Abelard walked to the Piazza dei Salimbeni and headed straight for the Rocca, which still resembled the keep of the medieval fortress it had once been. He stepped through the huge arched entrance at the left corner. The space in the Rocca and the two adjacent buildings in the square was occupied mainly by the Bank of the Monte dei Paschi di Siena, which claims to be the world’s oldest bank. The top floor housed the Splendid Company offices. As soon as he spoke his name into the intercom a loud buzzer unlocked the door. Cassius was standing at the reception desk. Abelard wondered how long he had been waiting there.
“A pleasure to see you again,” Cassius said, as though he really meant it.
“Likewise, Mr. del Verme.”
“Please call me Cassius, Abelard, if I may,” politeness oozing from every visible pore.
They stepped into Cassius’ office, which was gargantuan. Abelard had by now concluded that important Italians were conducting the equivalent of an arms race when it came to office size. As for Milly, the uber achiever, his office wouldn’t even rank here.
“Which is it you need Abelard, to import or export,” Cassius asked him, hinting at nothing other than a prospective business transaction? Abelard was not quite sure what to think. He even began to have doubts about whether Splendid was still in the same business. Cassius soon tried to clear matters up.
“I hope you do not think we are in the same business that Jacopo launched,” he said with genuine amusement. “We are a respected enterprise, importing everything from machinery to lumber and exporting anything we can sell abroad.”
Abelard remained unconvinced, reckoning that del Verme would not have been invited to the artifact auction if he were but a dull importer-exporter. “That’s too bad; I had rather hoped our families could continue to do business. I guess I’ll have to go and buy what I need from Dona Maria.”
“You couldn’t possibly go….,” Cassius did not catch his error early enough.
“And why would that be,” Abelard asked, poorly disguising his satisfaction?
“I had heard that Dona Maria is very annoyed with you, since you killed her father,” Cassius answered, accepting that his attempt to hide the nature of his business had failed.
“The correct version of the story is that one of her men actually shot the elder Donatello. Ultimately, though, it was her clumsy treachery that did the old man in.”
“The truth is, Abelard, our other business is done exclusively for governments and their agencies. We never take contracts from individuals and you are an individual. I’m sorry.”
“That is very disappointing and also a bit sad,” Abelard said with a sigh as he fished from his pocket a small package loosely wrapped in silk cloth. He carefully unfolded the grey fabric and placed it on Cassius’ monstrous desk.
“What is that? It’s beautiful. Why wasn’t it up for sale with the other artefacts,” Cassius asked, clearly impressed with the piece.
“This cluster brooch actually belonged to Jacopo. He used it to pay the ransom for his son’s release from the condottiere, hired by Florence to harass Siena. He had been captured during a skirmish just outside the walls. It was a massacre, all his men were killed and he was spared only for his redemption value. He was an arrogant little sop, and Jacopo was very upset with him when the exchange took place. He had ridden out with his men to teach the Florentine mercenaries a lesson. It had been a simple trick. Abelard de Buch had taunted him and seeing that there were only a few men with Abelard he collected a small troop and rode out to make his name. The rest you can imagine. The men hiding in the woods came rushing out and it was all very quickly over.”
“How do I know this is the genuine article,” Cassius asked with a sceptical grin.
“Look at the inscription on the back.”
“Astonishing, utterly unbelievable,” he practically stuttered.
“Can you wait here a moment, Abelard,” he finally calmed down sufficiently to again become coherent?
“Certainly, but it would be better if I held on to the brooch, if that is all the same to you.”
“Of course, of course,” and he reluctantly returned the piece.
He left the office in a hurry and was gone for a good ten minutes. When he finally returned, he had an old man in tow. This set Abelard to wondering whether all Italian families have an old patriarch hanging about in the background.
“This is my father, the family patriarch, also named Jacopo,” Cassius said to an unsurprised Abelard.
“You’re the one who killed Gianni,” Jacopo asserted, in a barely audible voice. Gianni also had a low voice; must be a genetically selected characteristic, peculiar to patriarchs of Italian mob families, he reckoned.
“I did kill two of his men, but I do not wish to take credit for killing him,” Abelard answered with a smile that belied the sombre atmosphere dragged into the room along with Jacopo.
“Our families seem to have crossed paths early in our history. How is it you know so much about your ancestors?”
“For the same reason you probably know about your own family tree, we kept good records.”
“There is a rumour that you are the one and same Abelard de Buch who has somehow managed to stay alive all this time. How do you think such a rumour could have been started?” Cassius was obviously not aware of that particular rumour and wondered whether his father was perhaps not a bit too old for this business.
“Dona Maria seems to have added two and two and concluded that they summed to at least five. That is the only sensible explanation I have.”
“You’re identity is also very new. I do know with certainty that it was purchased not more than five years ago. Any reason why I should also believe the even newer Argentinian story?”
“Well, Jacopo, it seems we have arrived at a conundrum. I had need of the identity for some very good reasons, which shall remain my secret. But, whatever the identity, my ancestry remains a fact. I do trace my history back to the Twelfth century, even though our predecessors didn’t actually meet until the fourteenth. It is too bad though that we had to get distracted by rumours and details, I would have been delighted to reunite this piece with its original owner’s descendants. I won’t keep you any longer, you must be very busy,” he finished and abruptly rose from the chair, pocketed the brooch and extended his hand, making ready to say his adieus and leave.
“Please be patient with an old man,” Jacopo said, his voice now stronger and firmer than earlier. “Why don’t you tell us what business you are looking to do with us?”
Abelard would have liked to include the Donatello along with Milly in his proposed deal but knew that he would have to deal with them on his own. He was fairly certain there would be a tacit understanding between the criminal organizations regarding territory and the undertaking of business which might throw them into open warfare. Although, in all fairness, Splendid was not a bona fide criminal corporation since it did all its clandestine killing for legitimate governments, Abelard contrived, rather than reasoned.
“I need to conditionally destroy Milford Yonkers Lord. The condition being if something inexplicable happens to any one of four particular individuals; me and three others, whose names I will furnish when and if you agree to the job.”
“That is a contract that could go on for years and entail great expense,” Cassius observed.
“Yes, quite and I would expect the price to reflect that.”
“How much would you want for the brooch,” Cassius asked, “if we were to undertake this assignment, of course,” he hastily added?
“Perhaps, it would be best if we started with the value of the ransom demand at the time. It was for five thousand Florentine Florins. It is estimated that one Florentine Florin from that period was worth about 300 dollars today, to put it into a modern context. If we assume a modest long term annual inflation rate of three percent and do the calculation, then the brooch should today be worth just over 75 trillion dollars.”
There was a moment of stunned silence before Jacopo, follo
wed closely by Cassius burst into loud raucous laughter. They kept on repeating the amount and each time could not stop from slipping into insane hilarity.
“I hope,” Cassius finally finding his voice, said, “that we don’t have to give you change,” which sparked another round of laughter by father and son, neither noticing that Abelard did not appear amused.
“What is so funny,” Abelard asked, when he felt that he could finally be heard over the snorting and guffawing?
“We must be realistic,” Cassius answered. “We will have to agree on a reasonable price for the brooch and then make up the difference in cash.”
“Mr. Bush,” Jacopo said, ignoring his son’s reasoned argument, “we must have this brooch, its sentimental value being too great to let pass. We will undertake the assignment for the brooch in an even trade, if that is satisfactory to you.”
“But father…,” Cassius broke in only to be interrupted by Abelard.
“It’s a deal,” he said, extending his hand. I suppose you have a standard cover contract for this sort of assignment.”
“Yes, it’s a bodyguard contract where we agree to provide you with the service for, in this case, an indefinite period of time. But you will have to trust us to deliver. How do you feel about that?”
“From the records I have seen, Jacopo always dealt fairly and reliably with my ancestor. I would expect that nothing has changed since then.”
“Good, I’ll have the papers ready for signatures by tomorrow. Can you come back here?”
“That may be difficult,” Abelard said, not knowing how tomorrow’s meeting with Dona Maria would turn out. “Could you send the contract to my home in Montreal, where I will look it over when I get back there next week, sign it and send it back to you?”
“No problem.”
Abelard then left to prepare for the following day’s meeting, which he expected to be arduous.
He reserved a room at a small, no star hotel on via Cavour. It was close to the Piazza del Campo and it was too cheap for anyone interested in locating him prior to the next day’s meeting to bother checking. Why would anyone stay at the Loggia Trepiccolo, let alone a man such as Abelard, who could easily afford to buy the rundown establishment?
*