The Shroud Key

Chapter 1.

1.

“Signor Chase Baker!” shouts the guard sergeant as he

approaches the iron bars of this dark, dank, basement holding cell. “You are

free to go! Andare!”

I shove through a pen that’s filled

mostly with drunk, piss-soaked vagrants who’ve migrated from Peru. Why they cross over the big drink to Italy instead of heading north to America, which is far closer, beats the hell out of me. Maybe they get better health care

here. Or maybe it has something to do with a higher alcohol content in the

beer … Yeah that’s it, more alcohol in the beer.

The barred door slides open.

I step on through, offer the

uniformed guard sergeant a smile like, Top o’ the mornin’ to ya! Or, Top

o’ the late afternoon anyway. He doesn’t smile back. Go figure.

“Su,” he says, nodding at the

staircase before me.

Su … That’s Italian for “up.”

As in, Get the hell up those stairs! It’s also something an American

redneck might shout at an old dog before kicking it in the ass with his Redwing-booted

foot.

“Up the stairs, Chase. Detective

Cipriani would like a word with you in his office.”

“He asking or telling?” I say.

But the short, stocky cop just

glares at me like he has no idea how to answer my query. And he doesn’t. The

guard sergeant on my heels, I climb the concrete steps as ordered, like an old

dog being led around by his master.

A minute later I’m granted my private audience with Florence’s top cop. If you want to call him that. Detective Federico Cipriani closes the

door to his office, asks me to take a seat in a wood chair set before his long

dark wood desk. Set out on the desktop is a translucent plastic baggy that

contains my personals: my belt, the laces to my boots, my wallet, my passport,

my cell phone, my cigs, my Saint Christopher’s medal, my gun, my bullets … I go

to reach for them.

“Not yet!” barks Cipriani, from

across the room. “We need to talk first, Chase.”

I sit back, my eyes peeled on the

internationally licensed 9 mm Smith & Wesson.

“Looks like the Doyles aren’t pressing

charges,” I say. “How sweet of them.”

The fifty-something Cipriani goes

behind his desk, sits himself down. He’s a big man with a barrel chest and a

pleasant looking face mostly hidden behind a thick but well-trimmed beard. His

eyes are brown as is his hair, and the dark blue suit he wears was no doubt

purchased in Florence, probably at the department store across the street from

the Piazza Della Republica.

“It’s true they have dropped their

case of assault against you,” he nods, picking up my handgun, staring down

contemplatively at it. “But that doesn’t excuse you from punching the merda out

of an American tourist.”

“You detaining me further, Cip?” I

say, pronouncing the nickname like “Chip.”

He shakes his head.

“No, just trying to somehow get it through

that thick skull of yours that the time will come when I can no longer keep you

out of trouble. Eventually you will be asked to leave Italy for good.”

I force my eyes wide open.

“Never,” I say. “Who will guide all

those lovely lost women who’ve just arrived from America and England and Australia and Japan and China and Russia and …?”

“I’ll never understand it why a

bestselling author like you still insists on providing guided tours or working

as a private detective or even a, what do you call it, sand dog? Doesn’t make

sense.”

“Three reasons,” I say, slipping my

hand inside my bush jacket for my cigarettes, but then quickly realizing that

they are stuffed into the plastic bag along with my lighter and my bullets. Oh

well, I’ve been trying to quit on and off for years now. “One, writing is a

solitary existence. It gets mighty lonely. Second, guiding, detecting and sandhogging—not

sanddogging—provides me with badly needed human contact and it also makes for

good story material now and again. Third, the money is good and on occasion

great. Royalties are good too but not always so consistent. You with me here, Cip?

Just think of me as a Renaissance man living and thriving in the home of the

Renaissance.”

He spins the gun on his thick index

finger like a little boy and his plastic six-shooter, bites down on his lip.

“You know I don’t like that you are

able to carry this in my peaceful town of art and culture.”

“Money talks,” I smile. “Especially

in Italy. Just ask the American GIs who saved your ass from Nazi enslavement

during World War Two. And you personally signed off on my permit, don’t forget.

Besides, this isn’t your town anyway, Cip. It’s Brunelleschi’s town, or haven’t

you noticed that big giant marble dome occupying the center of the city?”

“You’re not getting any younger,

Chase. Soon you will not be so attractive to the young women who travel to this

beautiful country. Perhaps you will now consider spending more time with your

daughter in New York City.” Working up a smile. “You know, grow old gracefully.

With dignity.”

“The food is better here. So is the

wine. And I’m forty something. I’m not even close to old, yet.”

Cip sets the gun down on top of his

desk. Opening the small wooden box set beside it, he pulls out a cigar, cuts

the tip off with a small metal device he produces from his jacket pocket and

gently sets it between his front upper and bottom teeth. Firing the cigar up

with a silver-plated Zippo, he sensually releases a cloud of blue smoke through

puckered lips. Then, slowly straightening himself up in his swivel chair, he

reaches across the desk with his free hand, pushes the box of cigars in my

direction.

“Thought you’d never ask,” I say.

Stealing a cigar from the box, I

bite off the tip, spit it onto the wood floor. Leaning over the desk, I allow

the cop to light me up.

“You always were a class act, Cip,”

I say, sitting back. “When do I get my gun back?”

“Not yet,” he says. “I have a favor

to ask of you first.”

I exhale the good tasting and very

smooth Cuban-born smoke. If silence were golden, we’d be bathing in the stuff.

Finally, I say, “Okay, Cip, you’ve

got that look on your face like we’re going to be working together again

whether I like it or not. What do you need? You want me to dig up some dirt on

someone? Maybe follow some cheating hubby around Flo for a while?”

He shakes his head, smokes.

“Not exactly,” he explains. “But

you’re right. It’s possible I have a job for you.”

“I’m listening, so long as it

pays.”

He gets up, comes around the desk,

approaches the set of French windows behind me, opens them onto the noises of

the old city.

“I need you to find a missing man

for me,” he says after a time.

I turn in my seat, looking at his

backside as he faces out onto the cobbled street below.

“Find him where?” I say, knowing

the question sounds like a silly one since if Cip knew where the man was he

wouldn’t be asking me to find him in the first place. But it’s a good place to

start.

“Somewhere in the Middle East would

be my best guess. Egypt, perhaps.”

I smoke a little, visions of my sandhogging

days in and around the Giza Plateau pulsing in my brain.

“Egypt,” I repeat. “Not the safest

of places at this point in modern global history.”

“Especially if you’re an American.

And the man I want you to find is indeed an American.”

“What’s his name?”

Cip backs away from the window,

returns to his desk. Only instead of reclaiming his place behind it, he takes a

seat on the desk’s edge, left foot dangling off the edge, the right foot

planted.

“His name is Dr. Andre Manion. A

biblical archeology professor from a small Catholic college in your Midwest. An expert on the historical Jesus of Nazareth and said to have discovered some

relics belonging to the Jesus family.”

The name strikes home. So much so

that a lesser man would allow the small electrical shock of the name to show on

his face. But I’m not a lesser man. Or so I pretend.

“Did you say relics? Jesus relics?”

“Yes I did. Priceless antiquities,

which no doubt stir your juices, perhaps more than Mr. Doyle’s wife did last

evening. Manion’s over here on a teaching sabbatical at the American University. Or supposed to be here teaching, I should say. Early last month he went

missing and hasn’t been seen or heard from since.”

Cip is right. The name Manion when

combined with relics and antiquities does indeed stir my juices.

“Fact of the matter is this, Cip: I

worked as a sandhog for Manion eight years ago in and around Giza where we were

in search of some prized Biblical treasures. Perhaps the most prized Biblical

treasure of all. But we never did find much of anything, and truth is, Manion

ran out on me, leaving me hopelessly hungover and alone.”

“Sounds very dramatic, Chase,” Cip

smiles. “I thank you for your honesty.”

“Don’t mention it. Obviously my

life has improved in leaps and bounds since those days.”

“Obviously,” Cip says. “That prize

fight performance in the Piazza Del Duomo is proof of that.”

“Very funny,” I say. Then, “Thought

you said Manion was in Egypt?”

“That’s the best possible guess

based upon what we’ve put together thus far. I didn’t say there weren’t any

clues as to his specific whereabouts inside the embattled country. I said, he

himself hasn’t been seen, other than on airport security video in both the Florence and Cairo airports.”

“He traveling alone?”

“Don’t know the answer to that.”

“Exactly what relics has Manion

uncovered?”

I feel my heart race as I ask the

question.

“Don’t know the answer to that

either,” he admits. “But I’ve heard a rumor that he uncovered the small tomb

that housed the bones of Joseph, Jesus’s father. But that was a while ago now

and in any case, finds of this magnitude would naturally be snatched up by the Vatican. That is, the finds can be verified in the first place. Naturally you would be

familiar with such a process.”

“Naturally,” I say. “Or at the very

least, the relics would go to the highest bidding private collector. Perhaps

someone from Moscow. Or maybe one of your richer-than-God friends in Florence, Cip.”

The top cop smokes, glares at me

for a moment, like he’s waiting for the stink from my comment to dissipate.

I add, “I assume your support staff

has done everything in their power to locate him?”

“And then some. We’ve even gotten

Interpol involved. But they, too, have come up short. Egypt is not the most

cooperative of countries since its revolution and the election of a radical Islamist-backed

government.”

I reach into the right-hand pocket

of my bush jacket, pull out a small notebook and a Bic ballpoint that Short,

Stocky Guard Sergeant failed to relieve me of before tossing me into the pen

with the drunk Peruvians. I click on the back of the pen with my thumb, jot

down the name Manion, as if I need to. Then I write the name, Jesus, as if I

need to do that also. Finally I scribble in a dollar sign, just for good

measure. Makes me smile when I look at it.

“Manion got a wife? A mother? A

boyfriend? Someone I can speak with who might help me out here?”

I can’t recall if the professor was

married at the time we were digging all over Egypt. I recall him mentioning a

woman now and again. But I don’t recall her name.

“His wife is in town. She teaches

English at the same college her husband teaches at. She’s been here for a

couple of weeks now. She desperately wants to find him. In the meantime, she

can be a wealth of information for you, if you play her the right way and keep

your d**k in your pants.”

“Hey, you know me,” I smile.

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“Who would I be working for? You or

her?”

“If you take the job, you’ll be

working directly for her. She’s independently wealthy I’m told.”

“My kind of client.”

He slides off his desk, goes around

it to his top drawer, which he pulls open. He slides out a manila envelope and

tosses it across the desk so that it lands on the desk’s edge. I take the

package in hand and go to open it when he stops me.

“Take it home,” he insists.

“Examine it. Take your time. You should know that this one won’t be easy. It

will also be dangerous.”

“You mean I can actually say no for

a change?”

“Sure you can, Chase. Under one

condition.”

“And that is?”

“You pack up and head back home to

the states, since I will personally revoke your temporary work permit and your

permit to carry a firearm in Italy.”

“Those are my choices?”

“Take them or leave them.”

I smoke and pretend to think about

taking the job.

“Can you perhaps give me a hint

about what it is Manion was working on and why he was willing to disappear in

order to find it?”

But then, I already know precisely

what he’s working on. I just want to hear it from the good detective’s smoky

mouth.

“My guess is that Manion is being

paid by a private investor to locate something of extreme sensitivity in

religious circles.”

“Which means it would be worth a

lot of money in people circles,” I say, my eyes no doubt, lit up like the

lights on a Christmas tree.

“Watch yourself, Chase,” Cip warns.

“If what Manion is in search of is as important as I think it is, more than one

person will be willing to die in order to get their hands on it.”

I feel the weight of the package in

my hands.

“What the hell is Manion after, Cip?”

I need to hear it, to believe

it …

Exhaling, he says, “I don’t know

for sure since you will have to speak to his wife. But it’s possible that the

professor has stumbled upon something that is liable to shake up the very

foundation of Christian belief as the world knows it.”

The words aren’t exactly what I

want to hear, but on the other hand, the words can only mean one thing. I stand

up, my head feeling a little lightheaded from the cigar and from what Cip is

telling me.

“And that is?” I press.

“The bones of Jesus himself.”

There, he said it. Said what I

wanted him to say.

For the love of God, the quest for

the mortal remains of Jesus begins again.