Гарри Гаррисон - Montezuma’s Revenge

“To report. They are sending a car for me, someone phoned me, sounded like Robl, that’s all he said. It will be here, I hadn’t realized, look at the time, it’s here now.”

“Then get down there—and better not fumble this one, Hawkin. There is a lot riding on it. You better do a lot better than you have done up to now.”

Hurried on by this enthusiastic praise, Tony went to the lobby and was leaning toward the dining room and a quick cup of coffee, which he was yearning after more and more, when he saw Heinrich at the front door, jerking an impatient thumb. He sighed for thoughts of coffees lost, and changed direction.

“You are late.”

“I thought some coffee ...”

“There is no time.”

The dark bulk of the Packard hulked outside the entrance, Robl and D’Isernia both in large black hats peering at him from the back seat.

“You are late,” Robl said when he joined them.

“It couldn’t be helped. Are we going to see the painting now?”

“Later. We go to Mass first.”

“Today is April thirtieth,” D’Isernia said, and both men nodded gravely. They were wearing almost identical dark suits and as soon as the car had left the city they took out black armbands and pinned them to their sleeves. What could it possibly mean? Tony cudgeled his brain for holidays he might have forgotten, could think of none, Mexican or American. Easter was over. Mass? On a Saturday?

“You wouldn’t mind telling me what this is all about?”

“You will understand later,” D’Isernia said sternly, pinning a black rosette to his pocket.

“Can you at least tell me where we are going?”

“To the Hacienda Pantitlan. It is in ruins, burned during the revolution, but the chapel is intact. It suits our needs.”

They turned off the paved road onto a dirt track between the fields of high sugar cane. There was another car ahead of them, Heinrich slowed so the dust would settle before they reached it, and at least one other vehicle was visible through the cloud behind them. Very quickly the vine-covered walls and crumbling brick chimneys of the hacienda came into view ahead. Hein turned off into the grassy field and parked the Packard next to the other cars there, fifteen at least, and still more arriving. The occupants, all middle-aged or older, were proceeding slowly toward the chapel, mostly men, a very few women, all dressed in mourning, black clothes and sable armbands.

“We will wait until the others are inside,” D’Isernia said, looking at Tony’s lime-green shirt and shaking his head. “You cannot go in dressed like that. Stay back with Heinrich and you may observe from the rear. There is a small room there where you go after the services. We will join you there. Do you understand?”

Tony nodded gravely as though all this made any sense, and attempted to assume as morose an air as the others while t waited. The last car arrived, the last party of funereal septuagenarians tottered into the chapel, then they followed. It was dark inside the church, dimly illuminated by candles on the altar, and the atmosphere was more redolent of goats and hay than ecclesiastical incense. The rustle and whispering stopped as a man in dark suit and dog collar rose and began to speak in quavering German. Heinrich pulled Tony’s sleeve and they moved off to one side where they could watch but not be observed themselves,

“Would you mind telling me what is going on?”

“It is a commemoratory Mass as you can see.” He snorted with some feeling and spat noisily on the first floor. “The Spaniards have held this kind of a service before in Madrid, with plenty of Germans and Italians, of course. First time in this country. Dead, twenty-seven years ago today.”

“Who?”

“Nummer Eins. Number one. Hitler, Adolf, born Schicklgruber.”

“You have got to be kidding!” The massed voices rose in prayer before them.

“I wish I were. Old memories die hard, good or bad. I had no inkling of this before today. I left a message for Jacob Goldstein and I pray he gets it on time. There should be people here he is interested in.”

“Hochhande?”

“Who knows. But nothing is to be lost by finding out just who the momsehrim are who attend an obscenity like this.”

It did not last long, as though the attendees having made their appearances were eager to disperse back to the seclusion from whence they had come. There was a lot of German spoken, a quick litany or two in Latin, one brief and slightly hysterical paean in Italian, a mumbled Spanish speech about glories past, unscalable heights, victories, defeats, and then it was all over. Tony and Heinrich withdrew to the room to wait, sniffing at the air much thicker now with goat, crunching the caprine pellets underfoot. They left the door partly open and Heinrich, displaced German, Israeli chemist, stared with burning eyes at every attendee that went by, locking their faces in his memory. D’Isernia and Robl were last, closing the doors behind the tail of the processional.

“Heinrich, get the car when all the others are gone,” D’Isernia ordered. “Back it by the front door and keep the motor running. You come with us, Hawkin.”

Clatter of their footsteps down the nave, muffled echoes back from the cobwebby rafters above. Dust motes glinted thickly in the ray of morning sunlight that sliced in through a glassless window high on the wall and Tony resisted the urge to sneeze as his nose was assaulted. As though to a dark wedding they paced to the empty altar and around it to the door inset in the wall. Was the door open and had it just closed? It was hard to tell in the half light now that the candles had been snuffed. Robl went first and pushed hard on the heavy wood until the door reluctantly moved, then squealed open.

“In,” he ordered, taking a flashlight from his pocket and lighting the way.

Tony went in with the others behind him, feeling a sudden trepidation. Stolen paintings, million-dollar ransom, hardened criminals; if anything were to go wrong now he had the feeling that his life would be very much in jeopardy. The dusty floor was thick with male footprints mixed with narrow tire tracks.

“Over there,” Robl said, his flash illuminating the far wall and a cloth-draped bulk that stood against it.

The painting? Tony went to it slowly and took up the of the cloth. With none too steady hands he raised the layers of thick burlap to disclose the “Battle of Anghiari.” Stained and dusty, much dirtier than the reproductions in the books, but undoubtedly the painting in question.

“I am afraid the best care was not taken,” D’Isernia said. “But nothing drastic, simply surface dirt and discoloration, looks like carbon as well, from smoke of some kind. Who knows where it has been? But the restorers can take care of that easily eno correct?”

“Yes, I’m sure they can. But you must understand—not that I’m doubting your word—although it looks like the right painting to me, I can’t be sure without laboratory examination. I just can’t go back and say pay the million bucks, the thing looks okay to me.”

“That is well understood, Signore Hawkin, there is no need to apologize. I have here a palette knife, some glassine envelopes, a knife with the blade of a razor. May I suggest you take samples of the paint and canvas from an inconspicuous place, perhaps slivers of the wood as well, take them yourself so you will know there is no attempt at deceit. Have them analyzed, and then we will talk business.”

“Talk, talk, too much talk already.” Robl grated the words angrily, stepping forward with the knife in his hand, the blade springing into place; Tony shied back. “This running about must be finished, kaputt. Here is a sample to take back to your Russky that will tell her if the painting is real or not!”