The chain mail and cloth rested on bones. The head was bare. Leathery patches of brown dried skin stretched over cheekbones and curled up where it had split and wasted away. The lips were gone entirely, leaving brown teeth grinning at the ceiling. White gloves enclosed the hands crossed on his chest. A sword in a scabbard lay at his side. Traces of leather wrapped around the scabbard were visible, turned almost to dust. Everything around the corpse was worn, frayed, dark, and limp, so heavy with age that it seemed to yearn for the concealment of the grave. Everything except the white gloves.
"Over a thousand years old, the priests tell me. The gloves are to keep the small bones of the hand from falling apart. We wash them every Easter."
"The gloves or the bones?" I asked.
"The gloves, of course. It is best to leave the bones of the dead alone as much as possible, don't you think?"
"I think somebody ought to have thought of that a thousand years ago," I answered, tearing my eyes away from the skull's hideous grin. Whatever sainted name this guy had been given, it was obvious he'd been a soldier, a soldier who had done something that marked him as a holy man or perhaps a holy warrior. Now he was a relic, a curiosity for the religious to pray to. I felt sorry for him, alone here among the living.
"Why have you returned?"
"You've seen me before?" Panic rose from my gut. I didn't remember anything about this church, this man, or this rotting saint.
"Yes, but you stood back, with the other one. The Englishman. What happened?"
"I'm sorry," I said, wishing we could get out of this underground chapel. "I don't remember everything that happened. I got separated from my friends, and I'm trying to find them."
"That is no concern of mine. I don't know you. I knew the man who came here, but all I know of you is that you were with him."
"I knew about purgatory," I said.
"It is a common enough expression," he said.
It was time to clinch the deal. I pulled the handkerchief out, held it by two corners and flapped it once as I unfurled it for him to see. Candle flames danced crazily in the brief breeze it created. He looked at it, reached his hand out to feel it, and rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger. His eyes went to mine, and he nodded. Had I done this before? I couldn't remember.
"Come," he said. "Put that away and follow me."
I followed him upstairs, glad to give the chambers of the righteous dead my back. In the transept, Sciafani leaned against the wall, waiting. He and the black-robed man stared at each other.
"This is Dottore Enrico Sciafani," I said. "He guided me here from Gela. And you are…?"
"You vouch for him?"
"Yes, I do."
"Very well. I am Tommaso Corso, sacristan of this cathedral."
"I'm Billy Boyle, lieutenant, U. S. Army. Now, tell me-"
"Not here," he said, cutting me off with a wave of his hand. "Come."
We sat at a rough wood table in a small room off the sacristy, the place where the priest kept his robes and vestments, the chalice, all the special gear for the Mass. In a big church or a cathedral like this one, the sacristan was the guy in charge of all this stuff. Everything in the sacristy from candles to cassocks. Plus all the church property in the rest of the building, which really meant something when art treasures decorated the walls.
"You're American?" I asked as he poured each of us a glass of red wine.
"Only for a brief period," he said. Pulling off his robe and hanging it on a peg, he sat down with his glass, spilling a drop of ruby red on his hand. He wore a white collarless shirt and dark vest, like every other Sicilian man. But unlike many, he wore a shoulder holster with the butt of a big revolver sticking out from under his left arm. "I left Sicily as a young man, and went to America as many have done. Mr. Luciano gave me work in New York, with the unions at the docks. There was a disagreement with the authorities, and ultimately I was deported. I had become an American citizen in 1921, but they took that away from me in 1934 when they put me on a boat and sent me back."
"Are you still loyal to Lucky Luciano?" I asked.
"Loyalty is a precious thing, my young friend. An honorable thing, not a thing to be questioned."
"Please excuse Billy," Sciafani said. "He is not Sicilian, and does not understand these things so well. He is Irish."
"So," Corso said, as if that explained everything. "The answer is of course I am. I am also loyal to Don Calo, and he wants to see you very much. In order to be certain he survives the meeting, I want you to give me that little pistol you have stuck in your pants."With that, he drew his revolver and pointed it at me casually as he took another sip of wine.
"I always say it's better to give than to receive," I said as I pulled the Beretta out with my thumb and forefinger. I slid it across the table to him.
"Yes, especially with this monster," he said as he holstered his revolver. "It's an Italian sidearm from the last war, a Bodeo. Fires 10mm ammunition. Would make a hell of a racket in here. And a big hole in your chest."
"Are you really an official of this cathedral or did you kill him and take his place?" Sciafani asked. Even with his cynical view of religion, he seemed to be having a hard time believing this guy was for real.
"Yes, indeed, I am the sacristan here. I am also a member of the altar society. Does that surprise you?"
"Since the war, not much surprises me," Sciafani answered. "Only I have never seen a gun concealed by a church robe before."
"This is nothing, Dottor, compared to the Teutonic Knights and the Knights Hospitallers who established orders here in Sicily centuries ago. There is nothing strange about protecting holy property when rival armies are fighting across our land."
"Tommaso, I do want to see Don Calo, that's why we're here," I said, trying to focus on the present. "I have an important message for him, from the Allied Command, and from Lucky Luciano."
"Then why didn't you deliver it the first time?"
"Something went wrong in the Valley of the Temples."
"Maybe you are what went wrong there,"Tommaso said, drumming his fingers on the table.
"Do you know what happened?"
"I know everything that happens in this city. It is the reason I am here. I know a platoon of Italian soldati encountered a small group of men shooting at each other on the same night I sent the three of you there for the rendezvous. Several were killed, and a few deserted in the confusion. One of them reported to me."
"Wait, you mean they ambushed us?"
"No. Gunfire broke out as they approached the Temple of Con-cordia, but it was not directed at them. Their lieutenant ordered them forward; he was killed in a grenade blast. Then most of them ran."
"Did they find any bodies?"
"Only of their own men," Tommaso said.
"So the two men I was with, they must've gotten away with Don Calo's men?"
"Yes, they had a car. The meeting place was at Il Tempio di Concordia. Is this what you can't remember?"
"Yes," I said. "I think that I killed my friend, by accident, during the fight. They must have taken his body away."
"I would advise you to revive your memory. Don Calo has questions for you."
"Does he want me dead?" I asked, remembering what Kaz had said about rumors of a contract.
"That will depend on your answers."
"Fair enough," I said, as if fairness had anything to do with it. "Who else knew about the rendezvous?"
"Don Calo himself told me about it, a week before you came. A British agent contacted him and asked him to see your party."
"Where's that agent now?"
"Dead. He was stopped by the Germans and tried to shoot his way out. Stupid."
"Do you know Vito Genovese? Joey Laspada?"
"I knew Vito back in the States. Then I was known as Tommy the C. Joey, him I met here a few times. Why?"