Conti turned and walked quickly out of the room, almost colliding with the top of the doorway. Cursing, he bent down and nearly ran through the other room toward the cave entrance where he did collide, but this time with a policeman whose head was down to enter the cave.
“Mi scusi, Commissario,” said the man as he picked himself off the floor, brushing his hands of the mud that had stuck to them when he fell. “I was bringing you an urgent message,” he added, hoping it could deflect some of his boss’ anger.
“Make it quick, I’m in a hurry.”
The man read from a piece of paper he took from his jacket pocket. “A call from the station. They found the red Opel. A meter maid spotted it after she had seen our notice on the bulletin board this morning.”
“She is to be complimented. Are they sure it’s the right one?”
“There was an English-Italian dictionary in the back seat.”
“Excellent. Where is it?”
Again the policeman glanced at the paper. “Via della Porta Marconi, a side street that doesn’t get much traffic. Near the Etruscan museum. In fact it was just off the street itself, parked in one of the spaces reserved for the museum.” He looked up from the paper and saw Conti staring down at his hands.
“Let me see, corporal.”
“But it just has what I—”
He grabbed the man’s hand. “No, not the paper, let me see your hands.” Conti looked at the upturned palms and then bent down to the ground and picked up some of the clay from the cave floor in his fingers. “This could be even worse than I thought.”
Conti was out of the cave before the young policeman could find any words to answer. As the commissario stepped outside he pulled out his cell phone, punched the buttons and then stared at the small screen when he heard the voice of one of the policeman above.
“There is no signal down there, Commissario,” the man shouted, “you’ll have to come up here.”
Conti cursed and started up the path, tripping a few times as he hurriedly made his way, so that when he got to the top and pulled out his phone again he was nearly out of breath.
“Rispondi, Montoya, per l’amore di dio, rispondi,” he gasped into the buzzing phone.
He gave up and tried another number.
“LoGuercio, where are you?…No, I want you to go back. Here’s what you should do.”
***
“There must be some misunderstanding, Arnolfo, I’m in Volterra to buy alabaster and other Etruscan reproductions.”
“Of course you are.” The grin stayed on Zerbino’s face as he raised his eyes to look past Rick toward the back of the room. “Ah, I thought you would never get here,” he said, still looking past Rick, who now turned around to follow Zerbino’s eyes. “Perfect timing, we are about to talk business,” said Zerbino as he turned back to Rick. “Riccardo, I think you have met Signor Malandro.”
It took a moment to place the man who was taking his place next to Zerbino. Rick looked at the face whose mouth now mirrored the half smile of the curator and remembered. When he had seen it the first time, the face was covered by the shadow of a stubbled beard and a film of alabaster dust. Without the chin stubble and dusty blue coat, Rick decided, the guy almost looked presentable. He even wore a relatively clean shirt. But why was the foreman of Landi’s workshop here? What did he have to do with Zerbino and the museum? Rick tried to put the pieces together, but nothing fit. It was all too confusing. Malandro works for Zerbino? We’re going to talk business? What the hell is going on here?
“Signor Malandro overheard you talking to Landi about artifacts. He was convinced that you could be a serious buyer, and I value his judgment. When you and I met for coffee I got the same impression. That is why I went ahead with your visit to the cave.”
Rick sighed. “Driven by your other, uh, colleague, Arnolfo?”
“I have many colleagues, Riccardo. The more of them one has, the more information one can accumulate, and information is the key to any successful business. Would you believe that the man who drove you to the cave works at the Volterra Chamber of Commerce?” He threw a smile at Malandro, which was reciprocated. “Passing information on, sometimes correct and sometimes wrong, can also be very helpful. Especially for keeping the police off our trail so they can spend their time sticking their noses into the business of others.” Zerbino and Malandro again exchanged grins.
He should have been scared, or at least worried, but instead a calm came over Rick as he arranged his thoughts. All right, Montoya, this was why Beppo sent you up here, and Beppo knew what he was doing. He knew you could handle it. Relax. This will be easy. Talk, play the part, get your ass safely out of the museum and then contact Conti. Remember how disappointed you were last night when Beppo and Conti jerked you off the case? Now you can finire con bellezza, as Italians say. Finish this with class.
“How nice that you are involved in this enterprise, Arnolfo, it now takes on a certain—what is the word?—a certain seriousness.” He noticed a suspicious look from Malandro and added: “Not that your other partners did not deal with me in a completely professional manner, of course. But let us go to the crux of the
