“I mean don’t go at all,” Archie pleaded.
“I have to.”
“You have a choice.”
“No I don’t. It’s all there is.”
The fog had lifted and sunlight created dust corridors where it danced in through the open living-room windows.
I took fifty thousand dollars out of the laundry bag, wrapped it inbrown paper, and stuffed it in a red backpack I’d acquired in Boston when I was checking out the Museum of Fine Arts and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
On top of the money, I packed a leather portfolio containing Leonardo’s notes and a handful of Boulder Bars, the one kind of energy bar that didn’t taste like window putty. Then I cinched the laundry bag and returned it to the old leather satchel.
I said goodbye to Ginny, stashed my bags in the trunk, and headed for Bank of America in Santa Monica. A red- faced account representative converted five thousand dollars to lire and rented me a family-sized safe deposit box, where I stashed the satchel.
I got back in the Jag and turned the key. The throaty purr made my spine shimmy as I headed for the airport.
Somewhere over the Rockies my hands steadied enough to use the air-phone. I called Lois van Alstine, a redhead with green eyes and long legs who could have written
We’d spent one night together a couple of years earlier—amusing until she’d dug her long nails into my back. I told her to stop and she did, but the fun was over. There were no hard feelings.
Lois answered her phone after the third ring. “Bobby, I’m in the tub. I’ll be there in an hour.”
“Lois,” I said, “it’s Reb.”
“Spitfire! How are you? Tom’s heartbroken. Says you like your towels-more than him.”
“It’s true.”
“Oh. So what do you want? I’m guessing not a date.”
I told her I was looking for information on Werner Krell and Nolo Tecci.
“Krell, I know of, of course. Never heard of Tecci. Don’t tell me,” she said, “Krell wants to film you falling off his money.”
I said nothing.
“All right, wait a minute. I’ll check my database, see what comes up. Where are you? In a wind tunnel?”
I told her I was en route to Venice.
“You’re kidding. What, is Krell on the plane? No, can’t be. He’s got his own jet.”
“This call’s costing a hundred dollars a minute, Lois.”
“Uh-huh,” she said. “Okay, let’s see . . . I’m looking for Tecci. Is that T-E-T-C-H-Y?”
“Two c’s and an i, I think. Try it both ways.”
“I don’t think so. Nope, nothing comes up. Give me a second on Krell. He’ll come up. Here he is. Werner Krell. He’s a baldy, you know. A Yul Brynner. Not bad-looking. Born in Berlin, 1935, only child. Papa was a weapons manufacturer, too. Came up with a revolutionary design—the Gewehr 41W—first semi-automatic rifle to go into wide use in the Second World War. Oh, and he was a Leonardo da Vinci fanatic.”
“What?” I said.
“I said Papa Krell was a da Vinci fanatic. He had a museum-quality collection of models of Leonardo’s weapons and tanks, catapults and things. Was showing them at the Gem‰ldegallerie right before the war. Got a picture of him here, little Werner in knickers next to him. Oooh, Mother was killed during an Allied bomb raid when Werner was eight. Rumor is, that whacked him and his old man out. Both of them real eccentric, to put it kindly.”
I thought of the model that my dad and I had built when
Lois continued, “Uh . . . let’s see . . . little Krell kept pushing. When he was twenty, he graduated magna cum laude from the Berlin Polytechnic Institute with a degree in mechanical engineering, and begandesigning weapons himself for Papa’s company. By that time, he had taken over for his old man. Thought up the first submachine wraparound bolt system. Made huge shekels when that gun became the rage. Bottom line, he’s a billionaire with controlling interests or sole ownership of arms and munitions manufacturing companies in Germany, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Chile, and Mexico. Apparently sells to both sides. And he’s ruthless,” Lois added. “Whenever he wants something, like somebody else’s company, he gets it. Quirky as hell and getting quirkier as time goes on.”
“Is there anything else?” I asked her.
“When he’s not in his jet, he travels in his own Pullman car on the back of whatever train he wants. Orient Express–type thing. Fabulous. Got a picture of it right here. Must have cost millions. Really Art Deco. Elegant . . . deck I guess you’d call it—on the back. Brass railing. Remember Dumbo? At the end he was out on the deck of his own Pullman?”
I didn’t answer; I was picturing Henry Greer hopping the rail, plummeting into the St. Roddard Pass. I glimpsed a fragment of memory. I’d been through that pass myself, maybe ten years before, when I’d hitched a ride from Switzerland to Italy with a pasty-faced guy in a VW bus.
Lois said, “So . . . you’re awfully quiet for a hundred bucks a minute.”
