A Glancing Light

Chapter 19

When we arrived at the hotel in Bologna, there was a note in my box: Willem van de Graaf had called. I was to telephone him at home if I got in before eleven. And, I was informed at the desk, another gentleman had telephoned that morning. Although he had become somewhat agitated at missing me, he had left no message except to say that it was quite important and he would call again.

'An Italian gentleman or an American gentleman?' I asked.

'Italian,' I was told.

'Maybe it was Colonel Antuono,' Anne suggested a few minutes later in our room.

'Not likely. The Eagle of Lombardy doesn't get agitated.' She stretched and covered a yawn with the back of her hand. 'I'm beat. I think I'll take a hot shower.'

I smiled happily at her. How quickly we had relaxed into the old rhythms, the old, easy intimacy. On the flight from Amsterdam I'd begun to get a little anxious about how comfortable we'd be with each other once we were alone. I'd even considered raising the possibility of separate rooms, at least for the first night, until we got used to one another again. Fortunately, good sense had prevailed.

'Go ahead,' I said. 'I'll give Willem a call and see what he's come up with.'

The receiver was picked up on the third ring. 'Willem, this is Chris Norgren. Is it a fake?'

'A fake?' Surprisingly, he laughed. 'Yes, I suppose you could call it that. Amusing, in a way.'

I wasn't sure I liked the sound of that. Amusing wasn't a word I associated with van de Graaf. Willem didn't have a sense of humor so much as a sense of irony.

'The canamograss around the edges is no more than a few months old,' he told me, 'and not real canamograss at that.'

That was what I'd thought from the beginning. What was so amusing about it? 'And?' I asked warily.

'And the panel is actually two separate layers laminated together, the process being disguised by the canamograss.'

Also as I'd thought. 'Willem,' I said, 'why do I feel as if I'm waiting for another shoe to drop?'

'Shoe?'

'Willem, is the Uytewael a fake or isn't it?'

'No,' he said, 'the Uytewael is not a fake.'

I sat down on the edge of the bed. 'What?'

'It's not Uytewael at his best, but it's Uytewael, without question.'

Just what Di Vecchio and his people had concluded. 'But you said—'

'The Uytewael is authentic. The back to which it's glued is not. It's an imitation, a very good one, of a seventeenth- century Dutch panel. But it's quite recent.'

This took a few seconds to sink in. 'You're telling me someone took a genuine Uytewael, sawed off the front of it—'

'Evidently.'

'And then glued it onto a fake panel-back?'

'Precisely.'

'Why? What could possibly be the point?'

'I was hoping,' van de Graaf said, 'that you could tell me.'

'The question is, what did they do with . .'

Whatever I was going to say trailed away. I stood frozen and mute, the receiver pressed against my ear. I was at long last having a moment of real insight, obvious and startling at the same time—what the psychologists call an aha experience. There was a link between at least some of the disparate happenings of the last few weeks; specifically, a link between Sicily and Seattle, between Ugo Scoccimarro and Mike Blusher. How could I have failed to see it, or even to guess at it, before?

'Have to go, Willem,' I mumbled. 'Hold on to that painting. I'll be back in touch soon.'

More thoughts crowded their way in; more links, more possibilities. Hypotheses sprang from hypotheses, like a crossword puzzle being filled out every which way at once.

The telephone rang the instant I put it down.

'Chris, is that you? It's Lloyd.'

'Lloyd?' I was still tracing out the crossword puzzle.

'As in 'Lloyd from the Seattle Art Museum'? Your place of employment? Lloyd, the director's faithful administrative assistant—the director who, I might add, has been seriously concerned about you since you failed to arrive on your scheduled flight, and has had me searching hither and—'

'Oh, God, I forgot to call, didn't I? Look, I'm back in Bologna—'

'No, really? Do you mean, Bologna, Italy?'

I sighed. This was Lloyd's typical mode of conversation, and I was generally up to it. But not now. 'Lloyd, I'm sorry. Something important came up. Is Tony in? I have to talk to him.'

'I'm not sure. Just a minute.' There was a pause for muffled conversation. 'Chris? I'm afraid our leader is out, but Calvin Boyer is just pulsing to speak with you. Hold on, he's going to his desk.'

A few seconds later Calvin came on to the line, pulsing. 'Chris—hey, did you hear about Mike Blusher?'

It took me a moment to respond. The talk with van de Graaf was still rumbling around my mind 'No, what now?'

'They arrested him, can you believe it?'

That cleared my head. 'You bet I can,' I said with enthusiasm. 'For what, fraud?'

'You got it. The FBI was in here talking to us about it this morning. They got him in a sting. He's selling the Terbrugghen all over the place. There are four of them, at least. They nailed him with a fake Uruguayan. This guy from Oman—'

'Wait a minute, will you, Calvin? Slow down. What's a fake Uruguayan?'

'Well, a real Uruguayan. You know, an Uruguayan- American. He was supposed to be a millionaire from Montevideo or someplace, but he's really an FBI agent. Capisce?'

'No,' I said irritably. 'Slow down, will you?'

'All right, pay attention, don't interrupt.' There was a pause and a slurp; his afternoon Coke, straight from the can. Then, more slowly, if not that much more coherently, he explained. In the end, after many questions and explications, a more or less intelligible story emerged.

A week earlier, an Omani hotel magnate and novice art collector, Mr. al-Ghazali, who was in New York for several days of auctions at Sotheby's, had gone to the New York Police Department to express certain reservations about a purchase he had tentatively agreed to make—not from Sotheby's, but from a Mr. Michael Blusher, who was also there for the auctions.

According to Mr. al-Ghazali, he had recognized Blusher at a cocktail party at the Central Park South condominium of a Manhattan art dealer and had approached him on the terrace to congratulate him on the spectacular discovery of the Terbrugghen. Blusher had asked him if he collected Old Masters, and al-Ghazali had replied laughingly that he was thinking about it inasmuch as the Impressionists and the Modems seemed to be priced beyond reach. They had then each gone on to talk with other people, but as the party was winding down, Blusher had suggested they have dinner together.

Afterward, over truite fraiche grillee at Lutece, Blusher had revealed that he was interested in quietly selling the painting to a discreet buyer. He had come on strong—'like a yacht salesman,' al- Ghazali disapprovingly said later—but the Omani's interest had been aroused all the same and they had talked price. Blusher had asked $850,000, al-Ghazali had offered $300,000, and they had settled on $425,000, contingent on al-Ghazali's later examination of the painting in Seattle.

Blusher, too, had a condition: that the sale not receive any publicity, at least for the time being. The only reason he was letting the painting go, he had explained, was that he was in a financial hole, and if word of it got