I stepped down carefully, flushed the toilet and ran the water for Anna's benefit, then opened the door. It was time to check out of my hotel and get myself to Paris to pick up the trail of Bellerophon.
TWO. PARIS
I AM NOT A DISHONEST PERSON, NOR, IN spite of later events that might lead one to think otherwise, am I a fool. I've been in this business long enough to know that one has to be very careful when dealing in antiquities. Suspicious by nature of opportunities that look too good to be true, I put in a call to customs authorities in both France and Italy first thing the next morning, and then went on-line to check the various databases of stolen art. There were no reports of a missing bronze statue of Bellerophon nor anything remotely resembling it that I could find. I then did another on-line search of some of the major auction houses. Still nothing. Satisfied, I checked my new bank account, pretty much the best one I'd ever had. True to his word, Lake had seen to it that $10,000 was deposited in it.
I wasn't surprised. A great deal had been said about Lake's ruthlessness and drive, his obvious need to succeed at whatever he did. But I had never heard him described as disreputable in any way. If anything, even his rivals would grudgingly admit to his integrity.
Checks made to my satisfaction, I called Clive and told him I'd acquired the farm furniture and pottery from Tuscany we needed for the cottage we were doing north of Toronto, and that I was taking a short detour to Paris to do a sweep of the flea markets for old linens and such.
I toyed with the idea of telling Clive the truth, that we had an assignment from none other than Crawford Lake himself, but I'd given my word on it, and I was reasonably sure Lake would not entirely approve of taking Clive into my confidence. For all his faults, which I'm happy to tell anyone about any time they ask and sometimes even when they don't, it has to be said that Clive is a tireless promoter of our business. He also is a name-dropper of some distinction, believing as he does that the more famous our clients, the more famous we, too, will be. I didn't think he'd be able to contain himself if he knew that we now had a billionaire on our roster of customers.
"Some guy called," Clive said. "Antonio somebody or other. I think he works for D'Amato," he added, referring to our Italian shipper. "They seemed to have misplaced the name of your hotel in Rome, so I gave it to him."
So that was how Lake had tracked me down. I'd been wondering, although not that much. I figured anyone with the resources at his disposal that Lake had could do just about anything he put his mind to. I hadn't gone to Italy to see him; quite the contrary, in fact. I'd been on an annual buying trip in Europe to pick up some furniture for the store: Tuscany was particularly hot right then—you know, rather worn wood furniture, tile floors, roughly finished ocher-colored walls, diaphanous curtains blowing in the breeze, that sort of thing—and we'd been asked to furnish a couple of places, one in the country, one in town, in Tuscan style. It looks easy, but it's not. It requires attention to detail and some really good pieces to pull it all off. Clive is the designer, I'm the antiques expert. He comes up with the ideas, and I go and find whatever it takes to make it happen. In many ways, we make an odd—I'd say any divorced couple in business together is by definition odd—but reasonably effective team. In addition to the Tuscan houses, I also had a buyer who was always interested in whatever Italian antiques I could find. Like Lake, he was an avowed collector of almost anything Italian, most particularly eighteenth-century Venetian glass. So I'd gone to Venice, swung through Florence and Siena, and ended up in Rome.
"Did he get hold of you all right?" Clive asked.
"Yes," I replied. "Everything's taken care of."
"Good," he said. "Well, have some fun in Paris while you're there. Sit in the sun at some Left Bank cafe, watch the world go by for awhile. Take a week, why don't you? We can afford it."
"You haven't been rearranging the store again in my absence, have you?" I said suspiciously. Usually Clive wants me to hustle right back and help him with the shop.
"I have not," he said, sounding hurt. "You shouldn't always think the worst of me, Lara. I just noticed you've been looking tired lately. Alex and I can manage here for a few more days," he added, referring to Alex Stewart, my friend and neighbor who helps out in the shop. At least with Alex there, I could relax, knowing he wouldn't let Clive do anything too awful. And, as Clive pointed out, whether he knew it or not, we could afford it, all right. Lake's advance would more than cover my time in Paris, and if I could get the Bellerophon, I'd be coming home with a new Internet bank account and lots of cash.
"That's nice of you, Clive," I said in a conciliatory tone. "I think I'll take you up on it. I'll let you know where I'm staying in case you think of something else we might need from Paris while I'm there."
As Lake had pointed out, I like to do my homework. I consider myself first and foremost a furniture expert, although in the business I'm in, I need to know something about a lot of things. More than anything else, I rely on years of experience and the kind of sixth sense one acquires along the way about what's good and what's not. I couldn't say I was an expert in Etruscan antiquities, but I did know where and what to look for. First I went to the Villa Giulia in Rome, one of the premier Etruscan collections, and had a really good look at what was there. Along the way, I picked up a pile of recommended books on the subject, a couple on Etruscan art, another on the Etruscans themselves, an archaeological study, and then, just for fun, D. H. Lawrence's Etruscan Places, some essays on travel the author undertook in the 1920s to Etruscan sites.
What I found interesting was how much, yet how little, we know about the Etruscans, or the people we have come to know as Etruscans. It is unlikely they ever referred to themselves that way. That name came from the Romans, who referred to their neighbors, occasional allies, and in the end, intractable enemies, as Tusci or Etrusci. The Greeks called them Tyrrhenoi, after which the Tyrrhenian Sea is named. The Etruscans called themselves Rasenna, or Rasna.
Their language, a rather unusual one that, unlike almost all other European languages, did not have Indo-European roots, has been deciphered to a large extent, but when it comes right down to it, there is very little to read, other than inscriptions on tombs and such. They may have had, indeed must surely have had, a rich body of literature, but it is lost to us, so what we know about them comes from archaeology or the writing of others: Greeks and Romans for example, whose own particular biases are reflected in their accounts. They also must have had a complex ritual and religious life, because we know that long after the Etruscan cities came under the domination of Rome, Roman citizens were still calling upon Etruscan haruspices, diviners, to aid them in important deliberations and decisions. The number and elaborate nature of their tombs indicate that there was a social structure, including a wealthy elite, but that also they believed in an afterlife. What exactly they believed, however, is, to a large extent, shrouded in the mists of time.
What we do know is that people who shared a common language, customs, and beliefs, dominated a large part of central Italy, what is now Tuscany—the word itself speaks to its Etruscan roots—part of Umbria and northern Lazio near Rome between about 700 B.C.E. until their defeat and assimilation by the Romans in the third century B.C.E. Their territory was essentially bounded by the Tiber River on the south and east, and the Arno to the north. To the west was the Tyrrhenian Sea. They lived in cities and used rich metal deposits along the Tyrrhenian shore to develop extensive trade by land and sea. In time, a loose federation of twelve cities, the Dodecapolis, grew up. The ruling elite of these cities, city states, really, met annually at a place called Volsinii to elect a leader.