Things are seldom what they seem.
Skim milk masquerades as cream;
High-laws pass as patent leathers;
Jackdaws strut in peacock’s feathers.”
“‘Very true,’” Koesler responded in kind, “‘So they do.’” He smiled. “I would have thought your theme might have been ‘A Policeman’s Lot Is Not a Happy One.’”
Koznicki smiled back. “No; in point of fact, I have found this policeman’s lot to be distinctly happy.” He paused. “Well, Father, you are quite obviously somewhat in advance of me in thinking through all these possibilities. Before you draw me out any further, do you have anything else in mind?”
“Well, as a matter of fact, I have. I had thought of presenting this to you in the guise of a defense against the threat to Cardinal Boyle. But now that you have mentioned the possibility of going on the offense, I will suggest this man as our offensive weapon.” An uncertain pause. “Ramon Toussaint.”
Koznicki stiffened. Perceptibly.
“Ramon Toussaint? Yes, I would agree that could be a decidedly offensive weapon.” He looked at Koesler fixedly. “I have by no means forgotten Ramon Toussaint, Father. The name conjures up a one-man vigilante force and a series of grotesque human heads found mounted on statues in Detroit churches. One head found stuffed inside the late Cardinal Mooney’s ceremonial red hat in the cathedral, save the mark.
“Let’s see, the victims were . . . oh, yes: the local Mafia don, Detroit’s top pimp, Detroit’s leading drug dealer, a particularly abhorrent abortionist, and then a roofer and an auto repairman who were unscrupulous and unprincipled workmen. Each of them escaped justice, as so many criminals do, until our unidentified vigilante administered his own peculiar brand of capital punishment.
“Our particular problem, as I recall—and believe me, I shall never forget it—was establishing the cause of death of those men. In the first five cases, all we were able to find were the victims’ heads.
“Do I remember Ramon Toussaint! Lieutenant Ned Harris and the rest of us who worked on that case strongly suspected that our anonymous vigilante might well have been Ramon Toussaint!”
During this outburst, Koesler seemed to be recoiling as he withdrew deeper and deeper inside himself. “Those murders are still in your unsolved file,” he said, almost in an undertone.
“That’s true,” Koznicki said, as if to himself.
“Does this mean, then,” Koesler asked at length, “that you will not work with Toussaint?”
“I have been known to state that I would take a lead from the devil himself if it would help break a case.”
“Then you will!” Koesler’s relief was evident.
“But how is this possible? When last heard of, Toussaint was working in San Francisco.”
“No, he’s here. He’s in Rome. I spoke with him earlier today. He is here to help. He is determined to help. The only question was our cooperation.”
“I, too, have a question: This man was a suspect in an extraordinarily bizarre murder case. Do we count on him as our ally, or our enemy?”
“He is in our camp, Inspector. No doubt about it. He, as we, deeply admires Cardinal Boyle. It was Cardinal Boyle who ordained Toussaint a deacon. While he was in Detroit, Toussaint and the Cardinal were comparatively close.” Koesler hesitated, then having obviously reached a decision, continued.
“I have not had an opportunity to speak with Toussaint at any length, but he does agree with my hypothesis. I don’t know how much he knows . . . or what exactly prompted him to come here . . . but he has come to Rome to try to protect the Cardinal and to stop whoever is responsible for all this. I assure you, Inspector, we will be far ahead of the game with Toussaint in our corner.”
Koznicki looked searchingly at Koesler. “Then you feel that the Reverend Toussaint’s presence in Rome and his reason for being here confirms your hypothesis?”
Koesler looked sheepish. “Yes. But I was afraid that if I led with Toussaint you might have rejected the whole idea out of hand. I felt that only if you reached the same conclusion in the same fashion I did—based on your own evaluation of the facts, possibilities, and coincidences—would you be amenable to Toussaint’s collaboration.”
“You were wrong.”
“I’m glad,” Koesler said simply.
“When can we get together?”
“Tomorrow. After the concelebrated Mass in St. Peter’s.”
“Not till then?”
“He told me he had to establish some contacts here. He said he should be able to do so by tomorrow afternoon.”
“So be it, then. Tomorrow afternoon.”
5.
Irene Casey was by no means alone in finding St. Peter’s Basilica incomprehensibly huge. This, the largest church in Christendom, is so big that it is difficult to believe that its dimensions are as colossal as they actually are.
Here, in St. Peter’s Square, where Irene now stood contemplating the view, one-third of a million people regularly gather at one time to hear the Pope speak. In the center of the square stands the red granite obelisk that Caligula took from Heliopolis and Nero later had placed in the Circus Maximus.
Then there are Bernini’s columns. The double colonnade surrounding the square consists of four rows of columns and spreads out from the Basilica, opening, as someone once said, “as in an ideal embrace from Christianity offered to the world.”
The facade of St. Peter’s alone is 374 feet long and 136 feet high. The famous central dome is 139 feet in diameter and 438 feet above ground.
Inside St. Peter’s, the central aisle is an eighth of a mile in length; a seemingly infinite number of people can be packed into the church. For the usual papal functions, some 70,000 tickets are distributed.
As she rehashed these figures, Irene studied the ticket she held. It was a pass to this Friday morning’s Mass to be concelebrated by Pope Leo XIV and the new Cardinals. A few thousand of the Cardinals’ closest friends had been invited to attend. The service would include the ceremony of bestowing on each Cardinal his strikingly simple ring of office.
Irene’s ticket did not disclose much. During this week of juggling tickets to various ceremonial events, Irene, as well as almost everyone else involved, discovered that identical information was printed on every ticket. An announcement of the event for which the ticket would gain admittance, the time, and the place of the event.
What mattered, everyone soon learned, was the color. Depending on one’s ticket color, one saw, heard, or even participated in the event. Or, one became part of the great unwashed, stuck behind barricades so that if one’s height were not well in excess of six feet, one had a magnificent view of chests, backs, and shoulders, depending on which way people were facing.
Or, one just might be stuck in Outer Darkness, where many had found themselves for the red hat ceremony, and where many had gnashed their teeth.
Irene’s ticket to this event was gold. She wondered what that augured.
“Hi!” It was Pat Lennon. “What color do you have?”
“Oh!” Irene was startled. “Oh, it’s gold. How about you?”
“Blue.” Joe Cox did not attempt to conceal his disgust. “Blue has not been kind to us this week.”
“Mine’s blue, too,” said Lennon, echoing Cox’s tone. “Say,” she continued, “I have an idea. How would it be, Irene, if Joe and I tag along with you? You show the official your gold ticket and we’ll try to follow you in.”
“It’s all right with me. But do you think it’ll work? Isn’t it risky?”
Lennon laughed. “They’re not going to throw us into the Sacred Penitentiary.”