Etruscan Chimera

by Lyn Hamilton

  "More than suspected, I'm sure," I said. "Didn't the paper say he was drugged first, then strangled?"

  "Let's not dwell on that. Boucher took you to meet Robert Godard, is that right? But first you met Dottie Beach, yes, and Kyle. Who is Kyle? One name only?"

  "I'm afraid so," I said. "He was always just Kyle. American, young, very attractive. But he's gone back home, according to Dottie."

  "And this Dottie. You have known her for many years, you've told me?"

  "Yes."

  "You aren't competitors in business or even in love? She didn't fancy your ex-husband Clive many years ago?"

  "No. I don't think so. Dottie was married to Hugh Halliday when I met her. They're divorced now. Anyway, when Clive fooled around, it was with younger women than Dottie, and Dottie likes younger men than Clive."

  "Robert Godard, the man in the tomb. Do you think he fell?"

  "Not really. I thought he was quite adept at getting himself down into the tomb. It's possible he fell, but given all that has happened since, I wouldn't want to bet on it."

  "Eugenia Ponte I know, of course. Palladini owned the apartment, as you have already pointed out. He's in insurance in Rome? And Cesar Rosati? That name is familiar."

  "I met him in Volterra. Other than that, I have nothing that links him to this. He owns something called the Rosati Gallery. I need to check that out."

  "Perhaps I can help with that," he said. "But you don't have enough names here. You must try harder. Who would have told whoever is behind this that you were even in Italy? Who knew?"

  "My shipper, Luigi D'Amato, but I've been dealing with him for years."

  "Never mind. You told me you've known Dottie Beach for years also, and I think now you are not so certain about her. Signore D'Amato goes to the top of the list, given he is the first person in all this you dealt with. But he can't be the only person who knows you're in Italy. Your business partner?"

  "Clive? I used to be married to him," I said.

  "Bad marriages have been the cause of many a crime, I'm afraid," he said.

  "I know, but Clive, for all his faults, wouldn't be involved in something like this. I suppose he might inadvertently have told someone where I was. In fact, he did, now that I think of it. He mentioned that someone by the name of Antonio phoned the shop asking what hotel I was staying in. Clive thought Antonio worked for D'Amato."

  "And your partner in life, Rob his name is, I think you said."

  "Rob knows where I am, but he's unavailable at the moment. His daughter Jennifer is well-trained and wouldn't tell anyone where I was unless she knew them really well. She'd E-mail me with their name and phone number, but she wouldn't give mine to them directly."

  "But many people know you are in Italy now."

  "Yes," I said. "I can see Lola's court case will be in good hands."

  He smiled. "Am I interrogating you? Perhaps a little. But we must go on. Do you know who owned the house where Balducci was found?"

  "Yes, it was in the newspapers. Mauro, Gino Mauro. And he knows Mario Romano. His daughter told me."

  "His daughter? Put her on the list, too. Anyone else?" he said, setting a steaming bowl of pasta in front of me and pouring a grappa for himself and another one for me, "People who would know that you are looking for Lake. His sister."

  "Brandy, yes. And Brandy's nurse and housekeeper, Maire. I don't know her last name, either. She told me that she couldn't get in touch with Lake, but someone did. He knew I'd been there and even that I'd taken white roses."

  "We're speaking of the real Crawford Lake now, are we? Then we have twenty names. That's it? Twenty?"

  "I forgot Angelo. Dottie's new boyfriend. Also young and cute, and she found him at Eugenia Ponte's agency."

  "Angelo," he said. "Twenty-one."

  "Angelo Cippolini," I added. "And Alfred Mondragon."

  Salvatore looked at me. "I told you there were many people you were overlooking. Who is Mondragon?"

  "I talked to him on the telephone. A British art dealer. He buys art for the real Crawford Lake, but he said he didn't know how to reach him, either. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't."

  "So, twenty-two. Actually twenty-four."

  "Twenty-four? Who are the other two?" I said.

  "Lola and me," he said. "Life, as I've already mentioned, is about learning who to trust. Right now you should trust no one. You should make it twenty-four, despite what you think of your partner in life and his daughter and your business partner."

  "Salvatore," I said. "I think we can narrow the list down just a little. I may have more enemies than I can ever know, but I do know who my friends are. Please delete you and Lola, Rob, Jennifer, Clive, and D'Amato. I'm godmother to one of D'Amato's kids, for heaven's sake. I had dinner at his home only a couple of weeks ago. Also delete Silvia. She's a lovely and innocent young woman, no matter what her father is up to. And I think we should eliminate Godard, because he's dead, Antonio and Pierre Leclerc for the same reason, and also Yves Boucher. That makes it thirteen, and that's more than enough."

  "Why do you eliminate Boucher?"

  "Because I talked to him at length, and he was just too out of it, too ineffectual to have anything to do with this. He was completely out of his depth. I'd like to take Brandy off the list, too, given she can't really leave her house, but I suppose she has the wherewithal to get the job done if she chose to do so. I'd also eliminate Kyle, and maybe even Angelo, although he worked for Eugenia Ponte."

  "All right then. Tomorrow, we will begin. I will take this list of names, and I will learn what I can about every single one of them. There must be something here. We already know there is a connection between your friend—I use the term loosely—Dottie, and Eugenia Ponte's agency, and between Ponte and Romano and Balducci, and again between Romano and Mauro. Perhaps there are other connections as well. If there are, I am determined to discover them. But first I will tell Lola about the disappointment about Lake."

  "No," I said. "I'll tell her. That's what I came up here to do."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "And after that?"

  "I don't know. What do you suggest?"

  "You have been the prey all along, have you not? Now I think you will have to become the hunter. These people who are always popping up in your life? Perhaps it is time you popped up in theirs. Tomorrow you are going back to Rome to pay them each a visit."

  Lola wiped a single tear from her eye when I told her about Lake and the whole sorry mess. She looked thin, pale, and ill. "That's okay," she said.

  "No, it's not, Lola. It's not okay at all. I was the one who was so proud of myself and what I do, that dishonest people were able to get the better of me. I'm the one who should be in here, not you."

  "But that's not true!" she exclaimed. "This is about me. It's not about you."

  "How do you figure that, Lola?" I said. "Where can you see any justice in this situation?"

  She looked away from me for what seemed to be a long time, staring at a stain on the wall beside her. "You at least were trying to do the right thing," she said. "I wasn't. I don't think I can ever begin to describe my feelings when I saw that Etruscan hydria sitting on that awful pink blanket on your bed, but I want to try to explain it to you. It's important to me that you understand just what I did.

  "I was sure, despite what you said, that it was the real thing. It almost seemed a sacrilege that it was in that kind of grotty hotel, with that lurid red bedspread and curtains, and that hideous wallpaper. It was so perfect: the workmanship, the shape, and most of all the decoration. It could only have been the Micali painter. It is, isn't it?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "It was absolutely gorgeous. I've never seen anything like it up that close. I wanted to touch it, try it out, run my hands over the surface." She laughed a little. "It sounds as if I'm describing a lover, doesn't it? And you know, it was love at first sight. Like a besotted lover, I had to possess the object of my love.

  Or was
it lust? I don't know. I've spent most of my life studying the Etruscans. People laugh when I tell them I'm looking for Lars Porsena's tomb, but it's out there somewhere, isn't it? And it would be a worthwhile thing to do, wouldn't it, to track it down?"

  "Yes, it would. But—"

  "I don't know why I picked the Etruscans, rather than the Romans, or the Maya, or North American Indians for that matter. Maybe it was opportunity, more than anything else. My class was going to Italy, so I went, too. I can remember going to Tarquinia that summer and making my way down into The Tomb of the Leopards, and just gaping at the sight of it. I've spent more hours than you can imagine studying them since then, standing in front of glass cases in museums, peering at Etruscan ceramics from every angle, tramping the countryside looking for Lars.

  "And you know what else I've done? I've written letters to Italian authorities and UNESCO, decrying the trade in antiquities. I've penned articles for the local archaeological society newsletter, telling everyone not to purchase antiquities. I even picketed outside one of the large auction houses in New York, protesting their sale of an Etruscan bronze! You heard one of my declamations on the subject that first morning we met over breakfast. All rather holier than thou, wasn't I, lecturing you on the subject! I'm surprised you didn't toss a bun at me. Can you believe anybody could be that hypocritical? I keep thinking about those people, you know, policemen who go into schools warning students about the dangers of drugs, or psychologists and priests who counsel against extramarital sex, who succumb to the lure of the very evil they've been advocating against."

  "Lola, please. Don't be so hard on yourself. You made a mistake."

  "And then I see the hydria," she said, ignoring my protestations, "and every single thing I thought I believed in flew/ out the window. I had to have it. Not only that, I told myself it was already stolen goods, so I could have it. I was prepared to smuggle it back home and hide it somewhere. Even though I knew I could never show it to anyone, I wanted it. In the few seconds it took for you to open the hotel room door that evening, I was already plotting how to get it home, no matter what the risk. And then there you were, holding off the police at the door, and I was stealing it from you. You'd fed me, given me a ride in the rain. You even offered to help me with my hotel bill. I heard you, when you were out on the fire escape. I heard you say you'd pay my bill, and I just stood there clasping my beloved to my bosom and waited until you gave up and went in. You have no idea what I felt at that moment."

  "In a way, I do, Lola," I said. "Lots of times I've seen rare artifacts I know I shouldn't buy, but that I really want, not for the store but for myself, and there's always a moment when I almost give in to the urge."

  "But you don't," she said. "That's the difference between you and me. You tell me that you let yourself be duped by these people. Maybe you did. Maybe your pride got the better of you for awhile. But you never lost your moral center the way I did." She started to cry.

  "That's ridiculous," I said. "You came to your senses. You brought it back. You can't pay for a lifetime for one small slip, can you?"

  "People pay for slight slips all the time, don't they?" she said. "A moment of inattention, and someone dies. Another plans a joke, perhaps, that goes terribly wrong. Someone makes one mistake, and a lifetime of hard work is like nothing. So you talk about justice? I'd say justice has been served."

  PART III

  THE SNAKE

  …the Etruscans were vicious. We know it, because their enemies and exterminators said so.

  —D. H. Lawrence

  FOURTEEN

  ROME

  Dottie Beach made her way slowly down the Via Condotti, stopping often to look into the shop windows, and from time to time entering one of the establishments, to emerge some time later with another parcel. After about an hour and a half of this, it was pretty clear to me that Dottie was merely shopping. Not just anywhere, mind you, but in some of the finest designer stores there are. I gave up on her, for the moment, and found myself a place where I could watch the door of the building where the Corelli Ponte agency did business.

  While I waited, I called Clive. "Hi Clive," I said.

  "Where are you?" he demanded.

  "Rome."

  "I hope you're calling to say you're on your way home. You've been away a long time, and it's tough running this place all by myself," he grumped.

  "You're not all by yourself," I said. "Alex is with you, isn't he? Anyway, what was all that stuff about my having a nice holiday? You and Moira take several holidays a year."

  "I suppose," he said. "Not as long as this, though."

  "Guess who I've run into a couple of times?" I said, ignoring his ill humor.

  "Who?"

  "Dottie Beach. I've had dinner with her a couple of times in France, and I saw her again in Rome."

  "What's she doing there?"

  "Buying for her store, of course," I said.

  "Boy, if you and I went bust, and then tried to turn right around and open another store right away, do you think they'd let us? Of course not. I don't know how some people do it!"

  "What are you talking about Clive?"

  "She went broke. Didn't I tell you?"

  "No, Clive, you didn't."

  "Sorry. I guess I forgot. It's not as if she's our best friend or anything."

  "When did all this happen?"

  "Just after the last New York winter antique fair," he said. "She was there, and pretty desperate, let me tell you. Looking for a partner for what she called her successful business, of course, but you know how gossipy it is in the trade. Everybody knew she was in trouble."

  "I thought she was doing okay. What happened?"

  "Her husband, Hugh what's his name, is divorcing her. I did tell you that, didn't I? Very messy divorce, too. Not civilized like ours. He's refusing to give her a dime. He says he set her up in that antique business, and paid for the whole thing for years, and if she couldn't make a go of it, now it's her problem, not his. Or words to that effect. She didn't last long after the show."

  "She must be doing okay again, because she's out shopping in the designer stores on the Via Condotti," I said.

  "Some people always land on their feet, don't they? Maybe they named the street after her. Dottie, Via Con-Dottie. Get it? Har har. Now, when are you coming home?"

  "Soon," I said.

  "Soon?" he wailed. "What does that mean?"

  "I'm having trouble booking a flight," I lied. "Airline strike pending."

  "Those Italians!" he said. "They're always striking about something."

  "Does the name Pierre Leclerc mean anything to you, Clive?"

  "Pierre Leclerc," he repeated slowly. "I don't think so. Should it? Who is he?"

  "A rather sleazy art dealer in France," I said. "Would Pierre Le Conte ring a bell either?"

  "Le Conte, Le Conte," he said. "No. But why don't you ask that Mondragon fellow we met at Burlington House? He seemed to know everybody. You're not dealing with this sleaze are you?"

  "Trying not to. Mondragon is a good idea. See you soon."

  "When's soon?" he said.

  "Just soon," I said.

  Around one, Eugenia Ponte left the building and strode purposefully along the Via Veneto. Unlike Dot-tie, she ignored the shop windows, but turned into one of the fancier hotels, crossing the lobby and entering the bar cum restaurant. A rather tall, slim, and handsome man rose from his seat as she arrived. I got a table behind a pillar.

  After a few minutes of animated conversation, they ordered, and a bottle of champagne and two plates of raw oysters arrived, which should have given me a clue as to what was going to happen next. Their love food downed, the two of them walked out of the restaurant and headed directly for the elevators. I knew who the man was, given I'd met him already. But just in case he wasn't who he said he was, I waited until the maitre d' had left his post at the entranceway and checked the book to see if there was a name I recognized. There was: a table for two at 1:15 for a Signore Palladini. C
ircles within circles: the man who owned the apartment with the woman who'd supplied the actors. I felt as if I was closing in on something, even if I didn't know what it was.

  At three, as previously arranged, I called Salvatore. "What have you got?" I said.

  "I began with those I could identify personally, and looked, as you suggested, for a link to Crawford Lake," Salvatore said. "Cesar Rosati was first, because I already knew something about him, and he is very easy to research. Rosati used to be a banker, quite a successful one. He started to dabble in Internet banking, and he got run out of business by Marzocco Financial Online, which as you know, is Crawford Lake's company. Rosati survived it somehow. He seems to have recovered rather nicely, although not in banking."