Giliberti went to where Father Giocondi was talking with a knot of guests. “Scusi,” he said pleasantly. “Come, Father Giocondi. You will be late for your flight.”
“What a wonderful thing you’ve done,” said a woman.
“Grazie, grazie,” the priest replied.
Giliberti herded him down the stairs and outside, into the cloudless night. A white Lincoln Town Car stood at the curb. Seeing Carlo, the driver got out and opened a rear door.
“Get in, Father,” Giliberti said.
With the priest settled in the backseat, Carlo spoke to the driver: “Listen carefully to me,” he said, handing him money. “Take Father Giocondi to his hotel. Stay with him. Capisce? Do not leave his side.”
“But what if the ambassador asks where I am?”
“I’ll take care of it. Do not allow the Father to speak to anyone. Anyone.”
“Si.”
To Giocondi in Italian: “You were excellent tonight.”
“Grazie. Signor Mason will pay me more?”
“I will talk to him. You spend a pleasant evening, take your flight home tomorrow. Speak to no one. I will be in touch.”
“Si. Call me when he has the money.”
“Buona sera, Pasquale.”
As Giliberti sent Giocondi on his way, Luther Mason went to a men’s room where he took two Tums and used a paper towel soaked in cold water on his face. Other men came and went. Some congratulated him. Mason struggled to acknowledge their kind words. He felt as though he had no voice. He tried to appear relaxed, but his legs were rubbery, and he leaned on a sink for support.
He eventually regained enough composure to return to the scene of the party, where hangers-on watched guards remove Grottesca from its easel and spirit it away to an unspecified safe place. His attempt to calm down had been successful. There was nothing to worry about, he reminded himself over and over, annoyed at his prior loss of confidence. The Caravaggio original of Grottesca was now safely in the possession of his employer, the National Gallery. And he was the one who’d found and delivered it, perhaps not the way he’d described it, but found and delivered it nonetheless.
He’d done nothing irregular—yet. And it wasn’t too late—yet—to abandon the plan.
Or was it?
The problem, he knew, was that others were involved. He could trust Carlo. But what about the rascal of a priest, Giocondi, who’d already violated their agreement by asking for more money? And the old man, Luigi Sensi, was a mafioso. As long as he was paid what Luther had agreed to pay, he had no reason to upset things.
Of course, the source of the money for Luther to finance the plan, San Francisco art collector Franco del Brasco, was also a gangster. A dressier one, and smooth, with good cover—a man whose hands and money were dirty. At least that’s what Luther had been led to believe. A very rich gangster. No reason for him to cause trouble either.
Still, too many people.
He spotted his friend, writer and broadcaster Scott Pims, speaking with two women Luther recognized as leading gallery fund-raisers, and started in their direction. But he stopped when he saw Carlo Giliberti entering the court. Mason went up to the cultural attaché. “What happened?” he asked, suffering the return of panic. “Where is Father Giocondi?”
“I sent him with Francesco to the hotel.”
“Francesco? Who is Francesco?”
“One of our drivers.”
“You entrusted him to a driver?”
“Si, Luther. I saw no need to go with him myself. I told Francesco he is to not allow the old man to speak with anyone, and to stay with him until his flight.”
“I wish—”
“Forget Giocondi, Luther. We must talk.” He led Mason to the center of the Sculpture Gallery, where catering personnel were clearing and breaking down tables, and then paused at the foot of a Milanese sixteenth-century Venus.
“What is it?” Mason asked.
Giliberti stretched up to Mason’s ear. “Money,” he said.
“Money? Giocondi?”
“Si. And they want more money in Italy.”
“Who wants more in Italy?”
“Signor Sensi.”
“That’s ridiculous. I made my deal with him. You said he was a man of honor.”
“Yes. But he did not realize the importance of the painting. It is more valuable than you led him to believe.”
“I led him to believe nothing, Carlo. I was honest with him. I expect honesty in return.”
“A nice sentiment, Luther. But Sensi is not sentimental. You don’t have the choice. He can do terrible things to you. To us.”
Giliberti looked past Mason and stiffened, his eyes wide. Mason turned. Standing at the other large statue dominating the center of the hall, the sixteenth-century Bacchus and Fawn, were two heavy men. Luther remembered seeing them during dinner at one of the Italian Embassy tables.
“What’s the matter, Carlo?”
“Them.”
“Who are they?”
“Security from the embassy.”
“But they work for Sensi, too. They will bring the money to him.”
“I can’t,” Mason said, anger melding with fear. “I can’t.”
“There is nothing you can do about it, Luther, except to pay. Or, of course, you can always return Grottesca to him.”
“I don’t have more money, damn it,” Mason said. “I can’t go back to del Brasco and ask for more. He’s already advanced me a half million, and I gave Sensi half of that. He won’t give me more until he has the painting. Make Sensi understand that.”
Giliberti shook his head. “Go to del Brasco, Luther, and get the money. One-half million, American. Sensi will not take no for an answer.”
The two men continued to stare at Carlo and Luther.
“I have to go, Luther. I told them you would have the money in three days.”
“You told them what?”
“Call me tomorrow and tell me you have worked things out.” He walked away at a brisk pace and disappeared into the Rotunda.
Mason stepped into an adjacent gallery and pretended to study Angelico and Lippi’s The Adoration of the Magi. At that moment, he adored nobody. He looked back. The two men slowly passed, paused to look in at him for what seemed an eternity, and proceeded toward the Rotunda.
He slumped on a bench in the middle of the gallery. The air had gone out of him. He tried to resurrect his earlier thought, that he still had time to call it off. It was a failed second attempt. The reality was he’d stepped into a vortex from which it was getting impossible to extricate himself. As a boy, after seeing a movie where someone was sucked into the ground, his recurring dream had him stepping into quicksand—of university, of scholarship, of the museums and art world, and now, this …
He could have avoided the situation, he knew, had he stepped back at any number of junctures. He could have declined dinner with Sensi. But knowing the aged mafioso had Grottesca—God, what a powerful motivator—propelled him to that night in Positano.
He could have decided in Ravello not to drive to the run-down church in search of the smarmy priest, Pasquale Giocondi. But he went. He couldn’t change that. Even if he could, would he have? If he hadn’t he might never have seen the painting, held it in his hands, for even a moment.
Despite those decisions, he still could have bailed out. But his call to Court Whitney, his boss at the National Gallery, had defined his situation, shaped it, thrust him into the role of a pilot who, upon reaching the point of no return on a flight, develops engine trouble and still must continue pushing forward, hoping to reach the planned destination.
He did what he seldom did, ordered whiskey, neat, from a bartender finishing up in the West Garden Court.
“Bravo!” His fleshly friend, M. Scott Pims, placed the fingertips of his right hand to his eyebrow and tossed Mason a salute. “Well done. Having a nightcap, I see. To steady the nerves after your triumph?”
“Where are you going from here?” Luther asked.
“Straight home to beddy-bye.”
“I have to talk to you.”
“Oh, I’m well aware of that, Luther. Your place or mine?”
“Yours.”
The murder of Carlo Giliberti, Italy’s cultural attaché to the United States, happened too late to make the morning papers. But radio and television broadcasts had the news.
Mac and Annabel Smith heard it as they were starting to enjoy a second cup of coffee in their kitchen.
Luther Mason heard the news reports driving to work at the Gallery.
The news interrupted an argument between Court Whitney and his wife, Sue, over where to spend an upcoming long weekend.
And Vice President Joseph Aprile received word of the murder during his early-morning briefing.
They all reflected upon having been with Carlo Giliberti hours before his demise. Charming fellow. Who could have done such a thing?
Press reports said that Giliberti had been found in some bushes on the perimeter of Rock Creek Park. The cause of death was a single stab wound. Robbery a possible motive; his wallet was missing. But his rings, Rolex watch, and $485 in his pocket were not.
Law-enforcement agencies generated their own initial theories. Washington MPD’s chief of detectives, Emil Vigilio, after observing the body and its resting place in the park, and the wound, commented to fellow detectives that it had all the trappings of a mob rubout.
“Why? Because he’s Italian?” a colleague asked.
“No, wiseguy. Because it looks like every mob hit I’ve seen. In the movies.” Organized crime of the Mafia variety was less visible in Washington than elsewhere—Vigilio’s experience with Mafia assassinations was limited to dramatized versions.
Wade Johnson, head of the State Department’s 1,000-person police force, charged with protecting the lives of the District of Columbia’s vast foreign diplomatic community, had a different take on it: “A snow bird looking for cash to snort up his nose.”
“What was an addict doing in Rock Creek Park that time of night? It’s like asking for it himself. And why not take the rings, the cash …?”
“In a hurry to get home because his mother might worry. Who knows?” Johnson replied before heading for a meeting of agencies that would inevitably end up arguing more about jurisdiction over the case than clues. “Looking for action. Smelling the roses. Got lost. Come on. This meeting should be a laugh a minute.”