by Cameron West
“Arch,” I said. “Your offer means more to me than I can tell you, but I’ve got to do this alone. I need an answer on the gun.”
Tension prickled over the line.
“Goddamn you!” he shouted. “You turn me down, then you want me to make up my mind right this second?”
“Yes,” I stated flatly. “I’m sorry, but I need to know now.”
I heard a deep sigh. “I guess we’re both sorry, ’cause I can’t do it.”
Silence.
“Okay, then,” I said. “I shouldn’t have called. I apologize for getting you involved. I’ve got to go.”
“Wait. Please don’t go.”
“Really, I’ve got a plane to catch.”
“I mean don’t go at all,” Archie pleaded.
“I have to.”
“You have a choice.”
“No I don’t. It’s all there is.”
The fog had lifted and sunlight created dust corridors where it danced in through the open living-room windows.I took fifty thousand dollars out of the laundry bag, wrapped it inbrown paper, and stuffed it in a red backpack I’d acquired in Boston when I was checking out the Museum of Fine Arts and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
On top of the money, I packed a leather portfolio containing Leonardo’s notes and a handful of Boulder Bars, the one kind of energy bar that didn’t taste like window putty. Then I cinched the laundry bag and returned it to the old leather satchel.
I said goodbye to Ginny, stashed my bags in the trunk, and headed for Bank of America in Santa Monica. A red-faced account representative converted five thousand dollars to lire and rented me a family-sized safe deposit box, where I stashed the satchel.
I got back in the Jag and turned the key. The throaty purr made my spine shimmy as I headed for the airport.
Somewhere over the Rockies my hands steadied enough to use the air-phone. I called Lois van Alstine, a redhead with green eyes and long legs who could have writtenWho’s Whoby herself. Lois had used her schmoozing skills to develop a lucrative public-relations business representing some of the biggest names in Hollywood.We’d spent one night together a couple of years earlier—amusing until she’d dug her long nails into my back. I told her to stop and she did, but the fun was over. There were no hard feelings.
Lois answered her phone after the third ring. “Bobby, I’m in the tub. I’ll be there in an hour.”
“Lois,” I said, “it’s Reb.”
“Spitfire! How are you? Tom’s heartbroken. Says you like your towels-more than him.”
“It’s true.”
“Oh. So what do you want? I’m guessing not a date.”
I told her I was looking for information on Werner Krell and Nolo Tecci.
“Krell, I know of, of course. Never heard of Tecci. Don’t tell me,” she said, “Krell wants to film you falling off his money.”
I said nothing.
“All right, wait a minute. I’ll check my database, see what comes up. Where are you? In a wind tunnel?”
I told her I was en route to Venice.
“You’re kidding. What, is Krell on the plane? No, can’t be. He’s got his own jet.”
“This call’s costing a hundred dollars a minute, Lois.”
“Uh-huh,” she said. “Okay, let’s see . . . I’m looking for Tecci. Is that T-E-T-C-H-Y?”
“Two c’s and an i, I think. Try it both ways.”
“I don’t think so. Nope, nothing comes up. Give me a second on Krell. He’ll come up. Here he is. Werner Krell. He’s a baldy, you know. A Yul Brynner. Not bad-looking. Born in Berlin, 1935, only child. Papa was a weapons manufacturer, too. Came up with a revolutionary design—the Gewehr 41W—first semi-automatic rifle to go into wide use in the Second World War. Oh, and he was a Leonardo da Vinci fanatic.”
“What?” I said.
“I said Papa Krell was a da Vinci fanatic. He had a museum-quality collection of models of Leonardo’s weapons and tanks, catapults and things. Was showing them at the Gem‰ldegallerie right before the war. Got a picture of him here, little Werner in knickers next to him. Oooh, Mother was killed during an Allied bomb raid when Werner was eight. Rumor is, that whacked him and his old man out. Both of them real eccentric, to put it kindly.”
I thought of the model that my dad and I had built whenIwas eight of an extraordinary bridge Leonardo had designed for Sultan Bajazet II to cross the Golden Horn in Istanbul.
Lois continued, “Uh . . . let’s see . . . little Krell kept pushing. When he was twenty, he graduated magna cum laude from the Berlin Polytechnic Institute with a degree in mechanical engineering, and begandesigning weapons himself for Papa’s company. By that time, he had taken over for his old man. Thought up the first submachine wraparound bolt system. Made huge shekels when that gun became the rage. Bottom line, he’s a billionaire with controlling interests or sole ownership of arms and munitions manufacturing companies in Germany, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Chile, and Mexico. Apparently sells to both sides. And he’s ruthless,” Lois added. “Whenever he wants something, like somebody else’s company, he gets it. Quirky as hell and getting quirkier as time goes on.”
“Is there anything else?” I asked her.
“When he’s not in his jet, he travels in his own Pullman car on the back of whatever train he wants. Orient Express–type thing. Fabulous. Got a picture of it right here. Must have cost millions. Really Art Deco. Elegant . . . deck I guess you’d call it—on the back. Brass railing. Remember Dumbo? At the end he was out on the deck of his own Pullman?”
I didn’t answer; I was picturing Henry Greer hopping the rail, plummeting into the St. Roddard Pass. I glimpsed a fragment of memory. I’d been through that pass myself, maybe ten years before, when I’d hitched a ride from Switzerland to Italy with a pasty-faced guy in a VW bus.
Lois said, “So . . . you’re awfully quiet for a hundred bucks a minute.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I guess I was lost.”
“And now you’re found?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Thanks.”
“Hey, Spitfire . . . before you go . . .”
“Yeah?”
“I’m, uh, tamer now. Maybe when you get back . . .”
A second’s hesitation on my part and she knew.
“Well then,” she finished. “I guess I’m entitled to hang up first.”
Before I could answer, she did.
I replaced the phone in its cradle. . . .Werner Krell and his father.Me and mine. Leonardo.There had been five men. There were two left. Under different circumstances, would Krell and I have drained an ale in honor of our dead fathers and Leonardo’s genius? Would we have wept together for our missing mothers, whose forgotten voices would never comfort us?
And if we’d met on a battlefield in the middle of the century, who would have pulled the trigger first?
It was dark and raining when my plane fell out of the sky onto the tarmac at Malpensa Airport in Milan. An hour later I was up in the ether again, eastbound for Venice on a miniature version of the aircraft I had just deplaned.I steadied my nerves on the short flight to Marco Polo Airport by thinking about those carved Russian dolls that open up one inside the other until at the center is a tiny doll that looks like something from a Barbie tea set. I pictured myself on a plane that opened to reveal smaller and smaller planes, me shrinking and boarding until, at last, I climbed into a plane the size of a mallard, which headed skyward and got into formation with a flock of other ducks. Damn, I’d been in the air too long.
Soon, my luggage and I were on the ground and in a private taxi cruising through choppy water into the Grand Canal. It had rained and the air felt thick and electric.
Leah had booked me into the Gritti Palace—a regal hotel that overlooked the grand canal and was a home of the doge, in the sixteenth century, Venice’s most powerful official.
The door to my room was ajar, the bellhop just setting out a basket of fruit. The high-ceilinged suite was large and replete with antiques
, a huge Oriental rug, and an ornate chandelier. I was pleasantly surprised, having stayed in hotels that boasted opulent lobbies but were otherwise ordinary. Leah had done well.
I slipped the bellhop some money and he backed out graciously.
After a shower I unpacked, lit my candle, and climbed into bed.
My mother and father would have loved Venice. We could have stayed right here. I would have dug my bare toes into the soft couch cushions, peered up at the patterns on the high ceiling, and listened as my dad delighted me and Mom with stories of the proud and the poor who had crossed these canals and streets, their splendid canvases tucked under their paint-stained arms.
My elegant room suddenly felt empty and the night too vast.
A piece of chocolate in the shape of a dove, wrapped in orange and white aluminum foil, sat on the oversized feather pillow next to me. I picked it up and sniffed: Grand Marnier.
I lay on my side flying the dove back and forth in the flickering light, aching for my stolen past, longing for daylight and a chance to lay a knee on evil’s chest. Nolo Tecci. Werner Krell.
The candle’s flame softened the chocolate bird.
Ahh, vengeance.
The next morning, I followed my only lead. At nine on the dot, I was standing in the marble-tiled reception area on the third floor of the Gallerie dell’Accademia, facing a sixty-year-old secretary with voluminous dark brown hair and thick eyebrows. Her excellent English accompanied a restrained professional demeanor that belied a tension which could not be concealed.Though my pulse was pounding, I plowed ahead, smiling at her like I was hands-down the nicest guy she was going to meet that day. I explained that I’d come from California to speak to the person to whom Signore Arrezione, the bookseller, might have shown the page of Leonardo’s notes.
“Are you a reporter?” she asked, her face taut.
“No,” I answered. “I’m not.”
She eyed me warily, her big brows almost touching.
I opened my jacket. “See? No recorder, no paper, no pencil. I’m not a reporter. I’m not even a good speller.”
I detected a momentary thaw in her countenance.
“Are you with an official organization?” she asked. “The police?”
“Actually, I’m a stuntman.”
She looked puzzled. “In the movies?”
“Bad spellers don’t have many options,” I said, smiling. She thawed a little more.
The secretary glanced behind her at a man’s figure, still as a store dummy, curtained by a smoked-glass door. When her eyes met mine again I knew I’d lost my advantage. “I cannot help you,” she said.
I leaned in a little closer. “Signorina Rossi—”
“Signora,” she corrected, glancing nervously over her shoulder again at the figure behind the door, then back at me.
I had to get through to her.
“Signore Arrezione showed the notes to someone here. I’d just like to know his name, maybe have a word with him.”
The ghost behind the door turned the knob.
“No, sir, there is no one here who has seen the notes. I’m sorry. Please go.”
Anger and frustration began to surface. I forced myself to hide it. I knew she wanted to tell me, she was just frightened. I had to stay cool, find out why.
The glass door opened and a large, balding, grim-faced man wearing a brown suit and tan bow tie stepped out. He looked to be in his mid-sixties. Signora Rossi spun around in her seat. “Professore Corta.” She bowed her head deferentially.
I sized him up. Edgy came to mind. Unlikely to be forthcoming came to mind.
“Signore,” he said to me in a surprisingly high voice. “What is your business here? We have made our statements to the press and thepolizia.”
“I like your tie, Signore,” I said. “I’ve got one just like it, only mine’s more butterscotch than tan. I prefer yours.”
“Thank you,” he said, his face a little flush. “Now you will excuse me? I am late for a meeting.”
He dismissed me with a glance and blasted some Italian at Signora Rossi. Then he brushed past me and left through the door I’d come in.
Signora Rossi nervously straightened her blotter and pen.
“I can see how concerned you are, Signora. I haven’t come here to cause you more worry.”
I offered her the Denver newspaper article and gave her a minute to read it.
“My name is Reb Barnett, Signora Rossi. My father was the museum curator at the National Gallery in Washington. He and my mother died in a fire that destroyed our house immediately after he tried to acquire the last ‘Circles of Truth’ notes.”
That got her attention.
“You can look it up on the Internet,” I continued. “Washington Post. July 23, 1980. His name was Dr. Rollo Eberhart Barnett.”
“You could have looked it up also,” she said, scribbling the name and date on her blotter.
I pulled out my passport and pointed to my name. “I didn’t have to look it up. I was there.”
We were both silent for a moment while she regarded the passport, then me again.
“What is it that’s causing you so much worry?” I asked.
Her lips quivered. She put her hand to her mouth. I understood the feeling of having your foundation shaken and felt compassion for her. I waited, willing her to confide in me.
After a moment she said, “You are the second person who has been here asking to see . . . asking these things. And that isafterthe police and reporters.”
I asked her who the other one was. She said she didn’t know.
“What did he look like?”
Signora Rossi leaned forward and covered her face with her hands as if she were going to catch a sneeze. She peeped through her fingers. When I sat down on the corner of her desk, she didn’t object.
“Whatever you share with me,” I said, “I promise I won’t tell the professore. I mean no harm at all. In fact, I’ll help if I can. Look at my face. You’ll know I’m telling the truth.”
She lowered her hands, scrutinizing me thoroughly, introspectively, relying on a half-century of living to tell her whether I was the cup with the poison.
“All right,” she said tentatively.“He was scary.”
“In what way?”
“Every way. The way he dressed, the sound of his voice . . .”
“Was he American?”
“He spoke Italian, but not so good, and with an accent. American, maybe. He had the darkest eyes. His hair was brushed forward on the sides, like Caesar. And his hands,” she continued. “I remember his fingers were long and delicate like a surgeon’s, and his fingernails were—I don’t know how you say it—polished, that’s the word. Yes, they had clear polish on them.”
My stomach muscles tightened. Nolo Tecci was real.
“Anything else?” I asked, pointing to the side of my neck.
“Si, si,”Signora Rossi confessed animatedly. “He had a . . . how do you say . . .tatuaggio. . . on the side of his neck. The head of a snake.” I felt a tingling flush, heard my pulse in my ears.
Jesus. Tecci’s still here, after the bookseller’s fire. Did he have the notes or did they burn in the blaze?
“What’d you tell him?” I asked her as calmly as I could.
“Nothing,” she whispered. “He spoke with Professore Corta in his office. Corta’s been anxious ever since. Warned me not to speak with anyone regarding the notes. Has been trying to reach . . .”
“Who? The person who saw the notes? Did Professore Corta see them?”
“No. He never saw the notes. Only . . .”
“Who?” I prompted a little too strongly. She covered her quivering lips.
“You know where I can find him?”
She nodded almost imperceptibly. “Her. She is my friend. She is nervous since the fire. She feels in great danger and has . . . uh . . . taken a leave.”
“Is she at her house? Or apartment?”
“No.”
“But you can ge
t a message to her?”
Frustrating silence.
“Signora Rossi, you said your friend thinks she’s in danger? Believe me, if the man with the snake tattoo is here, your friendisin danger. Grave danger. Tell her I must talk with her. I’m staying at the Gritti Palace. Have her call me at noon. That’s twelve—”
“I know whatnoonmeans,” she blurted, her eyes narrowing, boring-into me for any sign of deceit.
A moment passed.
“Noon,” I repeated.
She nodded.
“Thank you, Signora Rossi.” I offered her my hand.
“Francesca,” she corrected, taking it.
As I turned to leave, a man ran right into me. He let out a loud “oof” and fell backward, dropping his newspaper and losing his hat.“Oh, jeez, I’m sorry,” I said, helping him up.“Spiace.”
He grabbed my lapels as I pulled him to his feet. He was short, maybe five-eight, and wore an expensive raincoat over a rail-thin body. As we both reached for his paper and hat, we clunked heads and I caught a whiff of Old Spice. He grunted as he picked up the paper, puffing out his sunken cheeks. His hat was a Borsalino, gray like his coat. He snatched it from my hand, scowling.
“Grazie,”he said brusquely, and walked off, folding his paper.
Out on the street again, I pressed the side of my head where it hurt. A little punishment for being clumsy, out of my element. But I’d succeeded in getting Signora Rossi to confide in me. I was closer.
I looked down at my Beatle boots. The soles had touched the same floor Nolo Tecci had tread on. I felt the heat of anger spread through my feet, up my calves, thighs, and chest, into my throat and out to my fingertips. I’d never felt this way before.I could snap. I could kill. Who the hell am I?
I squinted up at the sky. “Is there more than bone and gristle, God?” I whispered.Breathe, Reb.
I walked back to the hotel scraping my shoes on the cobblestone streets, urging myself into an easier groove.
five
Soft yellow fingers of sun massaged my face and neck through the open window of my room as I sat waiting at an intricately carved desk, daydreaming, steeping in time. I wondered if some doge, in a robe and leather sandals, had looked out this very window the day Leonardo composed the words and drew the mysterious circles on the page I had in my possession.Maybe the doge sat in this very spot, digesting pheasant and pasta, some fruit. Perhaps he was writing something himself, a poem about an apostle or the curve of a slice of crenshaw melon, a quill pen in his steady hand, ink stains on his noble fingers.
