Artist's Proof (28 page)

“Of course she wasn't there. She wasn't due at work until nine. You know that. Why would she come in earlier?”

“How do I know? She might have, this once. I took a chance.”

I was leaning on him, and he didn't like it. But I had to follow this line to the end. “Why didn't you try her at home? She'd have been alone there. Surely you know her mother is at work by eight.”

“Damn right I knew that. Did I ever think about going to her house? You bet I did. So what? If I ever pulled up at Cassie's house in a tow truck at eight-thirty in the morning her mother would hear about it in ten minutes from the neighbors.”

He had me there. I switched tracks. “You didn't think it important at least to mention to Chuck Scully that you had been to Sharanov's house the morning of the murder?”

“Why should I? So he could dump on me? Screw that. I've been dumped on enough for a lifetime.”

And he hopped into the driver's seat and took off, leaving me with a thin coating of road dust and a thick layer of doubt.

*   *   *

T
HERE WAS A
message on the phone machine from Tom Ohlmayer: “Call me. I've finally got what you've been waiting for.”

Naturally, he wasn't in. His partner said, “He's on his way home. Try him in ten minutes.” In ten minutes there was no answer at Ohlmayer's home; no Tom, no wife, no kids. They had probably gone to her mother's, or shopping. I had waited this long, I could wait a while longer. I had changed into painting clothes and I climbed onto the scaffold.

*   *   *

T
ESS TURKINTON CALLED
at six. I let the machine take it. I was still up near the ceiling trying to deal with a section of canvas I had meant to suggest was bathed in moonlight. It still looked to me like the beach at high noon, and I had my work cut out.

“Sid?… Sid, it's me,” she began. Apparently in the Turkintons' world people were supposed to know who “me” was. Only after she waited without success for me to pick up did she grudgingly reveal herself. “Tess.”

Another interval. “I suppose you're in the shower. I
hope
you're in the shower. We've got a date at eight. Remember, it's my invitation, I'm the host, but could I ask one bitty favor? Would you pick me up here at Misha's? I hate driving at night, just hate it. We'll spin back to your place for a quick look-see at your oeuvre—don't you just love the word?—and then I've reserved for nine o'clock at a new place in Water Mill they say does something totally outrageous with swordfish and Grand Marnier. You call me right back if you have a problem with any of this, you hear?” She rang off.

I didn't think Tess wanted to hear about a problem I might have. Ever. And I was in terror that the next bitty favor would call for me to pick up the restaurant tab because she'd left her credit card in her other purse. Not to mention that I don't want anything “outrageous” done to swordfish; I find it just about perfect as is.

But I decided to go with the flow. I shut down my painting for the day and climbed down from the platform.

I hadn't yet reached Tom Ohlmayer. I tried him now at home. He was there.

T
WENTY-SIX

T
HE FRONT DOOR
at Sharanov's was opened by Dimitri, the second banana on Misha's muscle squad who had helped Nikki escort me to the Gulliver the other evening. As this was Saturday night I supposed Nikki was in Brooklyn keeping an eye on the till at the Tundra. Rather than risk his limited English, Dimitri confined his welcome to a spastic backward jerk of his head toward the unoccupied living room. Then he waddled off to the kitchen. His jacket strained against his beefy back, and I could see that he was packing.

The first thing I noticed in the living room was that my drawing no longer hung on the wall. And then my eye shifted to Sharanov, rising on the ramp from the bedroom level like Venus on the half shell, resplendent in an electric blue sports jacket some salesman had earned a double commission unloading on him. But the statement told me he was on his way out for the evening.

“Ah, Shale. Thank you for taking my advice to heart,” he said with a broad smile.
Advice
came out almost
adwice,
a rare indication of Misha's first language. “I have had no further attention from the police.”

I smiled back; we were going to be social. I said, “Never give up hope, Misha.” I indicated the blank wall. “I see I'm no longer on exhibition.”

“Your drawing? I still own it. I've done some redecorating this week. Why do you ask? Are you looking to buy it back?”

“I wish I could afford it.”

“I may donate it to the next volunteer firemen's auction. It brought a good price last time.”

“Thanks to Cassie.”

“Yes…” His eyes narrowed appraisingly. “She was a diligent promoter. A loyal fan of yours.”

I said, “You may have made a mistake when you thought that by appearing to share her enthusiasm for my work you could also make her a fan of Mikhael Sharanov.”

“She was already that.”

And then, more in the way of seeking information than giving it, he added with an insinuating purr, “But possibly not yet as big a fan as she had been of yours…?” The prurient son of a bitch.

I said, “You thought you were almost there. Wrong, Misha. She came on to you for the same reason she had to me. She was looking for a daddy to replace the one she'd been dealt.”

He didn't respond to my pop psychologizing, but his usually impassive face showed that he recognized at least a germ of truth in it. And then he looked relieved—possibly because the prize he had failed to win had escaped my grasp as well. He was also a competitive son of a bitch.

And that was the end of that subject, because Ben Turkinton was coming up the ramp, wearing the same hint-of-rancher suit I had seen him in the other day, and his booming voice took over the air space.

“Okay, Misha, let's do it,” he said. “I can eat a horse, but I'll settle for cow. So don't lead me to no damn lobster. If I'm obliged to wrestle my dinner off its carcass, give me a T-bone steak every time. Evening, Sid.”

He struck me exactly as he had the first time we met, as a Texan out of central casting. His overplaying didn't register on Sharanov's ear; Misha was swallowing the performance whole. His face didn't show it, but his barrel chest shook with silent laughter.

Turkinton let me know that the two men were going out to dinner, to talk “bidness.” Tess would be up soon—“don't ask me when, you know women”—so would I please “hold my horses.” That last conjured up stallions in the driveway rearing, whinnying, and pawing the gravel.

Tess didn't show until Sharanov's Cadillac sounded its motor. Applause was in order. She was wearing an emerald green Chinese-y sheath she may have sprayed onto her figure. Try as it did, it failed to expose any figure flaws.

Instead of a hello she greeted me with “I don't have a clue how people dress in these parts on a Saturday night. Tell me this is wrong and I'll go right back down and change.”

“Don't you dare,” I said. If I had criticized the outfit she'd have belted me.

She hadn't listened anyway. She was peering out the window, watching the Cadillac disappear. She said, “No way was I going to climb up that boat launch until those two were gone. Honestly, that Russky!”

“You having problems with him?”

“He's all
over
me. Has been from day one. He doesn't even care if Daddy's right
there.
So Daddy gets embarrassed, then I get embarrassed. The man's a Slavic cave creature. Right out of Siberia, I wouldn't be surprised.”

“What do you say, shall we go?” I said. I was suddenly tired of this charade and ready to bring it to an end.

She must have caught something in my tone. “Is something wrong?” she said.

I rallied. “When I'm with a vision in green and the evening stretches before us?” I said. “What could be wrong?” I pushed the front door open.

She picked a shawl off the back of a couch but hesitated before she wrapped it protectively around her shoulders and walked out into the night. She looked troubled.

Good.

*   *   *

H
ER SUSPICIONS HAD
pretty much dissolved by the time we reached my place. I had put her in an easier frame of mind by passing on some gossip about local people who had nothing to do with either of us. She had begun to smile, and once she even came close to outright laughter. I wanted her loose, with her guard down, when I delivered my one-two punch.

She walked into my single room and said, almost before she'd looked, “Great studio, Sid. I love it.” She looked up at
Large
and announced, “Work in progress.” Since there were still countless yards of raw canvas, she wasn't going out on a limb with that observation.

But it was the closest she came to a critique. Her eye moved on quickly to finish its inspection of the room. “Terrific work space. Is this the whole house?”

Her dismissal of
Large
had pissed me off and I was even more impatient now to get this business over with. “Yes, except for the bathroom,” I said, and indicated the closed door of the closet.

For a fleeting instant she looked confused. “How”—she hesitated—“compact.”

I said, “Don't you mean, how stupid of me? Because you know it's the
other
door that leads to the bathroom.”

“How in the world would I know that?” But she was beginning to suspect that her cover was unraveling.

“Because you must have found out last night.”

“Last night?”

“When you were here snooping around.” I waited the full count. “Ms. Julie Klampf.”

The color drained from her face, then came back with more intensity.

“How long have you known?” she said. Her voice had dropped half an octave and the twang had gone flatline.

“About an hour. Remember the wine I bought you at Muccio's? I gave the glass to a cop friend to check for latent prints. I thought you and Daddy might have a history in New York. The pair of you gave off an aroma. If you weren't bit players in a community theater production of
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
you had to be con artists. Okay, I was only partly right.”

“Latent prints,” she murmured. She had sunk into my one chair like a deflating balloon. “Damn it, so you
are
still with the NYPD.”

“No. Absolutely no connection. I wasn't put on your tail. I would never even have known of your existence if I didn't happen to be the guy who painted the picture you thought would help soften Sharanov for the kill. You okay with that?”

She made a sour face and opened her mouth to speak.

I said, “Let me finish. Turned out you had no record in New York and I stopped thinking about you. But meanwhile my cop friend was trying the national print file at the FBI in Washington. Lo and behold, you turned out to be a U.S. Treasury agent name of Julie Klampf. By the way, I much prefer that handle to Tess Turkinton. You work out of Washington, but are you originally from Texas?”

“What the fuck's the difference?” she hissed.

“You're right, none. I was trying to be sociable. You and ‘Daddy' are not related, are you?”

“God, no.”

“You guys sure worked up a lather over this case. Misha must owe Internal Revenue a bundle.”

“What makes you think he owes anything?”

“The Tundra is a cash-only operation with God knows how many hundred seats and an average tab per cover of what, sixty, seventy dollars? You tell me how much he's been skimming with creative bookkeeping these past half dozen years. Not to mention what he picks up from his other, shadier dealings. His wife knows. She sent her brother out here sniffing for hidden sacks of cash. Come on, Julie, what's his federal bill?”

Reluctantly, “With penalties? Three million. Close to.”

“So you and ‘Daddy' are the bait to make him a secret partner in a Dallas restaurant that will never happen. Flushing out what, half a million or more in undeclared income? Prima facie evidence for an indictment. Correct me if I've got it wrong.” I waited for an answer.

“That's the plan in its broadest, crudest outline.” She sounded weary.

So far, so good. I said, “Let me come at you from a new angle and make an informed guess. This isn't the first time the IRS has tried to nail Sharanov.”

“So…?”

“You got burned. Someone in the NYPD is on Misha's payroll and tipped him off to your operation.”

“You knew that?”

“I told you, it's an informed guess. The detectives trying to make a local case against Sharanov were shut down recently by the top brass, no explanation. To forestall a possible leak, I assume. So when I came on the scene and you heard I was an ex-cop you must have shit a brick. There was a good chance the “ex” part was phony. And whether it was or wasn't, I could blow your scam. So you've tried everything short of hypnotizing me to find out where I stand in this. Jesus, you even went after my son.”

The spoiled Texas princess had vanished. She was looking more and more like a lost little girl playing grown-up in her momma's Chinese-y sheath, especially when she tried, pathetically, to tug the hip-high slit closed over her thigh. It was almost sweet.

She said, “Okay, Sid, so where
do
you stand?”

“Absolutely nowhere. I'm not going to talk to anyone about what I know. You and ‘Daddy' get to finish your amateur theatrical, drop the curtain, and make your collar.”

She brightened some. “We do?”

I crouched to put us eye to eye. “Provided you do one small thing for me.”

“And what's that?” She braced for the blow.

“It'll be practically a steal at the moment. There's no gallery commission, because it's back in my hands.”