«Pick Mother’s head up, please.»
«It’s better she’s out, Sam. What was this ‘possessed’?»
«Yes, well, actually, Aaron, without any intent on my part, I walked out of the army intelligence G-Two computer banks with copies of maximum-classified files chained to my wrist twenty-four hours before my discharge.»
«So?»
«Well, you see, Aaron, as MacKenzie Hawkins’s attorney-of-record, I had to accompany him to his final Six-thirty-five resolution of all the classified intelligence reports relative to his military career, from World War Two through Southeast Asia.»
«So?»
«Well, you see, Aaron, that’s when Mac’s friends in the army intruded on the procedure. I’d made a minor mistake in the Golden Triangle and instituted charges against a certain General Ethelred Brokemichael for dealing in drugs, when it actually was his cousin Heseltine Brokemichael, and Ethelred’s supporters were mad as hell, and since they were all friends of Mac Hawkins, they rallied around the Hawk and played his game.»
«What game? Heseltine … Ethelred! Drugs, Golden Triangle! So you made a mistake, you withdraw the indictment. So?»
«It was too late. The military’s worse than Congress. Ethelred didn’t get his three stars, and his buddies blamed it on me and helped Mac.»
«So?»
«One of those bastards chained a briefcase on my wrist, slapped a max-security label on it, and I signed out with two thousand six-hundred forty-one copies of top-secret files on my person, the majority of which had nothing to do with Mac Hawkins, who stood innocently at my side.»
Aaron Pinkus closed his eyes and sank back on the small settee, his shoulder touching the totally dazed Eleanor Devereaux. «So you were his for the immediate future—roughly five months.» Aaron cautiously opened his eyes.
«Either that or have my discharge postponed indefinitely … or I’d spend twenty years in Leavenworth.»
«Then the money came from the ransom—»
«What money?» interrupted Sam.
«The money you spent so lavishly on this house … hundreds of thousands of dollars! It was your share of the ransom, wasn’t it?»
«What ransom?»
«For Pope Francesco, naturally. When you released him.»
«We didn’t get any ransom. Cardinal Ignatio Quartz refused to pay.»
«Cardinal who?»
«It’s another story. Quartz was happy with Guido.»
«Guido?»
«You’re shouting, Aaron,» murmured Eleanor.
«Guido Frescobaldi,» answered Devereaux. «Zio’s look-alike cousin; he was an extra in La Scala’s third opera company and sometimes got to play small parts.»
«Enough!» The celebrated attorney took several deep breaths, doing his best to find some self-control. Lowering his voice, he spoke as calmly as possible. «Sam, you returned home with a great deal of money that did not come from a deceased wealthy Devereaux. Where did it come from, Sam?»
«Well, actually, Aaron, as a general partner, it was my pro rata share of the remaining capitalization initially raised for the corporation.»
«What corporation?» asked Pinkus, his quiet voice floating and barely audible.
«The Shepherd Company.»
«The Shepherd …?»
«Like in the Good Shepherd.»
«Like in the Good Shepherd,» repeated Aaron, as if in a trance. «Money was raised for this corporation—»
«Actually, in increments of ten million dollars per investor, said investors restricted to four and forming a limited partnership with the general partners, their individual risks naturally limited to the capital ventured and based on projections anticipating a ten-to-one return on their investments… Actually, none of the four investors cared to be legally acknowledged and preferred to consider their investments as charitable contributions in exchange for anonymity.»
«Anonymity …? Forty million dollars’ worth of anonymity?»
«Actually, that was pretty much guaranteed. I mean, where could I possibly file the papers of incorporation, Aaron?»
«You? You were counsel for this travesty of a business enterprise?»
«Not by choice,» protested Devereaux. «Never by choice.»
«Oh, yes, those two-thousand-plus intelligence files you walked out with. No discharge. Leavenworth.»
«Or worse, Aaron. Mac said there were ways less public than a firing squad if Pentagon public relations ruled out an execution.»
«Yes, yes, I understand… Sam, your dear mother here, who mercifully is in a state of shock, mentioned that you told her your money came from religious artifacts—»
«Actually, as was clearly stated in the bylaws of the limited partnership, the primary function of the corporation was the ‘brokering of acquired religious artifacts.’ I covered it rather nicely, I thought.»
«Dear God,» exclaimed Pinkus, swallowing. «And naturally the ‘acquired’ religious artifact in question was the person of Pope Francesco the First, whom you kidnapped.»
«Well, actually, Aaron, that’s not really legally sound, much less conclusive. The allegation itself might even be considered libelous.»
«What are you saying? Look at your walls, the photographs!»
«Actually, I might suggest that you—you, Aaron—look at them again. Legally speaking, kidnapping is defined as abduction by force or coercion and holding a person or personages against their will, their being freed subject to the payment of funds. Although, as I’ve acknowledged, a preliminary strategy had been meticulously financed and was in place to implement such an objective, the strategy failed and would have been aborted but for the voluntary—I might say enthusiastic—cooperation of the subject. And those photographs hardly depict the subject in question to be under any constraints whatsoever. In fact, he appears to be content and in excellent spirits.»
«Sam, you belong in a room made of thick sponge rubber! Hasn’t the enormity of what you did made even a dent in your moral armor?»
«The crosses I bear are heavy, indeed, Aaron.»
«That’s not the most appropriate allusion you could employ… I don’t really want to know, but how did you ever get—him—back to Rome?»
«Mac and Zio worked it out. The Hawk called it a ‘very back-channel’ mission, and Zio began singing opera.»
«I’m exhausted,» whispered Pinkus. «I could only wish this day never happened, that I had not heard a word uttered in this room and that my sight had deserted me.»
«How do you think I feel every day of my life? The eternal love of my life is gone, but I’ve learned something, Aaron. Life must go on!»
«How uniquely phrased.»
«I mean it, it’s over. It’s all in the past, and in a way, I’m glad today did happen. Somehow, it’s freed me. Now I have to get off my ass and charge ahead, knowing that slugworm son of a bitch can never touch me again!»
And, of course, the telephone rang.
«If that’s the office, I’m in temple,» said Pinkus. «I’m not prepared for the outside world.»
«I’ll get it,» said Sam, rising and heading for the desk as the phone rang again. «Mother’s up here—sort of—and it’s better Cora doesn’t answer. You know, Aaron, now that it’s all out in the open, I really feel better. With your support, I know I can charge ahead and face new challenges, find new horizons—»
«Answer the damn thing, Sammy. My head is splitting.»