"Sounded interesting," Anne called from the bathroom. I could hear her brushing her hair.
"The Terbrugghen's a fake," I said dreamily.
"I heard."
"A fake seventeenth-century Dutch painting on a real panel."
"Uh-huh. Chris, you can talk normal-speed. I think I'm capable of following this."
"And the Uytewael is a real seventeenth-century Dutch painting on a fake panel."
I heard her come out of the bathroom, still brushing. "So I gathered. Quite a plot."
"Damn, I should have figured it out long ago. I knew Ugo's picture'd been tampered with the minute I looked at it, but I got going in the wrong direction and I couldn't get turned around. I couldn't get off the idea of a forged painting. I hardly looked at the back. It never occurred to me the panel was forged."
"Well, of course not," she said supportively. "It wouldn't occur to anyone." She brushed without speaking for a few seconds. "Chris, do you think that's why they tried to kill you? To keep you from finding out?"
"I guess so. I just wasn't as smart as they gave me credit for."
More brushing, slow and silky. What a lovely sound, I thought.
"Anne, I'm starting to think I might know who 'they' are. But I still haven't put all the pieces together. I need a little more information. And I think I can get that tomorrow."
The brushing stopped. "Chris ... shouldn't you just tell Antuono and let him handle it?"
"Not quite yet, I think. Don't worry, I'm not going to do anything dangerous. I just need to stop by the hospital first thing in the morning and get one more piece from Max. Then I'll go straight to Antuono, I promise. And then we'll be off to Lake Maggiore. Noon at the latest."
"Well ... all right," she said doubtfully. The sound of hair being brushed resumed. I opened my eyes. She was standing at the mirror in a pale-green shift, her bare arms upraised, brushing rhythmically.
I watched her with simple, mindless pleasure. "Is that what they're wearing in the Air Force these days?"
And as I said it I realized that I could put to rest another one of the San Francisco-based worries that had been nagging at me all day. My hormones were functioning just fine, busily—even eagerly—performing their appointed tasks.
"You bet." Her reflection smiled at me from the mirror. "Standard government issue. Like it?"
"Not too bad," I said. "Why don't you come over here so I can see it better?"
Chapter 20
One more piece from Max. With it, unless I was way off track, I'd be able to fit most of the rest of it together. I'd have a why and I'd have a when, and I could stop looking over my shoulder. The trouble, I thought, was going to be getting it out of him. But as it turned out, I needn't have worried.
Clearly, he was well on the way to mending. With his bed cranked to a sitting position he looked comfortable, even cheerful. His face had lost its pallor and begun to plump out, and his mustache was sprouting again, as exuberant as ever, if a little grayer. The metal contraptions on his legs were still in place, bulky and awkward under the sheet, but the ropeand-pulley arrangement had been removed, so the place didn't look like a torture chamber anymore.
He was reading a magazine, propping it on a tray attached to the bed. He was, I saw with surprise, smoking a small black cigar; somewhat gingerly but with obvious relish. As I pushed the door quietly open he was putting the cigar down on a saucer to take a sip from the spout of a covered plastic cup, all the time continuing to read.
"Hi, Max," I said.
His hand twitched, his head jerked up. The cup dropped onto the floor and bounced into a corner. The cap popped off. Orange liquid spurted over the linoleum. Max's eyes bugged out at me. "Chris!" He gagged, coughed. "I thought you were—I thought—"
And the last major piece dropped firmly into place. "What did you think I was, Max?"
"I—" He got his voice going again. "I thought you were still in Sicily." He managed a flabby smile. "Hey, I'm glad to see you, buddy. When did you get back?"
I shook my head. "You dropped that cup because you thought I was still in Sicily? You practically choked because you thought I was still in Sicily?"
"Well, you gave me a start, partner. I thought—"
"You thought I was dead, Max."
As of course he had. That was what I'd come to find out, what I'd expected to find out, and what I'd been hoping I wouldn't find out. The story Antuono had put out to the press had said simply that a taxi on its way to the airport had been blown up, resulting in the killing of an unidentified passenger. Why should Max or anyone else assume it was I—unless they'd had a hand in it? "I think it might be helpful," Antuono had said, "if the person who tried to kill you were to believe he succeeded."
And so it had been. It had helped me find my would-be killer: none other than my old friend Max. Signor Massimiliano Caboto—lively companion, drinking crony, jolly descendant of the illustrious Giovanni Caboto.
As moments of triumph go, I thought sourly, this was far from a winner. I didn't feel like exulting, and I wasn't even consumed with satisfyingly righteous wrath at Max's perfidy. On the other hand, I wasn't wallowing in the Slough of Despond, either. Vexed, that's what I was. I'd wanted it to be Croce, or maybe Salvatorelli, or best of all, the evil, faceless Mob; I certainly hadn't wanted it to be Max, and the fact that it was made me damn irritated with him.
"Wait a second now," he said, rubbing his forehead with his fingertips. "My mind's about as sharp as a doorknob with all the pills I pop. You know, now that I think of it, I think somebody did mention you were dead."
"Oh, sure. Who would that have been, Max?"
"Well, let's see now . . ." He picked up the cigar and took a couple of puffs, temporizing like mad. But who was there to name that I couldn't easily enough talk with later?
"No, it was you, Max," I said. "You're the one who had that bomb put in my bag."
He had gained back his wits by now, and decided the way he wanted to play this. He blinked at me through the cigar smoke, his expression humorous and wry, a man who didn't quite get the joke yet, but was willing to go along with it. "All right, I'll bite. Tell me, why would I want to put a bomb in your bag?"
"To keep me from finding out that you'd cut away the back of Ugo's Uytewael and replaced it with a phony back."
"Ah, I see. Of course." A flick of ash into the saucer. "And just how the hell would I manage that? I've never even had it in my shop. Check with Ugo."
"I did check with Ugo. He said you're the one who worked with the shippers to have his collection sent down to Sicily. Obviously, you'd have had plenty of opportunity."
Or maybe not so obviously. It had taken long enough to occur to me.
"Opportunity?" Max said. "What does that have to do with anything? Amedeo had it in his museum for a week. Benedetto Luca could have gotten his hands on it there, too. So could the whole damn staff. Clara Gozzi's the one who brought it back from London, for Christ's sake. Or are you accusing her, too?"
"Nope, just you, buddy."
"Look—would you mind sitting down? You're making me nervous." The jokey good humor was wearing thin. He was no longer smiling. The cigar lay in its saucer.
"I'll stand. I'm not staying long."
"Fine, suit yourself. Okay, let's say for the sake of argument I could have done it. What would be the point? What would I want with the back of an old panel?"
"You could forge a Terbrugghen on it and then you and Mike Blusher could use it in a swindle."