Michael Dibdin - End games

Appropriately enough, they were now crossing the Ponte Alarico back into the city, within easy walking distance of Mantega’s office. Zen told the driver to pull over and let his passenger out.

‘You’ve got forty-eight hours to set up a meeting with Giorgio,’ he said. ‘After that, I’ll take you back into custody and proceed by other means. And don’t dream of betraying me in the smallest degree. You are complicit in the kidnapping and murder of an American citizen. Giorgio might kill you, but I’ll call my contacts at the United States consulate in Naples and have you renditioned off to wherever they’re outsourcing their torture these days.’

Gheorghe Alecsandri arrived shortly after nine that evening on a flight from Rome. When the passengers emerged, Martin Nguyen was waiting in the foyer beside his driver, who was holding up a sign with the Romanian’s name printed in block capitals. Martin had vaguely been expecting an exotic creature from the Caucasian steppes — embroidered linen blouse, floppy black pants, knee-length boots — but his hireling turned out to be indistinguishable from all the Calabrians pouring off the plane after a busy day in the capital.

Once they were in the car, Martin produced an envelope and handed it over.

‘Your fee, Doctor Alecsandri.’

The academic then made what would have been his first mistake had he been attempting to pass for one of those local commuters. He smiled, broadly, warmly and with apparent sincerity.

‘Please call me George,’ he said in impeccable English.

Martin noted approvingly that he immediately opened the envelope, extracted the sheaf of hundred-euro bills and counted them. Nguyen respected caution.

‘So, you wish me to deliver an opinion on some antiquities,’ Alecsandri said. ‘May I enquire as to their provenance?’

‘No.’

‘Ah. And neither, I assume, about your interest in them, Mr — ’

‘That’s right.’

Alecsandri looked away. It occurred to Martin that he might have sounded a bit curt, a shade too American. Business was business and the guy had already been paid, for Christ’s sake. On the other hand, Martin knew that Europeans could be awful sensitive about their precious proprieties, and he needed to keep this guy sweet for now.

‘The fact of the matter, George, is that I’m acting on behalf of a friend,’ he said, with as expansive a gesture as it was in his nature to make. ‘The items in question have been offered for sale by a third party. My friend is interested, but naturally wishes to ensure that they are genuine. Others are interested too, so we need to keep the whole enterprise absolutely secret for the moment.’

‘Of course, of course,’ the Romanian murmured. ‘You can count on my discretion.’

Martin phoned Tom Newman.

‘He’s on the ground. Get Mantega round with the samples. We’ll be there in forty minutes, max.’

In the end, it took twenty-five. At one point, Alecsandri pointed to the driver and whispered, ‘This man’s a maniac!’

‘ Un romano,’ replied Martin.

Alecsandri tossed his head lightly, as if that explained everything.

The conference began an hour later in the sitting room that formed part of the suite which Jake occupied. It had been delayed by Alecsandri’s desire to shower and change, and the length of time it took Martin to prise Jake away from his online game and Tom Newman away from his mobile phone, on which he had been making arrangements to meet some girl called Mirella at the Antica Osteria dell’Arenella for dinner the following evening. Tom had been speaking Italian, but Martin’s passive command of the language was increasing by leaps and bounds. Too bad his ability to speak it lagged behind, otherwise he could dispense with his translator altogether. But he had plans for doing so just as soon as a deal was struck, so he didn’t comment on Tom’s evident intention of taking tomorrow night off. In fact, it rather suited his purposes.

He finally got all the players assembled. Martin himself was wearing his usual Islamic fundamentalist outfit: a black lightweight woollen suit over a grey clerical-style shirt tightly buttoned at the collar and tiny, highly polished slip-on shoes. Jake sported a baseball cap turned backwards on his shaven skull, a T-shirt that read ‘AWGTHTGTTSA???’, faded jeans artfully torn at the knee and thigh, and basketball shoes that must have cost more than Martin’s whole ensemble. Tom had gone native in pigskin loafers, khaki cords, check shirt open half-way down his chest, a yellow lambs-wool pullover draped off his shoulders like a scarf, and aviator shades perched way up in the nest of blue-black curls above his broad and unfurrowed brow. Only Mantega and Alecsandri could have passed unremarked anywhere. Well, almost anywhere, because the Italian was clearly strapped, an automatic pistol peeking out of the shoulder holster he had left just sufficiently visible for his purposes.

Martin gestured to Nicola Mantega, who proceeded to unpack a large golden plate and dish from the cardboard box he had brought with him and lay them down on the long table of some faux wood. Everyone clustered around, but there weren’t enough chairs for them all to sit down.

‘You go here,’ Martin told Jake. ‘George, over there please.’

He himself remained standing, as did Mantega and Tom. Jake picked up the plate and tilted it this way and that.

‘Tableware,’ he said. ‘You ever meet Rob?’

The question was directed at Martin.

‘We worked together on NT?’ Jake went on. ‘He bought his dishes at Costco, like in a crate, hundred a time, then threw them in the garbage when he’d done. Said it was cheaper than running the dishwasher.’

‘And more environmentally friendly, no doubt.’

Martin felt furious at Jake for revealing to these foreigners that he, Martin Nguyen, worked for a moron.

‘What do those letters on your shirt mean?’ he snapped.

Jake returned one of his unfathomably shallow glances.

‘Are we going to have to go through this shit again?’

Martin realised he’d screwed up.

‘Hey, Jake, I’m sorry! Didn’t know I’d asked you before.’

‘You didn’t. That’s what it means.’

He stretched the T-shirt out tightly, his nipples poking through the cotton in a pubescently girlish manner, grinned hugely at the assembled company, then resumed fingering his wispy goatee. Gheorghe Alecsandri had meanwhile been studying the two artefacts on the table with the aid of various instruments which he took out of the bulky overnight bag he had brought up with him from the sales rep’s cubicle into which he had been checked for the night. He examined each at considerable length, first by the naked eye, then under a series of furled magnifying glasses, and finally a small microscope that fitted away neatly into a leather case. He entirely ignored the massive silence which had formed in the room since Jake’s exchange with Martin. He replaced the two pieces on the table, sat back in his chair and sighed deeply.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘They’re the real McCoy?’ prompted Martin.

The Romanian gave him a look that he understood better than Jake’s, but definitely didn’t appreciate. It was time to make enough money to buy his way out of being looked at like that, the same way you could buy your way out of living in a walkup by the freeway, if you won the lottery.

‘I can’t see what Scotch whisky has to do with the matter,’ Alecsandri replied.

‘Answer the question!’ rapped Martin.

‘They are quite certainly genuine, probably executed by a Greek artisan, or one familiar with that tradition, for a Roman patron.’

Martin looked at Jake, but he was staring at the blank screen of the TV and didn’t appear to be listening.