Simon called him “Monsignor Paul.”
A warm spring morning in the yard, the air buzzing with keen, fresh scents of awakening, the earth damp, sprigs of grass pushing through the mud. Beyond the walls, the chirping of happy children walking with their parents to church, the chatter of families on a sunny, promising Sunday morning. And inside the walls, an hour of respite from the damning isolation.
“Why are you here?” asked the monsignor.
“You know why,” said Simon, and he began to explain about the morning so many months before when he and his crew had been betrayed.
“I don’t mean that. I mean here. In the hole.”
The question took Simon by surprise. Surely they had discussed the circumstances of their segregation at some point during the past months.
“I killed someone for Signor Bonfanti,” he said. “Didn’t I tell you?”
The monsignor continued and Simon knew he was after something. “So it was punishment?”
“Not exactly.”
“Oh?”
For once, it was Simon’s turn to perplex his mentor. “It was my choice.”
“To come here? To spend your days in a bug-infested cell smaller than a shoe box?” The monsignor shook his large, shaggy head, laughing dryly at this impossibility. Simon had never seen him smile so broadly. The priest’s teeth were straight and white, and he became ten years younger on the spot.
“What’s so funny?”
A wave of the hand. “Nothing. Please go on.”
Simon explained about his agreement with Bonfanti and explained that after killing the Egyptian, Al-Faris, he had been given a choice. He could give up the name of the man who’d betrayed his crew or he could serve an indefinite sentence in the hole.
“And you refused?” said the monsignor.
Simon didn’t reply. He was standing there, wasn’t he?
“Why?”
“Why do you think?”
“Because you’re a tough bastard who doesn’t forget or forgive.”
“That’s about right.” The answer pleased Simon and he couldn’t ignore the surge of pride, the reflexive swelling of his chest.
“Sure you made the right decision?”
“I’ve had eighteen months to think it over.”
“And you don’t know how much longer you’ll be here?”
Simon shook his head and the monsignor looked away, his face screwed up in the way it got when he was thinking. After a minute, he returned his gaze to Simon.
“How do you know it’s going to be worth it?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, this fellow you’re after may have died since then,” the priest explained reasonably. “Or he may have moved away. Maybe he found God.”
“Coluzzi? No. He’s alive. I can feel it. And he definitely hasn’t found God. I’ll see him again.”
“And when you do?”
