Tony nodded gravely as though all this made any sense, and attempted to assume as morose an air as the others while t waited. The last car arrived, the last party of funereal septuagenarians tottered into the chapel, then they followed. It was dark inside the church, dimly illuminated by candles on the altar, and the atmosphere was more redolent of goats and hay than ecclesiastical incense. The rustle and whispering stopped as a man in dark suit and dog collar rose and began to speak in quavering German. Heinrich pulled Tony’s sleeve and they moved off to one side where they could watch but not be observed themselves,
“Would you mind telling me what is going on?”
“It is a commemoratory Mass as you can see.” He snorted with some feeling and spat noisily on the first floor. “The Spaniards have held this kind of a service before in Madrid, with plenty of Germans and Italians, of course. First time in this country. Dead, twenty-seven years ago today.”
“Who?”
“Nummer Eins. Number one. Hitler, Adolf, born Schicklgruber.”
“You have got to be kidding!” The massed voices rose in prayer before them.
“I wish I were. Old memories die hard, good or bad. I had no inkling of this before today. I left a message for Jacob Goldstein and I pray he gets it on time. There should be people here he is interested in.”
“Hochhande?”
“Who knows. But nothing is to be lost by finding out just who the momsehrim are who attend an obscenity like this.”
It did not last long, as though the attendees having made their appearances were eager to disperse back to the seclusion from whence they had come. There was a lot of German spoken, a quick litany or two in Latin, one brief and slightly hysterical paean in Italian, a mumbled Spanish speech about glories past, unscalable heights, victories, defeats, and then it was all over. Tony and Heinrich withdrew to the room to wait, sniffing at the air much thicker now with goat, crunching the caprine pellets underfoot. They left the door partly open and Heinrich, displaced German, Israeli chemist, stared with burning eyes at every attendee that went by, locking their faces in his memory. D’Isernia and Robl were last, closing the doors behind the tail of the processional.
“Heinrich, get the car when all the others are gone,” D’Isernia ordered. “Back it by the front door and keep the motor running. You come with us, Hawkin.”
Clatter of their footsteps down the nave, muffled echoes back from the cobwebby rafters above. Dust motes glinted thickly in the ray of morning sunlight that sliced in through a glassless window high on the wall and Tony resisted the urge to sneeze as his nose was assaulted. As though to a dark wedding they paced to the empty altar and around it to the door inset in the wall. Was the door open and had it just closed? It was hard to tell in the half light now that the candles had been snuffed. Robl went first and pushed hard on the heavy wood until the door reluctantly moved, then squealed open.
“In,” he ordered, taking a flashlight from his pocket and lighting the way.
Tony went in with the others behind him, feeling a sudden trepidation. Stolen paintings, million-dollar ransom, hardened criminals; if anything were to go wrong now he had the feeling that his life would be very much in jeopardy. The dusty floor was thick with male footprints mixed with narrow tire tracks.
“Over there,” Robl said, his flash illuminating the far wall and a cloth-draped bulk that stood against it.
The painting? Tony went to it slowly and took up the of the cloth. With none too steady hands he raised the layers of thick burlap to disclose the “Battle of Anghiari.” Stained and dusty, much dirtier than the reproductions in the books, but undoubtedly the painting in question.
“I am afraid the best care was not taken,” D’Isernia said. “But nothing drastic, simply surface dirt and discoloration, looks like carbon as well, from smoke of some kind. Who knows where it has been? But the restorers can take care of that easily eno correct?”
“Yes, I’m sure they can. But you must understand—not that I’m doubting your word—although it looks like the right painting to me, I can’t be sure without laboratory examination. I just can’t go back and say pay the million bucks, the thing looks okay to me.”
“That is well understood, Signore Hawkin, there is no need to apologize. I have here a palette knife, some glassine envelopes, a knife with the blade of a razor. May I suggest you take samples of the paint and canvas from an inconspicuous place, perhaps slivers of the wood as well, take them yourself so you will know there is no attempt at deceit. Have them analyzed, and then we will talk business.”
“Talk, talk, too much talk already.” Robl grated the words angrily, stepping forward with the knife in his hand, the blade springing into place; Tony shied back. “This running about must be finished, kaputt. Here is a sample to take back to your Russky that will tell her if the painting is real or not!”
Tony cried out and would have jumped forward if D’ls had not stopped him.
Robl jammed the blade into the corner of the priceless pai* then with a swift motion accompanied by the rip of canvas, cut a ragged triangle out of one corner. With more heart-stopping ripping sounds he tore it free at the edges and dropped the fragment into Tony’s hand.
“Here. Examine that.”
D’Isernia nodded at Tony’s shocked stare.
“I understand your feelings, Signore Hawkin, and do commiserate. Friend Robl is a bit impetuous and, perhaps, slig coarse as well. But he is right. Skilled craftsmen can repair this little act of destruction so that the vandalism will never be seen. And it does give us something solid to base our negotiations on. Submit this to all examinations, and if you are satisfied and have the money the exchange will take place. Inform Mr. Sones that I will telephone you at four this afternoon to discuss the matter. Here, let us wrap this piece of canvas and protect it from further damage.”
He took his handkerchief from his breast pocket, shook it out and draped it across his palm. Tony put the piece of the painting on it gently, then folded the handkerchief around it. D’Isernia nodded approvingly.
“So. Preliminaries finished, we can go. But before you do, perhaps you would take some pleasure in meeting our principal, the man who owns this painting. When you meet him you will perhaps understand why, at least for Robl and myself, this morning’s ceremony had certain overtones of humor.”
The circle of light from the flash moved across the floor to an alcove, following the narrow tracks to the wheels that had made it. The wheel chair that stood there, the dark figure seated in it, gray blanket draped over legs and feet, old, clawlike hands clasped together on the blanket. Slowly upward the light moved, over the baggy brown jacket and yellowed shirt, the badly knotted black tie in the too-loose collar about the scrawny neck.
An old man’s face. A wrinkled, dewlapped face that despite its age seemed familiar, the face of someone younger.
The lock of hair now thin and white that hung over the forehead. The toothbrush mustache, white as well—had they both once been dark?—on that thin upper lip.
“Is it ... ?” Tony asked, choking out the words. The head nodded.
“I am.”
Thirteen
“How do you do?” Tony managed to say after a considerable time had passed during which he considered saying Pleased to ? you, but he wasn’t, really. The man in the wheel chair nodded happily, and proceeded to take Tony’s greeting literally, answering him in English with a thick German accent.