I hadn’t the vaguest notion of what he meant, then he took a drag from the cigarette and waved his hand toward the end of the room. Then I saw it.

He’d removed the sheet from the easel. There was no way, of course, that he could have known of my father’s
prohibition against the viewing of his works in progress. I strained to see the canvas through the dim light cast by the table lamp.

“My father. He’s the painter.”

“A fine sense of theatricality. As well as a grasp of Church history. Has he ever painted any of the great monastic ruins? There are some incredibly dramatic vistas.… But this, this is very fine. You haven’t seen it before?”

“No, actually I haven’t. He never shows us his work before it’s finished.”

“Then it will be our secret. The vanity of the true artist.” He unfolded himself from the chair, his profile against the light. His nose had a slightly aquiline aspect. There was a faint patina of perspiration on his face though the room was so cold. “Come, take a closer look. You will, I believe, find it particularly fascinating—if you still have an eye for Catholic things.” He exhaled, a cloud of smoke obscured his features.

“Still?”

“Your sister once mentioned that you had spent time as a Jesuit. And then”—he shrugged—“you fell away.”

“How delicate.”

“Ah. I must say she put it more in the patois of the street. Your sister has—had—a very colorful grasp of idiom.”

“I’ll bet she did. I
know
she did.”

“Tell me, why did you leave the seminary?”

“A woman.”

“Would you say that she was worth it?”

“Isn’t that in my dossier?”

“Come, come. What do you mean? There is no dossier—”

“Forget it. Just a middle-of-the-night remark—”

“So, was this woman worth it?”

“Who knows? Perhaps someday I’ll find an answer.”

“Do I hear the trumpet sound regret?”

“I think you’ve got entirely the wrong end of the stick, Monsignor. I left because of the Virgin. I couldn’t buy her and all the rest of the act anymore—”

“And you wonder now if she was a good enough reason to leave?”

“My only regret is that I used her as an excuse. There were so many better reasons.”

His smile had lost the edge of remoteness. “So much for autobiography. Come, look at your father’s painting.”

We went to the easel and I turned on another lamp and there was the Emperor Constantine seeing the sign in the sky. In his forceful, primitive style, a storytelling style, my father had captured the moment that changed the history of the West for all time. Monsignor Sandanato regarded the canvas, his chin cupped in his hand, squinting through the smoke, and he began to talk as if I were no longer there, as if he were informing a heathen of what had happened a long time ago on the road to Rome. He was talking about the blood red Church.…