Stuart Woods: Insatiable Appetites

Dolce felt a pang in her chest that she would not have expected in the circumstances. She was unable to speak.

“Your father was ninety-four years old,” the mother superior said. “He lived a long and abundantly fruitful life and was true to himself and his God.”

“Thank you, Mother,” Dolce managed to say.

“Your father and I have had a considerable correspondence since you came to be with us. He was very pleased to hear of your recovery from your illness and hoped he might see you again.”

Dolce managed a wry smile. “Thank you for telling me that,” she said. She had her own collection of letters from her father, which had always been warm and affectionate.

“I believe the time has come for you to leave us,” the mother superior said. “I believe you to be in every way fit to rejoin the outside world and to make your way there.”

Dolce smiled. “I think you are right,” she said.

“What do you think you will do?”

“I have given that a great deal of thought,” Dolce replied. “I think I will devote myself to my painting.”

“You have a remarkable gift, and I am glad to hear you wish to make a career of it.” The mother superior rose from her chair and walked into a smaller room, then returned, carrying a suitcase and a purse. “These are the things you had when you came to us,” she said, setting them beside Dolce’s chair. She then went back into the room and returned with a thick envelope. “Your father sent ten thousand euros, in preparation for this day,” she said, handing it to her. “He wanted you to know that your bank and investment accounts remain open, your credit cards, as well, and your apartment in New York has been kept ready for your return, if you wish it. Your sister said in her e-mail that there is to be a high mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral for your father next week. Where do you think you will go?”

“I will take a little while to re-accustom myself to the outside world,” Dolce said. “Then decide.”

“As you wish, my dear.” She came around the desk and embraced Dolce.

“Thank you for your many kindnesses, Mother,” Dolce said, then she picked up her case and her purse and left the room.

She stopped in the sun-filled garden and sat on a bench for a few minutes, letting her heart return to its normal beat, then she took a cell phone from her apron pocket and called American Express Centurion Travel.

A few hours later, a chauffeur-driven Mercedes met Dolce at the front gate and the driver put her case into the trunk while she settled into the rear seat. “Take me to the Grand Hotel Villa Igiea,” she said.

After an hour-long drive along the coast, the car arrived at the old castle, now one of Palermo’s premier hotels. Her travel agent had arranged everything: she checked into a spacious and beautiful suite and looked at her spa appointments. She was hungry, and there was time for lunch.

She was given a table on the terrace, overlooking the marina and the sea beyond. She had pasta with seafood and half a bottle of wine and reflected on her time at the convent.

She had been in nearly a catatonic state when she arrived, and it took a week of tender care to revive her. During her second week there a handsome Irishman arrived and introduced himself as Frank Donovan, a priest and a psychiatrist, who had been sent to Palermo for several months to treat a bishop who had been discovered to have a woman and two children in a village outside the city, near the convent. He would be a daily visitor for her first three months, and it took only a short time for Dolce to corrupt him. To her surprise, she found him to be no virgin, and a skillful and affectionate lover. Most of her two-hour sessions with him were, thereafter, conducted in bed.

The mother superior caught on before long, and Father Frank disappeared from her life. He paid one final visit, supervised, and told her that his patient, the bishop, had recovered and that he, himself, was being sent to the Vatican to become private secretary to a highly placed cardinal, who was in charge of the Vatican Bank.

When Father Frank said goodbye, he pressed the cell phone into her hand, along with a note with a phone number, so they had stayed in touch.

Now, over her espresso, Dolce called him. “I’m out,” she said.

“Wonderful! Come to Rome.”

“My father has died, and I must go to New York. Can you come there?”

“Not for at least a week,” he said. “It will take me that long to invent some business there.”

She gave him her address on the Upper East Side. “Bring civilian clothes,” she said.

He laughed. “I doubt if I will need much in the way of clothing.”

“You are quite right, but we will need to leave the apartment sometimes.” She said goodbye and headed for the spa.

Four days later, refreshed and carrying a new wardrobe in new luggage, Dolce arrived at JFK Airport in New York and was driven to her Park Avenue apartment. The doorman greeted her warmly and took her luggage upstairs.

Dolce settled back into her spacious apartment and began to plot her return.

Stone and Herbie arrived at the Bianchi house to find a large team of catalogers and art experts swarming over the place, with the exception of Eduardo’s study, which Stone had left locked. He greeted the team, then unlocked the study door and let himself and Herbie in, then locked it behind him.

“What do you want to do today?” Herbie asked.

“I want to search this room thoroughly for hidden compartments.”

“Why do you think there are hidden compartments?”

“Because Mary Ann was searching the desk for one when we found her here. Maybe she knows something we don’t. Let’s start with the desk.”

They had been at work for, perhaps, ten minutes when Herbie found the compartment in the desk, simply by pressing on a panel in the kneehole that sprang open. “It’s not so hard to find hidden compartments when you know they’re there somewhere,” he said.

“What’s inside it?” Stone asked.

Herbie swept the compartment with his hand. “Nothing,” he said.

The two of them spent the remainder of the morning searching every nook of the study, then gave up and had the lunch Pietro had brought them.

“What did you think Eduardo might have been hiding?” Herbie asked.

“Evidence of holdings not mentioned in his will or financial statement. Eduardo had the house, the art, and investment accounts worth ninety million dollars managed by Mary Ann, nothing else.”

“Ninety million is a pretty nice estate.”

“It wasn’t just about the money for Eduardo. He wanted power and influence, more than ninety million would buy.”

“And you think Mary Ann knows about these holdings?”

“Somebody had to know — she’s the logical guess.” Stone slapped his forehead. “I forgot to tell you the news.”

“What news?”

“You remember when Eduardo gave us the tour the other day, and you admired what you thought were two Picassos?”

“But one was a Braque? Sure, I remember.”

“That afternoon, before his stroke, Eduardo wrote a codicil to his will that left you those two pictures.”

Herbie burst out laughing. “Are you kidding me?”

“Nope, and the estate will pay the taxes. He left me the Modigliani portrait.”

“Well, congratulations to us, I guess,” Herbie said.

There was a rap on the study door.

“Come in!” Stone shouted. A woman wearing an artist’s smock and carrying a clipboard came into the room. “Excuse me, Mr. Barrington, Mr. Fisher,” she said, “but we’ve discovered something you should know about. Would you come with me, please?”

Stone and Herbie followed the woman into the large dining room. There were four blank spaces where pictures had hung, and the four were out of their frames and spread out on a green baize cloth over the dining table: a Matisse, a Toulouse-Lautrec, and two Blue Period Picassos.