Vanishing Point

by Morris West

  “The other side of his business is hard to document and very hard to prove. I know they were never able to assemble enough evidence to file charges. Besides, his clients, like your brother-in-law, are paying for precisely the services he offers: a new identity, a break in the money trail. As far as money is concerned, he offers no more than an introduction to trustee services. He doesn’t intrude—visibly, at least—into the money transactions. If you’re fool enough to put your resources in someone else’s hands, you do it at your own risk.”

  We were approaching the entrance to the autostrada, and I noticed we were heading not for Milan but eastward toward Brescia. I asked the reason. Carlino waved a conjurer’s hand.

  “We have to work together. We should get to know each other. I thought a lunch in the country might be a pleasant way to begin.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Also we can take a passing look at the Villa Estense, where Mr. Lucas was said to be in residence for a few days. I regret to tell you he is no longer there.”

  “Are you sure of that?”

  “I called a friend who called a friend. The local police made a routine check of all hotel registers in the area. The name Lorenzo Lehmann and the number of his Dominican passport were on record.”

  “When did he leave?”

  “Four days ago.”

  “Any forwarding address?”

  “Care of Francesco Falco of Simonetta Travel, Milan.”

  “Who, I am told, owns the place.”

  “Now that’s an interesting point,” said Sergio Carlino with obvious satisfaction. “My information is a little more detailed and, I believe, more accurate. The principal shareholder is Simonetta Travel, which owns fifty-one percent. The other shareholders are all represented by a common nominee. His name is Dr. Hubert Rubens. He lives in Geneva.”

  “So Falco has a beautiful operation. He books his clients into establishments which he owns but which have been financed by their money, channeled through Dr. Rubens.”

  “Pretty, isn’t it?” Carlino added his own footnote. “You want to disappear, you can even own a slice of the paradise you are living in—vicariously, of course—through Dr. Rubens!”

  “How many such places does he have?”

  “No way to know until one sees what he offers to you, but one thing is certain: There is a very large investment here and Falco will be very anxious to protect it. This is what I want to talk to you about. From this moment on, I am responsible for you. I have to be sure that you are properly prepared before you tangle yourself in the spider’s web.”

  He leaned forward and spoke rapidly into the microphone. The chauffeur raised his hand in acknowledgment, and a couple of kilometers later we swung off the autostrada and wound down to the network of secondary roads which crisscross the triangle between Brescia, Verona, and Mantua.

  “We have time to kill,” Carlino announced in his languid, lordly fashion. “Let’s forget Larry Lucas and commune with the spirits of this place. They come in all shapes and sizes.”

  For a man whose profession was the protection of the rich and powerful from the criminalities of their peers, Sergio Carlino was surprisingly well-educated and affectionately versed in the history of his homeland.

  “This is poets’ country. This”—he pointed to the vineyards, where the tender vines were draped like garlands from tree to tree—“this is what Virgil called ‘the marriage of vine and elm.’ That little town over there is called Peschiera. Tradition says that’s where Pope Leo the First confronted Attila the Hun, the Scourge of God, and turned him back from his march on Rome. The armies of Attila were camped along the banks of the Mincio, which runs between those hills. Their horses grazed the meadows along the river.”

  It took me a little while to understand what he was doing—talking me down from the state of high tension and defensive caution in which I had arrived. I was grateful to him. I felt myself relaxing and warming toward a trust in him. The Jesuits had schooled him well. He chanted some verses of Catullus and described how and by what waterways the poet brought his sailing boat from Greece to the Adriatic and thence to Lake Garda. He talked about the Scaligeri, who built their great castle to dominate the lake and shout defiance at invaders from the Alpine passes.

  After a while, the lake itself opened out before us, ruffled by a stiff breeze from the Alps, which set the wavelets slapping against the long tongue of land on which Sirmione and its attendant estates were built.

  The Villa Estense was sited under the shoulder of the hill which is the extremity of the peninsula. Its terraces and gardens looked southward toward the sun while the northern walls of the villa and the garden warded off the winds and hailstorms and the snow flurries from the high distant peaks of the Austrian Alps.

  The principal building was a conversion of an old casale, a country farmhouse built around a courtyard, with an arched entrance. Down by the lake there was a modern complex of tennis courts, spa, indoor swimming pool, exercise rooms, solarium, and a dock for the small flotilla of runabouts owned by the hotel. The terrace gardens were in full spring flower and the orchard trees had not yet shed their blossoms.

  We did not go into the villa itself but simply made the circuit of the drive in and out again. Carlino underlined the point he had made earlier.

  “You see what I mean about money? This place would cost a large fortune to buy and God knows how much to maintain. If Falco is acquiring this kind of property, it follows that he is either a very rich man or is stretched very tight for money. Either way, he is a dangerous adversary.” Abruptly, he changed the subject. “There’s a pleasant place about halfway to Mantua. It’s called the Locanda Velaggio. I thought we’d lunch there.”

  The Locanda Velaggio was a riverside retreat with a garden sheltered from the wind by lime and lemon trees. The food was simple but excellent: a country soup, a pasta in a rich cream sauce, river trout cooked on an open grill, fresh fruit, and a crisp Pinot Grigio to match it all.

  Pierino, the driver, proved an agreeable table companion, who regaled us with tales of his service in the more outlandish regions of the Republic: the Barbagia on Sardinia; the Basilicata on Lipari, the island of exile. He was a natural storyteller, and when I had difficulty with his dramatic narrations, Sergio translated for me. When the meal was over, Pierino left us to our private talk. Immediately Sergio was the professional, crisp and clearheaded.

  “So! Now we have to decide your next moves and ours in the Lucas affair. Let us be frank. Neither you nor we are yet prepared for what we hope to do. Let’s talk about you first. You have new identity documents and a curriculum vitae which you have not adequately studied and on which you could be very easily tripped up. You are like a man wearing someone else’s clothes. Do you not agree?”

  “I agree.”

  “So you have to rehearse your new self in the role until you are absolutely familiar with it. That means a daily exercise in repetition, like a student walking up and down, memorizing his Latin tenses. You have to establish reactions to unexpected situations, to questions for which you have no ready answer. Another example: You are identified as an artist. Clearly your new mode will have to be different from the old one. Have you worked up any sketches or studies?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “So the moment you set up your easel you will either be working in your customary mode or fumbling with a new approach. You see where I am leading?”

  “I do, very clearly.”

  “Now let’s talk about us at Corsec. We in Milan are not the same people as Giorgiu Andrescu and his team in New York. The scope of our activities is different. We protect people and payrolls and premises. We are concerned with economic espionage and the theft of sensitive documents. We do not produce instant miracles of electronic intrusion. We are well equipped with hardware, but we do not have a large team of junior geniuses playing little games on their computers.

  “Again, let me give you an example. We have established that Larry Lucas left the V
illa Estense and drove himself to Rome. That is where he surrendered his hired car. We do not know the hotel in which he lodged, how long he lodged there, or what is his next destination. We know that Francesco Falco is out of town. The phrase his secretary used was ‘out of town with a client.’ He is not expected back for several days. It is a reasonable guess that he may be escorting Larry Lucas to his final destination, but we have no proof of that. We are endeavoring to fill the gaps by various means which it is better you know nothing about.

  “So, we need time—more time perhaps than Giorgiu Andrescu seemed to promise. I hope you’re not angry at my telling you this, but this is what happens in international corporations. Each department works to a different rhythm, and the same brain does not control them all. I am not making excuses; I am giving you cold facts.”

  “I’d rather have facts than foul-ups, Sergio. I’m paying you for service and advice. What do you suggest I do?”

  “Three things. Trust me, first. Everything depends on our mutual confidence. Second, go into retreat and study your résumé so that you can answer in a reasonable fashion any question that may be put to you about your life. Third, start working on your new image as an artist. You must have work to show. I am not talking of an exhibition but of sketchbooks, studies, and the like. These will constitute your response to the first and most obvious question: What sort of work do you do? Finally, I should like you to stay out of Milan.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “Milan is an airport city, a busy commercial center. The risk of your case being blown by a chance meeting is real and quite high.”

  “How long do I have to stay out?”

  “Until I’m ready to move you on.”

  “Which will be when?”

  “As soon as I have enough pieces to fit into the puzzle. I know it’s asking for a large act of faith in a man you’ve met for the first time.”

  “It is, but I guess I have to make it.”

  “One more question. What exactly is the brief from your family?”

  “I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking.”

  “Your family has sent you to search for Larry Lucas. What do they expect you to do?”

  “Find him; talk to him; persuade him, if I can, to return to his family, pick up his career, and resume medical treatment.”

  “All the things he has just abdicated.”

  “Yes.”

  “Doesn’t it seem a rather excessive demand?”

  “I’m not in a position to demand anything. I can only try to reason with him.”

  “But the nature of his illness puts him often beyond reason.”

  “That’s true.”

  “So, taking the worst case. You find Larry Lucas. You talk with him. He refuses to listen. What then?”

  It seemed a pointless question. I said as much to Carlino.

  “I turn around and come home, for God’s sake!”

  “You miss the point,” said Sergio Carlino mildly. “You may well find yourself, a man with a false name and a false passport, isolated in hostile territory. You think I am exaggerating perhaps?”

  Clearly he wasn’t. He himself lived in hostile territory all the time. He had a bulletproof car and a driver trained in evasion. He had a bodyguard for his wife and child. I’d be a fool if I didn’t listen to the advice for which I was paying him. I mused over it for a few moments and then told him, “Very well, I accept your advice. Where do you suggest I stay?”

  “Why not here in the Veneto, a paradise of painters? You can paint up and down the centuries across the countryside—Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Venice, Ferrara. Your baggage is in the car. I can drop you anywhere you choose, and you’re still only a phone call and a two-or-three-hour drive from my office.”

  “What’s the nearest town?”

  “Verona.”

  “Very well. Verona it is.”

  “Splendid choice.” He was quietly triumphant. “I’ll install you in state at the Due Torri, hire you some wheels, and commend you to San Zeno, who watches over the place. You can even write love letters to Juliet and have them answered by the municipality. Let’s be on our way, shall we?”

  Indeed, Sergio Carlino was a very clever fellow. At the cost of a lunch at a rustic inn he had bought himself time to set his own house in order, collect the intelligence he lacked, and penetrate the careful defenses of Francesco Falco. On the other hand, he had impressed on me my own inadequacy and my need to work hard at being an effective client.

  By the time he delivered me to the Due Torri I was beginning to see the humor of the situation. There was also something charming in the notion that the municipality of Verona would indeed answer a letter to Juliet, who quite possibly had never lived there, if indeed she was anything but legend.

  My arrival in Verona was marked by good omens. The hotel offered me an elegant chamber that looked down on the Piazza Sant’ Anastasia. A rented automobile was delivered within the hour and parked in the hotel garage. Sergio Carlino saw me settled, briefed me on his office communications, and gave me a final word of advice.

  “Be patient, my friend. Nothing dramatic will happen overnight. Enjoy yourself. This is a charming city, and the women are civilized and chic. For the rest, be a good actor! Study your role and trust your director. I truly do know what needs to be done.”

  When he had left, I strolled out to join the crowds in the Piazza dell’ Erbe, with its forest of bright umbrellas and clutter of vendors’ stalls. From there I passed into the Lordly Square where Dante is perched, sour and somber upon his pedestal, and thence into the narrow alley crowded with the tombs of the Scaligeri, who were the lords of Verona in olden times.

  I paused awhile before the tomb of Francesco Scaliger, who was called Can Grande, the great dog, because he wore a helmet with a hound’s head on it. His sarcophagus is surmounted by his effigy in marble and carried on the backs of two great stone mastiffs. I fingered the ancient iron mesh, made of tiny ladders light and supple as a coat of mail, which surrounds the tombs and promised myself that I would come here tomorrow with a sketchbook.

  I shivered a little as I made my leisurely way back to the hotel. It was not only the evening wind that chilled me. I was stricken with that commonest of ills, the loneliness of the traveler. I was in reaction now. I needed talk and laughter about me. I wanted to be open and merry with my peers. I needed the company of a happy woman. These needs were simple enough, God knows, but they were not easy to fill on one’s first night in an Italian provincial city—or any provincial city, for that matter.

  However, I disposed myself, at least, for society. I showered, shaved, dressed with a certain casual care, fortified myself with a very expensive Scotch from the minibar in my room, and went downstairs to consult with the concierge. He was busy with a formidable dowager who might have stepped out of a Veronese canvas. His deputy, a fellow of my own age, was directed to take care of me.

  I was, I explained to him, an artist on tour, recording la vita caratteristica of each town and region. I needed, therefore, a friendly place to dine, preferably one with music where it would not be too hard to fall into talk with one’s fellow guests. I thought I did a fairly discreet job of expressing the needs of any red-blooded male, suffering from the solitudes of a traveler and anxious to divert himself with wine, women, and song.

  The young man attending me was understanding and helpful. He recommended a place called Pantalone where the food was good, the wines honest, and the company a useful mix of students, tourist groups, visiting conventions, and local artists of one kind or another. The configuration of the place was helpful too. It was set like a German beer hall with long tables and benches so that a trio of musicians could work their way up and down the rows between the diners.

  They did not take reservations, but he would tell them of my arrival and ask them to place me with congenial company. I thanked him. I shook his hand. Money passed discreetly between us. He summoned a bellboy to escort me to the door and point me in the r
ight direction. It was a short walk only. I should go on foot.

  I strolled under a new moon and a wind-scoured sky full of stars. By the time I reached the restaurant, a cavernous place in an antique alley in the old city, I felt elated and enlarged. I was out of the sickroom and back in the normal world, ready, open, and eager for any encounter.

  Inside the restaurant, I found my concierge had kept his word. I was expected. I was saluted with the honorific title “dottore,” though I suspected this was due more to the status of the hotel that had recommended me than to any appearance of scholarship on my part.

  The room was not yet full, so the headwaiter offered me a discreet choice of company on the benches: a walking club of males and females from Austria; a gaggle of local students, sparse groups of local businessmen, voluble or conspiratorial over their drinking; and three men and six women, touring scholars, he told me, from the American Academy in Rome.

  They seemed the most promising group. The men were youngish; they looked neither hostile nor possessive. The women were well-groomed, cheerful, and animated—and they were in surplus! I opted to be seated next to them. As I followed the headwaiter across the floor, I remembered with a start that I was traveling under an alias and that I would inevitably be forced into some explanation of myself and my activities. The risk gave me a new surge of adrenaline and added an extra spice to the taste of liberty.

  The group was absorbed in an animated conversation. As I sat down they gave me an offhand acknowledgment and continued with their talk. I busied myself with the menu and the wine list and with a covert inspection of the three women in the company who were seated diagonally across from me. The others I could glimpse only in profile unless I made a deliberate attempt at appraisal.