We shook hands, and I chalked it up to the long night that Cipriano didn’t notice Abe palm one of the skeleton keys. You gotta love a thief. Especially when he’s your thief.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“No I ain’t,” was Abe’s response when I informed him he was in deep trouble. We were in our room at the German College, and I’d done my best to set up the interrogation. Kaz in a chair by the door, me in a comfortable armchair, and Abe in the corner. I’d told him to sit on the edge of the bed, thinking that would put me above him. Evidently he’d been in a few interrogation rooms himself, and responded by lying down, plumping the pillow, and crossing his clodhoppers on my clean blanket. “You got nothin’ on me. No authority, and them Holy Joes is about to hand the both of youse yer walkin’ papers. You got trouble, pal, not me.”
“Why were you breaking into the storeroom?”
“I didn’t break nothing. I opened the door,” Abe said.
“With the picks you made from the metal scraps on the tool bench,” I said. “Guy like you, Abe, you could make a set of picks out of most anything. But they gave you tools, everything you needed. It was almost criminal of them, leaving all that stuff around.”
“Don’t know what you mean. Now you tell me, who the hell are you guys? You ain’t no priests.”
“We are Allied agents,” Kaz said, “sent here to find out who killed Monsignor Corrigan. General Eisenhower wants any illegal activity among Allied forces sheltered in the Vatican dealt with swiftly.”
“And we’re short on suspects, Abe. Maybe it was you, skulking around at night. Did Corrigan find out you were stealing from the refugees?” We were both laying it on a bit thick, but I wanted Abe to think he was in Dutch.
“You two? Don’t make me laugh. If you’re here investigatin’, how come you ain’t come up with anything better?”
“We have suspects,” Kaz said, doing a good job of not sounding defensive.
“Yeah, well I hope that bastard Zlatko is one of them.”
“You’ve run into him?”
“If I had, I woulda clocked him, bishop or not. He oughta be wearing a Nazi uniform, him bein’ pals with those Croat Ustashi. Bloodthirsty don’t begin to describe them. We got briefed on the situation in Yugoslavia, on accounta we flew over the place. How to tell who was on which side, that sorta thing.”
“Won’t argue with you about the bishop, Abe,” I said. “Tell me about Brackett.”
“What about him?”
“Anything unusual. He an okay guy?”
“Yeah, sure. Hot and cold, you know? Sometimes real friendly, other times he’ll walk right by you, or light into you for nuttin’ at all. He and Zlatko didn’t get along, not that I’d expect them to be pals.” Abe stuffed his hands in his pockets as he eyed the locked door. I could tell it made him nervous, being shut in here with a cop.
“What do you mean?”
“He and the bishop were yellin’ at each other, coupla nights ago, in the gardens. I was on my way to see Rosana, so I was kinda hiding in the shrubbery.”
“What were they arguing about?” I asked.
“This sounds crazy, but I think they were goin’ on about boats. I swear Brackett said ‘rudder’ a coupla times. I dunno, bein’ cooped up here so long probably got to him.”
“Yeah,” I said, exchanging glances with Kaz. This was top-secret stuff, and there was no reason to let Abe know it meant anything. “Now, tell me about the woman in the gardener’s cottage.”
“Jeez,” Abe said. “You know about Rosana?”
“That’s who you swiped the extra food for, right? Beautiful widow, why not? She must have been real glad, huh?”
“You shut your mouth!” Abe was up in a flash and had his hand at my throat. “Shut your damn mouth before I shut it for you. It wasn’t nothin’ like that.”
“Your reaction does you credit,” Kaz said, grabbing Abe by the arm. “But now let Billy go.” He did, then sat on the edge of the bed, glaring at me.
“Sorry, Abe, I was trying to get a rise out of you. So what’s the story?”
“Yeah, well, I forgot you said you’d been a cop. I shouldn’ta fallen for it. I met Rosana the first day she was here. That Irish monsignor, he was bringing her to Nini. You know she’s sweet on you, don’tcha?” He directed that last bit to Kaz.
“How do you know? Did she say anything?” Kaz asked, dropping the hardcase Allied agent stance.
“I got eyes. Anyway, I saw Rosana was scared, and I happened to have some extra chocolate on me. So I gave it to her for the kids. She looked at me kinda funny, then started crying. Not sad, ya know, but the kinda tears that come when you can’t believe how good you got it. Here she was, on the run from the Nazis, two kids in tow, husband dead, and all of a sudden she’s safe on neutral territory, and an American flyboy walks up and gives her chocolate. Still gets me.”
“You started calling on her?”
“Yeah, but I couldn’t be obvious about it. They don’t want too many people wandering around here. Some of the cardinals might get their noses bent outta shape, especially if they have to cross paths with a Jew. I ain’t complaining about the Church or nothin’, I probably owe my life to them. But it’s human nature, know what I mean? You stick with your own kind, like back home.”
“Sure,” I said. “Now tell me, Abe. You good at what you do?”
“Hell yeah. I’m an armorer-gunner on a B-17. It’s a big responsibility. Got two probable kills.”
“That’s not the job I mean.”
“Okay, okay. You caught me with the goods, so I guess I oughta spill. Like I said, I got eyes. I saw all that food going down those steps, so one day I take a look. When I saw that workbench, I knew it’d be a snap. Made a coupla picks, got in, and took a little, to take the edge off, you know?” He raised his eyebrows and tilted his head, as if the theft had been nothing but a prank.
“That’s where the chocolate came from,” I said.
“Yeah. I wanted to see Rosana again, and I figured with a mug like mine I should come bearin’ gifts. So I got a little more, and pretty soon she thinks I’m really something. She don’t know nothin’ about it, either. You ain’t gonna get her in trouble over this, are you?”
“No, we got no beef with her. Or with you, personally, Abe. But you’re facing serious charges.”
“Billy,” Kaz said, with a perplexed look on his face. “Will the American Army charges be worse than the Italian charges?”
“Well, there’s looting. The army doesn’t like it when enlisted men loot. Doesn’t leave as much for the officers. But breaking and entering in Vatican City, that’s a new one on me. Either one could mean a lot of time breaking rocks. Be a shame to damage those fingers, Abe.”
“Are you guys gonna bust my balls all day or get to the point?” Abe said.
“We need your special skills, Abe,” I said. “Tomorrow we’re going to go sightseeing, down to the Tiber River. We’ll find you a nice suit to wear.”
“What you’re saying is you want me to break into some joint in Rome, which is swarming with Krauts, while wearing civilian clothes. So if they don’t shoot me once for bein’ a Jew, they can shoot me twice for bein’ a spy.”
“We can get into the joint okay,” I said. “But we need a door unlocked inside. You do that, we stroll back here, and everything is forgiven and forgotten.”
“Well,” Abe said, taking a minute to think it over. “I ain’t seen Rome except from thirty thousand feet. I guess I could stretch my legs. What kinda place we goin’ into?”
“The Regina Coeli prison.”
Abe’s eyes widened. “No thanks, I’ll take my chances busting rocks for twenty years. Are you nuts? That’s the one place everyone wants to avoid, and you’re thinkin’ of waltzing in there? How you gonna manage that?”
“We have an in,” I said. “A guy who has the run of the prison. And a guard who’s been paid off. We walk in,
