Inside, I smelled sawdust and wet marble, like the basement of a Renaissance cathedral. Shadowy figures huddled at the tables, sipping wine by candlelight-locals or lost tourists, I assumed, at this hour of the night. The only touch of modernity was the unattended video slot machine next to the door with a handwritten sign on it that probably said OUT OF ORDER.
“Stay still,” Gobi said, and started walking toward the bar. She sounded like her usual self again. My eyes had just started to adjust to this deeper, subterranean darkness. I looked again at the figures seated around us, and when I saw who they were, I felt a cold, rubber-gloved hand of dread tightening over my stomach.
The whole room was full of priests.
I went over to the bar, getting as close as I could to Gobi, leaning forward to whisper in her ear. “What are you doing? We’re in a priest bar.”
“Do not lose your nerve on me, Perry.” She spoke without turning her head, without seeming to move her lips. “Just turn around slowly and wait.”
I did as she said, trying to figure out how long it would take me to run back out the door. The priests sat at their tables, gathered here in near silence like a murder of crows. Fat ones, skinny ones, old ones, young ones-they must have come here from the cathedral across the piazza. Was this where they hung out after mass? At first count I guessed there were eight or ten of them eating or murmuring to one another, sipping a glass of wine or reading the newspaper, candlelight glinting off their spectacles. Several of them had already taken notice of our arrival, and without staring, I tried to guess which of them wasn’t the real priest, which one wasn’t going to be walking out of here tonight. I felt the irrational urge to shout at them: Why aren’t you in church?
There was a flicker of movement in my peripheral vision.
Behind the bar, a woman reached down and brought out a long cardboard box, like the kind you’d use to deliver long-stemmed roses, and laid it on the counter with a muffled but somehow very loud thump.
Gobi picked up the box, weighed it in her hands, and nodded. I saw her hand reappear holding a plastic bag filled with rolls of carefully bundled euros, which she placed on the counter. The woman on the other side made it disappear so quickly that it was almost like it had never been there. The entire transaction took less than three seconds. My heart was pounding hard, and I was pretty sure that I could make it to the front door in three steps.
That was when the police walked in.