Читать книгу The Good Thief - Judith Leon - Страница 11

Lindsey drove the rented red Fiat uphill from the center of Naples through heavy traffic. The city spread across hills that allowed those spectacular vistas of Vesuvius rising in all its imposing splendor, an ancient sentinel watching over the bay, its peak shrouded in clouds. Everything was going well, even on schedule.

She kept Marko Savin in sight all the way to Capodimonte Park. With Tito, she stayed focused on the deal, but thoughts of the surprising rush of pleasure she’d felt at Marko Savin’s touch kept intruding.

K-bar had said Savin wasn’t married. She couldn’t resist wondering what his “type” might be. She had always wanted to share her passions and joys and hardships with a special companion. So far, however, the only man she’d ever had a serious relationship with wanted her to quit taking the risks involved in her art buybacks. And he hadn’t even known about the sometimes extremely dangerous courier jobs she did, in secret, for the U.S. government as an Oracle agent.

She knew other Athena women who had sacrificed their lives of high risk for family, but that would never be Lindsey. Retrieving art, sometimes masterpieces, stolen and precious to their owners, gave her life meaning. Most of her assignments as a courier were important, some critical to U.S. security, and that also gave her life substance. This was who she was.

Saying no to the possibility of love and a family of her own had been the hardest thing she’d ever done. Sometimes, alone at night, she would get the blues and think she’d made a mistake, but, she’d inherited her mother’s cheerfulness, and in the morning she’d look forward to the day’s action.

No one in this life gets everything.

She pulled over and waited, carefully watching for one minute. Maybe she could risk some fun and adventure with this man. No ties. She would very much like that—if he showed any interest. He had seemed to. Why else comment on her earrings and her eyes with a look that said he couldn’t stop mentally undressing her?

When the sixty seconds had passed, she drove through the entry and through extensive grounds with spacious lawns, now brown with winter, passing groves of leafless trees and a number of old buildings, including the palace that was now a museum, all of them tied together by looping access roads.

Heinie Gottschalk was waiting at the prearranged spot, seated in the back of a black Alfa Romeo sedan, parked as directed and accompanied only by his driver. She’d agreed that Heinie could bring one man with him and had said, “Sure, he can be armed.” Her main line of defense against treachery by Heinie, or any seller, didn’t rest on strong-arm measures. She could be counted on by both sides to be an honest broker, no violence, no treachery and total discretion.

She parked the Fiat in front of the Alfa Romeo and turned off the motor. A hundred and fifty yards away, Marko sat on his bike, apparently studying a map or newspaper.

Carrying the white satchel with its slightly protruding tube, she strode to the Alfa. The driver stepped out and opened the rear door behind the driver’s seat. Lindsey slid inside, sharing the seat with Heinie. He was perhaps twenty-five with neat shoulder-length blond hair and a flashy pinstripe suit. The diamond stud in his ear had to be at least a carat and a half.

Heinie spoke English, in which he was fluent. “So, we’re ready to trade?”

“Let me see the painting,” she countered. As he reached for it, she slipped her hand into her jacket pocket and palmed the tiny GPS transponder, the size of a dime. She had to slip it into the tube with the genuine painting and quickly because in the end, he might refuse to leave her alone with Cleopatra.

He handed her the tube she had supplied to him. “I need to have a few moments in private to inspect it,” she said.

“Why the fuck would you need to inspect it? You think I try to cheat you? I know your reputation and I deal in good faith.”

“Others have tried to cheat. Before we part, you will be able to verify that the wire transfer has been made. Right now I verify the painting’s authenticity. It’s all part of keeping everyone honest.”

“What’s in your tube there?”

“The tube has an accurate copy of the painting, in case I need to check any details. You may search it if you’d like.”

Heinie didn’t move, as rigid as if he were made of stone.

“If I can’t inspect the painting in private, Heinie, I won’t wire the money. You need to let me do my job. You and your man should stand at the front of the car.”

Finally he opened his door and hauled himself out. He signaled and the two of them moved to the front of the car, looking across the grounds. Looking toward Marko, actually.

Lindsey had studied art and art forgery. She knew all the techniques used to establish whether a statue, painting, lithograph, or other work, was the genuine article: pigment analysis, infrared analysis, or X-ray fluorescence to determine the age of the canvas or if metals in a sculpture were too pure. Sometimes these methods could pick up the artist’s fingerprints left in the paint. “Craquelure” was the study of the distinctive network of fine cracks on very old pieces that were virtually impossible to replicate. She could even identify unique brushwork and perspectives to see if these were consistent with known genuine pieces. The problem with this was that forgers made the same analysis, and great forgers were able to re-create them. Even experts could be fooled. But none of these fancy techniques were needed for the Artemisia.

She opened the tube he’d given her, tilted it, and the painting slid into her hands. As she set the base of the tube on the floor, she dropped the GPS into it and heard it hit with a quiet thunk on the bottom.

She unrolled the painting just enough to expose the back side, lower right corner. From her pocket she took a small lighter, and held it close to the painting. Her client had informed her that only the family knew the painting had been signed on the back using urine with the three words, Owned by Genovesa.

Invisible writing had a long history. Milk, vinegar, fruit juices and urine, all had been used and all darkened when heated. The words soon appeared.

“Hello, honey,” she said, longing to pull it out and gaze. She put away the lighter, returned the painting to its tube and knocked on her window.

Heinie returned to her. “Satisfied?” he asked in a sulky tone.

Gee, might he have been raised as a spoiled brat? She ignored him and pulled out her BlackBerry. He watched her intently as she keyed in the information that would transfer one and a half million American dollars to a bank in the Cayman Islands. She waited. Finally she read aloud, “Transfer complete.”

It was his turn to verify. He started to punch keys in his own communicator but the driver, looking behind them, yelled, and as he fumbled to pull his gun, a hulking figure in black rushed him. The door beside her flew open and a big hand yanked her out of the car. Another grabbed Heinie. She stared into the black barrel of a Beretta semiautomatic pistol. The hulk in black slugged Heinie’s driver. He dropped to the ground. In the distance a motorcycle roared to life.

“Du verdammten schwein,” a gray-haired old man screeched at Heinie.

A dark-gray Daimler now blocked the Alfa Romeo. There were four of them, including the old man. She figured the old guy had to be Heinie’s granddad.

Hellfire and damnation!

Two of the old Nazi’s goons grabbed both tubes and her satchel. Another clubbed Heinie with the butt of his own gun. Heinie’s yowl was earsplitting and he fell to his knees.

Clearly the old man intended to steal the painting back from his grandson. She pointed to the tube holding the original and shouted, “Sie konnen nicht mit dem Bild—”

She was going to tell them that she had placed an incendiary in the container, and she would incinerate the picture rather than let them take it again. Not true, of course, but she’d used the ploy before to get the upper hand. The key, after she calmed everyone down, was to offer more money.

Instead, Marko Savin, racing in a loud roar across the lawn, distracted everyone. Heinie’s driver, having regained his senses, pulled his gun and blew a hole right between the eyes of one of the old Nazi’s men.

Chaos! The old man and his remaining two guards sprinted to their car, each clutching a tube, as Heinie staggered to his feet. Lindsey ran after them, but had to duck behind the Alfa Romeo when both goons turned and started firing.

Marko brought the motorcycle to a sliding stop on its side with the motor still roaring. Ducking bullets, he dived behind her Fiat. The old Nazi and his goons made a U-turn, running up onto the lawn on the other side of the access road, and burned rubber as they headed toward the park’s exit. Both tubes were gone. Artemisia’s Cleopatra. Gone.