The urge to slap the youth’s face was almost beyond Webb’s power to resist. He pushed open the car door, slammed it shut violently and crossed to one of the quattro fontane. The car horn hooted and the man gestured menacingly, waving him towards the church. Webb thrust a middle finger in the air. He splashed his face with the cool water and then sponged down his legs. There was nothing he could do about the dark patch on his shorts. He tossed the pink-stained handkerchief on to the road and looked at the inconspicuous little church with the flight of stairs leading up to a dull green door. Above the door, “Santa Maria della Vittoria” was written in gold lettering.
There was a brief gap in the flow of traffic and he crossed the street. He felt barely able to walk. On the steps he looked back; the young assassins were watching him intently. He pushed open the outer door. Assorted church notices; a collection box for “the deserving”; an inner door, brown and old. He went inside. The door closed behind him with a sudden pneumatic hiss and the Roman traffic switched off.
There was a musty smell, like a cellar or a second-hand bookshop.
Webb let his eyes adjust to the gloom. Rows of pews stretched to an altar, draped with white linen. Cherubim on the ceiling; crucifixes and statuettes; candles burning. And one human being, a young woman near the front sitting motionless, head down. She crossed herself and walked smartly off, her high heels clattering loudly in the confined space. Their eyes met briefly; she gave no sign of recognition.
Take it as it comes.
He stepped warily down the left aisle, heart thumping in his chest and leaning on the pews for steadiness. In a small transept was a white marble sculpture. The sun was streaming down on it from a high window and the sculpture seemed to glow, floating in space. A white marble woman was lying back and a half-naked youth stood over her, holding an arrow poised to plunge. The woman’s eyes were half-closed and her lips were parted. Around this couple were what looked like theatre boxes. Assorted gentlemen occupied these, their faces leering and gloating, eternally congealed.
It was bizarre.
“The Rapture of Saint Teresa.”
Webb whirled round. Elderly man. Iron grey hair, greying goatee beard, metal-rimmed spectacles. White linen suit, dark tie, expensive shirt; black ebony walking stick. Thin lips drawn into a smile. If he was an immediate threat, Webb couldn’t see how.
“She is three hundred years old and, as you see, very beautiful. Many regard her as Bernini’s finest work. And this church, being one of the best examples of late baroque in Rome, is a worthy setting for her. What do you think?”
Webb said it to hurt: “It looks like a porn show in a Berlin nightclub.”
The man winced. “What we are seeing, Mister Fish, is the climax of Saint Teresa’s mystical union with Christ. I believe that Bernini is telling us about a spiritual experience of such intensity that it can only be described to the herd, even remotely, by comparison with the sex act.”
Webb said, “You could read what you liked into it.”
The man sighed. “That is the way with much great art. But you disappoint me, sir. I see that you are a superficial man, a child of your time, just another mass-produced product of a technological Reich.”
Webb was trying hard to control his anger. “Was I brought here for this?”
The man’s smile broadened. “That’s the spirit! Actually, you are here because my instructions are to kill you.”
They emerged into the sunshine and walked arm in arm along a noisy, bustling street. Webb, in spite of himself, was glad of the support. The young assassins had vanished. At a small piazza a traffic policeman, dressed in white, stood on a raised pedestal, around which cars flowed like lava. An articulated truck was having difficulty negotiating a corner and the policeman was waving at it furiously.
“This way, cavaliere,” said the elderly man, pointing his ebony stick. “We shall have a beer at Doney’s.”
They turned up into a broad, gently sloping promenade, the Via Veneto. The street was reassuringly busy. Webb let himself be guided to a pavement table under a blue and white-striped awning. A dark young man with long, shiny hair approached. The older man casually placed his stick on the table, its metal tip pointing in Webb’s direction, and ordered a beer. Webb asked for un’aranciata.
A whistle blew, back down the hill. The articulated lorry wasn’t making it round the Piazza Barberini. Further up the Veneto, Webb saw a crop-headed marine with an automatic weapon; he was standing at the main door of the American Embassy, and he looked in a bad mood.
The man sipped at his beer. “I should have asked for a German lager. You are wired up like a cat about to spring, Mister Fish. Do try to relax. You must know that if I had wished it, you would by now be dead.”
“Who are you?”
“I think of myself as a surgeon.”
“I assume you set up the surgery in the Tuscolo woods,” Webb said.
“Overzealous amateurs. One must work with the material to hand.”
A girl in a short, lime-green skirt sat down at a nearby table, facing Webb. She had an uneducated, Sicilian peasant look about her. She scanned the menu without once looking in his direction.
Webb said: “Society has rules.”
Little wrinkles above the lips disapproved. “Mister Fish, you increasingly disappoint me. The rules are for herd control! To obey them, it is enough to have a spinal cord. The free man makes his own rules.” An outburst of car horn blaring came from the piazza down the hill.
The waiter left a little printed bill. Webb waited until he had gone. “Why am I still alive?”
The man sighed. “You remain alive, for the moment, because of my greed. It seems that you are proving troublesome to some people. You seek a manuscript. I have found out where this manuscript is; in fact, I have held it in my hands. My instructions were to liquidate you before you got your hands on it. A simple enough task, for which I was offered a sum of money. I can now access the book whenever I please and well, here you are. As for the sum of money, it was strikingly large. So large that it made me wonder.”
Webb stared at the man in open disgust. “A man died so that you could have spending money? I regret even having to breathe the same air as you.”
“If that is a problem for you, it can easily be remedied.”
“What do you know about this manuscript? How did you know where I was?”
A hand waved casually in the air. “The details escape me.”
“Where does the Father Librarian come into it?”
“A naive fool, sold a plausible story.”
“And your overzealous amateurs?”
“They too were easily manipulated, like all young idealists. Told they were striking a blow for the people, they were eager to believe it.”
Webb sat back. He eyed the man speculatively. “What am I worth?”
The man fingered the ebony stick absent-mindedly. “One million American dollars. And in cash, the only medium of exchange I recognize. Already I have received half.”
Webb sipped at his orange juice. He was beginning to feel nauseous, and found himself taking deep breaths. “That’s a lot of money.”
“Indeed. And the question I have to ask is, where does the value lie? In your death, or in the book? If in the book, then perhaps I now have in my possession something whose true value is, shall we say for the sake of a figure, ten million dollars.”
“I begin to understand.”
“Are you in a position to offer me ten million dollars for it?”
“No,” Webb lied.