The Sixth Station(121)

Hopefully his colleague speaks English.

“Hello, Alessandra.”

I froze and said nothing.

“It’s Maureen. I’m downstairs. May I come up?”

“Downstairs? But how did you—”

“Room twenty—correct? Fourth floor?”

Black Robe? Headquarters? Rogue agent? Friend? Foe?

My options were up. I said nothing.

“Good then. I’ll be right there.”

Five minutes and one slow lift ride later, I heard a light rapping on the door. I looked through the peephole. It was Maureen, all right, but she was dressed as a nun—one of those modern-day nuns complete with the plain dress and giant crucifix dangling over the bodice. Over her dress she wore an equally drab coat, sensible shoes, and a short gray veil, which covered her hair. She was even carrying one of those nondescript black old-lady purses. In her other hand, she was holding a plastic bag from a grocery store.

I would never have recognized her out of her habitat and into this habit. (If that house in Rhinecliff was her real habitat, I mean.) Gone was the upright, strong posture and sure presence. In its place stood a little old lady nun. Sorella Mow-reena.

I opened the door and she walked in and shook my hand. The power shake more than told me she was still the same lady.

“How did you find me?”

“How did I not find you, is the real question,” she answered without answering. “I can’t believe you turned that phone on in the Vatican! The camera automatically turns on the GPS if you don’t change the camera setting. You would never make it as a spy, my dear.”

“I will take that as a compliment. Okay then. Why did you find me?”

“Because they will very soon, and then you’ll be dead. For a reporter you leave a very sloppy trail. And spending the night with a—what shall I call him—a source? What an amateurish breach.”

I felt myself getting red in the face—partially from embarrassment, as though an actual nun were scolding me, and partially from anger. Who the hell was this washed-up old spy to go all moral on me anyway?

“First of all, how the hell do you know what I did or didn’t do? And secondly, you were a goddamned spy, Sister Maureen. For all I know you slept with everyone from Idi Amin to Papa Doc. Or would have if it would’ve helped you infiltrate,” I seethed.

Am I pissed at her for nailing me, or am I ashamed that Pantera screwed me—literally? Calm down. She’s old enough to be your mother. Nasty bitch that she is.

She approached me and stood less than a foot away, a deliberate violation of personal space, and said, “Understand one thing: I never, never slept with Duvalier. He was before my time.” Then she burst out laughing.

I was totally disarmed. She made a joke? Can’t be. Trust no one. Of course she’s disarming—and charming. She had been a damned master spy.

“My dear, the real difference here is that whatever I did or didn’t do, I had the United States of America watching my back. You have, well, only me to watch your back. Other than that, you are completely alone.”

“You had the United States watching your back—until they didn’t watch it anymore and accused you of being a double agent.”

“But they trained me so well, I could even outsmart them. While you? You can’t even outsmart one pedophile.”

“He wasn’t a pedophile.”

“And you know that—how?”

“He told me. “

Did he actually say that? No. Worse, did I actually say that? Yes.

“And, and…”

While her expression never changed, it somehow still spelled: You’ve been had nine ways ’til next Christmas.

As quickly as she’d become a wit, she changed back to the dour woman who was all business. “Nonetheless, you trusted a man who committed sins against God and crimes against man. I know he must have gotten what he needed, or he wouldn’t have left.”

I had behaved like a fat girl without a date for the prom, sleeping with a man I thought—what?—had fallen in love with me?

Jerk. Pathetic jerk.

I averted my eyes and admitted, “Yes. He took my white scarf.”

She tilted her head, puzzled. “Your scarf? The one you were wearing at my home?”

“Yes.”

She waited for an explanation. “When ben Yusef kissed me?” She nodded. “His kiss was … it left my mouth, you know, wet. So I wiped it with the scarf.”

“Dear Jesus in heaven! DNA. Pantera wanted to compare it to the source blood.”

“But now he’s dead.”

“But now he’s dead,” she repeated.

“You don’t think he faked it this time, do you? His death?”