"No," he said. "I have too many treasures here. You can't see them with the sheets over everything, but I collect. No, I'm only interested in selling it outright."
Well, somebody got to use it, somehow, I thought, looking from Palladini to Laura Ferrari and wondering. "You live outside Rome now, do you?" I asked him.
"No. I rent an apartment not far from here that I plan to buy, once this is sold."
"Ah. Then, I'll let you know," I said. "And now I must run. I'll tell my husband I ran into you."
"Please do that," he said. "Give him my regards."
I went to the little hotel I'd booked myself into the evening before, a very disappointed and confused person. Disappointed, but not defeated. I didn't know what Palladini and Rosati had to do with it, although I'd certainly eliminated the possibility that Palladini and Lake were one and the same. There was no denying that the same names kept cropping up in my life. Regardless, I knew Crawford Lake was responsible, whether knowingly or not, and in some way I couldn't yet define, for Antonio's death and Lola's incarceration, and perhaps even—and this was the first time it had occurred to me—for the death of Robert Godard in Vichy. I didn't care how much money the creep had, I was going to find some way to make him pay. There had to be someone who knew where he was.
TEN. INISHMORE
I MAY NOT HAVE KNOWN WHERE LAKE was, but I certainly knew what he was up to, as did anyone who read the financial pages of any of the major newspapers. Lake was on the move, it seemed, inexorably swallowing up his rivals. Right now he had two opponents in his sights, a small Internet trading company that had started out as a sort of electronic-age version of the family business, two brothers in their early twenties who'd had a good idea and had, with some fanfare, gone public a few months earlier. Now the young men were pictured on the front page of the business section of the International Herald Tribune, both of them with deer-caught-in-headlights expressions on their faces, as they recommended to shareholders not to accept the offer of Marzocco Financial Online. I figured it was hopeless.
Hank Mariani, the Texas businessman who had outbid Lake for the Etruscan bronze statue of Apollo, was also in trouble. His photo showed a man in his early fifties, I'd say, and rather than the startled expression of the two brothers, he had a world-weary look to him as he sat, his company's logo behind him, his elbow on the desk and his hand over his mouth, as if holding back a scream. He'd tried to find another buyer for his company when Lake tried to take control. The courts had ruled in Lake's favor, and Mariani was about to be looking for another job. In neither case, of course, was there a picture of Lake, but it was clear he was making good on the pledge he'd made to me when I'd met him: to deal with Mariani.
Neither of these stories was going to get me in to see Lake, however, so I kept on looking. It took me the better part of the next day to find a link, however tenuous, to Lake. I started with the only person I had any connection with who was associated with Lake in some way, an English art consultant and dealer by the name of Alfred Mondragon, who, as I'd indicated to Lake in Rome, I knew often handled Lake's art purchases.
I'd only met Mondragon once, but that didn't stop me from calling him. Although we were rivals, I suppose, for Lake's business, I was counting on a guarded collegiality among those of us in the same trade to carry the day.
"I don't suppose you remember me," I said to him. "We met at an auction at Burlington House a couple of years ago." I certainly remembered him. He was a large man who wore velvet smoking jackets any time of day and any place, and who favored expensive and particularly malodorous cigars.
"Did you buy anything?" he said.
"Yes, I did. Two large David Roberts drawings. I have a client who collects Roberts."
"I seem to recall it," he said. "One was Kom Ombo and the other . . ."
"Edfu," I said.
"Edfu," he agreed. "Yes, I remember you now. I'm not good at names, but I do recall objects rather well, and then sometimes the people who come with them. Reddish blond hair, reasonably attractive woman of about forty? Am I correct?"
"Yes, thank you."
"You were with a set of bone-handled steak knives. He paid too much for them."
"My business partner, Clive Swain," I said. "He did pay too much. That's why I do most of the buying for the store. You purchased a Carlevaris," I said, not to be outdone. "Architectural drawing. Venice, of course. It was gorgeous, and way, way, beyond my means. I was quite envious."
"Quite right," he said.
"You were with Derby biscuit porcelain," I added. "He overpaid for it, too."
"My life partner, Ryan. I adore him. He can buy whatever he likes," he chuckled. "Now that we've established beyond any reasonable doubt that we are birds of a feather, what can I do for you?"
"I need to get in touch with Crawford Lake."
"You and everybody else," he said. "I can't help you."
"I really need to get in touch with him. A friend of mine is in an Italian jail. You can imagine how awful that is. It is not her fault. The only person who can get her out is Crawford Lake."
"That is most unfortunate, but I really can't help you."
"Can't or won't?"
"Can't. That's not the way it works with Lake, you see. He calls you, not the other way around. He wants something, he tells you. You go and get it. I have no idea how to get in touch with him."
"But what if you found something that he didn't ask you to get, but you knew he'd want?"
"Doesn't matter. Right now, for example, I have a rather handsome piece of Egyptian statuary I know he'd like, but I have no way of doing anything about it."
"Have you ever met him?"
"Once."
"And?"
"Pleasant enough chap."
"Good-looking?"
"I suppose so, but not my way inclined, if you catch my drift."
"Where did you meet him?"
"Here in London. Look, I'd help you if I could, but I really can't. If he happens to call me in the next while, I'll tell him you're looking for him. Give me a number where you can be reached. I'm afraid that's the best I can do."
"Thanks," I said. "You can't think of any other connection I could pursue?"
"I'm afraid not. I'm sorry I can't help your friend."
"Me, too." He had no idea how sorry I was.
Next I combed the Internet, checking newspaper archives where I could, and anything else that came up when I keyed Lake's name in. There was a lot of stuff about him.
The bare facts were these: Lake was born in 1945 in Johannesburg, South Africa, to Jack, some kind of industrialist with links to the diamond trade, and Frances O'Reilly, an Irish model and socialite, who was better known as Fairy, if you can believe it. Crawford had an older brother, Rhys, and a younger sister Barbara. Carrying on the family's naming tradition, Barbara was always called Brandy. If Jack, Rhys, or Crawford had pet names, they were mercifully not mentioned.
Both parents and Rhys were killed in a plane crash when Crawford was about twenty-five and Brandy, sixteen. The two of them inherited fair amounts of cash. Even though Rhys had clearly been the designated heir where the family business was concerned, Lake proved himself adept at it, using it to build an even larger fortune and ultimately to become the billionaire that he was.
Brandy, on the other hand, spent lavishly. By the time she was eighteen, she was already a fixture on the social scene in Europe and in the U.S. I say "the social scene," but really it was the club milieu where she regularly had her picture taken with what I took to be signature items. She always had a white rose in her lapel or pinned to her clothing, and she always wore sunglasses, even though it was dark. Unlike the rest of the set she ran with, she was never photographed skiing in Gstaad or aboard somebody's yacht. She was obviously a person of the night, the last to leave the party. I learned a surprising amount about her. She was, at one time, the kind of person who gets in all the gossip columns. Her favorite drink was a mimosa, her favorite flower the white rose she always wore.