Day of Confession - Allan Folsom [181]
Adjusting the camera bag over her shoulder, she walked quickly across a small courtyard and out into a convergence of tended walkways, lawns, and ornamental hedges that was one of the many entrances to the Vatican gardens. Ahead, on her right, was the split stairway rising to the Fountain of the Sacrament.
She moved toward it quickly but carefully, looking around every so often as if unsure where she was going, knowing that if she was stopped she would say simply that she had taken a wrong door from the museums and was lost.
Climbing the stairs to the right, she entered the area of the fountain proper and turned right again to see a number of large planters near the base of a conifer. Again, she looked around, puzzled, as if she were indeed lost. Then, seeing no one, she took a black nylon waist pack from her camera case and tucked it carefully behind the planters at the base of the tree. Standing, she looked around once more, and went back the way she had come, passing through the courtyard, then pulling open the door and peeling the tape from the latch. Reentering the building, she let the door close behind her, and then took the stairs to the second floor.
144
9:40 A.M.
DANNY OPENED THE DOOR TO THE MEN’S room stall cautiously and peered out. Two men stood at urinals, another was picking his teeth in the mirror. Opening the stall door wider, he wheeled himself to the men’s room door and tried to push it open. It didn’t work. Someone was on the other side trying to come in. Danny looked back. The other men were still there. Neither was watching him.
“Hey!” A voice came from the far side of the door.
Danny moved back, not knowing what to expect, his hand going to the camera bag to fling it if he had to.
The door swung open and another man in a wheelchair came through from the other side—the American from the shuttle bus, wearing the L.A. Dodgers cap. The man stopped dead in the doorway, the two of them chair to chair facing each other.
“You really a Yankees fan?” The man was looking at his baseball cap, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. “You are, you’re crazy.”
Danny looked past him into the hallway. People moved back and forth in a steady stream. Where was Elena? They were on a tight clock. Harry would already be outside crossing the Vatican gardens looking for the waist pack.
“I just like baseball. I collect a lot of caps.” Danny moved his wheelchair back. “You come in. I’ll go out.”
“What teams you like?” The man didn’t budge. “Come on, talk the game. Tell me the teams. Which league, American or National?”
Suddenly Elena appeared in the hallway behind the Dodgers fan.
Danny looked at the man and shrugged. “Since we’re in the Vatican I guess I ought to pick the Padres as my favorite…. I’m sorry, I have to go.”
The man grinned broadly. “Why, sure, pal, go ahead.” Abruptly he pushed into the men’s room and Danny went out.
Elena took the wheelchair and they started off. Then suddenly Danny put his hand on the wheels, slowing the chair.
“Stop,” he said.
Eaton and Adrianna Hall were crossing at the far end of the hallway in a crowd, alert, moving quickly, looking for someone.
Danny looked over his shoulder at Elena. “Turn around, go the other way.”
145
IF THERE HAD BEEN A PHONE BOOTH HARRY would have felt like Superman. There was no phone booth, just a low wall with dense shrubbery behind it across the roadway from St. Peter’s where he’d come out. It was here he ducked out of sight and stripped off the beret and priest’s clothing, revealing the chinos and work shirt underneath.
Then, burying the priest’s outfit in the thick of the bushes, he scooped up a handful of the powdery dirt at his feet and dusted it over his chest, rubbing the remainder off on his thighs. Then he moved from the bushes, waited for a small black Fiat to pass on the narrow roadway and stepped out, hoping to hell he looked enough like a gardener to pass if anyone saw him.
Resolutely, he