Barkley Bohner, Celebrity Philosopher

Chapter 25

I was as perplexed as Moosh. So, apparently, was Douglas, which crashed instantly.

Moosh was on his feet, smartphone in hand.

"Wait!" I said. "Can't they trace that thing to here?"

"Not if it's untraceable. Besides, we have 31 hours and eight seconds before toast starts falling up." He fiddled with his phone. "Here it is," he said. "Pacioli, the father of accounting. There's got to be a Secret Betsy connection in this."

Something started to ring a bell. "The Secret Betsy Empire virtually invented banking," I said. "It makes sense they had a good accountant."

"Not just a good accountant," said Moosh, reading off his phone. "He takes mathematical concepts and translates them to what he calls perfect proportions. The Golden Mean, the Golden Ratio, Fibonacci Sequences."

I gasped. I could see where this was going.

"It says here that after he came up with accounting, he was employed by the Duke of Milan, this guy Ludivico Sforza. Fuck! Guess who else is on Sforza's payroll?"

He didn't have to tell me. He told me, anyway: 

"Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo da Fucking Vinci. Da Vinci, man. Okay, don't tell me. Da Vinci painted the Mona Betsy."

"Close," I said, scarcely believing what I was about to say. "The Blue Madonna."

"The Blue Madonna," Moosh repeated, only with his jaw to the floor.

This was as good a time as any to bongo-drum on the table. "Blue Madonna," I repeated back, between beats. Then: "This is crazy. The Blue Madonna's been missing for 500 years."

"I bet he painted it according to Pacioli's mathematical principles. The golden mean, Fibonacci, all that." 

"We can't say. It's a missing painting."

Moosh was having none of this: "If it's missing, we can say anything we want. I can say da Vinci painted like Thomas Kinkade. I can say da Vinci painted dogs playing poker. I can say da Vinci painted Elvis on black velvet. Who's to tell me I'm wrong?  So I'm telling you right now – da Vinci painted the Mona Betsy according to Pacioli's math."

No arguing with that.

"Right," he said.

"Right," I said.

"Now we're getting somewhere," he said.

I took it this was my cue to start talking. We changed places. I got up from the table. Moosh sat down at the table. "So you want me to just start making stuff up?" I asked. 

"That would be a good start," Moosh answered, "but I think you know a thing or two."

I went to the sink and poured two waters. This gave me time to organize my thoughts. I handed Moosh his glass. "Here's what I know," I said. "Da Vinci gets invited to Hungary by King Hunyadi Mátyás. His second wife poses for the painting, Beatrice of Naples, Queen of Hungary."

Moosh took a gulp on his water, then set it down on the table, taking care to park it away from my doily. "Let me guess," he said. You're about to tell me she's a Betsy."

"Exactly. But not THE Betsy."

"So we really do have a Mona Betsy."

"Yes, the Blue Madonna. Anyway, she and her husband, they're very pleased with the painting. And that's the last we hear of it."

"So da Vinci had direct contact with the Secret Betsy Empire."

"Exactly."

"And the Mona Betsy disappeared somewhere in Hungary."