Eye Wit (20 page)

“No, no! Don’t touch the arrow.”

Zoran ignored Yoko and pulled the arrow out. It didn’t have any blood on it. He reached in his shirt pocket and took out a small package. The gash in its paper wrapping was obvious.

32

My performance at Marco Fellini’s brownstone left me in despair even deeper than Brigitta’s death had, just nine days earlier. Not only was my Brigitta lost to me forever, I had broken my vow to her, my solemn vow on her deathbed. I had failed her completely. I had failed my whole family.

I knew of no way to redeem myself. What could I do?

Fellini was right. I could not prove the crystal ball on his mantel was my family’s crystal ball, even though I knew in my heart that it was. I could notify the media, but without proof they would not listen. The initials,
B K 42
, on the ball’s copper base, absolute proof to me of Fellini’s guilt, would be insufficient to the press without supporting evidence. They would not risk a resulting suit for defamation of Fellini’s character.

Without such convincing evidence, any lawsuit by me would be tossed out of court too, even if I could persuade a lawyer to file such a suit.

In my heart I knew that Fellini was guilty; his actions alone had made that clear. He was too controlled, too confident, too sure of himself, his statements too rehearsed. Yes, rehearsed. He had expected my accusations, perhaps not from me but from someone eventually, and he was ready for them. He just needed to be certain I had no evidence to support my accusations.

I rode my despair in a cab all the way to JFK, and much further. In the line at the SWISS terminal while I changed my reservation to the next available flight. In the concourse while I waited for my flight. Then in the Airbus 330 for eight hours, until finally I succumbed to fatigue and drifted into unconsciousness.

I dreamed of Brigitta, but only briefly. That was all it took. We were in our balloon, soaring high above the others at Château-d’Oex. Brigitta turned to me. “You are strong, Hans. You will find a way.”

My eyes popped open, my tears of self-pity evaporated. Brigitta’s voice trailed off in my mind. “I will always be with you, my beloved.”

The seat-belt light came on and a flight attendant reminded us—in German, French, and English—to return our chairs and tables to their upright positions in preparation for our arrival at Geneva.

Mama and Papa were waiting for me at baggage claim. I told them what we needed to do. We would mount a two-pronged assault on Castle Fellini. My parents would lead the investigation, drawing upon Roma around the globe. I would be the point man, sorting data and using it to thrust and parry and make Marco Fellini’s life miserable. I would pressure him until he cracked.

Mama and Papa are not especially computer-literate, but they are meticulous about their email, and their Gmail address book holds hundreds of names, organized by clan, family and locale. With one email message, they would cast a net that would reach around the globe, a web that would ensnare every detail of Marco Fellini’s past and present and every fact, rumor and innuendo about the life and death of Dr. Josef Mengele in South America and the disposition of Mengele’s “estate” after his death in 1979.

In particular, the focus would be on South American purveyors of illicit art. Fellini had not provided the name of the man from whom he said he purchased the crystal ball last September—the “reputable art dealer in Sao Paulo.” Dozens of Roma in Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay would make it their mission to locate the person who dealt with Fellini, whomever and wherever he or she might be.

My first task would be to talk to the reporter who had written the article in the
International Herald Tribune
about Fellini’s personal collection. That turned out to be surprisingly simple.
The
New York Times
website gave me Justine Hoffman’s email address, and she was more than willing to meet with me when I told her I was researching a book about noteworthy private art collectors, to explore their impetus to acquire art for art’s sake, rather than for public viewing or for resale at a profit.

We agreed to meet in a week at the Barfly Bar and Grill near Gramercy Park, Fellini’s neighborhood, for a casual dinner at 7:00.

“Tell me about your book, Hans,” Justine said, after we’d placed our orders.

“Not much to divulge at this point. I’m just getting started. You are my first interview, in fact.” I placed a tiny recorder on the table between us. “Is this okay with you? My handwriting is atrocious and my notes are usually worthless without something to back them up.”

“No problem. Now tell me. What kind of information are you looking for with regard to Marco Fellini?”

“I want to focus on the ‘why,’ Justine. What drives people like Fellini to collect things? Is it a love of beauty and need to own it, control it, safeguard it? It’s not to share it, I’m beginning to see, although Fellini did appear delighted and proud to show you some items, knowing your article would include photos.”

“I don’t know that there’s a simple answer to that question, really. With Fellini, he was definitely enthusiastic about the things he showed me, and I got the feeling that, with him, it was the thrill of the chase—finding something others hadn’t been able to acquire. I don’t think it was so much a case of him needing to own those things for their monetary value, although that Blue Period Picasso would fetch a tidy sum if he were to sell it.”

“Millions, I’m sure.”

“Absolutely. Still, his other things seemed to have more of a personal value, rather than monetary. His collection of things like artifacts of Ishi’s archery is easy to understand. Fellini himself is a skilled archer. He even had an archery run built on his roof, so he can practice every day.”

“Was there anything in particular, any item, that struck you as out of place or odd about his collection.”

She laughed. “That big geode, that thunder egg, struck me as funny, and that crystal ball certainly looked out of place. The geode was just something he picked up on a hiking trip, but everyone has things like that. The crystal ball, though, that definitely piqued my interest and I asked him about it. He said he had always been fascinated by Gypsy culture, something to do with his own family history, apparently. I asked him if there was Gypsy blood in his veins, and he laughed. ‘No,’ he said. ‘But my family in Italy had a lot to do with Gypsies.’ He didn’t elaborate. I asked him if his family had lived near a Gypsy encampment or something and he said, ‘Something like that.’”

“That’s fascinating. I’ll have to ask him for more details, if I’m able to see him. He’s a busy man and I don’t have an appointment yet. I’d like to find out where he got that crystal ball, too,” I said.

“He didn’t say anything about that, and I didn’t think to ask.”

We talked for about an hour in all, but nothing more of any particular interest emerged. When I got back to my hotel, I emailed Papa about the Fellini-Gypsy-Italy connection and asked him to have someone see what could be found.

For the next week, our people in North and South America and Europe were busy, but they found nothing earth-shaking. Just confirmation that Fellini’s public reputation as an honest broker of art was top notch, which was no surprise. He was very good at covering his tracks.

I spent that week doing research on my own, visiting gallery after gallery, showroom after showroom, asking about Gypsy art, particularly items dating from World War II. I found little of interest, except a generalized disdain among dealers and frequent referrals to pawnshops and parlors dealing with the occult.

Before I packed up to leave for the airport, I checked my email one last time. Only one email, forwarded from Milan, seemed promising. The email told of a search of Mussolini’s letters, for references to Fellini or Gypsies, including sterilizations, deportations and transfers to Third Reich camps. The searcher, Kelvin Cominskii, had been thorough, uncovering actions taken or contemplated to thwart the Gypsy menace, but he found no mention of the name Fellini in connection with any of those programs. He closed his email with this note to my father: “Too bad we’re not looking for a Bellini, instead of Fellini, because a Marcelo Bellini was the head of Benito Mussolini’s program to expel Gypsies. I found reams of information about Bellini, but no Fellini. Bellini was a real bastard. He was knifed to death on the same day Mussolini was hung. By one of us, I hope.”

I wrote back to Cominskii immediately, and asked him to summarize the information he had found about Marcelo Bellini, especially Bellini’s family and what happened to them during and after the war. I had a hunch, based only on remembering that scene from one of the Godfather movies, where the Corleone family acquired its name because of a clerk’s error: naming the family after their Sicilian village of origin.

I thought, it wouldn’t have to have been a mistake at Ellis Island. It would be child’s play for anyone to change a capital B to a capital F. A couple careful scrapes of a penknife would do the trick.

When I arrived at Geneva International Airport, I signed on to a SWISS wi-fi hot-spot and checked my email again. It looked like my hunch might have paid off. According to Kelvin Cominskii’s summary, one Marcellus Bellini, age five, had accompanied his seventeen-year-old brother, Vasco Bellini, on a flight to see their dying grandmother, who lived in Canada. Their flight had originated in Rome and ended in Montreal, after many intermediate stops, in the spring of 1944. Canadian authorities had found records of the Bellini boys’ arrival, but could provide Cominskii no confirmation of their return to Italy.

Cominskii’s email said he was putting all the material he had gathered in an overnight DHL pouch to my parents. When I opened the pouch at Mama and Papa’s I saw that Cominskii had flagged the pages containing the most pertinent information, including a photograph showing Benito Mussolini with his right-hand man, Marcelo Bellini, on a reviewing stand.

Mama and Papa went to work immediately, sending emails to contacts in Maine, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Delaware and New Jersey and, for good measure, the Great Lake states of Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota—all likely destinations for illegal Italian immigrants sneaking across the mostly unpatrolled US-Canada border.

During the next two weeks, thousands of calls and visits to state, county and city record centers produced hundreds of possibly relevant marriage certificates for the period of 1944 to 1950, but one in particular stood out. In Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 15
^th
, 1950, one Vasco M. Fellini, age 24, married Maria Louisa DeLuca, 23. The next year, they had a baby boy they named Marco, whose picture appeared with a birth announcement in the
Minneapolis Tribune
. The picture showed father, mother, baby Marco and the baby Marco’s older brother Marcellus, age 11.

Baby Marco Fellini would be 59 now, the same age as Marco Fellini, an art dealer in New York, the owner and occupant of a double brownstone at the corner of Irving Place and Gramercy Park South.

I returned to New York City immediately. Mama called a woman friend there, Christine Orman, who called Fellini’s office to find out when she could meet with Marco Fellini about handling the art in her late husband Carlo’s estate.

“He is terribly busy this week and will be vacationing on Bainbridge Island in Washington all of next week, Mrs. Orman. However, he will be at a reception tomorrow night at the National Arts Club, for the opening of the Ishi exhibit. Perhaps you could talk to him there?”

That would be terrific, Mrs. Orman allowed, and asked that two tickets for the exhibit be waiting for her at the door of the NAC, as she wished to bring her attorney along as well.

“Of course. I’ll make that call right now, and I will tell Mr. Fellini to expect you.”

New York City wore a cloak of snowfall almost as lustrous as Christine Orman’s ermine coat as she and I entered the National Arts Club through its main entrance. I wore the same gabardine suit I’d worn when I’d seen Fellini in his study. I spotted him instantly, talking to a knot of people surrounding a tall glass case in the club’s main exhibit hall. Fellini held a tall stemmed glass, no doubt filled with Moét, in his left hand, while his right hand pointed out the contents of the case.

I asked Christine to disappear into the crowd and enjoy the show. “If I don’t see you later, thank you for this.”

“I certainly will enjoy the show,” she said, heading for club’s Grand Gallery, acquiring a goblet of champagne from a passing waiter’s tray along the way. I glanced at the display case filled with bows and arrows as I approached Fellini from the rear. I tapped his shoulder. He spun around, irritated at the interruption of his soliloquy on ancient Americans and the exclusive art of archery.

His irritation morphed into anger that masqueraded as disdain. “Herr Reiniger,” he said, rolling his R’s. “Imagine seeing you here. What subterfuge did you employ this time, my Gypsy poseur?”

I held up my printed pass to the exhibition. “Your office provided this so we could continue our discussion of stolen artwork, Mr. Fellini. Or would you prefer your real name: Marco Bellini, of the Marcelo Bellinis, from the il Ducé clan?”

Fellini’s face fell, but he recovered quickly, as he turned back to his audience. “Everyone, allow me to introduce Hans Reiniger, the most inventive con man yet produced by the illustrious Romani. Herr Reiniger is not only a Gypsy, but a flying Gypsy. And not just a flying Gypsy, but a hot-air balloonist, and not just any hot-air balloonist, but, according to Hans, the prime force behind that marvelous exhibition each January at Château-d’Oex. Hans is a big thinker, you see, convinced that if you’re going to lie, you might as well make it a whopper.”

His audience couldn’t decide whether to smile or scowl so did both. Fellini gripped my arm by the elbow and propelled me across the lobby towards a distinguished gentleman greeting arrivals at the door.

“Aldon,” he said loudly. “This man is Hans Reiniger, an imposter and an intruder, and he is disturbing our patrons. Have him escorted out now, please, and use the back entrance, by the dumpsters. If he gives you any trouble, call 9-1-1. I will be happy to swear out a complaint for the police.”