A Glancing Light (A Chris Norgren Mystery) (15 page)

When his employees had marched grimly out, dominated if not won over heart and soul, Salvatorelli came to shake hands with me. With his other hand he dabbed at his head with a grubby handkerchief, taking care to avoid displacing a single, lovingly arranged strand.

"This is a terrible business to be in," was his greeting to me in Italian. "Don't ever take up the shipping business. It's one problem after another."

I promised him I wouldn't and followed him into his office, where he waved me into a chair and, with a great sigh, plumped heavily down behind his desk. For a few seconds he sat there, grimacing and digging his middle finger into a spot at the base of his sternum. If not ulcers, he certainly suffered from heartburn. "I have to stop drinking wine," he told me. "My liver, it can't handle it anymore. It's all right if we speak Italian?"

In my best accent I told him I was reasonably fluent.

My best accent isn't all that good. "I'll talk slowly," he said.

The receptionist came in with two thick folders of papers. Salvatorelli looked at them the way a treed coon looks at the frothing hounds. He practically cowered.

"What is that?" he asked her, his voice rising.

Here, I saw, was a harried man, a man who felt himself beset on every side, who wondered
when
, not
if
, the next disaster would strike. Every now and then my life gets like that, too, but with Salvatorelli I had the impression it was business as usual.

"It's only the papers to do with signor Norgren," she told him soothingly. "You told me to bring them."

"Yes, of course. Good." He winced slightly. "There's nothing wrong with them?"

"No, everything is in order."

"Fine, fine, put them down."

Oddly enough, his nervousness wasn't worrying me; if anything, I was encouraged. It wasn't a suspicious sort of agitation, if that makes any sense; not the skulking fear of a thief, or the terror of a crook in trouble with the Mafia. It just seemed like the sincere concern of a respectable, if frenetic, businessman who took his business to heart.

This was borne out by the fastidious way he went through the arrangements with me, making sure that I was aware of and approved everything that had been agreed upon between him and Ofelia Nervi, and that I understood the purpose of every form in the files. It took an hour and a half, and although I can't say it was fun, it was comforting. Bruno Salvatorelli knew his stuff.

Which made the mix-up with Clara Gozzi's Rubens all the more puzzling. How could it possibly have been sent accidentally to Blusher as part of a shipment of otherwise unadulterated junk? What was it doing at Trasporti Salvatorelli in the first place, without Salvatorelli's being aware of it? Or was it a scam of some kind, as I'd surmised with Clara? But that seemed improbable. Bruno Salvatorelli just didn't come across as a crook. Not that my judgment in these matters was perfect.

"I understand there is also a gentleman in Sicily who is contributing paintings," he said. "Did you wish us to handle them? I have an agent in Palermo."

"No, I think Ugo's arranging that himself, but I'll be flying down to see him Saturday, before I head back home, and I'll ask him. Signor Salvatorelli, may I ask you a question?"

"Ask, ask." He was expensive now, replete with the satisfaction of minutiae properly executed. The last document had been signed, we had shaken hands once more, and the receptionist had come in to take away the papers and bring us pungent cups of
caffè alla Borgia
. (Salvatorelli's liver was apparently selective: wine, no; apricot brandy, yes.)

"As you may know," I said, "I'm the one who identified the painting in signor Blusher's warehouse as—"

He stiffened. The anxiety-antennae popped back out on his forehead and quivered. "This is intolerable!" he said. "Intolerable!"

I backpedaled. "It's only that I couldn't help wondering, signore, how such an accident could happen in so—so well-run a company, so—"

He wasn't fooled by this mealy-mouthing. The cup was banged into its saucer. Brandy-laced espresso sloshed onto the desk blotter. "I have spoken freely to the police!" he shouted. "I have spoken freely to the insurance company! I have welcomed their investigations! I have
embraced
their investigations! They ascribe no blame to me! I know
nothing
of stolen paintings! I will not permit—will not permit—"

A commotion at the entrance to the building had thrown him off the track. He half rose to peer over my shoulder. "What, what, what. . . ?"

I turned too, looking out through the space between the partitions. The receptionist was unsuccessfully trying to hold off five uniformed men, two in the military-style khaki outfits of the carabinieri, three in the natty uniforms of the municipal police: dark blue berets and jackets, gray pants with thin red stripes, and white Sam Browne belts with handcuffs and holstered pistols. One of the carabinieri carried a semiautomatic machine gun propped barrel-up against his shoulder.

With an effort Salvatorelli finally managed to get something out. "What do you want?"

"Signor Salvatorelli?" said one of the policemen, sweeping the complaining receptionist casually aside.

"Of course I'm signor Salvatorelli. Who else would I be?"

"I am Captain Barbaccia." He held up a sheet of paper. "I have authorization from the special prosecutor's office to make a search of this property."

Salvatorelli's cheeks puffed out. Red spots appeared on the sides of his neck. He raised a fat, clenched, quivering hand. "
Puh . . ."
he said, ". .
puh
... "

Captain Barbaccia took advantage of this interlude in the conversation to step into the office. He looked down at me thoughtfully, a craggy handsome man with an air of quiet authority, and a uniform that must have been tailored for him. Now
here
was someone who would have made a respectable Eagle of Lombardy.

"And who are you, please, signore?" he asked me pleasantly.

I told him.

And your business here?"

But by this time Salvatorelli had found speech. "This is too much!" he cried. "I am being persecuted, hounded to death, as was my sainted brother! What do you want here? What do you hope to find? How can I run a business if—"

"We believe there may be several missing works of art on your property, signore," Barbaccia said calmly.

Salvatorelli's mouth fell open. His face went from dull red to sick gray. He sagged back into his chair. "You . . . you accuse me?"

"No one accuses you, signor Salvatorelli. We have no reason to suspect you of anything." After a moment he added, "I tell you the truth."

Some of the color came back into Salvatorelli's cheeks. He took a breath. "What paintings?" he asked.

"Perhaps you would show us the way to your Lot 70?" Barbaccia suggested.

"What paintings?" Salvatorelli demanded. He might be excitable, but he wasn't a pushover. "I insist that you tell me."

The captain paused, then complied with a small bow of his head. "A landscape by Carrà and a small still life by Morandi; stolen from the municipal gallery in Cosenza five years ago."

Carrà and Morandi, along with the better known De Chirico, were painters of the quasi-surrealist
Pittura Metafis
ica movement of the 1920s; distinctly minor figures in a short-lived school. Hardly worth stealing, you might think, but given today's bizarre market, I had no idea what they might be worth—or rather what they might sell for. Two or three hundred thousand dollars each, I supposed.

"
Cosenza
? " Salvatorelli echoed, sounding genuinely amazed. "What have I to do with Cosenza? I demand, I insist—"

But Barbaccia's patience had worn through. "Please get up, signore. We wish to see the lot in question." He stepped briskly out of the office and waited, stiff and commanding, for Salvatorelli to follow.

The businessman jumped up and scurried out. "I go," he muttered, "but under protest, under protest."

Without looking at me, Barbaccia leveled a finger in my direction. "This one remains. The others, too," he said to the policeman with the machine gun, who nodded and took up a position in the hallway, presumably to guard me, the receptionist, and a couple of big-eyed workers who had drifted in to see what the commotion was about. Barbaccia and the others followed a grumbling Salvatorelli into the back of the building.

In accord with what appears to be prevailing Mediterranean police custom, the vicious-looking, black semiautomatic had been entrusted into the hands of the youngest, most jittery-looking carabiniere, a downy-faced, nervous kid who seemed to be all of seventeen. As always, this had a markedly quieting effect on those in his charge. No one talked to anyone else. No one made anything remotely like a sudden move.

But after a while, when he'd relaxed a little, I smiled at the youngster. "How's it going?" I said, dropping my classical Italian for a cozier, slangier version. "What's up, anyway? Do you think—"

Either he recognized my accent, or he had heard me tell Barbaccia that I was an American. Whichever, he seized the opportunity to practice his English.

"Shuddup, you," he said, with a concise but expressive jerk of the black machine gun.

I decided my questions could wait after all.

In twenty minutes they were back, with a noisily expostulating Salvatorelli leading the way. It was a mark of just how unsettled he was that he had allowed one of the hair strands to work loose and slip down, so that it now clung curving to one temple, like a Caesarean laurel wreath. Italian was flying thick and fast, with not much attention to syntax, so I couldn't understand all of it, but I got the gist: He, Salvatorelli, had no way of knowing that the two paintings were there. How could he? Lot 70 had been deposited the previous month for eventual shipment to Naples, by a man who said his name was signor Pellico. No, Salvatorelli had never seen him; the business had been conducted entirely by mail. A three-month storage fee had been paid, and the crate had remained on the premises until such time as signor Pellico directed that it be shipped. How could Salvatorelli know what was inside? What did the captain expect of him? That he would search through the effects of his clients?

The captain assured him that he didn't expect it at all, that no suspicion attached to signor Salvatorelli or his firm, that the carabinieri were in fact grateful for his excellent cooperation in the recovery of these valuable works of art. It was clear to anyone with eyes that Trasporti Salvatorelli had been the innocent pawn of a slippery criminal who would, with luck, soon be brought to justice.

Slowly, Salvatorelli became more composed. The handkerchief was applied to his forehead and neck. The nonconforming hair was detected and smoothed back into place. He was, he said, happy to have had the opportunity to be of service. The captain could count on his continuing cooperation in this matter.

The captain was pleased. Perhaps the signore would be kind enough to show him the correspondence with signor Pellico?

At this point Salvatorelli noticed with apparent surprise that I was still there.

"Ah, signor Norgren," he said, "I hope you will forgive this intrusion. But our business is concluded, no? You will understand if. . . ?" His gesture took in Barbaccia and the others. He became solemn. "It is my civic duty. . ."

"Of course," I said. But before standing up, I looked at Barbaccia to make sure it was all right to leave. I still wasn't about to make any unexpected moves around the adolescent with the weapon.

Barbaccia gave me a cordial nod of dismissal. "Perhaps we'll meet again," he said pleasantly.

Chapter 11

Outside in the parking area there were three cars that hadn't been there when I'd arrived. Two were white and blue, with POLIZIA MUNICIPALE on the sides; the other, huge and black but unornamented, had its rear door open. One of the two carabinieri—the grown-up, the one without the machine gun—was leaning into it, evidently reporting to someone in the back seat on what had happened. The carabiniere's clipped speech and rigid posture made it obvious that he was reporting to a superior officer.

As I passed by, hoping to find a taxi stand on Viale Lenin, I could just see the crossed legs of the listener, clad in khaki trousers and softly gleaming boots. "
Capisco
," he was saying. "
Sì, capisco. . . . Benissimo. . . .
"

Something about those hollow, dessicated
capiscos
made me cock my head. As I did the voice floated forth again.

"Do my eyes deceive me," it wondered dustily in English, "or can this be Dr. Norgren?"

The Eagle of Lombardy, on the spot. So he did come out of his warren sometimes.

I stopped and came back to the car. "
Buongiorno
,
Colonello
. "

"
Buongiorno, dottore
." He subjected me to an unamiable examination. "You're feeling better?" he asked indifferently.

"I'm feeling fine, thanks." These cool, empty conventions were just that. We seemed to be starting off on the same foot on which we'd concluded our previous meeting.

"Good." The dispassionate scrutiny continued. "I must say, I'm surprised to find you here. Would you be kind enough to tell me what brings you?"

"Salvatorelli is shipping the paintings in our show," I said. "I had to go over the arrangements with him."

"Ah. Wholly understandable. Thank you. My mind is now at ease."

Why wasn't his mind at ease before? What the hell was he implying? "Colonel, is something bothering you? Why shouldn't I be here?"

"No, no, I was thinking only that you have a wonderful talent to be present at critical moments. When your friend was attacked—you were there. Now, at the very moment two paintings are seized at an out-of-the way shipping company— you are here. I was merely contemplating these facts."

"Sheer coincidence," I said.

"No doubt, yet such coincidences unnerve me. Understand me, signore, I suspect you of no complicity—"

Hey, thanks a lot, I thought but didn't say.