"But you don't think so."
"No. When I was in Sicily I had a conversation—more like an audience—with the Mafia padroni and unless I got led down the garden path, they don't know anything about it."
She sat back and eyed me quizzically. "An audience with the Mafia padroni." She sighed. "Tell me, Chris, is this what life is like for other art curators, too, or is it just you?"
"It's just me. Anyway, the only time these guys showed any interest was when they thought I might know Sylvester Stallone."
"Maybe you were talking to the wrong padroni."
"Maybe. Antuono claims the ones involved are in Bologna now. Apparently, he's close to some kind of deal with them to get the pictures back."
"Chris . . . should you really be going back to Bologna, even for a night? Somebody tried to kill you there."
"No problem. They think I'm dead."
"They—?"
"Oh, did I forget that part? Yes, Antuono 'disappeared' me. He put out a story to the press that I'd been successfully blown up. So I'll be safe. In any case, I have to go back. I wound up coming straight here from Sicily; most of my things are still in Bologna."
"Oh." A perceptible hollowness had come into our conversation. Anne was looking down at her empty cup, turning it slowly on its saucer. "What time do you have to go?"
"I'd better head over to the train station at four," I said. "It takes about an hour to get to the airport."
She looked at her watch. "Fifty minutes, " she murmured. I cleared my throat. "What about you? When do you leave?"
"I've got a military flight at a little after eight." She suddenly looked up at me. That delicate, oddly affecting tic below her eyes was back. "Chris, couldn't you—"
"Anne, couldn't we—" I said at the same time, and we both laughed.
We could and we did. Anne had some time off due her, and there wasn't any pressing reason I couldn't take a few days' vacation, too. The post office across the street had a rank of international telephone booths from one of which Anne convinced the United States Air Force that they could get by without her until the following Monday. I wasn't able to get through to Seattle, but I'd try again later. We came out of the post office hand in hand, delighted with ourselves, but as yet undecided as to where we would spend the time.
"We could stay here, Anne suggested. "Maybe in one of the beach hotels."
"Except that my things are still in Bologna."
"What about going back then? All that good eating—"
I made a face. "Maybe we can do that another time. For the moment, Bologna seems to have lost its charm for me."
Besides, although I saw little danger in returning for a single night, I wasn't keen on being seen around the city by anyone who was under the happy impression he'd killed me. Especially not with Anne at my side.
"Well, how about going back long enough to get your things?" she asked. "I can try and get a seat on your flight. Then tomorrow we can go someplace else. Have you ever been to Lake Maggiore?"
I shook my head.
"It's wonderful. I know a hotel in Stresa that's straight out of the eighteenth century. You'd love it—stuffy and old- fashioned—"
"Thanks a lot."
"—and romantic as they come."
"That's better. Uh, you've been there?"
"Yes; by bus, as part of an R and R group tour, not that it's any of your business. It can't be much more than three hours from Bologna by train. The water is this incredible turquoise-green, and there are lemon trees and pomegranates and coconut palms, and the Borromean Islands are like a set from Sigmund Romberg. We could just laze around and take it all in. What do you say?"
What would anybody say? We went directly to the KLM terminal in the central railroad station to get her a seat on the plane. Then we picked up the bags we'd both left in the luggage room and boarded the train for the airport. I couldn't seem to stop grinning.
And no longer, even in my heart of hearts, did I carry a shred of resentment toward Calvin for his long weekend on the Riviera. Poor Calvin, with his dreary, eternal flitting from woman to woman. My heart went out to him.
Chapter 19
When we arrived at the hotel in Bologna, there was a note in my box: Willem van de Graaf had called. I was to telephone him at home if I got in before eleven. And, I was informed at the desk, another gentleman had telephoned that morning. Although he had become somewhat agitated at missing me, he had left no message except to say that it was quite important and he would call again.
"An Italian gentleman or an American gentleman?" I asked.
"Italian," I was told.
"Maybe it was Colonel Antuono," Anne suggested a few minutes later in our room.
"Not likely. The Eagle of Lombardy doesn't get agitated." She stretched and covered a yawn with the back of her hand. "I'm beat. I think I'll take a hot shower."
I smiled happily at her. How quickly we had relaxed into the old rhythms, the old, easy intimacy. On the flight from Amsterdam I'd begun to get a little anxious about how comfortable we'd be with each other once we were alone. I'd even considered raising the possibility of separate rooms, at least for the first night, until we got used to one another again. Fortunately, good sense had prevailed.
"Go ahead," I said. "I'll give Willem a call and see what he's come up with."
The receiver was picked up on the third ring. "Willem, this is Chris Norgren. Is it a fake?"
"A fake?" Surprisingly, he laughed. "Yes, I suppose you could call it that. Amusing, in a way."
I wasn't sure I liked the sound of that. Amusing wasn't a word I associated with van de Graaf. Willem didn't have a sense of humor so much as a sense of irony.
"The cañamograss around the edges is no more than a few months old," he told me, "and not real cañamograss at that."
That was what I'd thought from the beginning. What was so amusing about it? "And?" I asked warily.
"And the panel is actually two separate layers laminated together, the process being disguised by the cañamograss."
Also as I'd thought. "Willem," I said, "why do I feel as if I'm waiting for another shoe to drop?"
"Shoe?"
"Willem, is the Uytewael a fake or isn't it?"
"No," he said, "the Uytewael is not a fake."
I sat down on the edge of the bed. "What?"
"It's not Uytewael at his best, but it's Uytewael, without question."
Just what Di Vecchio and his people had concluded. "But you said—"
"The Uytewael is authentic. The back to which it's glued is not. It's an imitation, a very good one, of a seventeenth- century Dutch panel. But it's quite recent."
This took a few seconds to sink in. "You're telling me someone took a genuine Uytewael, sawed off the front of it—"
"Evidently."
"And then glued it onto a fake panel-back?"
"Precisely."
"Why? What could possibly be the point?"
"I was hoping," van de Graaf said, "that you could tell me."
"The question is, what did they do with . ."
Whatever I was going to say trailed away. I stood frozen and mute, the receiver pressed against my ear. I was at long last having a moment of real insight, obvious and startling at the same time—what the psychologists call an aha experience. There was a link between at least some of the disparate happenings of the last few weeks; specifically, a link between Sicily and Seattle, between Ugo Scoccimarro and Mike Blusher. How could I have failed to see it, or even to guess at it, before?
"Have to go, Willem," I mumbled. "Hold on to that painting. I'll be back in touch soon."