The limo came to a stop some time later, maybe twenty minutes, although I wasn't sure. I was pulled rather roughly out of the car and found myself standing in a garage of some sort. There was another limo there, and a scooter, and an air-conditioning unit was blasting away. The man who'd abducted me punched a code, and the door swung open. I was led up a flight of concrete stairs and then pushed down a hall and into a dark room. The door closed behind me, and I was alone.
At least I thought I was alone, until a voice emanated from a very dark corner of the room. "I understand you've been looking for me," a voice said out of the darkness.
"Mr. Lake?" I said, peering in the direction of the voice.
"I don't like extortionists," the voice said. My eyes were adjusting to the light, and I could make out a man in dark glasses and a dark suit sitting in the gloomiest corner of the room.
"Nor do I, Mr. Lake," I said. "It is Mr. Lake, is it not? If you're calling me an extortionist, then you're wrong."
"Then perhaps you will explain why you visited my sister in Ireland. Bribed her with roses, didn't you? White ones? It shows some inventiveness, I'll grant you. What do you want?"
I told him about how I'd met this actor who was impersonating him, who'd asked me to get Bellerophon, about everything that had happened since.
A long silence greeted my account. "Then I'm afraid you've been made the goat, haven't you, Ms. McClintoch?" he said at last. "You've been played for a fool."
"I'd have to agree with you," I said. "Are you telling me you know nothing about any of this?"
"That is exactly what I'm saying," he said. "I would go even further and say your troubles have absolutely nothing to do with me."
"But they just have to, Mr. Lake," I said. "In some fashion or another, they just have to. If you could just look into this for me—"
"Do you have any idea," he said suddenly, "what I would give to be able to stand on a lovely beach with the wind from the sea in my hair, the sand shimmering from the hot sun and the heat, without feeling as if maggots were crawling through every blood vessel in my body?"
"I'm sorry," I said.
"Good day, Ms. McClintoch," he said. "Kindly refrain from invoking my name in this matter. If you do not, I will have to resort to legal action. Indeed, if you so much as mention this meeting, or your discussions with my sister, or anything at all you have learned about either of us, I can assure you, you will very much regret it. You will not have a friend left nor a dime to your name when I'm finished with you. I hope I'm making myself perfectly clear."
He was perfectly clear, all right. Really pleasant fellow, Crawford Lake. When it came right down to it, I preferred the fake one. I could have clawed the real one's eyes out in frustration. I went back to my hotel, packed, and checked out, leaving a note for my dear friend Dottie Beach.
TWELVE
DOTTIE BEACH OPENED THE ENVELOPE I'd left for her and frowned. In it I apologized profusely for standing her up, citing the excuse—entirely fictional, given I was standing a few feet from her but hidden from view—that I'd been called away to Geneva to check out a silver collection a client wanted. I told her I'd tried to reach her at the Hassler to let her know but hadn't been able to leave a message for her for some reason. She'd know perfectly well what that reason was, given that I had indeed tried to call her there, only to discover that Dottie wasn't staying where she said she was. More and more about Dot-tie seemed false.
She crumpled the paper with some force and then turned to leave the hotel, pulling her cell phone from her bag. Once outside, she placed a call, at the same time signaling to Angelo, who was parked nearby in a lovely silver Mercedes convertible, top down. In a minute, I was in a taxi following them. Angelo dropped Dottie at the eastern entrance to the Piazza Navona. After taking my time paying the taxi driver, to give Angelo time to pull away, I followed her into the square.
The piazza was packed with tourists and locals, and I almost lost her, but I caught a glimpse of her taking her seat at one of the outdoor cafes. I, too, found myself a seat across the wide expanse of the square from her and on a slight angle. I'd bought opera glasses for the occasion, and ordered a Campari and soda, which I was determined to make last as long as necessary.
Angelo joined her shortly. They were seated at a table set for three, and the waiter cleared the third place. Soon they were sipping cocktails interspersed with a kiss or two. I waited for about thirty minutes, with my waiter hovering about hoping I'd order at least another drink. I did, a San Pellegrino, which wasn't what he had in mind, despite the fact the place was charging about three times more than it should for Italian designer water.
Across the piazza, the waiter brought Angelo and Dottie dinner menus, and they proceeded to order. It all looked absolutely legitimate. They'd made a reservation for three, just as they said they would. They were having dinner. What was sinister in that? My only reason for suspecting her was that she turned up once or twice too often in my life, and now that I knew Crawford Lake was actually Mario Romano, I had to look back on every single event in the last several days with a jaundiced eye.
It was difficult not to be suspicious. The carabinieri had turned up three times when I was supposed to have the chimera hydria in my possession. The fact that I didn't on two of those occasions was something known only to Lola and to me. That seemed to be at least three times too many that my path and that of the carabinieri had almost crossed.
The question was, who had known where I was going to be on each of those occasions? Antonio had been able to pick up my trail in Paris very easily, because I'd left a message for him, giving my hotel number in case there was a problem with my cell phone. He'd shown up in Vichy, too, although I had not seen him following me there from Paris. Yves Boucher knew I was going to Vichy, as did Pierre Leclerc. I'd met Dot-tie for the first time that trip in Vichy, and both she and Leclerc had presumably been out to the chateau before I was, the morning Robert Godard took a header into his tomb.
Mario Romano had known where I was staying in Nice and in Volterra. Indeed, he'd recommended the hotels and arranged to have a reservation made for me. Dottie turned up in Nice but not in Volterra. In fact, she'd vanished for a few days, not reappearing until Rome. Leclerc was in Volterra; I saw him, and I saw his car in Nice. It was in Nice that the hydria had miraculously made its way into the trunk of my rental car. Somehow he'd managed to get the chimera hydria out of his trunk before the carabinieri got to it, because it had turned up in my hotel room in Arezzo, and he ended up dead in Cortona.
Both Antonio and Romano knew that I'd moved to Arezzo but hadn't known about my consequent change to Cortona. I'd seen Antonio near my hotel in Arezzo, just before the hydria had turned up in my room.
Romano and Antonio had also known about my early morning visit to the Tanella di Pitagora in the fog, but Romano had said something about leaving Antonio out of it when he told me to go to the Melone di Sodo. Antonio had shown up, though, and hidden in the bushes the same way I had. He obviously knew that something was wrong, or he wouldn't have done that. Was that the reason Antonio had died?
After about an hour of watching Dottie and Angelo nuzzle each other between bites of their dinner and sips of their wine, I decided I might as well give up and go back to my hotel. The thought of spending another evening alone in a small room with a television the size of a toaster was terribly depressing. Several people were hanging about, waiting for a table, however, and the waiter clearly wanted me to leave. I signaled for the bill and started to gather up my belongings.
"This is probably rude of me," a man's voice said, "but you look as if you're leaving. Would you mind if I sat here so I could lay claim to this table?"