Frame Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 5) (5 page)

She bent, lifted the mat corner, and found a small silver key.

Then she ascended stairs that creaked slightly with her weight.

The apartment was on the third floor landing.

A bit more out of breath than she should have been (she attributed that to the sixty or so pounds of Mexican food she was carrying), she inserted the key in the door of Apartment 367B and unlocked it, then used her knee to push open the door.

The apartment, vacant, stared back at her.

It was the opposite apartment of what she expected from Michael, knowing as she did of his association with some of the wealthiest people in Chicago. She would have expected him to have the use of an elegant penthouse apartment somewhere on the lakefront. Michael’s apartment would be carpeted, picture-windowed, electric-kitchened, stunningly sunlit, blue lake water and motionless sailboat-viewed, and utterly, eternally, silent.

This apartment was ragged and, in every respect, questionable.

The wooden floors creaked; the large, single, dininglivingkitchen room, (the three divisions separated by walls barely begun and never finished) lacked furniture, except for two chairs placed oddly and haphazardly, as though having come to rest after some natural disaster—and the entire far half of the area glowed with innumerable rays of fine dust floating in the air.

She put her purse on the couch beside the nearest wall, shed several layers of clothes, dumped the load of aluminum-wrapped unknowns in the kitchen, and inspected the bedroom.

It was an actual room—not too large, but possessed of a door. The bed was neatly made, and if it did not have blankets or bedspreads, it did at least have two pillows and a tightly made sheet that was either black or very dark blue, depending on how many clouds were regulating the light coming through the small window above the bedstead at any one time.

Dinner. Dinner
.

She returned to the kitchen.

She opened several cupboards and drawers, found knives, forks, plates.

She set a small table that stood by the magnificent kitchen window, and then she opened the refrigerator.

There was nothing in the refrigerator except a bottle of mayonnaise, a package of Cotto salami, and fifty bottles of beer.

Carefully she laid out dinner.

Chorizos on a platter; empiezas on this plate; gorditos, arranged by meat selection, on a separate plate; the sauces set out side by side…

…should she pour a glass of beer for Michael?

He might like that.

She found a clean glass (She was forced to admit that all of the kitchen was cleaner than she might have expected from a single man, and this was clearly the apartment of a single man), and poured the beer.

She looked through the window; a small market seemed to have been set up, blocking the street below, and there were sounds of laughter. Two motorcycles chugged and potted directly before the adjoining building; unbelievably skinny boys threw themselves upon the motorcycles as though they were jungle gyms; the motionless boy who’d been seated earlier on the steps remained motionless…and several women, all of whom looked like the woman in the taqueria, made florid gestures telling everyone what to do, which everyone ignored, smiling.

Dinner set, Carol returned to the couch, took a book from her purse, and glanced at her watch.

Five forty.

Michael had said he would arrive at six thirty.

Being a German, he would undoubtedly be punctual.

She began to read, her mind half on the book dealing with the life of Canaletto and his fascination with a particular building in Venice—and half on the evening ahead.

She looked forward to dinner. Michael was enigmatic to her. She wanted to know more about his background.

She liked talking during dinner.

And, she could not deny, she looked forward to the chance to talk about herself.

She had not really done so for some time.

True, she often chatted with the other docents…

…but it would be nice if this ‘Michael,’ whom she barely remembered, would be someone who could actually converse.

Someone who might listen, if she talked about herself.

For now, though, Canaletto and his canals. Then Michael; then dinner; then a long talk, winding this way and that, taking unexpected leaps as good essays and good conversations do—while sitting by the kitchen window, hearing rain that had now begun spattering on the glass panes, and watching as the small festival grew on the street below them.

So thinking, for more than half an hour, as the room darkened, she lost herself in the brightening Venice of Canaletto.

At precisely six thirty, there was a knock on the door.

She rose, crossed the door, and opened it.

Michael took two steps into the room, pushing her backward slightly. Then he cupped his hands beneath her buttocks, and, with astonishing ease, picked her straight up. He carried her across the room, laid her carefully in the bed, and undressed, as she undressed.

Within seconds, he was touching her, and she him.

“Has it been,” she whispered, “long for you?”

She could feel the warmth of his lips as they breathed into her ear:

“It’s always been,” he whispered, “about the same length as it is now.”

She sighed, saying, just before she put her tongue into his mouth:

“This is a problem; we have the same sense of humor.”

“Don’t worry,” he answered. “I won’t be using it for a while.”

And then he was on top of her.

At eight o’clock the next morning, they were sitting beside the window, drinking coffee.

The day was brighter. Pools of water below on the sidewalks reflected rooflines, and from several buildings, roosters crowed.

There were few people on the street; the small market had cleared from the night before.

Carol wore a man’s shirt that Michael had found in the closet, and nothing else. Michael was in his boxers; she was amused by the scarcity of hair on his chest.

He looked, she thought, like a boy.

“We can’t do this anymore,” he said.

“You are,” she answered, “such an endearing sort of man. Say it again; I love to hear it.”

“We can’t do this anymore.”

“Why not?”

“It’s a bad idea.”

She sipped from the cup in front of her and nodded:

“That’s what I kept telling myself during the fifteen or sixteen times we made love: ‘This is a bad idea; this is a bad idea.’”

“No, it’s true. I have something better for you, though.”

She looked at him: the morning sunlight made his goatee golden, and his eyes, which had seemed green the night before, were now blue.

“Your eyes,” she said, “keep changing color.”

“That’s to my advantage.”

They were silent for a time; the perennial, inevitable, mélange of guitar and accordion that defined Pilsen could be heard floating above all the roofs, out all the windows, up through the battered and brick-crumbling chimneys.

Michael reached back, took a pot of coffee from the stove, and filled his cup; he held the pot toward her. She shook her head. He shrugged, put the pot back, and said:

“I want to offer you a job. I’m offering it to you because I find you truly impressive. You know art; you are creative; and I think I could depend on you.”

“You know all this from watching one multi-media presentation?”

“I’ve watched you a great deal more than that. And I’ve made inquiries.”

“You’ve been spying on me?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I suppose I should be flattered.”

“What you should be is wealthy. You should be spending time in Paris and New York. You make no money as a mere docent, nor did you as a community college teacher. But I think that I can change all that.”

“How?”

“I’m a kind of broker. I help wealthy people acquire paintings. Specifically, I help one person acquire paintings.”

She looked at him, and, for perhaps the first time, he stared straight back at her. It was, she noticed, a contest of eye-wrestling, just as they might have had a contest of arm wrestling.

And, just as would have been the case with arm wrestling, neither won.

Finally each looked away. She said:

“Are the paintings stolen?”

“Of course they are. But all paintings have been stolen at one time or another.”

There was, she thought, little to be said to that.

Finally, she smiled and asked:

 
“You want me to be your mule?”

He shook his head.

It was such a pity, she thought, that he did not have the long, unmanageable, lock of straw blond hair that her fantasy German had. The hair he did have was straw blond, as it must have been; but it lay quietly in place, a continual disappointment to her.

“Mules carry drugs,” he said.

“Who carries paintings?”

“Rich people.”

“All right. Tell me more.”

He leaned forward:

“Listen. This is not brain surgery…”

He said the word ‘brain’ with a ‘w;’ it was his only language flaw. Otherwise, he could have come from Iowa. Except that he was not big enough.

“There are a great many paintings floating around The United States now. They are part of a large cache of masterpieces that were stolen by the Nazis toward the end of World War II.”

“Stolen from whom?”

“Stolen from a group of wealthy Russian/Jewish families who lived in the Caucasians. Somehow they have become—available. I work for a man named Beckmeier. He has a number of residences, but his main seat is in southern Austria. He has a castle there.”

“A castle?”

“Yes. Schloss Eggenburg. It’s only a few miles from the Slovenian border, in very rugged country. At any rate, Beckmeier is assembling there what he feels will be the largest private collection in the world.”

“But the authorities…”

“In that part of southern Austria, Beckmeier is the authorities. He just has to get them there.”

“That’s where you come in?”

“Yes. And you. If you will work for me.”

“For how much?”

“Twenty thousand dollars for each painting you deliver.”

“My God.”

“Yes. And there should be one painting to deliver each two weeks. I’ll give you the painting somewhere in Chicago, and a plane ticket along with it. You fly to Frankfurt, then change planes and go on to Graz.”