“Because it’s getting late, and our next witness may be unable to testify since the exhibit begins shortly.”
There is a logic here that I don’t understand but that the tribunal does. The judges nod their assent.
“Fifteen minutes,” their leader says.
Mignatto gets up from the table and begins to walk to the door, but I put a hand on his arm to stop him. “We need to talk,” I whisper urgently, “about Ugo’s letter.”
He is ashen. I can feel his arm shaking.
“No,” he says. “Everything else will have to wait.”
* * *
I FOLLOW HIM INTO the hallway and find Uncle Lucio there. Instead of asking about the proceedings, Lucio begins to guide Mignatto away.
“Uncle,” I say, sensing my opportunity, “I need to know what Simon did with the photo enlargement he took down from the exhibit. You were there when he—”
Lucio cuts me off. “I don’t know anything about that, Alexander. Now leave us.”
He takes Mignatto away toward an empty office. The last thing I hear before they close the door is the monsignor’s voice pleading, “Eminence, I’ve given them something to think about. One more day. Please. You have to reconsider.”
I turn and run. I have fifteen minutes. I need to find Leo.
When I get to the barracks and call him down, he emerges from the alleylike courtyard wearing jeans and a T-shirt for his favorite soccer team, Grasshopper Club Zürich. He’s holding playing cards.
I try to control myself. To keep my voice low. “Why didn’t you tell me Simon came to you about Nogara’s gun?”
He throws his hands on his head.
“Tell me everything,” I say. “You’ve got ten minutes.”
“Alex, it wasn’t me. It was Roger. You know I wouldn’t—”
I raise my voice. “Ten minutes! Tell me about the gun.”
He rubs at his forearm. “Follow me,” he says.
We enter the cool shadows of the courtyard. Sitting around a picnic table are the other men in the card game, some half-dressed in their rainbow uniforms, their multicolored ribbons stripped off like overalls.
To one of them, Leo says, “Roger, a minute.”
The man he’s speaking to is a giant with a skull like a pipe stem. His huge hands conceal the playing cards entirely.
“Busy,” he says.
I step forward. “Roger, I’m Father Andreou.”
The man turns. Immediately his cards go facedown on the table. He stands up. Respect for the priesthood is ingrained in these men. “Father,” he says, “how can I help you?”
The words are Italian, but the accent is German.
“He needs to see your travel case,” Leo says.
Just for a second, the other men at the table glance up.
Roger looks searchingly at Leo, not liking this request.
“Rog, just do it,” Leo says.
The behemoth grunts and pulls his straps over his shoulders.
We follow him toward the turret of the Vatican Bank, to a sliver of land the Swiss use as temporary parking on nights when they want to drive into Rome. The car here, a steel-colored Ford Escort designed for a smaller race of men, is Roger’s. He kneels down on the cobblestones and reaches into the driver-side foot well. I hear clicking, then a silky zipping noise. Roger rises again to his full height. Without a word, he turns and hands the case to Leo.