19 Purchase Street (28 page)

Gainer agreed they might be useful, but he hoped to be more direct. His experience with Becque had forewarned him. He had come foolishly close to being blown away. This time he would handle it in strictly street fashion. Instead of surprise bang it would be bang surprise. Goddamn but that sounded ugly tough, he thought, and promised himself it would be temporary.

Vernon.

They were coming to it now, Gainer navigating with the help of page 153 of a
Guide Michelin
for Normandy. A winding downward grade suddenly became Avenue Montgomery and they were in the town before they knew it. Predictably, like most French towns of modest size, Vernon had its pre-Renaissance cathedral, its Place de Gaulle and its Hôtel de la Poste. But it also had an impressive but not overwhelming chateau, the Chateau Bizy.

“Royalty used to come here a lot,” Gainer said, informed by the
Guide Michelin
.

“Probably the king without the queen.”

“Or the other way around.”

“A royal fucking,” Leslie thought, remembering a man in her hometown in Wales who had often used that phrase. Leslie had been old enough then to know what a fucking was but hadn't understood the distinction of one that was royal. It had always brought to her mind a literal, and unacceptable, image of Queen Elizabeth on her back.

The Bentley cut across the street that led up to the chateau.

Gainer imagined some straying queen sneaking into town with her lover, but still going up that street in a gilt carriage pulled by six matched horses and followed by a retinue of fifty, including, probably, a half dozen trumpeters. He again checked the map for Chemin des Coquelicots. It just wasn't indicated.

Leslie pulled over and asked directions from a man delivering wine. She caught him just as he'd heaved a full cask onto his back; his load, though, was considerably lightened, thanks to the way Leslie always drove with her skirt pulled way up. He was most obliging, glad to take the time to repeat his directions, even though his knees were giving way.

Chemin des Coquelicots was on the western outskirts of the town, an unpaved road that was like a green tunnel the way the bushes and trees were so thick around and above it. Every so often a clearing, tall summer grass speckled profusely with the red heads of poppies, made it evident how the road got its name—poppies
(des Coquelicots)
. None of the few houses along here had numbers on them, but no matter, Gainer and Leslie could not miss Ponsard's house when they came to it. A professionally painted sign by its entrance announced in arrogant French script:

“M. Emil Ponsard, Expert.”

Leslie drove slowly by so Gainer could look the place over. She turned the Bentley around and pulled over to the side of the road a short distance from the house. Cut the motor.

The place, more impressive than the other houses they had seen along the way, was constructed of brick and isolated by a corresponding eye-level wall. Two stories in the style
Regence
, with a blue-gray slate roof. Not a very large house, ten rooms at most, but it was pleasingly set, umbrellaed by mature trees and surrounded by well-tended shrubs and perennials.

The only sounds at the moment were birds chirping and Gainer's and Leslie's breathing. They watched for five minutes. Then, Gainer got out.

“I'm going with you,” Leslie whispered.

“Be ready to drive,” Gainer told her emphatically, and took off for the house.

He thought about going over the wall. It would have been easy, but he reminded himself to keep it
street
, simple, right through the main gate. He would know his man on sight, but his man would not know him.

Gainer walked in as though he belonged there, right up to the front door.

Pulled on a bronze knob that rang a bell inside.

No one came.

Knocked loudly on the door.

Still no one came.

He went around the side of the house to the rear, where the grounds ran quite deep. Far back were several apple trees. A ladder was propped up against one of them, and Gainer could detect movement among the branches. And the white of a shirt. He slipped the fingertips of his right hand in under his jacket, advanced to the apple tree until he was only some twenty feet from it.

He saw the black trouser legs of the man up in its branches, and called out: “Monsieur Ponsard?”

The man climbed down the ladder with some difficulty. He had a manual insecticide pump in hand. He was frail, old. He did not fit the description at all. He looked back up the tree, cursed the caterpillars and then acknowledged Gainer quizzically.

Gainer told him: “I'm looking for Monsieur Ponsard.”

“He is not here.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“I am the gardener, and the carpenter and the cook,” the man complained.

“Where is Monsieur Ponsard?”

“At this moment?”

“Yes.”

“He is painting.”

“Painting what?”

“Haystacks.” The man followed that with a nasal scoff and made for the house.

Gainer had to get the directions to Ponsard from him, and just did manage to get the last, most vital part of them as the man went inside, slammed the door and, as an afterthought, bolted it.

Gainer hurried back to the Bentley, immediately recited the directions out loud to keep them straight. He applied them to the
Michelin
map and found the way, navigated for Leslie, back to the town and through it, and up a grade to open countryside.

The first sign they saw of what might be Ponsard was a silver-gray Citroën sedan parked on the side of the road adjacent to an open, sloping field. About a hundred yards out in the field was a heap of something white that Gainer couldn't make out exactly. It didn't seem to be a person, the way it just sat there.

Gainer got out and started off into the field. The grass was taller, thicker than it looked. He had to wade through it with high steps. As he got closer to the white image he saw it was a figure in a white smock coat and a white cap seated beneath a white umbrella.

A man painting.

He had an easel up and a canvas on it. He did not notice Gainer, intent as he was on dabbing with a long brush.

It had to be Ponsard, Gainer thought, and continued on. The noontime sun was glaring, striking so intensely on the white figure that Gainer could not clearly make out the man, but he kept his eyes fixed on him and at a range of about fifty feet the figure in white locked in, correlated with the description Gainer had been carrying in his mind since Alma. The chunky build, the round, almost chinless face, a wrestler's neck.

This was his man, Gainer was sure of it, felt it. He put his hand in under his jacket, gripped the ASP. But could he just kill the man without warning—?

Goddamn right he could, Norma.

He took a few more steps, decided he would get closer, as close as he could, point blank if possible, at least until the man noticed him. Only twenty feet to go.

Gainer was about to draw the ASP, have it aimed and ready.

Something came up out of the grass between himself and the man.

A young girl.

She got to her knees, stood up, squinted at Gainer. She was entirely nude. A girl in her early teens with breasts that were mere promises and a sparse triangle of fine blond floss at her crotch. The hair on her head was gathered back and held by a number of narrow pastel-colored ribbons, long ribbons that flowed down her skin. She was pretty, had a full, slightly pouty mouth and large eyes. Her hello to Gainer was a question.

The man looked up.

Gainer's hand released the ASP and came out from under his shirt.

“Monsieur Ponsard?” Gainer said.

“Yes.”

“I was told I'd find you here.”

Ponsard quickly took Gainer in, and rejected him for the painting. He chose a different, smaller brush to make a few small commalike strokes of yellowish white, careful with them. “Haystacks are very illusive,” he said.

Gainer glanced further out in the field to a mound of hay, pale and dry under the sun. It was only remotely represented by what Ponsard had put on the canvas: a stringy ocher lump set nondimensionally on an attempt to capture the texture of the grass. Gainer thought it looked more like the top of a lopsided head emerging from green ooze.

“Monet's haystacks were only a little better,” Ponsard said, mostly to himself. “Monet was extremely fortunate with his haystacks.” He had a dead Gauloise stub between his lips, it stuck to his upper one as he spoke. “Who sent you to me?” he asked Gainer.

Gainer glanced at the naked girl, who stood there as though she was too young for modesty.

Ponsard noticed and told her to get dressed.

Which gave Gainer time to invent. “A dealer in Paris recommended you. He said you were the most dependable expert on Monet.”

“You are writing a book?”

“We have a painting.”

“You want me to appraise it.”

“Yes.”

“My fee is one percent of the value,” Ponsard said as he squinted at the haystack. “Oh well,” he sighed, “the light was changing anyway. Most people cannot discern such subtle changes in light and its effect on color.” He tossed his dirty brushes into his palette box, didn't bother to put the caps back on the used tubes of paint. However, he was very careful with his bad, wet painting.

The girl had put on a simple white cotton dress that was next to nothing. Ponsard said she was Astrid, his niece.

Gainer did not believe the niece part. Astrid was too similar to the young girls he had encountered at that brothel on Rue de la Cerisaie. Her precociously erotic attitude … that would explain the phone call from Zurich to that address. It fit.

Gainer said his name was Crawford. Mrs. Crawford was waiting in the car.

Astrid took down the umbrella and the easel, carried them to Ponsard's car.

Ponsard stuffed himself behind the wheel of his Citroën and abused its ignition. Astrid rode in the rear seat like a privileged passenger. All the way to Ponsard's house she kept glancing back at the green Bentley, as though such an expensive car could not be disregarded.

Within ten minutes they were at Ponsard's house, in the large room that he called his studio. Gainer had brought the two paintings in from the car for Ponsard to examine beneath a skylight. He studied them from across the room and close up, front and back; inspected the canvas frames and stretchers and used a magnifying glass to examine the brushstrokes.

There was no need for all that, really. Ponsard knew the paintings were genuine and worth a fortune the moment they came before his eyes. He was using the time to decide whether he should go for his appraisal fee, which would be a considerable amount in this instance, or … “Where did you get these paintings?” he asked.

“My grandfather,” Leslie replied quickly. “He died last month and we found them among his old junk.”

“Has anyone else looked at them?”

“No.”

Gainer appraised the appraiser, who was evidently a different sort than Becque. What was their connection? Gainer wondered. Why had they been in Zurich together—a cemetery keeper and an art expert? Why would they have shared a room at the Dolder Grand? Something about it didn't jibe, Gainer thought.

Ponsard's overgrown eyebrows went up. He ran his palms over his incorrigible hair. These were gullible Americans, he assured himself. He turned his back on the paintings, to demonstrate their unimportance. He sat in a leather armchair that was conditioned to his weight and shape. Astrid lay on the floor at his feet like some obedient pet.

“Excellent attempts,” Ponsard said, “especially the Monet.”

“Attempts?”

“Whoever painted them should have had more confidence in his own ability.”

Leslie acted disappointed. She went into her carryall, felt beneath her ASP for a tissue that she used to dab at her eyes.

Gainer wished Astrid would disappear. Had the girl not been there to witness right then, he would have silently put a 9mm hole in Ponsard's forehead. He watched Ponsard light another Gauloise and exhale the first puff from his nostrils. He imagined Ponsard's brain was on fire.

“I'm sorry,” Ponsard said, “your paintings are not worth what you expected.”

“It doesn't matter,” Leslie said, turning blasé.

The lying bastard, Gainer thought, and anticipated what would be coming next from him.

“You know … actually …”—Ponsard glanced around at the paintings as though condescending to give them a second thought—“they are not authentic but they are also not intolerable.”

“There's nothing I hate more than a fake,” Leslie said.

Ponsard did not catch her double edge. “I could use them as examples in my profession.”

Leslie gave them away with the back of her hand. “They're yours,” she said.

Ponsard said he couldn't accept them.

“Well, I certainly can't be bothered with lugging them around,” Leslie said, nose up.

“Then … I insist on paying you for them. Shall we say twenty-five hundred francs?”

“How much is that in dollars?”

“About five hundred.”

“For both paintings?”

“Twenty-five hundred each.”

“Oh, I'd say that's most generous of you, Monsieur Ponsard.” Leslie beamed her best model's smile. “Isn't it, darling?”

“Most generous,” Gainer said.

Ponsard had trouble downplaying it. God, but he wanted those paintings, so much his balls ached. The Degas would fetch a half million, at least, the Monet even more. These two Americans were uncultured assholes, probably
nouveau riche
from selling breakfast cereals or canned soup or something. Served them right.

Ponsard got out some of his letterhead business stationery. He composed a detailed, binding bill of sale. Took ten five hundred franc notes from a desk drawer, handed the money, the bill of sale and the pen to Leslie.

She stuffed the money into her carryall, signed the bill of sale without reading it.