"And I hope you're feeling well, signore," I said.
"Not bad for someone my age." He indicated that one must accept life on its own terms, that one takes the good with the bad, that one doesn't know what the future holds, and that on the whole we were better off not knowing. All this accomplished with a small movement of one hand, a lift of a shoulder, and a slight downward turn of his mouth. (The Italians can do these things.) "Everyone gets old."
'True," I said penetratingly.
A bowed old man in gray, who never once raised his eyes from the carpet, came in with a bottle of Acqua Minerale Panna for Bolzano, and brandies, espressos, and dry biscuits for Lorenzo and me.
When we'd each taken a ceremonial sip, Bolzano put his glass down heavily. "I was very sorry to hear about Peter van Cortlandt. He was a fine man. I thought extremely highly of him."
"Thank you. He thought a great deal of you too. I had lunch with him the day he died, and I know he was looking forward to talking with you that night."
Bolzano's brows knit. "He was coming to Florence?"
"No, but he said he was going to call you from Frankfort."
"He was? About what?"
That, unfortunately, answered that. Peter had not followed up on his idea of telephoning Bolzano with some "pertinent, subtle" questions. So one more possible line of inquiry on the forgery was closed to me. I tried not to show my disappointment.
"About what?" Bolzano pressed.
"I don't know."
While Bolzano looked queerly at me, Lorenzo said, "Father, signor Norgren is here on behalf of The Plundered Past-"
"Signor Norgren should speak for himself," Bolzano said, looking steadily at me.
"You're right, signore. I am here to speak on behalf of The Plundered Past. It's a magnificent exhibition and a great tribute to your taste and your generosity-"
"And a magnificent tribute to the American army; don't forget that." For the first time he smiled. "But I don't begrudge them that. I appreciate very much what they've done for me. But, frankly, I worry about my paintings, signore; I don't want to lose them. What happened in Berlin is a disgrace."
"Father, please. You shouldn't excite yourself," Lorenzo put in.
Bolzano made a face. "I'm not excited. But I ask you: How could it happen? Were there no alarms, no protection? Were the pictures simply left lying in the cellar?"
"No," I said uncomfortably, "there were guards at the front and back doors-"
"And both were overcome. You too, I understand."
I nodded. "I'm afraid so."
"Well, I'm sorry you got hurt," he said gruffly. "And thank you for saving my pictures." He cleared his throat and poured some more water into his glass; he was not a man used to thanking others.
"I've had a careful look at the damaged Michelangelo copy," I said, "and I'm sure it's salvageable. We'll pay for having it restored, of course."
He shook his head roughly. "I don't give a damn about the copies; that's not the point."
"Father, please," Lorenzo murmured.
"The point is," Bolzano said, "it's only luck that it wasn't a Rubens or a Tiziano-a real one, I mean. For that matter, it's only luck that they didn't get away with all of them. What kind of security do you call that?"
"Father, please," Lorenzo said. When that earned him only an irritated look, he tried a different approach. "Please, Father."
"Please, father; father, please," mimicked Bolzano wearily. "Signor Norgren, I ask you: Do I seem overexcited to you? In danger of imminent death?" He held out a steady, blunt-fingered hand. Not only did he fail to seem overexcited to me, but I had the impression that he was enjoying himself very much.
"No, sir," I said, "but I want you to know that security isn't a problem any longer. We've installed the most up-to-date devices that exist."
I should have known better.
"Such as?" Bolzano asked.
I gulped and tried to remember what Anne had said at the meeting. "Well, there are infrared and ultraviolet barriers at the doors and windows, and photoelectric cells and electronic sensors that are triggered by movement or body heat" I didn't know what the hell I was talking about, and I hoped I was getting it right. "Oh, and pressure-sensitive alarms on the paintings that splatter indelible green ink on whoever sets them off." That I recall as a particularly memorable touch.
"That's extremely impressive, Christopher," Lorenzo said, doing his pathetic best to help. "Extremely. Isn't it, Father?"
"Eh," Bolzano said..
"And," I went on, "most of it runs on car batteries in case the electricity is cut"
I hoped that was it for questions. My fund of knowledge was exhausted.
Bolzano seemed to be weighing things. "And what about this group, these Nazis?"
"The Heinrich-Schliemann-Grundung?"
"Yes, those asses. How do I know they won't convince the German government to keep my pictures?" He smiled grimly. "Their forbears did, after all."
'The police say they have absolutely no support. And in any case, you've lent your paintings to the United States Department of Defense, not Germany. Nobody's going to take them."
"Ahh," he said gravely, "the United States Department of Defense. That's different." He laughed, not offensively, and leaned back against the white couch, his hand kneading the loose skin at the dog's neck.
I was certain he was wavering, and pushed home my arguments: Of all the private collections looted by the Nazis, Bolzano's had benefited more from American military efforts than any other private collection except the Rothschilds'-
"So let Rothschild put on a show."
Besides that, I pointed out, months of work by many people had gone into the preparations, the catalog, the insurance, the excruciating maneuvering to secure a temporary export license from the Italian government. And the show had been extensively covered in the world press, much to the enhancement of the Bolzano reputation. If he were to pull out now, his credibility would suffer enormously.
"Ah, my credibility," he murmured.
"And of course," I said, reluctantly getting down to serious arm-twisting, "there's a signed agreement-"
His black eyes fixed mine sharply. "Would you really try to hold me to that?"
"We'd have to," I said, knowing that if it were up to me I wouldn't. "We think The Plundered Past is an extremely-"
He held up his hand. "Enough. You've worn me out. All right, the show will continue."
Lorenzo expanded his narrow chest and beamed, as if he had personally engineered this, and I sat back, relieved but not surprised. From the moment he'd grunted hello, I'd had the feeling he wasn't serious about pulling out. Anne, who'd never met him, had read him all wrong. He was no feeble, fearful old shut-in but a man who enjoyed asserting his considerable power, and getting me down to Florence had simply been a way of perking up his life a little.
The white dog, which had done nothing but gaze enchantedly at Bolzano, suddenly turned its head sideways, snapped at the air, and looked astonished when it didn't come up with anything. One of its baggy ears had flopped inside-out with the effort, so that the pink interior showed.
Bolzano laughed, a gravelly rasp deep in his throat. "Hey, cane, you look ridiculous. Put your ear back the way it should be." He leaned over and affectionately straightened it with his hand. The dog, an ordinary mutt without visible pretensions, gazed up at him in a tongue-lolling ecstasy of admiration.
Lorenzo and I laughed, too, and we all relaxed a little.
"So, signor Norgren," Bolzano said expansively, "you like The Plundered Past? Please, have a cake."
I bit into one of the dry, anise-flavored biscuits. "I think it's superb. There are paintings in it I've wanted to see for years."
"And the copies? Tell me, what do you think of exhibiting the copies of the missing pictures?" His bright eyes darted momentarily to glare at Lorenzo, then came back to me.