"And no one else knew? Only Croce and signora Gozzi?"
"Well, no, I also told Salvatorelli—"
"Ah? Is that so?" He took out a little notebook and scribbled in it.
"—and Benedetto Luca and Amedeo Di Vecchio."
"Luca . . . Di Vecchio. " He nodded without looking up and kept on writing.
"And Ugo Scoccimarro, of course. And I think I mentioned it to Tony Whitehead . . ."
The pen stopped. He glanced up at me under lifted eyebrows.
". . . and Calvin Boyer—he works with me in Seattle. He's here in connection with the show."
"I see." The notebook was snapped closed and put away. "Perhaps we go about this the wrong way. Is there anyone in Bologna you forgot to tell? It would make not so long a list."
I wasn't in the mood for Antuono's arid wit. "Well, why the hell would I keep it a secret?" I said. "Why should I think anyone would try to kill me, let alone blow up an entire planeload of people, just to get to me?"
`No, no, they are not such monsters as that. You were carrying a time bomb, dottore. It has been disarmed. The detonation was set for eleven thirty-five."
"At which time the plane would have been over the middle of the Tyrrhenian Sea."
"Yes, but that would have been your fault, not theirs."
"My—I don't understand."
"Your reservation was on Alisarda flight number 217, no? You were to leave at noon."
I shook my head. "No, I changed that to a ten-fifteen flight."
"Yes, but when did you change it?"
I realized what he was driving at. I had called the airport at 9:15, after my bags had been in the lobby for almost an hour. Then I'd gone quickly back to the hotel—no more than a three-minute walk—to get them. If someone had put a bomb in the duffel bag, which someone had, it had been done between 8:30 and 9:15, at which time "Mr. Marchetti" had believed that I was booked on the noon flight—half an hour
after detonation.
"The taxi," I murmured. "He ordered a taxi for me. At eleven-twenty. The bomb would have gone off while I was on my way to the airport."
"Yes, that's what it was designed for. It's not a subtle device; it had no chance at all of getting through airport security—a point in your favor with Captain Lepido, by the way. Also, it was not large. It was what is called an antipersonnel bomb, capable of demolishing the inside of a taxi, yes; of bringing down an airplane, highly unlikely. So you see, we are not dealing with a monster after all. It was you alone he was after."
"He was willing to sacrifice the cab driver."
"One person, not hundreds."
"Well, that's very comforting, Colonel. I can't tell you how much better I feel knowing that."
He allowed himself a wry smile. "Signor Norgren, I have a favor to ask you. I think it might be helpful if the person who tried to kill you were to believe he succeeded. It would be safer for you if he thought you were, ah, out of the way, and it would perhaps be useful to the police in apprehending him."
"All right. What's the favor?"
"As I said. To pretend you are killed, at least insofar as Bologna is concerned. For a few days only. Go to Sicily and do your business, but no telephone calls back to Bologna, no contact of any kind."
"I don't get it. You said the Sicilian Mafia is involved. If I go to Sicily and do my business, they're likely to find out I'm alive, aren't they?"
"Not the people that matter. They're here in Bologna."
"But you told—"
"I told you the Sicilian Mafia is behind the thefts. They are. But those concerned are now here." Even in that tiny, secure room, with no one else around, he leaned forward and lowered his voice. "Things come to a head; we will very soon have those paintings back. The arrangements have already been made " He held up a finger. "I speak in confidence."
Arrangements had been made, and word of my survival might somehow spoil them, so would I kindly shut up, stop poking around, and play dead; that was what he was telling me. Still, I dearly wanted to see those paintings back, too. So if it would help, I would go along with it even if I didn't like it.
"All right," I said tentatively, "but I'd like to let my friends know I'm all right. I wouldn't want them, to hear I'd been killed."
He waved his hands. "No, no, no, don't worry, they won't think so I will see to it that the newspapers and the television report only that a taxi was blown up on its way to the airport, resulting in the death of the passenger, but that his name is being withheld until his family is notified. I will say that terrorists are believed responsible. To your friends, it will mean nothing. To the people who planned it, it will mean everything."
I nodded. "Okay."
"There is one more thing. I hope I am correct in thinking that you will go directly home from Sicily, that you are not returning to Bologna?"
The back of my neck prickled. Since coming there, I had been beaten up by thugs and run down by a car; I had very nearly been blown up; I had been told that things would be better if I were dead, or failing that, if I could at least have the good grace to act as if I were. Now I was being given the carabinieri version of a get-out-of-town-by-sunset-and-don't-come-back speech.
"Are you telling me not to come back here?" I said hotly.
"I merely ask the question. You will admit my work has not been made simpler by your presence."
It was hard to argue with that. "There aren't any direct flights from Sicily to Seattle," I told him. "I'm coming back Sunday night at ten o'clock and I'm getting the first plane Monday morning—six-thirty, I think. I've already booked a room for Sunday night at the Europa. They're holding the rest of my luggage." I didn't feel I had to tell him about Anne and Amsterdam.
"You arrive at ten at night and you leave at six-thirty the next morning?"
"Yes," I said. "You have to admit, even I couldn't screw things up too much in that amount of time." You wouldn't guess it, but I was feeling pretty surly.
He nodded and rose. "That will be acceptable. If you make your statement to Captain Lepido now, you can still be on the noon plane."
"Fine." God forbid that my continued existence in Bologna should complicate his life any more than necessary.
As we were going out the door he put a hand on my arm. "A word of advice?"
I paused.
"When you get your luggage from the Europa. . . ?"
"Yes?"
"Look inside."
Chapter 15
Ugo Scoccimarro's frank, happy face was enough to expunge most of the morbid thoughts with which I'd been occupying myself on the flight from Bologna, and any gloomy remnants were blotted out by his exuberant Mediterranean bear hug of a greeting. This was not Clara Gozzi's discreet northern version, but the full Sicilian treatment: bone-cracking embrace, thunderous back-pummeling, noisy kiss on each cheek. And no slack mouthing at the empty air for Ugo, either. When he kissed you, he kissed you. The sensation was something like getting your cheek caught in a vacuum cleaner.
I hugged him in return. Seeing Ugo always made me feel that the world wasn't such a complicated place after all, that there was still room for simple pleasures, simple motives— maybe even simple explanations to complicated-seeming things, although I was starting to doubt it.
With a cupped hand he gently patted the side of my face where some bruising was still visible. "You're all right now?" he asked in his broad Italian. "It doesn't hurt?"
"Not at all." I'd called a few days ago to fill him in on what had happened.