Enigma Variations Read online

  Table of Contents

  Excerpt

  Enigma Variations

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  A word from the author…

  Thank you for purchasing

  Also available from The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  “Mister Vincent,” Jutting said, clearing his throat. “I’m disappointed.”

  “So am I,” I replied.

  “What have you to be disappointed about? You’re the one who has invaded my property, seeking to steal from me.”

  “I wouldn’t call it stealing. I’d call it recovering stolen property. The notes you have that were used by Saint Martin to decode the enigma were stolen from a friend of mine. I simply want them back.”

  Jutting’s eyes flashed with anger. “Wolhardt is a fool! He had no idea how to use the information. The one useful thing Nigel Bathmore ever did for me was stealing those notes. Of course, he didn’t intend to be doing me a service. The idiot thought I would pay him.” Jutting laughed, a short bark that echoed around the room and rang in my ears.

  “Still, you can’t really call it stealing.”

  “I’ll call it what I like, Mister Vincent. You are in no position to argue semantics. I’m afraid I have important business to attend to this evening. Your presence is not wanted. You will remain our guest here in this room until morning. My people will turn you over to the chief constable tomorrow along with your possessions which are rather incriminating. I understand there are quite a few tools in your backpack specifically designed for breaking and entering. Chief Constable Doyle is a very loyal friend of mine. He will know just how to deal with you.”

  “Interesting. I assumed you would just get rid of me.”

  Enigma Variations

  by

  Bradley W. Wright

  The Justin Vincent Series, Book 2

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Enigma Variations

  COPYRIGHT © 2020 by Bradley W. Wright

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Cover Art by Jennifer Greeff

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Crimson Rose Edition, 2020

  Trade Paperback ISBN 978-1-5092-3240-6

  Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-3241-3

  The Justin Vincent Series, Book 2

  Published in the United States of America

  Dedication

  For S & T and all the robot eagles

  Acknowledgments

  The material quoted in Chapter 13 is from The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, in public domain, found at:

  http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4028

  ~

  Special thanks to Kevin Dolan (AKA Dino OʼDell) for advice and consulting on music theory matters.

  Special thanks also to my editor Laura Kelly for not giving up, and forcing me to make this a better book.

  Chapter 1

  Two Brothers

  May 25-June 6: Nice, Genoa, Paris

  I borrowed my girlfriend Gabrielle’s BMW and left for Genoa mid-morning. We had attended an opening the night before and then stayed at Gabrielle’s apartment in town. I crept slowly along the Promenade des Anglais and up narrow, sun dappled streets. Traffic was light passing through the industrial outskirts of the city. Soon I merged onto the A10, leaving modern civilization behind, rolling back and forth between tranquil sea and low, green hills inland. I had made the trip up and down the coast several times but I was not yet immune to its charms. The Ligurian seaboard, unlike the melodramatic, breathtaking coast of my home in northern California, was warm, inviting, and restful to the eye. The drive from Nice to Genoa would take about two and half hours. I had plenty of time to admire the scenery. The American Bach Soloists’ recording of the Mass in B Minor came on the radio and I settled back in my seat as the first chord exploded like an epiphany of golden light from the speakers.

  I was on my way to meet Signor Petru Ortoli about a job. I had very little information about Ortoli aside from his address in Genoa and his name. He was an associate of Santu Cartini, Gabrielle’s father. I assumed he was, like Signor Cartini, wealthy and connected to an old Corsican family. He was probably also connected to organized crime. Close association with mobsters was not something I would have chosen but I had fallen into that world while completing my previous job and had stayed there because of Gabrielle.

  Driving that coast I thought about the escapade that had led me to the south of France and introduced me to Gabrielle. I thought about Benoit Legere, the psychopathic lawyer who had come very close to killing me before he took a fatal fall from a cliff in the hills outside of Nice. I thought about Patrice Antonetti and his chateau in the country with a basement crypt full of stolen art. It seemed like years ago but it was only six months since I had stood in Antonetti’s secret gallery and realized the painting I had come to recover was a fake. He had been double crossed by his associates back in San Francisco. I got the real painting back eventually. I didn’t know whether or not he ever figured out his copy was a forgery. We hadn’t heard a word from him. I had seen him a couple of times at events I attended with Gabrielle but he stayed away, across the room, and seemed not to even notice us. He knew Gabrielle’s father would not let him live if anything happened to her. He probably assumed I was under similar protection.

  I thought, too, about the months I had spent with Gabrielle—hiking in the countryside, reading by the fire in the evenings, drinking a little too much, eating a bit too well. I felt dissipated and unsure of my own identity. I had been away from my home for too long. I yearned for some kind of activity. I needed to be planning and executing a job. Gabrielle’s father had asked me weeks before to meet with Signor Ortoli. I hadn’t realized I was ready until, two nights before, Gabrielle had looked up from her book and said simply, “You have something you want to talk about.” A statement, not a question. She was good at reading my face. That was when I put a name to the restlessness that had been building in me and decided to meet with Ortoli and consider the details of the job he was proposing. My relationship with Gabrielle was at an impasse. This job was a stopgap.

  Two hours later, still mulling over recent history and projecting into the future, I finally reached the bridge spanning the Torrente Polcevera and, crossing over, saw the industrial flatlands of the port city down below. Above, climbing the hills to the north and east were the dense neighborhoods of Genoa. My destination lay outside the city to the east. I let my phone navigate and ended up circling around north of the city b
efore coming back down toward the sea. I left the freeway there and piloted through residential streets where the homes grew larger and the lots more generous until finally, at a dead end, the pleasant robot voice announced we had arrived. A guard house crouched at the bottom of a long driveway that wound away up a wooded hillside. I stopped and lowered the window. The guard wore a blue blazer that bulged in conspicuous places. He nodded to me.

  “Justin Vincent,” I said. “Sono qui per visitare il Signor Ortoli.” My Italian was not great but it was getting better. The guard nodded again and spoke quietly into his lapel.

  “Continua,” he said, gesturing toward a grove of trees, his face as blank and unreadable as an Easter Island Moai. I followed his taciturn advice and continued up the driveway, passing through the trees, dappled sunlight on the windshield, then emerging into a circular drive at the front of a typical, two-story roman villa of the luxurious sort. The lower part was stone, the upper part red brick. Green shutters stood at the ready to close off the arched windows. A fountain surrounded by a low stone wall that looked like it could be as old as the hillside itself stood in the center of the drive, water dancing in the sunlight. I parked the car, stepped out into the warm air, and surveyed the grounds for a moment. When I turned back to the house I was surprised to see a man standing just outside the main entrance. White haired and small, dressed in linen trousers rolled at the ankle and an untucked shirt, he seemed to have materialized out of thin air.

  “Mr. Vincent,” he called, “please come in.”

  “Signor Ortoli.” I strode up to the entry, holding out my hand. “Pleased to meet you.” He took my hand in a strong grip and gestured me into the entry hall.

  “Tè freddo?” he asked. “Limonata?”

  “Thanks,” I replied. “Iced tea would be fine.” We passed through a barrel vaulted entry hall with a floor of exquisite tile—a mosaic with a white ground and black arabesques and garlands arrayed in an almost mandala-like pattern. Signor Ortoli gestured to a uniformed woman standing nearby, speaking to her in rapid Corsican. She hurried off at once. A light hand on my arm, he continued leading me through a reception room and out to the central courtyard of the house.

  “Thank you for coming,” he said as he led me onto the covered porch that wrapped around the courtyard. “Please sit.”

  Doric columns supported the porch roof. Between the columns, arched openings revealed geometric arrays of plantings, white gravel paths, pools and fountains. Groupings of elegantly curved wicker furniture were spaced along a gallery floored in blue and white tile. I seated myself in an aerodynamic lounge chair and he sat across from me.

  “You have a beautiful home, Signor Ortoli,” I said.

  He waved a hand in the air as if to dismiss the compliment. “It’s fine,” he answered. “My ancestral home is where my heart is, Mr. Vincent. But sometimes I must come to the mainland for business. I have several real estate ventures near Genova that require oversight.” He stopped, staring blankly into the bright courtyard. “My ancestral home,” he continued with a sigh, “is not so pleasant now though, not so restful. Something is missing.” He turned to me with a steady gaze. “I don’t like small talk and you don’t strike me as a man who does either. Signor Cartini recommended you. He says you are capable of recovering missing things with discretion.”

  “Maybe,” I answered, sizing him up. He reminded me of Gabrielle’s father—not a large or physically powerful man but a man used to power, a man fully engaged in the moment, not missing anything that could be useful, his brain cataloging and interpreting with intense focus. “I would need to know the details,” I continued, letting the statement hang between us as an invitation. The woman we had seen earlier arrived with a tray and set out glasses of iced tea, lemon, sugar. She smiled at me as she handed me the glass and I smiled back, thanking her.

  “The details,” Signor Ortoli said with a deep breath after the woman departed. “I have a brother, Carlu, two years younger than me. When our father passed away he left my brother a sizable sum but he left me the family business. Partly, he showed this by leaving me the family home and everything in it, including a painting. A very old painting of our great grandfather. It is small,” he held out his hands, indicating a painting maybe fourteen inches by ten. “It was painted by Filippo Agricola. My brother has coveted that painting for many years. He always felt he was the better businessman, that our father should have left the family business to him. We had a falling out over this and we have barely spoken for twenty years. The painting is a symbol for him. I know that it was he who stole it. No one else would bother or dare. The painting itself is valuable but not something a collector would want. Only a museum would want to buy it but no museum would touch it, knowing that it is stolen and belongs to me. Its value to me, though, is inestimable. It has to be my brother who stole it. I would like you to get it back, Mr. Vincent. The painting belongs above the mantel in my house, not with my brother. It must go to my son, not his. It must be recovered quietly. I would not use force against my own brother. I need an expert thief.”

  I leaned back in my chair, sipping my tea. The story interested me. I found myself liking Signor Ortoli. We had barely met but I could tell by his lined face and the way he spoke that he was a man who adhered to principles. They might not all be principles I would agree with but at least he would be predictable. I imagined I would hear a very different version of this story were I to speak with his brother. Signor Ortoli clearly believed strongly in his claim. His brother probably did too. It would take years of Freudian psychoanalysis to tease out the knot of contention between them. If Ortoli was telling the truth, though, the painting did legally belong to him. Also, I felt the restlessness rising in me. My brain was already starting to work on the problem, before I even knew the details. I had to admit to myself that I was willing to consider it.

  “And where does your brother live Signor Ortoli?” I asked. “Where do you believe he is keeping the painting?”

  ****

  I arrived in Paris by train two days later, rolling through the thirteenth arrondissement past old, mansard-roofed apartment blocks with bedding airing on the balconies and into Gare D’Austerlitz. The day was unseasonably warm and the city had that feeling cities get on the first warm day of spring. Men sported shirt sleeves. Women wore light dresses. Children skipped and laughed. Signor Ortoli’s brother had a house in the fourteenth arrondissement on Rue Cassini near the Cimetière Montparnasse. I had managed to book an Airbnb apartment on the same block, opposite side of the street. It was a tiny apartment but it would do. I had it for two weeks although I hoped I wouldn’t need it for that long. I had been planning on riding the metro from Gare d’Austerlitz but it was less than two miles to my Airbnb and the weather was so nice I decided to walk.

  I strolled along Boulevard Saint-Marcel, enjoying the warmth, the trees sprouting new green leaves, the clinking of glassware in the cafés. Even the smell of Paris—whiffs of sewer gas, strong tobacco smoke, coffee, diesel, damp basement exhalations from ancient buildings—seemed pleasant in the haze of spring. Paris was one of my favorite cities and it had been too long since I had spent time just walking its broad boulevards and narrow alleys.

  I stopped a couple of times along the way for the kinds of Parisian treats that just weren’t the same anywhere else—a café crème, a macaron—but did eventually turn onto Rue Cassini and find the building where I would be staying. Four stories high with flattened columns and stacked ornamentation placing it clearly in the deco period, the apartment block blended seamlessly into the character of the neighborhood. A rack of Velib public bikes stood just outside the front door. The owner had given me a code for the outer door and I was to check in with the concierge for the keys to the apartment itself. Inside, I found a tiny foyer with a gray marble floor. The concierge’s office adjoined the lobby, the solid oak door ajar. I knocked and poked my head in. A small woman, maybe five feet tall, with short hair going gray and a broom clutched tightly in one hand ca
me to the door. Her French was heavily accented with what I took to be her native Portuguese and mine was probably just as difficult for her to understand. I had been practicing French with Gabrielle for months but I was still only an intermediate speaker. Eventually, after much back and forth, we established that I was the guest of Monsieur Thibault and it was okay to give me the keys.

  I rode a clattery elevator up to the third floor, found the right number, and managed to make the key work in the lock. Inside at last, I dropped my heavy rucksack in the entry hall and gave myself a tour of the apartment. An aroma of floor soap and tobacco permeated the place, swirling ahead of me as I explored a miniature kitchen off the entry hall, hardly larger than a closet, a living room maybe twelve feet by ten, a bedroom of similar size completely taken up by an Ikea closet unit that stretched the full length of one wall and a queen sized bed, and a bathroom even smaller than the kitchen. Standing at the window in the living room, I knew that I had chosen well. Carlu Ortoli’s house lay nearly directly across the street. I would be able to stake it out easily. First, though, I would need provisions. There was a grocery store a couple of blocks away. I emptied my backpack and set off.

  ****

  I spent the next two days watching Ortoli’s house, eating baguettes and drinking coffee while I observed the routines of the security guards and the neighborhood, making notes. Three times I saw Ortoli leave and three times return, picked up or dropped off by a driver in a shiny black Mercedes SUV. He wore dark sunglasses but he was unmistakably the man of the house. He looked and moved like a slightly younger version of his brother. Twice a woman with high cheekbones and straight, dark hair accompanied him. She looked thirty years younger but also somehow protective and maternal.

  The house itself was a typical four-story early Belle Époque edifice with elements of Byzantine, Moorish, and gothic architecture. The windows were arched and each had its own wrought iron balcony. A portico of Corinthian columns surrounded the front door and a jutting cupola broke the slate tiled roof line.