Wayward Son Read Online Free PDF Page A

details to cover.”
    Polberto bowed obediently and withdrew.

CHAPTER 3
    Villa Colosseum, Point Dume, California
     
     
     
    AS THE SINKING SUN painted the Pacific far below, Luc Renard stood on the balcony of Villa Colosseum with his muralist in residence. Giovanni Genoa was no taller than Polberto, reaching only to Luc’s shoulder. His balding pate was crowned with long white hair that bushed out at the sides. Flared eyebrows and a grizzled beard, also white, gave Genoa a grandfatherly look. Yet the effect was far from serene. No one would have mistaken the painter for Father Christmas. Instead, his muscled upper body and habitual forward-leaning stance suggested the power and restlessness of a being long accustomed to hunting for a living.
    Both men were dressed for the party, Luc in a maroon Armani silk jacket and Giovanni in a dazzling white tuxedo, jauntily garnished with a maroon cummerbund. Both wore Bruno Magli loafers and looked like a matched pair.
    “You are pleased with the murals, signore?”
    Luc guffawed. “ Pleased is not the word, Giovanni. I am delighted…ecstatic in fact! What you’ve accomplished in three years Michelangelo couldn’t have done in ten. The murals are stunning, truly extraordinary.”
    “That is most kind of you, signore.” The painter bowed graciously to acknowledge the praise he had sought.
    “Your murals make Diego Rivera and Orozco look like street artists, graffiti boys. The guests will be enamored of your creations. They will open their arms to embrace you. And they will open their wallets to support the Getty.” Luc clapped his hands gleefully.
    “But, signore,” Giovanni Genoa interposed. “Ever since you commissioned the murals, I have felt that you…perhaps—how shall I put this?—wondered why I have presented the theme of violence so graphically?”
    “No, you’re on the wrong track there,” replied Luc. “I wanted you to highlight human passion in all its intensity. Violence, warfare, rivalry, lust—it is strife that marks the human condition. History is a chronicle of devastation, Giovanni.”
    The painter received this gnomic utterance thoughtfully.
    “Some philosophers speak of progress, rather than decline,” he responded. “Think of the Enlightenment, for example—”
    Luc cut the older man short. “Progress is rubbish. The illustrious leaders of the Enlightenment, Diderot, Voltaire, Locke, Hume and Montesquieu, and all the rest, didn’t have to live through the twentieth century. Mass murder is rampant, Giovanni. Every bone in my body tells me it will become even more so.”
    Luc glanced at his watch. “A quarter to six. They’ll be here soon. I think I should review the prepared remarks for the ceremony. Shall we go inside? Let’s convene in the library.”
    Luc put his arm around the painter’s shoulders. “I am glad I found you.”
    Giovanni Genoa bowed a second time in assent and fell into step beside his patron. “And I, you,” he said softly.
    As they made their way to the library, Luc was reassured to see dozens of uniformed staffers attending to last-minute details. Now that the black satin drapes were in place to conceal the murals in the great hall, a team was hastily dismantling the scaffolding and spiriting it away for storage. In the foyer, artists were putting the finishing touches on two massive ice sculptures, each depicting a heavily armed, battle-ready Roman gladiator. Ornamental bronze basins below the plinths would catch the melting runoff while multicolored lasers from above would captivate the guests as they entered the foyer.
    The mansion resounded with a cacophony of tuning instruments from the dual hundred-piece orchestras situated inside and outside the villa. In the center of the great hall, a stone dais constructed of large blocks of snowflake obsidian would serve as the focus for the unveiling ceremony. Technicians buzzed over the lighting, the microphone, the podium, and the seating arrangements for