The Painted Messiah (43 page)

Wilde did meet a young painter named Armstrong in Paris shortly before his death and the painter was subsequently instructed by his parents to sail home on the next ship (to save him from Wilde's sin). On the last night that Wilde was out of his bed, we know he sat without his usual friends in an out-of-the-way tavern
(quite naturally unable to pay his bill) and may have talked to another young painter named Bill Landi, but then that is only the speculation of a storyteller.

At the end of the twentieth century Switzerland came under legal attack for not returning bank funds to the survivors and heirs of victims of the holocaust. The banks insisted they had lost the records of these accounts. Then one night a security guard discovered a cart-full of these records set out with instructions to have the material incinerated the following morning. The guard stole several pages to prove his story, and found someone who helped him take the news to the world. The Swiss bankers, impeccable for three centuries, were caught in their collective lie and agreed to settle. In the aftermath of their disgrace, a number of new treaties have been put in place obliging the banks to cooperate with international inquiries about suspicious accounts. Banking secrecy in Switzerland is now, presumably, a thing of the past.

In Switzerland, there are billionaire fugitives, intelligence operatives, disenfranchised aristocracy, wealthy art dealers, master thieves, mountain climbers, and of course independent bookstore owners, but those in
The Painted Messiah
are all the work of my imagination.

For more on
The Painted Messiah
visit my website:
www. craigsmithnovels. ch

CS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am grateful to the following individuals who read an earlier draft of this novel and gave such cogent remarks: Harriet McNeal, James McNeal, Marilyn Bisch, Mike Jefferson, Martha Ineichen, Shirley Underwood, and Burdette Palmberg. For their continuing support and encouragement, thanks also to Herbert Ineichen, Doug and Maria Smith, Don Jennermann, and Rick Williams.

And a special thanks to Jeffrey Simmons and Ed Handy side - the men who made this happen!