Aaron Elkins: A Deceptive Clarity

Each of us- held a half-filled cordial glass. Robey had somehow acquired a bottle of brandy from recently discovered stores laid down by General Rommel forty-five years before, and he thought this would be a good time to open it.

"First of all," he smiled drowsily, "I want to offer a toast to the man whose generosity has made this magnificent exhibition a reality." He nodded in Bolzano's direction. I could tell that he hadn't yet gotten around to breaking yesterday's news. Maybe this was the final phase of the softening-up process. Robey raised his glass. "To il signor Claudio Marcello Bolzano."

He heard Flittner mumble "Hooray" as he lifted his glass. He had been as sullen and unsociable as ever during the reception, but I'd been surprised to see him there at all, since he had only three more days to put in.

The brandy was watery, but all of us made the silly faces people make to each other to show they've just tasted something special.

"I'd also like to express our appreciation," Robey continued, "to the German government for its extraordinary-"

He was interrupted by the noisy busting in of a guard who came galumping breathlessly over the hardwood floor in his heavy combat boots. It was quite dramatic. Anne, Harry, and I exchanged quick glances and settled back to watch.

"Sir!"

Robey turned, frowning. "What is it, airman?" His glass was still raised. He was the only one at the table who was standing.

"Sir, there's been a-we've had a problem. In the Clipper Room-one of the paintings-it's…"

It was as if we were all in a movie and the projectionist had pressed the stop-frame button. All the little sounds and movements of people seated around a table stopped. No squeaking chairs, no scraping feet, no breathing, as far as I could tell.

"All right, airman," Robey said with pointed calm, "what's wrong? Nothing to be afraid of."

The guard glanced nervously around the table, as if he didn't know whether he ought to speak in front of us. Harry had picked a good actor. "One of the paintings, sir- somebody got in there-I don't know how-the C-system was alarmed as soon as the reception was over-"

"God damn it, airman!" Robey shouted, surprising all of us. "What the hell happened? Spit it out!"

"Somebody's slashed one of the paintings, sir. It's in shreds-"

I leaned forward and tried to watch everyone at once.

Lorenzo cried "No!" and stood gawkily up in uncoordinated segments, like a camel, his hands on the table bunching the cloth, his Adam's apple going crazy. His father sat deathly still with his eyes closed. Gadney's mouth opened and shut, but I don't think anything came out. Flittner's mouth just opened and stayed open. Next to me, I saw Robey grope behind himself for a steadying grasp on his chair. Jessick shrank more invisibly into his corner. Traben I couldn't see, but I heard a soft hiccup followed by a distressed burp.

"And, sir, they scrawled something on the wall-in blood, I think-some kind of political message."

"Political message?" Flittner croaked. "What message?" He shot a furious, frightened glare at me, filled with outraged innocence. Not me! his eyes shouted.

I was as interested in the guard's answer as he was. There wasn't any bloody message in the script; it appeared that our airman was indulging a flair for improvisation.

"Sic semper tyrannis," he said, deepening his baritone. Not bad. "I think-"

"Never mind," Robey interrupted with a panicky glance at Bolzano. "Which painting was it, for God's sake?"

"I-well, I don't know. It's the second one from the door, in the little room at the back. You know-"

"The little room?" Lorenzo repeated, his voice cracking with strained laughter. "The little room? You mean it's one of the copies?" I thought he was going to faint with relief. He sank back down. "Only a copy," he said shakily to his father.

"Second from the door… " Flittner said. "The Vermeer."

Claudio Bolzano jumped up so abrupdy that his chair clattered over backwards. "The Vermeer? The Vermeer is slashed?"

"No, no, Father," Lorenzo soothed, "only the copy."

And that did it.

"Only the copy, only the copy," Bolzano hissed, his black eyes snapping, his head waving from side to side like a cornered wolf's. I half-expected a lolling red tongue to slide out between his jaws.

"Yes, only the copy, signore," I said. "Why get so excited over a copy?"

"You… fool!" He glared at me, choking on his emotion.

"Father," the mortified Lorenzo whispered, "please. You don't understand…" He reached a hand upward toward his father, but Bolzano easily swatted his gangling arm out of the way, and then, in a surge of sudden rage, backhanded him in the face with his closed fist. The sound of his blocky gold ring against his son's soft mouth was shocking and embarrassing, and Lorenzo's tall forehead blushed a brilliant pink almost before the blow struck.

"Idiota!" Bolzano snarled. "You don't know the difference-"

He spun and took three quick strides toward the door, then stopped as violently as if someone had jerked a leash.

He turned, staring directly at me, breathing heavily, saying nothing. His tongue emerged, not like a wolf's, but quickly, like a lizard's, twice darting in and out over his hps.

"A trick."

"Yes," I said, "a trick."

"And the picture is really all right?"

I nodded.

"I'd sure like to know what's going on," Robey said mildly. "I'd really like to know what's going on."

Harry stood up, scraping his chair back along the floor. "Mr. Bolzano, I'm going to have to ask you to come with me."

Bolzano looked at him. "I'm not coming with you."

"Yes, sir, you are," Harry said. "By entering these premises you place yourself within the jurisdiction of United States military authority. I think we'd better go now, please."

"It was a cruel trick, signore," Bolzano said to me. "Of all people, you should have realized how cruel."

I pressed my lips together and said nothing, fighting the urge to pity this small man with the big, hurt eyes, who was aging and shrinking in front of us. You tried to kill me twice, I said silently. You didn't hesitate over blowing up innocent guards. And you murdered Peter van Cortlandt, snuffing out that good man's life in the most vile, repellent way imaginable.

"I realized," I said.

Harry took Bolzano's arm. "Chris, I'm gonna need you too. You mind coming along?"

The last words I heard as the door swung closed behind us were Robey's.

"Will somebody please tell me what the hell is going on?"

"All right, I understand most of it," Anne said, shaking her tea bag up and down over her cup to discharge the last droplets, "but-damn!" The paper tag at the end of the string had come loose and the bag had plopped into the cup. She fished it out with a pencil and dumped it into an ashtray. "I understand that Bolzano had Peter killed because Peter found out about the Vermeer, and he was trying to do the same to you, and I sort of understand why, but there's a lot that still doesn't make sense, Chris."

"All right, shoot. I think I've got it all straight."

I should have. I'd just spent six hours in police offices, first at Tempelhof Security, then at Polizei headquarters, giving and gathering information while a numbed Bolzano went through the dismal process of interrogation and detainment.

The high point of the evening had come when I was asked if I could identify two muttering, arrogant hoods who had just been herded in by a squad of grim, efficient Polizei. I could, with ease and with pleasure. Skull-face was just as ugly and mean-looking as I remembered, No-neck just as awesomely houselike. Simply looking, at them brought a dull ache to the kink in my nose.

Finding them had been a personal coup for Harry. In looking through Bolzano's things he had seen the brief notation 10 in that day's space in a pocket calendar. He had suggested that the Polizei send men to the Inter-Continental, Bolzano's Berlin address, to see if anything turned up at 10:00 p.m., and the two thugs had walked in, finally justifying Harry's obsession with calendars and nicely wrapping matters up. In the nick of time, too; Harry was sure the subject of the meeting was to have been my overdue demise, which Bolzano had come to Berlin to oversee personally. When the two men were shoved into his presence, Bolzano, who had been contemptuously defiant until then, gave up, and it was all over.