He gave no thought to the condition of his hands or clothes, but carefully pushed aside the litter of paper, probed under and between the chunks of marble, all the broken statuary around him. At the far end of the cavern he found that once he had swept the litter aside there was a clear space underfoot. Starting at the wall, he inched forward on his knees, sweeping his fingers lightly back and forth over the ground. Then his fingertips hit a slight depression in the flinty earth, an almost imperceptible concavity. Despite the chill in the air, he was sweating now, and had to pull out a handkerchief to mop his brow.
He traced the depression, his fingertips moving along it, following it to its length, turning where it turned, marking a rectangle the length and width of a man’s body. Once before, in the course of his official duties, Detective Noah Freeman had marked a rectangle like this in the weed-grown yard of a Bronx shanty, and had found beneath it what he had expected to find. He knew he would not be disappointed in what would be dug up from this hole beneath the Teatro Marcello. He was tempted to get a tool and do the digging himself, but that, of course, must be the job of the police. And before they would be notified, the pieces of the puzzle, all at hand now, must be placed together before a proper witness …
When Noah returned to the Pensione Alfiara, he brought with him as witness the rabbi, bewildered by the unexplained urgency of this mission, out of breath at the quick pace Noah had set through the streets. Rosanna was at her desk. She looked with alarm at Noah’s grimy hands, at the streaks of dirt and sweat on his face. For the rabbi she had no greeting. This was the enemy, an unbeliever in the cause of Ezechiele Coen. She had eyes only for Noah.
‘What happened?’ she said. ‘What’s wrong? Are you hurt?’
‘No. Listen, Rosanna, have you told Giorgio anything about von Grubbner? About my meeting with the police commissioner?’
‘No.’
‘Good. Where is he now?’
‘Giorgio? In the kitchen, I think. But why? Why—?’
‘If you come along, you’ll see why. But you’re not to say anything. Not a word, do you understand? Let me do all the talking.’
Giorgio was in the kitchen listlessly moving a mop back and forth over the floor. He stopped when he saw his visitors, and regarded them with bleary bewilderment. Now is the time, Noah thought. It must be done quickly and surely now, or it will never be done at all.
‘Giorgio,’ he said, ‘I have news for you. Good news. Your father did not betray anyone.’
Resentment flickered in the bleary eyes. ‘I have always known that, signore. But why is it your concern?’
‘He never betrayed anyone, Giorgio. But you did.’
Rosanna gasped. Giorgio shook his head pityingly. ‘Listen to him! Basta, signore. Basta. I have work to do.’
‘You did your work a long time ago,’ Noah said relentlessly. ‘And when your father took away the money paid to you for it, you followed him and killed him to get it back.’
He was pleased to see that Giorgio did not reel under this wholly false accusation. Instead, he seemed to draw strength from it. This is the way, Noah thought, that the unsuspecting animal is lured closer and closer to the trap. What hurt was that Rosanna, looking back and forth from inquisitor to accused, seemed ready to collapse. The rabbi watched with the same numb horror.
Giorgio turned to them. ‘Do you hear this?’ he demanded, and there was a distinct mockery in his voice. ‘Now I am a murderer. Now I killed my own father.’
‘Before a witness,’ Noah said softly.
‘Oh, of course, before a witness. And who was that witness, signore?’
‘Someone who has just told the police everything. They’ll bring him here very soon, so that he can point you out to them. A Major von Grubbner.’
‘And that is the worst lie of all!’ said Giorgio triumphantly. ‘He’s dead, that one! Dead and buried, do you hear? So all your talk—!’
There are animals which, when trapped, will fight to the death for their freedom, will gnaw away one of their own legs to loose themselves. There are others which go to pieces the instant the jaws of the trap have snapped on them, become quivering lumps of flesh waiting only for the end. Giorgio, Noah saw, was one of the latter breed. His voice choked off, his jaw went slack, his face ashen. The mop, released from his nerveless grip, fell with a clatter. Rosanna took a step toward him, but Noah caught her wrist, holding her back.
‘How do you know he’s dead, Giorgio?’ he demanded. ‘Yes, he’s dead and buried – but how did you know that? No one else knew. How do you happen to be the only one?’
The man swayed, fell back against the wall.
‘You killed von Grubbner and took that money,’ Noah said. ‘When your father tried to get rid of it, the partisans held him guilty of informing and shot him while you stood by, refusing to tell them the truth. In a way, you did help kill him, didn’t you? That’s what you’ve been carrying around in you since the day he died, isn’t it?’
‘Giorgio!’ Rosanna cried out. ‘But why didn’t you tell them? Why? Why?’
‘Because,’ said Noah, ‘then they would have known the real informer. That money was a price paid to you for information, wasn’t it, Giorgio?’
The word emerged like a groan. ‘Yes.’
‘You?’ Rosanna said wonderingly, her eyes fixed on her brother. ‘It was you?’
‘But what could I do? What could I do? He came to me, the German. He said he knew I was of the Resistance. He said if I did not tell him where the men were hidden I would be put to death. If I told, I would be saved. I would be rewarded.’
The broken hulk lurched toward Rosanna, arms held wide in appeal, but Noah barred the way. ‘Why did you kill von Grubbner?’
‘Because he cheated me. After the men were taken, I went to him for the money, and he laughed at me. He said I must tell him about others, too. I must tell everything, and then he would pay. So I killed him. When he turned away, I picked up a stone and struck him on the head and then again and again until he was dead. And I buried him behind the gate there because only the ragazzi knew how to get through it, and no one would find him there.’
‘But you took that case full of money with you.’
‘Yes, but only to give to my father. And I told him everything. Everything. I swear it. I wanted him to beat me. I wanted him to kill me if that would make it all right. But he would not. All he knew was that the money must be returned. He had too much honor! That was what he died for. He was mad with honor! Who else on this earth would try to return money to a dead man?’
Giorgio’s legs gave way. He fell to his knees and remained there, striking the floor blow after blow with his fist. ‘Who else?’ he moaned. ‘Who else?’
The rabbi looked helplessly at Noah. ‘He was a boy then,’ he said in a voice of anguish ‘Only a boy. Can we hold children guilty of the crimes we inflict on them?’ And then he said with bewilderment, ‘But what of the blood money? What did Ezechiele Coen do with it? What became of it?’
‘I think we’ll soon find out,’ said Noah.
They were all there at the gates of the Teatro Marcello when Commissioner Ponziani arrived with his men. All of them and more. The rabbi and Carlo Piperno, the postcard vender, and Vito Levi, the butcher, and a host of others whose names were inscribed on the rolls of the synagogue. And tenants of the Teatro Marcello, curious as to what was going on below them, and schoolboys and passersby with time to spare.
The Commissioner knew his job, Noah saw. Not only had he brought a couple of strong young carabinieri to perform the exhumation, but other men as well to hold back the excited crowd.
Only Giorgio was not there. Giorgio was in a bed of the hospital on Isola Tiberina, his face turned to the wall. He was willing himself to die, the doctor had said, but he would not die. He would live, and, with help, make use of the years ahead. It was possible that employment in the hospital itself, work which helped the unfortunate, might restore to him a sense of his own worth. The doctor would see to that wh
en the time came.
Noah watched as the police shattered the lock on the gates and drew them apart, their hinges groaning rustily. He put an arm around Rosanna’s waist and drew her to him as the crowd pressed close behind them. This was all her doing, he thought. Her faith had moved mountains, and with someone like this at his side, someone whose faith in him would never waver, it would not be hard to return home and face the cynics there. It didn’t take a majority vote of confidence to sustain you; it needed only one person’s granite faith.
The police strung up lights in the vaulted area behind the gate. They studied the ground, then carefully plied shovels as the Commissioner hovered around them.
‘Faccia attenzione,’ he said. ‘Adagio. Adagio.’
The mound of dirt against the wall grew larger. The men put aside their shovels. Kneeling, they carefully scooped earth from the hole, handful by handful. Then the form of a body showed fleshless bones, a grinning shattered skull. A body clad in the moldering tatters of a military uniform.
And, as Noah saw under the glare of droplights, this was not the first time these remains had been uncovered. On the chest of the skeletal form rested a small leather case fallen to rot, marked by the blackened image of a doubleheaded eagle. The case had come apart at all its seams, the money in it seemed to have melted together in lumps, more like clay than money, yet it was clearly recognizable for what it was. Twenty years ago Ezechiele Coen had scraped aside the earth over the freshly buried Major Alois von Grubbner and returned his money to him. There it was and there he was, together as they had been since that time.
Noah became aware of the rabbi’s voice behind him. Then another voice and another, all merging into a litany recited in deep-toned chorus. A litany, Noah thought, older than the oldest ruins of Rome. It was the kaddish, the Hebrew prayer for the dead, raised to heaven for Ezechiele Coen, now at rest.
The Great Persuader
On the morning of her seventy-fifth birthday Mrs Meeker dallied over her usual breakfast of coffee and a cigarette while reading through the pile of congratulatory messages on the table before her. Telegrams, notes, and cards. Messages from the governor of Florida himself, from dignitaries of the city of Miami Beach, from old, old friends who nested as far north as Palm Beach and Hobe Sound.
There was even an editorial in the Miami Beach Journal swimming in adjectives and dedicated to her. A half century ago, it pointed out (and the choice of phrase made Mrs Meeker feel incredibly ancient), Marcus Meeker had brought his fair young bride from the chilly north (tourists take note, thought Mrs Meeker) to help him shape a glittering wonderland out of the sun-kissed isle of Miami Beach. Honored be his memory. Happy the birthday of the partner who had shared his triumphs, the First Lady of the city.
There was, of course, no mention of Marcus junior, who in his time had provided the Journal with even more spectacular copy than his father. The painful memory of her long-dead son rose in Mrs Meeker. What a charmer he had been. How gay and clever and handsome. But with one fatal weakness. Where the horses were run or the cards dealt or the dice thrown, there he was simply a helpless, useless hulk, sick with the gambling madness. A lamb for the slaughter, easy pickings for the wolves. Because of them he had squandered the Meeker fortune – first his inheritance and then his mother’s – had neglected his ailing wife until it was too late to do anything but mourn her death, and had made himself a stranger to his infant daughter. And finally had gone to a bloody and scandalous death, murdered in a dark alley as a lesson to others who might fail in the payment of their gambling debts.
Yes, what an enchanting boy he had been, Mrs Meeker thought. What a pitiful figure of a man.
She closed her mind to harrowing memories. There was other mail before her to attend to. A solemn warning from the tax commission, a heartfelt plea from the electric company, urgent reminders from various local merchants. Mrs Meeker dutifully read them all, then contemplated her barren dining room, wondering what was left in the house to sell and what price she could get for it.
Really, she told herself, it was like being captain of a luxurious ship whose fuel reserve was gone and whose precious furnishings had to be fed to the hungry boilers. It became a way of life after a while. Painful at first to see the jewelry go, and then the silver and china and curios and books and pictures and, at last, the furniture, piece by piece; but that was nothing to what her misery would be if she were forced to sell the estate and live out her remaining life elsewhere.
She smiled at the portrait of her husband on the wall. Dear brawling, arrogant Marcus, who had come out of a Boston slum to carry off a Beacon Street princess. He had brought her south with the assurance that he would make his fortune here, and he had kept his word. And once the fortune was made he had built this hacienda, building by building, to her design.
Casuarina, it was named, from the grove of trees around it; and the day she saw it complete, set among casuarinas and royal palms against the pale green waters of the Gulf Stream beyond, she knew that this was where she intended to live out her life. The buildings might be shabby with decay now, but they still stood defiantly against tropical sun and wind; and this was home – this was where the heart was, and life anywhere else would be unendurable. She was lost in these musings when her grandaughter Polly came down to breakfast, a song on her pretty lips, a birthday gift in her hand. It was a silver brooch, a profligate gift considering Polly’s earnings, and Mrs Meeker swiftly calculated that it might placate the electric company for a month or so without Polly’s knowing where it had gone.
Polly was an adorable child, as her grandmother readily acknowledged; she was, along with Casuarina and a passion for cribbage, foremost among the things that still gave life meaning. But she had a head full of confetti, no doubt about it. She had failed out of the University at the end of one semester; she held her receptionist’s job at the law offices of Peabody and Son only because young Duff Peabody was hopelessly infatuated with her; and at the age of twenty she had an ingenuousness about life that could be frightening at times.
But, Mrs Meeker wondered, how does one cope with a breathtakingly beautiful young woman who stubbornly insisted on taking everyone in the world at face value?
Before breakfast was over, a car horn sounded, and Polly leaped to her feet.
‘Which one is that?’ Mrs Meeker asked.
To her, the young louts from the University who danced attendance on Polly were indistinguishable from each other. All football players, apparently, and all astonishingly muscular, they had fallen under Polly’s spell during her brief tenure at the University and now took turns driving her to her office.
‘It’s Frank,’ said Polly, ‘or Billy. I don’t know which.’ She flung her arms around her grandmother and kissed her loudly. ‘Happy birthday again, darling, and whoever it is I’ll have him pick you up later for your shopping.’
After she was gone, Mrs Meeker had Frazier, the houseman, clear the table and bring her the worn notebook containing the inventory of household belongings. As a young man, Frazier had been majordomo of Casuarina’s numerous staff. Now white-haired, he was the sole remaining servant of the house – chef, butler, handyman, and sales manager all in one.
With him Mrs Meeker combed through the inventory book deciding which of the remaining pieces of furniture must be sacrificed to demanding creditors. There were twenty rooms in the house, most of them picked clean long ago, and her heart sank at the way page after page of the inventory showed how little was left for the market. The only thing of real value remaining was the property itself, and that, it went without saying, was sacrosanct.
With this dismal business at last settled, Mrs Meeker removed her shoes, donned a broadbrimmed straw hat and sunglasses, and walked down to the shore for solace. She was squatting at the water’s edge feeding the gulls their daily ration of bread crumbs when she saw a man leave the house and make his way through the grove of casuarinas toward her.
She stood up as he approached. He was in his middle thi
rties, good-looking, deeply tanned, dressed in an expensive suit. Not a bill collector, she decided warily; more the expensive lawyer type.
‘Mrs Meeker?’
‘Yes.’
‘My name is Yaeger. Edward Yaeger. I want to offer good wishes on your birthday and to tell you what a privilege it is to meet you.’
‘Is it? And what’s your business with me?’
Yaeger laughed. ‘Not my business. I represent a Mr Leo August of Detroit. And since you evidently like to come right to the point, I’ll do that. Mr August believes you may be considering the sale of this estate; and he wants to make an offer for it. I’m authorized to meet any fair price you set.’
‘Indeed.’ Mrs Meeker pointed her sharp little chin at the row of pastel and glass skyscrapers, the surprising outlines of gleaming new hotels, stretching southward into the distance. ‘Aren’t there enough of these things around here as it is?’
‘Mr August doesn’t intend adding to them. He wants this place as his residence. It won’t be changed at all. It will only be restored.’
‘Restored? Does he know what that would cost?’
‘To the penny, Mrs Meeker.’
‘But why Casuarina? I’m sure he could find a dozen places as suitable.’
‘Because,’ said Yaeger, ‘he’s looking for prestige. He’s a man who made it to the top the hard way. I’d say that owning the Meeker estate would mean to him what a knighthood means to some successful junk dealer in England.’
Mrs Meeker decided that she did not like Edward Yaeger. Not only was he being impertinent to her, he was being downright disloyal to his client.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but Casuarina is not for sale. I don’t know where you got the idea it was.’
The Specialty of the House Page 39