“I do quite well, really, all things considered, my age, I’ll be eighty-three years old soon, just think of that. My appetite is not good, too much wind in Mexican food, and I have trouble walking, as you see. The old trouble coming back, paresis they call this stage, the folly of youth. But you did not come here to talk about me. The painting, the best in my collection, you like it. Jar
“Excellent, the finest of its kind, Da Vinci never did another like it.”
“The horse filled with the battle lust, you see. The heroic killing and dying. But it is obvious why. Research has proved that Da Vinci is a corruption of da Von Giesel, that is of the family of Von Giesel, a Gothic family from Germany, so the man is proven of good Aryan stock.”
“I hadn’t heard that—”
“You doubt what I am saying? You think I He!” The old man’s hand pounded the arm of the chair; spittle dribbled unnoticed down his chin. “What do you, a mongrel Amerikaner dog, know about great art?”
“I know enough about it to pay a million dollars for it!”
The thought of this money had a quieting effect. He sat back in his chair, rubbing at his mouth, then almost smiled. “Quite right, a million dollars. No less for this, the pride of my collection. In fact, finish this deal and I might just offer you a bargain of equal worth. Look at this.” He fumbled under the blanket and brought up a creased roll of heavy paper which he flattened on his lap to disclose a watercolor painting. “I have been dabbling a bit, still. An original of mine, quite valuable in certain circles, I can assure.”
Robl held the flashlight and Tony looked at the painting. It was a badly executed view of a Bavarian or Austrian village, done in the worst possible taste, the perspective haphazard, the washes muddy. The initials in the corner, A.H., were picked out daintily in brown.
“We cannot stay any longer,” D’Isernia said. “It is not wise.”
The watercolor vanished back under the blanket, and with Robl’s firm guiding hand under his elbow, Tony was moved quickly out of the room and rushed back up the aisle of the church. The Packard was waiting at the portal as ordered, rear doors open and motor muttering, and it moved swiftly away as soon as they were inside.
“You are a very lucky young man,” Robl said, giving Tony a comradely pat on the knee at the same time. “He usually never sees strangers, you can understand why.”
“Yes, sure.” There was very little else he could say. Holding the wrapped fragment of painting carefully in both hands, Tony stared out unseeingly at the mountainous landscape moving by, the twisting road that crossed and recrossed the narrow gauge railroad tracks. He blinked at it, then glanced back over his shoulder with apprehension.
“Aren’t we going in the wrong direction?”
“That might be said,” D’Isernia answered. “What we are doing, if you do not mind, is going for a little drive toward Amecameca so that our mutual acquaintance can leave safely. A little precaution. As I am sure you can understand, he does not go out much, and when he does it is with trepidation and the utmost caution. He Could not resist attending the ceremonies today, so with a single stone we killed two birds, enabling you to meet him as well.”
The car pulled off the road under the giant pines and they smoked cigarettes while they waited. An occasional car passed on the road behind them, the only sound other than the wind stirring the pine needles high above. Across the valley below the lower slopes of the dormant volcano Popocatepetl rose up to the distant summit with a banner of cloud flying from it. Robl consulted his watch and the return trip began. There was no conversation. D’Isernia looked out at the scenery and whistled an aria from Madama Butterfly, Robl stared sternly ahead, Tony guarded the sundered piece of painting. They halted finally a block from the Hotel Vasco.
“Emerge now,” Robl ordered. “Have the examination made. The money is here?”
“It should be here this afternoon.”
“It had better be. Remember, you will be contacted at four this afternoon. If all is well the exchange will be made tonight.”
They were all waiting in Sones’s room when Tony returned, all except Stocker that is, who was undoubtedly still sitting insomniacly over his charge.
“Report,” Sones ordered.
“I saw the painting, it looked authentic enough.” Tony opened the folded handkerchief while he talked. “I was going to scrapings but Robl thought some kind of butchery was more in order. He cut a corner from the painting.”
Lizveta Zlotnikova looked at the fragment as at a fresh-slain corpse and screamed shrilly. “Beasts, swine,” she snarled through her teeth as she gently took up the canvas, adding even more insulting-sounding terms in richly throbbing Russian. Bearing the sundered canvas like a newborn, she left the room.
“They will be contacting me at four this afternoon to make sure that the money is here by then, I didn’t let them know it had already arrived. If the painting checks out the exchange will be made tonight. And there is one other thing ...” He hesitated,
“What?”
“I met—the man who owns the painting. He said it was from his collection. And there was a memorial Mass there, sort of funny, because he wasn’t dead and ...”
“Have you been drinking, Hawkin?”
“No I haven’t, not a drop, nor have I had coffee or breakfast either.” His stomach emitted a dreadful growl at this realization. “I’m going to order something up now.”
“Not before you explain just what it is you are talking about. Or who. What man?”
Tony clenched his fists at his side. “Adolf Hitler, that’s who. I’ve been talking with him. The picture is from his collection, you told me so yourself. He’s alive and well in a wheel chair.”
A thoughtful silence fell. Billy Schultz gaped. Sones opened his eyes wider and wider nor did he take them off Tony who crossed to the phone and contacted room service fairly swiftly, then ordered a club sandwich with turkey, a side of fried beans, a large guacamole salad with tortillitas, a jug of coffee and a bottle of Bohemia ale.
“Just repeat that,” Sones said when he hung up.
“Adolf Hitler. I have been talking with him about the purchase of one of his paintings.”
“He’s supposed to be dead,” Billy squeaked.
“The reports must have been exaggerated.”
“You are sure of this, Hawkin? Washington will want to know everything.”
“I’m not sure of anything. He had a little white mustache and hair over his eye. And he offered to sell one of his own watercolors. It was bad enough to be real.”
“I must contact Washington.”
“In school, you know, they told us he was dead.”
“I hope this is the food,” Tony said, hurrying to the door to answer the knock, saliva beginning to flow in anticipation.
“Absolutely authentic,” Lizveta Zlotnikova said, coming in, doing some quick work with her handkerchief at her reddened eyes. “The pigments, canvas, characteristic of the period. The brush strokes even more evidence, the hand of the master, what sureness. What kind of creature could deface such a masterpiece?”
She raised the sodden handkerchief again and Tony f back a sudden desire to comfort her, perhaps hold her to his manly bosom, sudden warm memories of her female one burning strongly before him.
“Then the meet is on. Get back to your room, Hawkin, and tell Stocker about this. And if I were you, I would not mention to anyone, repeat anyone, about whom you met today.”
Tony opened the door, then closed it again and turned.In the rush of the morning’s events he had completely forgotten what he had been told earlier.