A Glancing Light (A Chris Norgren Mystery)

by Aaron Elkins

  And to hell with finding the thieves, with prosecuting Croce himself, with worrying about the millions that the insurance company would shell out. Forget about catching the thugs who broke Max's legs, or punishing the murderers of Paolo Salvatorelli and old Giampietro the watchman. The paintings were the only thing that mattered, that was Antuono's philosophy.

  Tony Whitehead has told me many times that I'm a rotten negotiator (it's true) because I'm no good at hiding my feelings. My face gives me away. As it apparently did now.

  "You don't agree?" Antuono asked with a tinge of acid. "You think I look at this in the wrong way?"

  "No, it's just that . . . Well, sure, the paintings are important, but does that mean we just write off the human costs? That we hand these creeps their ransoms, collect the paintings, and call it square? Until next time, when we play the same game all over again?"

  It was more than I'd meant to say. Antuono had defended his position cogently enough in his office the other day, and who was I to quarrel with him? Especially when I had no alternative to offer.

  He waited sourly for me to finish. "Do you happen to know what the recovery rate is for stolen art in America?" he asked.

  "About ten percent."

  "That's correct. Interpol's rate, too, is ten percent. France does better: almost thirty percent. Do you know what our rate is?"

  "More than thirty percent or you wouldn't be asking me. "

  "Almost fifty percent. Since 1970 our unit has recovered 120,000 works of art-120,000! Italy recovers more stolen art than any other country in the world."

  "Maybe that's because it has more stolen art to recover," I said. "What other country even has 120,000 stolen works of art?"

  Why was I being contentious? Possibly because I was still smarting from his cavalier treatment of me in his office on Wednesday. Or maybe I'd never forgiven him for not being the imposing Eagle of Lombardy I'd expected (although he was doing a lot better today). Or—most likely—because I kept seeing Max, lying mustache less and wax-fleshed with pain in the clutch of that monster-contraption, and I wanted somebody to pay for putting him there. As far as that goes, I wouldn't have minded seeing someone called to account for my own lumps and bruises. Antuono responded with surprising moderation. "You're right," he said with a sigh. "It's a hopeless task. You know what we say here? We say: `Come and see the wonderful art treasures of Italy—only don't wait; they might not be here next month.' " He sighed again, sagged against the seat, and went back to gazing out the window.

  And suddenly, uniform or no uniform, Antuono was Antuono again. Tired, crabby, defeated. Scrawny, not spare. The Turkey Buzzard of Lombardy. I was sorry for what I'd said.

  "Colonel, I apologize. I don't know what I'm quarreling with you about. Your record speaks for itself."

  He glanced quickly at me to see if I'd intended a double meaning, which I hadn't. "You know, Dr. Norgren," he said slowly, "it's not that I wouldn't like very much to put my hands on those responsible. It's only that we have learned— learned in the hardest possible way—to go about it in our own manner."

  "Who do you think is responsible?" I asked. "Could Croce himself be behind it?" Antuono had been surprisingly forthcoming so far. Maybe he'd keep it up.

  He laughed; a single, scornful note. "Not Croce. We know all about Croce. A minor figure. No, he simply offers his services, and he accepts a commission. He has no idea where the paintings are. He has no idea who took them. He advertises, and he waits."

  "What about Bruno Salvatorelli?"

  "You know him better than I. What do you think?"

  "I hardly know him at all. But if you ask me, he was genuinely surprised when the Carrà and the Morandi turned up. Either that or he's a hell of an actor."

  "In Italy everybody is a hell of an actor."

  As if to illustrate the point, our driver suddenly stamped on the brakes and shouted a few staccato syllables at a car that had cut in front of us. We were in the Old City now, at the foot of Via Maggiore, where seven narrow, crowded streets converged, without benefit of traffic lights, at the base of the two strange, leaning 800-year-old towers that were even now the tallest structures in Bologna. The driver of the other car responded in kind, and a series of furious, rapid- fire gestures were exchanged: Chins were flicked; temples were dug at with spiraling index fingers; forearms were jerked. The cars moved apart, and our driver returned whistling to his work.

  "You see, to perform is part of our national character," Antuono said. "I understand it's part of our charm. But I believe you're right about signor Salvatorelli. I have no reason to think he knew anything of this robbery or of any other. I can also tell you that the paintings are not in his warehouse. That we know."

  "What about his brother?"

  "His brother?"

  "Paolo, his dead brother. Look, there's obviously something funny going on with Trasporti Salvatorelli, and if Bruno isn't behind it, then the chances are it must have been Paolo."

  "No, no. You're unfamiliar with these things. There are other reasonable explanations. That Morandi, that Carrà— they could easily have been—"

  "I'm not talking about those, I'm talking about Clara Gozzi's Rubens. How did that get there? Do you have a reasonable explanation for that?"

  "No," Antuono said mildly, "do you?"

  "No, I don't have an explanation for that," I said with more irritation than I intended, then lowered my voice. "But it stands to reason that Paolo had something to do with those robberies, doesn't it? The Rubens wound up in their warehouse, didn't it? And Paolo was attacked—murdered—because he was about to pass some kind of information about it on to you, wasn't he? He must have been involved."

  The car had pulled up on Via Montegrappa, in front of my hotel. Antuono let go of the strap he'd been clutching for the entire ride, turned to face me, and folded thin arms over his chest.

  "First," he said, "your conclusion as to the reason Paolo Salvatoreili was killed is surmise."

  "Maybe, but it's a pretty reasonable surmise."

  "Second, if we do assume it to be correct, then does not the same logic force us to conclude that your friend signor Cabot was also involved?"

  "Look, Colonel—" I said hotly, but it was from force of habit. He was right; being targeted by the bad guys hardly proved you were one yourself. "Yes, you're right," I admitted. "Well, thanks for the lift." I climbed out and stood at the open door, smiling. "Something tells me maybe I just ought to leave it to you."

  "Tante grazie, dottore," Antuono said dryly. "Grazie infinite!"

  With my fingers on the door handle, I paused. "Colonel, I'd like to propose something. You told me once before that you think the Mafia is behind the thefts."

  "The Sicilian Mafia, yes," he said warily.

  "Well, I'll be going to Sicily this weekend—"

  "And why would that be, please?"

  "I have to see Ugo Scoccimarro. He's lending some pictures to our show."

  "All right. And your proposal?"

  "I was just thinking that if it would be any help, I'd be glad to dig around a little, to see if I could pick up any rumors in the art world down there."

  He stared at me as if I were crazy. "You'd be glad. . . !" The rest was choked down with a visible effort. "Dottore, if you happen to learn of something pertinent, of course I will be happy to hear from you. But I beg of you, don't extend yourself. We have agents in Sicily, skilled undercover agents, who have been gathering information for months. "

  "But I could ask questions, get into places that your agents never could. I could—"

  "Dottore, we are speaking of an operation of great delicacy, great complexity. There is physical danger, as you well know. The smallest error of judgment could—"

  He reached across the width of the automobile to grasp my forearm. Entreaty hadn't been his strong suit so far, but it shone in his eyes now.

  "I beg you," he said. "Don't meddle. Attend to your business and let us attend to ours."

  Chapter 12


  Sure, just leave it to Antuono—who kept telling me that he didn't expect, didn't even intend, to bring anyone to justice. The people behind the thefts—the Mafia, if he was right–would just wind up a few billion lire richer, the insurance company a few billion lire poorer, and that would be the end of it; an inconsequential redistribution of wealth that Assicurazioni Generali was apparently happy to go along with, given the alternative.

  Too bad about Max, and about a couple of murders along the way—but you couldn't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, could you?—and all's well that ends well. We would have the paintings; that's the important thing. The paintings would be preserved.

  Except of course, that they wouldn't be preserved. Oh, we'd have them, all right—maybe—but you can't hack a stiff, fragile, five-hundred-year-old Giorgione out of its frame, roll it up, and stow it away God knows where, and expect to have quite the same painting when you unroll it two years later. Even that would be hoping for the best. Art thieves have been known to fold canvases (not salutary for aged pigment) or cut them into pieces, or even worse. And what about the future? If people committed theft and murder and got paid for it, weren't you just asking for it again? Was it really 120,000 works of art the carabinieri had recovered, or 1,000—each one stolen 120 times or so?

  And these reflections, discouraging as they were, assumed that the paintings would actually be located, that Antuono had matters in hand, as he'd been at such pains to imply. But did he? Then why, with his months of information-gathering, with his "operation of great delicacy, great complexity," was he reduced to hoping that Benedetto Croce's crude "advertisement''—if that was really what it was—worked?

  Such were my thoughts as I brooded over a bowl of seafood stew and a plate of stuck-to-each-other-any-which-way Italian rolls. I did have a stake in this, after all, over and above my normal curator's concern for the paintings. My friend had been crippled, and I myself hadn't been handled any too gently. It was only natural that I'd care how things turned out.

  And, well, yes, all right, I was a little ticked off—or maybe not such a little—by Antuono's treating me as if I were some bungling do-gooder that kept getting underfoot. Twice now he'd referred to me as a meddler. Why couldn't the guy see I had something to offer? Did he really think his agents with their fake mustaches and sham spectacles could gain the kind of entree into the art world that I could? Or was he just too much of a prima donna to accept help from anyone?

  I muttered something along these lines at the last of my zuppa di pesce, ordered an espresso, and tried to get Antuono out of my mind. As he'd said, he had his affairs to worry about; I had mine. Fine, the hell with him. I finished the bitter, bracing coffee in two swallows and headed for my appointment with the dour, orange-haired director of the Pinacoteca.

  The Pinacoteca—the word is Greek for picture gallery — was located a few blocks from the Piazza Maggiore, in a well-maintained old building, now painted a mustard yellow, that had once been a Jesuit convent. At the end of Via Zamboni. it was just down the block from the crumbling palazzo that had been the seat of the University of Bologna since 1710, and the small square at the foot of the street was crowded with long-haired, studious-looking youngsters, book bags over their shoulders, engaged in what appeared to be weighty conversations with their peers. There was a fair amount of litter on the pavement, and, except for the Pinacoteca itself, the buildings in the area were showing their age. Peeling plaster, decomposing stucco, and general grunginess were all around, and the walls and columns were covered with tattered posters, most of them notices for concerts or lurid calls to arms. "Rivoluzione!," "Indipendenza!, " and "Giustizia!" appeared frequently, as did warlike photographs of Fidel and Che.

  It was, in other words, a lot like Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, and by the time I stepped onto the Pinacoteca's portico, I was feeling right at home, even a little nostalgic for my graduate years at Cal.

  Inside, it was sharply different; no noise, no garbage, no picturesque seediness. All very serene and modem. The cellblock interior of the old convent had been gutted and replaced by spacious, off-white rooms in which the art treasures were expertly shown off against uncluttered settings. I was fifteen minutes early for my meeting with Di Vecchio, so of course I took the time to wander through. I'd been there before, but never with the theft on my mind, and this time I found myself heading for the two rooms from which the paintings had been stolen.

  As Di Vecchio had said, there was no "junk" in the 6,000- piece collection, but most of what the museum did have was work by regional artists who, however good, had never achieved worldwide recognition. These the thieves had left alone; understandably, in my opinion. Would you risk pursuit and prison to steal a Bugardini, a Garofalo ("the Raphael of Ferrara"), a Marco Zoppo?

  This is not to say that the Pinacoteca was a second-rate museum. Most of the world's great art museums are equally provincial: the Uffizi, the Prado, the Rijksmuseum—all are primarily showcases for their native sons. It takes a museum without much of a cultural pedigree of its own (the Metropolitan in New York), or with a long history of big spending (London's National Gallery), or with one of the world's preeminent looters in its past (the Louvre), to be truly eclectic. And even the Louvre is a little overrepresented in its Rigauds and Prud'hons, if you ask me.

  The thieves had also bypassed the famous paintings in the gallery given to the work of Guido Reni, Bologna's foremost artist. All of these had been created to hang in churches and be seen from a distance, so they were huge, averaging twelve feet by twenty-five. Even when cut from their frames and rolled up, they lacked portability—imagine hurriedly stuffing one in the trunk of a car. The same for a large Raphael in another room.

  What had they taken, then? Those paintings small enough to tuck under an arm when cut free and rolled up, that were by artists famous enough to bring real money in Riyadh or Tokyo or Cleveland. The Pinacoteca had lost works by Corregio, Tintoretto, Botticelli, Giorgione, Titian, the Carracci, Veronese—eighteen great masterpieces in all.

  Well, seventeen. The Botticelli, a Pietà, had been painted in the clumsy, semi-hysterical style of his sadly degraded sixties, thirty years after the glorious days of the Primavera. Definitely Mickey Mouse stuff, to use the appropriate art- historical terminology. Not that I'd tell that to Di Vecchio, of course. Anyway, a Botticelli was a Botticelli. One didn't take its theft lightly.

  Most of the pictures had been taken from the second-floor room in which I was now standing, and the one next to it. These rooms were different from most of the others in that they had no windows, only skylights. Assuming the thieves had used a rope ladder, the skylights would have made it easy to enter and leave the gallery without being observed, and the absence of windows would have given them privacy while they worked. The question was, how had they gotten in, and gotten the pictures off the walls, without tripping the alarms? Surely their security system hadn't just happened to be off, like Clara's. And where had the night guards been? It was something I'd never asked Di Vecchio about before; but then I'd never been put into the hospital in connection with it, either.

  From the corner of my eye I saw a guard watching me steadily. I thought it best to stop studying the skylight and instead focused on the wall in front of me, on which hung a large wooden altarpiece, a Christ Enthroned by the thirteenth‑century Florentine master Cimabue. Cimabue is one of those artists I know I should like, I really should. Very important historically. A splendid craftsman, the teacher of Giotto (maybe), the man who bridged the gap between the art of antiquity and the new humanistic world view, etc., etc. But I just don't like him; he gives me the creeps.

  Tony Whitehead has pointed out that this is hardly an apt sentiment from a curator of a major art museum, and that the least I could do would be to come up with a more felicitous way to put it. So I suppose I ought to rattle on about the frozen Byzantine angularity of Cimabue, or the grim, Gothic starkness. But the long and short of it is that Cimabue gives me the creeps. Sue me.

&n
bsp; Not that I didn't stay there studying the altarpiece under the eye of the guard. I seem to spend a lot of time studying paintings I don't like under the eyes of museum guards. The problem is, I always feel rotten just striding through a gallery, however wretched, in which some poor guard spends most of his working life. As a result, I usually feel compelled to demonstrate some appreciation, even if it's pretense. Just one more sign of insecurity resulting from my infantile anaclitic redefinition of love objects, I suppose.

  When I'd stood there long enough to make him feel better (all right, Louis, to make me feel better), I walked back to the elevator landing and went through the frosted-glass double doors that led to the administrative wing. Di Vecchio was in his office, severe and upright behind his steel desk in the armless, no-nonsense secretary's chair he favored. He glanced up from a letter he was reading and waved me into a rigid, molded-plastic chair, also armless. Three years ago, when the amiable, elderly Dr. Sorge Begontina had still been director, this office had been a homely, clubby place reeking of cigar smoke and stocked with ratty, comfortable furniture: a battered wooden desk with a row of cubbyholes at the back, threadbare Persian carpet, even a couple of sagging, horsehair-stuffed armchairs that were probably older than Begontina.

  But with the coming of Amedeo Di Vecchio, the horsehair had gone, as had the cigar smoke and the friendly clutter of Etruscan pottery shards and odd bits of Roman sculpture— a marble forefinger, half a sandaled foot, a fold of toga—that had weighted down open books or piles of paper, or simply sat there. Now the lines were clean and the furniture steel and plastic in simple primary colors. No more arms on the chairs. The only art on the walls was a set of engravings of the Greek ruins at Paestum. Beyond those frosted glass doors Di Vecchio might live in a Renaissance world of vibrant, subtle colors and bursting forms, but when it came to decorating his personal workspace, his own austere socialist's taste came to the fore.

  I settled myself into the hard chair as comfortably as I could while he signed the letter and placed it on a tray. He adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses on the bump at the top of his nose and sat more erectly in his own comfortless chair. With his fringe of a beard, his gaunt limbs, and his glittery eyes he looked like something from a Byzantine mosaic himself.