1 - Artscape: Ike Schwartz Mystery 1 (4 page)

Chapter Five

Even in death, Harry thought, Ellen managed to make things unpleasant. He chided himself for the thought. She was dead, after all, and that was the end to it. He needed a drink. He stood in the rain staring at the fresh earth piled beside the grave. Brown rivulets of muddy water formed on its surface and ran into the fake grass covering the raw earth left by the backhoe. No one else in sight. There hadn’t been that many there in the first place, when you got right down to it—a couple of people from the hospital, some friends from the old neighborhood, maybe eight or ten people in all, and Ellen’s parents, of course. They glanced at him with a look as cold as Duluth in December. It was their funeral, bought and paid for. Harry hadn’t even been invited. If the funeral director hadn’t called him about an item of clothing, he’d never have known about it. As it turned out, he’d trudged up the hill through the sodden grass, rain dripping from his hair and down his neck, just as the priest finished.

Now, he was alone. Five years of dying, and it ends here. All gone, house, savings, job, wife, and God only knew how or when he was going to get the children back. He fought the growing anger and despair.

He had worked for twenty years, good at what he did, maybe the best. But he could not sell his skills anywhere now. He glanced at the men hunched down in their slickers next to the backhoe and nodded. No sense in everyone being miserable. He turned and headed down the knoll to the road that led back to the street. Behind him he heard the backhoe cough and start and then whine as it dumped the earth that would separate Ellen Grafton from the world of the living.

He’d walked several yards before he saw the limousine. Damn, he thought, I asked them to leave me alone. Can’t anyone do what they are told? He’d brushed off the funeral director’s offer for a ride, telling him to take the hearse and limousine away. He’d declined rides from others as well. They lingered for a while, uncomfortable and embarrassed, and then left him.

He walked toward the road, ignoring the car, heading for the gate. The limousine rolled abreast. He heard the hum of the electric window. Irritated, he turned and spoke through the open window.

“Please, I told you people to go. I do not need or want your services anymore today.”

“Mr. Grafton, let me offer you a ride. We need to talk.”

The voice did not sound like that of any of the funeral parlor people. Grafton squinted into the gloom of the back seat. He did not recognize its occupant. His heart began to race. So this is how it begins. The Bureau listed him as a liability. He knew too much and since they let him go, he could not be allowed to wander about. He stepped off the road and turned toward the forest of headstones. He would have some protection there, but for how long? If they wanted him, they would get him sooner or later. He stopped and his shoulders sagged. He turned back to the car.

“Okay, okay, let’s get this over with,” he muttered as the door opened. Harry got in. The window slid up, and the car accelerated. Harry waited, feeling the man’s eyes, calculating, measuring him.

“Grafton, I think you have mistaken me for someone else. I am not with your former employer. I am here because I believe I can help you, and you can help me.”

“Who are you, then, and what makes you think I need or want your help?”

“I am a contractor, Mr. Grafton, and I have a job to do, a very complicated job. It requires someone with your special skills, and at the moment, you are the only person with those skills available. I am taking a risk even talking to you because you can always put your old friends in the FBI on to me. That would be very embarrassing. I am taking that risk because I believe you will not do that. You will not because I have something you need, and I am the only person in the world who is willing to give it to you.”

“And what is that? What are you talking about? Who are you, anyway?”

“My name is Donati, Vito Donati, and what I’m talking about is money, Grafton, lots of money.”

“Why would I care about you and money, Donati, if that’s who you are? What makes you think I need or want money?”

“Oh, you need money because you owe money. You owe the hospital one hundred and forty-seven thousand, three hundred dollars and ah, thirty-seven cents. Can you imagine that, a hospital bill that big? Says a lot about the state of medical care in the country, don’t you think? And you owe four, no, five doctors a total of fifty-two thousand three hundred eighty-three dollars. There are also an assortment of medical laboratories and service people who expect some serious money from you. You owe your landlady three months’ back rent. You will need money to hire lawyers to get custody of your kids. You have no job and no insurance, because the Bureau let you go three months ago. They said you had lost your nerve or your touch or whatever nice way they describe someone who needs Jack Daniels for breakfast. You have no assets worth mentioning. You cashed out your 401k, sold your house, car, sound system, television, and furniture to pay bills. Your in-laws have an Illinois court order giving them temporary custody of your children. The grounds are not important, but I will cite them if you wish. You just buried your wife. I would tell you I am sorry, but I never knew her, and I am not a sentimental man. In short, Grafton, your back is against the wall. You are unemployed and unemployable. You cannot even tell people what you did for a living, at least not right now. In a year or so, you could get a job with a company selling or manufacturing security systems, but if, and only if, the FBI decides you’re safe and lets you.

“Oh, you need me, Grafton, you need me big time. Lucky for you, I need you, too, so I want to offer you a deal.”

Harry sat speechless. Donati had access to information that could only come from someone deep inside the Bureau. And Donati was right. Harry needed money.

“I am hoping,” Donati added, “that I have estimated your financial problems and your level of, shall we say, disenchantment with the Bureau and all it represents.”

“All right, you’ve got your facts right. Tell me what you want and then I’ll tell you whether I’m interested.”

Donati stared straight ahead without speaking for a moment. “Grafton, your outstanding debts come to something over two hundred thousand dollars. Throw the lawyers in there and you are looking at a quarter of a million shortfall. That includes your landlord but not your credit cards, which are also maxed out. I will pay you one hundred thousand dollars for a week’s work, work you have done before. When we are finished, we are finished. You get fifty thousand up front, the remainder when I collect my money after the job.”

“Just what do I do for one hundred K?”

“You go to a little town in Virginia and inspect a building for burglar alarms. When I say so, you go back to the building, deactivate them, and then help me and my associates remove several hundred paintings from the building. That’s all.”

“Sorry, I need to know more. I need to weigh the risks. I can’t work without that.”

“Fair enough. I have been employed by a group of people who specialize in political, shall we say, manipulation. They are funded by one of those groups in the Middle East that you know more about than I do. They want me to steal some paintings and hide them. They will then ransom them for a great deal of money. When that has been done, I collect my fee, I pay you and the others, and we all separate.”

“What’s to prevent me from blowing the whistle on you and your friends?”

“I hoped you wouldn’t ask that. Well, I believe I have your price and I am correct about your anger at the FBI. If that is not enough, there are your children. I do not like getting at people through their families, you see, but I am a businessman in a business with no margin for error. Do you understand?”

Harry weighed the man’s words. Donati had done the math—he stopped counting months ago but guessed he owed at least that much. He weighed the risks. He thought of a career spanning twenty years devoted to, for the most part, the prevention of crime. There were times when it was not clear which side he was on—Waco and Ruby Ridge, for example. And now, he was about to cross the line, become a thief. He was the best, even now, at breaking alarm systems, and as Donati said, he would work or not work when the Bureau let him, and they were not about to turn him loose. Not yet.

“Okay, you don’t need to threaten me. If I work, I work. That means you buy the whole package. But.…”

Harry paused, trying to guess how far he could go, what sort of price he could squeeze from this man, wondering what he was worth in this world. “I’ll need more money. The price is two fifty, one hundred up front and equipment and expenses are extra.”

Donati raised his eyebrows. Harry thought he saw a ghost of a smile flicker across the man’s lips.

“You may be down, Grafton, but you’re not out. One seventy-five, you pay the expenses.”

“Two fifty, fifty up front, and you pay expenses.”

“Two fifty, twenty up front, we split expenses.”

Harry guessed he’d squeezed as much as he was going to get. He nodded.

“We’ll drop you here.”

Harry looked out of the window. The car had transported them across the width of New York and pulled to the curb a block from his apartment.

“You hang around a couple of days, and then tell your landlady you’re going away for a while, up north to the mountains or something. Fly out to Roanoke, rent a car, and go to Picketsville, Virginia. Book into the motel there, the Dogwood Motel. They are expecting Dolan and Michaels. You are Michaels. I will have more information for you there, where to go, what to look for. You got it?”

Harry opened the door and stepped onto the sidewalk. “Got it.”

Donati handed Harry an envelope, nodded, and settled himself back in the seat.

“One more thing, Grafton,” he said. Harry waited.

“No booze ‘til this is over.” The car door clicked shut and the Cadillac rolled away.

Chapter Six

A week had slipped by and Ike could not remember a single thing that happened, well almost. He had had the run-in with the Ice Queen at the college, had gone to the farm, been called to two domestic disturbance scuffles, both at the Craddocks’, and issued twelve speeding tickets. Exciting. Now he had the opportunity to repeat it or, who knew, top it.

Monday mornings, Ike decided, were the pits. It was not an original thought. It had been the second or third thing to occur to Adam. Except for people who hated to go home and lived for their work, Mondays with their excruciating distance until Friday had a depressing effect on body and soul. Everyone in the Crossroads Diner wore the same “here we go again” expression. The regulars were there, stretching breakfast into the previous weekend, reluctant to let it go.

Ike surveyed their faces, greeted some, and waved to others. He knew them all, all except the travelers and truckers who left the interstate five miles to the east and were, for one reason or another, passing through Picketsville. Two men sat in the back booth. One, burly and red-haired, attacked what appeared to be two or three breakfasts spread out in front of him. The other, darker with craggy regular features, nursed a cup of coffee. Ike paused. Years of practice taught him to notice people, to catalog and remember them. This man seemed familiar somehow. They’d never met, but something about him struck Ike as familiar and caused him to pause and consider. Agency? Were they still keeping tabs on him? No one, he was sure, had been in the area since Charlie Garland had come down two years ago.

“Ike, we’re all sorry as hell,” he’d said, “and I don’t want you to have to go through anything, but I’ve got to talk to you. You’ve got to tell me what happened.”

Dependable Charlie, whose job at the Agency seemed to be as nondescript as his clothes. Charlie was related to a whole battalion of Garlands and Radfords, and God only knew whom else. One of those old Baltimore families that retain their style and connections long after the money is gone. They send their children to prep schools and Ivy League colleges on money scraped together by selling the family farm, silverware, and dipping into whatever is left in trust funds and modest inheritances, doing what was necessary to maintain their continuity with the past inviolate. Somewhere in that heritage, there would be merchants, mayors, bishops, owners of clipper ships and mills, and perhaps a U.S. senator. Those male offspring who could, traveled west to marry the homely heiresses of automobile manufacturers, or seed companies, or brokerage houses. And with family fortunes thus replenished, brought their brides back to the Chesapeake Bay to keep tradition alive.

Charlie was one of those whose heiress had never materialized. He ended up in the Agency as the special assistant to the director. He had no job description and no duties. Most people believed he occupied a sinecure created for him by his politically connected relatives. In that capacity, he brought his prep school manners, Princeton education, rumpled tweed sport coat, khaki slacks and blue, frayed oxford shirts to work every week, sat in an office in the basement and, as nearly as anyone could tell, devoted his day to the
New York Times
crossword puzzle.

Occasionally, Charlie appeared in public, in those rare instances when something of a public relations effort needed doing, and then Charlie would grin and trot out his beautiful manners and charm everyone in the room. He could tell stories, knew everybody, and in his own disorganized way, managed to divert anyone or anything, the epitome of the superannuated preppie. Ike once asked him if Brooks Brothers had a special department where they sold only rumpled tweed coats and pre-frayed shirts. Charlie had grinned owlishly through his old-fashioned horn-rimmed glasses, run his hand through the curly disarray of his hair, and replied, “No one, Ike, no one buys from
Brooks Brothers except rich Texans. We,” he added archly, “buy only from Jos. A. Banks.”

Ike liked Charlie. He was the closest thing he had to a friend all those years he’d worked in Washington and Europe, but he didn’t want to talk to him or anyone else after Zurich, and told Charlie he’d have him arrested for vagrancy if he ever showed up in town again. Ike added, somewhat more kindly, that the way Charlie dressed, he would have no trouble making the charges stick.

***

His thoughts returned to Monday at the diner. He shelved his curiosity, took one last look at the two men, and slid onto the stool at the counter.

“Usual, Sheriff?”

“Thanks, Flora, coffee first.”

Ike sensed the change in the two men behind him. He could almost feel their eyes on him. Now that’s interesting, Ike thought, and he glanced at the glass surface of the refrigeration unit opposite him. He could see the two men exchange looks. The red-haired one said something to the other. The second drained his coffee and got up. The first wolfed down the last of his pancakes, stuffed four blueberry muffins in his pocket, and rose as well. Ike followed their reflection to the cash register, then pivoted on his stool and stared at them as they paid their bill, pushed out through the glass doors, and disappeared. Flora brought his bacon and eggs.

“Ever seen those two before, Flora?” Ike asked.

“Can’t say that I have, Ike, but you know we get truckers and such in here all the time, I reckon that’s what they are.”

“One of them, yes, the other one, I don’t know…maybe.”

Ike turned his attention to his breakfast and newspaper.

***

Harry and Red crossed the parking lot.

“I don’t like it,” Harry said.

“Don’t like what?” Red replied, picking his teeth with a broken kitchen match. They got into the rental car. Harry took the wheel.

“I don’t like being made by the police,” he replied.

“Made,” Red snorted. “Son, this is the backest of the back woods. They do not have police in these little towns; they have the otherwise unemployable sons, nephews, or cousins of county politicians running their sheriff’s offices. These country dicks couldn’t find the prize in a box of Cracker Jacks.”

“Maybe so,” Harry mused, “but—”

“No buts, Grafton. I was born and raised in towns like this. The only thing on that sheriff’s mind this morning is how to get enough money together to make the payment on his house trailer.”

“You may be right, Burnham,” Harry said. “I hope so. But that one is different. I don’t know how or why, but I’d bet the farm he’s not just another local cop.”

“Horse hockey,” Red grunted as he leaned back in the seat and fished a muffin from his pocket. “You’re as jumpy as a girl in an asparagus patch. You can take it from me. The locals ain’t going to be a problem.” Harry was not reassured. He put the car in gear and drove off. He had work to do.

It took an hour and a half to make the round trip to Roanoke and the truck leasing company where he dropped off Red. It was a little after eleven when he parked outside the Art Storage Compound. The little plaque on the building’s corner read
ARTSCp
and had a number under it. Funny name, he thought. Usually colleges name their buildings Something Hall, but there it was, in neat stainless steel letters affixed to the wall:
Art Storage Compound
.

Harry got out of the car, stretched, and mopped his forehead. He scanned the area and spotted the camera. He entered the building. Harry shivered and slipped on his jacket. The guard sat behind a desk on the far side of a deep lobby. He looked at Harry.

“Brand, Jason Brand,” Harry said, handing the guard a letter of introduction, “from the Titan Company. We’re moving all this stuff in a couple of weeks. I’ve got to look at the building, measure doors, passageways, and estimate the time we’ll need.”

The guard glanced at Harry, the letter, and handed it back. “Help yourself,” he said, and turned his attention back to a dog-eared copy of
Sports Illustrated
. Harry saw himself and the guard on one of the monitors behind the desk as the camera swept the room. The other showed the parking lot.

“Thanks,” said Harry, “I won’t be long.”

He finished before lunch.