Mauricio de Sully went, alone, on Monday night, to check if Fabrice had returned. Still, breaking his word to John Temple Graves, he did not call the police. In recent times, enough scandals have involved the Church to make a mistake due to a not entirely justified haste and in relation to a simple sacristan. If something has happened to this bastard, it's well deserved, because deep down he's nothing more than a cunt. With so much time he's had since he's been here to make the astracanada of yore and it occurs to him to carry it out precisely at this crucial and, I would even dare to say, dramatic moment. What a joke the pelafustan has prepared for us. Days before what is going to happen in this same cathedral, which will turn the world upside down, and here he sends us to the police, no less, the police, to poke their noses into every corner of the building looking for this thief that God confuses. No, there are people who definitely have the gift of opportunity.

   Irritated, the rector archpriest retired to his chambers and, despite everything, slept on both ears.

   The next day he woke up refreshed and without thinking in the slightest about the matter. After washing the complicated face that was his property, he went to the dining room in search of breakfast and the morning newspapers. As usual, everything was already ready. He poured a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice to the brim and drank it in one gulp. He filled it out again, but this time, before finishing it, as he usually did, with speed and determination, he reached out his hand and glanced at the headlines of the first newspaper. He went white. His eyeballs seemed to want to pop out of their sockets and fall, like pingpong balls, onto the table. All the newspapers carried the same or similar headlines. "Wave of disappearances in Paris within the city walls. No less than half a dozen have been recorded in twenty-four hours and the police suspect there will be more." Then he read the details: "According to official media, the disappearances have all occurred within the indicated radius of action, although in the most heterogeneous scenarios, the street, the subway, a cinema and even the interior of a private home. Never in the history of crime has such activity been recorded. The entire Paris police are in a state of maximum alert and the greatest caution is strongly recommended, avoiding, for example, moving alone, through remote and solitary places. The victims do not have a precise profile. Anyone can be considered in danger.”

   Monsignor de Sully was stunned. That didn't stop him from gulping down, as always, the glass of juice and putting the entire breakfast between his chest and back, without wasting a single crumb.

   He then went to look for the key to the sacristanesque apartment and carry out a final check.

   As he feared, it was empty and the bed was as made as the day before. He hasn't come back, the big bastard. If you make me call the police and then nothing happens to you, I'm going to hit you with one of those cigars… A cigar that not even Fidel Castro could have dreamed of being made in the very country of cigars. A cigar that the sacristan dancer who has assigned us will not be able to hold it with both hands. He will spend a year ringing the cathedral bells, manually, the old-fashioned way.

   He returned to the dining room and placed his cell phone in front of him, on the white tablecloth. Black on white. That's how split he was. If I call, I endanger something very important, an unprecedented operation and I even run the risk of attracting the wrath of the Inveterate Enemy, who could accuse me of treason. On the other hand, the plan of the True Church could collapse. And all for a sacristan. No, if the thing has eggs. Wow he has them.

   On the other side of the scale is that, if I don't call, given the circumstances, I could even find myself in the dock for not providing aid to a person in danger. Furthermore, if the plan, despite everything, continues its course and comes to fruition, such an attitude could raise the suspicions of the police, who would handle the case from the field and the official perspective.

   Bad if I walk and bad if I don't walk. To do? Because, whatever the circumstances, you always have to act, especially when someone has some type of authority. Authority is responsibility. And where will the ox go that does not plow?

   He extended his left hand toward his cell phone. The screen lit up and he entered the access code for the device. Yes, you will have to call the police, but not just anyone. He searched his repertoire for the right person. He carefully dropped the broad tip of his index finger that could call, if that were possible, three adjacent contacts at once. The correct name appeared on the screen and, on the third signal, a deep bass voice emerged.

-Commissioner Esteban de Velasco, at your service, Monsignor.

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