“I’ve met types who talk like that and usually they just came out of the nuthouse.” Honey screwed up her face, processing the information. “So why does O’Hara hate you so much? And you know what? I don’t get why the Pope gives money to maggot people and lets ’em live under his church and at the same time has ’em killed by the score. I can’t get my fucking head round it.”
Giacomo nodded confidently. “I think I can answer that one. The Hydra is a dangerous monster because she suffers from a multiple personality. She’ll kiss you with one head, but with her other heads she’ll petrify, savage, poison, nibble, spit or mutter evil curses at you.”
“It’s not that,” said Paolo. “It’s because the Catholics fear us. It’s the fear of the Other.”
“The other fucking what?” said Honey.
Giacomo sighed. “Maggot people can’t have children. Which means there’ll be fewer people around, which means a lot of empty churches and less money and a heck of a lot of Catholic priests out of a job. The Church doesn’t like that, of course; it doesn’t like maggots getting too numerous.”
Honey nodded. “Well, people do have to work, you know. Or they starve. O’Hara’s making sense if that’s what he’s about.”
“Never mind about him making sense. He’s an old anaconda and we’d like you to seduce him,” said Giacomo. “Maggotize him for us, would you dear? So we can keep him lingering with us for hundreds of years and torment the heck out of him.”
“So that’s all I get? A dry old fucker like O’Hara who smells like he forgot to change his underwear for a month? You know what? If I could live without men like him I would, but it looks like I’m stuck with them. If I do it anyway, if I do it for your sake, what will you do for me?”
“Well, you won’t be needing any other men at all, that’s for sure,” Paolo cut in. “That’s what we’ll do for you; we’ll free you from their pernicious influence. Afterwards you could go to Mama Maggot in Sardinia; she might even take you on as a lay sister.”
Giacomo agreed. “Yes indeed. Then all you do is lie about and occasionally make a little excursion to the city to pick up maggot fodder. It’s an easy life; you stay on a cushion all day, eat piglets in the evening, take a few hits and watch the sunset over the sea.” He frowned at Paolo and spoke under his breath: “Or are we missing an opportunity? Should we give her a gun and ask her to kill the old bitch for us?”
Michael stepped in. “If you send Honey to St. Helena she’ll be the one who ends up dead. They’ll find out who she is and what she’s done and they won’t even have to kill her; they’ll just deny her when she’s due.”
“Keep your worries to yourself!” Giacomo shot him a poisonous glance. But when he refocused on Honey he was unctuous: “Whatever you want, my dear girl, we can make it happen for you. We have enormous reserves of money, we have a portfolio of quite beautiful properties all over the world, and we have an endless supply of drugs and fresh maggot. How about an island off the coast of Thailand? Or a penthouse in Tokyo? Just rid us of this Cardinal and it can all be yours. We’ll open the coffers for you; you can take what you want.”
“You don’t have to go for the hard sell. I’ll do it just because I’m bored stiff and I fancy a challenge,” she said.
“First we have to tell you how to snare him. We know all about his appetites,” said Paolo.
“Yeah, yeah! You’re going to teach me how to get some twisted old geezer’s rocks off. You rate yourselves, don’t you?” She shook her head in wonder. “Just give me his fucking address, I’ll stake out his place tonight. And if I don’t see him I’ll go back tomorrow.”
“Take care, he’s not a nice man,” said Michael.
“Don’t you worry, mister, I always did take care of myself. I met a lot of bad men and I was fine until the day I met you.”
29
“I am grateful to you, Michael,” said Giacomo, after Honey, loudly complaining, had been taken off to a nunnery. “I’ve rarely felt so murderous, but you are quite right; it is much prettier to let O’Hara choose his own gin-trap. Messier, too.” He chuckled contentedly.
They were standing on a palace roof inside the Vatican compound, looking out over the myriad housetops and television aerials of Rome.
“It all seems so violent,” said Michael.
“Ah, you think so?” The old man shook his head with wonder. “I’ve seen so much death and violence over the years, I no longer think of humans as anything but deranged, thoroughly objectionable, psychopathic apes. I’d prefer them all dead and buried in mass graves.”
Michael shuddered. Giacomo’s humanity had withered like a fruit left too long in the sun. He’d been tempered and shriveled, salted and oiled, until finally he lay potted under a screw-top lid and bore no resemblance to his original nature. Yet, in spite of this, some tiny portion of it remained as a super-concentrated essence, and this was the charming part.
“Are you wondering why I’ve brought you up here? Did you think it was just to admire the view?”
Michael decided to be truthful. “No. I suspect you have some reason, and I am hoping I won’t be threatened or arm-twisted or in some other way turned against myself.”
“How unfair you are! How spoiled and self-pitying. I treat you almost like my son. I agonize over your spiritual development.”
“I’d rather just be left in peace.”
“Left in peace. Ha! Who wouldn’t?” Giacomo’s hand made a sweeping motion, taking in the entire city. “Flawed,” he said. “All flawed. Give up your hopes, abandon your illusions, they are not serving you.” As he turned to look at his young protégé, Giacomo’s eyes had a strange light in them, a mixture of guilt, eagerness, and affection, emotions that seemed left over in his psyche like driftwood washed up. “I tell you this now because I need you to understand.”
“Understand what?”
“Why, yourself. What else is there to understand?”
“I feel I’ve done everything you could possibly ask. Now I want to have some freedom. And I’d like to understand why Ariel had to be taken from me. Why couldn’t you let us be together? I love her, you know…”
“Ariel! Good Lord, the fuss you make about her. And as for freedom…” His face softened. “But you are young, I was also young once. The problem with wanting a thing, Michael, is that it almost always takes you away from your true needs. It would be better for humans not to want so much; they’re not equipped for their own ambitions and they won’t pay for their desires. Humans want a free lunch and there’s no such thing; any quantity surveyor could tell you that.”
From downstairs, in one of the expansive salons, came the voices of a hundred diners, the slamming of their cutlery, loud voices declaiming. While in Rome, Giacomo and Paolo felt it was good politics to have the inner circle over for dinner two or three times per week — for feasting and scheming.
Michael hung on. “I’m not an opportunist. I do want to survive, though, and I’d like to enjoy surviving.”
“You’re very fond of making irrelevant distinctions. But I forgive you, I forgive you as a man who once held a gun to my head and chose freely not to shoot. But yes… survival… this bugbear of our race, a remnant from our time in caves.” Giacomo laughed bitterly. “Look at this vast city filled with lost sheep struggling to survive. They think they need money, preferment. They’ll grasp at anything; they’re drowning in ignorance.”
There was a scrape of a metal door behind them, and when they looked round, they saw Paolo stooping as he emerged. “Thank goodness, you’re still here,” he said. “I thought you might have…”