I leaned back in my chair, sipping my tea. The story interested me. I found myself liking Signor Ortoli. We had barely met but I could tell by his lined face and the way he spoke that he was a man who adhered to principles. They might not all be principles I would agree with but at least he would be predictable. I imagined I would hear a very different version of this story were I to speak with his brother. Signor Ortoli clearly believed strongly in his claim. His brother probably did too. It would take years of Freudian psychoanalysis to tease out the knot of contention between them. If Ortoli was telling the truth, though, the painting did legally belong to him. Also, I felt the restlessness rising in me. My brain was already starting to work on the problem, before I even knew the details. I had to admit to myself that I was willing to consider it.
“And where does your brother live Signor Ortoli?” I asked. “Where do you believe he is keeping the painting?”
****
I arrived in Paris by train two days later, rolling through the thirteenth arrondissement past old, mansard-roofed apartment blocks with bedding airing on the balconies and into Gare D’Austerlitz. The day was unseasonably warm and the city had that feeling cities get on the first warm day of spring. Men sported shirt sleeves. Women wore light dresses. Children skipped and laughed. Signor Ortoli’s brother had a house in the fourteenth arrondissement on Rue Cassini near the Cimetière Montparnasse. I had managed to book an Airbnb apartment on the same block, opposite side of the street. It was a tiny apartment but it would do. I had it for two weeks although I hoped I wouldn’t need it for that long. I had been planning on riding the metro from Gare d’Austerlitz but it was less than two miles to my Airbnb and the weather was so nice I decided to walk.
I strolled along Boulevard Saint-Marcel, enjoying the warmth, the trees sprouting new green leaves, the clinking of glassware in the cafés. Even the smell of Paris—whiffs of sewer gas, strong tobacco smoke, coffee, diesel, damp basement exhalations from ancient buildings—seemed pleasant in the haze of spring. Paris was one of my favorite cities and it had been too long since I had spent time just walking its broad boulevards and narrow alleys.
I stopped a couple of times along the way for the kinds of Parisian treats that just weren’t the same anywhere else—a café crème, a macaron—but did eventually turn onto Rue Cassini and find the building where I would be staying. Four stories high with flattened columns and stacked ornamentation placing it clearly in the deco period, the apartment block blended seamlessly into the character of the neighborhood. A rack of Velib public bikes stood just outside the front door. The owner had given me a code for the outer door and I was to check in with the concierge for the keys to the apartment itself. Inside, I found a tiny foyer with a gray marble floor. The concierge’s office adjoined the lobby, the solid oak door ajar. I knocked and poked my head in. A small woman, maybe five feet tall, with short hair going gray and a broom clutched tightly in one hand came to the door. Her French was heavily accented with what I took to be her native Portuguese and mine was probably just as difficult for her to understand. I had been practicing French with Gabrielle for months but I was still only an intermediate speaker. Eventually, after much back and forth, we established that I was the guest of Monsieur Thibault and it was okay to give me the keys.
I rode a clattery elevator up to the third floor, found the right number, and managed to make the key work in the lock. Inside at last, I dropped my heavy rucksack in the entry hall and gave myself a tour of the apartment. An aroma of floor soap and tobacco permeated the place, swirling ahead of me as I explored a miniature kitchen off the entry hall, hardly larger than a closet, a living room maybe twelve feet by ten, a bedroom of similar size completely taken up by an Ikea closet unit that stretched the full length of one wall and a queen sized bed, and a bathroom even smaller than the kitchen. Standing at the window in the living room, I knew that I had chosen well. Carlu Ortoli’s house lay nearly directly across the street. I would be able to stake it out easily. First, though, I would need provisions. There was a grocery store a couple of blocks away. I emptied my backpack and set off.
****
I spent the next two days watching Ortoli’s house, eating baguettes and drinking coffee while I observed the routines of the security guards and the neighborhood, making notes. Three times I saw Ortoli leave and three times return, picked up or dropped off by a driver in a shiny black Mercedes SUV. He wore dark sunglasses but he was unmistakably the man of the house. He looked and moved like a slightly younger version of his brother. Twice a woman with
