Deceptions

by Michael Weaver

  He kept her there beside him. Finally she brought him sleep as a special gift.

  27

  ROME OFFERED GIANNI Garetsky well over a hundred art galleries to comb through for something he might recognize as having been painted by Vittorio Battaglia. And along with Mary Yung, he was covering about twenty of them a day.

  But Rome was, after all, one of the most romantic cities in the world, it was summertime, and the more immediate threats to their lives seemed to have eased.

  So it really wasn’t all that difficult to take a little time off here and there to pleasure themselves. And if it wasn’t quite the sublime honeymoon idyll that Mary Yung had teased Gianni about, it did come startlingly close.

  They stayed at a charming pensione within walking distance of the Trinita dei Monti.

  They ate at delightful, out-of-the-way restaurants, where everyone seemed warm and friendly, where it was impossible to get a bad meal, and where the mandolins came close to making you weep for the years spent anywhere else.

  They strolled by moonlight on the slopes of the Palatine Hill on which the emperors of Rome’s golden age erected their palaces opposite the Colosseum and the Arch of Con-stantine.

  They stood mute before some of the greatest art ever pro duced by the civilized world, and held hands to better share each moment.

  “I can’t imagine anything sadder,” said Mary Yung, “than to have to look at things like this alone.”

  How did she know to say that? Gianni wondered.

  Once, sitting on a bench opposite the Spanish Steps, he watched her walk over to a stand to buy some flowers for their room. She had on a pale yellow blouse dotted with leaves. A breeze brushed the blouse softly against her breasts as she stood in front of the clustered blossoms. Because of the sun, Gianni couldn’t tell what her face was like. But he had a curious need to wave to her, so he did.

  She kissed him when she came back.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “For waving to me.”

  He looked at her, this beautiful, solemn-faced woman who said such strange things.

  “No one’s ever waved to me like that before,” she said. “I mean just for no reason.”

  Gianni had to turn away. She was reaching that far into him. He could no longer pretend the feeling wasn’t there or that it was only lust.

  The flowers looked bright and hopeful in their room. When the sun or the light from a lamp caught them, they seemed to dance. Mary called them her bridal bouquet and laughed when she said it. But only her mouth was laughing. Her eyes were doing something else. It was her eyes that Gianni cared about most.

  In bed, they couldn’t seem to leave each other alone.

  Mornings and late afternoons were Mary’s favorite love times. She said night was mostly for peasants, who were too bashful or ashamed to look at each other.

  Gianni was like an adolescent, newly arrived at the feast. The pleasure she gave was exquisite at any time, but in his thoughts the moment he kept reliving was that of climbing the stairs to their room behind her, watching her hips move and anticipating what was ahead.

  God, he would think, this woman has got to be too much.

  On their fifth morning, they lay side by side in the afterglow.

  The blinds were drawn but the early sun broke through in splinters of brightness. Gianni’s body seemed weightless to him, anointed. He knew he should be getting up to start the day’s search, but he felt only a vague inertia.

  It was warm in the room and they lay naked on the sheets. Mary’s flesh gleamed in the morning light.

  Another ten minutes, Gianni promised himself.

  “How many more galleries do we have left in Rome?” Mary Yung asked.

  “About fifty or so.”

  “And if we don’t find anything in those?”

  “We go on to Florence.”

  “And then?”

  “Venice, Naples, Palermo. You know the list.”

  She stirred beside him. “I have a terrible confession to make.”

  Gianni waited.

  “I sometimes wish we never find anything.”

  He stared at the ceiling.

  “That’s really crazy, isn’t it?” she said.

  “It sure is.”

  “I know. It’s just that these past days have been so lovely.”

  Gianni was silent.

  “At least for me,” she said.

  “For me, too.”

  She rolled over and kissed him. “You didn’t have to say that.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Only because you’re such a nice man.”

  “No. Only because it’s true.”

  Mary lay still, holding him. Golden flecks came and went in her eyes as the curtains stirred in a breeze and shifted the sun’s rays.

  “What if we never do find Vittorio,” she said. “Would it really be that awful?”

  Gianni let the possibility enter him, felt it start moving around inside. It was no worse than swallowing ice water too quickly.

  “With care,” he told her, “and a bit of luck, I suppose we might survive it.”

  “That’s not the answer you’re supposed to give.”

  “I’m sorry. I guess I’m just not very good at these games.”

  “It might not be a game. There’s always the chance it could happen. Haven’t you ever thought of that?”

  “How could I not?”

  “And?” she said.

  “Most of the time I just brush it aside.”

  “And when you don’t brush it aside?”

  Gianni lay with it for a long moment. “It can run pretty deep and dirty. We’d need plastic work on our faces. We’d have to live looking back over our shoulders and never stop. We’d be reinventing ourselves a day at a time and knowing it’s not going to change.”

  “You mean like Vittorio’s probably been doing for the past nine years?”

  Gianni nodded, although he hadn’t really thought of it in that light.

  Mary sat up in bed to look at him. “You kept saying we. Does that mean you’d want us to be together?”

  Gianni was silent and sat very still on the bed, allowing the beautiful naked body and the exquisite face to make all the more obvious arguments in her favor.

  “We could end up hating each other,” he finally said.

  “There’s always that danger.”

  “We’d have to be very strong and very good to make it last.”

  “Yes.”

  Then they just looked at each other until he finally pulled her to him.

  “This is just bullshit,” he whispered.

  “I know.”

  He kissed her and felt drunk on her taste.

  When he could speak, he said, “At worst, I’d rather hate you than be without you.”

  Sadly, she didn’t believe it for a minute.

  * * *

  Having just crossed off their first two unsuccessful galleries of the morning, they walked in the sun along the Via Veneto and stopped at some sidewalk tables for an espresso and briasche.

  The Via Veneto, thought Gianni dimly… where the women are young and beautiful, the men rich and distinguished, and where never is heard a discouraging word.

  At least, as long as you picked up the check.

  Their next scheduled stop was the Galleria Raphael on a nearby side street. Before going in, they stood studying several paintings in the windows.

  “I’d buy this one in a minute,” said Mary Yung.

  Gianni looked at the canvas. It was a freely brushed portrait of a solemn, dark-eyed boy with the sun lighting his hair and an azure sea behind him.

  Gianni stood silently staring. And he knew he had a moment then. For the boy in the painting spoke to him. Something in the deep of the boy’s eyes, some familiar radiance, traveled out of a far-off past and into his brain.

  “We’ve hit it,” he said softly. “This is Vittorio’s.”

  Mary Yung looked at him.
“You’re sure?”

  Gianni nodded, feeling himself nothing but open, raw depths.

  “How do you know?” she said.

  “Because I first met Vittorio when he was eight years old, and he had the same face. If this kid isn’t his son, I swear I’ll eat the canvas.”

  He felt Mary’s fingers dig into his arm.

  “Also, that’s his brushwork. It’s the way he always handled flesh color in direct sunlight. See? Two cadmiums, yellow and red—broken, unblended, and both on the brush at the same time.” Gianni was excited now. “Can’t you just feel the vibration, the damn sun itself on the kid’s cheeks?”

  Mary bent to squint at the name in the lower left-hand corner of the painting. “Guido Cosenza,” she said.

  Gianni took a deep breath, let it out with a sigh, and led her inside the Galleria Raphael.

  The proprietor was involved with another customer at the rear of the shop, and Mary and Gianni browsed on their own. Gianni saw two more paintings signed, “Guido Cosenza,” and recognized Vittorio’s hand and talent in both. A vein in his temple throbbed as though about to go into riot.

  The other customer left and the proprietor came over.

  “Is there something I can help you with?”

  He spoke to them in fluent but slightly accented English. Like almost everyone else they’d had anything to do with in Rome, he had them instantly stamped as American. Which Gianni preferred. It allowed him the advantage of keeping his Italian to himself.

  Gianni smiled. “My wife and I have fallen in love with Guido Cosenza’s handling of that young boy in the window. So few artists ever know what to do with children. They always seem to turn them into undersize adults.”

  “That’s true,” said the art dealer. “But not many people are perceptive enough to see that. Are you interested in the painting?”

  “It’s very appealing,” said Gianni. “But what we’re really interested in is having Mr. Cosenza do a portrait of our son in that same style.”

  The man stood looking at them, and Gianni could almost feel him estimating price as measured by their ability and willingness to pay.

  “I hope Mr. Cosenza accepts portrait commissions,” said Mary Yung. “We’d be so disappointed if he didn’t.”

  “To be honest, signora, I couldn’t answer that. I’d have to speak with his representative. Is your son with you here in Rome?”

  “Yes. And he’s about the same age as the boy in the painting. That’s what got us so excited about the whole idea. We’d certainly appreciate it if you could make a call and let us know where we stand. Is that possible?”

  The dealer was busy staring at Mary Yung’s eyes, a meticulously tailored connoisseur of beauty in any form who, Gianni saw, had just been inducted into his alleged wife’s fan club.

  He smiled with less-than-perfect Italian teeth. “Everything is possible, signora.”

  “We’d be so grateful.”

  The proprietor offered a small bow with his head, went to the phone on his desk at the rear of the gallery, and checked a number in his Rolodex.

  A moment later he was talking to someone in rapid-fire Italian.

  Pretending to study some of the paintings, Gianni worked his way close enough to the dealer to hear just about everything he was saying. The artist’s rep was obviously giving him a hard time, and his voice kept growing louder and more emotional. When he finally hung up, he was furious.

  “Signora… signor… I am decimated. I am so sorry… so sorry.”

  Arms waving in frustration, the art dealer was abject in his apologies.

  It appeared that Guido Cosenza not only didn’t accept portrait commissions, but detested them. In fact, he didn’t even like children. Evidently not even his own, since the boy in the painting did indeed turn out to be his son. What normal father would put a price on his own child’s head. It was like selling the child’s soul on a piece of canvas. God was too careless in handing out talent. Guido Cosenza was unworthy of his gifts.

  By the time they left, Mary Yung was consoling the dealer. Gianni Garetsky just wanted to fly out of there as quickly as possible. He was that excited.

  “Well?” said Mary when they were outside and walking. “Talk for God’s sake! I’m busting!”

  Gianni was so busy thinking, it required special effort to put the necessary words together. “We’re going to Positano.”

  “That’s where Vittorio is?”

  “I think so.”

  “What do you mean, think] Is he or isn’t he?”

  “It’s not that simple. Let me tell you what I’ve got. Then decide for yourself.”

  They were back on the Via Veneto, with the traffic crawling and honking and swarms of tourists everywhere. Garetsky walked for a moment in silence, his mind still trying to catch up with what he’d overheard.

  “Understand,” he said. “Everything I have came from the dealer’s end of the conversation. So I had to do some filling in. The artist’s rep is a woman. Her name’s Peggy Walters. She’s American, she’s married to another American named Peter Walters, and they have a nine-year-old son called Paulie.”

  “Lovely. Peter, Paul, and Peggy.”

  “More than just that.”

  It took her a moment. “You mean the boy’s about the same age as Guido Cosenza’s son in the painting?”

  “Exactly. So you can see where that points. They all live in Positano, on the Amalfian Coast. Which I know well. In fact, well enough to recognize the three tiny islands of the Sirens that Vittorio painted in the water behind where he posed his boy.”

  Gianni walked looking at the bumper-to-bumper traffic without seeing it. All he saw was a young kid he felt had to be Vittorio Battaglia’s son, standing there with the sea and Ulysses’ three rocks behind him.

  “This Peggy Walters reps other artists besides Vittorio,” said Gianni. “So she’s got his work nicely camouflaged among the rest. The thing is, who could Vittorio trust more than his wife to sell him as Guido Cosenza and keep his true identity secret?”

  The question was purely rhetorical but Mary Yung answered it. “Nobody.”

  “Then you agree? You think Vittorio’s living in Positano as Peter Walters?”

  Mary shook her head. “I don’t just think. I know he is.”

  They said good-bye to their room.

  Then as Gianni waited impatiently for their bill to be put together, Mary Yung went into the powder room to make her call.

  She had the attorney general on the line in under two minutes.

  “We’ve located him,” she told Henry Durning. “Are you ready to carry out your end?”

  “Yes.” It was said without hesitation.

  “Then wire the money immediately to the Banque Suisse in Berne, credited to personal account number 4873180. Do you have that?”

  “Yes. But it’s after four here and the banks close at three.”

  “Don’t fool with me, Mr. Durning. We both know there’s no clock running on electronic international money transfer anymore. I’m calling my bank in exactly one hour. If my account’s been credited, you’ll hear from me with the information. If not, forget the whole thing.”

  “How do I know you won’t just take the money and run?”

  “You don’t. But I suggest you try a little old-fashioned trust, Mr. Durning. You might find it rewarding. Besides, you’re not someone I’d want chasing me for the rest of my life. Nice speaking with you.”

  Mary Yung hung up.

  Her palms were sweaty and bad things were happening in her stomach. They held the promise of extinction. She had opened a big, black hole and placed herself at its center. Still, she felt she had carried it off well. For which she thanked Jimmy Lee, who had once taught her about numbered offshore accounts and their many uses. He had even helped her open her present modest account with the promise she’d be grateful to have it one day.

  She was grateful now.

  In a few hours I will be rich.

  28

  THE
FLIGHT FROM Rome took less than an hour, and Gianni Garetsky and Mary Yung were at the Naples airport by early afternoon.

  They had spoken little during the trip. Their brief Roman idyll suddenly seemed distant and dreamlike, and the initial excitement of locating Vittorio had passed. In its place was the more sobering thought of what might now result from their having found him.

  For Mary Yung, with her own two-faced involvement, there obviously was a double concern.

  While Gianni was impatiently arguing and filling out forms at the Hertz rental counter, Mary drifted out of sight and found the public phones.

  First, there was the Banque Suisse in Berne.

  Put through to an English-speaking account executive, Mary identified herself with her secret code letters and account number. Then with her throat dry and scratchy, she asked the big question.

  “Could you please tell me whether there were any deposits made to my account during the past few hours?”

  “One moment please,” said the Swiss banker in perfect Oxonion English.

  There was silence, and Mary Yung had a vision of swift, practiced fingers flying over computer keys.

  “Madame?”

  “Yes?”

  “There was a single deposit. It was received by wire at exactly 1437 hours, standard time.”

  Mary’s mouth was a desert. She tried to suck some moisture into it, but there was only sand.

  “What was the amount, please?”

  “Exactly one million dollars, American.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  “A pleasure to be able to serve you, Madame.”

  Slowly, almost trancelike, she hung up the receiver.

  Then she felt it building down below. And rising. And building and rising again.

  Until she had to stuff her fist into her mouth to keep it inside. Thirty years tore through her brain like a videotape gone wild, she saw a thousand ugly things she’d done just to keep herself breathing and that she’d never have to do again.

  Then she came down with a bump.

  Payment time.

  It was late, but she knew the attorney general would be waiting for her call. He answered the phone himself.

  “Durning.”

  “You see?” Mary said. “I don’t just take the money and run.