"Bye, Dottie," I said, as she hugged me. "Maybe I'll see you in New York this winter. It's my turn to go to the antique fair."
"Bring the new boyfriend," she said. "I'm dying to meet him. I'll bring whomever I happen to be with, and we'll make it a foursome." Kyle, who obviously had missed this last remark, waved prettily.
There was no sign of Antonio the Beautiful nor of any of the others, to my general relief, so I sat in the cafe and ordered a croissant, apricot jam, and coffee. The air was crisp but the sun pleasant, and I tried to get myself into a more positive frame of mind by refusing to think too much about what I was doing there, and what unpleasantness might await me out at the chateau when I went back to try to buy the temple frieze.
Several unbidden thoughts kept presenting themselves, however much I might try to ignore them. One was Lake himself. I'd thought Lake was a significant collector, knew him to be, in fact, from all the reports of his purchases, and the fact that he was on all the biggest collector lists worldwide that there were. For a man who spent a lot of money at it, he didn't seem to know that much about what he was collecting. The collectors I knew took some pride in knowing as much as they possibly could about their passion. It bothered me that someone like Lake wouldn't know the Micali painter, and even more so that he hadn't seemed to know about the lost wax method of manufacture, although he'd recovered quickly when I had explained it. It wasn't something I'd expect everyone to know, of course, but Lake collected bronzes, at least a few of them, notably the Apollo he'd missed, and now the Bellerophon. I couldn't help remembering the collection at his apartment in Rome: all that stuff, expensive but not exceptional, and all over the map, literally and figuratively speaking. This said to me that either he did it for the show, not because he was truly interested in what he was collecting, or he was pathologically inclined to acquire things, regardless of taste. Both of these possibilities diminished him in my eyes.
My reverie was interrupted by the unwanted arrival of Yves Boucher. "Leclerc has gone to the chateau," he said as he pulled out a chair and sat down without asking. "I saw him leave about forty-five minutes ago. He's really annoyed with you. I'm sure he's going to get that horse."
"Perhaps," I said.
"He'll be in touch soon," he said. "To gloat, and also to sell it to you at a much higher price."
"I can hardly wait to hear from him," I said.
"I was always on your side, you know," Boucher said. "I know you think I wasn't, but I was. I still am. In fact, I could try to negotiate a very small increase on his part. He and I are still on pretty good terms."
"I don't think so, thank you," I said.
"Why not?" he said. "If I could get him down to say, five percent, that, together with my flat fee of five thousand, wouldn't be too bad. I'm sure Leclerc will get it for a good price, maybe better than you could do, and so you wouldn't in the end be paying any more for it."
"No, thank you," I said again.
"But why?" he repeated.
"I'm no longer interested in the horse," I said.
"I feel you're not being completely open with me," he said, hand over heart. "There's something you're not telling me."
"Well, that's certainly the pot calling the kettle black," I said. "You have been stringing me a line ever since we met. Godard was jet-setting about the world, was he? He'd changed his mind, he was being difficult. Leclerc is the only person who can get me an appointment with Godard. Wasn't that it? The man is in a wheelchair, and he's holding a contents sale! How stupid do you think I am?"
"I brought you here. You wouldn't have found Godard if I hadn't."
"Actually, I've been thinking about that. If I hadn't been given your name as a starting point, I could have tracked Godard down. It would have taken me a day or two, but I have contacts, and collections like his tend to be known in the circles I travel in. I could probably have done it in less time than it took you to bring me down here. What were you making me wait for? The first day of the sale?"
"I really was having trouble getting you an appointment with Godard. He's not quite well, mentally I mean, as anyone can see, but I thought he'd come around eventually, and I didn't want you to lose heart. I didn't know about the contents sale, either. I really believed Leclerc could help you. I'll grant you he's not the most pleasant person to deal with, but he has purchased objects from Godard, paintings and so on, over the past several months. I was as much the dupe as you were in all of this. Maybe more. But I was told to see to it that you got to meet Godard, and that was what I was trying to do."
"Who told you?"
"Told me what?"
"To see to it I got to see Godard?" I said, impatiently.
"I can't reveal that."
"Well then, this conversation is at an end."
"Look," he said. "I need the money. You promised me a flat fee of five thousand dollars if the deal didn't go through."
"No," I said.
"I will try to get you the horse," he said.
"It's a fake," I said.
"What?" he said.
"F-A-K-E, fake," I said. "You probably knew that, too."
"No," he said, swallowing. "I didn't. Really and truly." For once he didn't put his hand on his heart. He was probably telling the truth.
"Then you're not much of an antique expert, are you?"
"Perhaps not," he said. "But the man who asked me to set this up . . ."
"And who might that be?"
"I can't tell you," he said. "I already said that. But he knows his stuff. I cannot believe ..." He sat staring at the table.
"Will you give me a lift back to Paris?" he said at last.
"No, I'm not going back to Paris," I lied. "You'll have to take the train."
"I don't have enough money," he said. "Look, is there anything I can do here to earn my commission."
"You could tell me who got you into this."
"I assume it was your client," he said.
"No, I don't think so. I doubt very much my client contacted you directly."
"Then I'll tell you who my contact is, if you tell me the name of your client."
"Do you want to be paid something, or don't you?"
"Five thousand?"
"Twenty-five hundred."
"Four," he said.
"Twenty-five hundred," I said. "Final offer. Considering all that's happened, I really have no obligation to give you anything at all. You can give me a blank check of yours, canceled of course, and I'll see to it that the money is transferred today."
"How do I know you'll do that, once I've told you?"
"Because where I come from, a person's word is good. I realize that is a foreign concept to people like you and Leclerc, but there it is," I snapped.
"Vittorio Palladini," he said.
"Who's he?" I said.
"Italian lawyer. Big collector. Not particularly discriminating. Rather nouveau riche, if you know what I mean. Don't tell him I said so. He just started collecting about three years ago. I sometimes help him find stuff. You really don't know him, do you? He's not your client?"
"Did he pay you a commission?" I asked, ignoring his question.