The Confessor

good meal and pleasant company.
    The glory days of the Via Veneto had long since faded. It was still a lovely boulevard lined with plane trees, exclusive shops, and expensive restaurants, but the intellectuals and movie stars had long ago moved on in search of undiscovered delights. Now the crowd was mainly tourists and businessmen and pretty Italian teenagers careening about on motor scooters.
    Marco Brindisi had never been seduced by the Via Veneto's dolce vita, even in the sixties, when he was a young Curial bureaucrat fresh from his Umbrian hill town, and it seemed even less appealing now. The snatches of table conversation drifting past his ears seemed so utterly trivial. He knew that some cardinals--indeed, even some popes--liked to walk about Rome in mufti to see how the other half lived. Brindisi had no desire to see how the other half 'lived. With few exceptions, he found the other half to be an immoral
    and uncouth rabble who would be far better off if they listened more to the teachings of the Church and less to the incessant blare of their televisions.
    An attractive middle-aged woman in a low-cut dress shot him an admiring glance from a cafe table. Brindisi, playing the part, smiled back. As he walked on, the cardinal begged Christ's forgiveness and applied pressure to his cilice to increase the pain. He had heard the confessions of priests who had fallen victim to the temptation of sex. Priests who kept mistresses. Priests who had performed unspeakable acts with other priests. Brindisi had never known such temptations. The moment he entered the seminary, his heart was given over to Christ and the Virgin. Priests who could not keep their vows sickened him. He believed that any priest who could not remain celibate should be defrocked. But he was also a pragmatist, and he realized that such a policy would certainly decimate the ranks of the clergy.
    The cardinal came to the intersection of the Via Veneto and the Corso d'italia and glanced at his watch. He had arrived at precisely the scheduled time. A few seconds later, a car pulled to the curb. The rear door swung open, and Carlo Casagrande climbed out.
    "Excuse me if I don't kiss your ring," Casagrande said, "but I don't think it would be appropriate under the circumstances. The weather is quite mild this evening. Shall we walk in the Villa Borghese?"
    Casagrande lead the cardinal across the broad boulevard, exposing the second-most powerful man in the Catholic Church to the bloodlust of Rome's drivers. Arriving safely at the other side, they strolled along a gravel footpath. Come Sunday, the park would be filled with screaming children and men listening to the soccer matches on portable radios. Tonight it was quiet except for the swish of traffic along the Corso. The cardinal walked as though he were still wearing crimson, with his hands clasped behind his back and his head down--a rich man who had dropped money and was making a halfhearted effort to find it. When Casagrande whispered that Peter Malone was dead, Brindisi murmured a brief prayer but resisted the impulse to conclude it with the sign of the cross.
    "This assassin of yours is quite efficient," he said.
    "Unfortunately, he's had a good deal of practice."
    "Tell me about him."
    "It's my job to protect you from things like that, Eminence."
    "I don't ask out of morbid curiosity, Carlo. My only concern is that this matter is being dealt with in an efficient manner."
    They came to the Galleria Borghese. Casagrande sat down on a marble bench in front of the museum and motioned for Brindisi to do the same. The cardinal made a vast show of brushing away the dust before gingerly settling himself on the cold stone. Casagrande then spent the next five minutes reluctantly reciting everything he knew about the assassin called the Leopard, beginning with his long and bloody association with left-wing and Palestinian terrorist groups, and concluding with his transformation into a highly paid professional killer. Casagrande had the distinct impression that the cardinal was enjoying his vicarious association with evil.
    "His real name?"
    "Not clear, Eminence."
    "His nationality?"
    "The prevailing sentiment among European security officials is that he is Swiss, although that too is a matter of some speculation."
    "You've actually met this man?"
    "We've been in the same room, Eminence. We've done business but I still wouldn't say that I've actually met him. I doubt whether anyone truly has."
    "Is he