Canto for a Gypsy

  “With a hammer?”

  “I don’t know how sharp your eyes are, but if you had a magnifying glass you’d see hammer marks on any piece of crown jewelry. The trouble is that each century the tools of goldsmiths change, hammers included. The peen marks on this crown are wrong by eight centuries. I filed the face of the hammer you’re clutching so it would leave the appropriate marks.”

  “In other words, you’re improving on the forgery.”

  “You grasp the concept.”

  Score one for the Gypsy, Isadore gloated in the pit of his soul.

  “What else have you got planned?” Lynch demanded, and waved to the warming stove.

  “The color’s off, one of the clips has to be taken out and the whole thing could use a cleaning to look better. It might work.”

  Lynch threw the hammer down on the sink.

  “I don’t see any well-equipped laboratory around here for all that, but the real problem is the real crown is probably a thousand miles away from here by now. Isn’t that most likely the case, Sergeant?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Possible? I saw your fake bomb scare out there. We’ll know pretty damn quick if the crown is here.” Lynch wrung his hands, getting ahold of himself. “Sergeant, I’m going off to see the cardinal. You stay here. If that antique dealer touches the crown again, shoot him. Then you can shoot yourself.”

  When Lynch was out of earshot, Roman picked up the hammer and resumed work.

  “Sit down,” he told Isadore. “It’s going to be a long night.”

  Isadore closed his eyes. “I think I should have called him sooner.”

  Roman tapped the hammer over the gold.

  “Killane always wanted it in God’s hands. Now He’s got it.”

  Wearily, through slit eyes, Isadore watched Roman refashion the fake. One large brown hand cupped the gold bows, the other hammered steadily, with casual familiarity, the hammer head slapping down to make the faintest possible impress. All the Gypsy’s tension was in his fingers, fingers that constantly turned the oversized crown, and palms that polished the stones with their sweat of concentration.

  Isadore pushed himself off the bucket to check the vitriol in the oven. The liquefied crystals were starting to harden.

  “Your apprentice is coming down with sunstroke.” Isadore undid the top two buttons of his shirt.

  Roman glanced in the oven.

  “It’s coming along fine. Take it out and put in a plate of incense coals. You’ll find some in my jacket.”

  “You plan to sleep here?” Isadore held up a toothbrush he found with the coals.

  “If you don’t tell on me, I won’t tell on you.”

  Inside the cardinal’s residence, Commissioner Lynch was long past remembering that its second name was the Powerhouse. The power sat behind his desk, unfatigued.

  “Have you made your choice, Commissioner? The priests, the Hungarians or me?”

  “Accusing yourself doesn’t help me find the Holy Crown; it just stops me.”

  “Then say you accuse the Hungarians, which you have to if the crown is gone and I didn’t take it from St. Patrick’s. I can tell you what would happen. Diplomatic relations would be broken and cultural exchanges will end. American tourists will be arrested on fraudulent charges in Hungary and other Central European countries. There will be a motion for condemnation in the United Nations. The Vatican, which sponsored the crown’s return, will be very embarrassed. In the end the United States will pay millions in reparations. Which won’t stop our friends the priests from returning at their leisure and removing the crown from St. Patrick’s.”

  Lynch tried the high road. “We should be working together instead of threatening each other. Here we are, heads of the two biggest Catholic organizations in the country, fighting. Your Eminence should cooperate. I don’t second-guess you on spiritual matters; you shouldn’t interfere in criminal investigations. Do you mind if I say that right now you’re using blackmail?”

  “Not at all.”

  “I gather as much. Then do me this favor. If I can punch a hole in this story about the priests hiding the crown, will you let me put out a bulletin? Good. Now, five men go ­helter-skelter in St. Patrick’s around six of Reggel’s secret police.” Lynch leaned over the desk. “The floors of the church are stone. The men wore shoes, not sneakers. How in the world did the Hungarians miss hearing them?”

  Killane pressed a button on his intercom and asked for a fresh pot of coffee.

  “You need it,” he told Lynch. “They took off their shoes, of course.”

  * * *

  Roman spread live coals over the vitriol and gave Isadore the task of fanning them.

  “You’re doing a wonderful job,” Roman said. “Have you had any experience at this?”

  “Will I need it where I’m going?”

  The vitriol burned to a rosy hue. Roman let it cool, then ground it to dust with the hammer, adding salt as he worked.

  “There’s nothing more I can do for you?” Isadore asked politely before returning to his nap.

  “Wine and a feather.”

  The detective rubbed the pouches under his eyes.

  “The wine I know they got. The feather?”

  He fetched a cup of sacramental wine and a small camel’s-hair brush.

  “Courtesy of the field examiners. I might as well hang myself completely.”

  Roman added the wine drop by drop until the vitriol powder liquefied. He painted the preparation carefully around the crown’s diadem of red gold. Isadore sat on his bucket and pondered dully how much practice the Gypsy had at this sort of labor in the rear of his antique shop.

  “Tell me the truth, Roman, how do you manage to produce whatever your customers want?”

  “The truth, sergeant, is told only in Romany.”

  After a fashion, Isadore had to admit, the answer made sense. He undid the buttons of his shirt while Roman put the damp crown in the oven. Sleep continued to weigh down Isadore’s eyelids. He reached into his jacket for another Nō-Dōz. His hand came out dripping from a melted bar of chocolate halvah. A brown stain was starting to spread to the outside of the jacket.

  “Some days. . . .”

  A wisp of smoke trailed from the dried crown when Roman removed it from the oven. He washed and scrubbed it with the toothbrush, then returned it to the oven. After a minute he removed the crown again and wrapped it in church linen to cool.

  At a knock on the door, Isadore wiped his hand and buttoned his shirt. He slipped out of the steaming room to face the chief of the bomb squad.

  “Nails, coins, a fingernail clipper. No bomb. Do you want me to tell the commissioner?”

  “Aren’t there nonmetallic bombs?” Isadore stalled.

  “Gelatine, sure. We would’ve found it if it was here. We even looked in the cameras in the baptistry.”

  “Cameras?”

  “Yeah, the cameras the Hungarians confiscated.”

  Isadore was already running down the aisle.

  * * *

  Reggel reached the bell tower of the north spire. He smashed open its locked door by using the handle of a metal detector as a spear. The beam of his flashlight played over the nineteen bells. The largest, named St. Patrick, weighed three tons. The smallest, St. Godfrey, was smaller than a man. In the dark the bells looked like gross, flourishing nightflowers.

  And the night was only half over.

  17

  The small watch stood boldly in the middle of Killane’s desk. It was 2 A.M.

  “If the crown was stolen from the crypt, it has now been gone for twenty-four hours,” the cardinal reported. “Twenty-four hours to be anywhere. If it isn’t in St. Patrick’s, you won’t find it tonight or in a week or even a month.”

  “Is that true?” the deputy mayor asked Lynch. He had left his ow
n advertising agency to run the mayor’s election campaign. In essence, his duties were to help his employer survive to run again. Since he had arrived within minutes after Lynch called him, sleep still puffed his face and matted one side of his razor-cut hair.

  “Of course it’s true. The crown was stolen at least twenty-four hours ago. The only controls we have over travelers is at the airports, and amateur hijackers get through those all the time.”

  “Have you got the art theft squad on this?”

  “There is no art theft squad. A plainclothes team worked on the Star of India theft ten years back, but they were split up in the reorganization.”

  The deputy mayor poured some more coffee and allowed himself a rare cigarette.

  “Just what is our culpability in this, Jack?”

  “The Hungarians were responsible for whatever happened inside St. Patrick’s, but the overall responsibility is still ours.”

  “And this Hungarian captain in charge, he wants us to play along and pretend the crown’s not missing.”

  “Because he’s crazy on the subject—even I can see that.”

  “That isn’t the point.” The deputy mayor thought of his mayor sleeping happily in the Chilean alps. “The point is that the Hungarians had the responsibility for the Holy Crown when it was stolen. Once we turn down his request, the responsibility switches to us. But you don’t think our odds of finding the thing are very good.”

  “Because I think this story about the priests is a lot of bull. I don’t care if each had four arms, you don’t steal a crown in front of five thousand people.”

  “Then it was the Hungarians or me,” Killane concluded.

  The deputy mayor screwed his cigarette out, turning it long after it was dead.

  “You say the sergeant over there found some film in some cameras that were confiscated. How long before they’re developed?”

  “An hour before we get them back here.”

  “An hour,” the deputy mayor repeated, rubbing the hollow of his collarbone. There hadn’t been time to put on a tie. “I’d rather just leave it to the Hungarians and we could look as if we were doing them a favor by doing nothing. But you’re right, Jack. If the crown’s not here, we have to start looking someplace else. This is absolutely one administration that’s not going to interfere with the police.” He ducked the cardinal’s look. “Well, you can wait an hour. If you don’t find the crown here by then, go ahead. In the meantime, I’d better leave before the reporters get wind I’m here and start asking me why the mayor has to vacation in a Communist country. I told him not to do that.”

  * * *

  Inside Roman’s makeshift workshop, the fake crown lay dry and uncovered on a linen square. Roman worked at the sink, grinding charcoal into fine powder that would give the crown its final cleaning. The door opened and closed, and by the tread he could tell Isadore had returned. The detective stared ruminatively at the crown.

  “I don’t see any difference. Of course, I’m no expert,” he added.

  Isadore leaned against the wall with his elbow, his head resting on his hand. Roman sifted the black dust through a damp cloth. The Gypsy wrung the water out, wadded the cloth into a pad in his fist and began rubbing the crown.

  “You know, Roman, there’s another theory that occurs to me. Say a criminal is hired to help take care of a crown because he knows a lot about this sort of royal jewelry. During the exhibit, he arrives and claims the real crown is gone and a fake was put in its place. He even cuts off a piece from the crown and the gold has something in it it shouldn’t have. Only the criminal doesn’t really cut the sample from the crown, he just pretends to and hands over a piece that was already in his palm. Once everyone is convinced, they let him work on this crown. They think he’s making a fake more like the real crown, when what he’s actually doing is making the real crown look like a fake.”

  Roman washed the charcoal off the crown and dried it.

  “Why would he do that?”

  “People don’t guard fakes as well as real crowns. Pieces of evidence get lost all the time and nobody gets excited. Then if it gets back to the man with the magic hands, all he has to do is a little restoration and, presto, the Holy Crown reappears. It just takes a smooth operator and a little patience. What do you think of my idea?”

  The Gypsy hammered a white powder out of the chalk sticks.

  “It’s as good as anything else I’ve heard.”

  “That’s all you have to say?”

  “Would you like to know what’s really funny about your idea?”

  As Roman talked, he rubbed the chalk dust over the crown, giving it an almost blinding shine.

  * * *

  Reggel placed the fake on Killane’s desk. It was 3 A.M. and the films had not arrived.

  “I’m afraid I’ve failed,” Killane said. “Captain, would you please call the ambassador and tell him the situation?”

  “We’re not even going to wait for the films?” Isadore asked. “Why not?”

  Lynch didn’t answer and Isadore leaned on the phone.

  “Get away, Sergeant.”

  “You can listen for two minutes.” Isadore pointed at Lynch. “Go ahead, Roman. Tell them what you told me.”

  “All I said was that once you start your spectacular dragnet there won’t be any Crown of Saint Stephen or any sanctissima corona, not even if you get it back without a scratch.”

  “Explain that,” Killane demanded.

  “You thought I was cruel to Andos. Sergeant Isadore thought I made a slip when I said the hammer marks on this crown were off by eight centuries instead of ten. I wasn’t. The Holy Crown of Hungary is a fake.” Roman smiled. “No, I don’t mean the crown on the desk. I mean the Holy Crown that everyone is so eager to get killed for. Look.”

  Reggel tried to protect the fake on the desk, but Roman grabbed it away.

  “This fake is good enough to show you. Andos said the top half was from the original crown and the bottom belonged to King Géza. Now, gentlemen, use your eyes.”

  Roman stepped around Lynch and placed the crown on the commissioner’s head. It sank down to Lynch’s mouth.

  “Your head’s not that small, Commissioner. The crown wasn’t made for Géza or any other man. It was made for a woman and it had to be big enough to accommodate her hair. The stones are a woman’s: sapphire for chastity and pearls for modesty. Thank you.” He took the crown off Lynch’s head. “An ordinary woman’s crown made at the royal workshop at Regensburg. There were probably fifty made like this in the twelfth century, a hundred years after Géza was dead.”

  “The top half is from Saint Stephen’s crown, Mr. Grey,” the cardinal reminded him. “That’s what’s important.”

  “That’s the fascinating part, Your Eminence. The bows of red gold aren’t from any saint’s crown; they aren’t from anybody’s. Who knows what happened to Saint Stephen’s or what it looked like? It disappeared after his death. But about three hundred years later, for political reasons or religious ones, someone decided to make a new crown. You can understand that anyone who could claim Saint Stephen’s Crown had an edge on the throne. The problem was that he couldn’t make his forgery out of a crown anyone would recognize and he couldn’t have a new one made at Regensburg.

  “His solution was ingenious. Nobody would recognize the ornamental gold bands from the cover of a Bible after they were bent into bows for Saint Stephen’s crown. It wasn’t the perfect solution because the flat bands had enamel plaques and the plaques suffered and the bands cracked when they were bent. But if you put a cross on top and attach it to a lady’s diadem, what do you have? The Crown of Saint Stephen, the greatest fake in history. The forger hired for the job wasn’t so successful, since he was killed when his job was done. When the Gypsies left Hungary for the rest of Europe, they carried the story that they had to travel because it was a Rom blacksmith who
made the nails that crucified Jesus. There was another story that it was a Rom who made a crown from a Bible.

  “So, start your fun and games, Commissioner, but you better hope you fail. Because when the real crown is found, it’s going to face more than the eyes of experts; there’ll be authentication with spectrographs and carbon 14, and those tests are going to say the same thing I did. Then you’ll find out that it’s one thing to lose the Holy Crown of Hungary and another to tell the Hungarians that their most precious symbol is some medieval hoax, that it’s worth no more than this fake—ten thousand dollars in gold and poor-quality stones.”

  The antique dealer, his face darkly in need of a shave and his shirt clinging with sweat, placed the crown elegantly in the center of Killane’s desk. Killane and the rest looked with new eyes at the copy’s crooked bows and off-center cross.

  There was a knock at the door, and Isadore came back with the delivered films.

  “It was a stall,” Lynch said.

  * * *

  Isadore’s catch consisted of black-and-white prints, slides and two 8-mm films confiscated on the second day of the display. Each was separately packaged according to the owner.

  There were prints of unknown people blocking views of the United Nations, Radio City, Rockefeller Center and the façade of St. Patrick’s. Waving. Mugging. One lone picture was of the crown in the sanctuary, but it was out of focus.

  The slides introduced more anonymous faces. Hotel room views. A long-focus shot that turned Madison Avenue into a rolling snake. Suddenly a close-up of St. Patrick’s front entrance, the Lily of the Mohawks in low-relief crazed and ecstatic. The Holy Crown seen between heads. A long-focus shot with the crown luminous as a painting by Caravaggio. Another with the sanctuary abruptly filled with priests.

  “It’s the evening Mass, the right one,” Isadore said. “Those are the phony priests.”

  “With a few thousand watching them.” Lynch’s voice came out of the dark with more interest than Isadore had dared hope.

  A shot of a badly balding priest mounting the pulpit. The next shot was black and so were all the rest.

  “Must have been when the camera was taken away.”