In the cafe Yashim was beginning to explain. “Your friend Maria,” he said.
Palewski raised his head. “How do you know Maria?”
“Your Alfredo-a fat, ugly man.”
Palewski squirmed in his chair. “That doesn’t make him a crook.”
“No. But it means that he was in charge when those two thugs searched your apartment. He sent them in. They took Maria.”
“Maria? What happened?”
Yashim told him. “They had her in the Fondaco dei Turchi. The old hammam.”
“You found her?”
“Eventually.”
“And she is-?”
“Oh, she’s all right. You can see her in a moment.”
“But what did they want with her?”
“They wanted to know who you were.” Yashim’s glance searched Palewski’s face. “How good was your cover?”
Palewski chewed his lip. “I don’t think I let it slip, Yashim. And it was good enough-the American collector. Why not? Apart from that meeting with Compston and his pals, no one could challenge Signor Brett.”
“Brunelli?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
Yashim looked thoughtful. “Someone guessed. It doesn’t matter now. Your Alfredo was just covering all the angles.”
“I saw the painting, Yashim,” Palewski protested. “The sultan.”
“And you looked at it for how long? A few seconds?”
Palewski shifted uncomfortably on his seat. “Not long, I admit. But even so, the brother-”
“Precisely. It was the brother’s behavior that made you believe in the painting.”
Palewski put up two fingers; the waiter nodded. He remembered that evening in the boathouse and the odd conversation between Alfredo and Mario.
And Alfredo had raised his voice-behold the Bellini! It could have been a cue.
He buried his face in his hands.
“I don’t know, Yashim. It’s all theater-it’s impossible to tell the real from the false.”
“What happened that night was theater, for sure-the dark, the gun, the scramble to get away. They even made you swim.”
I won’t tell him about my visit to the palazzo in the morning, Palewski thought. That’s when I should have known.
Something jumped into his mind, something else that had happened in the morning. But it was vague; Yashim was speaking.
Palewski pushed the thought away.
For which another man would die.
“So now, Yashim, we’ve got to start again?”
Yashim looked hard into Palewski’s eyes. “Start again-yes, in a way. But not from scratch. I need to find out everything you know.”
Palewski started. “Don’t, Yashim. You make me nervous. I’ll tell you what I can.”
“Good. Not here, though. We need to get you somewhere safe, away from the police-and Alfredo’s people, too. I know just the place. Come on.”