Murder at the National Gallery (45 page)

“
Si
. A lovely church, you would agree?”

“Yes. Beautiful.”

“Home of the Madonna del Parto, the Madonna of child-birth.
Many women come here to pray to her for the safe delivery of their children. Couples without children pray to her to correct their situation.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Caravaggio is here, too.”

Annabel swallowed and faced him. Was it to happen so fast? Did he have
Grottesca
with him?

“Up there,” he said, pointing to a pillar near the altar. “The
Madonna di Loreto
. A tragic tale behind it. And Raphael is represented, too.
The Prophet Isaiah
. So much art in Italy,
si
? So much beauty.”

Annabel noticed as he pointed that the cuff of his blue double-breasted blazer was frayed. He needed a haircut. He smiled at her; his teeth were yellow and had suffered neglect.

“What is it you wish to tell me?” Annabel asked, looking again at the altar.

“You have the money with you? Two million American?”

“Yes. Not with me, of course. Back at the hotel.”

“And you have traveled to Rome alone?”

“Yes.”

“Then the exchange will be made this evening, at six, at the Palazzo Madama.”

“Where is that?”

“Only a few steps from your hotel. Across the Corso Rinascimento. The northwest corner at six.”

“All right. I’ll be there. Will you?”

“Unfortunately, no. It would be my pleasure to see such a lovely lady again, but my duties will have me elsewhere.”

“Who will meet me?”

“In due time, Signora Smith. But he will know you. Such a striking beauty. I must leave.
Grazie
. It has been my pleasure. Enjoy my city. It has much to offer.”

Annabel watched him leave the church before going to the nave, where the priestly detective continued to pretend to be busy. He smiled and walked away. She went to the pillar on which hung the Caravaggio and thought of Court Whitney’s comment about the havoc caused by Luther Mason. “You’re
an accomplice, Mr. Michelangelo Merisi Caravaggio,” she said to the painting. “And I hope you’re satisfied.”

“The Palazzo Madama,” Steve Jordan said after they’d all gathered in his room.

“A problem with that?” Annabel asked.

Jordan laughed and shook his head. “Just another quaint Caravaggio connection. A cardinal named Del Monte lived at Palazzo Madama back in the mid–fifteen hundreds. He latched on to Caravaggio and gave him a studio and living quarters in his home. He painted a lot of his important works there.”

“So now we sit and wait until six,” Mac said.

“That’s about it,” Jordan said. “At least we have time to get everybody in place.”

“I want to be there this time,” Mac said.

“I figured you would,” said Jordan. “There’s an outdoor cafe on the opposite corner. You can watch from there.”

Annabel smiled at Mac, who, after a moment, smiled back.

“Strange,” said Detective Paul Colarulli.

“What’s strange?” Jordan asked.

“Choosing such a public, well-guarded place as Palazzo Madama to exchange the painting for money.”

“Well-guarded?” Mac said.

“Yes. The Palazzo del Senato is there, an important government building. A great deal of security.”

“Glad to hear that,” said Mac.

“But why?” Colarulli asked, as if to himself.

“Stop trying to be logical, Paul,” Jordan said.

“I suppose you’re right, Steve.” The detective smiled.
Still
,
why?

“Signor Mason?”

“Yeah. Who’s this?”

“Filippo Testa.”

“What’s going on, Mr. Testa? I’ve been sitting here all day waiting.”

Testa laughed. “Ah, youth. So impatient. You have the product with you?”

“Product? Oh. Yeah. I have it.”

“Good. Across the street from your hotel is the Church of Sant’Agnese. Be in front of it at five forty-five with the product. Be on time. A car will take you from there to your buyer.”

“Hey, hold on a second. If you think I’m going to—”

“Mr. Mason, the last time we met turned out to be quite unpleasant. I am glad to see you’ve come to your senses.”

“Where’s Pims? I want to talk to Pims.”

“Mr. Mason, please don’t strain
my
patience. I understand you have agreed to the terms I previously laid out for you.”

“You’re stealing it.”

“One, I am not the purchaser. Two, two million dollars is a great deal of money for such a—how shall we say it?—for such a controversial product. Five forty-five in front of the church—if you know what is good for you.
Buon giorno
.”

“Signor del Brasco?”

“Yes.”

“Are you ready to own one of the finest works of art ever created by man?”

“Get to the point. Who am I talking to?”

“A Mend about to fulfill your greatest wish. A car will pick you up in front of the Raphael at five-thirty. Have your money and the other version of the painting with you.”

“Where are we going?”

“You will see. Don’t be late. The driver has been instructed not to wait.”

Filippo Testa hung up after making his second call to guests of the Raphael Hotel, on Piazza Navona, having stuck to the notes provided him by his client-master. He poured himself a large negroni—bitter Campari, sweet vermouth, gin, and Angostura bitters—from a pitcher he kept in his refrigerator, and downed it.

After checking his appearance in a mirror, he donned his red beret, went downstairs to where he’d parked his battered Fiat, and headed east on the A24 toward the Abruzzi region. He had to hurry. He didn’t want to be late. As amusing as M. Scott Pims could be, Testa had seen his ugly side.

Annabel Reed-Smith stepped through the front door of the Raphael onto the Piazza Navona. She was the last to leave the hotel; everyone else had departed at staggered intervals to take up their assigned positions. Mac would be seated in the
outdoor cafe from which he could see the northwest corner of Palazzo Madama. Gloria Watson and one of the American detectives were again playing the touring couple. The other American and his Italian counterpart were in a car parked just off the square, on via Chiaca. Steve Jordan and Paul Colarulli idled in an unmarked police vehicle at Palazzo Madama’s southeast corner.

Annabel’s adrenaline drove her pulse. Her biggest fear at the moment was having two million dollars in marked currency in her oversized purse. What grand irony should she be mugged on her way to the rendezvous.

She crossed Corso Rinascimento and observed the street action by Palazzo Madama. It was relatively quiet. Two uniformed soldiers provided sleepy sentry in front of the Palazzo del Senato. Traffic was light, although there were many parked cars.

She calculated direction and looked northwest. No one conspicuously stood holding what might be a painting. Then her eye went to a large, black, four-door Mercedes with opaque windows. Maybe he’s waiting inside it, she thought, crossing the street and approaching the vehicle.

She stood next to the car and squinted in an attempt to see inside, but the black glass effectively prohibited it. A door opened; Annabel leaned forward to better see the person sitting in the rear compartment. Her first attempt at saying his name came out as air. She did better the second time: “Julian Mason?”

Annabel instinctively stepped closer and saw the painting he held.
Grottesca!
It was as though the canvas emitted a magnetic pull, a positive force drawing Annabel’s negative field to it. As she stepped still closer, the front passenger door opened and a man hopped out.

Mac jumped up in the cafe, nearly knocking over his small table, speaking, below a shout, “No, Annabel. Watch out!” Others in the cafe smiled at his actions.

The man who’d come from the front of the Mercedes shoved Annabel onto the rear seat, slammed the door
behind her, and scrambled into the passenger seat. The car roared away.

Mac was running. “Stop them, stop them,” he yelled into the air.

Jordan and Colarulli had been taken by surprise. When it registered, Colarulli spun rubber and headed for Mac, who’d almost reached the scene of Annabel’s abduction. Jordan was on the radio, calling for the backup car.

“Get in,” Colarulli shouted.

Mac seemed stunned, immobile.

“Get in,” Jordan repeated, reaching behind and opening the rear door. Mac fell in and they sped after the Mercedes.

“Catch them,” Mac said, leaning over the seat back. “
Damn
it, pull them over.”

Colarulli held up his right hand, his left on the wheel. “Let’s see where they’re heading.”

“I don’t care where they’re heading. Call for help. Set up roadblocks.”

Colarulli ignored him, speaking to Jordan. “They don’t seem to be trying to lose us.”

“Maybe they don’t even know who we are,” Mac said angrily.

The car containing the American and Italian detectives made radio contact with Colarulli in Italian. “What did they say?” Mac asked.

“They’re with us,” Colarulli said. To Jordan: “They’re heading for the A24.”

“Where’s that lead?” Jordan asked.

“East. The Abruzzi region,” Colarulli said, swerving to avoid a gaping pothole and tossing Mac against the door in the process.

Ahead, Annabel sat wide-eyed next to Julian Mason. Her question of the men in front, “Who are you?” was answered by a revolver leveled at her over the seat back. Once she’d regained enough composure to speak again, she turned to Julian. “You?” she said, looking at the painting he held close to his chest.

“I didn’t know it was you coming to buy it,” he said, his quivering voice mirroring his fright. “They didn’t tell me.”

“That’s
it
?” she said. “The original
Grottesca
?”

He nodded, tightening his grip on the painting.

“Julian, what about your father? Did you—?”

“It was an accident. He fell.”

“Fell? You were there?”

His silence answered affirmatively.

She was about to ask more when the driver entered the A24 and pushed down hard on the accelerator, pressing Annabel and Julian Mason back against their seats.

“We’ll lose them,” Mac said as he saw the Mercedes suddenly increase the distance between them. He twisted and looked through the rear window. The second car of detectives was right behind them. “Can’t you stop them?” he yelled at Colarulli.

Again, the detective’s right hand came up. “Trust me,” he said.

“Trust you? That’s my wife, damn it!”

“Easy, Mac,” Jordan said. “Everything’s going to be okay.” It didn’t sound to Mac as though he believed it.

As the Mercedes with Annabel and Julian Mason, and the police cars with Mac, Steve Jordan, Paul Colarulli, and the other detectives continued traveling east from Rome, a surrealistic calm settled in.

Annabel and Julian rode in silence, trapped in their thoughts.

Mac thought of the now-infamous O. J. Simpson Bronco “chase” and wondered if this would look the same were it televised. The only difference was speed. The Bronco had been going thirty-five miles per hour. They were doing seventy or better.

The Mercedes exited A24 and continued on A25.

“Cocullo,” Colarulli said to no one in particular, indicating a town they’d just passed. “They worship snakes there.”

“What?” Mac said.

“Snakes. Snake worship. Looks like he’s heading for Pescara.”

“Pescara?” Mac repeated.

“On the coast. The Adriatic. Too polluted to swim.”

The last thing on Mac’s mind.

A25 cut north, up through breathtaking snowcapped mountains, the towns of San Pelino and Caporciano a blur through the window. “You’re losing them,” Mac said as the Mercedes disappeared over a crest, only to reappear again on the other side. It was almost twilight; shards of shadow sliced across lush valleys and onto mountaintop villages with barns constructed of reeds, as they had been for centuries, and over old men and women shrouded in black. The road had turned chiaroscuro, sun to shade, shade to sun, the air cooler through a window Mac had cracked open.

The Mercedes slowed as it entered Pescara and navigated narrow streets, then broke free again on a ribbon of road leading to the seacoast’s rugged beaches.

“Where the hell is he going?” Jordan said.

“Up there.” Colarulli pointed to the crest of rocky hill growing up out of the beach to a plateau studded with scraggly pines. Although it was still light, an eerie glow came from the plateau, light of a different genesis than the horizon’s pumpkin-colored scrim.

The Mercedes started up a one-lane road. Colarulli stopped at the foot of it. The second Italian police car pulled up alongside.

“Pazzo,”
the Italian detective said to Colarulli through an open window.

“What’s crazy?”

“Going up there. There’s no other way down. This is the only road.”

“How do you know?”

“My family’s from here. I came every summer to swim.”

They got out and stood by their cars.

“Lupi mannari,”
said the detective whose family was from Pescara.

“What’s that mean?” Mac asked Colarulli.

He screwed up his face, said to the other detective, “Werewolves?”

“Si.”

“Werewolves?” Mac said. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“This is a superstitious area. They used to practice sorcery, witchcraft, other such things.”

“The caves are up there,” the other detective said.

“What caves?” Colarulli asked.

“Where the hermits performed their ceremonies. The Middle Ages.”

“What are we going to do now?” Mac asked.

“Looks like they can’t go anyplace,” Jordan said. “You have backup coming?” he asked Colarulli.

“I requested it. They said they would. Maybe.”

“Maybe?” Mac said, his voice filled with frustration. “Maybe?” he repeated, louder this time.

The sound of approaching vehicles caused them to turn. Three marked
polizia
cars from Abruzzi’s capital, Aquila, came to a dusty stop, and a half-dozen uniformed officers joined them. Colarulli engaged in a spirited conversation with the squad’s chief before saying to Mac and Jordan in English, “They’re trapped up there. No way out.” He said to his two detectives, “Come with me.” The chief of the uniformed contingent told his men to join them.