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  “I mean,” Delaney continued, “management leaves me at sixes and sevens as to whether I cover the New York theater season. Yet they can send this worthy soul,” he looked derisively at Cox, “off to Rome to cover a Cardinal’s installation.”

  “Go easy on this worthy soul, Larry,” said Singer. “It isn’t every day somebody becomes a Cardinal . . . especially Detroit’s Cardinal. Hell, Cardinals have only been around since—”

  “About the sixth century.” Cox wiped the corner of his mouth.

  Singer smiled. “Already started your research, eh, Joe?”

  “Well, as I said when we began this banquet, you’re a lucky sonuvabitch, Joe.” Delaney pushed his plate to one side. It contained most of its original french fries, about one-quarter of the Howard Cosell ham sandwich, and all of a significant slice of Bermuda onion. “The Roman Summer Festival is starting early this year. You can have your pick of grand opera, operetta, ballet, concerts, jazz, art exhibitions, circus-in-the-streets, and a whole collection of old and new movies.”

  “And all this,” contributed Singer, “against an incomparable historical backdrop.”

  “Take Aida—please.” Delaney found it impossible to pass up a comic line. “It’s the open-air version staged at the Baths of Caracalla.”

  “Where’s that?” Cox moved the map of Rome across the table toward Singer, who pushed aside his empty plate. Singer’s stomach was not as aesthetically picky as Delaney’s.

  Singer located the Baths on the map just south of the Colosseum. Singer, who had been a sportswriter before moving to the travel desk, was being groomed for his own column, the dream of most journalists. One position he probably never would occupy was that of restaurant critic. An omnivore, he constantly fought a weight problem.

  “This is the Aida,” Delaney resumed, “with its armies of Egyptian warriors, its crowds of Ethiopian slaves, and herds of live animals.”

  “Elephants?” Cox swirled the coffee in his cup.

  “Elephants,” Delaney confirmed. “Then there’s Tosca.”

  “Ah, Tosca!” Cox clapped his hands and raised his eyes heavenward in mock rapture.

  “You’re really in luck, you turkey.” Some manifestation of envy was beginning to creep through Delaney’s usually bland demeanor. “This presentation is billed as an ‘itinerant Tosca.’ They stage the opera at the actual places where the libretto sets it. So, for Act I, Mario Cavaradossi will meet Floria Tosca in front of the Church of Sant’Andrea della Valle.”

  Cox leaned toward Singer, whose finger moved to the site of Sant’Andrea della Valle on the Corso Vittorio Emanuele.

  Satisfied, Cox returned attention to Delaney.

  “Then, in Act II, the singers, orchestra, and audience will have moved to the Farnese Palace, where, in the Piazza Farnese, Tosca will confront and kill Baron Scarpia while Mario is being tortured and imprisoned.”

  Cox inclined toward Singer, whose finger moved around the corner from Sant’Andrea della Valle to the nearby Piazza Farnese.

  Back to Delaney.

  “Finally, after another quick bus trip with perhaps a snack and a little vino, all will gather at the Castel Sant’Angelo where Mario is executed and Tosca leaps over the battlement to her tragic death.” Delaney slumped slightly in empathy with Floria’s fate.

  Cox consulted Singer, who located the Castel Sant’Angelo near the bank of the twisting Tiber.

  “What about the movies?” Cox probed hungrily.

  “What else, you lucky dog, but a film festival!” said Delaney.

  “A film festival!”

  “Yes. Everything from about thirty American silents to Last Tango, the film that made Pauline Kael famous, to a collection of cinema verité, a clutch of contemporary classics, a Hugh Leonard retrospective—and a special showing of Abel Gance’s Napoleon.”

  “Napoleon?”

  “Yes, with the final scenes shot à la Cinerama some twenty-five years before Lowell Thomas commercialized the process.”

  “Say, Joe . . .” Singer nibbled on a breadstick he had liberated from the basket before the waiter had cleared the table, “have you given any thought to work while you’re in Rome?”

  “Work?”

  “Yeah,” Delaney leaned forward for emphasis, “that for which the Freep is sending you to the Eternal City. I’ve given you more than enough entertainment material—and George has given you expert directions on where to find it—to keep you busy for your entire stay in Rome.”

  Something was up. Cox sensed it. Something about his companions’ expressions. Cox slowly turned in his seat. Suspicion confirmed. Standing directly behind their booth was Nelson Kane, city editor of the Detroit Free Press, and Joe’s immediate superior.

  “Uh,” Cox cleared his throat, “hi, Nellie. How long you been here?”

  “Long enough.” Kane, in light raincoat and Irish slouch hat pulled low on his forehead, was obviously returning from lunch. “Stop by my desk when you get a chance, Joe. Like now.” He turned and headed for the bank of elevators.

  Cox turned to his now grinning companions. “Thanks. Thanks a lot. I needed that.” He rose to leave.

  “Don’t forget this.” Singer handed Cox the check.

  “Didn’t you forget something else?” asked Delaney, as Cox accepted the slip and turned to go.

  “What?”

  “The tip.”

  Cox consulted the check, then grudgingly let a dollar flutter to the table. He could hear the others snickering as he headed for the register to settle accounts.

  Joe Cox was the nonpareil of the Free Press city room. His resumé boasted a Pulitzer Prize. His work was uniformly workmanlike to excellent. He was the type of reporter who was a constant challenge to the Detroit News. Yet, possibly because he was so very good at what he did, and because he was very aware of that fact, there was a subtle touch of adolescence about him. From time to time, he required a figuratively short leash.

  Usually found holding the other end of that leash was Nelson Kane. Now in his mid-forties, tall, balding, heavyset but not fat, Kane was that clichéd but authentic creature, a newspaperman’s newspaperman. He had spent his entire professional life with the Free Press, and was one of those rare and fortunate people who loved his work.

  Cox scooped his notepad from his desk and approached Kane’s desk in the center of the long, rectangular, white-walled city room. As Cox took a seat at the side of the desk, Kane marveled again at the reporter’s physical resemblance to the actor, Richard Dreyfuss.

  Kane unwrapped a cigar, bit off an end, then inserted it between his teeth. The bad news was that it was cheap. The good news was that it would not be lit. “Cox,” he said, “I’m going to tell you a story.”

  “Oh, good!” Cox responded with clearly fraudulent enthusiasm.

  “Before you got here, we had a religion writer whose name shall not be mentioned, but who was infamous nonetheless.”

  “I think I know the one you mean . . . the one who used to phone people for a story and when they would tell him they had no comment they could hear him typing up the comment they hadn’t made . . . and then they’d have to read the paper to find out what they’d ‘said.’”

  “The very one.

  “Well, one of the Popes died. I don’t recall which one. It doesn’t matter. Anyway—and this happened at a time when the brass were even more reluctant than they are now to send a reporter on location—anyway, the decision was made to send this religion writer to Rome to cover the election of the new Pope.

  “Well, the new Pope was elected. Radio and TV told us that. But we were waiting for the personalized, on-the-scene report of our own correspondent in Rome . . . our own man in the Vatican. Our deadline got nearer and nearer . . . still no word. With the deadline just minutes away, a goodly number of us were gathered around the teletype. Finally, it clicked. Code letters, dateline Rome, our man’s byline, then ‘Exclusive to the Free Press,’ and finally: ‘Today, amid the grandeur of St. Peter’s Basilica, puffs of w
hite smoke appeared over the Sistine Chapel as the Roman Catholic Church elected a new Supreme Pontiff.’ That was followed by three dots, and then, ‘Pick up wire service copy’”

  Cox continued to smile, as he had throughout the account. “Very amusing. But what’s that got to do with me?”

  “Just this: I don’t want to find myself standing in front of a teletype reading: ‘Rome, April 19, by Joe Cox. Exclusive to the Free Press. Today, amid the grandeur of St. Peter’s Basilica, twelve new Cardinals were created by the Roman Catholic Church . . . pick up wire service copy.’”

  “Nellie, you know me better than that!”

  “I also know what can happen when you and Lennon cover the same story in the same town. In this case, it spells ‘Roman Holiday.’”

  “Hey, that is neat, isn’t it? A terrific serendipity when the News decided to send Pat to Rome. Should save you guys some money, too. You don’t ‘spose the News and the Freep would want to split the cost of our room?”

  “Now that’s exactly what I mean.” Kane rolled the unlit cigar from one side of his mouth to the other. “Just because the two of you live together in Detroit without benefit of clergy doesn’t mean that it’ll work in this case. Especially when you’re both covering the same story and especially when that story is in a foreign city.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I mean. Cox, is, that for all practical purposes, your hotel room will be your office. You won’t have any other office. You’re working this assignment for us. What if you have to make phone calls? What if you have to talk to me or one of the other editors? What if someone phones you? Lennon can hear everything. And if she gets a lead from any of those phone calls or messages, she goddamn well is going to take advantage of it.

  “And the same holds true for you. The News won’t want such an arrangement any more than we do. This is not a vacation. It’s not even a working vacation. You and Lennon may be ‘significant others’ for each other here. But in Rome you don’t know Lennon. Except as a competing reporter. And a goddamn competent one at that.”

  Lennon had received much of her journalistic training at the Free Press. Kane still winced at the memory of her departure to the rival News . . . although he had to admit she’d had good reason at the time.

  “O.K., O.K. But as long as we’re both on this story, there is one thing I want to know.”

  “Yeah?”

  “When does it end?”

  “What?”

  “After the ceremonies in Rome are completed,” Cox consulted his notepad, “on May 4th, the Detroit contingent—or at least most of it—will move on to England and Ireland before returning to Detroit. So when does the assignment end? Rome? England? Ireland?”

  “England and Ireland are courtesy visits . . . part of the entourage’s package tour. The news angle is Boyle’s becoming a Cardinal . . . which takes place in Rome. That answer your question?”

  “Ordinarily, yes. And I could have figured that out. Except that I have a feeling . . . a sort of presentiment.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t quite know. Like all premonitions, it’s hard to spell out—”

  “Try.”

  “Well, a couple of things have happened and I don’t know if they add up to a scenario.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “First, Boyle is named a Cardinal. Then the Cardinal in Toronto is killed—literally wasted. Cardinal Claret was an important figure in the Church. So is Boyle. What if—and I know this is going to sound farfetched—what if there proves to be a connection?

  “What if precisely that important Canadian Cardinal was killed deliberately—for a specific reason? What if whoever killed Claret intends to attack another important Cardinal—of the United States? I just mean . . . what if . . .”

  Normally, Kane would have dismissed this as a remote possibility. The Toronto police had pretty well concluded that the Claret killing was a fluke. Some hophead had simply struck at random and happened to hit a very important person.

  But . . . if there was one thing he and Cox shared it was a keen news sense. A feeling not only for news that had happened, but a sense of the direction in which news was going to develop.

  And the Free Press was still smarting from that fiasco wherein their erstwhile executive manager had arbitrarily pulled their leading sports columnist, despite his protests, home from the Olympics, saying that he’d been in Munich long enough . . . and that furious columnist, under threat of dismissal had boarded the jet home, only to discover when he deplaned in Detroit that terrorists had captured the Israeli athletes, and the eyes of the world were now on Munich.

  “Play it as it lies, Joe. I’ll just rummage around in the exchequer in case—in the unlikely case—your hunch is right,” sardonically, “for a change.”

  2.

  The atmosphere was tense. The result of an exchange of many angry words. The twenty people—three of them women—gathered in the small office were black. The stenciled sign on the outside of the closed door read: Office Of Black Catholic Services, Archdiocese Of Detroit.

  “What it comes down to,” Perry Brown was almost shouting, “is that he’s abandoned us! That’s the bottom line!”

  “You’re being simplistic,” Ty Powers charged.

  The argument, initially joined by nearly everyone in the room, now had narrowed to these two. They were the only ones still standing. Powers, tall, well-built, light-complexioned, was director of Black Catholic Services, appointed by Archbishop Boyle.

  Brown, of medium height, pencil-thin, Afro-topped, was a physician whose patients included many in the black community who could afford neither medical treatment nor hospitalization insurance.

  “How many Catholic schools in the core city has Archbishop Boyle closed?”

  “Perry—”

  “How many of our parishes has he closed?”

  “Perry, it’s not so much that the Archbishop is closing schools and parishes.”

  “No? Then what is it?”

  “He’s pronouncing them dead. They died. We didn’t build them; white Catholics did. Then they moved away. There weren’t enough black Catholics left to support them. So they died. There wasn’t anything the Archbishop could do about it.”

  “He could keep them open and operating!”

  “Be reasonable: How is he going to do that?”

  “By making a commitment to the core city!” Brown looked around. Most of those present seemed to be in agreement with him.

  “The Archbishop has that kind of commitment. The Inter Parish Sharing Program was his baby. It was his idea to have suburban parishes share with the inner-city parishes.”

  “Well,” Brown placed his hand on the chair in front of him and leaned forward, “I’ve got news for you and for him; His baby died abornin’.”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you: Archbishop Boyle wants to keep our parishes and schools open. And he’s even tried to keep them open with programs like the IPSP, but his hands are tied. The whites who built these churches and schools have moved away. And,” Powers emphasized, “they have made it very clear they are not going to continue to support them.”

  “Precisely why the Archbishop should not have made the sharing voluntary.”

  “Not voluntary!?”

  “Not voluntary!” Brown converted Powers’ shocked tone into one of triumph. “It does not require an MBA to know that all temporalities in this archdiocese are held in the name of the Catholic Archbishop of Detroit, whoever he may be.”

  “You mean . . .” Powers seemed unable to complete the thought.

  “Take it! Take the money from the savings of the rich parishes and distribute it to the poor. If the ‘have’ parishes will not be Christian to the ‘have-not’ parishes, then impose Christianity on them.”

  There was a stunned silence.

  “Why not?” someone finally asked, rhetorically.

  “It makes sense,” someone else commented.

  “It makes da
mn good sense,” another added.

  Silence. They were awaiting Powers’ response.

  “Ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. One move like that and he wouldn’t have a diocese anymore. You may recall, in 1968, the year after the riots, when the Archbishop allocated a healthy chunk of the Archdiocesan Development Fund collection to the needs of the inner city. There was plenty of very audible griping from white Catholics about how all their money was going to be used by ‘those niggers.’ And the following year, the ADF collection plummeted.

  “If he were to simply take money, even surplus money, from suburban parish savings and apply it to the inner city, why, in no time he would have a hundred percent of nuthin’! And, eventually, the aid the Archbishop is able to give us now would dry up. And we’d be left sharing with him a hundred percent of nuthin’!”

  In the pause that followed, some mumbled agreement with Powers, others with Brown.

  “Boyle would not be the first Irish martyr,” Brown suggested.

  “You’re not talking martyrdom, Perry. You’re talking fiscal insanity!”

  “Christianity ought to have a little bit of insanity mixed in with it, the way I look at it,” Brown responded. “Didn’t St. Francis of Assisi call himself ‘a fool for God’? Besides, now that our Archbishop is going to become a Cardinal, this would be heeded by just about everyone in the world.

  “You’re part of his official family, Tyrone; you’re part of the bureaucracy . . . why don’t you test the water? Why don’t you propose the idea? You never know till you try. Maybe the new Cardinal Boyle would be willing to consider martyrdom.”

  “Let me put the shoe on the other foot, Doctor.” Powers smiled. “You’re going to Rome with the Detroit contingent. You’ll be with us when the Archbishop becomes a Cardinal. Why don’t you take it upon yourself to propose this ‘martyrdom’ to the Archbishop?”

  Brown appeared lost in thought. Finally, he said, “You have a point, Tyrone. Perhaps it’s time for me to make an unmistakable statement on this matter.”

  Brown once more retreated into his contemplation. He seemed troubled by what he found there.

  3.