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73
Bar Dogale
Against all better judgment, Gabriel agreed to remain in Corsica through the weekend. He insisted, however, on spending Sunday night aboard the Bavaria, and by the time Chiara and the children awakened on Monday morning, he had put Ajaccio behind them. With themaestralat his back and his spinnaker flying, he reached the southern tip of Sardinia at sunset on Tuesday, and by late Thursday afternoon they were back in Messina.
That evening, while dining at I Ruggeri, one of the city’s finer restaurants, Gabriel read with relief that prosecutors in New York’s Suffolk County had dropped all charges against Lindsay Somerset in the death of her husband. Locked out of her homes, her bank accounts seized or frozen, she faced an uncertain future. There was speculation in a Long Island weekly that she intended to open a fitness studio in Montauk and settle permanently in the East End. The largely favorable local reaction suggested that Lindsay, with her act of madness at the airport, had emerged from the scandal untarnished by Phillip’s fraud.
Three nights later, in Bari, Gabriel read that Kenny Vaughan, Phillip’s fugitive chief investment officer, had been found dead of anapparent drug overdose in a New Orleans hotel room. Still unaccounted for was the money that Phillip had drained from the firm’s cash reserves during the final hours of his life. According to theNew York Times, any attempt to sell off the hedge fund’s inventory of paintings would likely prove disappointing, as collectors and museums were skittish about acquiring anything Phillip had touched. A team of experts from the Metropolitan Museum of Art had conducted a survey of the warehouse on East Ninety-First Street in an attempt to definitively determine which of the 789 paintings were forgeries and which were authentic. Consensus had proven impossible.
Accompanying the article was a photograph of the last painting Phillip acquired before his death:Danaë and the Shower of Gold, purportedly by Orazio Gentileschi. The FBI had determined that it was shipped to New York from the Tuscan city of Florence, doubtless in violation of Italy’s strict cultural patrimony laws. Whether it was a forgery or a genuine lost masterpiece the connoisseurs could not say—not without rigorous scientific testing of the sort conducted by Aiden Gallagher of Equus Analytics. Nevertheless, US authorities had acceded to an Italian demand that the painting be returned immediately.
Fittingly enough, it arrived in Italy the same morning that Gabriel, after a moonlit final run up the northern Adriatic, eased the Bavaria into its slip at the Venezia Certosa Marina. Four days later, after watching Chiara board a Number 2 at the San Tomà vaporetto stop, he escorted Irene and Raphael to the Bernardo Canalscuola elementarefor the start of the fall term. Alone for the first time in many weeks—and having nothing else on his schedule other than a visit to the Rialto Market—he made his way through empty streets to Bar Dogale. Which was where, at a chrome table covered in blue, he found General Cesare Ferrari.
The waiter delivered twocappucciniand a basket of sugar-dusted, cream-filledcornetti. Gabriel drank the coffee but ignored the pastry. “I’ve been eating nonstop for a month and a half.”
“And yet you look as though you haven’t gained a kilo.”
“I hide it well.”
“Like most things.” The general was attired in his blue-and-gold Carabinieri finery. Standing upright next to his chair was a shallow portfolio case typically used by art professionals to transport drawings or small paintings. “Somehow you even managed to conceal your involvement in the Somerset affair.”
“Not exactly. That FBI agent gave me an earful.”
“It is my understanding that the interview was conducted over Bellinis in Harry’s Bar.”
“You were watching?”
“You don’t think we let FBI agents wander around without an escort?”
“I certainly hope not.”
“Special Agent Campbell gave me a good going-over as well,” said Ferrari. “He was convinced the Art Squad was somehow involved in your shenanigans. I assured him that we were not.”
“The swift return ofDanaë and the Shower of Goldsuggests he believed you.”
The general sipped his cappuccino. “A rather remarkable development, even by your standards.”
“Where is it now?”
“Still at the palazzo,” said Ferrari, referring to the Art Squad’s Roman headquarters. “But later today it will be taken to the Galleria Borghese for analysis.”
“Oh, dear.”
“How long will it take them to conclude it’s a forgery?”
“According to theTimes, it passed muster in New York.”
“With all due respect, we know a bit more about Gentileschi’s work than do the Americans.”
“The brushwork and palette are his,” said Gabriel. “But the minute they subject the canvas to examination by X-radiography and infrared reflectography, I’m cooked.”
“As well you should be. That painting needs to be exposed as a forgery and destroyed.” The general exhaled heavily. “You realize, I hope, that your fictitious sales through Dimbleby Fine Arts of London have added new works to the oeuvres of three of the greatest painters in history.”
“As of yet, none of the pictures that Oliver purportedly sold have found their way into the artists’ catalogues raisonnés.”
“And if they do?”
“I will immediately step forward. Until then, I intend to remain out of the public eye.”
