“Is the painting in there?” Robl asked, jerking a thick thumb at the airline bag.
“No. Inside this book. You want to see it?”
His only reply was a negative grunt as the car squealed around a corner and out of the back streets, sped down the highway and across a bridge spanning wide sandy flats cut by a small stream in the middle, then rushed through the outskirts of town. It v faster now through the cornfields, then spun left at a fork where a sign indicated the road to Agua Hedionda. Stinking water? Tony remembered, sulphur baths here, favored spot of the Aztecs, Spanish spa, still valued by the tourists, great curative powers theoretically lurking in their sulphurous depths.
“Nummer?” the driver asked, turning his head to throw the word over his shoulder, as solid-necked and shaved-headed as Robl; only his scars were in different places.
“Dm?’
This information was received with a Teutonic grunt of affirmation and the car passed through the public parking lot of the baths and went on to a smaller lot labeled albercas privadas, clientes solamente, this sign being set next to a high wall pierced with numbered doors. Robl pushed Tony ahead of him when they stopped outside number three, reaching over his shoulder to knock loudly on the door. It opened a crack while a dark eye looked them over, then it swung wide.
Inside was a private swimming pool, rentable by the hour for those who took no pleasure in sharing their bath water with the common masses. It was equably suitable for clandestine meetings. D’Isernia, who had admitted them, slipped his shiny revolver inside the towel he was carrying and sprawled back comfortably on a lounge chair. He was dressed for the occasion in swimming trunks patterned with multichrome seashells; the white hair on his chest and legs matching in quantity that of his full beard and flowing locks.
“Join me, if you please, Signore Hawkin. Many things have happened since we last met. Is the door secured, Kurt? Good. Now, sit here by me. Might I assume that the book you are carrying contains the Cellini painting?”
“Yes. You get it open by prying the front cover, carefully though.”
“Your knife, Kurt.”
Robl produced a large knife from his hip pocket which snicked open wickedly when he pressed a button. With a delicate touch D’Isernia worked the point around the cover until it was free and he could open it. Inside, on a bed of soft cloth, lay the wooden panel of the painting.
“Lovely, simply lovely. I am really quite relieved to see it again, since for a while there I was afraid that it and you were both gone forever. You were not exactly frank at our last meeting, were you, Hawkin?”
“I didn’t hide anything.”
“I beg to differ.” Behind him Robl snorted and smiled coldly. “As our friend here suggests, concealing the fact that you killed your associate Mr. Davidson is more than a little something. Had I known that within hours you would be a fugitive from the police I would never have entrusted this valuable painting to you.”
“Look, I did not kill Davidson, and I wish people would stop thinking that I did.” He took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead. Though it was almost dark the walled enclosure still held the heat of the day. “And I did return the painting as promised and on time.”
“Wearing the disguise of a Mexican bourgeois? But, that is all beside the point, and the painting is here as I said. My duty is not to enforce the Mexican law and you may decimate your FBI ranks completely with your knife work for all I care. But please wait until our little business deal is completed. While you have been playing your games with the police I have been dealing with your associate, Mr. Sones, and we have agreed upon terms. He will provide a million dollars in used bank notes of v denominations; in exchange for this you will receive the painting of the heroic and historical ‘Battle of Anghiari.’”
“And what about the painting here, the Cellini ‘St. Sebastian'?”
“I will retain possession of it until the other sale is completed. A hostage to good fortune, you might say, just to make sure that nothing goes wrong. Then this will be sold to your government as well. Sones and I are still discussing the price, which shall be high. But the first transaction is what we care about now. Yon will examine the painting to assure your superiors of its authenticity.”
“Did Sones say I should do that?”
“Reluctantly, I assure you. He had another authority he wanted to send instead, a Lizveta Zlotnikova ...”
“Rote Schweine! Kormnunistr Robl banged one hard fist into his open palm angrily, a fine spray of saliva blowing out with every word. “We will not have her.”
“There seems to be some belief in certain quarters that she is a Soviet agent, and we did not feel it would be wise to inform the U.S.S.R. of our activities at the present time. However, we will permit you to take samples of the paint and canvas for her examination. Ours is a straightforward business deal and we take pride in our product and want to have only satisfied customers.”
“What next then?”
D’Isernia waved his hand at the door. Robl took his knife back and began to stolidly clean his nails with the point.
“The car is waiting outside to take you to a local hotel, the Vasco. A room has been reserved for you in the name of John Smith—”
“Oh, that’s really original.”
“You will wait there until we send for you. And while you are waiting you will contact your associates to determine if the money has arrived, for we will not proceed until we know it is here. If all is as it should be you will examine the painting tomorrow so that tomorrow night the exchange will be made. Do you understand that?”
“It sounds simple enough.” He was hot and very thirsty and it was not that simple, and the sight of the German whittling his cuticles with the knife also did nothing to make him feel any better. “Can I go now?”
“Any time you wish. But stay in your room until we call. I do not wish the police to pick you up at this time.”
“Your concern for my welfare is touching. I’ll see you.”
The same car was waiting outside, the bullet-headed Teutonic driver still planted solidly behind the wheel as though he were bolted in place.
“Do you know where to take me?”
Another great conversationalist. What next? He had to find some way of contacting Sones without being grabbed by the police, and could think of no way. Yet he did not dare admit this to his hosts since it might jeopardize the entire operation. More and more he was beginning to feel that he was not cut out for this kind of thing; the buoyancy of the alcohol had worn off and had been replaced by depression.
They ground up the road away from the resort and when they were on the highway again, with no other cars in sight, the driver turned around and looked sternly at Tony.
“Gornischt” he said.
Twelve
The suddenness of this revelation took Tony off guard and he gaped speechlessly while trying to get his thoughts into gear as the driver went slower and slower and his scowl deepened.
“Gornischt, that’s right,” Tony said. “No names, right. But You Know Who told me that I’m supposed to answer, give me a second.” He raked through his memory desperately until the countersign finally surfaced.
“Hilfen!”
“Correct. But you should be more alert, Hawkin, if you wish to remain alive in this business.”
“Listen, I don’t want to remain in this business at all. But you knew the password—then you’re not a renegade Nazi like Robl?”
“Hardly. I am an Israeli now, but it was my dubious privilege to be born in Germany. I was happily teaching chemistry at the University of Tel Aviv until that Goldstein talked me into helping out here. Like you I wish only to see this matter finished, and to return to my laboratory.”