Read Online Pictures of Fidelman by Bernard Malamud - Free Book Online Page B

ransom?”
    “Ransom?”
    “Ransom,” Scarpio says from the window.
    “At least $300,000,” says Angelo, “a bargain for the insurance company. They’d save a hundred thousand on the deal.”
    He outlines a plan. They had photographed the Titian on both sides from all angles and distances and had collected from various art books the best color plates. They also had the exact measurements of the canvas and every figure on it. If Fidelman could make a decent copy they would duplicate the frame and on a dark night sneak the reproduction into the castello
gallery and exit with the original. The guards were stupid and the advantage of the plan—instead of slitting the canvas out of its frame—was that nobody would recognize the substitution for days, possibly longer. In the meantime they would row the picture across the lake and truck it out of the country; one had a better chance in France. Once the picture was securely hidden, Angelo back at the hotel, Scarpio would get in touch with the insurance company. Recognizing the brilliance of the execution, they would kick in at once with the ransom money.
    “If you make a good copy you’ll get yours,” says Angelo.
    “Mine? What would that be?” Fidelman asks.
    “Your passport,” Angelo answers cagily. “Plus two hundred American dollars and a quick goodbye.”
    “Five hundred dollars,” says Fidelman.
    “Scarpio,” the padrone says patiently, “show him what you have in your pants.”
    Scarpio unbuttons his jacket and draws a mean-looking dagger from a sheath under his belt.
    “Three fifty,” Fidelman says. “I’ll need plane fare.”
    “Three fifty,” nods Angelo. “Payable when you deliver the finished reproduction.”
    “And you pay for all supplies?”
    “All expenses within reason. But if you try any monkey tricks—snitch or double cross, you’ll wake up with your head missing, or something worse.”
    “Tell me,” Fidelman says after a minute of contemplation,
“what if I turn down the proposition? I mean in a friendly way?”
    Angelo rises sternly from the creaking bed. “Then you’ll stay here for the rest of your life. When you leave you leave in a coffin, very cheap wood.”
    “I see.”
    “Then it’s settled,” says Angelo.
    “Take the morning off,” says Scarpio.
    “Thanks.”
    The padrone glares. “First finish the toilet bowls.”
     
    Am I worthy? Can I do it? Do I dare? He has these and other doubts, feels melancholy, and wastes time.
    Angelo one morning calls him into his office. “Have a Munich beer.”
    “No, thanks.”
    “Cordial?”
    “Nothing now.”
    “What’s the matter with you? You look as if you buried your mother.”
    Fidelman sets down his mop and pail and says nothing.
    “Why don’t you put those things away and get started?” the padrone asks. “I’ve had the portiere move six trunks and some broken furniture out of the storeroom where you have two big windows. Scarpio wheeled in an easel and he’s bought you brushes, colors and anything else you need.”
    “It’s west light, not very even.”

    Angelo shrugs. “It’s the best I can do. This is our season and I can’t spare any other rooms. If you’d rather work at night we can set up some lamps. It’s a waste of electricity but I’ll make that concession to your temperament if you work fast and produce the goods.”
    “What’s more I don’t know the first thing about forging paintings. All I might do is just about copy the picture.”
    “That’s all we ask. Leave the technical business to us. First do a decent drawing. When you’re ready to paint I’ll get you a piece of sixteenth-century Belgian linen that’s been scraped clean of a former picture. You prime it with white lead and when it’s dry you sketch. Once you finish the nude, Scarpio and I will bake it, put in the cracks, and age them with soot. We’ll even stipple in fly spots before we varnish and glue. We’ll do what’s necessary. There are books on this subject and