Frame Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 5) (8 page)

“I have one possibility. I was offered a job some time ago by…well, it doesn’t matter.”

“What kind of a job is it?”

“Not a particularly pleasant one, but one that I’ll probably have to take on now.”

“Where is it?”

“I’ll need to go back to Chicago. Then there will be some travel involved.”

“When will you be back?”

“Probably soon, if everything goes the way I expect it to.”

Then the smile that Nina had come to appreciate so much:

“Keep the paint fresh. And don’t forget to keep working on your paintings.”

And that had been that.

Michael’s full name was Michael Gellert. He’d been born some thirty-five years earlier in a village not far from Osnabruck, in Germany. He’d been an average student in the Gymnasium, then an average student at the Technische Hochschule in Munster, then a far below average painter. He had not, in actuality, succeeded at anything in life until he became an international art smuggler. And at this occupation he was quite good.

It was ten forty-five at night, and wind had turned cold across Lake Michigan. The fact that it was not yet October meant nothing. He had approached the Museum of Natural History from the south, coming over from Lawrence Street, the Mercado, now deserted, and the freeway overpass, watching the vast building itself grow ever larger, but ever darker. It was the darkest night he’d ever seen. There were no stars, of course; but there seemed to be no clouds either, nothing moving, out in what must have been the lake, or above it in what should have been an early autumn sky. Everything, though…the wide, silent sidewalk, the great slab of angled granite that must have been steps, the museum itself…everything had been ink-drenched, and the world was completely black, save for the greenblueyellow Ferris wheel on Navy Pier, far in front of him, and the lights of the skyline itself, frozen white and motionless, looking down on him as he slowly approached downtown.

“Keep walking.”

This, he knew, was his employer, Beckmeier, but he had no idea how the man had approached him. He’d seen no one, did see no one until the figure was simply there, striding along with him.

For a time they walked silently. Immediately to their left, the museum continued to loom. It was too big; they could never get around it––and the lake, to their right, was only the rumor, the myth, of a lake. There was no water to be seen, no boats, no wavelets lapping against what must have been a concrete quay; they were simply there, utterly alone and soundless, walking down the vast edges, drear and naked shingles of the world.

“I have learned,” the figure said, finally, “the location of a particular painting. I’ve also made arrangements to acquire it. I need you, or one of your people, to transport it for me.”

The wind had begun to howl. It bit into both of them like a razor,
    

“Where is the painting now?”

He turned his head and was aware of a slight upward movement in the collection of clothing moving beside him. It could have been a shrug.

“In California. It will arrive here tomorrow.”

The museum, finally, was behind them now. But they were still completely alone. He could discern, turning his head back over his shoulder, the pillars of the museum’s entrance. Was someone there, moving from behind one to another? No. His imagination.

He was getting jumpy as he approached middle age.

He would have to guard against that.

A figure approached them, wildly, improbably, on a skateboard. It seemed a cross between a scarecrow and the masthead of a ship, leaning away from the wind that tore into them, and being rushed along before it, passing soundlessly between them and the lake.

“What painting are we talking about?”

“A Durer.”

For a moment, he could not speak. He did not know whether to blame this unseasonable cold on pure shock; but he simply waited; let his steps carry him along, the great sidewalk looming on either side of him, until his mind throat and mouth coordinated themselves into words.

“My God.”

This, he admonished himself, was the best he could come up with.

“Yes,” came the reply.

“You have a Durer?”

“Yes.”

“The Chicago Art Museum doesn’t even have a Durer.”

“They have two sketches; I will have a painting.”

“What painting?”

“Hase.”

“We’re talking about one of Durer’s Hasen? His rabbits?”

“Yes.”

He paused for time, as the same process of speech coordination in the midst of impossible conversation repeated itself.

“How much is it worth?”

“It’s priceless. But I will pay you one hundred thousand dollars to transport it to me, from Chicago to Graz.”

“All right.”
 

The two were silent for a time.

So…do you want to move this painting for me?”

“I’m not sure. I may have to think about the matter.”

“There’s no time. The painting needs to get to Austria. And damned quick.”

His warning antennae picked up something in the air.

Something was wrong.

“Why this sudden urgency?”

“You know the former owners want these paintings back.”

“Yes.”

“Have you come, given the nature of the business you have chosen…”

“Import/export.”

“Ha. Yes. Well, if you wish to call it that. At any rate, have you come to hear of ‘The Red Claw’?”
           

“No. And what do red claws have anything to do with recovering stolen art?”

“Because of the man who is reputed to be their leader. No one has seen him. No one even knows what he looks like. But he’s reputed to be a particularly nasty fellow. He does not treat couriers well, when he finds them transporting the paintings of his people. These couriers simply disappear.”

“Still, the name…”

“Lorca Reklaw.”

“Ah. I see.”

“Yes. The Red Claw. Reklaw was apparently the name of one of the largest of the families. Do research on the thing, if you wish. With your contacts…”

“Yes, yes. You can depend on it. If I do this, I shall come to know with whom I am dealing.”

He breathed deeply, then said:

“This will take a special operative. Someone completely unknown.”

That part of the matter is entirely up to you.”

“All right. Let me think about it. Give me until tomorrow morning. I make some contacts; talk with some of my people.”

“Fine. If you decide that you want the job, be in front of Union Station tomorrow morning, eight o’clock. Someone will be there to give you the details. Also, of course, to give your half of your fee. As has always been our arrangement.”

“All right.”

“Very well then.”

And the figure was gone.
    

The end-of-the world loneliness of the back side of Field Museum gradually gave way, as he made his way through the park. By the time he reached the Art Institute, the city was somewhat itself again, with people either going too fast or nowhere at all. The cabs were lined up in their usual place, directly opposite the Russian Tea Room, pointing north on Michigan, awaiting the end of the concert at Symphony Hall. He caused some consternation among the drivers by selecting the third taxi, and not the first (there was a good deal of pointing and recriminating in, he guessed, Pakistani or an offshoot of it)...but finally he solved the problem by giving ten dollars to both drivers.

Then he got in the third cab.

“I want you to take me to Damen and Montrose. There’s a possibility we may be followed. Take a circuitous route. Don’t go the most direct way. Keep looking behind you. Stop every now and then, as though you’re studying a map, or trying to figure out where you’re going. If you think we’re being followed, stop at the nearest bar or tavern, and let me out. Can you do that?”

The driver’s expression was now quite earnest.

“Can do.”

And the cab pulled away.

The city slid past them, cold, jagged and garish in the wind. He could see the driver as he glanced into the rear view mirror, turned left here, right farther up, avoiding, as he had hoped, Lakeview Road, meandering down side streets that he did not know. He could not withstand the temptation to look around from time to time, but he saw only headlights, glaring in what now seemed to be a mix of rain and snow. Save for the runners, the park was deserted. Cars had been parked along the quiet streets bordering it, but there was practically no traffic at all that he could see.

The trip took them thirty minutes. Finally, though he recognized the statue marking Lincoln Square. they turned onto Montrose, made their way down it, and parked almost beneath the CTA line at the Ravenswood intersection.

He gave the driver a twenty dollar bill, then got out of the cab and made his way up the street toward the apartment where he’d been staying for the past week.

The great U-shaped building folded its black brick wings around him as he made his way through what had been a garden in mid-summer, but what was now only a repository of wilted straw. He opened the front door, glanced at the letters in the mailbox and decided to ignore them. The second door leading into the hallway, which should have been locked, was not; it stood six inches open into the dimly-lighted stairwell, and he wondered a moment if he should worry. But two things stopped him: first, the memory that the door, swollen with moisture, was almost always like this, and he’d come to expect it––and second, the complete lack of anything else to do except go up the stairs and into his apartment.

He began climbing the stairs, all the while thinking about the problem.

A Durer.

A DURER!

The Red Claw.

He needed someone special for this job. Someone who would not stand out.

So thinking, he put his key in the lock and opened the door.

The apartment stared back at him.

He entered, took off his light jacket, then sat on the couch, staring out the window.

The wind was rattling now in the panes of glass. The window had not been installed properly, or had somehow warped away from its facing. It did not matter which; except that there was a jet of frigid air funneling through a gap at the top of the lattice glass, chilling the room.

Outside, though, no one passed on the side street; the windows of the building itself were black, and nothing seemed to move inside what he could see of the curtains. It was the quietest building he’d ever encountered. He’d always appreciated that, prized it; but now he would have welcomed screaming babies in the adjoining apartment, or the sonorous pounding of bass guitars floating from whoever lived downstairs, and had always been the case where he had lived before, regardless of city, regardless of nation.

There was none of that here, though.

Only silence.

Until his cell phone rang.