“Then I would defer to, ah, Mr. Wentworth.”
“That’s Doc—,” began Wentworth, but he was interrupted by Grable.
“Commissioner, we don’t have the time to try first one plan and then another. We need to get Buck out now. Either he comes nicely or in cuffs—his choice. We do it quick, at dawn. He’ll be sweating in the back of a squad car even before his followers know he’s missing.”
Silence. Rocker was looking around the room. There were a couple of men who hadn’t spoken. “Gentlemen?”
Nods, murmurs. Everyone, it seemed, agreed with the psychologist and Grable.
“Well,” said Rocker, rising. “I have to go along with the consensus. After all, we don’t have a psychologist on staff only to ignore his advice.” He glanced at Hayward. She couldn’t quite read his expression, but she sensed something not unsympathetic in the look.
“We’ll go in with a small group, as Wentworth suggests,” Rocker continued. “Just two officers. Captain Grable, you’ll be the first.”
Grable looked at him in surprise.
“It’s your precinct, as you took pains to point out. And you’re the one advocating quick action.”
Grable quickly mastered his surprise. “Of course, sir. Quite right.”
“And also as Wentworth suggests, we’ll send in a woman.” Rocker nodded to Hayward. “That would be you.”
The room fell silent. Hayward saw Grable and Wentworth exchanging glances.
But Rocker was still looking directly at her. Keep things rational for me, Hayward, the look seemed to say.
“Buck will appreciate two ranking officers. That should appeal to his sense of importance.” Rocker turned. “Grable, you’ve got seniority and it’s your operation. I leave it to you to organize the details and timing. This meeting is adjourned.”
{ 64 }
The morning after the trip to Cremona was bright and crisp, and D’Agosta squinted against the noonday sun as he accompanied Pendergast back to Piazza Santo Spirito, across the river from their hotel.
“You checked in with Captain Hayward?” Pendergast asked as they walked.
“Just before going to bed.”
“Anything of interest?”
“Not really. What few leads they’d been following up on Cutforth all turned into dead ends. The security video cams at his building told them nothing. It’s the same with Grove, apparently. And now, all the top New York brass are preoccupied with this preacher who’s taken up residence in Central Park.”
This time, D’Agosta found the piazza not nearly as quiet as before: its tranquillity was spoiled by a large group of backpackers sitting on the steps of the fountain, smoking pot and passing around a bottle of Brunello wine, talking loudly in half a dozen languages. They were accompanied by at least ten loose dogs.
“Careful where you step, Vincent,” murmured Pendergast with a wry smile. “Florence: such a marvelous mixture of high and low.” He raised his hand above the piles of dogshit and gestured at the magnificent building which occupied the southeast corner. “For example, the Palazzo Guadagni. One of the finest examples of a Renaissance palace in the entire city. It was constructed in the 1400s, but the Guadagni family goes back several more centuries.”
D’Agosta examined the building. The first story was built in rough blocks of dun-colored limestone, while the upper floors were covered in yellow stucco. Most of the top floor was a loggia: a roofed portico supported by stone columns. The structure was restrained but elegant.
“There are various offices and apartments on the second floor, a language school on the third. And the top floor is a pensione, run by a Signora Donatelli. That, without doubt, is where Beckmann and the rest met back in 1974.”
“Does this woman own the palazzo?”
“She does. The last descendant of the Guadagni.”
“You really think she’ll remember a couple of college students who visited three decades ago?”
“One can only try, Vincent.”
They picked their way gingerly across the piazza and through an enormous pair of iron-studded wooden doors. A once-grand but now grimy vaulted passageway led to a stairway and a second-floor landing. Here, a shabby piece of cardboard had been hung on the cornice of a faded Baroque fresco. A hand-drawn arrow and the word Reception had been scrawled on the cardboard with a firm hand.
The reception room was incongruously small for such a giant palace: cluttered yet neat as a pin, bisected by a wooden transom, a battered set of wooden mail slots on one side and a rack of keys on the other. The room had only one occupant: a tiny old lady sitting behind an ancient desk. She was dressed with extraordinary elegance, her hair perfectly dyed and coiffed, red lipstick impeccably applied, with what looked like real diamonds draped around her neck and dangling from withered ears.
She rose and Pendergast bowed.
“Molto lieto di conoscerLa, signora.”