Curious, Emilio had said, “What if I do?”

With that the guy had launched into a spiel about his cure-all tonic, claiming his elixir, “Yes, the stuff right in these bottles you see before you here,” was the stuff that had cured the AIDS cases everyone was talking about.

Emilio had listened awhile, then pushed him into a corner and knocked him around until he admitted that he hadn’t even come to the city until he’d read about the cures.

Emilio had similar run-ins with a number of the snake-oil salesmen he’d come across and under pressure the stories were all the same: charlatans preying on the weak, the sick, and the desperate.

Not that Emilio cared one way or the other, he simply didn’t want to bring one of their potions back to Paraiso and look like a fool in the eyes of the Senador.

This whole trip seemed a fool’s errand.

And yet...

A feeling was in the air...and in himself...a twinge in his gut, a vague prickling at the back of his neck, a sense that these littered streets, these leaning, tattered buildings hid a secret.  Even the air felt heavy, pregnant with...what?  Dread?  Anticipation?  A little of both, maybe?

Emilio shook it off.  The Senador had not sent him here for his impressions of the area; he wanted facts.  And whatever it was that was raising his gooseflesh, Emilio doubted it would be of any use to the Senador and Charlie.

But something was going on down here.

‡

Vincenzo Riccio stood in the dusk on the sidewalk in front of St. Joseph’s church.  He did not stare up at its Gothic facade, but at the doorway that led under its granite front steps.  People carrying candles were beginning to gather on those steps.  They carried rosaries and clustered around an elderly woman in a wheelchair who was preparing them for a prayer meeting tonight.   Vincenzo paid them little heed.

He had wandered the Lower East Side all day, tracing a spiral path from the Con-Ed station by the FDR, following a feeling, an invisible glow that seemed to be centered in the front of his brain, pulling him.  Where or why it was drawing him, he could not say, but he gave himself over to the feeling, allowed it to lead him in shrinking concentric circles to this spot.

And now he was here.  The invisible glow, the intangible warmth, the only warm spot in the city lay directly before him, somewhere within this church.

In the course of the weeks he had spent down here searching for the vision, Vincenzo had passed St. Joseph’s numerous times.  He had crossed himself as he’d come even with its sanctuary, and even had stopped in once to say a prayer.  But he had not been struck by anything especially important about the place.  A stately old church that, like its neighborhood, had seen better days.

Now it seemed like...home.

But what precisely was it that he had followed here?  He had no doubt that the strange sensation was connected to the apparition that had touched him with ecstasy and cleansed him of the malignancy that had been devouring him.  Neither did he doubt that the apparition was a visitation of the Blessed Virgin.  A true visitation.  Not an hallucination, not a wish fulfillment, not a publicity stunt.  He had seen, he had been touched, he had been healed.  This was the real thing.  His wish had been granted: He had witnessed a miracle before his death.  But as a result of that miracle, his death was no longer imminent.  He had been granted extra time.  And he’d used some of that extra time to find this place.

Why?  What was so special about this St. Joseph’s church?  What significance could it have for the Virgin Mary?  It was built on land that had been an undeveloped marsh until a millennium and a half after the birth of Christianity.  Vincenzo did not know of any sacred relics housed here.

And yet...

Something was here.  The same warm glow that had suffused his entire being a few nights ago seemed to emanate from this building.  Not from where he would have expected—from the sanctuary of the church itself—but from its lower level.  From the basement which appeared to be some sort of soup kitchen.

What could be here?  The remains of some American saint unrecognized by the Church?  Was that the reason behind the Blessed Mother’s visitations?

Inside...it’s inside.

Vincenzo was drawn forward.  Why shouldn’t he go in?  After all, he was wearing his cassock and collar.  Who would stop a priest from entering a church?  Especially a monsignor on a mission from the Holy See.  Yes.  Hadn’t the Vatican itself asked him to investigate the reports of visitations in this parish?  That was precisely what he was doing.

As he descended the short flight of stone steps he passed under a hand-painted sign that read “Loaves and Fishes.” He pushed through a battered door and entered a broad room lined with long tables and folding chairs.  Toward the rear, a serving counter.  And beyond that, a kitchen.

Further inside...

Feeling as if he were in a dream, he skirted the tables and moved toward the kitchen.  A growing excitement quivered in his chest.  He heard voices, running water, and clinking crockery from the kitchen.  He rounded the corner and came upon three women of varying shapes, sizes, and ages busily scrubbing pots, plates, and utensils.  The big, red-cheeked one glanced up and saw him.

“Sorry, we’re closed until—oh, sorry, Father.  I thought you were one of the guests.  Are you looking for Father Dan?”

Vincenzo had no idea who Father Dan was.

“Is he the pastor?”

“No.  Father Brenner is the pastor.  Father Dan is the associate pastor.  He went back to the rectory about half an hour ago.”

Down...it’s beneath your feet.

“Is there a basement here?”

“This is the basement, Father,” another woman said.

“But there’s a furnace room below here,” said the thinnest and oldest of the three.

Vincenzo saw a door in the rear corner and moved toward it.

“Not that one,” said the old woman.  “That leads to the rectory.  “There’s another door on the far side of the refrigerator there.”

Vincenzo changed direction, brushing past them, unable to fight the growing urgency within him.

So close...so close now.

He pulled the door open.  A sweet odor wafted up from the darkness below.

Flowers.

As his eyes adjusted, Vincenzo made out a faint glow from the bottom of the rutted stone steps.  He started down, dimly aware of the women’s voices behind him speaking of Father Dan and something about a Sister Carrie.  Whether they were speaking to him or to each other he neither knew nor cared.  He was close now...so close.

At the bottom he followed the light to the left and came upon a broad empty space with a single naked bulb glowing from the ceiling.

No...this can’t be it...there’s got to be more here than an empty basement.

Off to his left...a voice, humming.  He followed the sound around a corner and found the door to a smaller room standing open.  As he stepped inside, his surroundings became more dream like.

I’m here...this is the place...I’ve come home...

Candlelight flickered off the walls and low ceiling of a room that seemed alive with sweet-smelling blossoms.  He saw a woman there, her back was to him and she was humming as she straightened the folds of the robes draped around some sort of statue or sculpture recumbent on—

And then Vincenzo saw the glow.  He recognized that glow, knew that glow.  The same soft, pale luminescence had enveloped the apparition.  He could not be mistaken.  Hadn’t it touched him, been one with him for a single glorious instant?  How could he forget it?  He realized then that this was no statue or sculpture before him.  This was a human body laid out on a makeshift bier.

But whose body?

Suddenly Vincenzo knew, and the realization was like a physical blow, staggering him, numbing him, battering his consciousness until it threatened to tear loose from its moorings and...simply...drift.