He was awaiting the outcome of the car’s maneuvers when something dark caught his eye. He looked up to see a dark blue sedan pull out of a space at the top of the square and disappear around the building on the corner. Could it be? Seeing the car made him realize he hadn’t mentioned the night’s incident to DiMaio. Just as well; it could have been some drunk teenager and the detective would think him paranoid. But if anything else happened…
The thought was interrupted by his cell phone, a local number he didn’t recognize. “Montoya.”
“Riccardo, this is Stefano Porcari.”
Why would this guy be calling? “Signor Porcari, how are you?”
“Bene, grazie. I have been regretting my abruptness when we met yesterday in front of the hotel. Perhaps you could come by the bank for a coffee. I’d like to hear your impressions of the seminar, a neutral observer, so to speak. If I want to convince the board to sponsor such events in the future, I need to decide myself if they are worthwhile.”
“It would be my pleasure.”
“Good. Where are you now? I can send a car.”
Rick kept the phone to his ear and looked around, spotting a sign on a corner wall. “I’m in Piazza Marconi.”
“No need for a car. You’re only a block away.”
Chapter Eight
Everywhere in the world banks choose offices that project wealth and stability, solid structures that instill confidence for both investor and borrower. Italy added another factor. The very word “bank,” after all, derived from banca, the table set out by early Florentine bankers on the streets of Rome, and Italy always prided itself on being the cradle of modern banking. So Italian financial institutions projected age and longevity as part of their image. By Italian standards the Bassano bank was not old, dating only from the mid 1800s, but the building was from an earlier period, creating an aura of sedate respectability. The front of the building didn’t help to identify it as one of the usual styles found in Italian construction. The columns could be neoclassical or Palladian. Decoration around the windows looked out of place, perhaps added later when tastes changed. It was one of Rick’s pet peeves, that a perfectly lovely medieval church had been ruined when another style was grafted onto it, especially when the change was Baroque. But he could not, by any means, be considered a serious architectural scholar.
Not helping to project the image of trust was the building’s system of bulletproof doors, set up like an air lock, that Rick had to pass through to gain entrance. The main lobby’s high ceiling, ornately decorated with gilt and allegorical paintings, drew his eye upward. As Rick took in the decorations, a younger man in a dark suit studied Rick with a rigid frown before stepping up.
“Signor Montoya?” The words were clipped, with a touch of impatience.
“Yes. To see Signor Porcari.”
“I know that.” He turned and began to walk away, but stopped and glanced back. Rick took the hint and followed him through a set of tall wooden doors to the inner offices of the bank. The man tapped on another massive door, opened it carefully, and stepped back to allow Rick to enter, all the while keeping his eyes averted.
Rick’s thoughts, for some reason, reverted to Spanish: muy simpatico.
Porcari sat behind a wooden desk the size of the door Rick had just passed through, and equally polished. Holding his phone to his ear, he silently mouthed a word of welcome and waved Rick toward a configuration of soft leather chairs at one end of the room. And a large room it was. Crawling down the vaulted ceiling were a series of groteschi, those strange figures which had come into decorative popularity when unearthed on the walls of Nero’s golden house in Rome. The walls of this room, however, were pure white, the better to show off a series of paintings, large and small, opposite the windows. Rick assumed that their placement was to keep them as far from natural light as possible, since each looked both old and valuable. He settled into one of the chairs and waited for Porcari to finish. The wait was about two minutes, after which the banker stood.
“Let me get us some coffee, Riccardo.” He pressed a button on his desk, barked an order, and walked to the chair opposite Rick. “When I saw you in front of the hotel yesterday I was in a bit of a hurry. Didn’t have time to thank you for what you did for the conference.”
“It was my pleasure. I learned quite a bit myself.”
The banker unbuttoned his jacket and folded one knee over the other. His black shoes were polished to a perfect sheen. “So you were not an expert on Jacopo before this week.” He chuckled and turned up his smile. “I have always had an interest in art, but knew nothing about the man before I took this position. I made a point of studying him, and have become a great admirer. It is almost a requirement of residency in Bassano to be well versed on Jacopo. His life and work are taught in the schools here.”
“Civic pride is always positive. And important to the bank, I would imagine.”
“Indeed. And you have conveniently brought the conversation back to the bank’s support for the seminar. I would be interested in your impressions of the program, Riccardo, since you are an outside observer. It was not a small sum that the bank spent on its sponsorship, and I must assess if the money was well spent.”
Rick took a moment to gather his thoughts. “I assume that what interests the bank most is the effect your sponsorship had on its image within the city and the provincia, and I have no way to measure that. But as far as the seminar itself, in comparison with others I’ve worked, I would give its organization very high marks.”
He was interrupted by the arrival of the coffee, brought on a tray by a secretary. The cups and saucers were local ceramic, as would be expected in a city which specialized in the craft. She placed the tray on the table between the two men and departed. Rick eased himself forward, somewhat difficult given the deep cushion, added some sugar to his cup, stirred it, and carefully settled back. His host did the same.
“Yes,” said the banker, “my impression mirrors yours. Tibaldi did well. He seems to have an aptitude for organizing that would not be expected from a specialist in works of art.”
Rick put down his now empty cup and looked up at the wall. “You have quite a collection here yourself, Dottore.”
The banker was still stirring his cup. He looked at the walls as if noticing them for the first time. “Not mine, Riccardo. The bank has acquired a number of works over the years, some from estates in foreclosure, others in lieu of payments, and a number purchased as investments.” A slight smile formed on his mouth. “There is no rule that says a bank must deal only in real estate, stocks, and bonds, in order to make a profit.”
“And it makes for a very impressive office.”
Rick expected that Porcari would at least mention the painters of some of the works, but instead he stared at his cup and took a first taste of the espresso. His face turned serious. “And this murder business, Riccardo. It hasn’t helped the image of the bank, to use your phrase. I’ve been told that you’ve been helping the police. Are they close to solving the crime?”
He likes to get directly to the point, Rick thought. “I wouldn’t say I’m helping the police, except that I translated when the inspector spoke with the foreign participants in the seminar. So I don’t know if they are close or far from finding the murderer of Fortuna.”
The banker studied Rick’s face as if deciding the sincerity of his answer. “In my opinion the police should be looking at someone in the man’s past. I only met him here at the seminar, but from his abrasive manner I would have to imagine that he had many enemies. One of them must have followed him here and killed him.” He carefully placed his cup, still half full, on the tray next to Rick’s.
“I’m sure Inspector Occasio is looking into that possibility.”
“I certainly hope so.” He did not try to disguise a glance at his wrist. “Riccardo, I have someone coming in a few minutes to ask for a rather sizable lo
an and I must prepare my answer.”
Rick opted not to ask if the loan decision had already been made. Instead he thanked Porcari for the coffee and took his leave. Fortunately, Mr. Personality was nowhere to be found. As he walked down the marble steps of the building into the street, Rick tried to figure out, as any Italian would, the real reason the man had asked to see him. Asking Rick’s opinion about the seminar was clearly only an excuse. Feeling him out about what he knew about the investigation? That was certainly part of it, though others had asked him about it, too, including the museum curator and even Beppo’s uncle. Porcari also gave Rick his opinion on the case, hardly a brilliant theory, about a possible murderer. Was the man thinking Rick would report it back to the police? One thing was sure, the banker was not pleased that Rick was not forthcoming, and someone so prominent in the community as Porcari would not be used to that.
He took a deep breath and turned a corner, his boots clicking on the stones of the street. On a bare wall, among funeral notices and movie advertising, he spotted a now-fading poster for the seminar. They’d been put up all around the city, but for the first time Rick stopped and read it. The art was a gaunt self-portrait of Jacopo da Bassano, under which ran the basic information about the event: dates, time, and place. Below that, in prominent lettering and logo, the Bank of Bassano got its due credit for sponsorship.
An aging Jacopo stared back at Rick, trying to decide what to think of this young person in strange boots and clothing. The artist wore the attire of his time: a dark skull cap and heavy coat with a long, fur collar which indicated status and perhaps wealth. The lines on his face and the graying beard spoke of a man who had labored all his days, but the expression said that such labor was a normal part of life. Rick wondered what Jacopo would have thought of his fame hundreds of years after this ritratto had been painted. Long overdue? He didn’t look like a vain man; certainly not if this were a self-portrait, given the prominent wrinkles and other signs of aging. There was no pride in that face, only the look of a man ready to go back to work. A true artist.
As he studied the likeness, it occurred to Rick that something was shared by everyone he’d talked to in the previous twenty-four hours. Beppo’s uncle, the museum curator, and now the banker—they all didn’t just know art, they collected art. Franco Sarchetti was also in that group of collectors, the man on the suspect list of both Innocenti and Detective DiMaio. And of course there was the enigmatic Caterina Savona. What could be her game?
He tucked that thought back into his brain and continued his walk, reaching a corner with a street that ran along the top of a grassy slope. A low hedge and a sidewalk edged the top of the hill, the kind he would have rolled down as a kid. The windows of the houses on the opposite side of the street enjoyed what must have been the best view in the city. The green valley that began at the bottom of the hill continued, with minor undulations, until it reached the base of the mountains in the distance. Rick had been on this street during his morning runs but while puffing along hadn’t given the vista its proper due. He stopped now to sit on one of the benches next to the hedge row and took it in. The street was silent except for the occasional car that came through the stone gate a few hundred feet ahead and drove past him. The bench caught shade from one of many trees, exactly alike, which ran along the top of the hill. Each had been lovingly trimmed to form an umbrella shape from the thick leaves. He walked to the thin trunk of the tree nearby and noticed that it held a small plaque with a black-and-white picture of a young man. He read the inscription, and found that the man, a partisan, was killed in reprisal by the Germans during the last days of the war. So that explained the name of the street, Viale dei Martiri. As Rick continued up the sidewalk toward the hotel he saw faces on each of the tree trunks and couldn’t help wondering if Karl Muller had made this walk. If so, did he wonder if Grandfather Muller had been a part of these atrocities?
***
It was not Muller whom Rick ran into at the hotel, but Muller’s British friend George Oglesby. Rick glanced through the doorway of the bar and saw him sitting alone staring at himself in the mirror, a half-filled glass of beer before him. Just before lunch was not a time of day when Italians drank beer, if there ever was such a time, so the Englishman had the place to himself. Even the bartender was nowhere to be seen. Oglesby’s disheveled look was enhanced by a sweater that might have been woven from remnants of an old carpet. He glanced up and saw Rick’s image between the glasses behind the bar.
“Rick. Come join me.”
Rick took the place next to him. “Thanks, George. Where’s your friend Muller?”
“Karl had an appointment. Seemed rather secretive about it, I dare say, and I didn’t press him. Doubt if he’s meeting some lady friend, but you never know. He does come down to Italy from time to time. He’s a bit of a collector of things Italian, I know, but I’m not sure if that includes signorine.”
Rick’s ears perked up. “What does Muller collect?”
“Like so many of us, he dabbles in art. We really should spend our spare time with stamps or coins, rather than what we study all day long.”
“Does Muller collect contemporary art?”
“Not sure. I think whatever catches his eye.” He suddenly realized that there was no glass in front of Rick. “What are you drinking, my friend?”
“Nothing for me, thank you. And you would have to go around the bar to get it.”
Oglesby laughed. “Marcello will stick his head out in a moment. He has a sixth sense about when my glass reaches a state of emptiness. So tell me, what have you been doing to pass the time while under house arrest?”
“Seeing a bit of the city. There wasn’t the chance during the seminar.”
“Helping the constabulary on the side, like you did for my interview?” He took a long pull on his beer.
“Not really, George. How have you been spending your time?”
He took a deep breath. “I have a dilemma, Rick. My wife is Italian, as you likely did not know, and her family lives not far from here. I had told her that I would not have time, with the program, to call on them this trip, as much as I would love to do so. And of course I wanted to fly to her side as soon at the seminar ended. Now with this damned murder investigation, I have been held here against my will.”
“I sense, George, that you are not anxious to drop in on the in-laws.”
The man sighed again, deeply. “You sense correctly, Rick. Lovely people, of course. And we do spend a week with them at Fossalunga every summer. But my Italian is rudimentary at best, good only for reading art history texts which, as I’m certain you know, bear no resemblance whatsoever to colloquial speech. When we are with her parents, Anna chatters away with her mother, leaving me to fend for myself with the old man. To say that he and I don’t have much in common, including a workable mutual language, would be a gross understatement. The thought of spending time with the Vizentin family by myself is daunting.”
“But they must feed you well.”
Oglesby groaned. “Alas, that is another problem. Anna’s mother is a cook without peer. And you know the two choices Italian mothers offer when they place a dish in front of you.”
“O mangi, o ti butto dalla finestra.”
“Precisely. And since I don’t want to be thrown out the window, I eat. And eat. And when my mouth is full I know that I don’t have to talk. Rick, the last time we spent a week there I returned home a stone heavier.”
A face poked out from a door behind the bar. Oglesby gave him a thumbs-up and Rick wagged a finger to indicate he didn’t need anything. The bartender walked over, took the now empty beer glass, and put it in the metal sink next to a stack of coffee cups. Then he lifted a clean glass from the shelf and filled it by pulling down a tall plastic knob behind the bar.
“Ecco,” said the bartender.
“Grazie, Marcello,” the Englishman answered before turning to Rick. “If
you promise not to tell my mates back home, I’ll confess that beer served cold can be quite satisfying. I believe this one is a local brew, but I’m not sure.” He took a long swig. “So tell me, Rick, how long do you think it will take the local coppers to solve this murder?”
“I’ve always heard that if they aren’t solved in the first few days, the chances of doing so at all drop radically. So I assume that’s the case here.”
“They can’t keep us here forever.”
“There are worse places to be cooped up.”
Oglesby looked at his glass. “I suppose you’re right.”
***
When Rick walked out of the bar into the lobby he nearly collided with Erica, grabbing her to keep from knocking her down.
“Sorry about that, cara. I was escaping from an Englishman who doesn’t want to visit his Italian suoceri.”
“Don’t they feed him well?” She straightened her skirt, though it didn’t need it.
“Why am I not surprised at your question? Anyway, it’s very complicated. Where’s Jeff?”
“He’s getting the desk clerk to make a table reservation at a place that’s been recommended nearby. Why don’t you join us?”
“I’d really love to, but—”
“Rick!” Jeffrey Randolph’s voice called from across the lobby as he strode toward them. He shook Rick’s hand and then took Erica’s. “You’re keeping busy, I trust, under the circumstances?”
“I’m trying.”
“I just asked Ricky to join us for lunch, but he has another engagement.”
Randolph reluctantly took his eyes from his fiancée and turned to Rick. “That’s unfortunate.” He looked quickly around the room and said in a lowered voice: “You could have given us the lowdown on the investigation. After all, you are helping the police, and Erica tells me that your uncle is a high muckamuck in the Rome police.”
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