A Glancing Light (A Chris Norgren Mystery) Page 7

  Even at my creaky, halting pace, it was only a five-minute walk. According to the instructions Tony had passed on to me, Antuono's office was in the Palazzo d'Accursio, which served as the city hall and was one of the old buildings bordering the Piazza Maggiore in the heart of town.

  The attendant at the great main door, under a benevolent bronze statue of Pope Gregory XIII, had never heard of Colonel Antuono, so I went up the main staircase, an imposing sweep of red-carpeted stone steps, on my own. It was slow going for a man in my condition, not just because it rose three flights at a single sweep, but because the extremely shallow steps were slanted backward. This was an amenity of Italian fifteenth-century public architecture that permitted the gentry to mount to the upper floors without troubling to get off their horses. But what suited noble status and equine anatomy wasn't so easy for human ligaments that had taken a rude beating a couple of days before.

  On the upper floor were most of the city bureaus, but the people there shook their heads when I asked about Antuono's office. Not up there; that was all they could say. Back down I went, stiff and grumbling, feeling a hundred years old, and grateful that there was a railing to hang on to. Maybe I'd been a little overhasty in tossing those pain pills after all.

  The grimly handsome Palazzo d'Accursio is not only huge, but confusing. Like many medieval buildings it was built slowly, over several hundred years, and when that happened, plans tended to get lost, ideas to change, styles to evolve. The result, as in this case, could be an unpredictable hodgepodge. I wandered around until I finally found the office I was looking for, in a bleak little courtyard jammed with haphazardly parked cars. In a low annex, beside a plain door set into a colorless, much-patched stucco wall, was an unprepossessing sign:

  CORPO VIGILI URBANI

  SETTORE CENTRALE

  COMMUNE DI BOLOGNA

  A question occurred to me, not for the first time. Unless I had it wrong, the vigili urbani were little more than traffic police, but Antuono was with the prestigious carabinieri, the national police force, something like our FBI. Not just your everyday carabinieri either, but the elite art-theft unit, the Comando Tutela Patrimonio Artistico. And according to Max and the others, he was a figure of importance within it. Why would he be housed in this dismal place? Carabinieri headquarters were several blocks away on the Via del Piombo, in an imposing building befitting its status.

  When I opened the dusty, glass-paned door, I found myself in a small room with a worn, linoleum-topped counter. Behind the counter a uniformed clerk was sitting in a wheeled wooden chair, with a wire basket full of envelopes in his lap. He was slowly—very slowly—inserting them into the wooden pigeonholes that ran the length of one wall, wetting his finger with his tongue every time he picked one up.

  I waited. I cleared my throat. He continued to insert envelopes.

  "Prego," I said finally, "dove si trove l'uffizio del signor Colonnello Antuono?"

  Without turning around to look at me, he jerked a thumb over his shoulder. I went down a short corridor crowded with gray file cabinets and stacked cardboard cartons lining both walls, but I must have read the thumb-jerk wrong, because no offices opened out of it. There was, however, a small table wedged between a couple of the cabinets, at which another clerk, this one in civilian clothes, fussed over the hopeless task of filing the dog-eared contents of a tableful of bruised and sagging cardboard cartons.

  "Prego, signore," I said, hoping for better luck this time. "Dove si trove l'uffizio del signor Colonnello Antuono?"

  At least this one looked at me. He paused reluctantly (leaving his finger inserted in a folder for ease of later reference) and examined me with impassive gray eyes. He seemed surprised to have been addressed, and maybe a little annoyed; I wondered when the last time was anyone had spoken to him. Stooped, balding, narrow-shouldered, with old- fashioned green plastic cuffs protecting the sleeves of his white shirt, he might have lived his whole life alone in this windowless dungeon of a corridor, the quintessential clerk, filing and refiling his curling papers. And probably prefering it that way.

  "Colonnello Antuono?" he repeated sourly. Yes, he was annoyed, all right. He jabbed a forefinger—the one that wasn't occupied in the files—against his thin chest.

  "Io sono Colonnello Antuono."

  Chapter 6

  I suppose my heart didn't really sink, but it didn't swell with confidence, either. Now I wouldn't want you to think that I go around stereotyping people based on their physical appearance. But I do admit to a slight tendency to forejudge, to generalize, to ... okay, okay, to stereotype. And whatever vague image I had in mind for Colonel Cesare Antuono, this wasn't it.

  Well, think about it. The Eagle of Lombardy—in green plastic cuffs?

  But this was an unworthy reaction on my part, and I knew it. I smiled warmly and held out my hand. "Colonnello Antuono, io sono Christopher Norgren. Sono felicissimo di conoscerla. "

  "Dottor Norgren?" he said, continuing to sound surprised. He pushed a plastic cuff up on his arm and out of the way and studied his wrist watch. "Eleven o'clock already," he said mournfully in English. "The time flies away." He gave a last, longing look to his folders, and finally removed his finger, first inserting a torn paper marker. He had, I gathered, abandoned all hope of working on his files for a while. He extended his hand without perceptible enthusiasm. "I'm happy to meet you also. "

  From under a couple of moldy cartons he produced an armless, wooden antique of a swivel chair. "Sit down, please."

  He used a folder to brush the dust off the seat (no wonder they were dog-eared), and motioned me into it.

  There was a somewhat strained silence. "I'll go and get another chair," he said.

  I looked around at the cramped space. There were folders and cardboard file boxes everywhere. I didn't see how he could squeeze another chair in. "Maybe we ought to talk in your office," I said.

  "My office?" He blinked at me. "But this is my office." We looked at each other, embarrassed. I didn't know what to say. I said, "Ah."

  "There was little space available," he explained stiffly. "This is in reality a storeroom, of course, but it will be perfectly acceptable once I have arranged things."

  I still didn't know what to say. My confidence in Antuono's status was not rising. He could spend the next three months arranging things and the place would still be a hovel. Was this any way to treat a big wheel?

  He left, returning in a few minutes with a ratty, cane- seated chair. Somehow he got it wedged at the table between the cartons piled on the floor. He pulled off his plastic cuffs, produced from somewhere a charcoal-black jacket with the faintest of narrow gray pinstripes, shrugged into it, and buttoned it. It was snug across his spare shoulders. He looked like a hungry, vaguely predatory undertaker.

  He sat down, working bony knees between the cartons and facing me across the littered table.

  "Well," he said.

  "Well," I said. Then, when he didn't say anything further: "You're aware that Max Cabot and I were attacked a couple of nights ago?" I wasn't really sure. The policemen who had interrogated me had been in the municipal blue-and-gray uniforms, not the khakis of the carabinieri. Maybe Antuono hadn't heard. Maybe he hadn't been out of his storeroom yet.

  "Yes, of course. I've read the transcripts of your interview. You're feeling all right now?"

  "Much better, thanks."

  "Very good. I was sorry to hear you were hurt."

  I smiled politely and made an appropriate pooh-poohing gesture. Merely another day in the life of an art curator.

  "It was quite brave of you to go back and help your friend."

  "Thank you."

  He was being courteous enough, but it was all form. Antuono had that petty official's knack of making you feel that he had a thousand pressing things on his mind, every one of which was infinitely more important than you were. But Antuono wasn't supposed to be a petty official.

  Again the conversation lagged. If he was really anxious for my reports on goss
ip from the Bolognese art world, he was hiding it very well.

  "Did they ever catch those thugs?" I asked.

  "Oh." The questiou seemed to surprise him. The ones who attacked signor Cabot?" He shrugged. "I'm afraid I don't know that, Dr. Norgren."

  My concern deepened. How could he not know? It wasn't that I didn't believe him, but how could he not know? He'd responded as if it hadn't even occurred to him to wonder about it. Wasn't he supposed to be in charge of the whole thing? Who was this guy?

  "It is something for the local police, the polizia criminale, to be concerned with," he said. "It's not a matter for the carabinieri."

  It wasn't? Was he suggesting that the attack wasn't related to the thefts? If he had read the transcripts, he knew that it had come just hours after Max had prattled so loudly about coming to him, Antuono, with pertinent information. It had come, in fact, almost the very first second he had been alone. I pointed this out to Antuono, rather persuasively, I thought, but the Eagle of Lombardy was not impressed. With a weary sigh he twisted to reach a black telephone on top of the metal cabinet behind him and placed it on the table.

  "If you really want to know, I imagine I can find out for you."

  If I wanted to know? Why didn't he want to know? I began to wonder if Di Vecchio and Luca had been right about him. Could he be another Captain Cala, more intent on lining his own pockets than on catching anybody? But I quickly dismissed the thought. Some local cop, maybe; not a carabiniere. And certainly not the deputy commander of their famous art theft squad. They were as close to the Untouchables as anything was nowadays. But something was awry.

  "Colonel, to tell you the truth I don't understand what's going on. Here's Max. He announces that there are five people who knew about his security arrangements, and that he's going to come and tell you who they are. Two hours later he's savagely beaten up. And you don't even seem to—"

  He had begun to punch some numbers into the telephone, but he stopped and made an irritated noise. I was repeating myself, apparently something one didn't do with Colonel Antuono. "Five names," he snapped. "Do you happen to know them?"

  "Only one: Amedeo Di Vecchio."

  "The director of the National Museum. Yes, a highly suspicious character. We'll certainly keep our eye on him. None of the others?"

  "No," I said, getting annoyed myself, "but I don't think you'll have any trouble getting them from Max."

  He had been toying with a pencil. Now he tossed it sourly onto the table. "But I did have trouble, Dr. Norgren. I've already seen him. He will say nothing. He has no list of five names, he has no idea of why he was attacked, he saw no faces, he has no enemies—nothing."

  "But that's—" My surprise didn't last for long. They had broken—"shattered"—his legs with a metal pipe, after all. As admonitions went, it had to be considered highly persuasive. And the two gorillas involved weren't the type to have reservations about going further if the need arose. And if more guidance were needed, there was always the hortatory example of Paolo Salvatorelli with the cork in his mouth and the 116 bullets rattling out of whatever was left of his body.

  So why be surprised, even for a moment, that Max had concluded that his best interests lay with refusing to tell Antuono anything? The Rubens taken from his shop had already been recovered undamaged. Clara Gozzi was satisfied. Even the insurance company was relieved. Was Max supposed to risk his life to get them back their money? Would I have done differently if I had been the one lying in the hospital with shattered legs?

  Truthfully, I didn't know. And yet—unfairly, sanctimoniously—I was disappointed in my friend.

  "In any case," Antuono said, "I think these names are also a matter for the local police, not for the carabinieri."

  I laughed, more in frustration than anything else. "Colonel, is there anything that is a matter for the carabinieri?"

  "The art," he said evenly. "And the people behind the thefts; the organizers, the receivers."

  "Well, couldn't one of those five people be—"

  "I don't think so."

  "But how can you say that so certainly? It seems to—"

  "Dr. Norgren," he said, cutting me off, "these thefts were not locally planned. We have very good reason to suspect the involvement of the Sicilian Mafia. "

  "The Mafia?" What was it that Tony had said about the Mafia being a thing of the past?

  "The Sicilian Mafia. The onorata società." His voice dripped contempt. The honored society.

  "But . . . why are you here, then? In Bologna?"

  "You have a great many questions, dottore." He looked steadily at me for another few seconds, then picked up the telephone again and hit four or five buttons, muttered a few quick words in rapid Italian, and replaced the receiver. "They will call back. You understand, signore, that my concern is with the stolen art. I'm very sorry about this incident on the street, but you must see that it's not a matter of highest priority."

  That, I said with commendable restraint, depended on who was setting priorities. It was high enough to me.

  He stared at me without smiling; without anything to suggest that a human being might live somewhere beneath that dusty exterior at all. "Dr. Norgren," he said, "I am a deputy commander of the Comando Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Artistico. Your Italian is good enough to understand the words?"

  "Of course. The command for the protection of Italy's artistic patrimony. Its heritage."

  "Correct. Recovery of our stolen heritage. That is our first goal. We do not overly concern ourselves with the apprehension of criminals."

  "I would have thought the two might be related." Sarcasm is not something I use often, particularly with public servants who are doing their jobs, and especially with policemen. But Antuono was giving me a pain. And I had my doubts about how well he was doing his job.

  He looked at his watch; studied it, in fact, as if to determine just how much of his invaluable time could be squandered on me. Apparently, he decided there was a little more to spare. "I want to explain to you something of the way we work." He cleared a space on the table and leaned forward to rest his elbows on it, his hands steepled beneath his sharp chin. He pursed his small mouth pedantically.

  "In many ways we are like narcotics agents. Most of our work is undercover. Our men use disguises—false mustaches, invented identities. We pretend to be buyers, and arrange false purchases. We make use of crooked dealers, petty criminals, and informers—they are much the same people—to help us, and when they do, we protect them. They may help us another day."

  "They may also steal some more paintings another day."

  "Let me ask you something. When a seller of narcotics hears the police pounding down the door to his apartment, what does he do with the kilo of cocaine in the closet?"

  I shrugged. "Flushes it down the toilet, I guess. Or throws it out the window."

  "Very good. He destroys the evidence. A criminal with stolen art does the same thing when the police are about to close in. He does not flush it down the toilet, of course; the circumstances are different. But he tries to destroy it. Now: If it is cocaine, the world is better off for its loss, no?" He leaned back and economically crossed one knee over the other in the cluttered space beneath the table. "But what if it is a Tiziano, a Raffaelo? Should I risk the destruction of an irreplaceable work of art for the satisfaction of seeing a thief in jail for a year? For two years, if the courts are feeling particularly stern?"

  He knew how to hit an art curator where it hurt; talk about the destruction of Old Masters. "I guess you have a point," I said.

  The telephone buzzed. Antuono picked it up. "Prego." He sat there nodding impatiently into it. "Si, capisco... . Capisco. . . ."

  Most of what he had explained to me I had already known. The Comando Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Artistico was the most celebrated art-theft squad in the world, and rightly so. With a staff of less than a hundred, they had recovered a staggering 120,000 works of art in the twenty years they'd been in operation, and I couldn't really q
uarrel with their first-get-the-art-then-worry-about-the-bad-guys philosophy. But when it's your own body that's been battered by the bad guys, you tend to see things in a different light.

  Antuono emitted a final "capisco" and hung up. "No," he told me dryly, "they were not caught." He rose. "If there is nothing else, Dr. Norgren, I have a great deal—"

  I looked up at him, surprised. "Don't you want a report on what I've been hearing?"

  "To reply with perfect frankness, no."

  "But I thought—"

  "May I speak directly? This matter of your running to me with tidbits of gossip—"

  "Look, Colonel," I said hotly. I was feeling distinctly ill- used. "It wasn't my idea in the first place. If you—"

  "Nor mine. It was a suggestion made by your FBI, and I have no doubt it was well-intentioned. I felt it was best to accept the offer of your services. But between us, signore, truly, it's not necessary. We are well able to gather our own information "

  "The FBI?" I stood up too rapidly and winced, barely managing not to groan as my knees straightened out for the first time in fifteen minutes. "How could they offer my services? How could they know I was coming?"

  "I believe the original idea came to them from a Mr. . . . Let me see. . ."

  "Let me guess," I said. "Whitehead."

  "Ah, yes, I think so. Whitehead. Exactly."

  It figured. Tony Whitehead's belief in the virtues of publicity was every bit as unequivocal as Mike Blusher's, even if more sophisticated and of purer intention. If his curator of Renaissance and Baroque art could have some part in the recovery of the Bolognese art thefts, so Tony's reasoning would run, then publicity for the museum would result. And that would of necessity be good for the museum.

  I wasn't so sure. I also wasn't so sure about my obligation to stay in touch with Antuono. Tony's agreement to fund the purchase of Ugo's Boursse was contingent on my continued reporting. But the Eagle himself had just made it amply clear that he had better things to do than listen to my "tidbits." Could I therefore consider my obligation fulfilled? Could I go ahead and buy the Boursse with a clear conscience? A moral dilemma.