Romano nodded to Alberto and then said, “You must understand, Mrs. Hayes, I record everything. You may remember, I have many informants in the city, in many cities actually. I am a collector of more than paintings. I collect information on diverse subjects—and on people—and store it. Alberto speaks of my penthouse tapes.”
Julie smiled a little but he had not intended to amuse her. He paused and seemed to compose himself before going on: something obviously was wrong. Alberto was waiting, his arms folded. The whole feeling of the room was of something about to happen.
Romano said, very quietly: “Why did you bring that picture to me?”
Julie tried to swallow her feeling of alarm. “When you come right down to it, Mr. Romano, I didn’t bring the picture to you. I said I’d like you to see it; it was your idea to have Michael bring it here.”
“That’s quite true.” He glanced at Alberto. Then: “So I must ask, why did you want me to see it?”
Julie’s heartbeat wasn’t helping matters, a thumping that made it difficult to speak. “It just happened. It was something I thought of off the top of my head. Maybe I thought if you liked it, you might do something for the artist. Now it turns out, I may not even own the picture. I wish I hadn’t mentioned it to you.”
“Who does own it, Mrs. Hayes?”
“Mr. Rubinoff thinks he does. Or whoever he was buying it for. He called me a couple of days ago. Ralph Abel told me he didn’t want it, but he does. I went to see Maude Sloan at the gallery and she suggests that I keep it—unless he decides to take it to arbitration…”
Romano held up his hand to stop her. “How did you leave matters with Rubinoff?”
“I said that if he had Ralph Abel call me, I’d be willing to give the thing back to him and they could do whatever they liked about it.”
Romano pushed himself away from the desk. “Shall we take a look at the thing, as you call it?”
The tension remained but what Julie now felt had been hostility eased off. Alberto even smiled. Behind Romano’s back. She followed Romano into the studio and Alberto followed her. There was the smell of paint and wood, turpentine, and a mix of chemical smells she could not identify. Framing was done on the premises and other work as well. Romano approached the easel and motioned Julie to come where she could see. Scarlet Night was on the easel without any frame at all.
“Is it the painting you sent me, Mrs. Hayes?”
She nodded, but it did look strange, raw and naked.
He started to take hold of it and then drew back his hands and rubbed them together. He was pale and agitated. Alberto came and stood close by. Romano lifted the painting and turned it around on the easel.
Fastened to the back of the Abel canvas was a drawing of a running male nude. About sixteen by ten inches, it was very old, and Julie had to suppose, a master. She kept looking at it, feeling that something was wrong with the top of her head. It felt as though somebody was trying to lift it off. And yet she could think: she was certain she had suspected. Or ought to have suspected: maybe that was it.
Romano hugged himself as he rocked back and forth, never taking his eyes from the drawing. “I would have given half a million dollars for such a treasure and here it is before me in my own domain.”
TWENTY-FOUR
THE ONE THING THAT was going to remain clear for Julie out of the next few seconds was the sudden, sickening horror of having gotten herself into something profoundly wrong. Alberto ran for a glass of water—for Romano. The little caesar sipped and gave back the glass. Julie didn’t know at whom she was angry, only that it helped when the anger came.
“Let’s wrap the whole thing up and get it out of here. I’ll take it with me.”
Romano looked at her, his eyes blinking rapidly. “And where will you take it?”
“To the nearest office of the F.B.I.”
“And if you are intercepted on the way? Rubinoff must be a desperate man at this point.”
“He is. My shop was broken into last night. Now it makes sense.”
“Did you call the police?”
“Not yet. I had just gotten there when Alberto called.”
Romano nodded. Then, of the drawing: “Do you know what it is?”
“Just what I can see—that it’s old and—from what you said, it must be a master.”
“Would you hazard a guess as to the artist?”
“I wouldn’t—Leonardo da Vinci,” Julie said in the one breath.
“You are right.” Which surprised her. “Of which none is to be had at any price…Put it away for now, Alberto. I am trying to control its environment. Somewhat futile under the circumstances. Five hundred years…I would rather die than see anything happen to it now.”
“Do you know where it came from?” Julie asked.
“Yes. Alberto and I have made certain investigations.”
Alberto carried the painting across the room to a display case, the glass top to which was open. He put Scarlet Night in on its face, closed the top, and was about to cover the whole with a black cloth.
“Shall we have another look?” Romano almost touched her in his eagerness. “Pen, and I think, bister—a so-called lake color that’s supposed to be impermanent. Ha! Or what was it like originally? We must try to know sometime, Alberto. Cover it up.”
He indicated the way back to the office. “Now we must talk, Miss Julie.” She noted the switch from “Mrs. Hayes.” He paused at the door and looked back at the studio. “Do you know our principal occupation here at the moment? It’s a laboratory, really. We are trying to document the construction of the old pigments. The technique of certain masters, if you will. Alberto is the chemist. I am the provocateur.”
A gentleman’s gentleman, yeah.
In the office, he checked the tape deck before returning to his desk. “It is almost certainly the Leonardo stolen from the Institute of Art in Venice five months ago. Which is how I could identify it so positively, although like you, I did guess Leonardo.”
“It really was a lucky guess on my part. I don’t know that much.”
“More than you realize, I think. You chose the best.” He took a photocopy of a newspaper article from the middle drawer of the desk. “Here’s the Times account of the theft at the time. Not one word about the drawing has appeared since.”
Julie read:
VENICE. Mar. 8 (Special) — A priceless fifteenth-century drawing by Leonardo da Vinci was stolen from the Institute of Art here some time during the night of March 7. The case in which the drawing had been on display was pried open by the thieves who entered the gallery through the skylight. How they gained access to the roof of the three-story building is not known. A new alarm system is in the process of installation throughout the building. It is expected to be in use within three weeks.
Alberto rejoined them.
“Isn’t it crazy,” Julie said, “that I should have got my hands on that particular painting…and then to have got it here? Just that impulse, you know?”
“Fate perhaps,” Romano suggested.
Not entirely as guileless as she made it sound, Julie said: “I just realized something: You could have put the old frame back on Scarlet Night—or a new one—and sent it home with me. You could have kept the drawing.”
“Believe me, Miss Julie, I contemplated the possibility. And there’s something else you must realize: I might very well have got away with the acquisition. What jeopardy you would have been in under the circumstances is a matter we may want to think about. Bring a chair for yourself, Alberto. We must ask you many questions, Miss Julie—do you mind my calling you that? I find it less formidable than Mrs. Hayes. Is that an impertinence?”
“Just Julie would be fine.”
He shook his head and went on: “I was going to say, you are right. Something must be done quickly.”
“Not the F.B.I.?” Julie said.
“It is not my favorite law-enforcement agency.”
“But you don’t have to be involved at all.”
“Mr. Romano, I just thought you might not want to mix with the F.B.I.”
“The reverse is true, my dear girl. The F.B.I. may not wish to mix with Romano. Otherwise, would I be where I am today? Given what you think you know of me, would I?”
Julie held her peace. He was making a point, even putting her on a little. He wasn’t really demanding an answer. “Did you know there was something—before you removed the frame?”
“I cannot say so. I keep asking myself. Alberto says I had nothing in mind but the bad taste of the Neapolitans, an opinion he doesn’t share, by the way.” He shot a mocking glance at the younger man.
Alberto threw up his hands. “My parents come from Naples, my whole family.”
Romano shrugged. Julie realized he was enjoying himself. For the moment; he became serious again: “I did wonder, I must admit, what you—or for that matter, a Rubinoff—would see in the painting.”
“Okay,” Julie said.
“Don’t be so sensitive. There is something to it, a certain, vulgar something, if you don’t mind my using the word.”
“That’s what I saw in it too: Eighth Avenue, Place Pigalle in Paris.”
Romano got a what’s-a-nice-girl-like-you-doing look in his eyes. The king of porn. “I may as well tell you, Miss Julie, I wondered if perhaps your Mr. Abel had bought up old canvases and painted on the reverse side of something that might prove more interesting than Scarlet Night.”
“Poor Ralph,” Julie said. Then: “I’m absolutely certain, Mr. Romano, he had no idea what was behind that painting.”
“That was the question I was coming to. I wonder if you would mind telling us now—in your own words, as they say in the courts of law—how you came into possession…You may find it useful yourself to have a record of it.”
Julie thought for a moment. “I’ll take it from when I poked my head into the gallery before the opening, the Maude Sloan Gallery on Greene Street in SoHo.”
Romano was great: he interrupted now and then with a question and made her repeat every mention of Ginni, but he always put her back on the track at the point at which he had taken her off. He was particular about dates.
“A beautiful operation, it would seem—until Rubinoff. There’s more to it of course than we know. An appalling laxity at Customs, for example. But I wonder if the game could be improved upon—if it were possible to run it backwards.” He glanced up at Alberto.
Alberto grinned, showing a beautiful set of teeth. It was pretty hard to find all that sorrow Julie had thought was in his eyes.
“Forgive me, Miss Julie. Alberto and I are at some small advantage. We were able to make inquiries yesterday, as you see…” He indicated the newspaper clipping. “And more this morning. Consider the time difference between New York and Rome…I gather you exonerate Maude Sloan as well as the misguided artist?”
“I think so…except for backing up Rubinoff’s claim to prior purchase. I’m not sure about that.”
“An understandable lapse of honor, given the frailty of her business.”
“I figure she’s trying to make up for it: she invited Jeff and me to a party for Ginni Saturday night…”
Romano raised his eyebrows.
Julie began then to see enough of the smuggling operation to want to ask questions herself. “Is Ginni the boss?”
“Oh, yes. There’s no question of that. But didn’t you say she had backed down on her promise to attend the opening?”
“Now she thinks she’s coming before the closing. Or so she’s told her mother.”
“One wonders about that.” Romano rubbed his hands together. “I must admit to being fascinated. If the looting of Italian treasure were not such a foul offense against the people of Italy, one might regret your interruption of the play, Miss Julie.” He paused, watching for her reaction, his eyes very bright. “One might even consider letting it proceed—if one could be sure in the end of returning the Leonardo unimpaired to the Italian people.”
Julie couldn’t think of the right questions; what she was trying to do first was fix a line of demarcation between right and wrong. But certain vital qualifications were missing. If you could qualify right or wrong.
“Yes?”
“What I’m trying to figure out, Mr. Romano, is—why? I mean why would you let it proceed?”
“That is the question of the moment surely. You would not say I am an especially playful man, would you?”
“There are a lot of things I wouldn’t say at this point, Mr. Romano.”
He smiled broadly and looked up at the younger man. “Alberto, will you trust me to explain while you bring the sandwiches? We ought not to have wine. Clear heads. Iced tea or coffee. Or an orange something or other. Do you like orange, Miss Julie?”
“I do.”
“There is an assumption we must make at the outset,” Romano began when Alberto had left them. “The drawing was almost certainly stolen on consignment. In other words, the thieves knew what they wanted, where it was, and how much the consignee would be willing to pay for a work of art that would have to remain in the closet, so to speak, for very many years. We can learn a great deal, you, Alberto, and I, by working backwards from what we do know. And of course, such information as we are able to turn up can be made available to the F.B.I., Interpol, the Italian Police. The thieves and the smugglers might well be caught. I’m by no means sure that at this point a case could be made against Rubinoff…and, oh, my dear, the man—or possibly it was a woman—in whom I am interested is the collector for whom the Leonardo was stolen. That is the divine secret, known only to—whom?”
“Rubinoff.”
“And possibly one other—his counterpart in Italy. There are ways, of course, to persuade Rubinoff, but they are crude for such an exquisite adventure, and you might find them offensive.”
“You’re putting me on,” Julie said.
“Am I? Of course I am, but I am quite sincere in my conviction that it will be very difficult to get the name of the collector. I do wonder, however, if we three could not manage it.”
“And then, in order to catch him,” Julie said, “you’d have to deliver Scarlet Night.”
“Rubinoff would have to deliver Scarlet Night—and the Leonardo. It would be safe, remember. It is destined for someone no less reverent than myself.”
Julie nodded tentatively.
“You are wondering at what point we involve the police.”
“Well, yes.”
“It may be shocking to you, Miss Julie, but I want to point out to you the miserable record of the police, in this country as well as abroad, in the recovery of stolen art. In this case they would be dealing with an exceedingly wealthy person—possibly a resident alien—possibly a most highly respected person, a patron of the arts with an obsession that has tempted him to do something of which no one would ever think of accusing him. There would be the question of search warrants and their service, and suppose by that time the culprit had properly secreted his treasure and it was not found, wouldn’t that be embarrassing?”
Alberto came, wheeling a service cart, and Romano got up and bounded across the room to help ease the cart over the doorstep. He inspected the open-face sandwiches. “Crab-meat, is it? And salmon. What are those?”
“Cucumber, which you always say clears the palate.”
Romano approved and looked around at Julie. “Orange drink seems a bit odd, doesn’t it?”
“Not by me,” Julie said.
“Please,” he said, indicating that Julie was to help herself to sandwiches.
Midway through lunch, he wiped his lips with his napkin and said: “Do you have a favorite charity, Miss Julie?”
“Well, yes.”
“And you, Alberto?”
“My mother and my father.”
Romano beamed. “Isn’t he a good boy?”
Al
berto blushed to the earlobes.
“What I feared was,” Romano continued, “the money might be going to a bank in Switzerland or some other unsavory foreign cover. But with Ginni arriving here, I’m inclined to think there must be an American bag man.”
“Mr. Romano…”
He interrupted: “Romano, plain Romano. Please?”
“I need to know what I seem to be agreeing to,” Julie said.
“Why, to the most expedient return of an art treasure to the country from which it was stolen, and the furtherance of what we might call poetic justice. So far as Alberto and I are concerned, I think we should call it a counter-caper; you may find such a description compromising. But if you are to become a good newspaper woman, Miss Julie, it is the story of a lifetime. Believe me, it is much better than a profile of Romano. But I will give you both. There is one question, however, I think you should decide: to what extent are we to involve Geoffrey Hayes?”
“To no extent whatsoever,” Julie said. “Absolutely not.”
“You are misunderstanding. I don’t wish to involve him. I did wonder how you could escape it if, for example, you are both going to Maude Sloan’s party on Saturday night.”
“We’re not. Jeff is in West Virginia and he’s not going to be home over the weekend.”
“Then you must have an escort! Alberto is clean, well-mannered, and esteems every woman as though she were his sister. Have a slice of melon, Miss Julie. Then we must go to work.”
TWENTY-FIVE
O’GRADY AWOKE TO a throbbing noise which seemed at first to be in his own head only; it came through stronger and he knew that someone was pounding on the door. If it was the police, sure, wouldn’t they say it was the police?
He called out, “Who’s there?” and got no answer, only a pause in the pounding and then its resumption, softer, as though the knocker was resting his knuckles and using the fat of his hand.
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