Old Gold Mountain by Bradley W. Wright

Author:Bradley W. Wright
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: cat burglar at night, crooked art appraisers, italy and france, mafia and underworld families, san francisco artist and art thief, thief searching for stolen painting, using black market contacts to find painting
Publisher: Black Opal Books

***

The next morning, I was ready and waiting in the lobby when Gabrielle pulled up in a white BMW SUV. I slid into the passenger seat and was immediately assaulted by a wet tongue slurping my ear.

“Leo! Arrete!” Gabrielle said, reaching back and pushing a massive furry creature away from me.

I turned in my seat. Leo was a standard poodle with dark, almost black, fur. He was big, maybe seventy pounds, and hunkered down on the back seat, head resting on his paws, staring back at me with sad brown eyes. I held out my hand, received a lick, and patted him on the head.

“Nice to meet you Leo,” I said and turned back to Gabrielle. “Thanks again for coming to pick me up and show me around the countryside.”

“It’s my pleasure,” she replied. “We’re going to drive out to a village called Le Broc. It’s about twenty-eight kilometers up into the mountains. Antonetti’s house is close to the village. I know a place where we can hike to an overlook and see the house and grounds.”

She was wearing jeans, sturdy hiking shoes, and a cable-knit sweater. I had foreseen some walking in nature and had chosen similar clothes. The day was bright, cloudless, and cool--maybe fifty-five or sixty degrees.

“I’m glad I dressed for a walk,” I replied. “Is hiking something you do a lot?”

“Yes. Nearly every weekend if the weather is good. Leo needs to get out and run.”

Gabrielle piloted the SUV deftly among the pedestrians, scooters, and taxis in the city center and then onto the A8 and through the outskirts of Nice. The car was comfortable and quiet. I could never bring myself to purchase a luxury automobile--one of the few things that had stuck with me from my childhood was a distaste for conspicuous consumption--but I did appreciate the high-end experience of riding in one. As we drove, we talked about art and artists. She knew a lot about contemporary sculpture, much more than I did, as a matter of fact. After a while, we turned off the A8 onto a smaller highway that led inland and up into the southern foothills of the Alps. The farther we got from the city center, the fewer office parks and subdivisions we passed. Farms and forest took over, and I saw glimpses of the Var river, paralleling the highway. Ahead, rising above the horizon far in the distance were hazy blue, snowcapped mountains. After about twenty minutes of driving, we came to a bridge and crossed the river. Looking out over its green-brown expanse, I thought about T. S. Eliot’s “strong brown god,” “destroyer, reminder of what men choose to forget.” Slow, broad, silty rivers like the Var always bring that poem to my mind. I mentioned it to Gabrielle, and she nodded.

“Yes. It’s an unassuming river. The name Var comes from the Ligurian word for waterway. Sort of like naming your dog ‘canine,’ or your city ‘inhabited place.’”

After the bridge, we turned onto a narrower road, barely wide enough for two cars.

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