"Well, can't you tell without unrolling them?" he asked. He picked one up in his big hand—I flinched, but he was gentle—and held it up to his eye like a telescope. "You can see inside a little," he reported hopefully, and handed it to me. "Maybe with a flashlight?"
"Oh, well, yes, of course," I said quickly, taking it. "All I said was I wouldn't unroll them. I never said I couldn't tell if they were genuine or not." At least I hoped not. No one contradicted me, so I suppose I hadn't. "But signor Croce here said he had to see them for himself, that he couldn't take my word for it."
Now, as hoped, Pietro and Ettore swung their persuasive glowers in Croce's direction. He cleared his throat, rubbed his temples, tugged on his bow tie. "I'll have to speak with my client about it."
Ettore jerked a thumb at a telephone sitting in a corner, on the dusty floor. "Call him."
"No, no, that's impossible. I'll see him tomorrow."
Ettore shook his head. "No deal. We either do it now, or not at all. You don't trust the great dottore?"
"Ah, you can trust him," Pietro said reassuringly. "Come on."
The sides had shifted again. Now it was Ettore, Pietro, and me against the irresolute Croce.
"All right," he said at last. "I'm at your mercy, dottore."
So he was; more than he knew. "Don't worry," I told him, "I won't lead you astray."
I was a little disturbed—but only a little—at my previously unsuspected capacity for duplicity. Tony Whitehead, I'm sure, would have been astounded. And probably delighted. Without giving Croce time to reconsider, I got down to work. I don't remember exactly how I got through the next thirty minutes, but it was a virtuoso performance. I went from one rolled canvas to the next, peering keenly into them (without benefit of flashlight, no less), pointing them toward the window and minutely rotating them—a degree this way, two degrees that way—like big kaleidoscopes. After an appreciative murmur or two, I would make my pronouncement.
"Aha, Correggio, without a doubt; the soft, painterly, almost antilinear style, the luscious flesh tones. . . And this, this with its icy elegance of line can be nothing but a Bronzino. . . . And this? Let me see—Ah! Tintoretto, no question about it. The masterly use of repoussoir, the receding diagonals . . ."
It was sheer mummery, of course. I couldn't see a thing. But luckily for me, they had a list of the paintings to refer to, and I somehow managed to bring it off. In a sense I wasn't lying, because I was sure they were authentic, even if I didn't happen to know a few trivial details, such as which was which. I knew it from their smell, their feel, their condition, a hundred little clues. Maybe even by way of a little innately spiritual perception.
"All right," Ettore said the instant Croce hesitantly nodded his acceptance of the last one. "Where's the money?"
"I'll drive you there," Croce said, darting his tongue over his lips. His protuberant eyes glistened. He was looking extremely shifty. More so than usual.
"That wasn't the arrangement," Ettore said. His face had stiffened, darkened, as if a shutter had clanked down over it.
"Of course it was. You're trying to change things now." Croce's voice was on the rise. "What do—"
"The money was to be left in two packages, wrapped in paper. Somewhere nearby."
"It is, it is Only fifteen minutes from here. Come, I'll take you."
"No, you'll tell us," Ettore said stonily.
"But—" Croce's forehead shone with perspiration. He looked at all three of us, but help wasn't coming from anywhere. "All right, then," he said. "It's in the Giardini Margherita, near the tennis courts. Just to the east of them, in the shrubbery, next to a stone wall, there's a—a concrete pedestal, a vent of some sort with metal grills in the sides. The grill on the east side, away from the courts, toward the wall, it comes off. The packages are inside, taped to the back of it. All right, are you satisfied? Now, if it's all the same to you, I'll take these and leave."
He said it as if he didn't think he'd get away with it, and he didn't.
Ettore ignored him. "Pietro, I'll drive out there and see if it's all right."
"I assure you–" Croce said.
"If it's all right I'll call, and you can let him have the paintings. Then drive back to where we started from. You understand?"
Pietro frowned while he absorbed this. "What if you don't find it?"
"He'll find it, he'll find it," Croce bleated.
"Well, I guess I'll go now," I put in. "I've done what I came for." Croce was lying, and I didn't want to be there when they found out. I wanted to get the hell out of there and get on the telephone to Antuono.
I didn't get away with it, either. "You stay, too," Ettore said.
"What for? I've done what I was paid for. I—"
"If I don't call in half an hour," Ettore told Pietro, "take the paintings and get out of here."
"Now you'd better listen to me—" Croce began.
"What about these two?" Pietro asked.
"Take them with you. If they don't want to go, beat the shit out of them. If they give you too much trouble, just shoot them and leave them."
Pietro nodded and patted his jacket, over the holster.
This exchange effectively silenced Croce. I wasn't making much noise, either. But a few minutes after Ettore left I probed for a little more information from Croce.
"Who's your buyer?" I asked offhandedly.
He frowned at me. His eyes swelled with affront. No stratum of society is without its code of ethics.
"Shut up," Pietro said. He sounded edgy. "I don't want any more talking. Sit down."
We sat. So did Pietro, first meaningfully unzipping the front of his jacket. It had begun to rain. For a long time the only sounds were the water thrumming against the window, the traffic noises, and the occasional whine of a jet.
Pietro looked at his watch frequently. After the ninth or tenth time he spoke: "Ten more minutes."
"Don't worry," Croce said with an unconvincing laugh, "he'll call. That vent isn't so easy to find."
Fifteen minutes later the increasingly uneasy Pietro looked at his watch a final time, chewed his lip, and came to a decision. He stood up, shoved a big leather suitcase across the floor with his foot, and pointed at Croce. "You."
"Me?"
"Put those wooden ones in there." The more nervous he got the more he slid into a kind of slow motion.
"These?" Croce said. "The panels?"
Pietro's heavy eyelids drooped. The big muscles in his heavy jaw moved. He took a ponderous step forward.
"All right," Croce said hurriedly. "Very well. They'll have to be wrapped first. I can—"
"No wrapping," Pietro said. "Just put them in."
"But he's right," I said. "You can't just toss them into a suitcase without protection. They'll be—"
The gun came out: stubby, nickel-plated, toylike in the big hand. It waved me quiet, then leveled at Croce. "Do what I say."
"Certainly, at once." Croce knelt, opened the suitcase, and lay the two Madonnas side by side in it, handling them with more reverence than I imagined him capable of.
He glanced up from his knees. "At least let me—"
"Now you," Pietro said. The shiny little gun jerked in my direction to indicate which you he was talking to. "Put the rest of them in there, too, quick."
I didn't see much room for argument. I picked up the first rolled cylinder, placed it in the suitcase as carefully as I could, and reached for the next one.
It was too methodical to suit him. "Come on, come on, just throw the damn things in."
"Look—" I said.