Still, he consoled himself, it was the cross borne by all great artists. A noble suffering.
Tomorrow, Roberto Klimt would leave Rome for his country house. Nero’s bowl would follow a few days later. Klimt employed an elite private security team to protect his treasures. The head of this team had informed Roberto a few days ago about a rumored plot to rob the Via Veneto apartment.
“It’s nothing concrete. Just rumors and whispers. Some hotshot foreign thief’s in town apparently. He likes the sound of your collection.”
“I’ll bet he does!” Roberto Klimt laughed. A thief would have a better chance of infiltrating Fort Knox than of circumventing his state-of-the-art security. Even so, he’d been guided by his expert’s advice and agreed to move Nero’s bowl and a couple more of his rarest pieces to Sabina. The only private residence in Italy better protected than Roberto Klimt’s Rome apartment was Roberto Klimt’s country estate. He would be there himself to oversee the bowl’s installation in his newly redesigned “Treasures Room,” and would enjoy the rent boy’s body while he awaited its arrival.
The boy was eighteen and had been paid handsomely in advance for his services. Roberto Klimt preferred them younger, and unwilling—feigned submission was a poor substitute for the real thing. But after the unfortunate incident with the two Roma Gypsy boys who’d gone and jumped off a building after an alleged encounter with the art dealer, Roberto Klimt had been forced to become more cautious.
Damned Gypsies. Human vermin, the lot of them.
There were those in Rome’s high society who made apologies for them. Liberals, who excused their ugliness and filth and thievery on the grounds that they were poor. Roberto Klimt despised such people. Roberto had been poor himself once and considered it a grave stain on his reputation and good name.
He would rather die than go back to that life.
JEFF STEVENS CHECKED IN to the Hotel de Russie under the name Anthony Duval. Gunther gave him the brief.
“Anthony Duval, dual French/American citizenship, thirty-six years old. Lectures at the Sorbonne and acts as an art consultant to numerous wealthy collectors in Paris and New York. He’s in Rome to make some acquisitions.”
“I hope Anthony likes the good things in life?” asked Jeff.
“Naturally.”
“How does he feel about the Hotel de Russie?”
“He only ever books the Nijinsky Suite.”
“I like him already.”
The girl at the check-in desk was a knockout, dark and voluptuous, like a 1950s Italian film star. “Your suite is ready for you, Mr. Duval. Would you like some help with your luggage? Or . . . anything else?”
For a split second Jeff considered the promising possibilities implied by “anything else.” But he restrained himself. The job Gunther had sent him on was complicated and dangerous. He couldn’t afford any distractions.
“No thank you. Just the key.”
The Nijinsky Suite was spectacular. On the top floor of the hotel, it boasted an enormous king-size bed and flat-screen TV, a marble, mosaic-tiled bathroom with a sunken bathtub, a living room and office area stuffed with priceless antiques, and a terrace with breathtaking views of the Pincio and the rooftops of Rome. Jeff showered, changed into linen trousers and a duck-egg-blue shirt that perfectly complemented his gray eyes and headed for the Russie’s famous “secret garden.”
“Will you be dining with us tonight, Mr. Duval?”
“Not tonight.”
Jeff ordered a double gin and tonic and strolled through the garden. The man he was waiting for sat quietly beneath the bougainvillea, reading La Repubblica newspaper. He wore a handlebar mustache and sideburns, and even sitting down, he was, Jeff could see, unusually tall. Not exactly the gray man in the crowd he’d been hoping for.
“Marco?”
“Mr. Duval. A pleasure.”
Jeff sat down. “You’re here alone? I was expecting two of you.”
“Ah, yes. My partner experienced an unexpected delay. We will meet him tomorrow at the foot of the Spanish Steps at ten, if that’s convenient?”
It wasn’t convenient. It was irritating. Jeff disliked working with other people. With the exception of Tracy, he lived by the rule that you could never trust a con artist and preferred jobs that he could pull off alone. Unfortunately, robbing Roberto Klimt of the Emperor Nero’s bowl, the centerpiece of one of the most closely guarded private collections in the world, did not fit into that category.
“Marco and Antonio are the best,” Gunther Hartog had assured him. “They’re both world class at what they do.”
And what exactly do they do, Gunther? Jeff thought now. Hang out in bars looking like the strongman from a traveling circus and blow off important meetings? Worse than that, someone had obviously been bragging about the planned heist. Jeff had heard whispers almost the moment he got off the plane. He knew he hadn’t said anything, and Gunther was far too discreet. Which only left one of these clowns.
Jeff waited for a woman to walk by before whispering in Marco’s ear.