An Insignificant Case

Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR

Two weeks after Gretchen Hall bought his painting of the Venice canal, Guido Sabatini experienced an uncontrollable urge to visit the dining room of La Bella Roma Italian Ristorante so he could see the enraptured faces of the patrons as they gazed upon one of his masterpieces. Guido knew that he had promised Gretchen that he would not return to La Bella Roma. Unfortunately, impulse control was not an item that Guido stored in his psychic toolbox.

When Guido made his entrance at the height of the lunch hour, Salvatore Borelli’s face turned an irate shade of red. Guido scanned the dining room in search of a gondola passing under a low stone bridge that crossed a narrow canal. The ma?tre d’ smiled at the couple who were waiting to be seated and excused himself.

“What are you doing here?” Borelli demanded.

“I have not returned to disturb your customers,” Guido assured the ma?tre d’. “I have missed my painting of Venezia, and I wanted to see her once more.”

“Well, you won’t see it in the dining room. Miss Hall hung it in her office, and you’re not going in there.”

Guido stared at Borelli in shock. “Signora Hall is hiding my masterpiece in her office, where no one can see it?”

“Didn’t I just say that?”

“She can’t do that.”

“She owns the painting, so she can do what she wants with it. Now, why don’t you take off so I can deal with people who want to have lunch?”

“Where is Signora Hall? I must speak to her about this. We must resolve this problem.”

“Miss Hall isn’t here, and she won’t be here in the near future. She’s out of state, and I don’t know when she’s going to return. So, unless you want lunch, get lost.”

Guido drew himself up to his full height. “Signora Hall has insulted my painting by hiding it from your patrons. I will not rest until the insult has been avenged.”

“Yeah, well, good luck with that. Now, are you going to leave, or do I have to call 911?”

Guido glared at Borelli. Then he turned on his heel and stomped out.

La Bella Roma was at one end of a strip mall that was patrolled by an elderly security guard, who made his rounds in a circle at the same time, on the same route, every hour. Guido Sabatini knew this, because he had staked out La Bella Roma for two nights after it closed. On the third night, as soon as the security guard was far enough from the restaurant, Guido walked to the rear door and used lock-picking skills he had learned from a thief he had met during his time consorting with shadowy characters in backroom poker games.

The restaurant had a primitive alarm system, and Guido disabled it quickly. Then he walked into Gretchen Hall’s office. He used his flashlight to find his precious painting of the Venice canal. When he lifted it off the wall, he saw that Hall was using it to cover her wall safe. That made him furious. The painting was a work of art, not a decoration like a cheap, plastic wall sconce.

Guido had an amazing memory and an incredible facility with numbers, which helped him count cards, among other things. When Hall had opened the safe, Guido had seen the combination reflected in the ornate mirror that faced it. The numbers were backward in the mirror, but that was not a problem for Guido, who’d memorized the combination as easily as if he were reading it off a piece of paper.

Guido wanted revenge, and he hoped that there was something in the safe that he could use to blackmail Hall into hanging his masterpiece in the dining room, where all the restaurant’s patrons would be able to see and appreciate it.

Guido played the beam of the flashlight around the safe’s interior. Guido was not a thief, so he had no interest in the stacks of currency, and many of the papers he saw were too bulky to carry when he was also carrying his painting.

Guido was about to give up when the beam alighted on a small object. Why would Gretchen Hall be hiding it in her safe, he asked himself, and concluded that it must be important. Guido scooped up the flash drive and put it in his pocket. Then he left La Bella Roma and carried his booty to his car.