City of War (43 page)

35

Missing Pieces and Body Art

I sat with Archer in the backseat. She was still huddled against me. “Thanks for your help,” I said to Osiris. “Your father can be proud.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I hope you’ll also pass along my admiration for his bravery.”

“May I respond the way he would?” he said.

“Of course.”

“Do you know how many people there are in Cairo?” he asked.

“Sixteen million, give or take,” I said.

“And how many operating synagogues?”

“I have no idea.”

“None,” Osiris answered. “So what does that mean? That there are no Jews, or that there are consequences for raising your hand?”

I thought back to Jackie Benveniste and Corsica.

Osiris went on. “My father says he’s not brave, he just hates ignorance.”

“I’m pretty sure I’d like him.”

“That would last only until you had to negotiate with him.”

We both laughed, and then he said, “If you don’t mind, Mr. Black, I might drive out and see Bastet again.”

“I think she’d like that. I think her father would too. How do you feel about farming?”

“Not a chance. I’m addicted to fast cars and bright lights…but she’s lived in New York, hasn’t she?” He grinned at me through the rearview mirror.

We rode in silence for a while, and I thought about Truman York. A lot of things made sense now. Truman had likely had an escort to JFK, so he’d had to go through the charade of boarding Flight 990, then simply gotten up and walked off. He didn’t know Al-Batouti was going to auger in the 767, but since he was going to kill Bess anyway, when he heard, he probably high-fived himself.

I didn’t know yet if he’d had a well-thought-out plan to steal the last Tretiakov painting or if it was a spur of the moment decision, but I suspected a plan. Based on their previous relationship in Turkey, York would have been the one who introduced Bruzzi to Hood, and it had been a lucrative arrangement. But he’d almost certainly grown weary of being run by his former brother-in-law, and this was a way out—with a retirement bonus.

For his part, Hood wouldn’t have liked someone as reckless as Truman—and with as much personal baggage—having his fate in his hands. He’d gone to incredible lengths to monetize the City of War for his own benefit, and what had probably begun as a nest egg for the day his wife finally cut him off from the Wentworth fortune had turned into a multimillion dollar enterprise spanning three continents. He might have made a decision to eliminate the most obvious threat. A decision Truman had gotten wind of. Nehemiah Jacobs had died for a lot less.

As I saw it, Truman’s biggest problem was that there was no obvious market for the Orlov painting. To realize
its value, he would either have had to publicize its history, which would lead to unwanted attention, or have a buyer waiting in the wings. Since the latter made the most sense, Bruzzi or Serbin had to have had prior knowledge.

I didn’t see an advantage for Serbin. All but one of the paintings had already been repatriated, so there was no reason to steal something you were about to get anyway. His people were presumably waiting in Cairo to take possession—or they were already aboard Flight 990. My bet was Cairo. If they had been on the plane, there would have been a hell of a commotion when Truman got off.

That left Bruzzi. The question was why. Perhaps it had just been a thieves’ day out, but I didn’t think so. Too many people had died to hide a simple grab.

A couple of other things nagged at me as well. That the deliveries had gone through Egypt rather than directly to Moscow, especially since the paintings’ return was being hailed as a national heritage repatriation. I learned a long time ago, that when it comes to Russians, there is rarely a straight line from A to B, but I couldn’t get past the fact that there had been twenty-two separate trips on a commercial airline instead of one military flight to a secure base. Perhaps there was some political issue that wasn’t obvious, or maybe it had taken time to get the museums in place, but those explanations seemed flimsy.

Archer suddenly sat up. “Rail, I’m really sorry I fell apart back there. I didn’t realize how much I hated him.”

I took her hand. “Archer, there is a secret place down deep in all of us that holds emotions beyond the scope of our imagination. You, of all people, have nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I’ve been sitting here reeling. Kim knew he was alive, didn’t she?”

“Yes, she was getting money to him. Whatever he’d received for stealing the painting had probably long since run out.”

I then told her about Brandi Sue Parsons, the Pasadena beauty queen, and the Kubicek watercolors. About Kim’s
commenting on the value of things in my home like the Alençon lace and the Vettriano painting. And about her finding an inconspicuous room by comparing the outdoor dimensions of the house to the indoor ones.

Archer said, “Ordinarily, when I stay with someone, I just try not to get caught raiding the cake stash. So she was shopping.”

“I think so, but to give her the benefit of the doubt, let me make a call. Osiris, my phone isn’t set up for Egypt, may I borrow yours?”

“Certainly.”

After a moment, I remembered A. A. Abernathy’s cell number from his card and dialed. It only rang a couple of times before I heard the familiar voice and told him who it was. “Sorry to wake you, Doctor.”

“No problem. Need to be up anyway. I’ve got an early breakfast in Westwood, and I was just lying here planning my omelet.”

“Tell me, did anybody ever notice anything missing at the Getty?”

“From the collections? You must be kidding.” He sounded like I’d just called his mother a crack whore. I didn’t have time to brush sand from a fossil one grain at a time, so I had to take a different tack. One of the things they teach you at Interrogation School is that softening your voice and using a person’s first name immediately lowers the interviewee’s heart rate and brings down his blood sugar level. With someone looking for the chance to be compliant, it can be like hitting him with 20 mgs of Tranxene.

“Yes, A.A., from the collections. I know that’s something people in your line of work don’t like to think about, but we all know the frailties of human nature, especially when weak people find themselves near extraordinarily beautiful or exceptionally valuable things.”

He danced. “We’re a museum, Mr. Black. We have millions of objects in our care and people in and out all the time. Sometimes items get misplaced.”

Misplaced. We were getting there. “A.A., I’m thinking about anything Kim might have had access to.”

He hesitated too long. I was losing him. So I told him about Kiki Videz. When I finished, he said, “It’s a sad story, but I’m not sure why you’re telling it to me.”

“Think about it, Doctor. Kim’s killers didn’t need a fall guy or a gun for her. She was going in the ocean where she’d never be found. But they’d been following her. She lived alone and didn’t have any friends. There was only one other person she had regular contact with. Probably had lunch with from time to time. Somebody who may have even taken her out once or twice despite what he told me.”

I waited while my words sunk in.

Finally, he said, “There could have been a few items missing that I was concerned about. Not major pieces, but worthwhile.”

“Things that could be easily sold?”

“Perhaps.”

I took a breath. “A.A., is that the real reason you were letting Kim go?”

The silence went on so long that I thought we’d lost the connection. Finally, he said, “Much as I might like to, I really can’t comment on personnel matters.”

I didn’t need any more. “How good are those security people of yours?”

“Damn good, I would imagine,” he said.

“Then I suggest you send them over to Kim’s. There’s no one home and no alarm. Behind the living room bookshelves is a portfolio you might be interested in.”

“Care to tell me what’s going on?”

“Over dinner at Tacitus.”

“I’ll hold you to it,” he said. “By the way, I came up empty on City of War. Any luck on your end?”

“Tacitus,” I said and hung up.

Archer looked at me in disbelief. “She was stealing from the museum too? For that filthy son of a bitch? After what he did to her? It’s unfathomable.”

It wasn’t, and I told her the rest of the sordid story. When I finished, she sat in stunned silence, then turned and silently watched the brown desert pass. After a while, she whispered softly, “Like I’m one to talk. Two years with a guy who eventually cut out my fucking eye.”

Batterers and battered, abusers and abused. Researchers aren’t even close to understanding their codependency. In my opinion, after a while, there’s a chemical change in their brains, different from love, but just as powerful. But last time I checked, nobody was standing by waiting for me to weigh in.

Finally, Archer turned back to me. “But why the photographs? The article?”

“Two reasons. The first was self-protection. My guess is Hood, Serbin and Bruzzi all got copies. The second was money. Once she started running out of options, she tried to blackmail them.”

“So they had to kill her…but they needed the flash drive to close the loop.”

“Correct. And Bruzzi drew the contract. It’s what he does for a living anyway. Remember how Hood tried to distance himself from Kim’s murder? I also think Bruzzi and Truman had some kind of a side deal, and your stepfather, desperate and a fool, completely miscalculated. Bruzzi didn’t just want Kim dead, he wanted her to suffer.

“The Hyena was most likely the man in the private plane Tino and Dante showed her to that night, and Kim knew exactly who it was. She also knew that once they had her out to sea, Tino was going to go to work on her with his knife for the location of the flash drive before he fed her to the fish. If the 405 hadn’t stopped, she would have jumped out of that van even if it had meant dying.”

Archer shuddered. “So what do we do now?”

“We’re going to get you someplace safe, then I’m going visiting. There are some questions I want answers to. The photos at the Biltmore show Hood still in business with
Bruzzi and Serbin years after Egypt Air went down. So what else have they been taking out? And was Dr. Cesarotti part of it, or just the girlfriend?”

Archer said, “But most of all, you want to know where Truman York is.”

“Not most of all, but yes, that’s part of it.”

She flashed, “I want to be there when—”

I held up my hand, and she stopped. A minute or so later, she turned back to me. “I didn’t ask you this before, but you slept with her, didn’t you?”

“I would have thought that by now, you would have realized I don’t answer questions like that.”

“Not even when it could help someone? Like me?”

“Never. And it wouldn’t help anything.”

“Then let me ask it this way. How could someone who had that happen to her over so many years still function…normally?”

“You mean, why didn’t Kim become psychotic or a drug addict or end her life?”

“Yes, in spite of everything, she stayed connected to him. Almost like she was able to accept what happened. I think if Truman York had laid his hands on me one more time, I would have gone down to the beach and just kept swimming out to sea.”

I looked at Osiris, who was driving smoothly, keeping his eyes on the road. “Osiris, you’ve heard this conversation. How do you think somebody could be brutalized her whole life yet appear to outsiders as if there were nothing wrong?”

“I think, sir, people find ways to adjust to even the most horrible things. I played a soccer game in Poland once, and the coach took us to Auschwitz. I couldn’t understand how anyone could live through that and ever laugh again. But at the end of
Schindler’s List,
there were all of these people who had not only gone on but lived productive lives. The only place it could have come from was inside. For some,
it was being strong for a loved one. Others became living testaments. And I’m sure more than one made it on sheer hatred.”

A wise young man, indeed. “The world is filled with walking wounded,” I said. “It’s what civilized people do: carry on, regardless.”

Before I gave Osiris back his phone, I had one more call to make. Mallory answered on the first ring. I could hear seagulls in the background. “Let me guess, fishing,” I said.

“Please, I’d rather have my teeth pulled. We’re eating in some dreadful place built to look like a lighthouse. I think I was just poisoned.”

I heard Jannicke laugh, “For somebody who doesn’t like the food, you haven’t stopped shoveling it in since we sat down.”

I said, “I take it you’re tired of Palm Beach.”

“Palm Beach is fine. It’s my sister’s new boyfriend. He’s some kind of professional wrestler…about half her age. Calls himself The Bazooka. My God, the body piercings…and the level of conversation.
Professional wrestling?
Is that even grammatically correct?”

I laughed, “How about if I sweep you and Jannicke away.”

“Anything, please. I’d worship you.”

“I’ll hold you to it. I need a safe place on the Continent to put a friend. Something besides a hotel.”

“Anyone I know?”

“No, but you’ll understand when you meet her.”

“How soon?”

“Starting tonight.”

“I have just the place. Princess Veronique’s villa in Cannes. She’s just turned ninety, and you know how much she loves company.”

“Why don’t you make the arrangements, then get yourself and Jannicke to an airport.”

“Waiter, check please.”

Mallory wasn’t usually this funny. He must really have hit the breaking point.

“Oh, Mallory,” I said, “if you decide to go for a nose stud, make it tasteful—nothing larger than a carat.”

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

36

Tears and Beethoven

Princess Veronique didn’t look a day older than I remembered her, and that was almost two decades ago. She was still one of the most interesting women I knew, full of eccentricities, like her 1930s wardrobe.

Her terraced villa, Le Trésor, is set into the hillside above Cannes with a commanding view of the Mediterranean coast. Outside, it looks like the Parthenon, and inside, it’s filled with French chandeliers, Persian rugs and neo-Roman furniture.