End games az-11

by Michael Dibdin

  He tossed Tom out and started calculating time, money, ways and means. Martin had always been boss at multitasking, but he’d never had a chance to do it for such high stakes before. There was a certain drop-dead parcel of land above the Da Rang river that he’d had his eyes on for years. He’d often dreamt of wintering there, maybe even retiring and going home one of these days. The country was opening up more and more with every year that passed, even for the sons of former torturers. Most of the population was under forty and had only the vaguest memories of those times. Besides, the Vietnamese had by necessity always been pragmatists. They might still pay lip service to the party line, but all they really wanted was your money. Martin decided that it was time to assert his ethnic and cultural origins, to reassume his indochinite.

  He logged on to an internet research site that employed brainy, underfunded college kids and golden-age retirees who knew everything there was to know about just one thing, and within twenty minutes had a list of a dozen possibles which he whittled down on the phone to six, then three, before selecting the curator of antiquities at a museum in Bucharest. Martin had always associated Romanians with campy vampires and taxi drivers who couldn’t find their ass in the dark without a flashlight and a map, but it turned out that the Romans had been there way back when and had left behind a ton of stuff on which this Gheorghe Alecsandri was a recognised world-class expert. Add in that the guy was cheap, available and spoke way better English than Jake and it was a no-brainer. Martin fixed for him to arrive that evening, evaluate the samples, return a thousand euros richer the next day, ask no questions and tell no tales. He then spent a half-hour online arranging for the overnight transport to the local airport of a product he had recently bought on eBay, before heading to the top floor to try and get Jake onside.

  This wasn’t easy. Just getting Jake to unlock his door wasn’t easy. Getting Jake to respond to this new development really wasn’t easy, but if that sweet chunk of real estate was ever to be his then it had to be done. Jake never talked much, but now he wouldn’t talk at all. It took twenty minutes to elicit even the occasional ‘Eeeh’, but Martin doggedly kept going, repeating the gist of the story over and over again in different words. An eternity seemed to pass before he finally got Jake warmed up to a mental age of around three or four, at which point, just like a toddler, he wouldn’t shut up. Martin then had to listen to a rambling, incoherent monologue about how Jake had been totally scammed and suckered. By the rules of the game the menorah had to have been there, only it wasn’t, so the game itself must be screwed and that was like just such a total bummer, nothing made sense any more, what use was money if you couldn’t buy what you wanted…

  ‘Jake? Hello, Jake!’

  ‘Eeeh.’

  ‘Listen to me, Jake. Here’s something I haven’t told you. These guys mentioned some of the stuff they stole from the tomb when they opened it. One was a solid gold seven-branched candlestick. Mantega said it really impressed them because it was so big and an absolute bitch to haul away. Are you hearing me, Jake? The menorah was there, it’s safe in their hands and they’re willing to cut a deal. This ain’t over yet, so don’t go quitting on me now.’

  ‘Eeeh!’

  ‘Put the jet on hold. I’ve arranged for an expert to get here tonight, the director of a major European museum. He’ll look over the pieces that we’re being offered for evaluation purposes. If he says they’re genuine, that means their whole story and the rest of the treasure must also be genuine. In which case we get back to the other party and tell them that all we’re interested in buying is that big candlestick. After that, it’s just down to money.’

  Jake scowled and slouched around a bit longer, but in the end he seemed to see the logic of this.

  ‘Yeah, well, like, whatever, I guess.’

  The call that Nicola Mantega had been expecting came shortly after four that afternoon.

  ‘Check your mailbox,’ said Giorgio. ‘Collect the goods and take them to the buyers for assessment. Keep them in view at all times and bring them with you when you leave, then take them back to where you got them, put the receipt in an envelope and deliver it by hand to the address written on the paper enclosed. These items are not for sale.’

  Mantega ran downstairs to the bleak entrance hall of the building and unlocked his slot in the metal bin on the wall. Alongside the usual pile of junk and bills lay a plain brown envelope, unstamped and unaddressed. Inside was a left-luggage ticket headed Fratelli Girimonti and an address near the bus station. That day’s date had been stamped below, along with the handwritten time of deposit, about five hours before. There was also a scrap of paper with an address up in the old city painfully written in block capitals.

  Mantega decided to walk the length of Corso Mazzini to his destination and take a taxi back. The exercise would do him good and help calm his spirits, which were understandably in a state of some turbulence. He would also have a much better chance of spotting young Tommaso’s girlfriend or any other visible tail. At the end of the gun-barrel vista that the long straight boulevard afforded, a massive white thunderhead was visibly expanding in the thinner air high above, burgeoning out like the blast of dust and debris from a slow-motion explosion. Down in the street, every surface was denuded by the caustic sunlight whose brutal candour taught every Calabrian that what you saw was what you got and all you would ever get, thus making life easier for such people as himself, who traded in appearances that weren’t always quite so candid. He processed down Corso Mazzini, acknowledging the greetings of male acquaintances and the pointed glances of women young enough to be his daughter, telling him that while he might be a bit portly he was still powerful. They knew where the oil to cook their eggs came from. Mantega felt himself relaxing with every step he took. As long as he stayed here, in his own territory, surrounded by his people, nothing really bad could ever happen to him.

  Fratelli Girimonti turned out to be an old-fashioned ironmonger’s shop, opposite the square hollowed out of the hillside where the country bus routes terminated. It sold nails and screws and nuts and bolts and washers of every size and type, drills and chisels, hatchets and hammers, nippers and clippers, not to mention the cast-iron cooking pans, barbecues and patio furniture suspended on hooks from the ceiling. For your ferrous metal needs, this was clearly the place to come. The left-luggage facility was a minor aspect of the services available there, a remnant of an earlier era when peasants and travelling salesmen arrived by bus and needed a place to deposit their baggage until they moved on or found lodgings. Nicola Mantega handed over the ticket, paid the miniscule fee due and took possession of a large and surprisingly heavy cardboard box.

  He went outside and looked around for a taxi. There were always a few of them hanging around the bus station.

  ‘ Prego.’

  It took Mantega a moment to adjust his sightline to focus on the saloon double-parked outside the ironmonger’s. It took him another to recognise the face of the new police chief staring at him through an opened slit in the tinted rear window.

  ‘No really, thanks so much, very kind of you but I’d really rather take a taxi,’ he blurted out.

  ‘I’m not being kind,’ Zen returned. ‘Get in.’

  Feeling horribly conspicuous, Mantega elbowed his way through the mobile mass of street people, students, African pedlars, gypsy beggars and bargain seekers.

  ‘How do you know Giorgio’s people didn’t see this?’ he demanded angrily of Zen as the car pulled away.

  ‘Why should Giorgio expose his people to stake out a perfectly routine transaction? Besides, the surveillance team that followed you here didn’t report the presence of any competition, so I decided to take a chance. Cosenza is starting to bore me and I want to force the pace a little. Let’s have a look at the goods.’

  With the aid of a nasty-looking knife supplied by Zen’s driver Mantega slit open the plastic strip sealing the cardboard box perched on his knees, revealing multiple layers of faded newsprint. Like children op
ening Christmas presents, both men started pulling out the packaging and flinging it on to the floor. Mantega got there first, and lifted out the most beautiful object that he had ever handled in his life. It was a beaten gold plate engraved with patterns of intertwined curling vines in relief. Zen had meanwhile found the other item, a shallow dish with intaglio designs of nymphs and satyrs. The gold glowed with all the intensity, depth and provocation of human flesh. Mantega felt himself caressing it as he would a woman’s body. He was not given to feelings of awe and had no precedent for the ones that overwhelmed him now. Somehow the objects that had emerged from their tawdry wrappings in a reused cardboard box seemed more alive than he was.

  ‘Where in God’s name did Giorgio get these?’ Zen asked.

  ‘I have no idea. He wants me to take them back to that ironmonger’s and deliver the receipt to an address up by the cathedral. He said they were not for sale. But of course you already know that.’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t have the address. Show me that note.’

  Mantega handed it over with a sigh.

  ‘Please be discreet in the manner in which you handle this aspect of the operation, dottore. If Giorgio begins to suspect that I have betrayed him, he will come to me and kill me! You understand?’

  For a moment he had forgotten himself, and immediately feared that the chief of police might take offence. But Zen ignored not only his remarks but the entire subject.

  ‘So now you have to show these little beauties to the American treasure hunters in order to demonstrate the genuinita del prodotto.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Well, get busy. Things are moving more and more quickly, Signor Mantega. We must adjust to their rhythm if we don’t want to be left behind.’

  ‘I’ll do it as soon as I return to my office.’

  ‘You fool! I’ll be listening in anyway. Do it now.’

  It was an order. Mantega got out his phone.

  ‘How are you, Tommaso? Good, good. Listen, I have a message for your boss. The samples we discussed are now in my hands and I can bring them to your hotel at half an hour’s notice. But they are extremely valuable and I have been given strict orders not to let them out of my sight at any time. I therefore feel that on balance it might be best not to proceed until the person who is to examine them has arrived. Could you therefore let me know as soon as that occurs, whatever hour of the day or night it may be? I’ll expect your call.’

  He closed the phone and glanced at Zen. They were on the superstrada, near Carabinieri headquarters and the new railway station. He could pick up a cab there.

  ‘Can I go now?’ he asked.

  There was no reply. Zen’s silences felt far more menacing than anything he said, so Mantega was relieved when he finally spoke.

  ‘Let’s suppose that these samples are indeed certified as genuine. How do you propose to supply the merchandise for sale?’

  Mantega had given a considerable amount of thought to this.

  ‘I shall handle that part of the negotiations. Obviously we can’t invite them to view the assembled treasure and then pick and choose what they want, since we don’t have anything to show them. But such a sale would have to be shrouded in secrecy, for the protection of the buyer just as much as the vendor, and even the richest man on earth wouldn’t be able to afford the whole hoard. When the time comes, I shall play on that aspect of the matter and try to elicit from the Americans what sort of objects they are interested in.’

  Zen picked up the gold plate, whose essence seemed to hover fascinatingly between the soft glow apparent to the eye and the substantial weight of the mass beneath.

  ‘All right, suppose that they say that they really fancy this dinner service, only they’d like the whole eighteen-piece set.’

  Mantega smiled complacently.

  ‘We have a long tradition of artisan work in Calabria. The lute and guitar makers of Bisignano are famous all over the world. Their ancestors were brought here from Naples centuries ago by the Calopezzati family. Isolated from all subsequent developments, they went on making their instruments just as they always had. When the use of those old instruments was rediscovered, they were the only craftsmen in the world with an unbroken tradition. It’s as if the heirs of the great Cremona violin makers were still turning out seventeenth-century fiddles. What’s true for them is true for many other trades, including goldsmiths. You may consider us ignorant provincials, dottore, but our isolation has served us well in that respect. Once we discover what it is exactly that these people want, a suitable replica can be discreetly crafted at very short notice.’

  ‘Very well, but Giorgio is only likely to appear when the money is handed over. How and when exactly will that take place?’

  ‘I shall follow a variant of the procedures for a kidnapping ransom.’

  Zen eyed Mantega in a way that instantly deflated his earlier pride.

  ‘Ah! I’ve suspected all along that you were familiar with such matters.’

  Mantega swallowed that down.

  ‘The case is of course not identical. With a kidnapping, the sentiment of the family is a major factor. On occasion, they will even pay without seeing the hostage first. That doesn’t apply here. Clearly the payment and the handover of the goods must be simultaneous, giving both parties a chance to ensure that all is in order. I shall suggest my villa as a suitable location, and I guarantee that Giorgio will be present. When it comes to large amounts of money, he doesn’t trust anyone but himself.’

  Appropriately enough, they were now crossing the Ponte Alarico back into the city, within easy walking distance of Mantega’s office. Zen told the driver to pull over and let his passenger out.

  ‘You’ve got forty-eight hours to set up a meeting with Giorgio,’ he said. ‘After that, I’ll take you back into custody and proceed by other means. And don’t dream of betraying me in the smallest degree. You are complicit in the kidnapping and murder of an American citizen. Giorgio might kill you, but I’ll call my contacts at the United States consulate in Naples and have you renditioned off to wherever they’re outsourcing their torture these days.’

  Gheorghe Alecsandri arrived shortly after nine that evening on a flight from Rome. When the passengers emerged, Martin Nguyen was waiting in the foyer beside his driver, who was holding up a sign with the Romanian’s name printed in block capitals. Martin had vaguely been expecting an exotic creature from the Caucasian steppes — embroidered linen blouse, floppy black pants, knee-length boots — but his hireling turned out to be indistinguishable from all the Calabrians pouring off the plane after a busy day in the capital.

  Once they were in the car, Martin produced an envelope and handed it over.

  ‘Your fee, Doctor Alecsandri.’

  The academic then made what would have been his first mistake had he been attempting to pass for one of those local commuters. He smiled, broadly, warmly and with apparent sincerity.

  ‘Please call me George,’ he said in impeccable English.

  Martin noted approvingly that he immediately opened the envelope, extracted the sheaf of hundred-euro bills and counted them. Nguyen respected caution.

  ‘So, you wish me to deliver an opinion on some antiquities,’ Alecsandri said. ‘May I enquire as to their provenance?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ah. And neither, I assume, about your interest in them, Mr — ’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Alecsandri looked away. It occurred to Martin that he might have sounded a bit curt, a shade too American. Business was business and the guy had already been paid, for Christ’s sake. On the other hand, Martin knew that Europeans could be awful sensitive about their precious proprieties, and he needed to keep this guy sweet for now.

  ‘The fact of the matter, George, is that I’m acting on behalf of a friend,’ he said, with as expansive a gesture as it was in his nature to make. ‘The items in question have been offered for sale by a third party. My friend is interested, but naturally wishes to ensure that they ar
e genuine. Others are interested too, so we need to keep the whole enterprise absolutely secret for the moment.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ the Romanian murmured. ‘You can count on my discretion.’

  Martin phoned Tom Newman.

  ‘He’s on the ground. Get Mantega round with the samples. We’ll be there in forty minutes, max.’

  In the end, it took twenty-five. At one point, Alecsandri pointed to the driver and whispered, ‘This man’s a maniac!’

  ‘ Un romano,’ replied Martin.

  Alecsandri tossed his head lightly, as if that explained everything.

  The conference began an hour later in the sitting room that formed part of the suite which Jake occupied. It had been delayed by Alecsandri’s desire to shower and change, and the length of time it took Martin to prise Jake away from his online game and Tom Newman away from his mobile phone, on which he had been making arrangements to meet some girl called Mirella at the Antica Osteria dell’Arenella for dinner the following evening. Tom had been speaking Italian, but Martin’s passive command of the language was increasing by leaps and bounds. Too bad his ability to speak it lagged behind, otherwise he could dispense with his translator altogether. But he had plans for doing so just as soon as a deal was struck, so he didn’t comment on Tom’s evident intention of taking tomorrow night off. In fact, it rather suited his purposes.

  He finally got all the players assembled. Martin himself was wearing his usual Islamic fundamentalist outfit: a black lightweight woollen suit over a grey clerical-style shirt tightly buttoned at the collar and tiny, highly polished slip-on shoes. Jake sported a baseball cap turned backwards on his shaven skull, a T-shirt that read ‘AWGTHTGTTSA???’, faded jeans artfully torn at the knee and thigh, and basketball shoes that must have cost more than Martin’s whole ensemble. Tom had gone native in pigskin loafers, khaki cords, check shirt open half-way down his chest, a yellow lambs-wool pullover draped off his shoulders like a scarf, and aviator shades perched way up in the nest of blue-black curls above his broad and unfurrowed brow. Only Mantega and Alecsandri could have passed unremarked anywhere. Well, almost anywhere, because the Italian was clearly strapped, an automatic pistol peeking out of the shoulder holster he had left just sufficiently visible for his purposes.