A Glancing Light (A Chris Norgren Mystery) (20 page)

"There you are, Tony," I said excitedly, "that's the scam! It's genuine, all right, and he had it painted over to get it out of Italy. Then, once it's here he sets up this elaborate routine that winds up with the supposedly amazing discovery that there's a valuable work of art underneath—and he gets to keep it. "

"Oh, sure, nice and simple. All it leaves is one or two inconsequential little questions."

"Like what?"

"Like where did it come from in the first place? Nobody's reported it missing."

"Maybe it wasn't stolen. Maybe he bought it from somebody but couldn't get it legally out. Maybe—"

"And what was that business with the Rubens all about? How did he get hold of that? And if this is all a scam, how do you explain his giving us the $150,000? I wish we'd get taken in by a scam like that every week."

"Okay," I said wearily, "you're right. I don't know what the answers are. I can't figure out what's going on."

"Nothing's going on, at least not the way you mean. When will you be back in Seattle?"

"Monday. I'm all wrapped up here, but I'm catching a noon plane to Sicily tomorrow to pin things down with Ugo Scoccimarro."

"Fine, good. See you then."

"Don't spend that whole hundred and fifty thousand in Japan, Tony. Remember, we're buying that Boursse from Ugo. Sixty thousand."

"Absolutely. A deal's a deal. And Chris—I can still hear those gears spinning in your head. Forget about scams, will you, and just concentrate on business. All right?"

"Right," I said. "See you next week."

The coffee had already been delivered and begun to cool by the time I hung up. I drank mine and ate a couple of the orange-flavored
biscotti
that had come with it, while I filled Calvin in on the parts of the conversation he'd missed.

"I thought you said," he told me, "that there couldn't be any big-time artist's work underneath."

"Well, Terbrugghen's only recently gotten to be a big name Until lately he hardly got any attention. You don't find him in the standard art history texts until the sixties or even the seventies. Whoever forged the van Eyck could easily have painted over it back then, just wanting the panel itself, and an authentic old ground to work on. The Terbrugghen itself would have been next to worthless."

"Is that what you think happened?"

"I don't know. I've been instructed twice today, by two authority figures on two continents, to mind my own business. I think maybe that's what I'd better do."

Calvin leaned back and stretched. "Fascinating. Well, I guess I'll call it a night."

"Early for you, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but I have to get up early. This girl I met at the museum is driving me up to the Riviera for the weekend. Her folks have a beach house in Portofino. Hey, have fun in Sicily, and I'll see you back in Seattle."

Chapter 14

 
This girl I met at the museum is driving me up to the Riviera for the weekend.

How, I wondered glumly, did the guy do it? I'd been at the museum most of the afternoon myself and nobody'd invited me on any weekend jaunts. I hadn't even spoken to a woman. I didn't remember even
seeing
a woman But Calvin had seen, spoken, and conquered (had he used his nifty little pocket translator?), and tomorrow he was off to the Riviera with her.

Life was like that for him back home, too. In Seattle I'd attributed it to his Porsche, but he didn't have his Porsche here, so it wasn't that. I don't mean to say there's anything wrong with Calvin; looks and brains aren't everything and he's a nice enough guy in his own way, but I just couldn't understand why he seemed to turn up at every show reception with a new woman, while I came alone. And left alone.

Since Anne and I had broken up I'd been in a funk as far as females were concerned. Oh, there'd been a few, but I just didn't seem to have the energy anymore, or maybe it was the patience, for the get-acquainted routine: the games, the goofy questions, the tedious self-histories ("So—now tell me about you"). I suppose if I'd stuck with it I might have met somebody, but the chances were so slim—the number of normal- looking, superficially rational screwballs wandering around had astonished me—that it just didn't seem worth the effort.

With Anne it had been different: no games, no goofy conversations. I still had no idea what her sign was. There had just been a sweet, growing appreciation and attachment, a sense when I was with her that the world was a pretty fine place after all. Until that miserable episode in San Francisco had turned everything sour.

But now, back in Europe where we'd met and things had gone so well for us, San Francisco no longer seemed to overshadow everything. There had been extenuating circumstances. Making an end to a ten-year marriage, no matter how rotten, was unlikely to bring out the best in anybody. So there'd been a few bad days. Anne had never thrown them up to me; I was the one who'd made all the fuss at the time, and I was the one who was still making a fuss about them. She'd even called me, and here I was, still dithering.

      
Now look, Norgren, I said, you know you're going to call her back, so instead of cerebralizing for the next hour, why not save yourself the time and the angst and just do it? The hell with what Louis might think about it.

And so I did. I got out my address book and dialed her number at the U.S. Army installation at Berchtesgaden. Finally.

"Hello?"

She had answered promptly on the first ring, startling me into a tongue-tied panic. I almost hung up. It occurred to me I could have done with a few more minutes of cerebralizing. Stricken mute, I stood there with the telephone at my ear.

After a moment she spoke again, softly. "Chris?"

That tentative, quiet syllable flowed over me like warm, perfumed water. The tension drained out of my neck. My shoulders unhunched. I sat down heavily on the bed. "God, it's good to hear your voice."

The next twenty minutes were a blur of laughter and explanations, of cut-off sentences as we both tried to talk at once, of catching up with each other and trying to find our old familiar groove again. Then, gradually, the momentum slowed. We caught our breath.

"I've wanted to call a hundred times," I said.

"I know. Me too."

"It's just . . . well, I felt so bad about the way things went."

"We picked a rotten time to get together, that's all. It was my lousy idea, if you remember."

"It wasn't a lousy idea, it was a good idea. I was lousy company."

"You were
awful
company. Where are you calling from, Chris? Are you still in Europe?"

"I've been here all week." Briefly I told her about the show I was working on, omitting several of the more colorful experiences of the last few days. "I only got your message last night."

"When do you go back?"

"Monday—"

"
Monday
!"

That little cry of dismay did me a lot of good. Until then, I hadn't been sure if she wanted to see me again, or if that initial call to say hello had been a civilized way of saying good-bye.

"I'm in Bologna right now," I told her, "but I'm going down to Sicily for the weekend. Is there any chance you could come, too? You'd like Ugo, and he'd love to have you. And I don't have that much to do; we'd have some time to ourselves. Maybe drive around and see some of the island." I held my breath.

"Ah, Chris, I'd love to, but I can't. I'm tied up all weekend with a NATO subcommittee meeting in Rotterdam, at the Naval Institute. Things are like a zoo right now. Damn."

"Look," I said "I'm supposed to leave for home Monday morning, but I can shift it to Monday night. Will you still be in Rotterdam then?"

"I can be."

"All right, save Monday for me, will you? Maybe I can fly out through Amsterdam and stay for most of the day. It's just a quick train ride to Rotterdam."

"Don't bother about that. I'll meet you in Amsterdam. Oh, Chris, could you really do that? It'd be wonderful!"

"Don't worry," I said, my spirits higher than they'd been in months, "I'll work it out. Give me a number where I can reach you tomorrow. That'll give me a chance to figure out the logistics, okay?"

The telephone rang the next morning at about eight, just as I finished shaving. I toweled off the shaving cream and picked up the receiver. "
Pronto
."

"Dr. Norgren," the prissy voice said in English, "I am sorry to disturb you. I am Mr. Marchetti, the assistant manager You are leaving your room today, this is correct?"

 
"Yes, that's right." With the towel I dabbed at some cream behind my ear.

"We are having a small problem at the desk. Through a misunderstanding, a shortage of rooms has developed. May I ask if you will be staying until check-out time?"

"I can check out early if that would help."

I heard a relieved sigh. "Thank you so much."

"What time did you have in mind?"

"Would ten o'clock be too early? We don't want to inconvenience you."

"No, in fact I can be out of my room in half an hour if you like."

"Ah, that would be wonderful. You're sure it's no trouble? If you wish, you can leave your luggage with the bell captain until you need it. I will send up a boy."

"That's all right, I'll take it down myself."

"As you wish. You will be going to the airport? You would like a taxi?"

"Yes, it takes about half an hour, doesn't it?"

"On Saturday morning, about twenty minutes."

"All right, could you have one here at eleven-thirty, please? Or better make that eleven-twenty to be on the safe side."

"With pleasure.
Molte grazie, signore
."

"
Non c'è di che
."

By eight-thirty I had settled my bill, made arrangements for a room when I got back on Sunday night before flying on to Amsterdam the following morning, and left my bags with the bell captain, who wrote out a receipt and placed them with the rest of the luggage that lined one wall of the reception lobby. Then I went into the dining area and had breakfast, a good one: juice, a bucket-sized cup of strong
caffè latte
, and a basket of crusty, warm rolls, toast, jam, and cheese.

All the same I didn't linger over it. This was, in fact, the first meal I 'd had there. The Hotel Europa, as Calvin had implied, was not big on ambience. The building was an early nineteenth-century palazzo that had been reasonably well- maintained, with large public rooms, head-high paneling, and decent nineteenth-century fakes of good eighteenth- century paintings hung high on the walls. But there was a depressing, anonymous feel to the place, perhaps from the 1950s imitation-leather sofas, or from the total absence of amenities like flowers, or vases, or rugs, or ornaments on the tables. If you've ever stayed in a Moscow hotel, you know the feeling. Everyone else in the place seemed to be a businessman in for the trade fair, which apparently had to do with mattress and cushion manufacture, or so it seemed from the snatches of conversation I heard around me.

I finished the last of the coffee and walked to the Municipal Archaeological Museum a couple of blocks away on Via Archiginnasio. It was the only museum in Bologna I'd never been to, and I was anxious to see the well-known head of the Pharaoh Amenhotep IV it had on display. Well, moderately anxious. And once I'd seen it my interest in the remaining Egyptian exhibits quickly waned. There is, you have to admit, a certain numbing sameness about pharaonic heads. After you've looked at them for a few minutes, you're no longer sure if you're looking at Thutmose II or Thutmose III, or maybe even Amenhotep I. You don't much care, either.

There I am, being provincial again. I apologize. Pharaonic heads can be terrific, but I guess I just wasn't in a museum mood for once. After a few more minutes, with over two hours to kill, I walked several hundred feet farther down Via Archiginnasio, sat down at an outdoor table at the crowded Caffe Zanarini, ordered an espresso that I didn't really want, and thought about how to pass the time.

The café looked out over the Piazza Galvani, already buzzing with streams of well-dressed people, mostly women, mostly elegant, who had the steely look of serious Saturday shoppers in their eyes. At the center was a modest statue of the locally born Galvani, and beyond that, at the corner of Via Farina was an ancient but ordinary-looking apartment building with a marble plaque that was too small to read from where I sat. I knew what it said, however: Guido Reni had died there on August 18, 1642. At the other end of the piazza loomed the facadeless back of the basilica with its crazy jumble of 600 years' worth of changed plans, there for all the world to see in the stops and starts and metamorphoses of its naked brickwork.

It was the kind of scene that ordinarily would have occupied me for a reflective hour, but this morning I was restless, impatient to get on to Sicily. I jumped up after a few minutes, went to a telephone, and called the airport. Yes, I was told, there was an earlier Aer Mediterranea flight to Catania, departing at 10:15 A.M., and yes, they would be happy to reassign me to it.

That left an hour. I walked quickly back to the hotel, picked up my bags, and got the desk clerk to get me a taxi. I was at the Borgo Panigale Airport at 9:45, which left barely enough time, because security precautions in Europe, and in Italy in particular, are painstaking. If I'd been on an international flight, or had had anything but carry-on luggage, I wouldn't have had a chance to make it. As it was, I had to stand in a men-only line (the women had their own) to enter a booth where I was patted down and gone over with a metal-sensitive wand. Then I was directed to another line, this one heterosexual, first to have my bags go through the X-ray scanner, and then to put them on a counter where they would be opened like everyone else's and meticulously gone through.

Almost. I got as far as the X-ray machine. My suit bag had just come through the scanner without incident, and I was waiting for my old red duffel bag, when the conveyor belt stopped moving. A few seconds passed.