Turned to Stone (33 page)

Signora Rizzo, resigned to postponing her boss’s juice and vitamins for the time being, had taken their luggage down to the garage and would be back to collect him shortly. But first, it was essential that Clark and Rosa help him with the Medusa.

“For the love of God!” he called out. “Where is everyone?”

The door opened and someone entered the room. From the smell of mothballs, he gathered it was the maid.

“Signora Rizzo. And my daughter?”

“I don’t know, Signor Angelo,” the woman said in a plaintive tone. “But we have to go now.”

“Not without the Medusa!”

“I am responsible for looking after you. Not your toys.”

Signora Rizzo took the wheelchair by the handles and briskly pushed him from the room, ignoring his loud protests. They went around Alvino Nascimbene’s body and bolted for the hidden elevator, descended to the basement, and continued on to the garage. With a great deal of effort, Signora Rizzo managed to cram the wheelchair into the cab of the truck. It was the first time in years that Carrera had left his gloomy apartment, and even the fluorescent lights were too bright for his ruined eyes. After securing the wheelchair in place, the signora closed the door and went off in search of Rosa.

Angelo was afraid Clark and Rosa wouldn’t manage to carry out his plan. The packages were in the entrance hall, and the paintings were packed up and ready to be transported. There was just one other thing he needed: something more important and valuable to him than all the paintings cached in that apartment. But he couldn’t get it down without help.

That damned Clark. And where was Rosa? Why were they taking so long?

So much work, sacrifice, and money would be wasted if they didn’t hurry. They had to get rid of all the merchandise, and the only way to do it was to hide it in the warehouse until they could transport it by road or sea. The paintings and gold artifacts were the least of the treasure. One item above all others had to be saved.

Then all of a sudden, his hopes were shattered.

He heard the sound of the garage door opening, and half a dozen men with automatic weapons surrounded the vehicle and yelled at him to freeze. Angelo Carrera protested, but he knew it was useless. With a heavy heart, he lowered his head and sat motionless.

His dream of power and wealth was over.

48

“The Medusa!” Paloma couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “What have you done?”

The bullet had penetrated the marble and was lodged there, right between the creature’s eyes. Rosa dropped the pistol and fell to her knees, sobbing like a child. Dino crouched beside her and took her in his arms.

Jaime moved to do the same with a stricken Paloma. “They’ll be able to repair it,” he assured her. “The important thing is that we’ve found it. Consider this my way of saying I’m sorry.”

Paloma gave him a sad look. “Most people give flowers, or chocolates, or a spa day. Or diamond rings.”

“I’ve always been more original than that.”

“I’m touched by the gesture.” Paloma shrugged off Jaime’s arm and began to pace around the bust. “But I doubt they’ll let me keep it.”

As Jaime watched, Paloma stopped in front of the spot where the bullet had lodged. She appeared to be trying to look past it to some greater truth about the lump of marble that had been so neatly carved some twenty-four centuries before.

So absorbed were they by the moment’s magnificence, they didn’t even notice that Rosa was crying on the floor, in a panic. Dino still crouched beside her, unable to grasp even a fraction of what was going on.

“Can you explain to me what’s happened here?” he begged them.

“There’s not much to explain.” Roberto took his camera from his jacket pocket. “The monster has been freed. Paloma, get in the shot. Not you, Jaime, you’ll ruin it.”

Seeming to have shrugged off her agitation, Paloma straightened her dress, smoothed down her hair, and went to pose with the Medusa. That piece of marble was entwined with the story of her life, and it was only right that she appear in the photographs that would document this historic discovery.

“That’s it, stand beside her. Like a huntress with her prey.” Roberto pressed the shutter release. “That’s it.”

Paloma endured having several photos taken with the bust, but her anxiety began to grow. “Stop, Roberto, I have to check.” She took the bust in her hands and tried to shift it on its pedestal. “We have to find out whether the legend’s true.”

Jaime looked at her in surprise. “You think the blood’s in there?”

“We have to consider all the possibilities,” Paloma said.

Jaime and Roberto exchanged glances and smiled. “Does it have an opening mechanism?” Roberto picked up Rosa’s pistol. “Maybe our friend wants to shoot it a couple more times. Or I could just do it.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Dino exclaimed.

“Nothing important. You mind your own business.”

“It’s your decision, Paloma.” Jaime took her by the arms and looked her straight in the face. “Do you want to see if the Medusa bleeds?”

“No . . . I don’t know. I suppose I can wait until the lab tests. Scans, X-rays . . .”

Roberto cocked the weapon and aimed at the marble. “Are you sure? Make up your mind quickly.”

“No! Don’t do it, Roberto.”

“Really? Last chance.”

“Really.”

“It’s your call.”

Just as Roberto lowered the gun, there came a bang that made the room shake.

Jaime and Paloma watched, stunned, as Roberto dropped the pistol and collapsed. A grotesque apparition with a blackened face walked into the room, carrying a smoking gun.

“No, Clark!” Rosa screamed.

“Shut up, cousin.”

Shaken by Roberto’s fall, Jaime was all but paralyzed, but he managed to push Paloma down behind the statue’s pedestal. He remained standing, with no possibility of escape in any direction.

Clark planted himself in front of Jaime and smiled like a condemned man who’d survived being charred by the fires of hell. “You and I have some unfinished business. I’m gonna love seeing your face when this whore dies.” He looked down at Paloma and aimed the gun at her head.

“No, please. Not her—”

“Arrivederci, brown-eyed girl!”

Clark curved his finger over the trigger, but before he could press it, he sensed movement above his head. Looking up, he came face-to-face with the fierce Medusa. He opened his mouth to scream, but before any sound could come out, the block of heavy marble struck his forehead.

Clark reeled and fell to the floor, his skull ruined. Jaime didn’t care whether he was dead or alive. He dropped the bust of Medusa, which fell to the floor with a loud thud, and grabbed Paloma’s trembling hand to help her up.

“Are you all right?” Jaime asked.

“I think so. What did you do to the Medusa?”

“I’m sorry. There was nothing else within reach.”

Only then did they remember that on the other side of the pedestal, next to a traumatized Rosa and Dino, lay Roberto’s body.

He was lying facedown above an expanding pool of blood. Jaime pressed his jacket against the wound and applied direct pressure, trying to stop the profuse bleeding.

“Roberto . . . Roberto, can you hear me?”

A weak nod of the head told Jaime that Roberto could.

“How do you feel?”

“Like shit.”

“Try to save your strength. We’ll get you out of here.”

“No. Jaime. Listen—”

“You can talk and move. That means the bullet didn’t hit your spine or lungs. So if you try to stay still—”

“Forget it. It’s game over for me.”

“What are you talking about?” But Jaime knew what his friend was saying. He just couldn’t accept that Roberto might really be dying.

Roberto smiled and blood spilled from his mouth.

Jaime’s eyes filled with tears. It seemed impossible that after so many dangers, his friend would end his days like this. But the wound was serious, and time was running out. “An ambulance!” he cried out in distress. “For God’s sake, someone call an ambulance!”

Dino and Rosa watched the scene unfold from where they sat on the floor, rendered immobile by shock. Jaime looked at Paloma, who was equally distressed. Her eyes were welling up, and all signs of the hope she’d shown earlier had been erased. Jaime knew that they needed to pick Roberto up, carry him to the building’s garage, get a vehicle, and drive him to the nearest hospital.

His friend was dying, and he wasn’t about to just sit there with his arms crossed while that happened.

Then, as if guided by a spell, his teary gaze fell upon Medusa’s head, lying forgotten on the floor a few meters away. The blow had split the marble around the bullet hole, leaving a cavity surrounded by cracked stone.

Jaime leapt to his feet and, without thinking twice, threw the head against the wall with all his might. Some chunks of marble broke away and fell to the floor. Looking distraught, he picked the bust up once more and threw it again. A terrified Paloma, crouched next to Roberto, just watched.

“Come on!” Jaime picked up the head again and threw it to the ground with even more force. “Come on! Where are you?”

Five more times, he struck the head against the walls and floor, until Paloma took him, crying and panting, in her arms. “Leave it,” she whispered, stroking his hair. “Leave it, my love, please.”

Defeat showed in Jaime’s eyes. His best friend was going to die, the sculpture that had been Paloma’s passion was now a pile of broken marble—and all of it was his fault.

In one final attack of fury, he kicked the head, which rolled to the opposite corner of the room and broke apart beside Roberto’s dying body.

“Oh God.” Jaime collapsed on the ground, consumed by grief. “Oh God, what have I done?”

“Jaime.” Paloma’s voice took on a strange edge.

Her eyes focused intently on the lump of marble, as if she was somehow communicating with it. Following her gaze, Jaime at first saw nothing more than the mess that had once been a coveted work of art. But when he looked more closely, he realized something about the coloring of the biggest piece of marble had changed. He dragged himself closer to the remnants of the bust, and then he saw it: a small area inside the piece contrasted subtly with the white of the outer surface.

With Paloma’s help, he picked up the head again and struck the side sharply against the floor. On his third attempt, a small, pink crystal sphere broke away from the main lump of stone.

Paloma looked at it in amazement. “Oh my God.”

“Yeah.” Jaime returned to Roberto’s side, carrying the small translucent object.

“Listen, fatso. Open your mouth.”

But Roberto’s strength had faded and he showed no sign of understanding. Jaime struggled with the strange vessel, looking for a way to open it. He was certain that the key to it lay in some sort of internal rod that protruded a few millimeters from the rock crystal, but his nerves prevented him from figuring out how it worked. “Shit,” he muttered.

Desperate, he did the only thing he could think to do. The tiny ball was no bigger than a pill and looked to him like it was something that should be swallowed. Jaime took it between his fingers and inserted it in Roberto’s mouth, letting it fall to the back of his throat. But Roberto coughed and expelled the vial, now covered in his blood.

“No! Roberto, you have to swallow it. It’s the only thing that can—”

Roberto’s hand grabbed Jaime’s own. “Stop being . . . a prick,” he said. “It’s not the Holy Grail. And you’re not . . . Indiana . . . Jones.”

“I know! But—”

“Listen . . . Paloma’s worth more . . . than any . . . legend.” Roberto coughed again and his hand let go of Jaime’s, all its strength gone. “Write that report . . . And fix . . . your . . . relationship.”

Jaime wanted to reply with something fitting, but the words eluded him. And then Roberto closed his eyes and stopped moving, and the chance to speak was past.

“No!” Jaime groaned. “It can’t be . . . He can’t . . . He can’t . . .”

Paloma took him in her arms as silence and sorrow filled the room. Jaime continued to clutch the pink-tinted vial in his hand, as if by merely holding it he could save his friend’s life. Roberto’s breathing was now barely perceptible.

Suddenly the sound of several pairs of booted feet could be heard running down the hallway.

PART V

TYING UP LOOSE ENDS