“Not long to go now, sir.” The driver’s voice rang out through the intercom. Irritatingly. Klimt’s usual driver, Angelo, would never have been so impertinent as to interrupt his master’s thoughts with an unsolicited comment. Roberto Klimt wondered where his security chief had dug up this specimen. “We’ve been lucky with the traffic.”
At exactly that moment, two police cars, their sirens wailing, drew up behind them.
“What on earth . . . ?”
Klimt gripped the car door for dear life as his driver accelerated, so suddenly that the bowl almost flew onto the floor.
“Are you out of your mind?” he roared. “Pull over! It’s the police.”
Ignoring him, the driver weaved insanely across two lanes of traffic, setting off a cacophony of beeping.
“I said pull over, you imbecile!”
Klimt caught the panicked expression on the driver’s face as he turned sharply right off the autoroute. They were going so fast that for one awful moment Roberto Klimt thought that the car was about to flip over, killing them both. Instead, one of the police cars shot past them and pulled directly in front, forcing the driver to brake. They skidded to a halt on the side of the road.
“The bowl!” yelled the driver. He’d opened the partition to the backseat and was leaning through it menacingly. “Give me the bowl.”
“Never!” Klimt cowered on the backseat, covering the bowl with his body like Gollum protecting his precious ring.
“For heaven’s sake. Give it to me! We don’t have much time.”
A huge policeman yanked open the driver’s door. After a brief struggle, the driver was knocked out by a sharp blow to the back of the head. Roberto Klimt let out a frightened squeal as the unconscious man slumped down on top of him.
“Are you all right, Mr. Klimt?”
Two other policemen had appeared at the window. There were three of them in all.
Klimt nodded.
“Sorry to panic you like that,” said the giant. “But we learned at the last minute that Jeff Stevens had changed his plan. Your driver’s real name is Antonio Maldini. He’s a con artist, quite brilliant. Interpol has been after him for a decade.”
“But my security people are the best in Italy . . .” Klimt spluttered. “This man was thoroughly vetted.”
The policeman shrugged. “Like I say, Maldini’s a pro. Faking a background check’s nothing for this dude. Nor is hard-core violence. Antonio Maldini’s a known sadist. He’d have beaten you to a pulp and left you for dead before he took that bowl.”
Roberto Klimt shivered.
“We picked up his accomplice, Marco Rizzolio at dawn this morning,” said the giant policeman.
“And Jeff Stevens?”
The big man glanced at his partners and frowned.
“We don’t have him yet, sir. We raided his hotel this morning, but it appears he was one step ahead of us.”
“He won’t get far, Mr. Klimt,” one of the other cops added, watching the art dealer’s expression darken. “Chief Valaperti has set up roadblocks around the city. We have an alert out at the airport.”
Antonio Maldini made a low, groaning sound. He was clearly beginning to come around. One of the cops handcuffed him and, with his colleagues’ help, bundled him into the back of one of the police cars.
“Chief Valaperti’s asked us to escort you back to the city,” said the giant. “We’ll need you to make a statement. And I’m afraid the artifact the gang was after will have to be impounded as evidence.”
“I don’t care about that,” muttered Klimt. “Just catch that bastard Stevens.”
“Oh, we will, sir. Don’t worry. His entire plan’s just blown up in his face, Mr. Klimt. He won’t get away now.”
THE DRIVE BACK TO Rome took less than forty minutes. Antonio Maldini, still handcuffed to the door, slipped in and out of consciousness beside Roberto Klimt as they pulled up in convoy outside the police headquarters building on the Piazza di Spagna.
“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.
“No thanks.” Jeff handed it back.
Gunther looked perplexed. “What do you mean ‘no thanks.’ It’s yours. You’ve earned it.”
“I don’t need it,” said Jeff.
“I’m not sure I see what ‘need’ has to do with it.”
“All right, then. I don’t want it.” Jeff sounded more angry than he’d intended to. “Sorry, Gunther. But money doesn’t help me. It doesn’t mean anything. Not anymore.”
Gunther gave a nod of understanding. “You must give it away, then,” he said. “If it can’t help you, I’m sure it can help someone else. But that’s your decision, Jeff. I can’t keep it.”