A Glancing Light

His hand twitched, his head jerked up. The cup dropped onto the floor and bounced into a corner. The cap popped off. Orange liquid spurted over the linoleum. Max's eyes bugged out at me. 'Chris!' He gagged, coughed. 'I thought you were—I thought—'

And the last major piece dropped firmly into place. 'What did you think I was, Max?'

'I—' He got his voice going again. 'I thought you were still in Sicily.' He managed a flabby smile. 'Hey, I'm glad to see you, buddy. When did you get back?'

I shook my head. 'You dropped that cup because you thought I was still in Sicily? You practically choked because you thought I was still in Sicily?'

'Well, you gave me a start, partner. I thought—'

 'You thought I was dead, Max.'

As of course he had. That was what I'd come to find out, what I'd expected to find out, and what I'd been hoping I wouldn't find out. The story Antuono had put out to the press had said simply that a taxi on its way to the airport had been blown up, resulting in the killing of an unidentified passenger. Why should Max or anyone else assume it was I—unless they'd had a hand in it? 'I think it might be helpful,' Antuono had said, 'if the person who tried to kill you were to believe he succeeded.'

And so it had been. It had helped me find my would-be killer: none other than my old friend Max. Signor Massimiliano Caboto—lively companion, drinking crony, jolly descendant of the illustrious Giovanni Caboto.

As moments of triumph go, I thought sourly, this was far from a winner. I didn't feel like exulting, and I wasn't even consumed with satisfyingly righteous wrath at Max's perfidy. On the other hand, I wasn't wallowing in the Slough of Despond, either. Vexed, that's what I was. I'd wanted it to be Croce, or maybe Salvatorelli, or best of all, the evil, faceless Mob; I certainly hadn't wanted it to be Max, and the fact that it was made me damn irritated with him.

'Wait a second now,' he said, rubbing his forehead with his fingertips. 'My mind's about as sharp as a doorknob with all the pills I pop. You know, now that I think of it, I think somebody did mention you were dead.'

'Oh, sure. Who would that have been, Max?'

'Well, let's see now . . .' He picked up the cigar and took a couple of puffs, temporizing like mad. But who was there to name that I couldn't easily enough talk with later?

'No, it was you, Max,' I said. 'You're the one who had that bomb put in my bag.'

He had gained back his wits by now, and decided the way he wanted to play this. He blinked at me through the cigar smoke, his expression humorous and wry, a man who didn't quite get the joke yet, but was willing to go along with it. 'All right, I'll bite. Tell me, why would I want to put a bomb in your bag?'

'To keep me from finding out that you'd cut away the back of Ugo's Uytewael and replaced it with a phony back.'

'Ah, I see. Of course.' A flick of ash into the saucer. 'And just how the hell would I manage that? I've never even had it in my shop. Check with Ugo.'

'I did check with Ugo. He said you're the one who worked with the shippers to have his collection sent down to Sicily. Obviously, you'd have had plenty of opportunity.'

Or maybe not so obviously. It had taken long enough to occur to me.

'Opportunity?' Max said. 'What does that have to do with anything? Amedeo had it in his museum for a week. Benedetto Luca could have gotten his hands on it there, too. So could the whole damn staff. Clara Gozzi's the one who brought it back from London, for Christ's sake. Or are you accusing her, too?'

'Nope, just you, buddy.'

'Look—would you mind sitting down? You're making me nervous.' The jokey good humor was wearing thin. He was no longer smiling. The cigar lay in its saucer.

'I'll stand. I'm not staying long.'

'Fine, suit yourself. Okay, let's say for the sake of argument I could have done it. What would be the point? What would I want with the back of an old panel?'

'You could forge a Terbrugghen on it and then you and Mike Blusher could use it in a swindle.'

'The guy with the Rubens? I don't even know him.'

I shook my head. 'You're slipping. You told me you'd done business with him.'

'I said—? '

'At dinner last week with Amedeo and Benedetto.' Another fragment that had meant nothing at the time.

Max frowned, licked his lips, made a partial recovery. 'Oh—well–business with him, sure, but I don't know him. I mean—'

'Max, there's no point in this. I'm going now.'

'Chris, wait—'

I hesitated. There were loose ends. If he wanted to talk, I would stay a while longer.

'Let me ask you this,' he said. 'Can you really believe I'd try to kill you over something like this? To cover up some stupid little swindle?'

'It's pretty hard to believe, all right.'

'Well, there you are.'

'But I believe you'd kill me to cover up a murder.'

'A mur—'

'You're the one who stole Clara's Rubens.' It occurred to me that I was beginning to enjoy this. One more thing never to tell Louis.

'What? Out of my own shop? Jesus Christ, who's the one on the pills, you or me?'

'Your watchman caught you and you wound up killing him. Right?'

'I don't believe I'm hearing this. I mean, Giampietro, he was an old friend.'

'So was I an old friend.'

He swallowed and raised his hands, palms out; a placating gesture. 'Chris, do me a favor and give this some thought before you do anything stupid. You know this doesn't add up.'

'Oh, it adds up. Amedeo told me he called you right after the Pinacoteca break-in. He wanted to warn you there might be more thefts. It took me a long time to see what that meant.'

He tried to laugh, not successfully. 'All right, don't keep me in suspense. What does it mean?'

'It gave you a chance to jump on the bandwagon. You hopped out of bed, went downtown, and took Clara's painting from your own shop, figuring everybody would assume the same gang was involved. Which is exactly what everybody did.'

I took a deep breath. I was positive I was right, but all the same I was somewhat in advance of the available facts here. And I wanted to get more information from him, not give it to him. 'That list of names you had was just so much camouflage, wasn't it?'

'The hell it was,' he said hotly. 'Amedeo was on it, the two guys who installed the security system were on it—'

'I'm not saying you couldn't name five people, Max. I'm saying it was a smoke screen all the same.'

'Smoke screen!' He gestured angrily at his legs. 'You think those bastards did this to me because of some stupid smoke screen?'

I didn't have an answer for that yet.

My silence encouraged him. He pushed the bed tray roughly aside. The saucer clattered to the floor with the cigar. Ashes mingled with orange juice. 'This gets nuttier by the second. First you walk in here and tell me I tried to kill you. Five minutes later you tell me I screwed around with one of Ugo's paintings and then forged this Terborch —'

'Terbrugghen, Max,' I said. 'Terbrugghen.'

He shook his head impatiently. 'Terborch, Terbrugghen. Then I'm supposed to be in some kind of scam with Mike Blusher, for God's sake. Five minutes after that you tell me I robbed a painting in my own shop and killed an old man who was like a father to me.'

He licked his lips again and pulled himself a little higher on the bed. 'Look, you said—I think you said—I tried to kill you to keep you from finding out about Ugo's picture. Only