I, Saul (20 page)

When Augie found his voice, he rasped, “What are you saying, Rog? Original manuscripts?”

Roger nodded, eyes darting. He looked as if he hadn't slept in days.

“Of which epistles?”

Roger waved him off, leaning close. “Listen, you're the Greek expert. I know just enough to be dangerous. But from what Giordano showed me and from what I could decipher—.”

“Klaudios knew his Ancient Greek.”

“He sure did. And neither of us doubted that what he stole was a personal memoir. It begins, ‘I, Saul …,' and from what I can make of it, it tells Paul's story from his childhood. Augie, I believe it's written in his own hand.”

Augie sat back, nervous about who might be watching. “You think Klaudios stashed it before he was—.”

“I know he did, Augie. I told him to. I know there are forgeries of lots of stuff claimed to be first-century documents and are eventually traced to centuries later, but who else but Paul himself would have written something like this and stored it there? It's real, man, and that makes it, well, you know ….”

“If it's authentic, Rog, it's the single most priceless artifact ever uncovered. I mean, the Dead Sea Scrolls are dusty, crumbling fragments, and look what they've become.”

“You've got to see these. I don't know what it was about the underground humidity, the tufa, or what, but the ink has hardly faded, and every word is readable. The work is pristine. Stunning. If the parchments can be dated by an expert, that'll seal it for me.”

“That's out of my field, but come on, Roger. No fading after almost two thousand years?”

“Some, sure, but it's totally readable. We'll have to find an expert we can trust. I can't imagine Paul intended to store it for centuries, but he couldn't have picked a more perfect spot.”

Augie shuddered at the possibilities. “Could it really be legit?”

“Would somebody kill a man over a fake?”

“Who killed Giordano?”

“I'm telling you, this guy from the Art Squad hired a goon from the Tombaroli. And I'll be next.” “Please ….”

“It was professionally done, Augie. One twenty-two slug through the temple at point-blank range. The coroner says it was one of those cheap, lightweight, slow bullets propelled by just a primer, used for plinking at stuff like small rodents. He said the weapon would have to
have been placed directly on the temple for the tiny slug to have kill power.”

“Where was this done?”

“Carport outside the Giordanos' apartment. Witnesses said they saw a tall dark-haired man in a suit chatting with Klaudios through the driver's-side window just after he had parked. Then they saw the man casually walk away, so they didn't think to get a good look at his car or plate. Said Klaudios just sat in his car after that.”

“Already dead.”

Roger nodded. “Mrs. G. saw her husband's car in the usual spot from her window, but when Klaudios never came up and didn't answer his cell, she went down and found him. Can you imagine? Tiny hole in his temple, no exit wound. All the bleeding was internal.”

“Had to kill him instantly,” Augie said, “even a tiny bullet like that, through the brain.”

“Professional. Hired gun for sure.”

“But it doesn't make sense the Art Squad would kill him. Just arrest him and get the manuscript back. Back up and tell me how you got involved.”

“Well, Klaudios had to know it wouldn't take long for the Art Squad to discover nothing was still in the dungeon the next morning, and of course the construction guys would tell them he'd been down there. So he called me that night. He said, ‘You know who this is. My office. Now.' I'd just returned from a tour and was in for the night, so I had no interest in getting dressed and heading out again. I called him back and he didn't even greet me. Just said, ‘Now. This is nonnegotiable.' He's an old friend and had referred a lot of people to me for trips—.”

“Me too.”

“—so I owed him. As soon as I get to that arched hallway that leads
to his office, he grabs me and drags me in there. Shows me those first few pages. He's got cotton gloves for both of us, and he handles those parchments like glass. I don't know Ancient Greek, but it took him a couple of hours to work his way through just the first few sheets of parchment. It looked real to me, and if his translation is right, it sounded like it would corroborate everything Paul wrote in the New Testament. That tells me that when he gets to the part about his missionary journeys, all those age-old arguments about which letters he really wrote and whether his theology was changed later by scribes— all that—will be put to rest.”

Augie studied this hollow, desperate shell of the man he knew. “And you'll have to reexamine everything you've thought about the Bible.”

“If I can stay alive long enough. This is my fault, Augie. You know me. I'm not about money, the big score. Poor old Giordano had stars in his eyes. I told him he had to go straight to the Art Squad and tell them what he had before they came looking for him—like your father did here once years ago when one of his tour group members found a coin and wanted to keep it.”

“Sounds like Dad,” Augie said. “A legalist through and through.”

“I told Klaudios there might be a reward in it for him. He laughed. Said, ‘Roger! I stole these out of a historical site! My reward will be the rest of my life in prison.' I told him, ‘Just tell ‘em you were curious and as soon as you saw what it was, you knew it shouldn't sit in Mamertime a minute longer. You'll be a hero.' He didn't want to be a hero. He wanted to be rich. Said he was going to hide the parchments, deny he ever saw them in the prison, and then make a killing on them when the dust settled. He said, ‘You and I are the only ones who know what this is.'

“I asked him why he didn't leave something there so the Art Squad would think that was all. You know he actually considered going back
and planting something else? Wanted me to go with him. I told him he was crazy.”

“Rog, I need to know what happened. How did he get himself

killed?”

Roger looked up quickly and blanched. Augie turned carefully to follow his gaze and saw carabinieri huddling near the tracks, then fanning out.

Each carried a sheet of paper they seemed to compare to every middle-aged man who passed.

“We've got to get out of here,” Roger said.

Augie put a hand on Roger's arm. “Don't draw attention. We're just nobodies, travelers. We're not in a hurry. We're not worried about anything.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“If you've ever playacted, Roger, now's the time.”

Augie rose and Roger followed. Most of the carabinieri seemed to head for the platforms, but strangely they seemed interested only in the departing trains. “If they're looking for you,” Augie said, “why do they think you're here and headed somewhere else?”

“No idea, but we'd better hurry.”

“Slow down, Rog. Look at this shop. Aren't those toys interesting?” “Augie, what the—?”

“We're blending in, man. Breathe. If a cop checks you out, just smile. Where's your car?”

“The big lot, out back.”

“Linger a little longer, then just stroll that way. I'll stay with you.”

Roger seemed to struggle to remain nonchalant, and less than a half minute later he began moseying toward the escalator that would take them to street level and the parking lot. Augie saw him hesitate at the
sight of an officer at the base of the moving stairway. Roger whispered, “If necessary, call me François.”

What?
When he put a hand on Roger's back to urge him to keep moving, he felt knotted muscles.

Augie stepped in front of Roger, then smiled and nodded at the officer while approaching the escalator. The cop stopped him, thrust in his face a photo of the Roger Michaels he had known for years, and said,
“Avete visto quest'uomo?”

Augie spread his hands, palms up. “No Italian. English.”

“Have you seen this man?” the officer said, carefully enunciating with a thick accent.

“Il mio amico Americano sa molto poco Italiano,”
Roger said, stunning Augie by speaking Italian with a thick French accent. Roger was multilingual, but what was this?

“You speak English?” the cop asked Roger.

“Oui. Un peu.”

“A little, huh,” the cop said. “As your American friend speaks very little Italian, and I speak very little French, we will speak English then. Okay?” He pointed to the photo. “We're looking for this man.”

“Why?” Roger said, accent still thick. “What's he done?”

“He's just wanted for questioning” He turned to Augie. “Passport, please.”