A Season for the Dead by David Hewson Page A

it? Why would a man like that want money?”
    “Runs in the family. Denney comes from some Irish-American family in Boston. Big in bootlegging in the early days, sidekicks to Joe Kennedy for a while. Moved into politics, finance, all that stuff. But they never could let everything go. It’s in their blood I guess. He was the kid they marked out for the Church while the rest stuck with the family business. Which was all Denney did for a while too and pretty well too. Made a name for himself working the Irish ghettos in Boston. Man of the people. Didn’t seem to be an act either. Then he hit the up escalator, came to Europe. By the time he’s thirty he’s in Rome. By the time he’s forty-five he’s wearing the red cap and suddenly it’s no more listening to some local jerk confessing to playing fuck-thy-neighbor. He’s gone business, running this bank and he’s pumping the Pope’s money all ways. Into IBM and General Motors. After a while into funnier places too, companies that are never going anywhere, ever, because that’s not why they’re there. Suddenly, it’s no longer about the Pope’s money. It’s stuff coming from all over, laundered by God knows who.”
    Rossi stared at the empty glass. “Why the hell am I telling you all this?”
    “You’re keeping me up to date on the gossip.”
    “Right,” the big man grumbled. “So according to this man of mine, along comes the new millennium and Denney’s bank’s doing like all the rest of them, not good. He’s been betting on these dotcom morons. He’s been hedging this by betting on the airlines and the telecom people too. In short, he’s losing his touch. One day in September he turns on the TV and sees a couple of planes fly into a couple of skyscrapers. And what do you know? Bad turns awful. Bad turns fucking disastrous. Word is that if this bunch was out in the open Denney’d be bust and in the slammer facing some serious incarceration. Which is bad news for him and for all those mob guys who thought they were banking on something that had the Holy Writ on the cover. They are people who do not like to lose their money.”
    “This man of yours knows a lot,” Costa observed.
    “He was a knowledgeable guy. What do I mean ‘was’? Still is.”
    “And he says it in such a memorable way too. Where’s he working now?”
    “Probably with some dumb smart-ass kid who doesn’t believe a word he says. Do I make myself clear?”
    “In a particularly obscure way. Did he get the chance to arrest someone?”
    “Like who? Lombardia isn’t officially bust yet. Just ‘suspended.’ All the money was passing through places like Liechtenstein and Grand Cayman. Try hunting that down. The finance people had one low-grade clerk in their sights, thought he might talk too if they offered him a deal. When they went to collect they found him floating facedown in the bath in his apartment in Testaccio. ‘Heart attack.’ Very convenient. Who knows? Maybe Denney had him done. Maybe now he’s got the taste he’s offing a few more people who took the money and didn’t come up with the goods.”
    “Rinaldi did come up with the goods. He said the Vatican was right. About diplomatic immunity.”
    “Didn’t work though, did it? Remember, Denney has contacts. To be honest, though, my guess is they’re none too keen on him either these days. Which gives him plenty more reasons to stay behind those walls where no one can touch him. Not until the Vatican people themselves wash their hands of the black sheep and kick him out onto the pavement. Yeah. Like that’s going to happen.”
    Costa was baffled. “Why not? Why would the Church tolerate any of this?”
    It could have been Falcone looking at him. Rossi’s expression said just one thing:
Don’t be so dumb, kid.
“This isn’t about the Church. It’s about the Vatican. Another country. Like I said. Mongolia, as far as we’re concerned. Unless it’s in their interests they won’t give us anything. Maybe