Jacob Atabet Read Free Page B

the street, I went into the house without knocking. The Chinese boy was standing in the hallway. “The doctor asked me to take this to Father Zimbardo,” I said, taking a paper from my pocket. “Where’s his room?”
    “At the end of the hall.” He pointed up the stairs. “On the left.”
    I went up to the second floor and found the door. Zimbardo answered hoarsely when I knocked. “Come in,” he said. “It’s unlocked.”
    He was sitting on his bed with pillows stacked behind him. He looked startled as I came through the door. “I’m sorry to bust in here like this,” I said. “My name’s Darwin Fall and I own the Greenwich Press around the corner. I think I can help you understand that thing in the church. Something happened there that people are brushing off too easily.”
    “Yes, they are brushing it off too easily,” he said weakly. “You’re right.”
    I could see that he was still suffering from shock. “Yes, you’re right.” He gestured toward a chair. “Aren’t you the man who came into the sacristy after the Mass?”
    I said that I was.
    “Are you a detective?” he smiled. “You certainly stay on the job.”
    We both smiled, and there was silence while he studied my face. “Believe it or not,” I said, “but I’m doing research on things like this with the Catholic office in Rome that was started by Cardinal Alcantara. I’ve been studying Bernardine Neri.”
    “I’ve heard of Alcantara’s project. How come you’re working with them? Are you a psychologist?”
    ”No, I publish books. The study in Italy is part of my own project
    “And what do you think is going on here?” A look of weary amusement crossed his face. “Was it an angel or the devil?”
    “I think it might’ve been you and Atabet.”
    “You think so? You really think so? I think you may be right.” He was a muscular man in his fifties with a square honest face. There was a stubbornness about him, I thought, that would help him hold on to these strange perceptions. “Yes, you might be right,” he said. “Though the doctor thinks I had some kind of epileptic attack. So you actually study these things? Tell me about Bernardine Neri.”
    I described some accounts of the saintly woman. There were pictures of her in my briefcase and I showed them to him.
    “What a face!” he softly exclaimed. “What a face! There was nothing like that here. You’ll have to explain the connection.” He paused, then slapped the bed. “But it was not an epileptic attack! That doctor is not very bright. I never thought he was. There was definitely something else involved!” He looked at me now as if he might have found a confidant. “For one thing, that blood on his face. You saw it. The blood all over his cheek and mouth.” He closed his eyes and leaned back on the pillows. “I’ve known Jacob for years, but what do I really know about him? What do I really know?” He shook his head slowly. “The bleeding came out on his face between the time I fell over and when he came back into focus. For a minute there I thought he disappeared. He was almost unconscious, I think. Both of us were hit by the same force, whatever it was. Yes, the doctor is wrong.” He opened his eyes and turned to see me. “There was something like lightning or fire, something physical, that went on between us. And no one else saw it! The other priest, Father Bello—you talked to him—didn’t feel anything. Or even see Atabet bleeding. It’s one of the strangest things that’s ever happened to me.”
    “And what else happened? Can you remember?”
    ”Yes. It seems to me that I saw something else. It lasted just for a second, but there seemed to be a figure on the ceiling. It was full of light and there were little whirling things inside it . . .”
    “Little whirling things?”
    “Yes.” He smiled at the thing’s absurdity. “Yes, it looked like an angel! It must’ve been a figure in the glass. Who knows?” He laughed. “Who knows?