Cold Heart (29 page)

‘Not quite. If you weren’t paid in cash, how were you paid?’

Feinstein steepled the fingers of his sweaty hands. ‘An early de Kooning like the one I bought costs maybe a few thousand dollars more than I paid. It was a good deal – one for the future if you understand me, not to be sold on until a few years had gone by. It wasn’t hot, just an exceptional deal – in lieu of fees, you understand.’

‘I see,’ Lorraine said, loathing the man, who continued to play with his fingers.

‘So this stays a private investigation. You find who stitched me up, then I’ll deal with it my way. That’s what you’re hired to do so no more talk about reporting the fakes to the cops. Is that clear?’

‘Absolutely, if that’s what you want.’

He stood up, and began to move round his desk.

‘Did you also handle Sonja Nathan’s business?’ Lorraine asked.

Feinstein turned. ‘No, I didn’t. I was introduced to Nathan by Raymond Vallance, the movie star. Most of my clients are in the industry, which is another reason why I need confidentiality.’

Lorraine headed for the door, then turned back to him. ‘Do you know if Sonja Nathan and her husband were still in contact after they divorced?’

Feinstein blinked hard. ‘One of my partners handled the settlement. I met her during the meetings – they both had to be here.’

‘And Sonja Nathan is now the main beneficiary of the estate, correct?’

Feinstein nodded. ‘Yes – considering the other two wives conveniently dropped dead.’

‘Now that we know the art at the house isn’t genuine, what sort of sum would Harry Nathan’s heir be expecting to receive?’

Feinstein stuffed his hands into his pockets. ‘I don’t know. The house is worth about three million, the corporate stock not a lot in the present climate, and the gallery nothing – Harry and Kendall didn’t own the freehold on the site.’

‘And if his secret bank accounts are traced, would whatever money is in them also belong to Sonja Nathan?’

‘I will certainly be instituting a claim to trace the value of my property into those funds,’ Feinstein said, with emphasis, ‘but I can’t say what anyone else ripped off by Harry Nathan will be doing. Basically if nobody else claims it, it’s hers.’

It was five thirty by the time Lorraine got back to the office. She had expected Decker to be there, but he hadn’t even called. She cleared up some correspondence, tidied the office, took the garbage down to the incinerator, and had almost got everything in order when the doorman called to say someone was in reception to see her.

It was Jake – wearing a casual sweater, old cord trousers and sneakers. ‘Hi. Maybe thought we’d do the walk before we went to my place – you all set?’

Tiger hurled himself at his friend, tail like a windmill, then pranced around barking.

Lorraine made a last-minute check before they left. Her car stayed in the garage, as Burton had the roof down on his rather beaten-up Suzuki jeep. ‘This is for going to the beach,’ he said, excusing the state of the jeep, but Lorraine liked it, and so did Tiger. He had jumped in and sat on the back seat before Burton had the door half open. Lorraine patted his head, remembering Tiger’s previous owner – as perhaps the big dog was too. All that seemed a long, long time ago, and she thought about her old partners, Rose and Rooney, wondering how they were, and when they would be returning from their honeymoon.

Jake looked sideways at her, then reached over and took her hand. ‘You’re miles away,’ he said.

She squeezed his hand. ‘Yes – I was just thinking about a couple of friends of mine I want you to meet. They’re on their honeymoon.’

He released her hand, and suddenly she wished she hadn’t said honeymoon, because the word made her think about the proposal he’d made to her. He’d made no further mention of it, and she didn’t want him to think she was trying to drop hints or remind him of it, so she started talking about Rosie and Rooney instead. She wasn’t aware of where they were going, just chatted about how she had first met Rosie and that Bill Rooney had once been her boss when she was a cop. Jake listened, but seemed to be paying more attention to the road as he drove out towards Pacific Palisades. Tiger stuck his head out of the window, his ears blowing upright, then rested his head on Jake’s shoulder. The atmosphere was relaxed and easy, and Lorraine began to unwind from the day. She stopped thinking about Harry Nathan, Kendall, Cindy, and the repellent Feinstein, and by the time they were walking beside the ocean, and Jake took her hand in his, all she could think about was the man she was with, and how good it felt to be with him again.

‘So, you’re back from wherever you’ve been,’ he said softly.

‘Sorry, sometimes it takes me a while to relax.’ She moved closer to him, and he put his arm around her shoulder.

‘I understand – I was a bit wound up myself.’

‘Had a bad day?’ she asked.

‘Hell no – I was nervous about seeing you, worried you might have changed your mind.’ They stopped and faced each other. ‘I meant what I said last night, Lorraine. It may have been jumping the gun a bit – we hardly know each other, and I’m not . . . I mean, I don’t want to hold you to anything said in the heat of the moment, but if you want to just let things run as they are, then that’s okay by me.’

The pain in her stomach almost made Lorraine gasp. ‘Do you mean
you
want to . . . er . . . you know, let things run?’ She could hardly speak with nervousness.

He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her, then looked into her upturned face. ‘Thing is, I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. It was tough working today because I kept on wanting to call you, just to hear your voice. I can’t hide my feelings, maybe because I’ve never felt this way before, so if I’m behaving like a kid, then you’ll just have to wait for me to calm down. I want to go to bed with you right now, I want to wake up beside you, and not just one night here or there,
I want you?

She felt a small twinge of guilt because he hadn’t been on her mind all day – in many of her thoughts, maybe, but not all of them. But being with him now, she forgot everything else. The words came out as naturally as breathing, three words she never thought she would say to anyone again. ‘I love you.’

He closed his eyes and whispered, ‘Oh, thank God.’

D
ECKER HAD
checked out the Museum of Contemporary Art and driven from one gallery to another, sitting in the back rooms discussing auctions and buyers. He’d asked everyone about Kendall Nathan’s gallery, and had prowled Rodeo, Beverly, Melrose Place and sections of La Cienega looking for other exclusive galleries that relied on private clients. He had palmed money to porters at auction houses and, dressed in his best gear, exploiting his good looks and acting experience to the full, he had posed as a buyer or a dealer.

He took one real dealer to lunch at the Ivy, and by four o’clock he was exhausted, but he felt he now knew conclusively that none of Harry Nathan’s pieces had been on the market during the past two years. He had records of sales past, or forthcoming; catalogues from European auctions and a thick stack of literature from the English art houses, Sotheby’s and Christie’s, from both their London and New York centres of business.

He decided now to talk to the kid who had worked for Kendall. He was a little wary as he followed Washington Boulevard into east Los Angeles, more than aware that he was crossing the divide into gangland territory. Signs of poverty became visible in the form of discount marts and Spanish-language churches, bars appeared on every building’s doors and windows, and gang signatures, often half obliterated by rivals then resprayed, were noticeable among the graffiti on walls and metal shop shutters.

He made sure the doors to his car were locked as he drove, and that he knew exactly where he was going, not wanting to look lost or vulnerable as he turned south on La Brea to hit Adams Boulevard. Decker slowed down as he turned into a smaller side-street of mainly single-storey bungalows, little more than flat-roofed boxes in dingy white or ochre shades, with here or there a pantiled porch, canopy or new garage as the residents attempted to improve their homes or give them some individual character. Most of the tiny front yards were clean and neat, and only a few had old furniture and other junk piled around the back door or resting against the walls. Bars and chain-link fences were, however, everywhere and Decker reckoned astutely that the parents who lived there were probably solid enough citizens but were losing their authority over the kids, grown and half-grown, who were running with gangs.

Decker found he had overshot his target, and stopped and reversed. Number 5467 was a small two-storey frame house, one of the less run-down properties, with roses and elephant’s ear fern on each side of the door and the drive clear enough for him to park in. He locked his car and looked around before heading towards the porch, carrying his portable phone.

The front door had thick safety glass, made opaque with strips of masking tape on the inside. Decker knocked and waited, then rapped a little harder. He knew someone was at home because he could hear the sound of a blaring television.

‘Who is it?’ a distant voice called.

Decker knocked again, then called out that he was from the art gallery. He listened while the volume of the television was lowered. ‘I’m coming,’ said a hoarse female voice.

It was a few minutes more before the woman inched the door open on the chain.

‘Good afternoon, I’m here about Kendall Nathan’s gallery, and I wondered if I could speak to . . . your son, would it be? Eric? Mr Lee Judd?’

‘He’s my son,’ came the asthmatic reply.

‘Is he home?’ Decker enquired.

‘No, he ain’t here.’

‘I just want to ask him a few questions. I’m from the insurance company, and as Mr Lee Judd was employed by Mrs Nathan . . .’

‘She got burned real bad,’ Mrs Lee Judd said, but made no effort to open the door. ‘My boy’s real cut up about it. He got no job now. That’s what he’s doing, looking for work.’

‘Could I just speak to you?’

‘You
arc
speakin’ to me. I ain’t opening this door for nobody, I don’t know nothin’.’

Decker gave up in frustration and headed back towards his car. He was about to unlock it when he looked back at the house. The curtains moved on one of the downstairs windows. The figure behind them was that of a young man. Decker hurried back towards the door and pounded on it. ‘Mr Lee Judd, I know you’re in there, I just saw you at the window. Please, I’m not the police, this is just an insurance enquiry. Can you just open the door for a few minutes? Hello?’

There was no sound at all now, not even the television. Decker waited, then whipped round as he heard the sounds of running feet in the next-door yard. The young man had run out the back of the house, leaped over the fence and headed into the street.

Decker started to run after him, then returned to his car. The man had set off at high speed along the sidewalk, but he kept him in sight. Decker backed out into the road and followed him: his bright red windcheater and sneakers made him easy to spot, and although he was moving fast, he didn’t duck into any of the driveways but headed for Adams Boulevard.

Decker still had Lee Judd in his sights as he stopped at traffic-lights. He saw the boy cross the main drag and turn into an alley about twenty yards up ahead on the left, between a dance rehearsal studio, exhibiting all the thinly cheerful signs of an attempt at urban renewal, and a boarded-up building, which still bore the ominous smoke stains of the riots. As soon as the lights changed, he pulled over and indicated left, turned into the alley and slowed down. It ran along the back of the other stores that fronted the boulevard – a liquor store, an exotic-looking hair-and-beauty salon and a Mexican music outlet. Piles of garbage overflowed from huge battered plastic bins, and a number of abandoned-looking vehicles and a couple of narrow passages led to any number of places for the youth to hide. Decker slowed to walking pace, but he knew he had lost him.

The alley ran straight through to a side street off Adams, so Decker had to drive on through. He was swinging out of the alley, preparing to head back the way he had come, when out of the corner of his eye he saw Lee Judd again. He was walking now, shoulders hunched and head bent low, keeping close to the façade of rundown shops. Decker had to drive on: the traffic was so heavy that there was no way he could stop quickly.

He was just dialling the office to see if Lorraine was there when he noticed a green pick-up truck career out of a side street, and slot into the traffic close behind him as he turned onto La Brea. He accelerated, but the pickup came even closer, almost hitting his bumper. He accelerated again, tossing the phone onto the passenger seat. He was about to put his foot down when the pickup rammed him so hard that his car spun through a hundred and eighty degrees, almost into the path of an oncoming vehicle. The driver screamed and blasted the horn as Decker righted the car and now hit the gas pedal hard. His heart was thumping. These guys behind were trying to run him off the road, and his mind raced as he tried to remember when the next set of traffic lights came up. He checked that his door was locked, and overtook a car in front, but the truck did the same, its cabin so high above its customized, extended wheel-base that Decker couldn’t get a clear look at the driver. All he knew for certain was that this was for real, and he started to sweat with fear, wondering whether he should take a side turning. He decided against it, hoping he would have more opportunity to outrun the truck when they had passed under the Santa Monica freeway. He hoped and prayed that there were no signals ahead, because he would be forced to jump the lights or stop.

The truck edged out to his right, and Decker was sweating freely. His hands clutched the wheel and his back arched with fear, then terror, as the truck swiped his car from the side. He screeched over to the kerb but managed to turn out of the tail spin. Now, his accelerator pressed flat to the floor, he screamed forward, burning rubber, the needle of the speedometer moving higher and higher. He was nudging eighty, with the truck still close on his tail. Suddenly up ahead were the traffic lights on Washington, at yellow turning to red. There was no way Decker could pull up in time. He gritted his teeth, accelerated harder, and crossed the traffic lights at eighty-five miles per hour.