The Venice conspiracy

CHAPTER 66

Present Day 4th June San Quentin, California

FBI Supervisory Agent Steve Lerner and his partner Hilary Babcock are escorted along the prison landing to the interview room where Lars Bale is waiting, chained hand and foot, in his orange uniform.

Lerner is a small, gentle man with the frame of a sparrow and a well-trimmed greying beard that he can't help but continually stroke. Babcock is his opposite. She's tall with lightbulb eyes, hair that looks like a wild, black cleaning mop and a vocabulary that can scorch earth.

'I remember this motherfucking son-of-a-bitch when I was first at Quantico,' she says. 'A poisonous and pontificating prick if ever there was one. I'll be switching my lights off come June sixth, just so they get some extra juice to toast the bastard.'

'That's very considerate, Hilary,' says Lerner, sarcastically. 'But not at all necessary – they don't electrocute people at SQ.'

'Then they damned well should for this scumbag. I'm sure the families of his victims will love that, after everything he did, he gets a humane exit – a lavish last meal, a cosy lie-down and then a little scratch on his arm before sleepies.'

The banter continues until a prison guard lets them into the lock-up and goes through the safety routine. 'There's an alert button on the table and another by the door. Press one if you're in trouble or when you're done, and I'll come and get you out.' They nod and he relocks the door as he leaves them.

Lerner and Babcock settle in screwed-down chairs at a screwed-down table. 'Mr Bale, I'm Agent Steve Lerner, this is Agent Hilary Babcock, we're from the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit and we'd like to ask you some questions. Is that all right?'

'Ask what you like,' says Bale, his stare fixed on Babcock. 'But unless it amuses me, you won't be getting any answers.'

'I understand,' says Lerner, gently. He opens his jacket and takes out a small brown notebook and a pen. He slowly uncaps the yellow plastic pen and scribbles on a page to get the ink flowing.

'You best hurry, mister,' says Bale, poking fun. 'The speed you're moving at they're going to have executed me before you've started.'

Lerner continues as though he's not even heard the remark. 'You're an artist, I understand. Very admirable. Who was your inspiration?'

Bale's eyes flicker with fun. 'The death of Christ and the slaughter of the innocent. I find both motivating and thrilling.'

'I meant painter. Which artist do you most admire? Picasso? Dada? Dali?'

'Oh, I see,' answers Bale contemptuously, 'you're using that old find-some-common-ground trick to get the prisoner to loosen up and talk. How resourceful and intelligent you are.'

'And the answer?'

'Picabia.' Bale all but spits out the name. 'Picabia. I'll spell it out nice and slow so you don't make a mistake in your writing there. Pi-ca-b-ia. He was my inspiration. Does that help you? Or, do you not have a fucking clue who the hell I'm talking about?'

The FBI man methodically writes out the name, then strokes his beard thoughtfully. He looks up casually at the ceiling and feigns searching for an answer. Finally, he smiles at Bale and holds his attention. 'Francois Marie Martinez Picabia. I should have known he would be your guide. His 1929 piece Hera is full of facial imagery so similar to yours.'

Bale flaps his cuffed hands in mock applause. 'Congratulations. So you're not quite as pig ignorant as cops usually are.' He lets out a sarcastic huff of air. 'Most queers in professions like yours are both sensitive and smart. It comes with the introversion. Was art a comfort to you, Agent Lerner? Did you seek solace in it while you hid your sexuality from all your macho colleagues?'

Lerner answers in an unconcerned tone that almost borders upon indifference. 'I suppose I did. That and poetry. Did you ever read poetry, Mr Bale?'

Bale shows his teeth. 'My crimes are my poetry. The blood of my victims my ink. Their tombs my pages in history.'

'Spooky,' says Lerner mockingly, scribbling in his book. 'Melodramatic and cheesy, but nonetheless interesting and spooky.'

Babcock is less restrained. 'Poetry will be when they pump acid in your veins and kill your ass in a few days' time.'

'And would you eat it, Agent Babcock? I'd love to eat your ass.' He waggles his tongue at her.

Lerner grabs Babcock's arm, just in case she has one of those rare moments – like she did in Kansas – where she thinks jumping a desk and punching an inmate is an okay thing to do.

Bale notices it all. 'That's a bad doggy, Agent Lerner. You got the little bitch in check now? I'd hate to have to mess her up in my nice, clean cell.'

'We're about done.' Lerner places the top back on the pen and turns it so the plastic clip lines up perfectly with the writing down its side. 'Thank you so much for your time. I realise how little you have left and how precious it must be to you.' He presses the button for the guard to come and let them out.

Bale gets to his feet. Even with chained hands and feet, both agents can see he poses a deadly threat. Lerner keeps the pen in his hand rather than pocket it. If necessary, he'll use it as a weapon. Jabbed into an eye socket, a ballpoint can be surprisingly effective.

The guard swipes open multiple electronic locks and the two agents move outside, their eyes never leaving the interviewee.

'K-reep-ee,' says Babcock as they head back down the corridors. 'You should have let me whack him.'

'He'd have killed you. And me. Not a good idea.'

'And that whole damned chat was? Seemed a complete waste of fucking time to me.'

'No it wasn't.'

'It wasn't?'

'Picabia was part of a movement known as Section d'Or – "Golden Section" in French.'

'And this is relevant, how?' She signs them both out at the front desk as they talk.

'Patience, Hilary. Patience.' Lerner squints in the bright daylight as they head towards his car. 'The Golden Section got its name from a 1910 translation of Da Vinci's Trattato della Pittura by Josephin Peladan.'

'Come on, boss, you know I'm out of my depth and drowning here. I read USA Today and watch Oprah; I ain't a friggin' egghead like you.'

'Cultured, Hilary, the word you're searching for is cultured. '

Okay, I ain't cultured like you – now will you please tell me what my uncultured brain missed?'

'I'm getting there.' He lets out a dramatic sigh. 'Peladan attached great mystical significance to the Golden Section and other geometric configurations.'

'So suddenly we got geometry too?'

'More than geometry. In mathematics and art there is a powerful formula called the Golden Ratio. If memory serves me right, it is denoted by the Greek letter phi. Roughly, a plus b over a equals a over b equals phi.'

'Oh fuck, did you so lose me!' says Hilary. 'I'm going to get a sat nav to follow what you say in future.'

They reach Lerner's Lexus Hybrid and he zaps it open.

'You have my sympathy. It's actually an irrational mathematical constant, that's why it's seen as special, almost magical. Perhaps everything will come into focus for you if I say this: the golden ratio is at the heart of pyramids, pentagrams and pentagons. Its influence runs through the history of architecture, astronomy and all arts. Look at Leonardo Da Vinci's illustration from De Divina Proportione and you'll see he used what became known as the Golden Rectangle to apply geometric illustrations to the human face.'

Hilary looks relieved as she climbs in the car. 'Rectangles? Like the signature marking we saw in Bale's paintings?'

'Now you're getting there. None of this clicked with me until Bale mentioned Picabia, then it fell into place. Look at a drawing of a Golden Rectangle and you'll see that it is first created from a perfect square and then, using the Golden Ratio, the rectangle is extended from it and the outline of the square used to form the overall oblong is divided into three exactly equal parts.'

Hilary's starting to get enthusiastic. 'Okay, so I understand that our whack-job back there is a good painter, that he was influenced by this old French Master who was part of some magical group of intellectuals who called themselves the golden somethings, but – and forgive my own French – how the fuck does all that help our colleagues in Italy?'

Lerner lifts his eyes to the heavens. 'What do paintings do, Hilary?'

She looks puzzled. 'Hang on your wall?'

'Deeper. Dig deeper into that cavernous intellect of yours. What do artists intend their work to do?'

She shakes her shock of black hair. 'Convey something? Voice inner visions and all that crap? Get out some kooky message?'

Lerner rewards her with a smile. 'A New York Times critic couldn't have put it better. Art is a medium through which the creator communicates his own views and messages with his audience. And just as Picabia embedded his rectangular paintings with mystical messages, so too did Mr Lars Bale.'

'But surely there's a big difference here,' says Hilary. 'I mean, millions of fuckers saw Picabia's weirdo pictures, and no saddo outside the cell block back there has seen anything that sicko Bale has painted.'

Lerner treats her to his biggest smile of the day. 'Oh, but they have, Hilary. Trust me, they have.'