Chapter 22
At the end of Via dell'Indipendenza he swung around the Piazza Medaglia d'Oro and into the parking lot of the railroad station. It was 11:00 A.M. There were people milling around in comforting numbers. He pointed at a public telephone. 'Go there and wait for a call.'
I walked to the telephone much reassured. If they'd been planning to kill me, I'd be speeding along an untraveled country road by now, not walking unaccompanied through a public place. With that all-absorbing worry removed, I began to get excited. Was it possible that the paintings were really about to be recovered? That I was going to be the instrument? There were all kinds of possible reasons for the recovery being handled in this peculiar way. Maybe the person with the paintings was hoping to collect an insurance company reward, but was fearful of dealing directly with the company or the police. I would be a perfect intermediary: uninvolved, knowledgeable—
The telephone rang. I snatched it up.
'Norgren?' The same voice as before.
'Yes.'
'Listen. There is a buyer for the paintings. But he insists that an expert confirm they are what we say they are. He wanted to bring his own consultant to do this, but he was told no.'
'Why?' I asked, as much to slow him down as anything. He was difficult to understand, and I wanted time to think through what he was saying. And although his voice was still muffled, I was beginning to hear something familiar in the cadence. If I could get him to keep talking . . .
'Why?' he repeated. 'Because I don't trust him and I don't trust his expert, all right? He was told a reliable expert would be provided, a respected museum curator.'
'And that's me?'
'That's you.'
'Does he know it's me?'
'When you get there, he'll find out.'
'And he agreed?'
'No more questions,' he said irritably. 'What's the difference to you? Now, you will be taken—'
'Why should I do this?' I demanded. 'Do you actually think I'm going to help you get rid of those paintings?'
I wasn't being particularly brave. The area around the station entrance was filled with people. Pietro was thirty feet away, watching me without interest, placid and sleepy-looking, chewing on something (his cud?). All I had to do if I wanted to get away was duck into the station.
'You told me I could help recover those paintings,' I said. 'You didn't say—'
'And so you can. After you authenticate them and leave, you're free to notify your carabinieri friends as to the buyer's identity. Thus,' he said almost affably, 'a felonious receiver will be apprehended, the paintings will be recovered for their rightful owners, and you'll have the gratitude of the Italian nation.'
And you'll have your five hundred million lire or whatever it is, I thought. 'How am I supposed to know the identity of the buyer?' I asked him. 'I don't imagine he's going to introduce himself.'
'You'll know, don't worry.'
'Why are you doing this to him?'
'I told you, I don't trust him, I don't like him. What do I care—' he stopped abruptly. 'Enough questions. There's no more time. Go back to the automobile.'
'Look, I need time to get ready for this,' I said brilliantly. 'It'll have to wait until tomorrow. I can't just go in and authenticate these things without preparation. I need—'
'You need nothing! It's now or never, do you understand?' His agitation level had shot up again. 'I'm sorry I got involved with this in the first place. It's not worth it—one problem after another ... '
I knew who it was. There had been one too many familiar phrases sputtered in that familiar, frazzled manner. Bruno Salvatorelli. I glanced again at the bustling, inviting entrance, and at the bovine Pietro chewing away, staring into the middle distance. What if I dashed into the station now? I could get away with ease and tell Antuono what I knew.
But what did I know? Antuono already suspected Salvatorelli. And I still didn't know where the pictures were. We'd get nowhere, and Salvatorelli would find some other way of disposing of the paintings, perhaps for good.
'. . . if you don't want to do it,' he was ranting, 'just say so, you understand me? I'll throw the damned things in the Reno and be done with them!'
That I doubted, but I couldn't chance it. 'All right, I'll do it,' I said. 'But first I have to know—'
'You have to know shit,' he said, and hung up.
Pietro drove a few blocks beyond the station to a neighborhood of nondescript apartment buildings. With featureless exteriors of raw concrete, they might have been built ten years ago or ten weeks ago. The ground floors were mostly occupied by small light-manufacturing operations— electrical switches, cardboard containers—or various kinds of wholesalers. All very functional and commonplace. It was hard to believe we were a five-minute walk from the colonnaded Renaissance streets of the city center.
We parked in front of a ten- or twelve-story building that looked like every other building on the block, and entered a marble lobby devoid of ornament or furniture. I tucked the address away in my mind: Via dell'Abbate 18. We took the elevator to the seventh story and walked to the end of a musty corridor that hadn't seen much recent use; it certainly hadn't seen much care. Pietro knocked on an unnumbered door.
'Who's there?' someone called from the other side.
'Pietro' was the mumbled reply.
What, no secret knock, no coded greeting? What kind of way was this to run a big-time heist?
The door was opened, first a crack and then all the way. Behind it—no surprise—was Ettore, Pietro's scarred, tough partner with the chewed-up ear and the mashed-down nose. Unlike his more easygoing associate, Ettore apparently hadn't forgiven me for inconveniencing him the previous week. There was no friendly 'Ciao,' only a malignant narrowing of his eyes and a peremptory jerk of the head to motion me in.
The moment I was inside, the hairs on the back of my neck lifted. The pictures were here, all right; I could smell the acrid, leather odor of old paint and ancient canvas. But all I could see, aside from some scattered, littered pieces of office furniture, was a nervous, buglike man with a polka- dot bow tie, who was standing near the single dirty window and watching us.
Again with no sense of surprise, I saw that it was Filippo Croce. If anything, I felt a little let down. 'Is this the buyer?' I asked.
'Let's get to work,' Ettore said. 'Come on,
He's assuming I'm one of them, I realized. They think I'm being paid for this. Salvatorelli hadn't told them what's going on.
It had taken a few seconds for Croce to recognize me. '
What was he so happy about? 'Why not?' I responded gruffly. 'You don't trust my judgment?' I saw no reason to disabuse anyone there of the notion that I was one of the crowd; just another crook. And I now understood why Croce, as buyer, had agreed to meet with, and be seen by, an unknown third party like me. He'd been told I was 'their' expert, a bought, bent consultant.
'No, no, I trust it implicitly,' Croce said. 'It's just that I'm quite surprised. Delighted, really. I hope this is the first of many—'
'Let's get on with it,' Ettore growled. 'They're over here.'
