In the service of his country, the frustrated thespian had resurrected talents submerged by his fright-induced vow. That his skills facilitated the executions of criminals-condemned-without-trial was a mere accident of fate. His only regret was having to use what he knew against gullible youngsters like Marcello Pontieri, Elli Vander Hoorst, and Teddy Barton.
Kids are too easy to fool. A clumsy oaf in Rome. A disoriented tourist in Amsterdam. And now . . . . He touched the inside breast pocket of his jacket, which held the fake policeman's badge he had purchased in a pawn shop on Ellis Street. An official-looking leather case, along with a fabricated ID completed the package. A quick flash of the shield and the Barton boy would spill whatever he knew of Father de Córdova's plans.
22
When Leah returned home after dropping Monica at practice, she found Jay staring out the window of the upstairs guest room. "I saw you drive in," he said without turning around. "I'm worried. It may not be safe for the children to be out."
"I can't keep them locked up!" She stuffed yet another explosive feeling into a corner of her overloaded heart.
How much longer she could keep the lid on this turbulent mix? "If I alter their normal routines, they'll want to know why. I'm not ready to explain."
"You're right, of course," Jay apologized. "It's getting harder by the minute to separate my life from yours and Teddy's and Monica's."
Leah moved to the window and stood beside him. She resisted an urge to slip her arm around his waist. For the moment, detachment was a more trustworthy ally than comfort. "We need to talk. It's impossible when the children are around."
Jay nodded. "I can see that."
Leah noticed a FOR RENT sign taped to the second floor apartment window directly across the street. The drawn shade blocked any view of the flat's cold secrets. "What do we do?"
Jay faced her. He appeared agitated, but so was she. Overnight, her world had crashed down upon her head. "First, there's something I must tell you. I've made many mistakes in my life, but none so great as the one I made when I let you get on that plane in Santa Catalina."
"Jay--"
He cut off her objection and rushed on. "I've paid for that blunder with countless tortured nights spent wanting you. I've berated myself and envied Walter Barton, the fortunate beneficiary of my cowardice and stupidity."
Jay's confession had the ring of truth and time. Leah believed he had spent years preparing this speech, honing its fine points, editing each phrase. They moved away from the window and sat side by side on the edge of the bed. When her left thigh grazed his leg, she ignored an inner warning to break contact. I can go this far, she told herself, and still maintain the distance I need. Distance. A contradictory concept. Bedrooms invited intimacy.
"We've both made decisions and commitments," she said. "We've lived with them the best we could. I've never regretted mine."
Jay was obviously more willing than she to set aside the peril of the moment. She had one agenda: save Teddy. Jay had something on his mind that, to him, seemed equally important. She didn't want to hear it. If Montenegro did to her family what he had done to the Pontieris and Vander Hoorsts, what difference did Jay's storehouse of regret and her response make anyway?
"I chose my ministry," he said with a mixture of sadness and pride.
She smiled reassurance. "I assume you've remained a good priest."
The intensity of his expression didn't change. "God knows I've tried, despite loving you. Despite my grief at losing you."
Despite loving you. Hearing Jay speak the words made it more difficult to tread the narrow line between friendship and passion. "Perhaps because of it," she suggested.
"Who knows?"
"Sounds like I got a better deal from my decisions. A happy marriage. Children." She believed Jay's confession of love and his regrets. "Your plane ticket says you're going back to your country, back to your life. 'A priest forever.' Isn't that what you Catholics say?"
"I'm not leaving!" His voice was shrill. "Don't you see the pattern? As soon as my plane lifts off the ground, I'll be signing Teddy's death warrant."
"O God!" Leah understood how inextricably their fates were linked.
"We've got to keep Angel from carrying out his mission, and we have to do it together. One more thing."
Leah's chin fell to her chest. "I don't know if I can take 'one more thing.'"
Jay went to the window. He turned toward Leah and took a deep breath. "Long before I got myself into this filthy mess, doing Montenegro's dirty work, I made another decision. I-- For my own survival as a person, I have no choice but to leave the priesthood."
A frown clouded Leah's brow. She should urge him to reconsider, but how could she make a convincing case for continuing to give his life to a Church that wouldn't acknowledge his natural desire for home and family?
Jay's revelation animated him. "I never thought I'd have a chance to tell you it was your love that opened my eyes to who I am and what I ultimately had to do. When I saw your name on the list of those I was to visit, I knew it was a sign from God. I couldn't get off the island fast enough. At last, I'd be able to share the tremendous influence you had on my decision. Up until the moment I arrived here Thursday night, I believed you were still married. When you told me Walter was dead and you haven't remarried--it was almost more than my heart could take. Even if you hated me, I had to confess my love for you and . . . ." His voice trailed away.
Tears spilled from Leah's eyes. This was the Jay she remembered. Honest. Vulnerable. Tender. She had never seen him with this much courage to face down the inner demons that held him captive. "I never hated you. I don't now. It was wrenching for me to leave Santa Teresita. I loved the people. I loved my work. Loving you made it all fit together."
For a moment, she was no longer a mother in danger of losing her beloved son. She was her younger self, basking in the warmth of their shared but illicit love.
"Then, you did love me?" he said with genuine surprise.
"Yes, but what could I do?" She laughed quietly to herself, enjoying a private joke.
"Why are you smiling, when you look so sad?"
"I remember something I first thought of in Santa Teresita. I kept telling myself that, though we couldn't be together in this life, we surely would be in our next life. Man-made boundaries wouldn't keep us apart. I've held that thought all these years. Don't ask me how you and Walter and I would get along. I suppose in heaven it all works out somehow."
Jay looked puzzled. "But within a few months you were married. Maggie Adams showed me the announcement. It took everything I had in me to wish you and Walter a happy life together. I tore up three cards before I mailed one."
"I was surprised how fast things happened, too. Maggie sent me a long, motherly letter, urging me to consider whether I was rushing into marriage on the rebound."
"Maggie knew about us?"
"Maggie knew all," Leah laughed. "She knew about us before we knew about us. The truth is, Walter was exactly what I needed not only at that moment, but throughout our marriage. It may sound strange, Jay, but can you believe that I loved you and Walter in the same degree, if not in the same way? I lost you to something much greater than I could fight, the Church. That meant forever, as far as I was concerned."
"That's what I thought, too," Jay said. "I wanted it to be forever."
"Walter proposed to me before I joined Project/SHARE. I wasn't ready to tie myself down. A year-and-a-half later, everything had changed. He was waiting when I returned to Berkeley. He was real. Flesh and blood. I never doubted the sincerity of his love for me. He was a great dad to the children."
"What was I?"
Leah didn't have to think about her answer. The image had been well-rehearsed over the years. "You were Sir Lancelot in a Camelot that existed only in my fantasies."
"Camelot was no fantasy for me," Jay said.
"Whatever I do in the future--" She searched for the right words to express her feelings. "Whate
ver happens between us, I want you to know Walt and I enjoyed a wonderful life together. I wanted it to go on forever. When he died, the score became Memories two, Realities zero."
Jay moved to Leah's side on the bed again. He laid his hand on her thigh. "I understand."
"I shouldn't say Realities zero. Walt didn't leave me with a void. He gave me Teddy and Monica. For a while, they became my whole life. Then, I added POCI. Between the children and my career, I have a full and challenging life. My children are the fresh air I breathe each night, after immersing myself all day in horror stories." Her face flushed with outrage at the Montenegros of the world and the suffering they caused. "Jay, you have no idea what it's like to read about and hear personal testimony of human rights violations of the grossest kinds. It's hard to keep my anger in check when I listen to the feeble denials and lies of spokespeople from places like El Salvador, Iran, Guatemala, the Soviet Union--"
"Santo Sangre," he added solemnly.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean--"
"It's me who's sorry. How can I ever show you just how sorry I am?"
Leah knew a way, the only way. "Help me get us out of this mess. I'll settle for that." Her icy hand trembled slightly when Jay took it between his palms, intertwining her fingers with his. His mouth explored once familiar, but long-abandoned territory. She had found again the one man who could fill the void Walt's death had created. Of all men in the world, only Jay had leave to make his dwelling place beside the warm hearth of her life. He alone held the key that could unlock the treasures she had stored and kept safe for that delayed reunion in an uncertain, hoped-for afterlife. Now, she didn't have to wait until they had run the long course of this life and moved on to the next. Heaven had arrived. Leah blessed the day. In the same breath, she cursed the darkness Jay had brought with him.
"Will you marry me, Leah?"
Slowly, she pulled away from him and sought answers in his glistening, hopeful eyes. She was too frightened to take his proposal seriously, yet the words felt right. If only he had spoken them when they were in Santa Teresita.
"Jay, my heart begs me to say yes. Unfortunately, my head has to rule right now. The answer is 'no.'"
Like Walter had before him, Jay reached for a lifeline. "Forever 'no'?"
"For-the-present 'no,'" she whispered. "If we get out of this mess and Teddy is still alive, maybe I'll listen to my feelings again. Not until then." Leah confronted Jay's disappointment. "We need to plan what we're going to do next."
"I need to hold you," he said. He kissed her on the lips, but she forced herself not to embrace him.
"I pick up the kids in less than an hour! We can't talk in front of them," he said.
"We can't do anything in front of them."
"That's the way it is."
"Okay. I'm a world-class gratification deferrer." Jay began to pace the room. "I can't think very well on the bed." He outlined the options he had agonized over through the long night. Returning to Santo Sangre was out of the question. Another thing to consider was that, by checking out of his hotel, he had already sent a clear signal to the watchful Angel that they were onto something. It had been a calculated risk, but it was important for him and Leah and the children to be together as much as possible, for their mutual support and protection. "Do you think we could get any help from your local police?"
"Not likely," Leah said. "How do we explain that an agent from your country, whom you've never seen but only spoken to, is planning to kill my son? There's been no communication, no threat, either verbal or written, and no attempt on Teddy's life. Besides, aren't you forgetting that the police might be looking for you this very minute?"
"But, if I can tell my story and convince them of my innocence, wouldn't it help the authorities to know an international assassin is on the loose in their city?"
Leah waved off the idea. "By the time they check it out, it could be all over." She couldn't bring herself to say the terrible words, Teddy could be dead.
"Then, you tell me," Jay said, as perplexed as when he started. "I'm out of ideas. We're back at square one."
"Maybe not." A light went on in Leah's head. "I have a friend on the police force. I'll see if we can go to her--unofficially. She'll help us. I can trust her to keep it confidential."
"She?"
"A detective. Janet Wishard. She's on the task force that searches for missing children."
"What about Todd and Monica?" Jay asked. "Is there anyone you can leave them with overnight. Somewhere they'll be absolutely safe? And where they won't suspect anything's going on?"
Leah thought for a moment. A safe house. The children had to be with someone who wouldn't ask too many questions about why she wanted to be without the children for the night. Sandy Marlowe. She trusted her girlfriend and secretary completely. But, could she risk involving Sandy and Bill? Did she have a right to place them in danger? Not without some explanation and warning.
"I have just the people," Leah whispered, "Sandy and her husband. But, I have to be straight with them about why we need their help."
23
The coach's whistle blew. "Reserves on the field," he ordered. "Starters take a five-minute break."
De los Reyes lumbered out of the Chevy. His scuffed size elevens squished in the soggy turf, as he strolled to the sidelines of the playing field. The Barton boy's number three never left his gaze.
Teddy broke from the pack, slipped into a warm-up jacket, and headed alone toward a water fountain near the tennis courts.
De los Reyes followed. The black umbrella twirled loosely in his left hand. His right hand was in his coat pocket, idly fingering a silver medallion, the last of the three he had purchased in a Vatican gift shop. He stopped a few feet behind where the boy bent over the faucet. This time he'd play the thirsty policeman, waiting in line for a drink of water. Inject, profusely apologize, flash the badge and get the information he needed. This scenario was a bit more complicated than Rome, but still routine for a professional like himself.
He raised the umbrella until it paralleled the ground, slightly below waist high. Its loaded tip aimed at the exposed flesh at the back of the boy's thigh. Quick glances over each shoulder told the agent no one was paying attention. His grip tightened on the umbrella handle with the trigger mechanism less than an inch from his index finger.
The air between the venom-loaded needle and the boy's skin suddenly became an invisible shield. De los Reyes hesitated. What's the hurry? I've got the Bartons and the priest under surveillance. This may not be the best time or place to inject the boy. What if the soccer coach had taken note of the stranger in the park? The front page of the newspaper carried the picture of a local boy who had disappeared the day before on his way home from school. News media warned people to be alert for a potential kidnapper.
"Excuse me, son."
Teddy turned with a start, water dripping from his nose and chin. "Geez, Mister! You scared the you-know-what outta me!"
"Sorry. I didn't mean to. I am Detective Rodriguez, San Francisco P.D." A flash of the phony badge and it disappeared back into his pocket. De los Reyes did not consider impersonating a policeman a disguise. The only challenge in this case was the accent. He used a Mexican-American tonal inflection, not perfectly, but well enough, to pass muster with this gringo teen-ager.
"What'ya want? I didn't do anything."
"I know. I know," de los Reyes said with a laugh. He needed to gain the boy's confidence. "Don't worry. I just want to ask a couple of routine questions. Your mother has a friend visiting her . . . a priest."
At the mention of his mother, Teddy became defensive. "So?"
"Probably nothing. We got a request from the police in Holland to keep him under surveillance, that's all."
"Did he do something?"
The boy looked hopeful. "We don't think so, but he may have some information they want. We need to know where he is at all times, in case they want to question him."
The coach's whistle sounded
again, and the squad gathered around their mentor. The Barton boy appeared anxious to end this conversation. "One quick question before you go. Do you know where Father de Córdova is right now?"
"Yeah. My house."
"Your house?" De los Reyes knew that, of course, since he had followed Jay and Leah from Union Square to Lyon Street, but he pretended surprise. "How long will he be there?"
"He's spending the weekend. I think he's leaving tomorrow."
The pseudo-detective recorded this information in a small, lined notebook. "And your address is?" The boy hesitated, then gave it. "Thank you, son. You're a good citizen. If I need to get in touch with your mother this week, where can I find her, say . . . during the Thanksgiving holidays?" He intended to have his business wrapped up and be on his way to Mallorca long before then, but just in case.
"What's my mom got to do with it?"
No dummy, this kid. He had raised his defenses even higher. De los Reyes poured as much sincerity into his voice as he could conjure from his bag of acting skills. "She might know where to reach Father de Córdova . . . after he leaves San Francisco."
Teddy hesitated, then relented. "We'll be home till Wednesday. Then, we're going to our house in the mountains."
"I hope I won't have to bother the family there, but you'd better give me the address and phone number."
Teddy didn't remember the phone number or the exact address, but he gave fairly accurate directions to their Heavenly Valley cabin.
"You've been very helpful," de los Reyes said.
The boy bounced from one foot to another, eager for dismissal. Why de los Reyes had hesitated to inject him, not even he understood. In Rome and Amsterdam, he carried out his charade and mission like a programmed robot. The boy moved away. "Don't say anything about this to anyone. That means no one. Understand? If your mother's friend did something he shouldn't, we don't want to tip him off we know where he is. Got it?"
"Okay."
As Todd Barton trotted away, de los Reyes shouted after him, "Good luck in your next game!" If his guess was right, the boy would keep their conversation to himself for his own misguided reasons. One thing was certain, Father Javier would stay close to the Barton family. De los Reyes wished he knew what the priest was up to. What did his checking out of the St. Francis and into the Mrs. Barton's home mean? Is he onto something? Montenegro should be informed. The president may have further instructions. The execution can wait a few hours.