Читать книгу The Errant Child - Ozzie Logozzo - Страница 18

Rome, central Italy Vatican Square,

Filomena sings from within the rectangular, glass shower stall. She left the bathroom door open not so much to reduce the water vapor from bathing as much as to display sexual playfulness and her many charms. During each visit, ‘Peeping Tom’ Emilio role-plays spying on his ‘Lady Godiva’. She reciprocates, teasing Emilio with seductive poses before settling under the stream of water, scrubbing and rinsing as if suffering from a pathological disorder but anxiously anticipating his naked attack. However, not this time. It is a matter of priorities.

Partially dressed, Emilio rests on the edge of the bed, his back to the window overlooking the street and the piazza. Methodically, he is cleaning

and reloading his revolver and silencer. This visit’s voyeurism, prolonged ogling and then dramatically sweeping in to ride his watering steed is forsaken. He has unfinished business within the Vatican fortress.

Emilio finishes dressing. He takes a few large bills out of his wallet and places the money on the dresser. Seeing colored stationary on the dresser, he scribbles a parting note: bye tesoro (bye sweetie), alla prossima (until next time).

Taking a final glance in the mirror, Emilio puts on his game face and casually leaves the apartment. At street level, an ecological triad hits him: the sun’s blinding brightness, the air’s stifling heat and humidity’s heavy-handedness. He lowers the brim of his cap, swings his jacket over one shoulder and beelines toward the Vatican’s Swiss Guard gate. Within ten paces, he is perspiring profusely evidenced on his shirt by sweat stains on his back and underarms.

The touristy hustle-and-bustle, in the smallest state in the world, resembles a packed shopping mall during a holiday sale. The number of people who have braved the heat appears to be growing, like overcooked, steaming spaghetti. Visitors queue and wait. Civil servants with portfolios rush across St. Peter’s Square for yet another espresso and, surely, not for work-related affairs. Unguided visitors ramble aimlessly in an exhilarated stupor snapping pictures every minute. The remaining ground of the grandiose terrain is peppered with priests, nuns and guards.

Emilio sees the carabinieri at the crime

scene but pays scant attention. He proceeds on his way toward the Pontifical Swiss Guard gate. The police will be tending to their housekeeping while he completes his mission.

Emilio advances leisurely toward the ornate, wrought iron gate with two Swiss Guardsmen barring entry to the Vatican’s inner circle of office buildings. He raises his right hand skyward, his thumb, index, and middle finger extended on three axes. The gesture, normally, symbolizes the Holy Trinity. For Emilio, it represents the killing of the Corrado clan, the screwing of Filomena and, his final hit: the murder of the Corrado collaborator within the Vatican. He laughs at his own inside joke and today’s triumphs.

True to task, Emilio quickens his pace, understanding that the opportune moment is imminent and, as Macbeth grasped, the assassination must proceed quickly.