Murder at the National Gallery

by Margaret Truman

  Del Brasco said, “Tell me how ‘these people’ are, Mr. Mason. Tell me why more money is needed. There was to be no further payment until the painting was delivered to me.”

  “I know that. But my contact in Italy insists that unless a further payment is made, he will—”

  Del Brasco stood and slapped his palms on the top of his desk. “He will what, Mr. Mason?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Mason’s shaky voice and trembling hands now mirrored what was going on inside. “These people can be ruthless,” he said. “My friend was murdered because of them.”

  “Giliberti,” del Brasco said flatly.

  “Yes. You heard.”

  “You take me for a fool?”

  “Of course not. I would not be here unless I felt the urgency of this. All I ask is that you advance some of the money you were to pay after delivery of Grottesca. To ensure that things continue to go smoothly. An additional advance.”

  A smile twisted del Brasco’s lips. “To save your neck.”

  “If you wish to put it that way. I don’t seek trouble. There should be no trouble. Not if people act honorably. I have acted honorably and will continue to. But this man in Italy, he—”

  Del Brasco slowly lowered himself into the vast leather chair, propped his elbows on its arms, and formed a tent with his fingers beneath his chin. His voice was low and lethal; Mason had to lean forward to hear. “There will be no more money until I have Grottesca.”

  Feeling like a child in the presence of a stern headmaster, Mason stood. He detested this man across the desk from him, so filled with arrogance born of power bought with dirty money. “I will do my best, Mr. del Brasco, to make sure that nothing interferes with our business arrangement. Thank you for seeing me today.”

  Del Brasco pressed a button on the side of his desk and Blond Curls appeared. “Show Mr. Mason out,” del Brasco said.

  “I took a taxi here,” Mason said. “Would you be good enough to call one for me?”

  “Call him a taxi,” del Brasco said.

  Back at Union Square, Luther stepped into a travel agency a block from his hotel. “I need to get to Rome as soon as possible,” he told the lady at the desk. “A family emergency.”

  She punched entries into her computer. “I can book you on a flight leaving tomorrow at noon,” she said pleasantly.

  “Nothing sooner?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Please book me a first-class seat on that flight,” Luther said, placing his credit card in front of her.

  He stepped into a phone booth and called the Westin St. Francis: “This is Mr. Mason in the Bayview Suite. I would like to stay a second night. Is that a problem?” It wasn’t. “And would you please make a reservation for one this evening at Victor’s. A window table. At eight.”

  “Of course, Mr. Mason.”

  Luther and Juliana had celebrated their first anniversary at the hotel’s famous, expensive restaurant; the taste of braised celery hearts marinated in a vinaigrette dressing and served with bay shrimp, known as Celery Victor, was as distinct in his mouth as that night many years ago when he and Juliana had ordered it. And were so much in love.

  He took a cab to the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, in Golden Gate Park, and spent the next two hours walking through it. Being back where he’d launched his curatorial career was, at once, a source of pleasure and of sadness. Those had been happy days, although at the time he didn’t realize it. He thought of Juliana, of Julian, of the sum of his life.

  He’d left del Brasco’s mansion a shaken, defeated man, ready to fold, to curl up in a fetal position and quietly disappear from the tumult he’d created for himself.

  But as he moved from El Greco to Rubens, from Cézanne to Gainsborough to Seurat to Cassatt, it was as though each artist reached out to touch him, to transmit the glory and beauty of their creations in a physical way.

  Before leaving the museum, he stood in front of the large and powerful Saint John the Baptist Preaching, by the Baroque artist Mattia Preti. It had been Luther’s favorite work at the de Young while apprenticing there. Preti’s use of dramatic lighting, monumental scale, and theatrical composition was much like that of his Baroque contemporary, Caravaggio. As Luther admired the painting, he remembered what one of his mentors had once told him: “Art derives a considerable part of its beneficial exercise from flying in the face of presumptions.”

  Too much had been presumed about Luther Mason, by too many people, for too many years.

  He left the museum with a full internal tank of resolve.

  Let everyone presume what they would about Luther Mason.

  They would be wrong.

  He would go through with his wild ride in pursuit of one of the world’s greatest art treasures.

  His time had come.

  18

  ROME

  Mason went directly to the Valadier Hotel; room service, a hot shower, and fresh clothes refreshed him. He had no intention of contacting Italy’s minister of culture. The fat bureaucrat provided nothing but complications, and Mason’s new agenda was to simplify. Besides, the thought of spending time with the pompous Alberto Betti was too painful.

  He called a number in Rome he’d been given by Father Pasquale Giocondi. A man answered. Mason introduced himself and said it was important that he speak with Giocondi. He gave the man the number of the hotel, saying he would be there most of the day.

  Giocondi returned the call two hours later. He did not sound happy.

  “Has anyone approached you since you returned?” Mason asked.

  “Si. Of course.”

  “And you told them only what I instructed you to say?”

  The smarmy priest responded angrily in a barrage of Italian: “This is no good. No good. You lied to me. Too many people asking questions. I can no longer live in my home. The press, it looks every day to find me. I have moved in with my cousin. Idiota meschino! This is not what I want.”

  The cousin was petty minded and an idiot, thought Mason. He tried to say something when Giocondi paused for breath, but he started in again. He wanted more money, a lot more, or he would go to the authorities and tell them everything.

  Mason made a decision. He would not be blackmailed into giving him more. Not one more lira. “Now you shut up and listen to me,” he said, surprised at the force in his voice.

  There was silence on the other end.

  “We made a deal,” Luther said. “And you will live up to that deal.”

  “Signor Mason, I only wish to—”

  “You only wish to rip me off.”

  “Non capisco.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Luther Mason raised his voice to the most menacing level he could muster. “Remember one thing,” he said. “The painting has come from very dangerous people here in Italy. Murderers, killers, mafiosi. You would not be the first man of the cloth to be found hanging in front of a church. Capisce?” That you do understand. Giocondi said nothing. Luther added to his threat: “If you do anything stupid, I will see that you face them.”

  “I understand. Si, I understand, Signor Mason.”

  The old man sounded frightened. Good. “Perhaps one day when this is all over, I will be able to arrange for you to receive a bit more money,” Mason said.

  “Grazie.”

  “I think it is good that you stay with your family. Your cousin, you say?”

  The mention of the cousin set Giocondi off on another monologue, none of it flattering. He ended with, “Scemo innato!”

  Whether the cousin was also a feebleminded fool was irrelevant. “Arrivederci, Father Giocondi. I will be in touch.”

  Mason hung up with a smile on his face. In this deal, he’d never been one to confront, to lay down demands. But that was before. He’d decided during the long flight to Rome that unless he stiffened his backbone and met challenges head-on, everything he’d put into play could be, would be, lost.

  The next call, to Paris, was answered in what sounded, ba
sed upon background noise, like a restaurant. The man spoke a language Mason identified as Greek.

  “Do you speak English?” Luther said.

  He said he did, but his garbled attempt said otherwise. Luther told him he wanted to speak with Jacques Saison. “The artist. Upstairs.” He realized he was shouting, which would do nothing to break through the language barrier.

  “Saison? Artiste? Uh huh. Saison. You hang over.”

  Hang over? Mason heard the phone drop on a hard surface. Not yet. Hang on now, a pleasant hangover in Paradise later.

  Jacques Saison spoke in French. He slurred his words. Was he drunk?

  “Are they ready?” Mason asked. “The two copies. The painting Signore Giliberti brought to you.”

  “Ah. Oui. Oui. They are ready.”

  “I will be there to pick them up tomorrow.”

  “Oui. What time?”

  “In the afternoon. You will be there?”

  “Oui. You will have the money?”

  “Yes, I will have the money.”

  The money. The money. It was the sound of the Greek chorus, and the Italian, and the French. Mason booked a flight from Rome to Paris, then went to a bank, where he withdrew the balance of funds from a joint account he’d shared with Carlo Giliberti, converting the lire to francs. He returned to the Valadier, where he packed his suitcase, placing most of the money beneath his neatly folded clothing.

  He enjoyed an early, expensive dinner of risotto fiori di zucca at an outdoor table at La Maiella on the Piazza Navona, and a bottle of mineral water.

  He was wide awake after dinner, despite his recent lack of sleep, and decided to walk back to the hotel. Mason walked slowly, admiring shops and busy cafes and the smart-looking men and women going in and out of them. But when he reached the via del Corso, he was suddenly overcome with fatigue. He took a table at a small outdoor cafe and ordered a sambuca alla mosca, more interested in the coffee beans on which to munch than the alcohol. It felt good to rest his legs. The travel, the anxiety, the talk of money had caught up with him. He needed to go to bed.

  As he searched for his busy waiter to get a check, he looked into an adjacent cafe. He’d seen the man earlier that evening, remembered the colors: black raincoat, red beret, scraggly beard and moustache, a cigarette dangling from his lips. The man had passed several times as Mason ate at La Maiella. And he’d seen him again while walking to the hotel. Seeing someone twice wouldn’t strike him as unusual. But three times in one evening? The chances of coincidence vanished. His stomach knotted, his heart pounded. Sensi. The man must work for Luigi Sensi.

  How would the old mafioso know he was in Rome? Who knew he’d come there? Scott Pims. Court Whitney. The travel agent in San Francisco. None of them would have a connection with Sensi, nor would they have reason to hurt him.

  He dropped lire on the table and left the cafe, turned the corner, and walked at a brisk pace to the next corner, where he stopped and looked back. The red beret had left his cafe and was looking in Mason’s direction. Abruptly, Mason ran, cutting through a small park and down a narrow alley linking two streets, then stopping to lean against a tree in front of yet another cafe. His lungs threatened to explode. He went inside and joined a throng of drinkers at the end of a long bar. “Mineral water,” he ordered, looking for a rear exit, looking to the front window. No sign of the red beret. He waited a half hour before venturing out to the street again. He told the cab driver to take him to the Valadier. Once there, he lingered in the lobby to make sure he wasn’t being followed. Confident he wasn’t, he went to his room, bolted the door, and stepped out onto the small terrace overlooking the Borghese Gardens. It took a long time for his nervous system to return to near normal. He sat in a white wrought-iron chair and looked up into a pristine night, the sky black, the stars unusually bright. He lingered there a long time, trying to sort through what was occurring.

  He knew from the moment he’d turned fantasy into reality that there would be great risks. If he were caught, he would be branded a fraud and a thief. Everything he had worked so hard to gain professionally would be stripped away in an instant. Worse, he might be charged with theft, or fraud, or both, and face a jail sentence. That thought, during his darkest hours, frightened him.

  But those potential ramifications seemed almost silly now. The one thing he’d never considered was murder. The murder of his good friend, Carlo.

  Certainly not his own murder.

  Fear and fatigue fought for control. Fatigue won. He undressed, brushed his teeth, slid beneath the sheets, turned out the light, and for the first time in years, prayed. The old expression, no atheists in foxholes, crossed his mind as he fell asleep.

  As Mason drifted into unconsciousness, the man in the black raincoat and red beret ordered a cappuccino downstairs in the Valadier’s small coffee bar. “Grazie,” he said to the young waitress. He sipped. Good coffee. Sometimes you get lucky, he thought. This was a good assignment.

  19

  PARIS

  “Court?”

  “Luther?”

  Courtney Whitney III glanced up at his kitchen clock. Six-fifteen. Another early call from his erratic senior curator. At least this time he hadn’t been roused from a deep sleep. He’d been up for fifteen minutes.

  “Where are you calling from?” Whitney asked, measuring coffee into his coffeemaker’s gold filter.

  “Paris.”

  “Paris? I didn’t realize you were going there.”

  “A last-minute decision.” Mason laughed. “You know how Paris picks up the spirit. I’m feeling considerably better.”

  “Glad to hear it.” Whitney punched on the coffeemaker and sat at the kitchen table. “Why are you calling?”

  “Just following the rules.”

  “What rules?”

  “About giving the National Gallery first dibs on some art I want to buy. Two pieces by an obscure artist. Gaisser. Jan Steen-influenced, but not quite as moralistic. A little saccharine for most tastes, but I rather like them. In any event, I’ve put a hold on both at a gallery here. The owner wanted eight thousand dollars for the pair, but I negotiated him down to five. I need a quick okay from you so I can complete the purchase and bring them back with me.”

  One of many ethics rules for employees of the National Gallery of Art was that anyone contemplating the personal purchase of art had to give the Gallery first refusal, even if the pieces had already been paid for. Mason was not being quite honest. He’d already bought the paintings, which stood side by side next to him as he spoke to Whitney from his room at the George V. He judged the pair to be worth as much as ten thousand dollars in the United States. But he wasn’t buying them to make a profit. Good thing, he knew. Under the National Gallery’s ethics rules, if it decided to exercise first refusal rights, it was obligated to pay only what was actually laid out for the paintings—in this case, five thousand. Any increase in value would benefit the Gallery.

  “Gaisser?” Whitney said sleepily, carrying the phone to the refrigerator, where he removed a package of English muffins. “Name doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “Check with Paul Bishop. I heard him speak once of Gaisser’s work. As I said, strictly minor league, but of some scholarly value at a fair price. I would appreciate a ruling before going through with it.”

  “I’ll check with him when I get in this morning. When are you coming back?”

  “In a few days. I want you to know, Court, how much I appreciate your understanding. If I didn’t take this trip, I don’t know what might have happened.”

  “You needed a rest.”

  “Anything new on Carlo’s murder?”

  “No. The police are still questioning anyone who knew him, but I haven’t heard anything new.”

  “How is the testing of Grottesca going?”

  Sue Whitney padded into the kitchen in robe and slippers, her quizzical expression asking who was on the phone. Whitney placed his hand over the mouthpiece and said, “Luther Mason. From Paris.”

&n
bsp; She made a disgusted face and headed for the coffeemaker.

  “Grottesca?” Whitney said. “The testing is proceeding nicely. Donald’s nose was out of joint over the way everything’s been handled. But he’s caught up in the excitement of it now. He told me yesterday that from everything he and his staff could ascertain, it might well be the original lost Caravaggio. But as you know, Luther, all the testing in the world can only rule out authorship. It can never prove it.”

  “Of course. Well, Court, sorry to bother you so early in the morning. If all goes as planned, I’ll leave Paris for Washington tomorrow night. May I call you later today, or tomorrow, to get a ruling on the two Gaissers?”

  “Sure. I don’t see any problem, but I’ll follow the rules, too. Enjoy your stay in Paris.”

  “Thank you, Court. I already have.”

  Mason hung up and looked at the paintings he’d purchased. He wasn’t interested in the artist, or his work, though what he’d said about the artist was true enough. When he went into the gallery he had only one criterion with which to judge what paintings to buy. They had to be the same size as the two copies of Grottesca. There’d been some modern works of the right dimensions in the gallery on Porte Maillot, but Mason knew that for him to buy such modern art would cause raised eyebrows. His scorn for most of it rivaled that of 60 Minutes’s Morley Safer, but on a more elevated, informed level. The Gaissers were perfect. What had Pissarro said? “The most corrupt art is the sentimental, the art of orange blossoms which makes pale women swoon.”

  The sentimental Gaissers suited his purpose.

  As he climbed the stairs that afternoon to Saison’s studio above the Greek restaurant on rue de la Huchette, he was almost cooked in the conflicting odors of the narrow stairwell. I’ll have to get this suit cleaned the minute I get home, he thought.

  Saison opened the door and narrowed his eyes.

  “Bonjour, Monsieur Saison. Luther Mason.” Mason extended his hand.