Midnight Angels by Lorenzo Carcaterra Page A

soon melted and disappeared. It is one of the few works he completed of which there is no visual image.”
    Kate walked in silence for several moments, her pretzel long since eaten, her jelly bean sandals landing soft against the park pavement, the Great Lawn packed with sunbathers and children running while holding on tight to the strings of overhead kites. “So then how do we know?” she finally asked.
    “That he made the statue?”
    Kate nodded. “We don’t even know if it really snowed,” she said. “So how can we be so sure he made a statue out of snow?”
    “Riddle me this, young lady,” Edwards said.
    Kate covered her face with the fingers of her right hand. “I am not good at this,” she said.
    “Not yet, you aren’t,” he said. “But you’ll get it right eventually. Luck along with skill will dictate the time. But this is one you should be able to figure out.”
    “Only if you make it an easy one,” she said.
    “A defective chunk of marble,” he began, not bothering to hide his smile. “A debt that must be paid. A job that must be finished. And time is not your friend. Now, what does all that give you?”
    Kate thought for a second and then nodded. “The naked man,” she said.
    “Known in some circles as the David,” Edwards said.
    “So I got it right?”
    “Not quite on the money,” Edwards said, “but close enough.”
    “But what does the naked man have to do with the snowman?” she asked.
    “They are two sides of the same coin,” Edwards said. “Both were jobs that, for their own reasons, needed to be completed quickly. And both came along at a time when Michelangelo was in need of funds and, as was true for most of his life, well behind on his assigned work.”
    “What was he working on when he did the snowman?” Kate asked.
    “The statue of Hercules,” Edwards said.
    “Have I ever seen that one?”
    Edwards shook his head. “No,” he said. “Neither have I, nor has anyone else since the eighteenth century. When the piece was finally finished, it was sold to a man named Alfonso Strozzi, and then, years later, Francis I, king of France, took possession. It was kept in the Fontainebleau gardens, and there it remained until very early in the eighteenth century.”
    “And then?”
    “And then it vanished, much like the snowman—only in his case, the disappearance could be traced to natural causes.”
    “I bet it’s really hard to steal a statue,” Kate said.
    “If it was stolen,” Edwards said, moving toward a wooden bench, the young girl fast by his side.
    “You said it vanished,” she said. “Doesn’t that mean someone stole it?”
    Edwards sat down and looked at Kate standing across from him, the late afternoon sun reflecting off the endless row of city high-rises. “In most cases it would, yes,” he said. “But I don’t think that’s what happened with the Hercules.”
    Kate glanced up at him, absorbing his words and attempting to grasp their intent, and then she nodded. “Michelangelo hid it,” she said, an excited tone to her voice.
    “If not him, then someone working on his behalf,” Edwards said, leaning forward, hands folded, arms resting on his knees. “And it probablywasn’t the only time. If what I believe can ever be proven, then at least forty percent of his works are hidden in various parts of Europe. I’m not alone in thinking that way. Your parents believed it as well, and they did considerably more research on the matter than I have.”
    “But why would he do that?” she asked. “Why go to all the trouble of doing the work if all he was going to do at the end was hide it?”
    “There are a number of reasons,” Edwards said, “and they all make a great deal of sense when examined closely.”
    “Like what?”
    “Well, it could have been done at the behest of the Medici family. They were consumed with the notion of power and knew their grip on the city could not last forever. Hiding works of the greatest sculptor of the day would