The Blue Last

was so sad, the way he said it. “Masaccio.”

Melrose asked, “What did he die of?”

Luzi thought for a moment. “Want. He died of want.”

Melrose colored, thinking that was something none of them, none of their three untalented selves, would die of, and felt diminished.

Outside, with the heavy door and its lion head knocker bolted, Melrose said, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice, “You can’t really mean to go to Siena to yet one more foremost-authority-leading-expert?”

“I certainly do. Should I ditch the whole plan when I’m this close? Come on, Siena’s scarcely an hour’s drive. We can rent some really fast car.”

“Close? Marshall, you are not one inch or ounce closer to knowing this-” he tapped the package (once more wrapped and taped and tied) “-is genuine or not.”

Trueblood made a show of thinking this over, which Melrose knew he was not. “There’re car hire places at the airport.”

Melrose took a few steps to the curb and appeared to be throwing himself in front of a Vespa which had materialized out of nowhere, out of the fuel-shocked air of Florence, before dematerializing into the dusk, failing to claim, this time, the life of one more Florentine. Melrose really wanted one of those scooters.

Taking the suicide-attempt hint, Trueblood threw his hands up (one not rising much above chest level, as the package was securely under his arm), “Okay, okay. We can go tomorrow. Let’s find a drink.”

“But first, but first to the glove shop. Thataway.” Melrose pointed in the general direction of the Ponte Vecchio.

“I never knew you to be so glove addicted,” said Trueblood, as they strolled along. “Maybe there’s a twelve- step glove program you could try.”

“Come on.” Melrose said, taking command.

The knock-you-into-the-Arno scent of leather engulfed him when they entered the little shop. The gloves were in glass cases and also stacked by the hundreds-thousands?-in their own little plastic cases in cubbyholed wooden shelving.

Nine or ten customers preceded them, which was easily enough to fill the tiny shop. Melrose wedged his way in (“Mi scusi, scusi”) to look at the gloves in the glass case.

Now it was Trueblood’s turn to carp, trying to lever Melrose out and into a trattoria. Melrose stopped listening; he knew it wouldn’t be long before Trueblood fell hungrily onto this fashion feast, and it wasn’t. After he elbowed an old man so hunched his chin barely cleared the counter, Trueblood was trying different gloves on each hand. This was difficult with his painting pressed under one arm.

To the old man, Melrose bowed and, with a supercilious smile, waved him to his place at the counter.

The old gentleman looked at him with considerable distaste: “Lasciami in pace!” he very nearly spit.

Melrose blinked. “Prego,” he said, but for some reason he did not really believe he’d been thanked. Back to the gloves, let’s see: the black kidskin with the narrow white edging at the wrists would be perfect for Diane; they’d blend with her clothes, her house, her cat. One always had to take back little presents for the ones left behind. This was an excuse to look at (easily) a hundred pairs of gloves. A suede of deep gold, perfect for Vivian. Noxious apple green for Agatha. Two pairs of lilac for Miss Broadstairs and Miss Vine. (They would probably wear them for gardening gloves.) Several more pairs for others. For himself-he looked down the counter.

Why was Trueblood unwrapping the painting? Why was he now holding it for the saleswoman’s close inspection? Why was she raising pincenez, dangling from a silver chain, up to her eyes? Was Trueblood wanting to fit up St. Who with gloves? If he got testy about it, would the scene resolve itself into Expulsion from the Glove Shop?

Melrose went back to his own glove buying, trying to ignore the comments and labored breathing of the people behind him waiting for service. He was taking no more chances in being polite. He picked up a pair of soft leather gloves that poured like double cream onto his hand in a color called Midnight Ashes. They were a gray so dark it just missed being black. He certainly had to have those. This next pair were doeskin in a nice fawn shade. As he was debating buying these also, Trueblood shoved in beside him to show him a pair in a shade something like sea green.

“Nice, eh?”

“Beautiful.” Fortunately the painting was rewrapped. “Do you like these-” Melrose held up the nearly black gloves “-or these?” He pointed to the fawn gloves.

“Both. Get them both. See, I bought two.” Trueblood held up the bag that contained his purchases.

“Yes, but you needed a pair for St. Who. I’m only gloving myself. And I’d feel rather overly indulgent buying two pairs, I mean, at these prices. Of course I realize they’d cost twice this at home, but that doesn’t make them cheaper. No, I think I’ll go for the dark gray ones.” What Melrose was actually doing was giving Trueblood a chance to do his Christmas shopping. He knew Trueblood loved to purchase things on the sly, once he found that one was particularly taken with a certain article. “I think I’ll take one last look at the back, if you don’t mind waiting a tic.”

“No, no, go on,” said Trueblood, “they’ve some especially nice ones at the back.”

When Melrose looked back, Trueblood was in close colloquy with the saleswoman, who was nodding and smiling, Si, si. Melrose allowed enough time for the transaction at the front. When they left the shop, he smiled, for Trueblood was securing this last flat little parcel beneath the string around his painting.

Melrose felt rather humble about this and determined to stop giving his friend such a hard time over his foremost or leading expert or authority in future.

Twenty-four

Determined to get to Pietro di Bada in record time, Trueblood told Melrose to turn onto the motorway, a plan quickly scotched by Melrose, who said that if he was going at all he wanted to see the Tuscan countryside, and not from the rush of a motorway.

“You’ll want to stop,” said Trueblood, churlishly.

“No, I won’t.”

Of course, he would, which was why he had insisted on driving. And he did, when he spied from a distance the hill town of San Gimignano. Melrose loved the name and kept practicing, trying to get the accent just right (“San Gim-i’yon-o, San Gim-i’yon-no”). Its needlelike towers bathed in the sun, some nearly encased in vines and flowers, its feudal walls and narrow windows, its medieval stone-all were irresistible.

Trueblood was reading his guidebook. “There were once something like four hundred towers here. Now it’s only around seventy. What happened to the others?”

“Is that the point? I mean, what happened to them just doesn’t seem the point of this town.” Melrose brought the car to a halt in the car park, and, breathing hard, they struggled up the steps onto the cobbled road and still climbed. They found a little trattoria in which to lunch on bruschetta, crostini and wine. Melrose exhausted his Italian when he asked for la lista dei vini and acqua minerale and as always came up short when the waiter (impressed by their command of the language) made his own contribution: “Gassata o naturale?” Melrose shrugged his shoulders in a not-caring gesture. Trueblood was having gin and tonic all over Florence because that was the way it was spelled out: gin tonic. Well, they’d never claimed to be linguists, had they? said Trueblood, ordering another gin tonic.

The lunch was simple and good-when wasn’t it good over here?-and afterward they ambled farther up the hill to come out on a piazza overseen by a charming church. They crossed it and came upon a museum of torture. Here