A Dangerous Talent (An Alix London Mystery) (3 page)

She’d thought back then that perhaps she’d be able to return to Harvard at some point, but life, and the need to earn a living, had gotten in the way. The only—

She jerked her head. Enough. Water under the bridge, she told herself for the second time in two hours. It was the future she needed to be concerned with now.

And yet she couldn’t stop thinking about Geoff. He hadn’t had the nerve to actually appear on her doorstep yet, but he called regularly, blithely ignoring the chilly receptions he got and the obvious fact that she never called back. Clearly, it was going to take some kind of a scene, a face-to-face meeting, for him to get the message. It was a prospect that filled her with dread.

So, by his lights, apparently, he was doing fine—or, at least he did a very good imitation of someone who was.
Her
“career,” on the other hand, and her life, for that matter, left a lot to be desired. But Alix, like her father, was not merely a survivor, but a survivor who persisted in looking on the bright side. Well, most of the time. Look at the way things were working out now for her, for example. Here she was, living in this absolutely fabulous Seattle condo. Signor Santullo, the wonderful old man she’d apprenticed with in Europe, had set it up for her from Rome, before she’d even left to return to the States: a year’s stay in the place while Katryn was off in France, in Provence, in return for cleaning and restoring six paintings from her formidable Post-Impressionist collection. Was that lucky, or what? The work, hardly full-time, even allowed her to take on other jobs for her few expenses. And only today a wonderful new opportunity had presented itself—

She drew herself up. A final check in the full-length mirror, a brief touch at a stray tendril at her temple, a tug at her waistband to make sure it was straight, and it was time to go.

On with the show.

The Seattle Art Museum, or SAM, as the locals called it, was one of Alix’s regular haunts. Not being a donor, she had never been to a donor reception before, but she was a member (at the least expensive level), and with the building only a short walk from the condo, she was there a few times a week, either to use its library or to prowl happily through its collections. Yet in all this time there was one space, the main atrium, into which she would never have set foot if hadn’t been necessary to go through it in order to reach the exhibits. Even then, she usually sailed through at warp speed, looking neither right nor left, and especially not up.

The reason for this was that to pass through it one had to walk under what was inarguably the most sensational installation in the museum. “Inopportune: Stage One,” it was called, and although she didn’t altogether understand the meaning, she thought it highly fitting. “Inopportune: Stage One” was a stomach-churning cascade of nine tumbling white Ford Tauruses—real, full-size Tauruses—suspended from the ceiling by scarily slender steel rods that didn’t really seem up to the job, in her opinion. The cars “took off” from the Brotman Forum on one side of the atrium and “landed” in the South Hall on the other side. In between, they leapt and twisted and plunged across the ceiling, radiating sprays of colored lights that made them look as if they were exploding. Indeed, she had read that they were meant to suggest the progress of a single automobile in the process of being blown up, caught in nine separate cinematic frames. She had also read that their Chinese creator, Cai Guo-Qiang, had stated that the grim theme he had in mind was car bombings and terrorism, and how we all go placidly on with our lives despite them.

However, it wasn’t the theme that had kept her from lingering in the atrium; art was a pretty eclectic business these days, and she was willing to allow room for tastes other than her own. No, it was simply the idea of standing any longer than she absolutely had to underneath a bunch of one-ton automobiles precariously dangling forty feet above her head, in a region of the country well known for its earthquakes. Alix wasn’t a particularly fearful person, but the idea of earthquakes had her spooked. She was from New York State, and other than the rare, watered-down hurricane that came up from the south, the only climatic phenomena to worry about were the nor’easters that blew out of New England in the winter—the difference being that, unlike an earthquake, if you simply stayed indoors, a nor’easter wasn’t going to kill you.

But now she was faced with a dilemma. On the one side was her unease about the cars; on the other was the fact that the buffet tables were set up directly underneath them. Also the fact that the buffet looked terrific. Also the fact that she was suddenly starving. Not to mention the additional little detail that her food budget for the week was in tatters—she’d been a little down in the dumps on Monday and had splurged on a Dungeness crab lunch. As a result, dinner at home tonight would mean canned lentil soup and a grilled cheese sandwich.

So if she wanted some of those wonderful-looking salmon-stuffed endive leaves, or the cream-cheese-filled pea pods, or the teriyaki chicken satay, or—especially—the
brie en croute
(she could smell it from here!), she was just going to have to risk it. Either that or stay hungry.

The
brie en croute
won out. What the hell, you can’t live forever, she told herself, and if nothing else came out of the evening, at least she’d have had something good to eat. She strode boldly up to the tables to begin filling a plate with two each of the delectable cheese puffs, vegetable spring rolls, and what she was fairly sure were spinach tartlets. As she was reaching for a napkin, someone spoke—bellowed—in her ear.

“I understand you’re Alix London.” A hand was stuck out toward her. “Well, hello, I’m Chris LeMay.”

Alix turned to see a big, rawboned woman in her late thirties, with a dramatic black-and-yellow-striped shawl artfully draped over a turtlenecked black sweater, and her legs in flowing black slacks. Alix had seen her earlier, greeting friends or associates with gusto, slapping one man on the back so zestily that the olive he’d just popped in his mouth popped back out. Alix had noticed her not only because of the energy she radiated, but because she was the tallest woman in the room, a strapping six-two, and that was in flat heels. It hadn’t occurred to her that this jovial, hearty, imposing person might be the Christine LeMay she was looking for because, on the Eastern art scene, collectors simply didn’t look like that. They ran instead to painfully (some said fashionably) thin, languorous size fours, any two of whom could have fit into Chris’s sixteen-plus with room to spare.

At five-nine, and wearing three-inch heels, Alix wasn’t used to looking up at other women, but unless she wanted to climb up on the table, with Chris there was no way around it.

She set down the plate and shook the proffered hand, expecting to wince, but Chris took it easy on her. “I’m so glad to meet you, Chris. And thank you for getting me an invitation to this.”

Chris brushed the thanks aside.

“Yum, what are those? Whatever they are, they look good.” Her voice had an unusually throaty, husky quality—a honking quality if you wanted to be unkind—but it was oddly pleasant to listen to, as if there was a laugh bottled up inside just waiting for an excuse to come bubbling out. “Let me get a plate and load up, and then let’s find someplace else to talk—” Chris’s eyes rolled up toward the hanging cars, “—before we have an earthquake.”

Alix grinned. She already liked the woman. “I’m glad to hear you say that. I thought it was just me. I’m from New York. I’m not used to the idea of earthquakes.”

“If you ever find someone who’s used to the idea of earthquakes, I’d like to meet him,” Chris said, piling on the hors d’oeuvres. “Oh, look, is that champagne?” She had spotted a waiter sliding sideways between clumps of people, his tray of tulip glasses held aloft. With Alix trailing after her, she made directly for him and snared glasses for both of them. “Let’s get ourselves one of those,” she said, gesturing with her chin toward some small tables set along one wall. “I think they might be out of the range of falling vehicles.”

They threaded their way through a noisy and still swelling crowd of mostly well-dressed people, many of whom obviously knew Chris and greeted her, but the last empty table was snatched up just before they reached it.

“Oh well, looks like we’re going to have to juggle,” Chris said. “Life is a bitch, ain’t that the truth?” They found a marble windowsill to do duty as a sort of table, and Chris used a toothpick to spear a tartlet, popped it in her mouth with an eye-roll of pleasure, took a swallow of champagne, and looked directly at Alix. “So. You’re Geoffrey London’s daughter, right?”

Alix’s throat went dry. Practically the first words out of this woman’s mouth, and they were about—what else?—her father. Was he forever going to be an albatross around her neck, wherever she went, however remote from Manhattan? In this age of Google, of the instant and pervasive availability of information, the answer was probably yes.

“Yes, I am,” she said, trying to show nothing, although she felt her lips compress and her jaw muscles harden.

But showing nothing was not her strong suit, and Chris was startled by the abrupt change. “Hey, did I say something wrong? I was only trying to…I just wanted to say…look, I’m not exactly famous for my diplomatic skills, and as usual I’ve started with my foot in my mouth. Whew.” She paused for a breath. “Okay, let me start again. What I was trying to say was that you have some unusual baggage, yeah, but don’t let that get in your way. You’re in the Wild West now, kiddo, in Seattle, and it’s not the way it is back east. Family names, family history—pooh, they don’t count for much out here. What matters is what you can do, not who your father is or isn’t.” She laughed. “A good thing too, or with my screwed-up family, I’d be walking around this thing with a tray on my shoulder.”

Alix felt her cheeks flush. “Thank you, Chris, I really appreciate that. I apologize for taking it the wrong way for a minute there. I…I guess I’m a little…”

“Oh, look,” Chris said, “there’s a free table, in the far corner, there. Let’s snag it before someone else gets it. I’ll run interference, you go straight for it.”

With Chris’s formidable body getting in the way of others with the same idea, they got there before anyone else. “Cheers,” Chris said, lifting her glass as they settled into their seats.

“Cheers,” Alix echoed, clinking glasses. But she set the glass down as soon as she’d taken the obligatory sip. “Look, Chris, I’m really sorry I was so—”

Chris waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, come on, there’s no need to apologize.”

“I appreciate that, but…it’s weird.” She shook her head. “It’s been almost nine years since Geoff wrecked my life—his too—and I’ve come a long way on my own, and you’d think I could just shrug it off by now. A few people have said I ought to change my name, but that’s something I don’t want to do, you know? I’m kind of attached to it.”

“Absolutely, and anyway, in the long run I don’t think it would have done you any good, not since you’re staying in the same line of work. We live in a new age, kiddo, and sooner or later you’d be hyperlinked, or field-searched, or whatever, and it would come out. Besides,” she said with a sudden flash of warmth, “you’re not the one who has anything to live down, he is.”

She paused to elegantly down a cream-cheese-filled peapod, then inelegantly licked cheese off her fingertips. “You know, to be honest, I think I’m a little envious of you, having a father like that. If nothing else, at least he’s interesting. My father was a building contractor.” She jerked her head exasperatedly. “Oh, that’s baloney. Why do I do that? My father was a plasterer, that’s all, and not a very good one either, especially when he was off the wagon, which was ninety percent of the time.” Another roll of the eyes, but not with pleasure. “See, you’re not the only one with a reprobate father in the family closet.”

Alix smiled. “Well, Geoff’s interesting, all right. I can’t argue with that.”

“Believe me, I can understand how hard it must have been on you—it was all over the news. You would have had to be living on Mars not to hear about it. I mean, ‘Prominent Metropolitan Museum Expert Accused of—’” She flinched. “Oops, there I go again. See what I mean? Mmff.” She zipped her mouth shut with an imaginary zipper.

“No, really, it’s okay,” Alix said, laughing, “but on the other hand, I wouldn’t mind changing the subject. How did you find me? Was it my ad in the Gallery Directory?”

“Uh-uh. One of my patrons—I own this little wine bar—is Christopher Norgren?” It was said in a way that implied Alix was supposed to know the name. Alix shook her head no.

“The Baroque and Renaissance guy here at the museum?”

Another shake of the head. “I don’t know him.”

“Well, he knows you, or at least he knows who you are. He said you were first-rate, that you’d studied for years with Fabrizio Santullo in Rome. Even I know you can’t do any better than Santullo. And when I called him, he gave you a terrific recommendation.”

“You actually spoke to Fabrizio?”

“Oh, yes, for a good ten minutes. He couldn’t say enough good things about you. Your natural skills, your knowledge of techniques and media, your understanding of styles and modes—all extraordinary.”

“Did he really say all those things?” Alix asked, pleased. “He was one pretty demanding taskmaster, not exactly lavish with his praise.”

“Oh, the man’s a pussycat. He also told me, by the way, in a tone of something like awe, that you have the best connoisseur’s eye he’s ever come across. I have no idea what the hell that means, exactly, but how could I not hire the person with the greatest connoisseur’s eye Fabrizio Santullo ever saw?”

“Oh, ‘connoisseur’s eye’ is just a term some people use for—”

“Never mind, explain it to me another time. What do you say we get down to business? First off, I’m delighted you’re going to be working with me, Alix.”

I am?
thought Alix.
Does that mean I’m hired?
She hoped she was doing a good job covering up the excitement that ballooned in her chest, better than she’d done hiding her reaction at the mention of her father.

“I’d really like to get going on this as soon as we can,” Chris went on. “Would it be imposing too much on you to ask if you can clear your schedule for a quick trip to Santa Fe this weekend? If not, I suppose we could—”

Alix almost laughed. What schedule would that be? Well, there was the work she was doing for Katryn, but taking a weekend break from it would probably be a good thing. Still, she pretended to mentally check her calendar a moment, all the while savoring the thought that she’d actually done it—she’d been hired. She was on her way. “No, I believe I can make it,” she said, as if on sober reflection. “This weekend would be fine.”

“And what are your fees?”

“My fees,” Alix said and cleared her throat. “Well, my fees…of course, it depends on the, um—”

Chris saved her. “I’d be taking up two or three entire days of your time, and I realize that’s unusual, so I was thinking…well, would a thousand dollars a day be acceptable? Plus all expenses, of course.”

Alix had been gearing up her nerve to ask for five hundred dollars a day, which would have been fairly low for the field, but then she was hardly an experienced consultant with a lengthy list of client testimonials at her disposal. “Oh, no, that would be too generous, Chris. I’m just getting started. Five hundred would be fine.”

“No, a thousand dollars is what I allowed for, and a thousand it’ll be.”

“Well…say seven-fifty. That’s more than generous.”

“Absolutely not. Eight-fifty, no less. After all—”

They both sputtered into laughter at the same time. “I don’t think this is the way they teach you how to bargain in negotiating classes,” Alix said.

“The hell with it, screw the negotiations. A thousand a day, take it or leave it.”

Alix surrendered with a smile. “I’ll take it.”

Chris leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Now that that’s settled, let me fill you in on what’s going on. I have this friend, Liz Coane, who owns an art gallery in Santa Fe. Unlike me, who didn’t know a Picasso from a pizza pie five years ago, Liz has always been into art. Well, we used to work at the same tech company, Sytex, and she was always talking about how, if she ever got enough money together, she was going to open a gallery in Santa Fe or Taos or someplace like that and become a big kahuna in the art scene down there. She also planned to buy herself a string of boy toys to comfort her in her old age. Rent them, I guess I mean,” she said with her wild-goose honk of a laugh.