“When do the lies stop, Guido? Did you even have a contract?”
“Oh, yeah. I had a contract okay. I’m not makin’ anything up anymore. This is straight. I even told-well, never mind, it was the person who gave me the contract that I told I was gonna see you tonight. I’m gettin’ everything straight. You can put what I’m tellin’ you tonight in the book. I swear on my mother’s grave.”
“Okay, Guido, I believe you. What is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”
“Hey, that’s just like in court. Okay. Get this, Father: That wasn’t no confession I made to you.”
There were several moments of silence as Vespa let this information sink in, and Koesler, for his part, digested this strange statement.
“It was no confession?”
“No. I used to go to confession once in a while. A long time ago. Once in a while, but not much. That wasn’t my second confession after the one I did before First Communion. It wasn’t no confession at all. It was part of the contract. Honest to God, Father, it was part of the contract. And that ain’t all-“
It happened quickly and suddenly, but there was an indefinable rhythm, even choreography, to it. The shots thundered in this cavernous space. As if the huge man were weightless, Vespa’s body jerked up and seemed to hang in midair for a split second.
Almost simultaneously, actually a split second later, Koesler was spun around. He pitched to the pavement as if he had been slam-dunked.
The pain in his shoulder permeated his body. He clenched his teeth as he winced. His mind clouded over. Fearing loss of consciousness, he bent every power of his brain to fight off the darkness.
The longer he remained conscious the more clearly he felt the agonizing pain in his shoulder. Still, he fought the looming unconsciousness that threatened to engulf him.
He was able to move his head. So he could see the hulk of Vespa lying facedown a few feet away. “Guido? Guido!”
No response. Koesler was unable to tell if there was much blood draining from either of them. Maybe Vespa was merely unconscious. Koesler prayed through the waves of pain and nausea that that was so.
He heard a siren in the distance. He fervently hoped it was coming for them. There was no other possible way he could think of to get out of this mess. Neither he nor Vespa could help themselves, let alone each other.
The siren continued to grow louder. At least it was coming in their direction. With the run of luck he was having, he half expected the sound to continue to increase until it passed them and then diminish in the distance as it answered some other emergency.
But it didn’t. The volume crescendoed until the blue and white screeched to a stop near the two fallen men. The driver headed for Vespa, his partner to Koesler. The priest thought he heard the driver say, “He’s gone!”
He managed to ask, “How did you …?” Then he found it difficult to speak.
“Someone heard shots and called 911.” The policeman turned to his partner. “Get EMS.” Koesler sank back into grayness.
As the ambulance sped toward Receiving Hospital, he felt his clothing being cut away. Somebody had applied a pressure bandage to stanch the flow of blood.
Koesler hoped they would give him something for the pain. They did not. Their only concern at the moment was to stop the bleeding and get him to the hospital as quickly as possible.
Someone asked him who the president of the United States was. The question actually had him stumped for a moment. He gave brief thought to, as a joke, giving them the name of Cardinal Mark Boyle. Boyle at one time had been president of the United States Conference of Bishops.
Fortunately, Koesler rejected this momentary temptation to frivolity. The ambulance crew was in no mood, and the mistaken identification would have clouded the diagnosis.
Once they reached the hospital, the flurry of professional activity amplified.
Koesler, the center of all this attention, could only wish this whole thing hadn’t happened. He had an impression of himself as a piece of meat whose various cuts were being processed. Somebody had taken his blood pressure. He tried to hear what the count was, but so many people were talking simultaneously he couldn’t isolate on any of them.
Several X rays were taken of his shoulder area. He wouldn’t have known that so clearly but that several consecutive times the cubicle he occupied was cleared of all personnel.
Finally, a doctor-bearded, young, olive-complexioned-appeared directly in Koesler’s vision. “Father, there’s a bullet in your shoulder. It’s got to come out. Other than that, you seem to be in good shape. A few bruises, but the bullet is our concern.”
This was followed by injections, a peaceful, floating feeling, and finally, mercifully, unconsciousness.
19
Father Koesler sensed that he had awakened more than once through the night. But this time his head was just a little clearer.
He looked around. No doubt about it, this was a hospital room. And, he observed gratefully, a private room. The times he had awakened earlier it was difficult to know whether he was dreaming. The dull, throbbing pain in his shoulder argued in favor of reality.
But this was the morning of a bleak, overcast day. His brain was beginning to function with some clarity. He remembered-or thought he remembered-a nurse explaining that if he experienced pain, he should push the button on his contraption just to the left of his bed. That would feed a measured dose of painkiller into him. He pushed the button.
Next, he tried to put the events of last evening together. It was not easy. Nothing even remotely similar had ever happened to him before.
Okay. He met Guido Vespa at the Eastern Market. Koesler remembered how dark it had been and how poorly lit the area was. It had been the first time he and Guido had been together when both of them were standing. They were roughly the same height, but Vespa was much heavier. All of this together probably explained why Koesler would not have seen the gunman. It was dark, and everything was in shadows. Koesler would most likely have not seen anyone approaching to the rear of Vespa due to Vespa’s bulk. Additionally, he had been paying such close attention to Vespa’s incredible story that it would have taken an almost deliberate effort of a third party to be noticed by Koesler.
And that brought him to the crux of the matter: Vespa’s message.
Could he take seriously Vespa’s claim that he had invented the detail of burying Father Keating with Monsignor Kern? Koesler believed he had to take the man seriously. For one thing, there hadn’t been an extra body in the coffin. But also-and Koesler now felt this to be so-last night Vespa was not kidding. It was almost as if he somehow realized that something was about to happen. In effect, it was a deathbed confession that became an actual confession at the point of death.
If that were true, then the heart of what he said also fell into the realm of a deathbed confession. And that was that he had had no intention whatsoever of making a sacramental confession on that memorable Saturday afternoon. It had been-what did Vespa say? — part of the contract. It was what theologians term “simulation.” It appeared to be the real thing, but it was sham. On the other side of the confessional, it would be as if the priest were to pretend to absolve but did not. Or like a priest pretending to consecrate the bread and wine at Mass but withholding the intention to consecrate.
Thus, Vespa’s confession was no confession at all. So, Koesler-and, for that matter, Dunn-was not bound by the seal of confession.
The remaining question was a very large Why? Vespa had explained last night that his pretending to make a confession was part of the contract to kill Keating. But why did the contract carry that provision?
As his thinking became more and more lucid, almost everything that came to mind ended in a question mark.