Feint of Art: (21 page)

Pete brought me a steaming mug of tea, kissed me lightly on the forehead, and returned to his office to finish up the paperwork for an order that was being shipped out first thing in the morning. I sipped the tea, which really did make me feel better, and became lost in the sheer translucent beauty of a sheet of ruby red glass, swirled with tints of yellow, orange, and purple.

A deafening crash came from the direction of the office. I dropped the mug on the nearest crate and sprinted toward the noise.

“Pete!” There was no answer. “Pete?”

As I rounded the corner into the office, I saw shards of cobalt blue glass everywhere.

“Pete!” I called, but still there was no reply. I started toward his desk and spied a pair of size thirteen work boots sticking out from behind a table. “Pete?”

Someone grabbed me from behind and clamped a beefy hand over my mouth. Twisting and kicking, I was lifted off the ground. I wrenched my teeth open and bit down, hard. A pained grunt was the only response before a gun was shoved against my temple.

I was half carried, half dragged down the ramp of the open loading dock to a shiny black Lincoln Town Car, where I was dumped, facedown, on the leather seats; then the car pulled away with a screech of tires.

Scared but furious, I flipped over and sat up to find my old pal the Hulk, with a large bandage on his head, aiming a gun right between my eyes. The driver, who sported a ducktail like the Fonzie character on the old TV show, stomped on the gas as we vroomed out of the parking lot and sped toward the docks. We careened into an alley behind two large, seemingly abandoned factories and jerked to a halt. Grabbing my arm in a bruising grip, the Hulk dragged me from the car. Seagulls squawked overhead, and I smelled a whiff of the bay. There was not a soul in sight.

The Fonz yanked open an unmarked door in a building made of cinder blocks and corrugated tin, and the Hulk hustled me roughly through a small front office and down a scuffed, narrow hallway. The place smelled musty, as though it hadn’t been inhabited in years. I was shoved into a room that held nothing but a single chair in the center of a pool of light.

Either I was in very big trouble or I had stumbled onto the set of a B movie.

“Ms. Kincaid,” a man said in a deep, cultured voice.

Maybe it really
was
a B movie.

He moved toward me out of the shadows. He was fiftyish, medium height, with a clipped salt-and-pepper mustache and expensively styled gray hair. He wore beautifully tailored wool slacks, leather loafers, and a V-neck burgundy cashmere sweater over a white oxford shirt. Apparently he and DeBenton shopped at the same stores.

“Have a seat, won’t you?” he said.

I started to decline, but a meaty paw on my shoulder pressed me down. The Fonz materialized with a nylon rope and tied my wrists tightly to the arms of the chair, and my ankles to the legs.

“Who are you?” I was pleased that I kept most of the fear out of my voice.

“Why don’t you allow me to ask the questions, Ms. Kincaid,” he replied suavely.

“All right, Mister, um, but please, call nine-one-one for the man back at the warehouse. He’s injured. He had nothing to do with any of this. You can call anonymously.” The thought of Pete lying on the warehouse floor, unconscious and bleeding to death, was horrifying.

Mr. Suave dismissed my plea with a flick of his manicured hand. “Why don’t you tell me what I want to know, then you can go back to the warehouse and help your friend yourself.”

I stared at him.
Annie,
I lectured myself sternly,
whatever else you do, cooperate. Swear to God you will cooperate, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll get out of this.

“What do you want?” I asked, the very picture of cooperativeness.

“The Caravaggio.”

“And you think
I’ve
got it? Are you nuts?” My vow didn’t seem to be taking hold.

“I assure you, I am not.” He didn’t seem offended by my remark. Maybe he heard it a lot. “If you don’t have
The Magi,
then where is it?”

Who was this guy and why did he want
The Magi
? More to the point, what made him think
I
knew where it was?

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve been looking for it myself.”

“Ah? And why are you looking for it?”

I forced myself to stay focused, knowing that if I didn’t pull myself together and get out of here, Pete was in trouble. I sat up straighter. “Well, actually, I’m not. I’m really looking for the man who painted a, um, a temporary replacement for it,” I finished lamely.

“Indeed? Well, well, it seems we have a great deal in common, Ms. Kincaid.”

I somehow doubted that.

“You see,” he continued, “I purchased a—what was the charming phrase you used? Ah, yes—a ‘temporary replacement’ myself. Unfortunately, I had been led to believe that it was the original.”

Yikes. No wonder he was upset. “Yeah, well, there’s a lot of that going around,” I said.

The hand on my shoulder squeezed. Hard.

“Ow!” I said. “That
hurts
.”

The Hulk yanked my head back by my hair. It was not a pleasant sensation. Note to self: when being held hostage by menacing thugs, adjust the attitude.

My host chuckled. “Thomas here becomes impatient easily, don’t you, Thomas?” His voice turned cold. “Now where’s Anton Woznikowicz?”

“I wish I knew,” I said in a strangled voice. My scalp was
killing
me.

“Where’s Harlan Coombs?”

“I wish I knew that as well,” I said. “I truly do.”

“Ms. Kincaid, you are trying my patience.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know where they are!”

“Where’s Colin Brooks?”

Who the hell was Colin Brooks? Feverishly I flipped through my mental Rolodex. Pete’s life might depend on my giving the right answer, but I could not recall having met anyone by that name. “Never heard of him.”

The Hulk released my hair and slapped me. I tasted blood in my mouth, my ears rang, and my vision blurred as tears flooded my eyes.

“Stop that!” I shouted.

“Let me refresh your memory, Ms. Kincaid,” Mr.

Suave said in a voice oily enough to lube my truck. “You went to Napa with him.”

Well, duh. Wasn’t I the one who had been so sure that Michael X. Johnson was an alias?

“Oh,” I said. “I didn’t know that was his name. I don’t know where he is.”

Mr. Suave raised his eyebrows. “You expect me to believe that you don’t know where your lover is?”

“He’s not my lover.”

He sighed, in a “kids today” kind of way. “Fine. Your boyfriend, then. Come, come, Ms. Kincaid. I’m not your father, I don’t care about your morals. I know you spent the night with him.”

“He is
not
my boyfriend,” I repeated emphatically, wondering how Michael was involved in all this. “I don’t know who he is, and maybe we did sleep together, but I don’t remember. I was drunk. I got drunk and spent the night in a motel with a man whose name I don’t know. I don’t remember anything about it, and in the morning he was gone. As far as I’m concerned he’s just another good-looking scumbag. Old story. Okay?”

The Hulk lifted his hand.

“Don’t hit me again!” I yelled.

Mr. Suave looked pained and squeezed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “Ms. Kincaid. I imagine you’ve never done this before, so perhaps I should explain the procedure to you. You are here because we desire information. In order to convince you to give us that information, we hurt you. That is how it is done. Please don’t interfere with the process.”

My mind reeled at the notion that these goons were sticklers for procedural details.

“So, who
is
this Colin Brooks, anyway?” I asked, hoping to calm things down. “I know you’re supposed to be asking the questions here, but I’m curious. I mean, technically I did sleep with the guy, even if I don’t remember it.”

“He is a
thief,
” Mr. Suave said, his voice ringing with disapproval. His contempt struck me as ludicrous under the circumstances, but I kept that thought to myself. He continued. “Brooks was working with Harlan to steal the Caravaggio and replace it with the forgery. What I need to know is, what happened to the original? Is it back at the Brock?”

“No.” Was that the right answer? Should I have said yes? Which answer would convince him to let me go help Pete? “Maybe,” I added for good measure.

“If it is not there, then where is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where
is
it?” he hissed, his face inches from mine.

“I—don’t—know.”

“What about the key?” the man with the ducktail asked. “Eddie was goin’ on about a key that night, remember?”

“Good point. I knew I paid you for something.” Garnet beads flew as Mr. Suave reached out and ripped off my necklace.

“What are you—?!” I began.

The Hulk yanked my head back again and pressed a knife against my throat for good measure. The sharp blade pricked my skin and I felt a drop of what I presumed was my life’s blood trickle down my neck. It did not hurt, but it scared me witless.

A thud sounded from one of the outer rooms, and Mr. Suave jerked his chin toward the ducktailed Fonz, who hurried out. Seconds later we heard a second thud, followed by a third.

And then silence.

“Hanks!” Mr. Suave called out.

There was no response.

“Hanks!”

Still nothing.

“Come on,” my captor told the Hulk. “Let’s check it out. Are the ropes secure?”

They left me alone and I immediately leaned forward, gnawing on the rope to free my hands.

“I thought you said you never caused trouble,” a voice murmured.

“Frank!” I lifted my head so fast I nearly clocked him in the chin as he crouched down in front of me. “Is Pete all right? How did you find me?”

“Don’t move,” he commanded, sawing vigorously at the rope. He looked kind of rumpled. For Frank. His pin-striped oxford shirt was open at the collar, and he wasn’t wearing a tie.

“Where are the bad guys?” I asked.

“They’re outside,” he told me. “I locked them out.”

I felt sure there was a story in there somewhere, but Frank didn’t elaborate.

“The lock probably won’t hold for long, but I’m hoping the police will arrive soon,” he said as the ropes fell away. “Don’t worry; Pete’s taken care of. For now I suggest we focus on saving ourselves. This is my only weapon.”

He held up a tiny Swiss army knife. It had been sufficient to saw through nylon rope and could probably clean fingernails pretty well. But unless Mr. Suave had a pathological fear of needles I doubted he would run in horror.

“This way,” Frank said, leading me out the room’s single door and heading down the dimly lit hall, deeper into the building.

“Shouldn’t we . . .”

“Trust me.”

Since Frank had done so well thus far—certainly better than I had—I followed him until the hallway opened onto a shop floor, where we skittered to a halt. I was hoping Frank had a better sense of what we were looking for than I did, since I was clueless. Sure enough, he seemed to spot something, because he was suddenly galvanized.

“Up there,” he said, pointing to a loft high above the shop floor.

“There?” I squeaked.

“There.”

“You sure?”

“Trust me.”

Again with the trust. He was really pushing it.

We rushed up a rickety staircase that hugged one wall of the large room. The loft offered a panoramic view of the factory, with the exception of the front offices, from which we’d just come. The metal door at the top of the staircase was locked, but Frank whipped out his handy knife, pulled out a screwdriver attachment, and removed the small screws that held the lock in place. The door swung open and we entered an office furnished only with a dented metal desk and three ugly beige plastic chairs. The air was stale, as if the door had been shut for a long time.

I looked around, dismayed. I had secretly hoped to find a SWAT team, but Frank seemed pleased. Crossing to the far wall, where there was a large ventilation grate, he knelt down, and, again using his tiny knife, unscrewed the four corners, lifted off the grate, and lay on his stomach to peer into the hole. Then, pulling a tiny flashlight out of his pocket, he shone the light down the vent. When he looked up at me, I had the uncomfortable feeling he was taking my measurements, assessing what my mother referred to as my “womanly” figure. To me, this had always translated into “big hips.”

“It’ll do in a pinch,” he murmured to himself.

I was offended until I realized he was talking about the grate.

“We’re going in
there
?” I had a touch of claustrophobia, which was magnified when I was being chased by goons with guns in abandoned factories. I knew what Frank was proposing was wise—in the fourth grade I had listened attentively as Officer Friendly had told us that in case of danger we should “hide and wait for the police”—but I was beginning to wish I had taken my chances and run like hell.

“Don’t worry, it’s only a last resort,” he reassured me.

Frank fiddled with something at the control panel above the desk, and floodlights suddenly illuminated the factory, the glare accentuated when he turned off the lights in our little room. It was dark, but I could make out Frank’s face in the reflected glow. He sat down on the floor, legs stretched in front of him, back against the wall. Unable to think of anything else to do, I slid down next to him and tried to appear as calm as he did, even though my mind was whirling. Was Pete okay? Who were these men, and how had they connected me to the fake
Magi
? And what in the world was Michael’s connection to it all?

“San Francisco’s finest,” Frank said quietly when, at long last, we heard far-off sirens. “Took long enough.”

I was relieved, but a tad annoyed, by Frank’s obvious competence. “How did you know what happened?” I asked.