Nicola looked at him tolerantly as she put the roll of bubble wrap back in its position under the counter. She could often be as sweet as her surname, but that softness hid a hard side to her character, something she had learned to develop over the years.
‘Of course,’ she said flatly as she stood up again. She was used to Marinetti’s worrying. He had the habit of carrying on like a mother hen at times and she had learnt that it was far easier just to agree with him. There were also times when she had to hide her amusement at the prima donna attitude of her employer, an attitude that was emphasized by an excessive use of expensive cologne.
‘And tell him to be careful with it. I would do the job myself, but I shall be resting prior to the concert.’ Marinetti had decided that he would take the gilt chair, which was to be used in the concert, to the lock-up that afternoon on his way home. Also, it was an opportunity to double-check on the screen to ensure it was ready for collection tomorrow when his client’s agent would come to take it away. Then my worries are over, he thought gleefully. ‘You haven’t forgotten that I will not be available on Friday, have you?’
‘No, I haven’t forgotten that you will not be available on Friday, because you will be resting before the concert,’ repeated Nicola, smiling at him as she drummed her fingers on the counter top. She had been to several of the Contessa’s concerts over the years, but more out of a sense of job-preservation than any interest in opera or singing generally. To her untrained ears, the singing always sounded good and she quite often recognized the tunes. However, she had tickets for this Friday’s concert and had purchased a new frock in which she would sparkle.
Not that Nicola would have known, but Marinetti would also be doing something else on Friday afternoon as part of his pre-concert relaxation – something he preferred no one ever found out about. In a discreet gay club he knew of in the back streets of Pisa, he had found a leaflet advertising ‘A way of relaxation and stress reduction’. It promised a weekly programme of one-to-one sessions with Tezziano, a bronzed, bearded Adonis who resembled both a Greek god and, in certain other respects to judge from the leaflet, a virile stallion. In the misguided hope that it might lead to something, Gregorio had promptly signed up. He had struggled to pay the fee, but he had consoled himself with the thought that something might happen and that his recent anxieties would soon be released – one way or the other. He had indulged in the fantasy that his over-stressed body would be soothed by the laying-on of the Adonis’ hands. Words had failed to describe his total disappointment when he had appeared for his first session, the previous week, only to discover that he got exactly what was advertised – no more, no less. Tezziano ran a nude yoga studio. Whilst he displayed his highly desirable attributes in a mind-boggling variation of positions, Gregorio Marinetti valiantly attempted to emulate the master, but, in reality he suffered, lusted and dreamed.
Perhaps this week will be different? If nothing else, I shall be really relaxed before the concert, he anticipated. ‘I’ll take the chair with me now and drop it off at the lock-up. Tell Francesco to collect the spare key from you on Friday. I have left it in the top drawer of my desk in the office as I must not be disturbed.’
‘Yes, I’ll tell him,’ she said, and don’t forget to touch up the grey roots before the concert, she observed.
Francesco was Nicola’s drop-out brother and Marinetti’s general odd-job man and, like Nicola, was totally trustworthy.
‘Good, then I’ll load up,’ said Marinetti as he picked up the chair. ‘Oooff!! It’s heavier than it looks,’ he said, straining to lift it before almost staggering across the shop to the door, which Nicola obligingly held open for him. ‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ he puffed, pausing in the doorway, ‘so, in the meantime, can you please turn your imaginative attention to how best to fill that empty corner with those new items in the stockroom.’
‘Of course,’ she replied, amused at the rather grand name for what she secretly called the closet. She thought this label more appropriate to describe the facility’s true dimensions.
The door swung closed and with some difficulty, Marinetti battled his way through the tourists before turning sharp right and entering the relative tranquillity of the dead-end side street that ran adjacent to his shop. As usual, he had parked his little van in the recess at the rear of the shop. As he struggled towards it he asked himself silently – and not for the first time – why no one had thought of putting a door in the back of his building when it had been built centuries before. Now, the comune planning office – guardians of Lucca’s architectural heritage – steadfastly refused to even consider an application for such a cosmetic triviality. Planning permission was totally out of the question.
‘I’ll get away in a minute,’ he puffed as he re-entered the shop, his appearance as dapper as ever, despite the beads of perspiration that ringed his forehead like the illuminated lights sometimes found around the head of the Madonna. ‘I need to make a notice, so that Francesco knows which chair to take on Friday. The partial set of dining chairs is also in the lock-up. The Contessa would not be pleased if she was presented with a straight-back dining chair, even if it was once sat on by Ambrogio de Medici!’ He sniggered slightly, a gesture which ended in a little snort.
‘Do you have any news on the delivery of the two missing chairs?’ asked Nicola.
‘Any day now, I should think,’ he replied, ‘and sooner rather than later, I hope. I need to move some of the items into the shop. There is a crisis of available space at the lockup at the moment.’
That’s because we haven’t sold much lately, so there’s little that needs replacing, mused Nicola, but she thought it unwise to say so. ‘Um hum,’ she mumbled as she busied herself with displaying the items she had removed from the closet.
‘That should do it,’ said Marinetti as he clipped the cap back onto a thick, black felt pen. He looked down at his handiwork on the counter in front of him. ‘Take this to the Institute’ it read in large, well-formed letters. ‘I’ll be off then, Nicola,’ he said, picking up the notice. ‘Enjoy your siesta and fingers crossed for a sale or two when you reopen. Give me a ring if anything exciting happens … otherwise not and I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘There is just one thing before you go,’ said Nicola.
‘Yes, my dear and what would that be?’ he asked, his free hand balanced on his hip, one foot slightly in front of the other. It was his usual stance.
‘Those,’ she replied, stabbing her well-manicured finger with its shimmering red nail polish towards Marinetti’s chest. ‘They are quite fetching, but I think not really an improvement on the original pattern.’
He looked down at his white silk brocade waistcoat and saw to his horror, that across the top right-hand side, just clear of the lapel of his jacket, a jagged line of tomato pips descended.
‘Oh, my God,’ he muttered, his voice rising several pitches as he desperately tried to flick the offending objects off his waistcoat without damaging the surface fibres. ‘And you let me go out into the street like this?’ he asked, incredulously.
‘Don’t worry about that; I’ve only just noticed them, so nobody else would have, not in that crowd,’ she replied, turning her attention back to her display. ‘It’s nothing a good dry clean won’t fix. Just make sure you ask for the “P” cycle.’
That is ‘P’ for precious, she added silently as the door swung shut behind him.
Some forty minutes later, Gregorio Marinetti reached the concealed security of the foothills. As he bumped his way along the dirt track, drawing ever nearer to his secure treasure trove, his mind – quite involuntarily – had turned to the highly valuable and potentially extremely dangerous von Hohenwald screen, which resided in incongruous splendour against the wall of the crowded garage. It was large and rather heavy – as was his present secret burden of debt – and he regarded it as the object of his salvation or damnation, depending on the mood of the fates. Of late it had always been the same – Marinetti felt the bile ris
e and his unease grow with each passing kilometre, as the distance between his van and the garage lessened. He was hopelessly inadequate at being dishonest – at least, in everything except his true self.
He looked yet again in his rear mirror, just to make sure that he wasn’t being followed, before instantly feeling a little stupid. Who on earth was going to attempt to follow him? Then he remembered only too well the tension-ridden interview with that inspector and promptly changed his mind. Perhaps he had good reason to be over-cautious at present. He cast another glance up to the mirror. There was nothing behind him, just dust rising from the dirt road. Then he noticed the tell-tale sign of his untouched-up roots.
How thoughtful of Nicola not to mention it.
He cast his eyes down to his waistcoat, the top of which, if he sat upright to his full extent, he could just see in the mirror. The tomato pips had left a dry residue of pale red, which, as Nicola had predicted, would only be vanquished by a good dry clean.
He covered the last few kilometres to his lock-up, bounced to a halt and switched off the engine. He got out of his van and stood in front of the door of the lock-up. It was a small, free-standing building on the smallholding of one of his neighbours. They were an elderly couple. As a result of macular degeneration, the husband had gone almost blind and the wife had never learned to drive, so they had been obliged to sell their ancient Fiat. As a result, their garage became a painful reminder of happier, more mobile days now long past. Never one to miss an opportunity, Marinetti had commiserated over their unexpected misfortune and had then quickly moved to obtain an agreement with them to use the now defunct garage, with its convenient up-and-over door, as his lock-up. It was water-tight, easily accessible on his way to and from the villa, secure in its anonymity and – above all – inexpensive to rent, at least by Marinetti’s standards.
As the door swung upwards and the sunlight streamed in through the opening to illuminate his Aladdin’s cave of wonders, Marinetti’s attention was drawn immediately to the screen, hidden under a large, heavy cloth. As he looked, he felt the butterflies flutter into life in his stomach. Too late to go back now, he reasoned as he took a step forward and carefully removed the cloth. He felt uneasy as the Lion of Saint Mark, from beneath its layers of centuries-darkened varnish, glared at him accusingly from the central panel. He had been obliged to open the screen out in order to accommodate it in the only available space against the wall. Space in his lock-up was at a premium; it had, after all, been built to house a modest little Fiat. As he stared at the object of his disquiet, Marinetti felt himself working up to one of his ‘nervous episodes’ – something with which Nicola was only too familiar. The sweat was starting to trickle down the small of his back, but that was not due to the pleasant warmth of the afternoon. ‘No you don’t!’ he said, half to himself, half out loud. ‘Oh no you don’t!’
He flung the heavy cloth back over the screen, as if to blot out the accusing glare. His conscience felt no better, although he fancied that some of the butterflies could possibly have landed. Just stay safe until tomorrow, he reassured himself as he patted the cover around the edge of the screen.
He turned his attention back to the large table and the incomplete set of Medici chairs. Blasted middle-men! How long does it take someone to package two chairs and send them on to me? He was looking at the space occupied by the ornate table and the matching chairs. Only ten of them at the moment, but when the other two arrived, the set would then be saleable and he could free up space by moving the items to the shop. He had tracked down the two missing chairs on a recent antique-hunting expedition, following a tip-off from a fellow dealer, but he always preferred to fool himself that the subsequent discovery came as an unexpected surprise. He got more of a buzz out of it that way. For the moment, the table and the existing chairs would have to remain where they were, as big a nuisance as that was. He carefully threaded his way further into the garage, drawn in by the invisible allure of his treasures. As he squeezed past the table, his thigh caught the protecting cover and pulled it with him as he shuffled past. He looked down at the table top, polished by so many hands over the centuries, and being a true antique dealer, he could fully appreciate the patina and character the surface displayed.
‘Ah … how beautiful,’ he purred as he ran his fingers a few millimetres above the surface not wanting to touch it for fear of leaving greasy finger marks. He twisted round with some difficulty and managed to pull the cover back into place, but his passion had been awakened. He turned into the garage once again and his attention fell on a tall, glass-fronted seventeenth-century Neapolitan display cabinet, with its bevelled glass panels and highly ornate gilded carvings. ‘Ah … exquisite,’ he muttered as he reached out towards it. Then he noticed the large mirror, which had started its existence nearly two centuries earlier in one of the royal palaces in Piedmont. The mercury reflective backing was still in excellent condition and the exuberantly decorated heavy wooden frame, a festival of cavorting putti and fruit, was capped by a shield bearing the Cross of Savoy and surmounted by a crown. It was in need of a little restoration here and there, but Marinetti could easily do that once he had the space to use the skills that his father had had the foresight to apprentice him to all those years ago. To tell the truth, Gregorio Marinetti was a little older than he liked to think people believed him to be. Still, that issue did not occupy his mind at present. The mirror would fetch a good price once he could get it into town and display it in pride of place in the window of the Casa dei Gioielli. Then he turned once again and his gaze fell upon another of his treasures, but before he could squeeze his way over to it, his common sense finally took control and reason prevailed.
‘Not today, my beautiful things. Today is only for music. We have a concert on Friday and I must prepare. I am sorry.’
A few minutes later he had extracted himself from the garage and had removed the heavy chair from his van. He manhandled it carefully into position in the front of the garage – not that he could have put it anywhere else, considering the chronic lack of space. Then he carefully checked to ensure that the chair would clear the line of the closed garage door. As he did so, his foot caught the edge of the heavy piece of cloth, which he had flung back over the screen with such force. He nearly stumbled and was only saved by clutching hold of the arms of the throne-like chair he had just placed in front of everything else. The squadron of butterflies took flight once again – exactly as they had often done since the screen first crossed the threshold of his shop. His palms were wet with sweat. He took a step backwards, as if the screen was repelling him and he knew that the lion was still glaring at him from behind the heavy cloth. The frenzied beating of the wings in his stomach had created a feeling of nausea. Anxiously, he looked around to see if anyone was watching, which was highly unlikely considering that the garage was in the middle of nowhere and surrounded on all sides by now largely unkempt fields.
‘Get a grip on yourself, for God’s sake!’ he muttered as he turned back to the garage and reached up to close the door. It was halfway down when he remembered the sign he had made. Without it, Francesco – who was not the brightest bulb in the chandelier at the best of times – wouldn’t have a clue which chair he was supposed to take to the istituto for the concert. He pushed the door up and walked back to the van. He returned, clutching the sign, but with his attention fixed once again, involuntarily, on the covered screen.
‘Why does life have to be so complicated?’ he asked himself as he put the sign on the chair, his eyes still half on the ominous bulk beneath the heavy cloth. It seemed to be exercising equal shares of fascination and dread upon him and it was all becoming just a little too much. He hastily reached up, closed the door gently, secured the two bolts and locked his treasures away behind the security of the two heavy Chubb padlocks. He then got into his van and in almost a total muck-sweat, retreated back down the dirt track in a cloud of swirling dust.
What he could not have known was that, in his haste to escape
the accusing glare of the lion, he had flung the protecting cloth back over the screen with such defensive force that the top corner of it had ridden up too high and had draped itself over part of the lifting mechanism that supported the door’s weight when opened. As he had closed the door, despite the care with which he had done so, the action of the movement had started to dislodge the cloth. Almost imperceptibly at first, the fabric started to slip, egged on by the encouraging embrace of gravity. What had started out merely as a suggestion of momentum now assumed increasing velocity as the cloth slid gracefully towards the concrete floor, uncovering most of the screen as it did so. On its way down to earth in the darkness of the garage, the cloth flicked across the seat of the throne-like chair and caught the edge of the sign, dislodging it. Not that Marinetti had even noticed, being obsessed as he was by the presence of the screen, but he had put the sign on the chair upside down. This oversight was now corrected, as the sign slid gracefully under the arm of the chair – like an ocean liner being launched – bounced once on a little pile of the accumulated fabric on the floor and toppled over to the left, righting itself in the process. Leaning neatly and purposefully against the screen, it came to rest in the folds of the fabric. The Lion of Saint Mark seemed to be smiling broadly in the gloom.
‘Take this to the Institute’, said the sign at its feet, written in Marinetti’s own neat and distinctive writing.
22
Riccardo Fossi had come to Florence to get some information about Daniele di Leone. Having made the decision that he should find out more about this Sicilian before committing himself to any business arrangements, he had made a phone call to a long-standing friend and suggested they meet up for a drink. Accordingly, he was now sitting at one of the attractive tables outside Il David, his favourite café in the Piazza della Signoria, the large public space in the heart of the city. He felt relaxed and was his usual confident self, hidden behind the dark anonymity of his Gucci sunglasses. The bright Tuscan sun beat down on the city and it was hot – even under the shade of the café’s umbrellas. Fossi took a mouthful of his cold beer and replaced the frosted glass on its little paper doily on the table in front of him. He licked his mouth, just to make certain that none of the thick froth from the head of the beer had remained in the stubble of his upper lip. Although it was only mid-afternoon, his five o’clock shadow had already made its appearance. Out in the piazza, the usual flood of humanity choked the place: groups being herded around by knowledgeable city guides; smaller groups wandering about on their own; couples who knew what they wanted to see and others who seemed to be in shock, overwhelmed by the crowds and by the realization that they had finally arrived in the beauty of Florence. Fossi lit a cigarette and relaxed more into his chair.
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