A Glancing Light (A Chris Norgren Mystery) (32 page)

Antuono smiled. "Well, I wouldn't say that. The
Milanese
Mafia, yes, but that's all. I doubt that the Sicilian Mafia had any direct part in this."

I put down the glass and stared at him. "But you told me— twice you told me—no,
three
times, you said the Sicilian Mafia was—" Laughing, I sank back against the chair. "You just made it up, right? Also to keep me out of your hair."

"I'm afraid so,
dottore
. It was regrettable but necessary."

"No wonder they had no idea who the hell I was down there."

"They. . . ?" Antuono's eyebrows went up, but then he thought better of it, probably out of fatigue, and decided not to pursue it, which was fine with me.

Something else had occurred to me. "And is that why you told me you didn't want me ferreting information out for you—"

"Correct."

"—even though you'd already told the FBI you wanted some help?"

He nodded. "By the time you arrived in Bologna, we no longer needed help. We were sure Salvatorelli had the paintings."

So what Tony had told me about Antuono's asking for my assistance was true, which meant I owed Tony an apology. I grimaced. I hate it when I owe Tony an apology.

I stretched somewhat stiffly, realizing for the first time just how spent and grubby I was. I'd done a lot of sweating that morning and I needed a shower. And I wanted to be with Anne. "Am I free to leave now?"

"Yes, but tell the clerk where we may get in touch with you."

I stood up. Antuono, watching me with his head tipped against the highbacked old chair, suddenly barked with amusement.

"Did I say something funny?" I asked.

"I was thinking of all your warnings to me about the infamous Filippo Croce. It was hard not to laugh at the time,
dottore
. What do you think of him now? Foscolo's good, no?"

I laughed back. "I still don't trust the guy."

We had been on the train for almost two hours. Anne had a paperback mystery open on her lap and I was leafing through the skimpy European edition of
Time
. Both of us were doing more dozing than reading.

It had been a grueling day. By the time I'd gotten back to the hotel and showered, it was after four. Anne got the idea of seeing whether there was a train that would get us to Lake Maggiore that evening, instead of waiting until the next morning. There was; the Rome-Geneva Express would make a two-minute stop in Bologna at 5:04 P.M. We took a taxi to the station, stopping at a grocery store for sliced mortadella, rolls, fruit, and a liter of red wine with a twist-off cap. By the time the train cleared the northern outskirts of Bologna we were happily gorging ourselves in our seats, and since then, dopey with food and wine, we'd been drowsily watching the countryside glide by.

Now, we were in the darkening Po Valley south of Milan; flat, rice-growing country with great, rectangular tracts of flooded land separated by long rows of poplars and willows. Power lines alongside the track bed zoomed and swooped. My eyelids started coming down. The magazine folded into my chest.

"Chris?"

"Mm?"

"That agreement of ours—to pick up where we were and just let things take their course. Does it mean we don't see other people, or doesn't it?"

"Go to bed with other people, you mean?" That was my aversion to ambiguity asserting itself again.

"Well, yes."

I lowered the magazine. "What's this? Do I detect a need to put things into nice little black-and-white boxes?"

 
"Come on, I'm serious."

"Tell me how you feel about it," I said, treading carefully.

She looked out the window. We were whizzing through the only crossing of a tiny village. Bells clanged faintly. "I suppose we shouldn't lay down any rules," she said slowly. "We're adults. We'll be thousands Of miles apart. If we feel like seeing other people, we should."

"And if we don't feel like it, we shouldn't."

 
"Definitely."

"Well," I said, "I don't think I feel like it."

"Good," she said with a sigh, "I'm glad that's settled." She stuffed the book into the pocket on the seatback in front of her, folded up the chair arm that was between us, and settled her head against my shoulder. "I'm going to see if I can get some more sleep."

"Hold it," I said, pushing her off. "What about you?"

 
"What
about
me? Are you saying that just because you made a commitment, you think I'm obligated to make one, too? Is that the sort of relationship you picture us having?"

 
"Damn right."

"Chris, that kind of controlling relationship went out in the sixties. You're being manipulative."

"Damn right. Well?"

She looked at me, head tilted, lips pursed, then forcefully pulled my arm against her, patted my shoulder down like a pillow, and settled in again.

"Well, you're lucky," she said against my chest. "As it happens I don't think I feel like it, either."

About the Author

Aaron Elkins is the author of the Gideon Oliver series, one of which, Old Bones, won the Edgar Allan Poe Award as Best Mystery of the Year. He lives near Seattle, Washington, on the Olympic Peninsula. A Glancing Light is the second in his three-book series about art curator Chris Norgren.

His Web site is www.aaronelkins.com