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t sack. That’s how the game is played.”
She bit her lip and looked away for a second. “I don’t think I like this game,” she said.
“We don’t get to choose. We just got to play it out to the end. And god-damn it, Monique!” I said, and I felt it ripping through me and filling me up to giant size, like one of those Macy’s parade balloons. “We will fucking win this game!”
Monique just looked at me. “How?” she said.
Well, there it was. Just one stupid syllable, and I felt all the air go out of me. “How.” Fucked if I knew how.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I will find a way.”
“Because there’s always a way?” she said, and it was as close to a sneer as I’d ever seen from Monique.
“Yes, goddamn it,” I said. “There is always a way.” And I tried to sound like I really meant it.
“Not this time,” she said. “This time? It just plain can’t be done.”
I had a feeling she was right. But what the fuck. Riley’s Thirteenth Law: You play the cards you’re dealt. “We have to try,” I said.
“And it’s we again,” she snarled.
I just nodded. “It’s we,” I said. “But this next part? I think you’re gonna like it.”
15
The Vatican gets six million visitors every year. In the summer, as many as twenty thousand people every day crowd through the square and into the various artistic and spiritual attractions. And Vatican City is small—only about two-tenths-of-an-acre square. That’s one-eighth the size of Central Park in Manhattan. So for anyone to stand out when the normal crowd is crammed into a small area like that, they have to be truly unusual.
The nice young couple from Canada was not at all out of the ordinary. They seemed like typical tourists and they attracted no notice at all. A few years ago they might have, if only because he was white and she was black. But that’s no longer odd enough to make anyone stare. Their looks were nothing unusual, either. She wore her hair in an Angela Davis Afro with a pair of large black-framed glasses perched on her nose. He had a bushy mustache that did not quite hide a scarred upper lip, the apparent remains of a cleft palate. His bright red T-shirt—it read “GO HABS” in large white letters—was a little too small and stretched over a bit of a paunch. They both wore khaki-colored cargo shorts and carried small backpacks; his was red, of course, and hers was a more demure blue.
To all appearances, they were nothing more than ordinary tourists, here to take in the extraordinary sights of Vatican City. So as they strolled through the square and on into the basilica holding hands, they got no more than a passing glance from anybody—not even the ever-vigilant guards of the Gendarmerie, and the occasional hard-eyed man of the Pontifical Swiss Guard.
The couple spent a long time staring at St. Peter’s Baldachin before they moved on, crossed the plaza to the Apostolic Palace, and went in. They lingered and looked at most of the spectacular artworks, gazing with rapt expressions. But when they got up to the third floor and started through the Stanze di Raffaello, they slowed down even more.
And who wouldn’t? The stanze are one of the great wonders of the art world. There are four large rooms that Raphael adorned with his genius. They are truly breathtaking, and anyone with an eye for great art can certainly be forgiven for lingering. The Canadian couple did linger—but they lingered a great deal longer at one particular work in the Room of Heliodorus. They stood in front of it for a very long time, whispering to each other and pointing at different parts and even taking photographs. Lots of photographs. They even used an actual camera, a rare sight in this smartphone age. But again, not so rare as to draw any attention.
Eventually, the man looked up, appearing somewhat startled at how much time had passed. He took the woman by the hand and led her away, and the young couple vanished into the crowd.
* * *
—
Wow,” Monique said. At least, that’s what I thought she said. She had this dreamy, blown-away look on her face, and “wow” would definitely go with it. But it came out more like “mowf.” She frowned and pulled the fake buckteeth out of her mouth. “I mean, ‘wow,’” she said. It’s always nice to be right. She glared at the fake teeth. “I fucking hate these things,” she said.
“Necessary,” I said. “Nobody will remember what you look like—just that poor girl with the huge fucking teeth.” I looked as innocent and serious as I could and added, “Besides, they kept you quiet, and that was kind of—” I stopped talking and ducked, because Monique threw the teeth at me.
“Fuck off, Riley,” she said. But she went right back to looking impressed and happy. “But damn,” she said. “That was amazing! I mean, yeah, I know Raphael is great, his frescoes are fabulous, blah blah blah. I got all that from school and the books—but to see it right in front of you like that—to get right up into the colors and all, it was just—wow.”
I nodded. I was impressed, too. The Stanze di Raffaello were enough to impress anybody, unless they were a total brick-head. Four rooms strung together, like pearls on a string, and all four of them festooned with fresco after mind-blowing fresco. And the best of them all, in my humble opinion, was my target, The Liberation of St. Peter. I would have stared at it for hours even if I wasn’t trying to figure out how to make it portable.
Not that the other frescoes were kindergarten finger painting. They were every bit as beautiful. Just looking at them up close was maybe one of the best ways to spend a day ever. Or anyway, a close second to a day in the sack with Monique. Which she still swore was never going to happen again, so for now, taking in the frescoes was very all right. And then Liberation—when I saw that from just a few feet away, it was almost enough to make me sympathize with Boniface. Almost. It was just incredible. But even without the “almost,” if I totally agreed with the bastard that the fresco was just too wonderful to be wasted on the Vatican and really ought to be on the wall of a cave in the middle of the Indian fucking Ocean—that still left a small but kind of important detail. Like, how the fuck did I make that happen?
But at least the gorgeous spectacle had distracted Monique. And not just the frescoes; the art treasures they have in the Vatican are so fucking awesome you just have to stop and stare while your eyes pop out of your head. For somebody like me it was like the best birthday party ever. And Monique was just as crazy about art as I was, maybe more so. For a lot of reasons, it was good to see her light up like that. I mean, I like her and all, but she’s a lot easier to be around when she’s happy. And she’d been in an all-time shitty mood this whole trip to Rome. I was paying for it and everything, and it was first-class all the way. And all she could do was snarl and smack me. No shit—my arm was purple from where she’d been slugging me. So whatever made her forget how pissed off she was, even if it was just for a little while, it was worth it.
For me, it was impossible to forget. Even strolling through the Apostolic Palace and seeing all the incredible artwork—while half of me was going, “Holy shit, lookit that!” the other half was going, “Holy shit—how the fuck am I going to pull this one off?” And coming up with nothing at all. Not even a hint. Not even a clunky idea that I tossed out after one quick look. Nothing. Because it was just plain old-fashioned fuck-me-dead-it-can’t-be-done impossible.
It had been a lot easier for me to think about it without Monique battering my arm and snarling at me. Which, to be honest, was the main reason I had given her the buckteeth. I figured that out of all the disguises I could have given her, this one would at least keep her quiet. And it did.
Which she was making up for now. She was still riding the high of being right up in the grille of some of the greatest paintings ever, bubbling on like somebody had put Molly in her water bottle. In fact, she was so high that she was taking off the rest of her disguise as she blathered. I mean, right there in front of me, the T-shirt was off, and we were down to the black, lacy bra and totally unaware o
