Confess, Fletch

Fifteen

Fletch walked the “eighteen, twenty miles” to the Ritz-Carlton, which was around a corner and up a few blocks.

He hung around the lobby, looking at the books on the newsstand, until his watch said six-thirty-five.

Then he went into the bar.

Countess Sylvia de Grassi was receiving considerable attention from the waiters. Her drink was finished, but one was dusting the clean table, another was bringing her a fresh plate of olive hors d’oeuvres, a third was standing by, admiring her with big eyes.

Sylvia, near forty, had brightly tousled bleached hair, magnificent facial features, smooth skin, and apparently the deepest cleavage ever spotted in Boston. Her dress was cut not to cover her breasts but to suggest the considerable structural support needed. Clearly there was nothing holding them down. They preceded her like an offering.

“Ah, Sylvia. Nice trip?”

He kissed her cheek as a socially acceptable alternative.

“Sorry to be a little late.” All three waiters held his chair. “Mrs. Sawyer got her eyelashes caught in the freezer door.”

“What’s this, Mrs. Sawyer—freezer door?”

Sylvia’s big brown eyes were puckered with impatient suspicion.

“Just the best excuse I’ve heard all day.”

“Now, Flesh, I am not going to have any of your double-talk in English. I want the truth.”

“Absolutely. What are you drinking?”

“Campari in soda.”

“Still watching your figure, uh? Might as well. Everyone else is.” He said to all the waiters—as he could get the eye of none of them—“A Campari and soda and a Bath Towel. You don’t have a Bath Towel? Then I’ll just have a Chivas and water. Now, Sylvia, you were saying you were about to tell the truth. Why are you in Boston?”

“I come to Boston to stop you. You and Angela. I know you conspire against me. You plan to rob my paintings.”

“Nonsense, dear lady. What makes you think a thing like that?”

“Because in Angela’s room I found your notes. Your address, 152 Beacon Street, Boston. Your telephone number. Also a list of the paintings.”

“I see. From that you reasonably concluded I came to Boston to find the paintings.”

“I know you did.”

“And you followed me.”

“I come ahead of you. I fly Rome, New York, then Boston. I wanted to be waiting when you got off the airplane in Boston. I wanted you to run right into me.”

“What fun. What held you up?”

“I missed the connection in New York.”

“You mean, you were here in Boston on Tuesday?”

“I was. Five o’clock I arrived Boston.”

“My, my. And all that time I thought I knew no one in Boston. What did you do then?”

“I came here to the hotel. I call you. No answer.”

“I went out to dinner.”

“I call you next day, yesterday, leave a message. You never call back.”

“Okay, so you killed Ruth Fryer.

“What you say? I kill no one.”

She retracted her supercarriage while the waiter served her drink.

“What’s this talk of kill?”

Fletch ignored the drink in front of him.

“Sylvia, I don’t have the paintings. I’ve never seen the paintings. I don’t know where the paintings are. I’m not even sure I’ve got the story about the paintings straight.”

“Then why are you in Boston with a list of the paintings? Tell me that.”

“I’m in Boston to do research on a book about an American painter named Edgar Arthur Tharp, Junior. I brought a list of the mythical de Grassi paintings with me, just in case I ran across any reference to them. Boston’s a center of culture.”

“How do the Americans say it? Bullshit, Flesh! You’re engaged to marry my daughter, Angela. The day after her father’s funeral, you jump on a plane with the list of the missing paintings in your pocket and come to Boston, U.S. America. What else to think?”

“Stepdaughter. Angela is your stepdaughter.”

“I know. She is not mine. She plans to rob me.”

“Has Menti’s will been read?”

“No. Bullshit lawyers will not read it. They say, too much confusion. Police, say, this matter settled, go away, Countess, cry. Bullshit lawyers say this matter not settled. So Countess go away and cry some more. All this time, Angela, you rob, rob, rob me.”

“Angela’s mentioned the paintings. Menti mentioned the paintings. You talk about the paintings, I’ve never the paintings. I don’t even know they ever existed.”

“They exist! I’ve seen them! They are my paintings, now that Menti is dead. Poor Menti. They are what I have in the world. He left them to me.”

“You don’t know that. The will hasn’t been read. They’re the de Grassi paintings. He might have left them to his daughter, who is a de Grassi. He might have left them to both of you. Do you know what Italian estate laws are concerning such matters? They might not even be mentioned in the will. They’ve been gone a long time. He might have left them all to a museum in Livorno, or Rome.”

“Nonsense! Menti would never do that to me. Menti loved me. It was his great sadness that we had the paintings no more. He knew how I loved those paintings.”

“I’m sure you did. So what makes you think the paintings are in Boston?”

“Because you come here. The day after the funeral. You and Angela have your heads together. Angela wants those paintings. She’s going to. rob me!”

“Okay, Sylvia. I give up. Tell me about the paintings.”

“The de Grassi Collection. Nineteen paintings. Some, Menti had from his parents, others he collected himself. Before World War Two.”

“And I suspect during and after World War Two.”

“Before, during, after World War Two.”

“He was an Italian officer during the war?”

“He did nothing about the war. The de Grassi’s turned their palace, Livorno, into a hospital.”

“Palace? Big old house.”

“They took care of Italian soldiers, citizens, German soldiers, American soldiers, British soldiers—everybody soldiers. Menti told me. He spent his fortune. He hired doctors, nurses.”

“And picked up a few paintings.”

“He had the paintings. Them he did not sell. Even years after the war. Angela was born. He sold his land, bit by bit, the de Grassi land, but never sold a painting. You know what the paintings are. You have the list.”

“Yeah. From what I’ve been able to find out so far, they’ve never been recorded. Anywhere. No one knows they exist.”

“Because they have always been in a private collection. The de Grassi Collection. See? You are looking for them!”

Fletch said, “I made an inquiry.”

“You son of a bitch! You are looking for them. You lie to me!”

“Andy gave me the list. I said I would make an inquiry. I’ve asked one dealer about one painting. Please don’t call me a son of a bitch anymore. I’m sensitive.”

“You and Angela are not going to rob me of my paintings!”

“You’ve made that point pretty well, too. You’re accusing me of robbery. Go on with the story. When were the paintings stolen?”

“Two years ago. Stolen overnight. Every one them.”

“From the house in Livorno?”

“Yes.”

“Weren’t the servants there?”

“Ah, they’re no good. Very old, very sleepy. Deaf and blind. Ria and Pep. Menti had great loyalty for them. Last two de Grassi servants. I told him they stupid old fools. Never should he leave such a fortune in paintings to their charge.”

“They heard nothing and saw nothing?”

“Flesh, they didn’t even realize they were gone until we came back to the house and said, ‘Where are the paintings?’ They were so used to them. They had seen them all their lives. They didn’t even recognize when they were gone. All the time we were away, they never even went into front of the house!”

“And the paintings weren’t insured?”

“Never. Stupid old Italian counts do not insure things they’ve always had, always been used to.”

“Menti was a stupid old Italian count, eh?”

“About insurance, he was as bad as the rest of them. As bad as the Catholic Church.”

“He probably couldn’t afford the premiums.”

“He couldn’t afford the premiums. Then, whoosh, on day they were gone. The police did not care so much. Just some paintings, they said. There was no big insurance company making them find the paintings and kill the people who stole them.”

“You weren’t in Livorno when the paintings were stolen?”

“Menti and I were on our honeymoon. In Austria.”

“That’s not far.” Fletch tried one of the olives. “So where are the paintings, Sylvia?”

“What you mean, Where are the paintings, Sylvia?”

“I think you stole them yourself. Is that what you don’t want me to find out? Is that why you’re here?”

“Stole them myself!”

“Sure. In your mid-thirties, you marry a sixty-seven-year-old Italian count, with a palace in Livorno and an apartment in Rome. You’re his third wife. He’s your second husband. Your first husband was Brazilian?”

“French.” Her face vacillated between studied amusement and murderous rage.

“You have, let’s say, international connections. You marry the old boy. You go on your honeymoon. You discover he’s broke. Or, he has very little money. Nothing like the fortune you thought he had. You realize his whole fortune is in these paintings. He’s thirty years older than you. You think he might leave the paintings to his daughter, to as museum. After all, you told him you married him for love, right? So you arranged to have the paintings stolen. You stashed them away. Did you even arrange to have Menti kidnapped and murdered? Now you’re scared to death I’m going catch you.”

The amusement in her face was agonized.

She said, “I hate you.”

“Because I’m right.”

“I loved Menti. I would do nothing to harm him. I did not steal the paintings.”

“But you, too, left Rome the day after the funeral.”

“To catch you.”

“It’s one thing for the prospective son-in-law of the deceased to leave town the day after the funeral. It’s something else for the grieving widow to skip.”.

“If I killed anyone, I would kill you.”

“Which brings up another question, Sylvia. Did you come to my apartment Tuesday night? Was the door opened by a naked young lady who said she was waiting for Bart Connors? Not being able to make sense out of her, did you hit her with a bottle of whiskey?”

“I not make sense out of you.”

“Of course not.”

“You say your apartment is twenty miles away. That’s what you said.”

“It’s just around the corner, Sylvia. And you know it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. ‘Killing a girl.’ First you say I kill Menti, and then you say I kill some girl. You’re crazy, in the head.”

“I’ve already admitted that possibility, today.”

“Who is this man you talked to about the paintings?”

“I have to have a few secrets of my own.”

Fletch stood and neatly put his chair back under the table.

“Thanks for the drink, Sylvia.”

“You not paying?”

“You invited me. It’s a whole new world, babe. You pay.”