The Fifth Gospel Read Online Free Page A

make sure he receives a proper funeral.”
    Falcone squints. It’s a queer statement. But coming from a priest, he allows it.
    â€œFather,” he says, “you knew this man?”
    Simon answers in a faint voice. “He was my friend. His name was Ugolino Nogara.”

C HAPTER 3
    T HE POLICEMAN LEADS Simon out of earshot to answer questions, and I watch the other gendarmes rope up the clearing. One studies the eight-foot fence beside the public road, trying to understand how an outsider penetrated these gardens. Another stares at a security camera mounted overhead. Most gendarmes were city cops in another life. Rome PD. They can see that Ugo’s watch has been stolen, that his wallet is gone, that his briefcase is pried open. Yet they keep working over the details as if something doesn’t square.
    In these hills, people’s love for the Holy Father is fierce. Locals tell stories about popes knocking at their doors, making sure every family in town had a chicken in its pot. Old-timers are named in honor of Pope Pius, who shielded their families from harm in wartime. It’s not the walls that protect this place, but the villagers. A robbery here seems impossible.
    â€œWeapon!” I hear one of the officers call.
    He’s standing at the mouth of a tunnel, a giant thoroughfare built for a Roman emperor as a covered path for after-meal walks. Two more gendarmes jog to the opening, guided by a pair of gardeners. There is grunting. Something large topples over. Whatever the police find, though, isn’t the gun they were hoping for.
    â€œFalse alarm,” one of them barks.
    My chest shudders. I close my eyes. A wave of emotion rolls throughme. I’ve watched men die before. At the hospital where Mona was a nurse, I used to anoint the sick. Say prayers for the dying. And yet I have trouble swallowing back this feeling.
    A gendarme comes by, taking pictures of footprints in the mud. There are police everywhere in these gardens now. But my eyes return to Ugo.
    What is his special claim on my heart? His exhibit will make him, now posthumously, one of the most talked-about men in Rome, and I’ll be able to say I had a hand in that. But what won me over were his battle scars. The eyeglasses he never found time to repair. The holes in his shoes. The awkwardness that evaporated once he began talking about his great project. Even his neurotic, incurable drinking. Nothing on earth mattered to him except his exhibit, and on it he lavished every waking thought. He existed for its future. That, I realize, is the source of my feelings. To this exhibit, Ugo was a father.
    Simon returns now, followed by the gendarme who questioned him. My brother’s eyes are blank and wet. I wait for him to say something. Instead it’s the officer who speaks.
    â€œYou may go now,” he says. “Fathers.”
    But the body bag has just arrived. Neither of us moves. Two gendarmes lift Ugo on top of it and stretch the sides around him. The zipper makes a sound like velvet ripping. They begin to carry him off when Simon says, “Stop.”
    The policemen turn.
    Simon lifts a hand in the air and says:
    â€œO Lord, incline Your ear.”
    Both gendarmes lower the body bag. Everyone within earshot—every cop, every gardener, every man of every caste—reaches up to remove his hat.
    â€œHumbly I ask,” Simon says, “that You show mercy on the soul of Your servant Ugolino Nogara, whom You commanded to pass out of this world into the region of peace and light. Let him be partaker with Your saints. Through Christ the Lord, amen.”
    In my heart, I add those two essential Greek words, the most succinct and powerful of all Christian prayers.
    Kyrie, eleison .
    Lord, have mercy.
    Hats return to heads. The bag rises once more. Wherever it is going, it goes.
    There is an aching stillness between my ribs.
    Ugo Nogara is gone.

    WHEN WE REACH THE Fiat, Simon pops open the glove box and