Murder at the National Gallery Read online

  Mason wondered how much Lafroing knew. If he knew everything and was willing to become part of it, he might be open to a bribe (he mentally changed it to “honorarium”) to give a false report to del Brasco. If del Brasco was acting honorably, the men he’d sent would have a million dollars to give Luther pending Lafroing’s examination of Grottesca. He could take Lafroing into his confidence, offer him a bigger fee than del Brasco was paying him. How much would it take del Brasco to buy someone like Peter Lafroing? Ten thousand dollars? Fifty thousand? Luther would give him double that. No, more. He’d offer him a half-million dollars.

  “I would prefer that you examine the painting alone,” Mason said. “Without these other men.”

  “I’m sure that will be acceptable to them. Where can we meet tonight? Say, eleven o’clock?”

  Mason tried to organize his thoughts. Invite Lafroing to his apartment? Out of the question. It would have to be a neutral place.

  “Luther?” Lafroing asked. “Are you there?”

  “Yes. Just thinking of a place to meet. Not here. At my apartment. Too many people around. Maybe a restaurant.”

  Lafroing laughed. “Hardly the place to appraise a painting. Excuse me a moment.”

  Mason strained to hear a muffled conversation in the background but couldn’t make out the words. Lafroing came back on the line. “Why not the Atlas Building?”

  “The Atlas Building?”

  “Yes. A dreary place, agreed, but we can be assured of being alone. A friend has a studio there. I have a key to it and to the building. Eleven o’clock sharp? I’ll be inside the front door on the ground floor. I don’t dare leave it open for you in that neighborhood.”

  “I suppose—”

  “I must admit, Luther, that when I learned it was you who had the painting, I was—well, I suppose shocked is the word. I’m anxious to hear how it all came about.”

  “I—”

  “There will be no problem, of course. I’ve already spent considerable time with the work when it was at the National Gallery. No question of its authenticity. Still, I have an obligation.”

  “Of course.”

  “It will be good to see you again. Eleven. The front door of the Atlas Building.”

  “Yes. But come alone, Peter.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem. Hold on.” More muffled background conversation. “I’ll be by myself,” he said.

  “You’ll have the money with you?” Mason asked. “I can’t turn the painting over without the money.”

  “I told you I have nothing to do with your financial arrangements. But I’m sure the gentleman is fair and honorable.”

  “You haven’t met your client?” Luther asked.

  “Not personally. We can go over all of this tonight when I see you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Rest assured, Luther, your mischievous little secret is safe with me. My lips are sealed.”

  “Peter, perhaps you’d prefer to take the painting with you for a more prolonged examination. That would be acceptable to me, provided a good-faith advance was paid.” Lafroing said nothing. “In the neighborhood of, oh, a hundred thousand dollars. I trust your client. Once you’ve validated the work’s authenticity, he can send me the balance.”

  “That certainly sounds fair, Luther. I’ll ask about it.”

  “Fine. Good. Eleven tonight.”

  Mason slowly lowered the receiver into its cradle.

  Julian did the same with the desk phone.

  When Mason returned to the living room, Julian and Lynn were sitting close together on the couch.

  “Who was that?” Julian asked.

  “Just a friend. Now, let’s get back to this nonsense you were talking about before we were interrupted.”

  Julian stood and approached his father. “It’s not nonsense and you know it. That Caravaggio you sent back to Italy was a phony. You have the original. Lynn saw it.”

  Mason turned to her. “If you were so sure I had the original Grottesca, why didn’t you just take it when you broke into my apartment?”

  Lynn, too, stood. “ ‘Broke in?’ I had a key. You gave me the key.”

  “Because we were close.”

  “You were lovers,” Julian said.

  “And now you are,” Mason said, barely able to contain his anger. And hurt.

  “I didn’t take the paintings because I didn’t think it was right,” said Lynn. “I wanted to talk to you about it.”

  “You didn’t think it was right? What is right for you, Lynn? Using me to get ahead at the National Gallery? Sleeping with my son?”

  “Why don’t we just stop the BS?” Julian said. “Where are the paintings?”

  “That is none of your business,” Mason said.

  “We’re making it our business.”

  Mason felt weak, thought he might faint, and sat in the desk chair. It was incomprehensible to him to be confronted by his son this way. Like some lowlife extorting money from him. Of course, Julian had been doing that for years. The difference was that now, all pretense of subtlety had been abandoned.

  “What do you want?” Mason asked, his thin voice mirroring his defeat.

  “Let us in on it with you,” Julian said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Cut us in. You must have a buyer for the painting or you wouldn’t have bothered with all this. It’s worth, what, forty million? Fifty? How much are you getting for it?”

  “I’d rather not say.”

  Lynn said, “You obviously had two copies made, Luther. One went back to Italy. The other one was in the closet along with the original. What are you planning to do, pawn the forgery off on a buyer and keep Grottesca for yourself?”

  “I—”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Julian said. “We can sell the original in Japan. Or South America. Why mess around with giving a phony painting to somebody in return for a few bucks?”

  “Or,” Lynn said, “for more than a few bucks.”

  Mason stood. “I’ll have to think about it.” They would never understand, he knew, that everything he’d suffered, all the scheming, planning, the pain and the fear, had nothing to do with money. Yes, he wanted enough on which to live nicely. But he hadn’t stolen Grottesca to become rich. It was the work itself he coveted. These two greedy, ambitious young pups would never understand that. No one would.

  “I’m meeting with people tomorrow night,” he said. “After I do, we can talk about this.”

  Julian and Lynn looked at each other, knowing he was lying. His meeting was that night, four hours from now. “Where will we meet tomorrow night?” Julian asked.

  “Right here.”

  “You’re sure you’ll be here?”

  “Have I ever lied to you, Julian?”

  “Maybe you’re lying to me now.”

  Mason had had enough. “Get out!” he shouted. “Just get out of here. The sight of you disgusts me.”

  “We’ll be back tomorrow night,” Julian said. Then he gave one of his small laughs. “Jesus, I never figured you had it in you—Dad.”

  Mason bolted the door behind them and called Pims. “I have to see you right away, Scott.”

  “I’m here, dear friend. I’m in the process of whipping up a lovely batch of cape sante in tecia conchiglie dei pellegrini in umido. I bought some delectable bay scallops, coral and all. I shall set the table for two.”

  “I’m not coming for food, damn it!”

  “Of course not. But man must eat. Besides, nourishment is good for the brain, and I have a feeling you’re going to need every gray cell you possess. Come on over, Luther.”

  “The forgery was done by a drunken French genius named Jacques Saison.”

  The meeting in Whitney’s office on the seventh floor of the East Building had been going on for hours. Present were Whitney; Senior Curator Paul Bishop; Chief of Conservation Donald Fechter; head of the National Gallery’s Public Information Office Philip Simone; Annabel Reed-Smith; Vatican senior curator Joseph
Spagnola; Anthony Benedetto from the Italian Embassy; Steve Jordan, chief of Washington MPD’s Art Squad; his assistant, Gloria Watson; and the National Gallery’s head of security, Carl Kelley. Jordan had the floor.

  “According to the information I’ve received from a colleague at Italy’s Delegation for the Recovery of Missing Works of Art—they have fewer people working for it than there are words in the title—Carlo Giliberti personally delivered the original Grottesca to Saison in Paris. Saison, it seems, copied it, and Luther picked up the original and copy, although that isn’t written in stone at this juncture.”

  Benedetto, the new cultural attaché to Washington, swore softly in Italian.

  Jordan continued: “My counterparts in Italy are still trying to determine through Customs how Mason, or someone acting on his behalf, got the original and copy back into the States.”

  Carl Kelley interrupted. “That would be interesting,” he said. “But I’m more interested in how the paintings got switched here in the Gallery. There’s no question that what hung on the wall for that month was the real thing—is there?”

  “Of course not,” Whitney said.

  “So at some point between the time it was taken off the gallery wall and the crate went back to Italy, Mason managed to swap the original for a forgery,” said Kelley.

  “I hate to play devil’s advocate,” Annabel said, “or be the lawyer again, but aren’t we assuming too much to be accusing Luther? I mean, from what’s been presented here so far, Carlo Giliberti took the original Grottesca out of Italy and gave it to this forger in Paris. You seem sure of that. You’re also certain that the Grottesca delivered to the church in Ravello is a forgery. But I haven’t heard anything that definitively links Luther Mason to those acts.”

  Paul Bishop said, “It had to be Luther. Put all the pieces together and the puzzle forms his face. His obsession with Caravaggio, especially Grottesca. The frequent trips to Italy. His close friendship with Giliberti.” To Fechter: “Your people who crated Grottesca for the return to Italy told you that they left Luther alone in the room because he started to cry. Jesus, that painting should never have been left alone for any reason, under any circumstance.”

  Fechter started to say something, but Whitney waved him off. “The security guard has Luther’s signature entering that room at precisely the time Grottesca was being readied for shipment. He had those few minutes alone, more than enough time to make the exchange.”

  “We all noticed,” said Paul Bishop, “how Luther spent the month Grottesca was on exhibition carrying paintings everywhere he went. Always a couple of paintings, sometimes wrapped, sometimes in that big portfolio he’s so fond of using. That must have been part of his plan. No one thought twice about his carrying art into the shipping room.”

  “I know, I know,” Annabel said. “But we’re still dealing with supposition.”

  “Go over again for us what Luther said when you showed him the correspondence from Betti,” Kelley said.

  Whitney replayed the conversation as best he could from memory, concluding by saying, “He dismissed it as being a stupid mistake.”

  “So did I,” Annabel said. “With all due respect, Mr. Spagnola, you’ve only performed a cursory inspection of the painting in Ravello. Surely, it will take longer than that to ascertain whether it’s a forgery.”

  Steve Jordan said, “True, Annabel. But we have the added information that the original Grottesca was taken to Jacques Saison in Paris and that he made a copy. You don’t make a copy of a masterpiece unless you intend to lay it off on unsuspecting buyers. Or in this case a government.”

  “Any idea who that buyer might be?” Whitney asked.

  Jordan shrugged. “There are dozens of rich collectors around the world willing to spend millions to get their hands on an original Caravaggio, especially one with the aura of Grottesca. A few of them have a standing order with the underground: Deliver me a Caravaggio, name your price, no questions asked. One interests me in particular. A notorious collector out in San Francisco, Franco del Brasco. Notorious because he not only collects art, he’s connected—mob connected. Rumored to be a major buyer of stolen art. But that’s all we’ve ever had, rumors, not enough to get a warrant to go in and search.”

  “Luther started his career in San Francisco,” Paul Bishop offered.

  “And we know he went out there recently,” Jordan said. “Stayed at the Westin St. Francis in a twelve-hundred-dollar-a-night suite.”

  “On a curator’s salary,” Bishop muttered.

  Anthony Benedetto cleared his throat. “Gentlemen,” he said, “all this conversation is good. But what is important now is not how it was done, but that the person responsible for this fraud perpetrated upon my people be found immediately. The original Grottesca is undoubtedly with him. Find him and we find the painting.”

  Everyone agreed, and the meeting broke up. Whitney said he would continue the search for Luther, and Jordan said he would send officers to Mason’s apartment. If the senior curator hadn’t been found by morning, an all-points bulletin would be issued.

  “Why not put out such a bulletin now?” Paul Bishop asked.

  “Because I don’t think Luther Mason is the kind of man to simply disappear,” Jordan replied. “Too many strings to keep him here. His son, right? He has his connection to this gallery and his reputation to uphold. He’s probably out enjoying dinner somewhere and hasn’t the slightest idea what’s going on.”

  Jordan walked Annabel to her car. “What do you really think of this?” she asked.

  “More than I let on in the meeting. I owe you one, Annabel. And I know you can keep a confidence.”

  “I try.”

  “I think Luther Mason did pull this off. Or almost. And I also think the buyer for the painting is del Brasco in San Francisco, based upon what my counterparts out there have managed to track down. Del Brasco sent two of his ‘assistants’ to Washington yesterday. Art appreciation isn’t their thing. Breaking knees is. Spagnola, from the Vatican, is no angel, either. Before he came over to see Whitney at the Gallery, he met with people in the Italian Embassy. Some of the people working in the Embassy are not what you would call diplomats. They have another function. Some have ties with intelligence services, some with business, some with organized crime back in Italy. There’s an aging mafioso there, Luigi Sensi. Looks like the age of specialization hasn’t escaped the Mafia. Sensi, along with committing other crimes, is their point man for stolen art. It’s big bucks for the mob over there.”

  “It’s my understanding that some people in our embassies aren’t exactly diplomats, either,” Annabel said.

  “Everybody’s practicing diplomacy of a different kind,” Jordan said. “I played down looking for Luther Mason tonight. But the minute I leave you, I’m getting over to his apartment. And I’m putting out that all-points. If he has the original Grottesca, and everybody’s out looking for it, his health could take a sudden turn for the worse.”

  Annabel bit her lip. “I hope you find him,” she said. “I know that if Luther’s behind this, he’s guilty of a crime. But not one worth losing his life over. By the way, Steve, what about the old priest, Giocondi, the one Luther claims had the painting in his parish all those years? He never showed up in Ravello.”

  “Disappeared,” Jordan said flatly. “He could provide some answers—if anybody could find him. Gone. The Italian police are looking.”

  Jordan opened the car door for her.

  “I never dreamed the world of art could be so evil,” Annabel said. “I hope you find Luther before anything happens to him. Despite what he might have done—well, he’s a nice man.”

  Mason was oblivious to everything around him as he left his apartment, got in his car, and headed for Pims’s place. He did not notice a car parked across the street. In it were the two men from the Italian Embassy. They allowed Luther to proceed a block before falling in behind. Their presence was not lost on Pims, however, who stood at his living room window overlooking the
street in anticipation of Luther’s arrival. He saw his friend pull up to a vacant meter and park, get out, and scurry across. He also saw the car that had followed, whose driver parked at a fire hydrant and turned off the lights.

  “What have we here?” Pims wondered aloud as he closed the drapes and went to welcome his good friend.

  29

  Pims’s floor-length purple silk robe was worn over a white shirt, his favorite Mona Lisa tie, gray slacks, and purple carpet slippers with gold embroidery, whose toes curled up over his instep. Although he expressed keen disappointment that Luther wasn’t hungry, it didn’t interfere with his readying of that evening’s meal. Luther sat at the kitchen table as Pims removed leaves of radicchio from where they’d been soaking in extra-virgin olive oil in preparation for braising. “… which would mean giving up the dream that has fueled your plan from the very beginning,” he said, his words accompanied by the steady chop-chop-chop of a large knife cutting through garlic cloves.

  Luther was in a state of almost total physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual collapse. He’d decided while driving there that he couldn’t go through with the final phase of his scheme. Instead, he would give the original to del Brasco, take the million dollars, and escape the country without his prized possession.

  Pims was appalled at that resolution. “Luther,” he said, “money has never been the object. Not really. If it had been, I would have dissuaded you from the very beginning. If it was money you were after, I would have suggested you rob a bank, or swindle some rich little old lady out of the proceeds of her late husband’s insurance. No! Your passion for Caravaggio, especially for Grottesca, is what enticed me to help you, to counsel you, to stand by you as you’ve gone through this remarkable exercise.” Chop-chop-chop. “All will have been for naught if you succumb to this moment of weakness—which I assure you is only temporary—and turn over one of the finest paintings the world has ever known to that lowlife in California.”