"It's too risky," he babbled on. "It's not worth it. If you don't want to do it, fine, excellent, to hell with them. I'll just—'
"All right, take it easy. But what do you have in mind? You have to tell me—"
"I have to tell you nothing! I'm finished arguing with you! Go now, this instant, otherwise it's all off. I mean what I say. The pictures are on your conscience!" And the connection was broken.
"Wait!" I said. "Are you there?" I jiggled the telephone. "Hello?"
I was stalling, of course, trying to buy time for thought, but there was only a rush of questions, jumbled and chaotic. Did this lunatic really have the paintings? What was it he wanted me to do? And why me? And was it really someone I knew? Croce? Salvatorelli? Di Vecchio, even, or Benedetto Luca? Surely not Ugo? Clara?
And of course the critical question: Was the object not restitution but something else? Max had tried to kill me once. Was this another attempt, before I got to Antuono? No, impossible. I'd left him a mere ten minutes before; besides, how could he know I'd go to the hotel and not to Antuono's office? Someone else, then? Had I made it onto the Mafia's hit list, too? If so, what better way to lure me than to tell me that the retrieval—in fact the continued existence—of a Bellini, a Perugino, a Giorgione, a Correggio . . . all depended on my cooperation?
But by the time I replaced the receiver, I'd made up my mind to go. I pushed out through the doors and turned left, as directed. I'd like to say that I was being courageous, but the truth is that I wasn't being anything. I didn't make a conscious choice, I just started walking. I couldn't think of anything else to do.
The Mercato Ugo Bassi was a vast farmers' market under a single roof. Walking to Via Nazario took me to the alley at the rear of it, where the delivery dock was. The back of an Italian farmers' market isn't much different from the back of an American one, except that the cheeses smell better, or at least riper. There were sweating men unloading vegetables from decrepit trucks; piles of empty crates; lettuce leaves and spoiled fruit on the ground; puddles of rancid water everywhere. The day was overcast and muggy, the fresh smells slightly tainted with rot.
I stood in the center of the alley where I could be seen easily, and in a few seconds a small blue car—hadn't I seen it somewhere before?—threaded its slow way through the trucks and workmen, and stopped in front of me, leaving its engine running. The door was pushed open. I got in. The one coherent thought I remember having was: If I get killed, how is Anne ever going to find out what happened to me?
As soon as I pulled the door closed, the car continued slowly down Via Montegrappa, rocking over the alley's uneven cobblestones. I recognized the driver the moment I looked at him: Pietro, the gorillalike thug who had smashed in Max's face and tossed me with such ease into the street, just a block from where we were now. Somehow I wasn't surprised. And I recognized the car now. The last time I'd seen it, it had bounced me around, too; only then I'd been on the outside of it, scudding painfully over the top.
When we stopped at Via dell'Indipendenza, Pietro turned to study me. It was the first time I'd gotten a good look at him• shaven, compact head on a muscular cylinder of a neck, dull, sleepy eyes in a stolid face with an immense, under-slung jaw. Fred Flintstone without the hair. Bulky arms bulged inside a blue leather jacket like sausages about to burst their casings. Through the jacket's open front I could see the strap of a shoulder holster. I returned his look as steadily as I could, fighting down the impulse to fling open the door and bolt. As we pulled onto the main street he grunted something.
"What?" I said nervously. "I didn't hear you."
He looked at me again. The heavy eyelids went slowly down, then up. He had long, thick eyelashes. "Ciao," he said.
"Oh. Ciao."
I settled back a little more easily. Nice to know there weren't any hard feelings.
Chapter 22
At the end of Via dell'Indipendenza he swung around the Piazza Medaglia d'Oro and into the parking lot of the railroad station. It was 11:00 A.M. There were people milling around in comforting numbers. He pointed at a public telephone. "Go there and wait for a call."
I walked to the telephone much reassured. If they'd been planning to kill me, I'd be speeding along an untraveled country road by now, not walking unaccompanied through a public place. With that all-absorbing worry removed, I began to get excited. Was it possible that the paintings were really about to be recovered? That I was going to be the instrument? There were all kinds of possible reasons for the recovery being handled in this peculiar way. Maybe the person with the paintings was hoping to collect an insurance company reward, but was fearful of dealing directly with the company or the police. I would be a perfect intermediary: uninvolved, knowledgeable—
The telephone rang. I snatched it up.
"Norgren?" The same voice as before.
"Yes."
"Listen. There is a buyer for the paintings. But he insists that an expert confirm they are what we say they are. He wanted to bring his own consultant to do this, but he was told no."
"Why?" I asked, as much to slow him down as anything. He was difficult to understand, and I wanted time to think through what he was saying. And although his voice was still muffled, I was beginning to hear something familiar in the cadence. If I could get him to keep talking . . .
"Why?" he repeated. "Because I don't trust him and I don't trust his expert, all right? He was told a reliable expert would be provided, a respected museum curator."
"And that's me?"
"That's you."
"Does he know it's me?"
"When you get there, he'll find out."
"And he agreed?"
"No more questions," he said irritably. "What's the difference to you? Now, you will be taken—"
"Why should I do this?" I demanded. "Do you actually think I'm going to help you get rid of those paintings?"
I wasn't being particularly brave. The area around the station entrance was filled with people. Pietro was thirty feet away, watching me without interest, placid and sleepy-looking, chewing on something (his cud?). All I had to do if I wanted to get away was duck into the station.
"You told me I could help recover those paintings," I said. "You didn't say—"
"And so you can. After you authenticate them and leave, you're free to notify your carabinieri friends as to the buyer's identity. Thus," he said almost affably, "a felonious receiver will be apprehended, the paintings will be recovered for their rightful owners, and you'll have the gratitude of the Italian nation."
And you'll have your five hundred million lire or whatever it is, I thought. "How am I supposed to know the identity of the buyer?" I asked him. "I don't imagine he's going to introduce himself."
"You'll know, don't worry."
"Why are you doing this to him?"
"I told you, I don't trust him, I don't like him. What do I care—" he stopped abruptly. "Enough questions. There's no more time. Go back to the automobile."
"Look, I need time to get ready for this," I said brilliantly. "It'll have to wait until tomorrow. I can't just go in and authenticate these things without preparation. I need—"
"You need nothing! It's now or never, do you understand?" His agitation level had shot up again. "I'm sorry I got involved with this in the first place. It's not worth it—one problem after another ... "
I knew who it was. There had been one too many familiar phrases sputtered in that familiar, frazzled manner. Bruno Salvatorelli. I glanced again at the bustling, inviting entrance, and at the bovine Pietro chewing away, staring into the middle distance. What if I dashed into the station now? I could get away with ease and tell Antuono what I knew.