The Fifth Gospel(122)

            Gianni brings the Fiat to a halt. He scrapes his foot toward me as a warning.

            “No access here tonight,” the gendarme says.

            He’s approaching. Voice growing louder.

            Gianni says, “I have orders from Father Antoni.”

            The village nickname of Archbishop Nowak.

            “What orders?”

            I hope Gianni knows what he’s doing. When John Paul travels in this jeep, he always has a gendarme escort. One call to the station could disprove anything Gianni says.

            But he thumps the pile of plastic with his hand and says, “Chance of rain tomorrow.”

            The gendarme says, “All right. How long will it take?”

            “Ten minutes. I have to check the spare tarp.”

            Now I understand his plan. Tomorrow is Wednesday, the day of John Paul’s weekly audience. The only time this open-topped Campagnola is used anymore.

            “It’s been a dead zone out here tonight,” the gendarme says. “I’ll give you a hand in there.”

            Gianni tenses up. His foot makes the engine idle at higher RPM. But before he can refuse, I hear the gendarme opening the steel door on its metal rollers. Gianni turns the jeep around and reverses slowly into the bay.

            “Whose Alfa is that?” I hear him say.

            We’ve found Ugo’s car.

            “Not your business,” the gendarme says sharply. “Where’s the thing you need?”

            Gianni hesitates. My pulse is thready. He’s never been a good liar.

            “Inside one of the boxes back there,” he says.

            He takes the keys out of the ignition and reaches down as if to pick up something he dropped. When his hand is in front of my face, he jabs a finger toward the door, pointing. Something must be on the other side of the jeep.

            Then he’s gone. The two voices fade away.

            Carefully I raise my head over the low doors of the popemobile. The garage is long and narrow, just wide enough for two cars abreast. Gianni has parked right beside the Alfa Romeo, which has its doors propped open, as if someone’s been inspecting the interior.

            Now I see why the gendarmes brought it here. The driver’s window is shattered. A crinkled eggshell of glass surrounds a hole larger than a man’s head. There are pebbles of glass on the seat.

            My heart begins to hammer. I can’t climb out of the Fiat without the gendarme seeing me. Instead I lower the hinged windshield, push it flat, and silently slide down the hood.

            Ugo’s car is waterlogged. It smells of mildew. In the foot well, the gendarmes have left a plastic red marker in the shape of an arrow. It points backward, under the driver’s seat. But there’s nothing down there, just a rectangular impression on the upholstery, as if something was there. I need a closer look.

            Behind me, Gianni and the gendarme have started building the rain shield. My five or ten minutes have begun.

            I lower myself onto Ugo’s seat and scan the underside with my keychain flashlight. Gianni said the gendarmes were asking questions about the driver’s seat. The seat is attached to the car body with metal sleds, and one part of the sleds is rubbed away. Whatever was on the floor must’ve been attached here.

            I play the flashlight beam around, and something glints. Jutting out from the floor mat is a sliver of metal, no bigger than the white of a fingernail. I reach down to pick it up, then remember to be careful about fingerprints. In a prison outreach group I belong to, an inmate in our Bible class was caught hiding a used syringe, so the whole group had its fingerprints and blood taken. I roll my hand under the fabric of my cassock before picking up the bronze-colored arc.