A Glancing Light

To my relief I couldn't have been further off the mark. Not that Bruno Salvatorelli was a reassuring sight. Fat, rumpled, excited, he looked like a man well on the way to an ulcer if not already there. Bald except for an ear-level fringe, he had meticulously teased a few long, shellacked strands of graying hair from one side to the other over the top of his scalp and somehow plastered them in place. At least half a dozen pens were stuffed into a shirt pocket already stained beyond hope of restoration. Stubby, similarly stained fingers held yet another pen, a thick green one, which he jabbed intermittently at one of the flow charts.

His two foremen held clipboards packed with papers, and while Salvatorelli ranted and poked at the chart, they ranted back and slapped their clipboards. Impossible!' one or the other of them would say every few seconds and turn away in exasperation, but Salvatorelli held firm and eventually prevailed He was obviously the boss; I had to say that for him.

When his employees had marched grimly out, dominated if not won over heart and soul, Salvatorelli came to shake hands with me. With his other hand he dabbed at his head with a grubby handkerchief, taking care to avoid displacing a single, lovingly arranged strand.

'This is a terrible business to be in,' was his greeting to me in Italian. 'Don't ever take up the shipping business. It's one problem after another.'

I promised him I wouldn't and followed him into his office, where he waved me into a chair and, with a great sigh, plumped heavily down behind his desk. For a few seconds he sat there, grimacing and digging his middle finger into a spot at the base of his sternum. If not ulcers, he certainly suffered from heartburn. 'I have to stop drinking wine,' he told me. 'My liver, it can't handle it anymore. It's all right if we speak Italian?'

In my best accent I told him I was reasonably fluent.

My best accent isn't all that good. 'I'll talk slowly,' he said.

The receptionist came in with two thick folders of papers. Salvatorelli looked at them the way a treed coon looks at the frothing hounds. He practically cowered.

'What is that?' he asked her, his voice rising.

Here, I saw, was a harried man, a man who felt himself beset on every side, who wondered when, not if, the next disaster would strike. Every now and then my life gets like that, too, but with Salvatorelli I had the impression it was business as usual.

'It's only the papers to do with signor Norgren,' she told him soothingly. 'You told me to bring them.'

'Yes, of course. Good.' He winced slightly. 'There's nothing wrong with them?'

'No, everything is in order.'

'Fine, fine, put them down.'

Oddly enough, his nervousness wasn't worrying me; if anything, I was encouraged. It wasn't a suspicious sort of agitation, if that makes any sense; not the skulking fear of a thief, or the terror of a crook in trouble with the Mafia. It just seemed like the sincere concern of a respectable, if frenetic, businessman who took his business to heart.

This was borne out by the fastidious way he went through the arrangements with me, making sure that I was aware of and approved everything that had been agreed upon between him and Ofelia Nervi, and that I understood the purpose of every form in the files. It took an hour and a half, and although I can't say it was fun, it was comforting. Bruno Salvatorelli knew his stuff.

Which made the mix-up with Clara Gozzi's Rubens all the more puzzling. How could it possibly have been sent accidentally to Blusher as part of a shipment of otherwise unadulterated junk? What was it doing at Trasporti Salvatorelli in the first place, without Salvatorelli's being aware of it? Or was it a scam of some kind, as I'd surmised with Clara? But that seemed improbable. Bruno Salvatorelli just didn't come across as a crook. Not that my judgment in these matters was perfect.

'I understand there is also a gentleman in Sicily who is contributing paintings,' he said. 'Did you wish us to handle them? I have an agent in Palermo.'

'No, I think Ugo's arranging that himself, but I'll be flying down to see him Saturday, before I head back home, and I'll ask him. Signor Salvatorelli, may I ask you a question?'

'Ask, ask.' He was expensive now, replete with the satisfaction of minutiae properly executed. The last document had been signed, we had shaken hands once more, and the receptionist had come in to take away the papers and bring us pungent cups of caffe alla Borgia. (Salvatorelli's liver was apparently selective: wine, no; apricot brandy, yes.)

'As you may know,' I said, 'I'm the one who identified the painting in signor Blusher's warehouse as—'

He stiffened. The anxiety-antennae popped back out on his forehead and quivered. 'This is intolerable!' he said. 'Intolerable!'

I backpedaled. 'It's only that I couldn't help wondering, signore, how such an accident could happen in so— so well-run a company, so—'

He wasn't fooled by this mealy-mouthing. The cup was banged into its saucer. Brandy-laced espresso sloshed onto the desk blotter. 'I have spoken freely to the police!' he shouted. 'I have spoken freely to the insurance company! I have welcomed their investigations! I have embraced their investigations! They ascribe no blame to me! I know nothing of stolen paintings! I will not permit—will not permit—'

A commotion at the entrance to the building had thrown him off the track. He half rose to peer over my shoulder. 'What, what, what. . . ?'

I turned too, looking out through the space between the partitions. The receptionist was unsuccessfully trying to hold off five uniformed men, two in the military-style khaki outfits of the carabinieri, three in the natty uniforms of the municipal police: dark blue berets and jackets, gray pants with thin red stripes, and white Sam Browne belts with handcuffs and holstered pistols. One of the carabinieri carried a semiautomatic machine gun propped barrel-up against his shoulder.

With an effort Salvatorelli finally managed to get something out. 'What do you want?'

'Signor Salvatorelli?' said one of the policemen, sweeping the complaining receptionist casually aside.

'Of course I'm signor Salvatorelli. Who else would I be?'

'I am Captain Barbaccia.' He held up a sheet of paper. 'I have authorization from the special prosecutor's office to make a search of this property.'

Salvatorelli's cheeks puffed out. Red spots appeared on the sides of his neck. He raised a fat, clenched, quivering hand. 'Puh . . .' he said, '. . puh ... '

Captain Barbaccia took advantage of this interlude in the conversation to step into the office. He looked down at me thoughtfully, a craggy handsome man with an air of quiet authority, and a uniform that must have been tailored for him. Now here was someone who would have made a respectable Eagle of Lombardy.

'And who are you, please, signore?' he asked me pleasantly.

I told him.

And your business here?'

But by this time Salvatorelli had found speech. 'This is too much!' he cried. 'I am being persecuted, hounded to death, as was my sainted brother! What do you want here? What do you hope to find? How can I run a business if—'

'We believe there may be several missing works of art on your property, signore,' Barbaccia said calmly.

Salvatorelli's mouth fell open. His face went from dull red to sick gray. He sagged back into his chair. 'You . . . you accuse me?'

'No one accuses you, signor Salvatorelli. We have no reason to suspect you of anything.' After a moment he added, 'I tell you the truth.'

Some of the color came back into Salvatorelli's cheeks. He took a breath. 'What paintings?' he asked.

'Perhaps you would show us the way to your Lot 70?' Barbaccia suggested.

'What paintings?' Salvatorelli demanded. He might be excitable, but he wasn't a pushover. 'I insist that you tell me.'

The captain paused, then complied with a small bow of his head. 'A landscape by Carra and a small still life by Morandi; stolen from the municipal gallery in Cosenza five years ago.'

Carra and Morandi, along with the better known De Chirico, were painters of the quasi-surrealist