Feint of Art: (35 page)

“Was there anyone you didn’t recognize working here tonight?” I demanded. “A new guy?”

“You mean the man that just left?” he said, pointing to the back door.

But of course.

I edged my way across the kitchen, trying not to look too conspicuous, and nipped out the back door, which opened onto an empty hallway. I paused a moment to ponder. It seemed clear that the drawings were not in Edward’s office, which had been thoroughly tossed. But now something occurred to me: why would Harlan risk coming to the Brock during the gala? Why not wait for a quiet Sunday evening when nobody was around? It was true that the gala was chaotic and that no one would be expecting to see him there. Still, it took a certain kind of audacity to stage a crime in the middle of a crowded affair such as this one, with potential witnesses everywhere. Especially since it would have been a whole lot easier just to convince Edward to let him in after hours. But Harlan hadn’t done that. So that must mean there was some advantage to being here during the gala.

The only thing I could think of that might have brought him here tonight was the unveiling of
The Magi.
But why would Harlan care about
The Magi
if he knew it was a fake? Had Michael switched the paintings yet again? That seemed overly complicated. Besides, Michael was after Harlan, too, which meant that Harlan still owed him money from the first switcheroo. Surely he wouldn’t have done it again without getting paid up front.

And what about Gordo the Goon, formerly known as Mr. Suave? He was angry about having paid Harlan real money for a fake painting. Maybe he wanted to kill Harlan for the sheer pleasure of it? He seemed the type. I couldn’t imagine Gordo trying to steal the Caravaggio himself—he would pay someone else to do that kind of work.

My head was beginning to spin. Bottom line: the key to this whole mess was
The Magi.
I felt an urge to hurry, and tried trotting toward the elevator, but after a few steps my feet shrieked in protest. As we used to say in the truck-stop trade, my dogs were barkin’. Frustrated, I yanked the wretched high heels off, hoisted up my trailing skirts, and ran along in my stocking feet. Bryan and the gang would be horrified, but I was no longer willing to cripple myself for fashion.

I had almost reached the service elevator when a burly, middle-aged security guard turned into the hallway and started toward me. I stopped running and smiled, trying to pretend that there was nothing even slightly odd about my presence in a rear hallway, disheveled, in a red ball gown, with my shoes in my hands. Happened all the time at the Brock.

I was about to launch into the whole “Great-aunt Agnes” gambit when he spoke, cordial but guarded. “Ms. Anna Kincaid?”

It seems I was expected.

This couldn’t be good.

No good ever came from the bowels of the Brock.

—Georges LeFleur, “Experts & Other Lower
Life Forms,” unfinished manuscript,
Reflections of a World-Class Art Forger

 

If I admitted that I was, indeed, Anna Kincaid, it seemed likely I would be booted from the Brock forthwith. Even I had to admit that I had no business cavorting around the museum’s innards, shod or unshod. My fears were confirmed as I glanced over my shoulder and saw a big blond security guard approaching from the rear. Both men carried guns, as well as those nasty batons for hitting people. I, on the other hand, had only a pair of high heels, having dropped the stapler in Edward’s office. Not exactly a fair fight.

“Um . . .” said I, always cool under fire.

“Come with us, please, Ms. Kincaid,” the first guard said politely.

“Um . . .” I hesitated.

Big Blondie grabbed my arm. “You heard the man.”

I was escorted none too gently along the hallway, around a couple of corners, down a flight of stairs, and into a small room. I didn’t know what was going on, but part of me was starting to worry that I might shortly end my days here at the Brock, my bones entombed forever beneath the marble floor of the tacky “Modern Masters” exhibit. That would be Agnes Brock’s ultimate revenge. The only thing that kept me from panicking was the sure knowledge that the old bat didn’t possess anywhere near enough imagination to dream up such a fitting reprisal.

A door opened, Big Blondie pushed me forward, and the door slammed shut behind me. I was relieved to see neither Agnes Brock, Gordo the Goon, the Hulk, nor the Fonz, but my buddies from the police department, Inspectors Crawford and Wilson.

Strangely enough, they did not seem equally delighted to see me. In fact, they looked rather grim.

Annette told me to have a seat on a metal folding chair by a small worktable. Ichabod leaned against a filing cabinet, his skinny arms crossed over his chest. Annette walked over to me, arms crossed over
her
chest. I wasn’t much into body language, but there was no mistaking that message.

“What in the
hell
are you doing here?” she demanded.

I could think of more positive directions for this discussion to take. “Um,” I said.

“Spit it out, Annie. And cut the crap.”

“I . . . actually, I was invited by a friend. I’m here legitimately, Annette. Really.”

“Uh-huh. And were you ‘legitimately’ running around the back hallways barefoot?”

“Is
that
what this is about? Is there a law against bare feet in public?”

“Stow it, Annie. This is serious.”

Chastened, I fell silent and chewed my lower lip. Annette sat down across from me, put her hands flat on the table, and looked me straight in the eye. “Tell me what’s going on,” she said firmly. “Tell me
now
, or you’re out of here and I’m charging you with something.”

“It’s not illegal to go barefoot. Which I’m not, strictly speaking. I have stockings on.” To prove it, I hoisted my skirt and stuck out one foot.

She was not impressed. “Oh, I’ll think of something,” she told me. “Trespassing. Interfering with a police investigation.” She glanced at my chest and raised an eyebrow. “Indecent exposure.”

I looked down and saw that my décolletage was in serious danger of revealing too much, doubtlessly as a result of being manhandled by Big Blondie. I hooked a finger in the neckline and hiked it up as best I could. So much for acting like the Queen Mum.

Ichabod politely looked away.

“Okay, Annette,” I said. “Point taken. No more crap. I’m here because I think I know where the drawings are.”

“You mean the drawings you were trying to find for the art dealers?” she asked. “Remind me what this has to do with the Brock Museum in general, and this gala in particular.”

Might as well come clean. There were goons with guns on the loose. Where to start?

“Harlan Coombs ran into money problems and stole some valuable drawings from his clients,” I began. “I think he hid them in the museum and that he’s come here tonight to retrieve them. I also think I may know where they are.”

“Why would he hide them here?” Annette demanded. “And why would he risk coming back for them tonight of all nights?” She hadn’t gotten her gold shield out of a cereal box.

“Can you think of a safer place to hide fragile old drawings than a museum?” I asked. “They’re quite valuable, and are much easier to fence than a famous painting like
The Magi.
”

Annette looked at me severely. “I’m not going to ask how you knew he hid them here. So I’ll ask you this: where are the drawings now?”

That was the question, wasn’t it? I wasn’t positive, but I was willing to hazard a guess.

“With
The Magi
,” I said. “Behind the canvas, in a false insert in the frame . . . I think. It’s an old trick used for smuggling documents. That would explain why Coombs had to be here tonight, to get access to the painting. It’s usually in the vault.”

“Uh-huh. And why were you asking me about a key the last time we talked?”

“Just a wild guess. You know how in the movies people are always after a nondescript safety-deposit box key? And then just getting the key isn’t enough—you have to know which bank to go to? I heard something about someone looking through someone else’s pockets, and it occurred to me that one of the thousands of archival drawers lining the back rooms of this place would make an excellent hiding place.”

“For the drawings?”

“Or for a lot of money. Seems to me that there’s more than one fake Caravaggio floating around, and maybe a real one, too, and that somebody’s gotten paid for those paintings by collectors, each thinking they’re buying the real one.”

“Uh-huh. Do you also think Harlan Coombs killed Stan Dupont?”

“I have no idea, but Harlan is here tonight. I saw him earlier. Maybe we should find him and ask. Plus, the guy who attacked Pete and kidnapped me is here tonight, too. He looks capable of murder, if you ask me.”

Annette looked at me sternly. “I didn’t ask you. And you are not going anywhere, Annie.
You
are going to wait here with Officers Campbell and Westmont.” She rose and turned to go. Ichabod stood up straight.

“Annette, wait,” I said, prepared to beg if I had to. “With all due respect, you’re a cop, not an artist. You might find something and not even recognize it when you see it. You could even irreparably damage the drawings and the oil painting if you’re not careful.” I threw that last bit in for good measure, since most people handled expensive art the same way they did newborn babies—gingerly.

Annette looked at Ichabod, then back at me, and sighed. “All right,” she relented. “But no more bullshit, you got me? We’re dealing with murder here.”

“I realize that,” I said, trying to sound chastened. It wasn’t too hard.

“Come along, then.” She pulled a police radio out of her spangled evening bag and asked someone if the Caravaggio had been brought downstairs yet, only to be told that it was currently under guard in the Blue Room.

Annette led the way, bustling down the hall in her amethyst gown. I couldn’t help but notice that her heels were easily two inches higher than mine had been, yet she could really move in them. I had to ask.

“Six months undercover, Vice,” she told me, a note of pride in her voice. “You have any idea how high the average hooker’s shoes are? That’ll train you for these little bitty things. I could run a marathon in these babies.”

That clinched it. When I grew up, I wanted to be as cool as Annette.

Annette, Ichabod, Officers Campbell and Westmont, and I took the elevator to the ballroom, where we had to wade through the jabbering crowd of partygoers to get to the Blue Room.

As I walked along with my armed police escort, I saw the one person I most wanted not to see—my date, Frank. He watched as we passed, his face grim. I couldn’t help but notice the voluptuous brunette hanging on his arm, gazing up at him adoringly. Helga—or was it Ingrid?—had better get back from her trip pretty soon.

I scanned the crowd for Harlan, or Michael, or Gordo, or Quiana, but without luck until, as we neared the double doors that led into the Blue Room, I saw a man in a waiter’s red bolero slip in through a side door. I nudged Annette, who radioed Security to be on alert for any uniformed waiters trying to get near the Caravaggio.

Officer Campbell opened the door and we walked into mayhem.

The room was full of thick smoke. I heard a muffled shout, and then a series of small explosions that, to my untrained ear, sounded like gunshots with a silencer. Annette immediately stepped in front of me, reached under her dress to her thigh holster, and drew her weapon. She and Ichabod peered around cautiously, then charged into the center of the mess, shouting their identity as police. Officers Campbell and Westmont guarded the door.

Since no one in the smoke-filled room seemed to be watching me, I edged around it, keeping low and hugging the wall. The first person I bumped into was Michael.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Annie,” he swore, then added something that was unintelligible above the noise of the shouts, before turning to run the other way, deeper into the smoke. Only then did I realize that he had something clutched under his arm.

Something large. And flat. And painted.

I took off after him, flinging myself through the dense smoke. I stumbled over not one but two bodies of uniformed police officers or security personnel, I couldn’t tell which. Taking heart from the fact that I didn’t see blood anywhere, and praying that they were just unconscious, I kept on going and bumped into a podium, which sent me spinning off in a new direction. I heard yells somewhere up ahead, but by now I had no idea where I was or what was going on, and was just starting to think it might be time to find an exit, when I tripped over a third body.

Michael.

As much as I’d threatened, at various points in our relationship, that I would see him dead one day, I hadn’t really meant it. Despite the chaos all about us, I sat down and lifted his head onto my lap. “Michael? Michael, are you okay? Colin? Paddy? David? Somebody answer me.” I started examining him for signs of a wound.

“You realize that in some cultures this means we’re engaged?” Michael said groggily.

I took that to mean he wasn’t dead, and was surprised by a surge of emotion as he gazed up at me with those piercing green eyes.

“For the love of God, Annie,” he barked. “Stop fussing over me and go find that damn painting!”

Jackass. I dropped his head, and took off in search of
The Magi.