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“I just don’t know,” she said.
“You don’t have to,” I said. “I know. And what I know is you’ll be fine.”
“But that’s—you can’t just—”
“Yes, I can,” I said. “All you have to do is that art part. Leave the talking and all the other shit to me. Anybody says something to you, use your German on them.” She spoke nearly perfect German, with a Bavarian accent. I never got that, but she said German went with doing art history, which is what she did back when she was legit, so okay.
“Yeah, I know, but still,” she said.
I sighed. “What do you want, a hug? Want me to hold your hand and say ‘there, there’?”
“Hell, no,” she said.
“It is dangerous. We know that. But I’ve done shit that was twice as dangerous a hundred times.” Kind of a lie; it had never been this dangerous before. But she needed to hear a pep talk. “We got a plan, Monique. We know who we are and what we’re doing and all we got to do is do it.”
She sighed. “Yeah, I guess. Okay,” she said. She took a last look in the mirror, straightened up, and said, “I better finish packing.”
She went out of the room a little happier, and I turned back to the mirror and tried to get my concentration back. I put the music back on, starting Tupac from the beginning.
Five minutes later it was Iron Maiden, “Hallowed Be Thy Name,” and I was working on my hair. I’d grown it out, dyed it, and I was going for that carefully styled shaggy look. Just exactly the way New Me would want his hair—my hair. First, get the bangs carefully but casually off to the side, and then—
“Riley, do you like this top? I mean, with this jacket? I’m not sure it says Me. Yes, I know, I mean New Me—but just the same, I don’t know—the colors? Or maybe the cut?”
Monique again, of course. Costume question this time—and that was something she was always in charge of, even when I went solo, so why ask me? I know she was nervous—shit, I was nervous, too, and this was what I did. But I’d thought it was all settled. And I needed to do Me, without interruptions, without ruining the ritual. Maybe it sounds goofy, but that’s how it is. I have to have the ritual, because I’ve always done it, and I’ve always won.
And this time, when it mattered more than ever, Monique was breaking the magic.
We settled the shirt thing. A few minutes later it was the shoes. And then should she bring something super dressy, in case we went back to that fancy restaurant. It went like that until it was time to go to the airport, and I never did get to finish up the Ritual. I had to hurry through the change like I’d never done before, not sure if it was going to work. I mean, I got all the pieces on, I looked different, I knew I could talk different, but it all felt phony, unnatural, because I hadn’t done the Ritual.
And as we hustled into a cab and headed for the airport, I couldn’t shake a really horrible feeling that because I hadn’t done it, the whole thing was going to turn to shit.
31
Father Matteo loved his job. It is true that it was not, strictly speaking, an exalted position, especially for someone with his background and education. Like many Jesuits, he was highly educated and accomplished in his field. But unlike some in his order, and many more in the secular population, he had never really cared about the measuring sticks that others might apply to life. He had his own priorities, and they were God, art, and humanity, in that order. And so he was very happy to be here, in the Vatican, in his current position. As assistant curator in charge of murals and frescoes, he could serve all three concerns simultaneously.
He was happy enough, in fact, that he often found himself humming quietly as he went on his daily rounds. He was humming now; not an “Agnus Dei” or any other religious tune. He was humming Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud,” a song he’d heard his niece singing. He had thought it was a nice song, the lyrics showed a laudable sentiment, and in any case the melody had become permanently lodged in his head—what he’d heard his niece call an earworm.
So he was quite happy as he strolled through the Stanze di Raffaello, and if anyone thought it was unusual to see a priest humming Ed Sheeran, they didn’t say so.
His contentment continued as he walked through the first and second of the Raphael rooms, pausing now and then to gaze in awe at the magnificent frescoes, as he always did, or to answer some tourist’s questions in one of the five languages he spoke. He loved the Raphael rooms; they were really quite overwhelmingly beautiful. Even now, even to Father Matteo, who saw them every day. The astonishing, glorious images on all the walls, the ceiling, virtually everywhere, the superb work of a great artist in his prime, covering every surface in an unbelievable blaze of splendor. And still, after five years in this job, Father Matteo marveled at the beauty of Raphael’s work.
And so he was, perhaps, a little light-headed when he crossed the black-and-white marble floor toward the Stanza di Eliodoro and saw the usually animated flock of gawkers flooding back toward him—all of them.
In a very great hurry.
For only a moment, Father Matteo gaped, wondering why anyone would flee from Raphael—and then he smelled smoke.
Smoke—from the very next one of the Raphael rooms. And smoke meant fire. Unthinkable—not here, in the heart of the great museo—and only one floor below the Pope’s apartments! With a crowd of people in the room!
All three of Father Matteo’s loves were threatened at the same time, and he was galvanized into immediate action. Instantly, a meek, middle-aged priest was transformed into a superhero, and Father Matteo charged into the Room of Heliodorus.
And skidded to a stop just as quickly.
Two men stood on the white marble bench that framed one of the room’s two windows. At their feet squatted some kind of dark metal pot. From the pot, a thick and greasy plume of black smoke was pouring upward, coiling toward the ceiling—and toward the wonderful fresco above the window, as well. Already Father Matteo could see dark smudges forming on that fresco.
“No,” the priest moaned.
The two men snapped their heads around and glared at him. “Yes, Father!” one of them snarled in Spanish. He was a swarthy, heavyset man with an intimidating scowl. His partner was thin, smaller, but just as ferocious-looking. “And unless we get an immediate audience with the Holy Father—we will destroy all the paintings in this room!”
