A Rather Lovely Inheritance (29 page)

It wasn’t nearly as big as I’d expected. About fourteen inches wide and twenty inches long, it could easily fit into my own portfolio. Signed by an artist named A. Fabrizi, whom I believed I’d heard of, perhaps, but I was blanking out on exactly what I’d heard. This was the Madonna and Child, all right, just like the one in the photo stolen from Aunt Penelope’s album.

Except for one stupendous difference—the way it made me feel when I looked at it. That stunned thing that happens to you when you turn a corner in a museum, and a particular painting seems to leap right at you, grab you by the throat. I felt mesmerized, as if I were suddenly rooted to the spot, my feet nailed down, and wild horses couldn’t drag me away. I simply couldn’t take my gaze away from the picture for a second, not even to blink.

The painting’s background was done in those rich ochre tones that I had become so familiar with in my research on Italian art at the turn of the fifteenth century to the sixteenth.There was even, I think, real gold painted on it, amid dark autumnal colors of burnished brown and blood-red, smoky blue and golden yellow, burnt orange and olive green and dusty plum.

But the faces of the Madonna and her infant had a radiant lightness about them, in soft creams and pinks, opaline whites, even a shimmering violet, which gave them an eternal quality, a vernal sweetness in contrast to the darker background and clothing.The infant, unlike so many paintings of cupids or babies, did not have that usual awful face of a wizened old man attached to a baby body. This one really looked like a baby, gazing up in calm wonderment and adoration at his mother as if she were the sun, the sky and the clouds.What made the Madonna so remarkable, though, was the almost ordinary quality of the sweetness of her face. She looked young, human, girlish except for her mature serenity; and the effect was that you felt as if you had just walked down a street, entered a house, and opened a door on a real young woman who just happened to be living in another century but was archetypal of all young, sweet mothers from Italy. It was as if she’d looked up and caught you with her soft brown eyes and delicate rose mouth, emanating a pure but natural and touching innocence as she gazed benevolently not just at her baby but at you as well.

I felt that time had stopped and I’d found a portal to eternity, a captured moment of the past. I had to make a supreme effort to shake myself out of my reverie and tear my gaze away. For once, I thought I understood Rollo and anyone else who was obsessed with a work of art.

“Oh, God,” I whispered, “this is the real thing.” My heart, which had just begun to resume its normal beating, now started rat-tat-tatting again. Strangely enough, the thought that occurred to me then was, “I’m in bigger trouble than I thought.” I suddenly knew that I had to wrap this all up and get out, fast. I had just finished tying the string when my phone rang. It was Jeremy.

“Got it,” I breathed. “Proceed with Phase . . .” I paused forgetfully, still dazed.

“Six, you idiot,” Jeremy said. “Get your ass out of there. Now. Rollo’s boy is cashing in his chips, and Rollo’s stopped winning, and he’s looking restless.”

“Okay, I’m out of here,” I promised.

And damn it, I would have made it out of there, if it hadn’t been for the maid.

She stuck her key in the door right after one short, useless knock of warning. All I could do was dive under the bed. This is not a place you want to be, even in the best hotels. I won’t discuss dust balls and such, here and now. Suffice it to say, it was a suffocating spot to be in.

I at least had my wits about me enough to shut off my phone so it wouldn’t ring and expose me. Now my heart seemed to be pounding against the floor.The maid took her time, turning down the bed, plumping up the pillows, adjusting the temperature, whatever it is they do when the room is already clean but they are giving it that final dumb thing, which I always find a nuisance but which, I suppose, some people like, I suspect because it is so psychologically maternal, offering a parental, loving good-night tuck-in.

So of course Rollo came in. Very sharply he said to her, “What the devil are you doing? Get out of here, you wretch!” He must have scared her, because she rushed out before he had time to holler about the package being pulled out from its hiding place. When he saw it, he sucked in his breath and said, “That stupid, stupid bitch! Leaves it right out on the table in the damned sunlight!” She had apparently taken the parcel off the bed where I’d been forced to leave it, and when she turned down the covers, she must have put it on the table near the glass sliding doors. I watched Rollo’s white-leather-shod feet pacing around the room. While he was seething, his telephone rang. He picked it up on the first ring.

“Hello,” he said in the sharpest tone I’d ever heard him use. “Yes. Yes. Of course I have it. Those morons botched the whole thing in Antibes, but you just do your job, and then nobody can prove a thing. Is the copy ready? And you have it? All right. I’m leaving now.”

And he hung up. He sounded more aggressive without his mother around.With another gusty sigh, he went into the bathroom and peed. Then, I’m sorry to say, that without washing his hands, he picked up the package and went out.

I didn’t move right away, because I didn’t know for sure if he’d taken the painting, and I was afraid he’d come back for something, even though there was nothing else in the room. Finally I popped out, saw that the package was missing, and frantically called Jeremy.

“Christ!” he hissed. “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been wild—”

“The maid screwed me up,” I said. “Then Rollo came in. I hid under the bed.”

“God Almighty,” Jeremy groaned.

“Did you get the valet to bring the car around?” I asked.

“Of course. He’s parked it in the turnaround. I’m in the lobby, waiting for you.”

“Jeremy,” I said, “I saw the painting. He’s taken it with him. You can’t let him out of your sight. If you have to follow him without me, go.”

It was almost intolerable, waiting for the elevator. A German family with two little girls came straggling out with a lot of shopping bags. It was a different elevator this time, run by a plump, slow-moving woman. Every time we stopped for someone I could feel my throat clutch, but I somehow managed to make it down to the lobby without fainting dead away.

Jeremy met me at the elevator and yanked me behind a marble pillar.“He’s waiting for his car to come round,” he said in a low voice. “He hasn’t seen me.We’ll let him get in his car, then we’ll jump into ours and follow him. He’s alone, because his buddy took off in another car as soon as he cashed in the chips. I got the license number of the other guy’s car. Severine can give it to the police. I left a message on her machine.”

F
ORTUNATELY FOR US, IT TURNED OUT THAT ROLLO WAS A CAUTIOUS driver. I suppose he was being especially careful so that no gendarmes would pull him over and get a look at what he was transportdarmes would pull him over and get a look at what he was transporting. Still, it was torture trying to keep him in our sights in the dark of night, once we pulled away from the well-lit main streets and hotels. He was driving a silver Mercedes, and just following him out of Monte Carlo itself was dicey.

“He isn’t heading for the airport,” I observed.This didn’t surprise Jeremy.

“He can’t,” he said. “He’s got stolen art. He’d have to show it at customs.What did it look like? Is it the one in the photo?”

“Yes. It’s beautiful. A Madonna with Child, by Fabrizi. Reminds me of Dossi, Albertinelli . . . where the hell is he going?” I said as we followed him onto the highway. I looked at the letters and arrows painted on the ground to let you know what direction you’re about to go in. “Ventimiglia,” I read aloud.

“He’s heading for the Italian border,” Jeremy said.“There’s no border patrol there anymore. If you manage to smuggle a stolen work of art into certain countries, then sometimes it can be resold to someone who, for instance, innocently believes it’s only a copy—and that sale might still be legal. The point is, the real owner often can’t do a damned thing about it, especially if he doesn’t figure out where it went until years later.”

“You think he’s going to sell the real painting?” I asked.“I thought he’d keep it. I think the plan was to steal the original and replace it with a copy in the garage, and nobody could prove that the copy wasn’t the one that Aunt Penelope owned and Denby saw.”

“Sooner or later he’ll sell it,” Jeremy said. “If it’s worth a lot, he won’t be able to resist. He obviously has contacts over there who are ready, willing and able.”

“Sure. That guy who phoned him. The one I heard while I was under the bed.”

“Let’s get this straight: there will be no more hiding under the bed for you,” Jeremy said.

“Gee, what a shame,” I said sarcastically. “I do so love doing that.”

“Hoo, hoo,” Jeremy said. “What else did Rollo say on the phone?”

“Just what I told you. That his pals in Antibes screwed up, that we can’t prove a thing, so long as this guy he talked to ‘does his job,’ which is to give him that fake, the copy. I’ll bet he’s going to pick it up right now,” I added. “Yessir. I could tell there was definitely a deal going down.”

“You’re talking like a gendarme again,” Jeremy said.

“I believe you mean ‘carabiniere’ now,” I replied.

It was eerie, going past the border. The old customs booths and lanes were still there, like a ghost town.You just floated through them, feeling slightly guilty. At least, I felt like I was sneaking in. I’m incurable. I feel guilty even when I’m not the one with a stolen painting in my clutches.

The immediate effect of crossing into the first town in Italy was a huge traffic jam because of an outdoor music festival drawing in the tourists and locals alike. The cars barely crawled along, and motorcycles swarmed around us like big noisy bees. I could see Rollo, at one point, throwing up his hands in frustration. It was hot and dusty, and the smell of car exhaust filled the air. Finally, mercifully, we made it out of the clogged little town and up onto the main highway. I expected things to pick up speed and become difficult at this point, but Rollo had other problems. He had to pull into a gas station and fill his tank. We pulled over to a section where the campers and families stopped to park and stretch their legs.

It was a self-service station, and Rollo grimaced, apparently finding this distasteful and difficult. Right in front of our eyes he yanked on some gloves.

“Ho-lee cow,” I breathed. “It
was
him who busted into the apartment.” We watched, spellbound, as he stuck the nozzle in the fuel tank.When he was done, he yanked off his gloves, climbed back in his car, started it up . . . and pulled off into a parking space near the men’s rooms, where all the weary camper dads were bringing their tired little boys . . . just a scant few yards away from us.We froze.

“I can’t believe he has to pee again,” I said in a low voice.

“You didn’t see all the gin he knocked back,” Jeremy muttered.We watched covertly as Rollo, who never saw us, got out and headed for the loo, slamming his car door behind him.

And his seat belt got caught in the door-frame.

So, although the door itself was technically closed, it failed to completely connect with the car and didn’t shut tight into its slot, because the belt was wedged between the door and the car. It looked as if it had shut properly—but it hadn’t. Rollo didn’t notice. But I did.

“That door isn’t shut tight!” I squeaked. “This is it! Our last chance.”

“Not you,” Jeremy said. “I’ll do it.”

“You’ll look too suspicious,” I argued.

“You’ll get all the men looking at you in that dress,” he said.

We almost blew it then and there, bickering as we were. But it was Jeremy who did the deed. And I must say, he was ever so cool. Really, I admired his nerves. He went over to Rollo’s car as if it were his own, casually yanked open the driver’s door, and reached for the package tied with string, which was sitting right there on the passenger seat, covered with a blanket.Then he sauntered back to me and chucked it in my lap. Just as debonair as when we played Secret Agents.

Then he got behind the wheel of his mighty Dragonetta, and floored it.

I was too scared to look back. But whatever Rollo was doing in there, it took longer than I’d dared hope. Because Jeremy, who wasn’t afraid to look back in the rearview at all, said Rollo hadn’t emerged from the men’s, yet. Jeremy headed rapidly for the highway.

“North or south?” he said when we reached the highway divide.

“East,” I said. I already had an idea, because I’d been thinking about all the things that Erik had jokingly told me about becoming an art forger if my career with him went bust.

“That is, follow the signs for Genoa,” I explained. “I know of a man there. He can authenticate the painting for us.”

“I feel it is my duty to point out, for your personal edification, that technically, we should be notifying somebody in France,” Jeremy warned me. “And taking the painting back where it came from. France.”

“Phooey,” I said. “We’re not the ones who brought it across the border.And you know perfectly well that if we take it back, we’ll be at the mercy of a French court and it could get tied up for a long time. I want to know what this is before they take it away from me again.”

W
E DROVE INTO THE WEE HOURS. BUT BY SUNRISE WE COULDN’T push on any farther and had to pull over at a rest stop to get some coffee and bread. We found a good parking spot behind some shrubbery where we could stay incognito.

In Italy they know that you are human.They know that you need sustenance.Therefore whenever you stop for gas, you usually can buy not only coffee and bread, milk or juice, but also something substantial, something hot to eat, or, if you prefer, a salami, a hunk of cheese, even uncooked pasta and canned tomatoes to take home to the wife. But the thing is, it’s all normal food, really good food, too, not just fast food or faux food for the road.