Scarlet Night (12 page)

He hung the crowbar on the swinging window, eased himself down and over on his belly. His jacket caught on the hook and something fell from the pocket making a clatter and a watery plunk below. It was his knife, and as soon as his foot touched the toilet seat he knew where it had fallen. His feet on the floor, he ran his hand over the wall looking for a switch. The light came on like a splash in the face. There was only the commode and a sink, no shower or tub. He rolled up his sleeve and groped. He reached as far as he could into a fixture as ancient as any he had seen in all his travels. Without success. He washed and wiped his hands on a paper towel, and cursing his luck, threw the towel into the bowl.

He picked up the mailing tube and left the bathroom. The bathroom light shone across the room. There stood the desk with the phone and the table with Yeats and the crystal ball. But the picture was gone from the wall. He turned from wall to empty wall, then ran to the room up front and turned on the lamp. Nowhere.

He turned out the lights, threw the crowbar down first, and went out the way he had come in, except that he almost knocked himself unconscious when he banged his head on the window frame and fell to the ground with a jolt that rattled every bone in his body.

When he reached the car he threw the tube and the crowbar into the back seat.

“Be careful,” Rubinoff cried and reached for the tube.

“There’s nothing in it to be careful of. The picture was gone from the wall.”

“She’s decided to keep it and has taken it home,” Rubinoff said after a moment as though he had known all the time it would come out this way. “That’s what comes of being impatient, Johnny. The mere fact of my calling about it has elevated its value in her mind. If her husband
is
a collector, he will soon disabuse her of the notion. Or else tolerate it to humor her.”

“Put it in English for me, Rubin. I’ve had a rough night.”

“Either she’ll call me, pretending to concede that I’m the rightful owner, or we’ll not hear from her at all. In which case, I must think carefully before committing myself further.”

A
S SOON AS JULIE
opened the shop door in the morning she knew that someone had been there…or might still be there. She propped the door open with a chair. A crosswind caught at the curtain between the front room and the back and she knew what it was that was different: the smell; the air was almost fresh. Juanita hovered in the doorway and for once Julie didn’t send her away.

She pulled the curtain aside and from where she stood saw the open window in the bathroom, something she had not been able to achieve working from the inside. Her predecessor had nailed the larger window to the back room closed and Julie had covered it with heavy drapery and had all but forgotten it was there. Nothing was missing. There was nothing of value. The typewriter was so old it wouldn’t bring five dollars at a pawn shop. She felt jittery, and although she had nothing personal in the shop, the violation of the place made the place itself suddenly abhorrent to her.

She went into the bathroom. A muddle of dirt surrounded the toilet bowl, the dust on the seat brushed off by the intruder. He might have tried to wipe away fingerprints, for there was a wad of paper toweling in the bowl. She flushed the toilet, then closed the window and latched it although she could see daylight through the frame where the burglar’s tool had pried the latch open. She glanced down, then watched with dismay while the water rose to the top of the bowl, threatened to overflow, and then gradually receded. That too was a new development. She went out front, dispatched Juanita, closed the door, and thought about calling the police. The phone rang before she could make the call.

It was Alberto. “Mr. Romano would like to see you, Mrs. Hayes.”

“Now?”

“I will send the car.”

A
LBERTO WAS WAITING IN
the lobby. Grave, courteous, and utterly detached. Without a word to say. The elevator ride seemed to take forever and Julie had to fight a sudden feeling of panic. When they reached the penthouse Alberto moved ahead to open door after door for her, the foyer, the library, the gallery with American paintings. They came at last to a door where he knocked before opening.

Romano was at a desk in the center of an office, facing them. His desk was clear. He was simply sitting there waiting. Or in a reverie. He did not speak or get up until she was well inside the room. He rose then and said, but without warmth, “It was good of you to come at once.”

Alberto brought a chair for her and placed it beside the desk. The room beyond was a skylit studio. Julie could see an easel. Romano sat when she did. The office was full of books and papers, folios, and a lot of expensive-looking electronic equipment. A phone with several buttons was on a bracketed platform on the other side of the desk, but the desk itself was absolutely bare.

Romano nodded to Alberto and then said, “You must understand, Mrs. Hayes, I record everything. You may remember, I have many informants in the city, in many cities actually. I am a collector of more than paintings. I collect information on diverse subjects—and on people—and store it. Alberto speaks of my penthouse tapes.”

Julie smiled a little but he had not intended to amuse her. He paused and seemed to compose himself before going on: something obviously was wrong. Alberto was waiting, his arms folded. The whole feeling of the room was of something about to happen.

Romano said, very quietly: “Why did you bring that picture to me?”

Julie tried to swallow her feeling of alarm. “When you come right down to it, Mr. Romano, I didn’t bring the picture to you. I said I’d like you to see it; it was your idea to have Michael bring it here.”

“That’s quite true.” He glanced at Alberto. Then: “So I must ask, why did you want me to see it?”

Julie’s heartbeat wasn’t helping matters, a thumping that made it difficult to speak. “It just happened. It was something I thought of off the top of my head. Maybe I thought if you liked it, you might do something for the artist. Now it turns out, I may not even own the picture. I wish I hadn’t mentioned it to you.”

“Who does own it, Mrs. Hayes?”

“Mr. Rubinoff thinks he does. Or whoever he was buying it for. He called me a couple of days ago. Ralph Abel told me he didn’t want it, but he does. I went to see Maude Sloan at the gallery and she suggests that I keep it—unless he decides to take it to arbitration…”

Romano held up his hand to stop her. “How did you leave matters with Rubinoff?”

“I said that if he had Ralph Abel call me, I’d be willing to give the thing back to him and they could do whatever they liked about it.”

Romano pushed himself away from the desk. “Shall we take a look at the thing, as you call it?”

The tension remained but what Julie now felt had been hostility eased off. Alberto even smiled. Behind Romano’s back. She followed Romano into the studio and Alberto followed her. There was the smell of paint and wood, turpentine, and a mix of chemical smells she could not identify. Framing was done on the premises and other work as well. Romano approached the easel and motioned Julie to come where she could see.
Scarlet Night
was on the easel without any frame at all.

“Is it the painting you sent me, Mrs. Hayes?”

She nodded, but it did look strange, raw and naked.

He started to take hold of it and then drew back his hands and rubbed them together. He was pale and agitated. Alberto came and stood close by. Romano lifted the painting and turned it around on the easel.

Fastened to the back of the Abel canvas was a drawing of a running male nude. About sixteen by ten inches, it was very old, and Julie had to suppose, a master. She kept looking at it, feeling that something was wrong with the top of her head. It felt as though somebody was trying to lift it off. And yet she could think: she was certain she had suspected. Or ought to have suspected: maybe that was it.

Romano hugged himself as he rocked back and forth, never taking his eyes from the drawing. “I would have given half a million dollars for such a treasure and here it is before me in my own domain.”

T
HE ONE THING THAT
was going to remain clear for Julie out of the next few seconds was the sudden, sickening horror of having gotten herself into something profoundly wrong. Alberto ran for a glass of water—for Romano. The little caesar sipped and gave back the glass. Julie didn’t know at whom she was angry, only that it helped when the anger came.

“Let’s wrap the whole thing up and get it out of here. I’ll take it with me.”

Romano looked at her, his eyes blinking rapidly. “And where will you take it?”

“To the nearest office of the F.B.I.”

“And if you are intercepted on the way? Rubinoff must be a desperate man at this point.”

“He is. My shop was broken into last night. Now it makes sense.”

“Did you call the police?”

“Not yet. I had just gotten there when Alberto called.”

Romano nodded. Then, of the drawing: “Do you know what it is?”

“Just what I can see—that it’s old and—from what you said, it must be a master.”

“Would you hazard a guess as to the artist?”

“I wouldn’t—Leonardo da Vinci,” Julie said in the one breath.

“You are right.” Which surprised her. “Of which none is to be had at any price…Put it away for now, Alberto. I am trying to control its environment. Somewhat futile under the circumstances. Five hundred years…I would rather die than see anything happen to it now.”

“Do you know where it came from?” Julie asked.

“Yes. Alberto and I have made certain investigations.”

Alberto carried the painting across the room to a display case, the glass top to which was open. He put
Scarlet Night
in on its face, closed the top, and was about to cover the whole with a black cloth.

“Shall we have another look?” Romano almost touched her in his eagerness. “Pen, and I think, bister—a so-called lake color that’s supposed to be impermanent. Ha! Or what was it like originally? We must try to know sometime, Alberto. Cover it up.”

He indicated the way back to the office. “Now we must talk, Miss Julie.” She noted the switch from “Mrs. Hayes.” He paused at the door and looked back at the studio. “Do you know our principal occupation here at the moment? It’s a laboratory, really. We are trying to document the construction of the old pigments. The technique of certain masters, if you will. Alberto is the chemist. I am the provocateur.”

A gentleman’s gentleman, yeah.

In the office, he checked the tape deck before returning to his desk. “It is almost certainly the Leonardo stolen from the Institute of Art in Venice five months ago. Which is how I could identify it so positively, although like you, I did guess Leonardo.”

“It really was a lucky guess on my part. I don’t know that much.”

“More than you realize, I think. You chose the best.” He took a photocopy of a newspaper article from the middle drawer of the desk. “Here’s the
Times
account of the theft at the time. Not one word about the drawing has appeared since.”

Julie read:

VENICE.
Mar. 8 (Special) — A priceless fifteenth-century drawing by Leonardo da Vinci was stolen from the Institute of Art here some time during the night of March 7. The case in which the drawing had been on display was pried open by the thieves who entered the gallery through the skylight. How they gained access to the roof of the three-story building is not known. A new alarm system is in the process of installation throughout the building. It is expected to be in use within three weeks.

Alberto rejoined them.

“Isn’t it crazy,” Julie said, “that I should have got my hands on that particular painting…and then to have got it here? Just that impulse, you know?”

“Fate perhaps,” Romano suggested.

Not entirely as guileless as she made it sound, Julie said: “I just realized something: You could have put the old frame back on
Scarlet Night—
or a new one—and sent it home with me. You could have kept the drawing.”

“Believe me, Miss Julie, I contemplated the possibility. And there’s something else you must realize: I might very well have got away with the acquisition. What jeopardy you would have been in under the circumstances is a matter we may want to think about. Bring a chair for yourself, Alberto. We must ask you many questions, Miss Julie—do you mind my calling you that? I find it less formidable than Mrs. Hayes. Is that an impertinence?”

“Just Julie would be fine.”

He shook his head and went on: “I was going to say, you are right. Something must be done quickly.”

“Not the F.B.I.?” Julie said.

“It is not my favorite law-enforcement agency.”

“But you don’t have to be involved at all.”

He looked offended. “What would you tell them about the discovery? You don’t even know how it came about, you might never have known.”

“Mr. Romano, I just thought you might not want to mix with the F.B.I.”

“The reverse is true, my dear girl. The F.B.I. may not wish to mix with Romano. Otherwise, would I be where I am today? Given what you think you know of me, would I?”

Julie held her peace. He was making a point, even putting her on a little. He wasn’t really demanding an answer. “Did you know there was something—before you removed the frame?”

“I cannot say so. I keep asking myself. Alberto says I had nothing in mind but the bad taste of the Neapolitans, an opinion he doesn’t share, by the way.” He shot a mocking glance at the younger man.

Alberto threw up his hands. “My parents come from Naples, my whole family.”

Romano shrugged. Julie realized he was enjoying himself. For the moment; he became serious again: “I did wonder, I must admit, what you—or for that matter, a Rubinoff—would see in the painting.”

“Okay,” Julie said.

“Don’t be so sensitive. There is something to it, a certain, vulgar something, if you don’t mind my using the word.”

“That’s what I saw in it too: Eighth Avenue, Place Pigalle in Paris.”