10.
At the bottom of the landing, my gun gripped in my left hand, I open the front door, stick my head out like a rabbit peeking out of its hole. Look both ways down and up the Via Guelfa. No one in either direction. No one who appears to be an immediate threat anyway.
But this ancient street is bordered on both sides by four and five-story brick and plaster buildings with shuttered windows every few feet. The street fighting here during World War Two was ferocious since it was so easy to hide and find cover behind those five hundred year old walls. If you were caught by the enemy alone and unprotected in the street unawares, you were dead.
I take Anya by the hand, lead her out onto the street. Just a couple of sitting ducks looking for a safe haven.
“Where are we going?” she begs, as I re-holster my gun and as she pulls her hand from mine. “I’m not a child.”
“Good, that means I don’t have to treat you like one.”
“Go to hell, Chase.”
“I’d have to die first. And I’m doing my best to prevent you from causing that to happen.”
“Told you, you can quit any time you want.”
“And I told you I’m already in too deep. Just ask that Vatican asshole bleeding all over my vestibule floor.”
“I’m sure if there wasn’t a substantial amount of money in this for you, you’d be quit by now.”
I turn to her, smile.
“Money sings. And I love music.”
We round the corner onto the Via Nazionale, then negotiate our way through the throngs of tourists, natives, cars, trucks, and scooters until we come to Via Faenza. We hook a right at the corner gelato joint and cover maybe fifty meters over a winding cobble road before I stop outside a guesthouse called Il Ghiro. I depress the intercom button that’s embedded into the stone wall beside the tall green door.
“Ciao,” comes a tinny male voice. “Can I help you?”
“Checco,” I say into the intercom. “It’s me, Chase.”
“Chase!” barks the voice. “Come stai?!”
“Friend of yours, Ren Man?” Anya says, not without sarcasm in her voice.
I shoot her a glance.
“A friend who will help us and just maybe save your life….My life…Your husband’s life inevitably. He might even locate my dog for me.” Looking her in the eye. “But he doesn’t come cheap.”
“I get it,” she says. “But if you feel he’s necessary.”
Back at the intercom.
“I’m not so good right now, Checco,” I say. “Need your help.”
“Come up,” he says. “Come, venire.”
The old wood door opens with the loud mechanical release of its bolt.
“After you, precious,” I say to Anya.
“At least you got one thing right,” she says, stepping inside.
I follow, the door slamming like a prison gate behind us.
Set before us is a long corridor beset by cold plaster walls on both sides. There’s a staircase at the very end.
“All the way up,” I say. “Five floors.”
Without a word, Anya begins her climb. So do I.
Checco is already waiting for us on the stone landing at the top of the stairs, illuminated in the late day sunlight that leaks in from the overhead skylight. He’s a man in his mid-forties, taller than average height, but possessing the thin, wiry build of a marathon runner, which he is. His black hair is thinning and when he skips a day shaving, noticeable signs of salt begin to pop up out of his smooth cheeks along with the pepper. But his mannerisms, unstoppable optimism, and constant smile give away the perpetual boy inside of him. He is also one of the most expeditious fixers I know working this side of the Atlantic inside a guesthouse called Il Ghiro, but which is really just a front created by whatever organization or organizations he works for. And like I said, he doesn’t come cheap.
Anya steps up on the landing beside me, and I can’t help but notice Checco’s eyes go wide. He takes her hand and, like David Niven would in some 1940’s Hollywood production, kisses it.
“Enchanted,” he says in his perfect but accented King’s English.
Anya returns her smile, slowly lowers her hand.
“A real gentleman,” she says, her eyes on me. “You might take a lesson from Checco, Ren Man.”
I slap the Italian on the arm.
“Thanks for making me look bad.”
“Nothing to it,” Checco laughs. “You do a very good job of it on your own.”
“We don’t have a whole lot of time,” I say, cutting to the chase.
“What is it precisely you need?” Checco asks.
“I’ll tell you when we get inside. Preferably, over a couple of drinks.”
“You both look like you could use more than a couple drinks,” he says.
A half hour and two glasses of Chianti later, I’ve explained everything I know to Checco. I’ve told him about the missing professor and how Detective Cipriani personally handed me the case after threatening me with deportation. I also told him how Anya, Manion’s estranged wife, showed up at my door a few hours ago and how we haven’t had a moment of peace since, including a soldier of the Vatican making an attempt on our lives. I told him everything.
“Don’t worry about your dog,” Checco says, coming around to his desk inside the fifth floor guest house office. “I promise you we will find her and bring her back here. But before all else, we need to get that man out of your apartment before Detective Cipriani’s officers in blue get to snooping.”
“That is if his own people haven’t already done it for him. Assuming he isn’t working solo, that is.”
“Very true,” he says, logging onto his laptop computer. “Unfortunately it would not be a very good idea for you to head back there and make a check on the place. Too dangerous. I’ll send one of my own men.”
“Second thing?” I pose.
He smiles. “The Shroud,” he says, as if reading my mind. “You want to get an up-front-and-personal visit with one of the most protected sacred relics in the Roman Catholic canon.”
“Can it be done?”
Checco sits back in his swivel chair, cathedrals his fingers at the knuckles, rests them in his lap.
“It’s possible,” he nods. Then, smiling, “Do you recall my old girlfriend, Natalia?”
“From Moscow,” I say, picturing a tall, beautifully built long-haired blond woman of about thirty. “How could I forget her?”
“Boys,” Anya whispers, crossing her arms over her chest.
“She is a curator for the shroud,” he says. “I will call her. See what I can arrange. But no promises.” He stands. “In the meantime, you need a place to rest and I need to gather up some transport tickets for you. Train and air. I’ll need both your passports.”
We hand them to him. He pulls a key from the drawer, comes around his desk.
“I only have one room available,” he says, not without a grin. “I’m sorry.”
“Suits me,” I say, tossing him a wink.
“Spare me, Chase,” Anya says. “You wouldn’t know where to begin with me even if you had the chance.”
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