"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.