it out irritably. 'There is something afoot,' he went on, 'something bigger than simple insurrection, bigger than a single country. The Foreign Office of this country has its eye on us. I cannot, of course, speak too indiscreetly, but I have been in this business longer than you, Salazar, and I tell you: we shall have much more to worry about than trampled bushes before this business is done.'
'Of course,' Salazar said peevishly, 'if I am no longer party to your confidences . . .'
'You would not know. Perhaps they do not know at Rome. You will discover everything in due time. Soon enough,' he added darkly.
'If it were only your job, I would say, fine: call in the Italians. Call in the English and the Germans too, for all I care. But if your glorious coup doesn't materialize, I come out of it just as badly.'
'And then,' Raton chuckled, 'that idiot clerk can take over both our jobs.'
Salazar was not mollified. 'I wonder,' he said thoughtfully, 'what sort of Consul-General he would make.'
Raton glowered. 'I am still your superior.'
'Very well then, your excellency -' spreading his hands hopelessly - 'I await your orders.'
'Contact the government police at once. Outline the situation, stress its urgency. Ask for a conference at their earliest possible convenience. Before sundown, that means.'
'That is all?'
'You might request that this Gaucho be put under apprehension.' Salazar did not answer. After a moment of glaring at the Rufina bottle, Raton turned and left the office. Salazar chewed on the end of his pen meditatively. It was midday. He gazed out the window, across the street at the Uffizi Gallery. He noticed clouds massing over the Arno. Perhaps there would be rain.
They caught up with the Gaucho finally in the Uffizi. He'd been lounging against one wall of the Sala di Lorenzo Monaco, leering at the Birth of Venus. She was standing in half of what looked like a scungille shell; fat and blond, and the Gaucho, being a tedesco in spirit, appreciated this. But he didn't understand what was going on in the rest of the picture. There seemed to be some dispute over whether or not she should be nude or draped: on the right a glassy-eyed lady built like a pear tried to cover her up with a blanket and on the left an irritated young man with wings tried to blow the blanket away while a girl wearing hardly anything twined around him, probably trying to coax him back to bed. While this curious crew wrangled, Venus stood gazing off into God knew where, covering up with her long tresses. No one seemed to be looking at anyone else. A confusing picture. The Gaucho had no idea why Signor Mantissa should want it, but it was none of the Gaucho's affair. He scratched his head under the wideawake hat and turned with a still-tolerant smile to see four guardie heading into the gallery toward him. His first impulse was to run, his second to leap out a window. But he'd familiarized himself with the terrain and both impulses were checked almost immediately. 'It is he,' one of the guardie announced; 'avanti!' The Gaucho stood his ground, cocking the hat aslant and putting his fists on his hips.
They surrounded him and a tenente with a beard informed him that he must be placed under apprehension. It was regrettable, true, but doubtless he would be released within a few days. The tenente advised him to make no disturbance.
'I could take all four of you,' the Gaucho said. His mind was racing, planning tactics, calculating angles of enfilade. Had il gran signore Mantissa blundered so extravagantly as to be arrested? Had there been a complaint from the Venezuelan Consulate? He must be calm and admit nothing until he saw how things lay. He was escorted along the 'Ritratti diversi'; then two short rights into a long passageway. He didn't remember it from Mantissa's map. 'Where does this lead?'
'Over the Ponte Vecchio to the Pitti Gallery,' the tenente said. 'It is for tourists. We are not going that far.' A perfect escape route. The idiot Mantissa! But halfway across the bridge they came out into the back roam of a tobacconist's. The police seemed familiar with this exit; not so good then, after all. Yet why all this secrecy? No city government was ever this cautious. It must therefore be the Venezuelan business. In the street was a closed landau, painted black. They hustled him in and started toward the right bank. He knew they wouldn't head directly for their destination. They did not: once over the bridge the driver began to zigzag, run in circles, retrace his way. The Gaucho settled back, cadged a cigarette from the tenente, and surveyed the situation. If it were the Venezuelans, he was in trouble. He had come to Florence specifically to organize the Venezuelan colony, who were centered in the northeast part of the city, near Via Cavour. There were only a few hundred of them: they kept to themselves and worked either in the tobacco factory or at the Mercato Centrale, or as sutlers to the Fourth Army Corps, whose installations were nearby. In two months the Gaucho had squared them away into ranks and uniforms, under the collective title Figli di Machiavelli. Not that they had any particular fondness for authority; nor that they were, politically speaking, especially liberal or nationalistic; it was simply that they enjoyed a good riot now and again, and if martial organization and the aegis of Machiavelli could expedite things, so much the better. The Gaucho had been promising them a riot for two months now, but the time was not yet favorable: things were quiet in Caracas, with only a few small skirmishes going on in the jungles. He was waiting for a major incident, a stimulus to which he could provide a thunderous antiphonal response back across the Atlantic's nave. It had been, after all, only two years since settlement of the boundary dispute with British Guiana, over which England and the United States nearly came to blows. His agents in Caracas kept reassuring him: the scene was being set, men were being armed, bribes given, it was only a matter of time. Apparently something had happened, or why should they be pulling him in? He had to figure out some way of getting a message to his lieutenant, Cuernacabron. Their usual rendezvous was at Scheissvogel's beer garden, in Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele. And there was still Mantissa and his Botticelli. Regrettable about that. It would have to wait till another night . . .
Imbecile!
Wasn't the Venezuelan Consulate located only some fifty meters from the Uffizi? If there were a demonstration in progress, the guardie would have their hands full; might not even hear the bomb go off. A diversionary feint! Mantissa, Cesare and the fat blonde would all get away cleanly. He might even escort them to their rendezvous under the bridge: as instigator it wouldn't be prudent to remain at the scene of the riot for very long.
This was all assuming, of course, that he could talk his way out of whatever charges the police would try to press, or, failing that, escape. But the essential thing right now was to get word to Cuernacabron. He felt the carriage begin to slacken speed. One of the guardie produced a silk handkerchief, doubled and redoubled it, and bound it over the Gaucho's eyes. The landau bounced to a halt. The tenente took his arm and led him through a courtyard, in a doorway, around a few corners, down a flight of stairs. 'In here,' ordered the tenente.
'May I ask a favor,' the Gaucho said, feigning embarrassment. 'With all the wine I have drunk today, I have not had the chance - That is, if I am to answer your questions honestly and amiably, I should feel more at ease if -'
