The Stray Bishop Day Three

Beppe had arranged to meet Spartacus at nine in the morning at the shop, but upon his arrival, he wasn’t surprised to find only Gebedia busy arranging his flowers in rows.

He entered with a hint of a Roman salute and immediately headed for the mini-fridge of the club, where they kept cold coffee along with the beers. After placing a carafe and a glass on the table, he wasn’t satisfied, so he went to the old tuff-block staircase in the courtyard that led up to the landlord’s apartment.

Under the staircase, they had created a storage space where salami and soppressata dangled. All non-kosher stuff because Gebedia would eat anything else while the others weren’t around. They had often laughed at the thought of the rabbis’ faces if they had known about that storage, even though in reality, the rabbis had better things to do than searching other people’s houses.

Armed with a newspaper, a long coffee, soppressata, and altamura bread, he settled in to wait for Spartacus. If he had said nine, he might show up around eleven. But still, the alternative was being stuck in the office working.

This time Spartacus was even punctual, arriving fifteen minutes before eleven.

“ Easy, huh? We agreed on nine,” Beppe remarked.

“Oh well, I had to take a shower, and then Alfredo called saying he was making stew. So, I went to get some, brought it home in a shopper before coming here.”

Spartacus pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and flattened it on the table.

“So, did you get him? By the time the patrol arrived, he had already left. I told them which way he went!”

It was the identikit of the afro guy, accurate just like the one Beppe had received at the headquarters. Someone had made unauthorized copies.

“Still a wild goose chase. Anyway, this is material used for an ongoing investigation. There’s classified information here. How did you manage to get it?”

“They gave it to me. It has been distributed to all patriotic circles!”

“Wait, I know what you mean by patriotic. Your friends who want to reestablish the Roman Empire and conquer the world? Traditional Pagan Movement?”

“Yeah, but I’ve heard others who are not part of our group, even people without political interests, they have it too.”

“Examples? The cyberfetish Typhonians who go to the Jungle club?”

“Yes, yes, them too! Last night, there was even one of them at the parlor. I talked to him!”

Dosi looked up into the air, then stood up and grabbed a beer while organizing his thoughts. He had asked about the cyber Thelemites for a specific reason: he knew they could have only one thing in common with the TPM.

They both were part of the network of organizations gravitating around the Egyptian Rite Freemasonry. Small groups scattered to fill every imaginable market niche. In turn, the Egyptian Freemasonry was nothing more than a pay-to-play service agency for the real Masonic lodges. It was even possible that the colonel himself, on orders from above, had delivered a copy of the identikit to the current regent of the Egyptian Rite, Lorenzo Sarto, who liked to be called the Grand Weaver.

The beer was too cold; Beccaccia had the habit of putting it in the freezer.

If every small group of do-nothings friends of the Weaver had been mobilized, it wouldn’t be long before the wanted man fell into their net again. At this point, the manual of the perfect trickster advised not saying anything and staying in the office reading Mickey Mouse comics, waiting for another call like the one from the previous evening.

“And if they find him, what do they do?”

“What do you expect them to do... We were asked to report him to the public security forces if we spot him.”

“Fine, then make sure they call me, you know my number. This case is mine.”

Everything settled, to celebrate he opened another Forst beer. It was 11 AM – just enough time to show up at the office and check that Chiattoni was working properly. Then lunch somewhere.

After bidding farewell to his friends, he took the bus at Piazza Venezia, got off at the Station, and transferred to the one about to depart for Viale Romania. The oppressive heat, an elderly Somali woman with her shopping bag, a presumably diplomatic-looking tied-up Korean, two potential pickpockets, there was even an Italian : a punk with half-closed eyes, collapsed two seats ahead.

The lighter wasn’t in his pocket.

In an instant, he saw the lighter on the table at the club, and the identikit, and the pipe tobacco; he had left everything there.

In itself, it wasn’t a big deal, but it showed him that two beers consumed in the morning had an impact. He felt anger for letting himself go. The driver was starting the engine. Through the window, he saw the bus headed for Piazza Venezia, and that triggered his impulse.

He jumped to his feet, startling the Somali lady, and almost broke the door, which was about to close, as he exited the bus. He ran through the crowd, narrowly avoiding being hit by a tourist bus. He vaguely heard someone shout, “ ARE YOU CRAZY!!” as he boarded the new bus that would take him back.

There wasn’t much sense in what he had done, yet he felt better. The bout of anxiety disappeared as quickly as it had come.

At 11:47, Dosi was back at the club. Spartacus had left, but Gigi Naso and Picciò had arrived in the meantime.

“Hey Bè!”

“Hey, Doc! Just in time for aperitivo. I’ll fix you a nice Mix right away.”

The Mix was the official aperitif at the flower shop, made with Pinot Grigio and Campari Bitter.

“It’s not even noon,” replied Dosi, looking at his watch. “And you’re already drinking, well done. I can’t keep up that early.”

“You cheeky one, you’re getting paid with my money to wander around all day clowning, so you can do things whenever you feel like it. We, on the other hand, us workers, take an aperitif when we find a little free time.”

“Exactly, then work harder because I want to get myself an SUV next year.”

Meanwhile, he had sat down at the table and was gathering his things, with Gigi standing behind him, leaning against the back of the chair.

“Is this the portrait of the person you’re looking for?”

“Yes, that’s the one.”

“But you know, on Tuesday, after you left, I went to a client who needed to renew their office supplies. There’s a caretaker who has a room there, practically lives there. Every time, he offers me coffee. Well, he told me that strange things happened on that street the day before and described someone who looks like this...”

Beppe tried to appear nonchalant, but there was a touch of urgency in his response.

“Can you give me the address?”

“It’s Ciaccia, metal fasteners, located on the Nomentana road. Just before the intersection with Viale Kant, there’s a broken-down abandoned workshop on the right, you turn there.”

It was far away; he would have to go back home and get the car. Or perhaps he could call Count Oliver to come pick him up in the departmental vehicle. Upon reflection, the best course of action would be to send a subordinate later in the afternoon to take the caretaker’s statement.

The worst enemy of the perfect trickster is curiosity.

“Picciò, I need to go on a mission. Can you lend me the Mechanical Insect?”

“This isn’t stuff for sporadic midge-swatters.”

More than just the banter, everyone was impressed by the calmness. Such a sacrilegious request could easily justify a dosicide.

“Sticà, do I have to walk the Nomentana by foot? Come on, if i scratch it, you can talk to the Carabinieri.”

“For me, you could walk all the way to the Aniene by foot if you want.”

“Can I give you something as collateral ?”

“A nice ass, huh!”

“A nice ass...” echoed Dosi, pretending to take it literally. “So mine doesn’t qualify... Would you prefer one with a dragon tattoo on it?”

Picciò hesitated, on the verge of saying something else, but eventually took the bait.

“ What are you talking about? The Chinese with the dragon tattoo on her ass? Do you know her?”

“Ah, no? I’ll tell you right away, she’s Vietnamese, not Chinese. Do you want to get to know her too? I’ll introduce you at the first opportunity...”

A few moments later, Dosi was already on Picciò’s Vespa with a helmet that was a bit too tight on his head. The owner was listing off a long list of instructions.

“... and when you park, put down the kickstand, but don’t push it too hard... Then close the valve, or else it’ll get flooded...”

To cut it short, he revved the engine until the voice faded, then without waiting any longer, he sped off toward Porta Pia, the exhaust crackling.

The road pointed out by Gigi didn’t have any residences, only small business warehouses, deserted at that time. There was no sidewalk, only a strip of asphalt full of potholes. Clumps of Artemisia bushes grew between the edge and the low walls, rising up to waist height with their waving leaves resembling bird feathers.

Beppe parked the Vespa carefully and proceeded on foot in search of the small foundry and its caretaker. The intense sunlight and silence created the impression of moving through a dream. Caught in that atmosphere of abandonment, he imagined himself wandering among the ruins left by a nuclear conflict. There could be lurking mutants, packs of starving dogs, and he shouldn’t have left his iron at home.

In reality, there was just a cat going about its business, all orange with white rings.

A little further down, a man behind a low iron gate extending from the facade of one of the buildings was tending to a small garden in front of the entrance. White mustache, he had to be the person he was looking for.

However, Dosi didn’t immediately start a conversation. His attention was drawn to what was on the other side of the street, right in front of the Ciaccia foundry. A warehouse with the sign of Araldi Autotrasporti. He knew what was hidden behind that name: a logistical network of the Intelligence Services. And the suspect, or someone resembling him, had been seen right there.

Questioning that guy was absolutely necessary. He opened his wallet as he approached, for a moment hesitating between his real identification card and the fake one for a journalist. But a journalist with a composite sketch wouldn’t be credible.

“Good morning, are you the caretaker here?”

The man responded with an indistinct sound, which was probably an affirmation anyway.

“ Carabinieri. I understand that there were some incidents on this street a few days ago. Can I ask you a few questions?”

“Sure, it was on Monday that there was some activity, but after that, nothing happened. Would you like some coffee?”

The caretaker’s lodging was a small apartment with a pull-out couch, a kitchenette, a built-in cupboard acting as a closet, and a low wooden table in the middle. The couch was offered to the guest, who faced the window and had a good view of the street. The caretaker was in front of him, sitting on a woven stool. The sketch was spread out on the table between the sugar and the coffee pot, and there were no ashtrays in sight.

“Exactly the one I saw on Monday. He arrived on foot from the street, just like you did a little while ago, and asked me where I could find Araldi.”

“Sorry to interrupt, but do you remember what time it was?”

The coffee was quite strong.

“Probably around ten, eleven in the morning. So, he asked me where Araldi was, right? It was right in front of him, and I told him where it was, and he thanked me and went in. Then I came back here to do my things. About twenty minutes later, there was an explosion... A loud noise... I rushed to see, right from this window.”

He stood up, went to the window, and motioned for Beppe to come closer.

“Look, from here you can see the gate, the main depot where they park the trucks, but then to the left, there’s that empty space. Yeah, until Monday, there was a long prefab building there, the kind with the sloping roof. If you look closely, you’ll see that the ground is still scorched. When I looked out this window, it was on fire, with smoke billowing out from an upper hole. I was about to call the fire department, but then I saw the guys from Araldi coming out of the big depot with fire extinguishers. I figured they must have already called them, so I went down to the street to see if they needed any help. At that point, I see that same guy from before emerging from the cloud, all blackened, disheveled with smoke coming out of those long hairs and his clothes... Damn, he looked like a comedy scene.

“ I stood there dumbfounded, watching him, and he acted like it was all normal and asked me about the bus stop. Actually, I remember his exact words. I was surprised because he said it in a Livornese accent like myself: ‘Hey, where do I catch the bus to get back to the center?’ I told him where to go, and he thanked me in the politest manner and walked away, still smoking. Eventually, they put out the fire, I didn’t see any firefighters, but in the afternoon, Araldi’s trucks came. They emptied the burned building and finally dismantled it. By evening, all that was left was the empty space you see now...”

Back on the Vespa, Beppe Dosi was trying to piece together the story. It was becoming clear that the Afro was being monitored, but now it was revealed that he himself was collaborating with the Intelligence. For what? Secret experiments? Perhaps the deaths were the result of an experiment that had gotten out of hand? An accident... He got scared... Ran away... And the colonel was tasked with finding him. Plausible, but were the deaths a one-time occurrence, or could he still do it? A mad scientist on the run with a secret weapon, just like in the movies. Fantastical? But then there was the detail of his way of speaking. According to the Tuscan custodian, he spoke in a Livornese accent, while the fruit vendor was convinced he sounded like a Roman from Rome. An impersonator? A mad scientist who did voice acting in his free time? Too convoluted.

Having left the Insect at Picciò’s door, he walked home. Luckily, they didn’t live too far apart. As he walked, he dialed a number from his phone’s memory, under the name “ Mucky.”

“Muck, it’s me. How are you? Yeah, I couldn’t call yesterday, sorry. Tomorrow, I’ll definitely come. No... The movies next week. This Sunday, I’m going to Predappio with the rest of the gang. But listen, I actually called for work. Do you still have Araldi Trasporti as a client? Good. Well, I need to know what they were doing at their depot on Nomentana last Monday, or at least what they moved from there in the afternoon. Yeah, whenever you have time... Of course, I love you... Bye.”

He let out a sigh as he put his phone away. Having a sister who was a lawyer always came in handy.

***

Marshal Chiattoni glanced briefly at the watch on the corner of his desk – it was already past four. He had been poring over the case documents since morning, and they still weren’t done. That slacker Dosi had left him to handle all the work while he was out having fun. The most important part was the USB drive with security camera footage from the airport.

Date: Thursday of the previous week, five days before the incidents under investigation.

He had watched the footage four times already. A person matching the description given by the fruit vendor disembarked from a plane arriving from Montevideo, Uruguay. Went through the citizen line at immigration, cleared without any issues, left the airport with no luggage, and finally took a taxi.

The cab driver had already been traced and questioned. He recognized the description of the wanted individual and claimed to have dropped him off near Piazza Navona.

With a sigh, Chiattoni reviewed his notes once again.

First point: The airport security had received the description only the day before. How could they have managed to review all the footage from the past week and also find the taxi driver in just one evening? It was only possible if someone already knew where to look. From the beginning, he had the sense that his superiors knew more than they were saying. That sense had turned into certainty.

Second point: Someone arriving from another continent without luggage must have had a place to go, a place where they knew they had spare clothes. A private apartment. This explained why the hotel search had been fruitless. Could it be under his name?

This directly led to the third point: the name. He looked up the passenger list of the plane with the intention of sending people to interrogate them one by one. He pulled it up on his laptop screen.

John Dillinger. That’s what he found. One of the passengers was traveling under the name John Dillinger. A fake name was fine, but this guy seemed to be going out of his way to make fun of them.

And he must have had fake identification, maybe more than one. At least that was a good reason to hold him when they found him.

Was he so arrogant as to have the apartment titled under that name? He imagined the request form: “ Check if any properties are registered under the name Dillinger John. Name possibly false...” As if there weren’t already enough jokes about the Carabinieri going around.

He decided to discuss it with the captain first. He could put his face on the line if he wanted to give it a shot.

The other intriguing issue was tied to the missionary bishop Tillemans, the clergyman who died after a discussion with the fugitive. The body had been handed over to the Vatican authorities before an autopsy could be performed, and since then, nothing had been known about it except for one thing: He too had arrived in an airplane from Uruguay.

Chiattoni promptly checked the flight schedules: About fifteen minutes after the afro guy’s departure, the bishop had made a last-minute booking and jumped on a flight to Frankfurt. From there, he had caught a connecting flight to Rome, arriving six hours after the suspect himself.

A pursuit. That ended a few days later with his death.

The phone rang; it was on the other desk. Chiattoni propelled himself there with a push of his wheels without getting up from his chair.

“Hello, Count Oliver, it’s Alan. I’m coming over. Get ready to go out, we’re getting ourselves some Ray-Bans.”

“Beppe, I’m working. You should be too! There’s a lot to do here. You can get your glasses another time. “

“Alright, I understand. In that case, I’ll come over, and we’ll go buy some Ray-Bans. Bye. -Click-”

The marshal pulled a series of curses that only he knew before returning to the case.

The mortal remains of Tillemans couldn’t be examined, but there were the other four bodies. All of them lacked authentic identification, no corresponding mugshot. The “ China “ was the only one identifiable.

The autopsy report was in his laptop, but he didn’t want to open it. He didn’t want to see that photo again – the dead man with frozen happiness on his face. Most of the examinations had been conducted on him because he was the only one with intact internal organs. The others had decayed at an unusually fast rate, even for the summer climate. Even in death, the smiling man stood out.

The forensic doctors had been searching for something that could explain how precisely those people had been targeted in the crowd. A chip, a blood marker, some shared pathological condition. They hadn’t found anything, but they promised to keep working on it and submit a new report when there were any updates. The cause of death, however, was cardiac arrest and lung paralysis. In other words, at a certain moment, for unknown reasons, the entire heart-lung system had stopped functioning. Nothing useful for the investigation at the moment.

He returned to thinking about the apartment; The fruit vendor who had spoken with the fugitive had mentioned the impression that the man could be from his own neighborhood. Could it be possible that the apartment was truly in that area and he had picked up the way of speaking? It happens easily to foreigners who learn the language from scratch. If he was there, he might even know a local barber. If he had any sense, he would have already cut his hair to change his appearance. That could be a starting point.

The phone rang again.

“Hello, Chiatta, I’m downstairs. I’ll wait for you outside the building. Hurry up.”

With a sigh, he closed the laptop and went downstairs. He encountered a lieutenant on the way, but the lieutenant was also dressed in plain clothes and leaving before his shift was over, so he didn’t say anything.

At least during the trip to the store, they had time to exchange updates.

“No way it’s Trastevere,” Dosi was saying. “I can tell you where he was until Tuesday: Esedra Gallery, where they have the intelligence agency apartments. Then he fled and found some other place. That’s why they called us to find him. But the idea about the barbers might hold. Let’s take a round tomorrow...”

The afternoon sunlight reflected off rows of eyeglasses, Fleetwood Mac was playing on the radio, and Dosi was trying on every model available in front of the mirror. Chiattoni waited, bored, his gaze shifting between the attractive saleswoman and the other customer wearing a rap-style cap. He already knew that in the end, Beppe would go for the oversized aviators, he was trying on the rest just for fun; the question was for the purchase. Would he do it again ?

The discarded eyeglasses were piling up, and Dosi was posing with the latest pair. The moment was approaching. He showed the intended purchase to the saleswoman, and she communicated the price.

Chiattoni was sweating.

“Excuse me, don’t you offer a discount for law enforcement officers?”

Yes, exactly as he had feared.

“Because, you know, it’s the State... A special consideration...”

The marshal put on his mirrored shades and walked out with his head down, hoping no one would notice he was hanging out with that atomic loser.

Shortly after, Dosi also emerged, radiant, with his Ray-Bans purchased at a three-euro discount, and the price tag still dangling from one temple.

Chiattoni set off without waiting, eager to distance himself from the scene of the “crime.”

“What a sight... But at least take off that price tag, you look like you’re in a hidden camera show! But seriously, what do you need those Ray-Bans for that you couldn’t wait for another time?”

Dosi listened, smiling, and also checked himself out in the store windows. He tore off the price tag without dislodging the glasses.

“Tonight, the head of the Franciscans is having a birthday party in the monastery cloister, and he invited me.”

“And you’re going at night wearing dark shades?”

“We San Babila boys never take off our Ray-Bans, aoh.”

“Firstly, the San Babila boys are from Milan, and they don’t say ‘aoh.’ And are you a San Babila boy now? Weren’t you Irish just two days ago?”

“The past is past,” Dosi concluded nonchalantly.

***

The square cloister of the Franciscan monastery was adorned with a garden. Four red brick pathways converged toward the octagonal well positioned at the center, symbolizing the third axis of the cross. A long wooden table had been set up under the arcade facing the entrance. The twilight was already receding toward the center, slowly consumed by the well, but the wall-mounted lanterns hadn’t been lit yet.

This didn’t stop Beppe from looking cool with his Ray-Bans and black T-shirt underneath the lightweight pinstriped suit. He only had to lift his glasses slightly every now and then to figure out where he was going. Only when it was his turn to introduce himself to the Franciscan superior did he manage to remove the glasses with a calculated gesture and stow them in the inner pocket before approaching.

The friar wore that strange expression one sometimes sees in people with responsibilities: a tight-lipped smile, almost closed eyes, corners of the mouth pulled far back as if he had been punched in the spleen or was about to bite his interlocutor. The handshake, on the other hand, was more cordial, with a touch of possessiveness, as if he didn’t want to let go. Brief impressions before yielding the place to the next guest and heading to the table.

Tablecloth, plates, glasses, cutlery, all disposable. Bottles of colorful soft drinks, rice salad in camping plastic containers, ham and melon, cakes already cut into cubes. The only concession to formality were the place cards indicating the seat of each guest. Yet despite the modest appearance of the table, the diners had been carefully chosen.

At first glance, Dosi recognized two city councilors, a university lecturer, and a consultant who had worked for various ministries. Then the person who was sitting to his left: a green plaid jacket, light brown curly hair, well-groomed mustache. The Grand Weaver himself.

“Captain Dosi! What a pleasure to see you again.”

“The pleasure is mine. You know, what a coincidence? I was just thinking about you this morning.”

“Mutual coincidence then. I was also thinking about you, you know?”

“And through a chain of coincidences, we meet on the same day and are even seated close to each other?”

“Indeed, that’s less of a coincidence. I knew you were among the guests. After thinking about it, I called Father Bartolomeo and asked if I could be seated next to you. What about you? What did you think?”

“I was thinking about how strange it is that several of your acquaintances have received material covered by office secrecy and related to an ongoing investigation of mine. And who might be responsible for this breach.”

The Weaver remained impassive.

“I’ve heard of this incident, but I don’t know who was behind it. However, I can tell you that these acquaintances are all people with a strong civic conscience; in the end, they just want to be helpful in your investigation. Nonetheless, I’m pleased to see how quickly you’ve become aware of the situation. It means this case is in good hands, and that’s important to me.”

“Actually, at the moment, I’m just trying to locate a person who might have information about the events,” Dosi replied. “We don’t have any specific criminal hypotheses regarding this individual yet, but I see that many are keen on finding him. Should I assume you might know more?”

“If I had any information, I assure you that you would be the first to know.”

Dosi sighed, helped himself to some rice salad to buy some time, then handed one of his business cards to the Weaver.

“If you happen to remember anything, give me a call at this number. But on another note, I didn’t know you had friends in these ecclesiastical circles. I thought they didn’t enjoy your favor.”

Sarto paused as well, reaching for slices of melon.

“It’s the raw stones that reason by exclusion. The awakened ones know that the thesis couldn’t exist without its antithesis, so they don’t exclude, but at every moment, they choose what’s most convenient.”

At that point, other people demanded Beppe’s attention, and he got lost in a web of conversations. Then came the moment for the superior’s speech. They discussed charity and administrators, how important it was to serve Humanity, and how the Church should break down barriers.

This could be observed as the discussions progressed: The few times the word “Church” was mentioned, immediately afterward, within a sentence or two, the words “break down” echoed like distant thunder after a lightning strike. Of course, it was never referring to the same subject; it was always in relation to some abstract concept on the fringes of the main argument. However, it always came, inexorable.

The time came to leave the table, the moment of truth when one could learn a lot by observing who gathered in groups to chat, who was in a hurry to leave, and who remained cut off from the games, with embarrassment or indifference.

The celebrated one, of course, was the center of attention, while the Weaver moved from group to group, distributing smiles and handshakes with the air of someone who knows everything and everyone. Captain Dosi was there as a representative of the authorities, but in civilian clothes and not well introduced to that crowd. After a couple of introductions, he was left waiting until it was late enough to depart without appearing impolite. Around eleven, he finally managed to bid farewell.

Instead of taking the shortest route, he ventured into the monastery’s corridors and made his way to the library. Just beyond the library was an inhabited cell, the only one located on the ground floor. Before he could knock on the door, it swung open, revealing the smiling face of an elderly Franciscan with a gray beard that covered half of his habit.

“Father Timoteo! Good evening!”

“I knew you wouldn’t leave without saying hello, and I recognized your footsteps. Come in; I have some vinsanto here.”

The cell contained a cot, a prie-dieu, a low trestle table with a stool, a professional-level computer with a modem, and stacks of books to be classified scattered on the floor.

Father Timoteo left the stool for Dosi and settled onto the cot. They sat down to drink vinsanto and chat about daily life for a few minutes before the opportunity arose to steer the conversation.

“So, do you still have all your correspondents?” Dosi inquired. “Did they say anything about that prelate who suddenly died in Campo dei Fiori?”

“I was betting they’d give you the case!” the friar replied. “I might not be young enough to run around anymore, but I’m like a spider in the web. I stay put, and things come to me. But what good are answers if you haven’t asked me the most important question of all?”

Beppe knew the friar well and already anticipated where he was heading.

“The salvation of the soul?”

“Exactly that. Only that. How long has it been since you confessed?”

With a sigh, Dosi rose from the stool and went to kneel on the prie-dieu, moving aside the books in front of it. At eye level, framed and hanging on the wall, was the Act of Contrition, written in large letters.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned...”

Only after completing the sacrament did Father Timoteo consent to explain what he knew.

“In the structure of the Church, there’s a position that few are aware of: the Stray Bishop. It seems that only the Pope and the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith are allowed to know its function. There’s always only one, and upon their death, another is immediately appointed. The earliest written testimonies I could find about this figure date back to the time of Charlemagne, and even then, the most peculiar characteristic of this role must have been clear. The one appointed will never be seen in Rome again. Until now. I can swear that this is the first time in centuries that the Stray Bishop has been seen returning to Rome alive ... only to die a few days after his arrival. I could even speak of a curse and feel fear, if the truth of Christ had not liberated me from superstition.”

“ Will they appoint a new one then?”

“ In a few days, they’re doing everything in a rush, you have no idea. The Curia seems like a trampled anthill. There’s another strange thing, they held the funeral immediately, without even waiting for the relatives, and then they cremated him. Cremation is a highly irregular procedure for us, and yet they do it sometimes, when they want to hide something...”

***

Midnight had passed, people were coming and going in the streets as if it were daytime. Dosi walked briskly towards home. It had been an intense day, full of discoveries that didn’t solve anything, but rather made the case even more incomprehensible. He needed to sleep on it.

The lights on the fourth floor were on. His apartment’s. The day didn’t seem to want to end. For the second time, he regretted leaving his iron at home.

He entered and quietly took the stairs, no elevator. If there was an ambush, it wouldn’t be wise to lock himself in a noisy box. He could call for backup, but imagine the embarrassment if it were a false alarm?

The stairwell lights were on. Were they waiting to see him arrive? But most importantly, was the old lady on the second floor still awake? If she saw him sneaking up the stairs at night, hugging the wall, always looking up the upper flights with his Ray-Bans on to avoid being blinded, shoes in hand because they creaked, the whole street would know by the morning.

Hallway on the fourth floor, clear path, no half‐ open doors, no out-of-place shadows. He leaned against the wall at the level of his apartment and pressed his ear to the door. Never stand in front of the door.

Television... Someone was watching his television... Then voices. He nearly slumped against the wall and exhaled the breath he’d been holding.

His sister and brother-in-law, the Ciliegini. False alarm, indeed.

He let his shoes drop, grabbed his cell phone that he’d left turned off during the reception, and gave a call to his brother-in-law.

“ Hello! Am I speaking to the Caryatid?”

“ Oh, old man! Where were you? We’ve been waiting for you forever. I had to put Ludovicomaria to sleep in your kids’ room.”

“ I’m right outside, aoh. Open the door for me.”

“ Are you coming?”

“ No, no. I’m right outside the door behind you.”

“ And don’t you have your own keys?..”

“ Yeah, but I still want you to get your rear off my chair and my TV and come open the door. “

“ What a crank you are! I’m perfectly comfortable here. But if you want, you can sleep on the mat.”

“ What’s this rinse? Did you even open my wine? “

“ The Cabernet Shiraz is excellent, thanks. But I think it shouldn’t have been kept in the fridge.”

“ You don’t know anything about wine, that’s for sure. But my Cabernet Shiraz! In addition to breaking and entering, we can add burglary. The list of offenses is getting longer. You’d better cooperate while you can and voluntarily open that door! “

“ Geez! You’re using up my phone’s battery. Cut it out! “

They would have gone on like this forever if his sister hadn’t appeared at the door in the meantime.

“ Giuso are you coming in or not? And take off those glasses, you look like you’re dressed for a carnival! “

He slipped on his shoes and followed his sister into the house. They had even left him a glass of his wine, quite generously.

The Mucky had too serious a face; she had brought her kid along to wait for him. Surely, more pieces of the puzzle were coming. He just wanted to close his eyes.

“ I was at Araldi’s this afternoon..” she started.. “ .. Usually, they let me access the files without objections, but this time they told me I needed authorization and directed me to another office. I went there, and guess who I found in front of me? “

“ Someone we know? “

“ ZeroNine! ZeroNine was in the office, and he was really upset when I caught him. He came to Rome and didn’t even tell us! And he didn’t even let me examine the files! But tomorrow I’m going to call his mom and tell her to let him know that this isn’t how things are done!”

ZeroNine, that’s what they called him from the first digits of his service number. He was born and raised in the same town in the Ligurian mountains as the Dosi family. He followed in Beppe’s footsteps until the officer training course, but then he took a different path. He joined the Intelligence, though he was usually stationed at the military arsenal in La Spezia. They often met again in their hometown when their vacations coincided.

“ It’s normal, when the Joker is on a job, he doesn’t want to let anyone know. But did you tell him that the information you were looking for was for me?”

“ Yes, but there was no way to convince him. Anyway, as I was leaving, I ran into a guy who’s paying for his university by working as a loader for them. He was one of those who went to clear out the place that day. He saw several pieces that, according to him, seemed to be from a particle accelerator.”

This could confirm that the afro guy was somehow involved in experiments of some kind.

“They’ve called down ZeroNine from La Spezia.” Dosi said, thinking aloud. “This must be a giant mess then.”