“Wait here please, sir.” One of the policemen carefully took the gold bowl with a gloved hand, slipping it into a clear plastic evidence bag. “Chief Valaperti would like to escort you inside himself. He’s arranged a private interview room.”
“What about him?” Roberto Klimt gestured nervously toward Maldini.
“He can’t hurt you now, Mr. Klimt.” The policeman glanced smugly at the handcuffed man. “Although if you’d prefer to have one of my men wait with you . . .”
“No, no.” Roberto Klimt was too vain to admit to feeling threatened, especially in front of such a good-looking young cop. “That won’t be necessary. Just hurry up, would you? I’d like to get this over with.”
“Of course.”
The three policemen hurried into the building, locking the car behind them. Roberto Klimt heard the doors click. He looked uneasily at the man slumped beside him. A few hours ago, Antonio Maldini had planned to beat and rob him, leaving him for dead by the roadside. The big policeman’s words came back to him. He’s a con artist. Quite brilliant. A sadist too.
Roberto Klimt’s nerves returned. Antonio Maldini had already outwitted his security team. Was it really beyond him to get himself out of a pair of handcuffs? He might wake up and overpower me. He might take me hostage! He’s a desperate man after all.
Five minutes passed. Then ten.
No sign of the policemen, or Chief Valaperti. It was getting hot in the car. Maldini was groaning, muttering about the bowl. Soon he would be fully awake.
This is ridiculous.
Roberto Klimt tried to open the door, only to find it was locked from the inside as well as the outside. He flipped the unlock button. Nothing happened.
Feeling his panic build, he attempted to scramble into the front seat. With his blond hair flapping and his tie askew, he knew he looked ridiculous with his backside wedged between the back and front of the car, but he didn’t care. Collapsing at last into the driver’s seat, he discovered that that door didn’t open either.
“Let me out!” He hammered on the windows, to the amused astonishment of passersby. “I’m trapped! For God’s sake, let me out!”
THE THREE POLICEMEN WALKED casually out of the side door of the headquarters building. They walked a few blocks together before shaking hands, parting ways and evaporating into the city.
All three of them were smiling.
CHIEF VALAPERTI WAS STILL in his car outside Roberto Klimt’s Via Veneto apartment when he got the call.
“He’s what?” The color drained from Valaperti’s face. “I don’t understand. In one of our cars? That’s not possible.”
“It was definitely Klimt, sir. He was in there for more than an hour. Right outside headquarters, yes. Hundreds of people saw him, but they assumed he was some madman we’d picked up. By the time it was reported to us, he was delirious with heatstroke. He kept saying something about a bowl . . .”
GUNTHER HARTOG DABBED AWAY tears of laughter with a monogrammed linen handkerchief.
“So you just sauntered off into the street, with Nero’s bowl tucked under your arm? How marvelous.”
“Marco and Antonio were faultless on the day,” said Jeff. He was sitting on the red Knoll sofa at Gunther’s country house, enjoying a well-earned glass of claret.
“I told you they were good.”
“I felt bad for the poor driver, though. What a pro! He knew what was happening right away. Never slowed down for a second when we tried to pull him over. Even when we ran him off the road, he was trying to get Klimt to give him the bowl so he could get it to safety. But the old fool wouldn’t let go of it.”
“I do love that you left him outside the Polizia di Stato building. A wonderful theatrical flourish, if I may say so.”
“Thanks.” Jeff grinned. “I thought so. Tracy would have loved it.”
Her name had come to his lips unbidden. It hung in the air now like a ghost, sucking all the celebration and bonhomie out of the atmosphere in an instant.
“I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything?”
Gunther Hartog shook his head sadly. For a few moments a heavy silence fell.
“Well,” Gunther said at last. “My client, the Hungarian collector, couldn’t be more delighted with his acquisition. I wired our Italian friends their cut last night. And here, my dear boy, is yours.”
He handed Jeff a check. It was from Coutts, the private investment bank, in his name, and it had an obscenely large number written on it.