Free Murder at the National Gallery by Margaret Truman Page A

told his Vatican adversaries, the wisdom of which wasn’t lost on the church’s hierarchy. What came out of these negotiations wasn’t ideal as far as Giocondi was concerned, but it wasn’t a bad deal, either. The parish was scheduled to be closed anyway, its parishioners to be served by a newer facility a few miles away. In order to avoid scandal, the Vatican agreed that Giocondi could “retire” and receive his pension, and they gave him the run-down church in which to live out his life.
    He’d lived there for the past seven years, not exactly in a lavish manner but comfortably enough. His status as a retired holy man proved useful at times to certain people in need of a middleman or courier unlikely to be challenged. There were the occasional trips to Rome and Milan and Sicily—he never questioned what was in the small packages he delivered to unnamed persons in those places. And there had been the paintings he’d stored in his home, his former church, and that he sometimes transported from Ravello to other towns and cities. That’s how he’d met in passing Italy’s cultural attaché to the United States, Carlo Giliberti, who took an uncommon interest in this messenger, not of God but of the Godfathers.
    “Please, sit down, Mr. Mason. It is my honor to have youvisit me,” said Giocondi. He motioned to a pair of comfortable upholstered chairs in front of the unused altar.
    “I don’t have much time, Father Giocondi.” Luther reached into the inner pocket of his blazer, removed two envelopes, and handed them to him. “Here,” he said. “It’s the cash you requested as a down payment and your ticket to Washington. Included with the ticket is a letter of instructions, which you are to destroy once you’ve memorized it. I believe Signor Giliberti has told you to wear your priestly garments at the black-tie dinner.”
    “
Si
. I understand.”
    “I have made arrangements for you to stay at a hotel outside Washington,” Mason said. “Those directions are included with your airline ticket.”
    Giocondi nodded.
    Mason checked his watch. “I have only an hour to go over things with you so that you understand perfectly how you are to act and what you are to say. I would like to do that now.”
    “Of course.”
    “I had understood you speak excellent English, and I can hear why they say that about you.”
    “Thank you.”
    Mason looked around the church’s interior. “Then we will speak more, but not in here,” he said. He had thought carefully about this meeting, about every meeting he was to have from this point forward. You couldn’t be too careful. He’d read detective novels in which the unsuspecting were overheard, even tape-recorded, and there were, of course, real-life events in Washington involving taped meetings that had brought down a sitting president. “Outside,” he said. It was suddenly an order.
    Giocondi led them through a rear door; Mason had to duck to avoid hitting his head. They walked fifty yards from the church to where a cracked and discolored marble birdbath sat at a tilted angle beneath a diseased oak. Three rusting white-metal benches haphazardly surrounded the birdbath. Mason took a handkerchief from his pocket, wiped off one of thebenches, and sat. Father Giocondi didn’t bother cleaning his perch. Mason drew a deep breath and swatted at a fly that landed on his forehead. Rehearsal time. Looking directly at Father Pasquale Giocondi, he said, “Shall we begin?”

8
A FEW DAYS LATER
    At first, Courtney Whitney III, director of the National Gallery, thought the ringing telephone was part of a dream. But he realized that the dream was over. The ringing was a jarring 5:00 A.M. reality.
    He reached across his muttering wife, knocked the phone from the small night table, slid down the bed, sprawled across her legs, fumbled on the floor for the receiver, and found it. “Hello?”
    “Court. It’s Luther.”
    “Luther? For God’s sake, where are you? It’s the middle of