“Not Bernadette,” I said. I couldn’t help it.
“Not Bernadette,” he repeated. “I called her my angel? In truth, she is Azrael, the angel of death. Killing people is like the food her spirit needs. And if she can, she kills them slowly. With great imagination. Very useful in my business, but . . .”
Boniface made a slight hissing sound and took a large sip. He took a long breath and shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever she is, she is mine. For what she is, useful, yes—but more, for what she did. For when she came for me in prison,” he said, “of course there were guards. She went through them as though they were papier-mâché. She set me free. And so I will never abandon her.”
That answered at least one question. And the next one—what the hell happened to her face—I was not about to ask. That kind of brass balls would take a lot more than a couple of bottles of Armagnac.
“In any case,” Boniface said. “The Liberation of St. Peter sustained me through a difficult time. It taught me an important course of lessons. It became my . . . my talisman, if you will. And so?” He shrugged, using both hands, the very first extremely French gesture I’d seen from him. “I vowed that someday, if ever I had the means, I would own that fresco. As a monument to my faith.” He sipped and looked at me over the rim of his glass. “And then you came to my attention, and I thought, eh bien, why not? What do you think?”
I don’t remember what I said. I assume it was something agreeable. Because the story as Boniface told it was just plain nuts, filled with megalomania, murder, and madness, and all kinds of other words that start with M. He really should have been under a doctor’s care—except for one thing. He was making it all come true.
Or anyway, I was. And I didn’t have his faith.
Other than that, it was a great vacation. I made it through three weeks without major trauma. My finger even healed up. Boniface had some kind of doctor there, a guy who’d obviously had experience with what to do in an ER on a Saturday night in Detroit. He set the finger, splinted it, got the swelling down, and altogether set me right.
And at the start of the fourth week, Boniface called me into his office. He sat behind a massive desk, and Bernadette stood behind him, like before. I sat across from him, and her, and waited for the shoe to drop.
“I hope you have enjoyed your visit,” Boniface said as I settled into my chair.
Which meant it was coming to an end. “Delightful,” I said.
“I have not pressed you for your plan to get my fresco,” he said. A good thing, since I didn’t have a plan. I was still pretty sure there wasn’t one. “I am trusting you to do the job, in your own way.”
“That’s how I work,” I said.
“And I will not stoop to reminding you of the consequences for failure,” he said. Which was, of course, a truly classy way of reminding me of the consequences for failure.
“Thanks,” I said, glancing at Bernadette. She glanced back.
“So,” he said, putting both hands on the desktop, palms down, “I expect to hear from you soon—if not to report success, then to inform me of your progress.” He gave me the tiny smile. “Just so we both know there is, in fact, progress.”
“I’m sure there will be,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure at all.
He looked at me without blinking. “Good,” he said at last. He pushed a fat manila envelope across the desk for me. “This will help you in your travels.” Then he gave a kind of see-you-go-away-now wave. “Étienne has arrived with the boat to take you back. Good luck, Mr. Wolfe.” The tiny smile again. “Riley.”
I stood up, took the envelope, and left. I know when I’ve been dismissed.
A guard took me down to the dock. Just one guard this time. I was one of the gang now. “Étienne” turned out to be the same cheerful French guy who’d delivered me. He was behind the wheel of what looked like the same boat. He watched me climb on board without a word. Just that same happy sneer. I sneered back and sat on the bench to the right of the pilot’s seat. I had no gear to stow. I had the clothes I was wearing, and no more. They’d given me a jacket against the cold, and the envelope, but that was it.
Boniface had anticipated that I’d at least need some new clothes. He’d put some cash in that envelope—around ten grand; I didn’t count it. And he had told me that I hadn’t had anything on my person when Arvid had delivered me. That gave me one more small item to think about.
In the meantime, I was off to sea on a great adventure. And I had no seabag, no sextant, no official Royal Navy midshipman’s dirk—nothing at all to carry. No luggage, no clean undies, nothing. At least I wasn’t in chains this time. After all, I was on the payroll now. And to be fair to Boniface, which I thought was a really smart idea, it was going to be one hell of a payday. He’d even agreed to pay expenses off the top. Agreed, hell, he’d suggested it. It was a very good deal, a ton of money, and it would have made me happy, except for one small detail.
It couldn’t be done. No fucking way.
Steal an entire wall? From the Vatican?
Come on, Riley. You can do that, right? Sure, why not? Just because it was totally fucking impossible, so what? That’s what I do! And while I was there, maybe I could snatch the dome of the basilica, too. I could stuff it right into my imaginary dimension-bending backpack, along with the wall. It would fit right next to Schrödinger’s cat. And hell, why not just take the entire Vatican City while I was at it? I could shrink it and put it in a bottle, like the city of Kandor in Superman.
Except I really had to get that fresco, and I was pretty sure a fictional solution wasn’t going to work. At least not one from an old Superman comic—Marvel, maybe, but old-time Superman? No way. But I had to find an answer somewhere. Boniface hadn’t made any threats. He didn’t have to. One of the big advantages of having a reputation like his was that he never had to use the corny lines the bad guys used in James Bond movies. He didn’t have to tell me what would happen if I didn’t get him his fresco. I knew. It would be lights-out for Riley Wolfe. And that is something I generally try to avoid.
This time, I could not see a way to do that.
So I had a lot to think about, and I was just as glad that my dear friend Frenchy didn’t talk. He kept his lip zipped all the way through the tunnel, out the channel, and away from the island. He didn’t speak until we were out into open sea, heading away from the island.
“I will now take you to the airplane,” he said.
I looked out the windscreen. I didn’t see anything but water. “Really?” I said. “Is it a seaplane?”
“No.” He shook his head. “There is a small airport. Monsieur keeps his jet there.”