Full Circle (10 page)

“I don’t believe you tried to recall Dodge. I don’t think that’s why Powers was in Borrego Springs that night.”

For a moment DuBois focused all his faculties on Bernhardt. Then: “It’s a hackneyed phrase, but Betty was the daughter I’d never had. Additionally, as I said, upon reflection, I decided that she wouldn’t really betray me, not when she became more rational. And I think I was right. I
still
think I’m right. Which is one reason I want you to bring her home.”

“What about Ned Frazer? Did you have him killed?”

“I’ve already answered that question. I suspect Ned informed on others besides me to get out of his Mexican prison. One of the people he betrayed probably had him murdered. He was, after all, a member of the underworld. And the underworld has its own code. He’d just agreed to work with the United States Attorney. When word of that circulated, I imagine his fate was sealed.” As he spoke, DuBois’s voice began to fade again. “I don’t have time for quibbling, Mr. Bernhardt. Neither the time nor the strength. So I’ll come directly to the point. I want you to get in touch with Betty, and I want you to bring her back to Los Angeles. Then, as I said, I want the two of you to make disposition of the paintings. It must be the two of you. Alone, Betty isn’t tough enough for the job. And you, alone, don’t have the expertise, even with my guidance.” He broke off, then spoke softly, reflectively, his voice softened by memories. “For years—decades—those paintings were the entire focus of my life. It’s a passion that only a collector can truly understand. To own something of great beauty that, in the whole world, is absolutely unique is, well, indescribable. And to share that pleasure with tourists in a museum …” Eloquently he shook his head.

“You’re a very rich man. Why didn’t you simply buy the paintings? Why have them stolen?”

“I’ve never ordered anything stolen. Others did, but not I. Never.”

“If we do business, though—if I accept your offer—the art goes back to the museums.”

“True. And I’ll regret that. But I’ll do anything—
anything
—to avoid getting hauled into court. I simply won’t allow that to happen.”

“If Betty comes back, and she’s killed, then you’d be safe.”

“No, Mr. Bernhardt, I wouldn’t be safe.”

“Why not?”

“Because there’s you, Mr. Bernhardt. There’d still be you.”

A
NDREA SET THE HAND
brake, switched off the BMW’s engine, glanced in the mirror, then carefully scanned the immediate area. Yes, Harry was safely out of sight. From her leather tote bag she took a surveillance radio. She put the transparent earpiece in place, switched on the radio, and verified the channel. Then she palmed the tiny microphone, lifted her hand, spoke into the microphone: “What’s happening?”

“Still talking,” Harry answered. “There’re two guards on the path, one guard with the car. Two drivers.”

“Five people. Plus DuBois and the other one.”

“Right.”

“I’m going to have a look. You go back to your car. If they leave, you follow DuBois. I’ll follow the other one.”

“Yes.”

Moments later she saw Harry leaving a small grove of olive trees. He was dressed perfectly to imitate the typical tourist. Harry was a tall, good-looking, muscular man, but the slouch he was affecting made him less conspicuous. Despite his arresting good looks, Harry had a gift for surveillance, which required protective coloration, blending into his surroundings.

Name the part, and Harry played it to perfection.

Even if the role meant murder.

Years earlier, when they’d first met, Harry had been diagnosed a sociopath. In later years, “psychopath” had been added to the diagnosis. Most men went wild when they committed murder. Harry merely smiled.

She got out of the car, locked the door, slung the leather tote over her shoulder, dropped the earpiece and microphone into the bag. She, too, had dressed for the job. But while Harry was doing a polyester imitation of a tourist on Easter holiday, she was dressed for a more compatible role: one of the beautiful people, perfectly at ease with her own desirability, a with-it urban Californian, courtesy of Calvin Klein, Coach, and—the common touch—Christian Dior.

On the asphalt walkway, no skateboards allowed, she stood still, waited while one family group passed, then another. Next came an older couple in their cheerful, energetic middle sixties. She let them pass, then followed them, not too closely. As she walked, she took a small battery-operated camera from the bag, checked it, slung it around her neck. Ahead, standing on the grass beside the walkway, she saw a short, thick-necked Chicano, one of DuBois’s bodyguards. He was dressed in a formal blue suit and black shoes, wearing the bodyguard’s mandatory dark sunglasses. She smiled, shook her head. Was it a hint of senility, that DuBois would trust his safety to this caricature?

Or was DuBois, as always, thinking ahead, setting the agenda? Often it was advantageous that a bodyguard be conspicuous.

As she drew even with the guard, ignoring him, she was aware that, yes, he was turning his head, running his eyes over her. The male animal—how predictable, therefore banal, therefore contemptible.

And, likewise, the contemptible women who led them on, each doing their pitifully shallow numbers on the other, both existing at life’s lowest level, wallowing in a morass of sensation, companions to beasts.

Ahead, the path was curving toward the grove of olive trees, evocative of the sunny slopes of Tuscany under a topaz sky. DuBois was sagging in his wheelchair. The newcomer was sitting on an imitation Grecian marble bench. As soon as she’d seen the two Mercedeses draw to a stop, she’d driven past, searching for a parking spot; this would be her first glimpse of the newcomer. Now the elderly couple was drawing even with DuBois and the other man. The white-haired woman looked with compassion on DuBois, slightly shaking her head as she murmured something to her companion. Now the couple was beyond the bench. Allowing Andrea, for the first time, an unobstructed look at the stranger. He was a tall, lean man in his middle forties, was casually dressed. Like his body, his face was long and lean, deeply lined in an arresting pattern that suggested an intriguing depth of experience and perception. “Lincolnesque” was the cliché that fit. Or, factoring in the dark, lively eyes behind designer glasses and the thick, carelessly combed hair, “professorial” could equally apply.

Bernhardt, the private investigator. Certainly it was Alan Bernhardt, in avid conversation with DuBois. Just beyond the bench she stopped, as if to check the camera, adjust it. Then she took a picture of the Huntington. Behind her, she could hear their voices: DuBois’s thin quaver, Bernhardt’s cryptic reply.

She took one more picture, then continued up the grassy slope to the library. As she passed the second bodyguard, she smiled politely. He did not return the smile.

“S
O HOW’D YOU LEAVE
it with him?” Paula asked.

With the phone propped against his shoulder, sitting on the edge of the bed, Bernhardt was unlacing his shoes as he talked. “I said I wanted to think about it—wanted to talk to you. By that time, he was fading. James—his head bodyguard, apparently—gave him another pill and loaded him back into his limo. DuBois had revived a little, and we talked for another fifteen minutes. He gave me a phone number. I have to call him by ten o’clock tonight.” Bernhardt glanced at his watch. The time was seven-thirty; they’d been talking for more than an hour. Would Powers pay for the phone calls, as well as the hotel suite? The answer, Bernhardt knew, was yes. For now, at least, they were serving the same master.

“DuBois sounds like an electric car. He needs recharging, or he’ll run down.” She let a moment pass, then said, “Poor guy. It must be terrible, knowing death’s so close.”

Shoes off, Bernhardt leaned back against the king-size bed’s headboard. “If he didn’t have state-of-the-art medical care, he probably would’ve died years ago. Maybe with less pain.”

“Did you tell him about the FBI? About John Graham? Any of it?”

“No, I didn’t. I just listened. DuBois doesn’t need me to advise him.”

“When you call him, what’re you going to say?”

“I figured I’d call you, and we’d figure out a game plan.”

“Mmm.” She was deciding whether he really meant it.

“I’m serious. After I came back from the Huntington, I sat here for two hours, trying to sort it all out. I even wrote it down, the pros on one side, the cons on the other. And, Jesus, they’re about even.”

“
Even?
Here’s a guy with a secret collection of priceless art, all of it stolen. Here’s someone who admits he’s had people killed, admits he hired the hit man who almost killed you. And you say the pros and cons are
even?
”

“What he wants me to do—me and Betty Giles—is to return all the art to their rightful owners. And he—”

“Sure,” she interrupted. “When he knows he’s about to get busted because his buddies in Washington lost the election, now he wants to return the art. He’s doing it to save his ass.”

“If that were his only concern—saving his ass—he could call up another Ned Frazer, and sell the stuff overnight for millions. But he doesn’t want to do that. He doesn’t want the art to go back on the underground market, because art can get damaged that way, hauling it around in pickup trucks, whatever. He wants the art back in the museums, or in legitimate private collections. He’s taking a chance doing that. But he’s willing to give it a shot. Someone like him, as sick as he is, you’ve got to admire him. He loves that art collection. For a long time it’s all he’s had. Maybe it’s all he
ever
had.”

“Have you considered the possibility that all this is a trick to get Betty back here where she can be killed?”

“That couldn’t happen. Not now.”

“Why?”

“Because if DuBois wanted her dead, he’d need a middleman, someone to contact a killer, like Powers contacted Willis Dodge. But DuBois doesn’t have a reliable middleman, not anymore. Powers has lost his nerve. He’s out of it. Incidentally, before you pass judgment on DuBois, remember that Nick Ames started it all. He’s the one who decided to blackmail DuBois. Ames broke the law first. Not DuBois.”

“Aside from being a receiver of stolen property. You’re making excuses for him, Alan. You want to take the job. Admit it.”

For a moment Bernhardt made no reply. Then he began speaking slowly, seriously. “My father died in World War Two. My mother raised me in a loft in Manhattan, where she gave modern dance lessons. Whatever extra money she had, she gave to causes—all kinds of causes, mostly women and whales and minorities. Her father manufactured clothing for little girls. He was a wonderful man, and he took care of me and my mother. There were no frills, but I always had books and records, and I went to first-class schools. But then my grandfather’s heart went bad, and in a few years his business failed. Two years later he and my grandmother died in a one-car auto accident. They said he had a heart attack. A year later my mother died of cancer. My grandparents left my mother everything they had, and she left me everything
she
had—about fifty thousand dollars, which I promptly lost backing a play off Broadway.” He paused. Why had he begun this? How should he end it? When he realized that Paula meant to say nothing until this unintentional confession had ended, he said, “When that play failed, I felt as if I’d betrayed my whole family, my whole heritage. That fifty thousand represented my grandfather’s whole lifetime. And I blew it in a few months.”

“Alan …” Her voice was low, warm with compassion.

“If we can get rid of those paintings,” he said, “there’ll be a million dollars for us. At least.”

“‘Us,’ you say.”

“That’s right, Paula. Us.”

“Jesus. This…” Bemused, she broke off. Then, ruefully: “Jesus, I can feel it infecting me. All that money…” Once more her voice died.

“Listen, I’ve got a great room—a suite, really. And a Lincoln town car, no less. It still smells new. Why don’t you see whether Mrs. Bonfigli’ll take Crusher for the weekend?”

“What about business? Holding down the fort.”

“That’s what answering machines are for. Besides, we’ll be
doing
business.”

“Alan, there’s too much happening here to just take off. That fraud case for Patterson and Sayers—the trial starts Wednesday, and we’re getting close. I
know
we’re getting close. If we can find the handle before the case goes to trial, we’ll be in at Patterson and Sayers.”

For months he’d been romancing Patterson and Sayers, one of the fastest-moving law firms in California.

“There’s something else, too.” In her voice he could plainly hear bad news coming.

“What?” He spoke grudgingly.

“Haigh called at one-thirty today. I told him you were out of town, I wasn’t sure where. He didn’t believe me. God, he sounds like an officious bastard.”

“What’s he want?”

“He wants you to get in touch with him. He gave me three numbers. Do you want them?”

“No. I want you to fly down here tomorrow. As far as he’s concerned, I’m unreachable.”

“If he calls the United States Attorney …” She let it go ominously unfinished.

“There’s nothing he can charge me with that’ll stick, Paula. Nothing.”

“But you’ll have to defend yourself against the charges. We’d go broke, Alan.”

“That’s assuming the United States Attorney would indict. I don’t think he would. And if he did, it wouldn’t get past the grand jury, which would make the U.S. Attorney look bad, not to mention the FBI. Haigh knows that.”

“So you aren’t going to call him.”

“Not until Monday. Not until we’ve had a great weekend. Jeff Sheppard’s got a play running here, at the Trident. It’s in its second month. I’ll get tickets tomorrow. We’ll arrive at the theater in our fancy car, and we’ll have a valet park it. And after the play we’ll eat at Musso’s and Frank’s.”

“What about DuBois? What’ll you tell him when you call?”

“I’ll stall. I’ll tell him, truthfully, that I won’t be able to contact Betty with his proposition until she calls me. And if Betty follows my instructions, which she will, she won’t call until next Tuesday. So I’ll let DuBois sweat until then, hopefully to soften him up. Same for Haigh. This is Friday evening. I’ll call Haigh Monday or Tuesday.”