The Collector
Page 103

“I’m very sorry.”
“The documents, now in my possession, clearly describe the egg wagered and lost in a poker game to Antonio Bastone. The Nécessaire.”
“I don’t have what you’re looking for.”
“Your wife knew the name Nicholas Vasin. She fears it. With good reason. I believe he had my brother killed because Oliver had the second egg—the Cherub with Chariot—and foolishly tried to negotiate for more money. He was reckless, but he was my brother.”
“You have suffered a tragedy. My condolences.”
“You know my father, my mother. You would have done due diligence on all of us before you allowed us into your home, knowing we had an interest in that long-ago wager. Believe me when I tell you I did the same on you and yours before I brought my friends here.”
“We’re pleased to offer you hospitality, but we know nothing of this.”
“The woman Jai Maddok kills for Nicholas Vasin. She put a knife in the side of the woman I care about.” He glanced at Lila. “And got punched in the face for it. We’re going to fight back, Signor Bastone. The police, in New York and internationally, are aware of her, and of Vasin. They’re going to pay for what they’ve done to my family. Will you help me?”
“I don’t have what you seek,” he began, only to be interrupted by his wife. She spoke in rapid and fierce Italian, her face lit, her eyes fired.
As they argued, those hot eyes sheened with tears, but her voice remained strong, furiously so, until Bastone took her hands, gripped them, brought them to his lips. He murmured to her now, nodded.
“Family,” he said, “is all. My Gina reminds me of this. You came here for yours. I’ve done what I’ve done for mine. I need air. Come.”
He strode out, circling back the way they’d come.
The table had been cleared in their absence. He strode past it to the end of the terrace, which overlooked the glory of the Tuscan summer.
“We knew the Martins had two eggs, as my grandfather had seen both. Jonas offered him his choice of them for the wager. My grandfather was young when he won the Nécessaire, not yet schooled in such things. But he learned quickly—his first piece of art, you see, and his first love of it. The feud grew. A wager is a wager, yes, but this was not the boy’s to bet or lose. But my grandfather would not return it, even when offered double the wager. It became a thing of pride and principle, and it’s not for me to say now who was right or wrong. It became ours. My grandfather kept it in his own room. This he would not share. My father stood with his when his time came. So it came down to me. It had been ours, a private thing, like the art, for three generations.”
“The beginning,” Lila said. “The rest, his love of art, his careful collecting of it, came from that one piece.”
“Yes. After my father’s death, after some time passed and my own children began to grow, I thought of this. Do I pass this down to my sons and daughters, then to theirs? Gina and I talked, many times. And we decided this was not a private thing. It belonged once to another family, and was taken from them like their lives. We thought to arrange for it to be donated to a museum—loaned perhaps in the name of our family and the Martins. The story is good, the young men, the poker. We must decide how this is to be done, which museum. And we think, after all this time, are we certain? We must have the egg authenticated—discreetly, privately.”
“Frederick Capelli,” Lila said, and he turned to her sharply.
“How do you know this?”
“He was killed yesterday, by the same woman who killed the others.”
“Good.” Gina lifted her chin in defiance. “He betrayed us. His own greed caused his death. He told this Vasin of the Nécessaire. Vasin sent this woman to us, first with an offer to buy the egg. We had decided to do what we felt right and good, so we would not sell. She came back to offer more, and to threaten.”
“My wife, my children, my grandchildren,” Bastone continued. “Were any of their lives worth this one thing—this thing we would be paid handsomely for? I ordered her away, told her I would go to the authorities. That night she called. She had our grandson. She had gone into my daughter’s home, taken her youngest child while they slept. Our Antonio, only four years old. She let me hear him call for his mother, for me, promised she would kill him, causing him great pain if we did not give her the egg. She would take another child, kill, until we did what she wanted. She invited us to contact the authorities. She would simply gut the boy and move on, and come back another time for the next.”
Julie stepped over to Gina, offered her a tissue as tears fell down her cheeks. “You gave her the egg. There was no other choice.”
“A business venture, she called it. Puttana.” Bastone spat it out. “They gave half the offer they had made.”
“We told them to keep their money, to choke on it, but she said if we didn’t take it, sign the bill of sale, she would come back for another.” Gina crossed her hands over her heart. “Our babies.”
“It was business, she said. Only business. Antonio had bruises where she’d pinched him, but he was safe. Before morning, he was home again, and safe. And they had the cursed egg.”
“You did what you needed to do,” Luke said. “You protected your family. If this Capelli went to Vasin, he must have known the story—the poker game.”
“Yes, we told him all we knew.”
“Which must have led Vasin to Miranda—and she’d sold the second egg to Oliver. When did all this happen?” Lila asked.
“June the eighteenth. I will never forget the night she took him.”
“From here to New York.” Lila looked at Ash. “The timing works. It would’ve been clear Miranda didn’t know what the egg was, and she would’ve said she sold it. Maybe Capelli tried to broker the deal with Oliver.”
“And Jai stepped in, working on the girlfriend. They set a price, then Oliver pulled back, tried to squeeze out more. Did you go to the police, signore?”
“They have what they want. They have no reason to hurt my children.”
“I would kill him if I could.” Gina fisted her hands, lifted them. “Him and his bitch. She put bruises on our baby, took the little lamb he slept with. He cried for it until we found another.”