A week later Emil called Ridolfo Passerini into his office, alone. In the partnership of this man and his son, it was definitely Ridolfo who was the thinker, and Emil wanted the opportunity to run his plans past him alone, to make sure the full scope of what was being asked – and expected – was fully understood.
‘I get it, you want me for my brawn,’ Ridolfo said after Emil had gone through as much of the plan as he felt it necessary to share with the younger man. He paused a moment, then looked into Emil’s eyes. ‘I guess I shouldn’t have expected you’d be after me for my looks.’
Emil met his emerging grin with a smile of his own. This was the Ridolfo he knew.
‘It’s going to involve hard work,’ he said, bringing the tone back to reality. ‘And it may get messy. You’ll work for me, directly and exclusively, and I’ll have to be able to expect absolute loyalty. You’ll be well rewarded, of course, when we’re done.’
‘Are there others?’ Ridolfo asked. ‘Other people, also working on this? I can’t imagine it’s just you, me and André.’
Emil nodded in the affirmative. ‘There are others, but you’ll only be made aware of them if needed. The less you know, the better.’
Ridolfo rubbed a hand along the deformed skin that covered his cheek, brooding.
‘So, this is some sort of . . . what, a secret society? Which one am I being courted to join? Opus Dei? The Illuminati? I’ve read the books.’
A disgusted sigh barrelled out of Emil’s chest.
‘Why does everything that happens in this city automatically get assigned to the work of secret societies? For God’s sake, you’d think every bloody man, woman and child in Italy belonged to P2, or the Masons, or some underground collective keen on taking down the Church.’ Annoyance bled from his vowels.
‘To be fair,’ Ridolfo countered, ‘you are talking about working in pretty deep fucking secrecy. And the Church is a target.’
‘Taking down the Church is of absolutely no concern to me. The institution is irrelevant. Let it thrive or let it die, I simply don’t care.’ Emil pressed forward towards Ridolfo. ‘Must everything in Rome be a religious vendetta? Can’t it be enough just to be human, and to crave what every human craves, without religion entering into the discussion at all?’
Ridolfo eyed him. ‘If not a move against the Church, then what? What, precisely, are you after here?’
Emil sank back into the welcoming leather behind him. Silence preceded his answer, his fingers tapping over firm armrests.
‘Perhaps I spoke incorrectly,’ he finally said. ‘Religion isn’t wholly outside my interests, I’m simply not motivated by religious ideals. I’m far more interested in claiming what I want, out from under the grip of religious ideologies.’
If Ridolfo understood Emil’s words, his face didn’t show it.
‘Christianity has so many rules,’ Emil continued. ‘Do this, don’t do that. And it’s not enough just to call them rules – they become commands, commandments, uttered from a mountaintop to tell us, you and me, what we can and cannot do.’ Redness flushed his cheeks, but a series of slow, deep breaths allowed him to regain composure.
‘I’ve never been a fan of the ten commandments, Ridolfo. The first has always seemed implausible, and the rest are just too . . . binding.’
‘Mr Durré,’ Ridolfo interrupted, ‘I don’t see where this is leading—’
‘I wouldn’t say I’ve ever felt myself on a mission to break the commandments,’ Emil continued undeterred, ‘though there’s one in particular that really pisses me off.’
Ridolfo halted. ‘Which?’
‘The seventh,’ Emil answered. He let his hands fall into his lap.
‘The seventh?’ Ridolfo’s features scrunched in confusion. ‘Can’t say as I know them by number.’
Suddenly Emil rose. With fierce intention he walked over to a small bookshelf and pulled a bible out from amidst a stack of other volumes. He considered the shelf ‘research materials’ and gave the bible a similar significance to a dictionary or an atlas – and he knew how to use it, just as he knew how to use those.
A few seconds later he’d thumbed his way through to the page he wanted, and he set the open volume down in front of Ridolfo.
‘Right there,’ he said, pointing to a verse, ‘that’s commandment number seven.’
Ridolfo leaned down to the page, focused on the words, and read aloud.
‘Thou shalt not steal.’
When he looked up, Emil was smiling down on him.
‘Care to break the law of God, my son?’