Chapter 26
Via Nazionale
ON THE WINDOW SILL were small packets of instant coffee, an electric kettle, and white plastic cups -- all courtesy of the hotel -- and a revolting synthetic creamer in tiny brown plastic pots. Kessel switched on the kettle and ripped the top off a sachet of coffee. The television kept pumping out idiotic programs, but he felt obliged to keep watching TV Roma in case they announced that the relic had been found, or gave a news-flash on the fate of the missing photographer. But every news headline turned out to be nothing but a catalogue of non-events. Otto would never ring now. The pervert was history, but surely he would have kept in contact with his precious mother.
"I could murder that Otto Bayer!"
Otto still wasn't answering the cell phone number. The photographer's radios had been pathetic. Probably his phone was just as feeble, and it was now dead.
Karl was also useless. He had made no serious attempt to track down Sartini, but there must be some way to find the priest. He opened the small notebook that had been with his wallet. Karl had done well to get at least something back from the Gypsy dross.
The loss of the members' names and phone numbers was a catastrophe. The list had been put together over the years, added to whenever someone let classified information drop. No one knew of its existence. Some of those numbers could lead an inquisitive person straight to the senior members of Achtzehn Deutschland Reinigung. Phönix would be furious if he ever found out who was behind the raid on TV Roma, and even more furious if he discovered his name was on the list stolen by the Gypsies. And why hadn't the bank sent a replacement card? Karl kept insisting that the old one was cancelled and a new one was on its way to the hotel by express mail.
Kessel flicked through the pages of the bedside phone directory for a list of Vatican numbers. He would probably be passed from switchboard to switchboard in the search for Sartini's address, but at least he could speak Italian.
Karl had gone out immediately after lunch claiming he would easily find Sartini. Kessel sighed. More likely the boy had gone out in search of a woman, and was spending the ADR's money on selfish enjoyment rather than on the promotion of the sacred Shrine.
He picked up the telephone again. He'd not wanted to contact Otto's parents but it had to be done.
"Ja, spricht Monika Bayer."
The voice brought back the smell of damp and embrocation in the gloomy apartment. The curtains would still be almost closed, with rain dripping down the window.
"Kessel here. Manfred Kessel."
"Herr Kessel, where are you?" Frau Bayer sounded frantic.
"Do you know where Otto is, Frau Bayer?"
"He is not with you?" she asked in alarm. "Otto has phoned us every evening; but we did not hear from him last night, and we have not heard from him today. We have been so worried, Helmut and I. Tell me, Herr Kessel, is Otto well?"
"Very well."
"Yet you do not know where he is?"
"He is working out of town, Frau Bayer," he lied easily. "If he phones, tell him to ring us at the hotel immediately. I will give you the number now."
The old witch seemed pretty sharp. She wrote it down correctly first time. The call over, Kessel kicked off his shoes and lay on the bed smoking one of his last German cigarettes. "Damn Karl!" He hoped the boy would do whatever he had gone out to do quickly, and get back to this miserable hotel.
The problem was resolved with Karl's distinctive tap at the door.
Kessel went to unlock it. "Well, young man, any luck?"
"What a woman!" Karl didn't need to say anything more. The clenched and raised fist, and the look in his eyes, said that Sartini had been able to spend the afternoon in safety. But Kessel was in no doubt that one of the local whores was now counting a handful of ADR money.
Money would be a grave problem soon. He should never have shared the cash from the hotel safe with Karl. It was no more secure with this young hooligan than it was with the Gypsies.
"You did phone the bank and arrange a new card, didn't you?"
Karl said nothing as he walked to the washbasin, rinsed his hands, and dried them on the white cotton towel.
The thought of what might still be on the boy's fingers was nauseating. "I hope you washed thoroughly -- that's my towel."
"Any news of Otto, Herr Kessel?" Karl began cleaning his fingernails with the point of his Göring dagger, then confirmed an afternoon spent in the pursuit of happiness by flopping backwards onto the bed exhausted.
"Go and lie in your own room. And if you want some advice I'd have a long, hot shower. With plenty of soap." There was no humor in his voice. No tipping back of the head, no reason to laugh. Sex was always disgusting. But in the daytime? Karl Bretz's attitude to life was repulsive.