The Second Messiah

Behind him, reflected in the glass, he saw the figure of a man rounding the corner. He was well built, wearing jeans, sneakers, and a dark jogger’s rain slick. He wore a woollen hat pulled down over his head. Becket reckoned that the man had been following him since he’d left by the Vatican’s east gate.

Too far away to get a close look at the man’s face, Becket felt certain there was something familiar about him. But instinct told him that he was being followed by a member of the Vatican’s security services.

Becket stood there, catching his breath, considering what to do next. Dark alleyways veined off the side street, sprinkled with seedy pickup bars and sex shops, the pavements bustling with crowds. There were women everywhere, prostitutes mostly. Some of them were beautiful as only Latin women were beautiful, and wearing the shortest skirts. Here, in the backstreets, you saw life at its rawest, the poverty and despair that drove men and women to crime and wrongdoing.

“Do you want to have some fun, mister?”

John Becket turned. A young woman, jittery with nervous energy, greeted him with a manic stare. She had dyed black hair, painted red fingernails, and bad skin. “No, thank you, my child.”

Her smile vanished. “Suit yourself but you don’t know what you’re missing.”

She whirled on down the street, pirouetting like some frenzied dancer. Becket guessed she was high on drugs.

At that exact moment, he saw the man following him. He was fifty yards behind, his woollen hat pulled well down on his head, his eyes staring at the pavement as if he was eager not to be recognized.

Becket saw his chance. He ducked down a crowded alleyway and plunged into the dark heart of the red-light district.

After five minutes of running through the backstreets, Becket slowed his pace and looked back. He saw no sign of the man. He took a deep breath and his chest felt on fire. He was out of condition, his legs trembling.

“Hello, Padre. It’s a small world.”

His heart jolted and he looked round. It was the young woman with the fake white Gucci handbag he’d encountered the previous evening, Maria. She was seated at a nearby café, smoking a cigarette, most of the empty tables spread out along the pavement. She wore a low-cut blue dress—revealing more bust than was decent—and high black leather boots. The bruising on her jaw was less noticeable, and still covered with heavy makeup. “Maria.”

She seemed in better form as she stood and playfully wagged a finger at him. “Out on the prowl two nights in a row, Padre? The church mustn’t be keeping you busy. And this time you’re dressed up for the town, I see.”

“How are you, Maria?”

“Not so busy that I couldn’t let you buy me a coffee.”

“How is your jaw?”

She put a hand to her face and despite the bruising she smiled. “Hey, sorry about the other night. My pimp was giving me grief. He smacks me one now and then when I don’t earn enough cash to keep him happy. Well, what do you say about that coffee, Padre?”

Becket scanned the alleyway for any sign of the man. Instinct told him to get far away from here as fast as possible but Maria plucked him by the arm and guided him to her table. “You’re not going to hurt my feelings twice in a row, now are you?”

“Maria, I—”

“I could do with the company. I haven’t even made the price of a cup of coffee all evening.”

Becket needed to escape, not linger outside a café. What if the man following him caught up with him? What if someone in the café recognized him? He felt his heart thump and sweat dampen his brow.

Maria frowned. “Why do I get the feeling you look sort of familiar, Padre?”

Becket wanted the ground to open up and swallow him.

Maria whistled at a passing waiter. “Two cappuccinos, Marcelo. And while you’re at it bring a couple of Camparis and soda for me and my new friend here.”

49

Monsignor Sean Ryan was drenched in sweat.

Dressed like a jogger—in a zip-up dark blue nylon Windbreaker, blue nylon jog pants, a stupid-looking dark woollen hat pulled down over his red hair—Ryan felt like a second-rate private detective in a bad movie. But that was the least of his worries.

He was having a difficult time trying to keep up with John Becket. After running for eight blocks, Ryan figured that his boss could jog with the best of them. Then, much to Ryan’s relief, he saw Becket stop outside a café, fifty yards away.

Ryan halted beside a corner store window and winced. A sign above said Madame Sin. The store was in darkness, which was just as well—Ryan saw that the window was filled with scantily clad female mannequins wearing erotic underwear. He was, after all, in Rome’s red-light district.