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Part Three
Pentimento
47
Villa dei Fiori
She did not surrender without a fight, but then they had not expected she would. Luca Rossetti attempted to subdue her first and was soon the target of a ferocious counterattack, leaving Gabriel no choice but to abandon his defense of the painting and come to his newfound friend’s aid. He was joined a few seconds later by two of the tactical officers, who burst into the room with guns drawn like characters in a French farce. Next the techs entered the fray, and Gabriel wisely withdrew to safer ground to observe the end stages of the contest. It was Rossetti, with blood flowing from one nostril, who applied the handcuffs. Gabriel found the metallic crunch of the locking mechanism to be a most satisfying sound.
Only then did General Ferrari step unhurriedly onto the stage. After determining to his satisfaction that the suspect had not been injured, he commenced a review of the evidence against her. It included a €10 million wire transfer to the Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena as well as the suspect’s admission, preserved on video, that she was a key player in an international forgery network. At present, the Carabinieri were attempting to determine the origin of the payment. They were likewise working to identify the last threephone numbers dialed from the disposable Samsung now lying on the bottom of the Arno River. Neither task, said the general, would prove difficult.
But even without the information, he continued, there was sufficient evidence under Italian law to hand the suspect over to a magistrate for an immediate trial. Because she had been caught in flagrante delicto engaging in art fraud and related financial crimes, the outcome of such a proceeding would not be in doubt. She would likely receive a lengthy sentence in one of Italy’s prisons for women, which, regrettably, were among Western Europe’s worst.
“Upon your release, you will be extradited to France, where you will undoubtedly face charges for your role in the murders of Valerie Bérrangar, Georges Fleury, and Bruno Gilbert. I’m sure Spanish prosecutors will think of something with which to charge you as well. Suffice it to say, you will be an elderly pensioner by the time you are a free woman again. Unless, of course, you accept the lifeline that I am about to offer you.”
Under the terms of the deal, the suspect would receive no prison time for her offenses related to the evening’s sting operation in Florence. In exchange, she would provide the Carabinieri with the names of the other members of her network, a complete inventory of the forgeries now in circulation, and, of course, the identity of the forger himself. Any attempt at evasion or deception on the suspect’s part would result in the withdrawal of the agreement and immediate incarceration. A second offer of immunity would be unlikely.
They had expected a declaration of innocence, but she made none. Nor did she request a lawyer or demand that General Ferrari put his cooperation agreement in writing. Instead, she looked at Gabriel and posed a single question.
“How did you find me, Mr. Allon?”
“I painted four pictures,” he replied. “And you walked straight into my arms.”
At which point the mêlée resumed. Capitano Luca Rossetti was the only casualty.
She began by clearing up any lingering questions as to the authenticity of her identity. Yes, she assured them, her name was in fact Magdalena Navarro. And, yes, she had been born and raised in the Andalusian city of Seville. Her father was a dealer of Spanish Old Master paintings and antique furniture. His gallery was located near the Plaza Virgen de los Reyes, a few paces from the entrance of the Doña Maria Hotel. It catered to Seville’s wealthiest inhabitants, those of noble birth and inherited wealth. The Navarro clan were not members of that rarefied social stratum, but the gallery had given Magdalena a glimpse of the life led by those for whom money was of no concern.
The gallery had also instilled in her a love of art—Spanish art, in particular. She revered Diego Velázquez and Francisco de Goya, but Picasso was her obsession. She imitated his drawings as a young child and at the age of twelve produced a near-perfect copy ofTwo Girls Reading. She began her formal training soon after, at a private art school in Seville, and upon completing her secondary education she entered the Barcelona Academy of Art. Much to the dismay of her classmates, she sold her first canvases while still a student. An important writer from a Barcelona culture magazine predicted that one day Magdalena Navarro would be Spain’s most famous female painter.
“When I graduated in 2004, two prominent art galleries offered to show my work. One was in Barcelona, the other in Madrid. Needless to say, they were quite surprised when I turned them down.”
They had placed her in a straight-backed chair in the great room’s main seating area. Her feet were flat upon the terra-cotta tiles of the floor; her hands were cuffed behind her back. General Ferrariwas seated directly opposite, with Rossetti at his side and a tripod-mounted video camera over his shoulder. Gabriel was contemplating the L-shaped tear, 15 by 23 centimeters, in the lower left corner ofPortrait of an Unknown Woman.
“Why would you do that?” he asked.
“Turn down a chance to show my work at the tender age of twenty-one? Because I had no interest in being the most famous female artist in Spain.”
“Spain was too small for a talent like yours?”
“I thought so at the time.”
“Where did you go?”
She arrived in New York in the autumn of 2005 and settled into a one-room apartment on Avenue C, in the Alphabet City section of Lower Manhattan. The apartment was soon filled with newly completed paintings, none of which she was able to sell. The money she had brought with her from Spain quickly ran out. Her father sent what he could, but it was never enough.
A year after her arrival in New York, she could no longer afford painting supplies and was facing eviction. She found work waiting tables at El Pote Español in Murray Hill and at Katz’s Delicatessen on East Houston Street. Before long she was working sixty hours a week, which left her too exhausted to paint.
Depressed, she started drinking too much and discovered she had a taste for cocaine. She fell into a relationship with her dealer, a handsome Dominican of Spanish descent named Hector Martínez, and was soon acting as a courier and delivery girl in his network. Many of her regular customers were Wall Street traders who were making fortunes selling derivatives and mortgage-backed securities, the complex investment instruments that in three years’ time would leave the global economy on the brink of collapse.
“And then, of course, there were the rock musicians, screenwriters, Broadway producers, painters, sculptors, and gallery owners. Asstrange as it might sound, being a cocaine dealer in New York was a good career move. Anyone who was anyone was using. And everyone knew my name.”
The money she earned dealing drugs allowed Magdalena to stop waiting tables and resume painting. She gave one of her canvases to a Chelsea art dealer with a thousand-dollar-a-week cocaine habit. Rather than keep the painting for himself, the dealer sold it to a client for $50,000. He gave half of the proceeds to Magdalena, but refused to divulge the buyer’s name.
“Did he tell you why?” asked Gabriel.
“He said the client insisted on anonymity. But he was also concerned I would cut him out of the picture.”
“Why would he suspect a thing like that?”
