Telling Lies (10 page)

Now she made room for the hard hat on a shelf between a fedora and a tiara, placed the boots on a rack next to boxing shoes and ice skates, and hung the tool belt from a set of pegs, which also held crutches and a fake baby bump.

“
Okay,” she said aloud, admiring the neat shelves and racks filled with wigs, jackets, clothes, accessories, and shoes that made up her undercover wardrobe, “I’m good to go.” Turning off the light, she stepped into the hall, closed the door on her treasures, and headed down to her bedroom to call Aaron.

He picked up on the first ring. “Detective Gerrard.” His tone was just barely more civil than it had been on her machine.

Flopping down in a cozy armchair by the window, she made a face at the phone before she spoke. “It’s Helen. Why the hell are you so grumpy? Have another fight with Laurel?” She was goading him just the tiniest bit.

“
No, I didn’t, not that it’s any of your business,” snapped Aaron. “She’s still in Fiesole, making
inquiries.
I’ve been busy here. I was out last night with my FBI contact trying to get a heads-up on Sargasso.”

“
Oh really,” she said knowingly. “Had one too many tequilas in your search for the truth, did you? Head hurting a little, is it, poor baby?”

“
Great detective work,” he said sarcastically. “Where were you, anyway?” He was attempting to take control of the conversation. “I’ve been trying to reach you for hours.”

“
Not that it’s any of
your
business, but I was on an assignment downtown. I do have other clients. Satisfied?”

Aaron ignored her sarcasm. “You do recall that we agreed we’d share all information about this case?”

“
As a matter of fact, I do.”

“
And? Is there anything you’d like to tell me about your visit with Alexandra Hammersmith?”

“
There is.” She enjoyed the turn the discussion was taking.

“
Look, don’t do this today. I’m warning you. I don’t need your snide comments.”

“
Or what? Oooooh, should I be scared?” she added in a mock frightened voice and started laughing. “Did you and your FBI friend actually talk about the case?”

“
Yes, we talked. He made me a copy of their files on Hammersmith and Moto.”

She sat up straight in her chair, curiosity piqued. “Find anything good?” Maybe there would be something she could use to get more information out of Alexandra Hammersmith or her stepsons.

“
Don’t know yet. I haven’t had a chance to go through it page by page.” Helen sensed Aaron’s weariness at the prospect of spending hours poring over the file.

“
Hey, let’s do this. Why don’t you come to my house for dinner and bring the file. I’ll cook some pasta, we’ll look at the file, and I’ll tell you all there is to know about Madam Hammersmith. Come at eight and bring a nice, red wine.”

“
Helen, I’m not feeling …”

“
Take some Pepto-Bismol and be here on …”

“
Oh shit,” he interrupted. “I gotta go.”

Kips Bay

New York City

Lior Stern slid the black Toyota 4Runner into a spot across from Helen’s town house and killed the engine. He leaned back against the smooth leather seat and stared out of its windshield. Long past dusk, the sky was an inky black, as starless and somber as his thoughts.

What the hell am I doing here?
He shook his head, thinking of the life he’d chosen for himself and wondering, not for the first time, if in the end it was worth it.

I’m getting too old for this.
He groaned, shifting and stretching his arms overhead in an effort to delay the kinks he knew would form deep in his broad shoulders as he sat and listened in on Helen McCorkendale and her detective friend, Aaron Gerrard. Lior slipped his hand into his jacket pocket and removed the pen recorder and earpiece he’d be using to monitor the pair while eavesdropping on their conversation.

It hadn’t taken him long to enter and bug the McCorkendale town house. The equipment he’d used was state-of-the-art technology, developed by Yosef Klein, a Mossad scientist who referred to himself as “QX2” in a not so subtle reference to the gadgets guy in the James Bond movies. Lior laughed softly at the image of his friend. “They should hire me to wire up the cars and devise the miniature spying equipment for those films,” Yosef often said, sticking out his jowly chin with pride. “Then they would really have something the public would notice.” Yeah right. Yosef would probably shoot himself in the foot as soon as he got near one of those hot Bond babes.

I can’t fault him on this operation, though
. The bugging scheme he’d devised was brilliant. A little research had shown that McCorkendale’s home had anti-bugging devices in place, and Yosef, as the magician he thought himself to be, had conjured up a simple, yet effective way to overcome them. “Feh,” he’d said dismissively. “Those toys in her house? They won’t be anything next to my latest tricks.”

Yosef had adapted commercial spy pens to suit Lior’s needs—the kind students take to class to tape their professors and businessmen use at meetings to make sure they aren’t getting screwed. First, he removed and “washed” the microchips from several of the pens so that they couldn’t be detected in an anti-bugging sweep. Then he added a special chip that he had designed for another pen that would signal and control the others. Lior could use this master pen to listen to and record any conversations that took place in the McCorkendale residence. Yosef had also correctly assumed that she, like everyone else he knew, had pens scattered around her house in all the usual places.

With the right tools you could take over the world
. It had been easy to bypass the security McCorkendale had installed and slip into the house while the woman was out. Once inside, he placed each of Yosef’s washed microchips in the barrels of her own pens—one each in her study, kitchen, and bedroom. Each chip would lie dormant and undetectable until he activated them by clicking his own pen. One click to start recording. Another click to stop. Since each chip was also programmed for voice recognition, only the pen in the room where a conversation was taking place would be recording. If the speakers moved from the study to the kitchen, the chip in that room would kick in and take over. Or, if she used the phone in her bedroom, that chip would go into action.

Lior cracked the truck’s tinted window and lit a cigarette as he waited, inhaling deeply. A few minutes later, he recognized Gerrard from the surveillance photos he’d received earlier from Tel Aviv. The detective approached McCorkendale’s building, dressed casually in jeans and a pullover, balancing what looked like a wine bottle perched on top of a cardboard box. Lior noted the detective’s pinched face and slow gait. Climbing the stairs to the town house seemed to be an effort. He appeared to be barely holding it together, trying to hide the rough edges poking through.

Well, I’ll give them a few minutes for the usual social bullshit, he decided as McCorkendale opened the door and Gerrard entered. Pitching the glowing cigarette butt out the window, he turned and pressed a button on the console between the SUV’s bucket seats. A small device that resembled a Palm Pilot rose from within. He attached the pen recorder to its USB port and pushed another button. The information that flowed from the pen into the pseudo Palm Pilot’s digital recorder would be bounced up instantly to a passing satellite and picked up immediately by a similar device halfway around the world. If Yosef’s bugs worked as they were supposed to, any captured conversation would be relayed to the Asset Recovery section chief with barely a ten second delay.

Lior smiled and checked the clock on the dash.
Time to get this party started
, as the Americans would say. Ready. Set. Click.

Kips Bay

New York City

“
I’m disappointed in you, Aaron.” Helen joked, rolling up the sleeves of her black silk shirt before clearing away their plates from the large kitchen table. “You hardly touched your
tagliatelle
, after I slaved all afternoon making that veal ragu.” She wagged a finger in his direction.

“
Please. Give me a break. My stomach …”

“
I know.” She cut him off mid-sentence, eyes gleaming with mischief. “Aaron has a stomach ache. Is he a little hung over?” She’d noticed the signs the minute he’d walked into the house—the way he looked, it would have been hard to miss. She’d steered him right toward the kitchen, thinking some food might help before they got down to business.

“
Well, looks like you made up for my lack of appetite,” he replied snidely as she placed her empty plate under his full one. He’d dined with Helen before and knew how much she enjoyed a good meal.

“
Okay, smart mouth, I have something that will settle your stomach, not that you deserve it. Why don’t you divide up the file and I’ll be right back.”

A few minutes later, Helen returned with two brandy snifters of Sambucca Romano, garnished with three coffee beans each. “Guaranteed to make anything feel better, even the prospect of looking through that FBI file.” She handed Aaron a glass of the clear, tangy liquid. “And before you ask, the odd number of coffee beans are for good luck. So, let’s hope we have some.” They clinked glasses.

Helen grabbed her notebook and rummaged for a pen from the holder on the side counter. She clicked it open and settled down in front of her stack of papers. They spoke for a few minutes about her visit to Hammersmith’s widow. Then they dived into the FBI’s file on Hammersmith and Sargasso’s business deal and all that had been discovered since that fateful September day.

As the two detectives scanned page after page of the file, the kitchen became still, the only sounds Aaron’s soft breathing and Helen’s pen scratching questions and comments in her notebook.

They switched stacks and continued reading. Finally, after about an hour, they were done. “Not that much more in here than we already knew, is there?”

“
Not really.” Aaron, ticked off facts on his fingers. “Hammersmith is dead. The fifteen million is missing, or gone. And, Moto’s still got one hell of a painting to unload, although no one has any idea what it is.”

“
And, Sargasso? Is he alive?”

“
I’d bet on it. I think he made it out in time.” Aaron’s gray eyes hardened. “With the codes to the money. It looks like Laurel was right; the son of a bitch probably is in Florence.” Aaron slapped his hand on the table. “Dammit, we’ve got to get her out of there.”

For once Helen agreed with him. “If Sargasso knows she’s got people asking about him, it could be bad.” She swallowed, remembering her warning to Laurel to be careful. In spite of the danger, getting her to agree to come home could be tricky.

“
So, now Sargasso’s what?” Helen tried steering the conversation back to the art dealer. “You think he’s laying low? You know, doing a little selling, lining up the right customer and maybe trying to move that painting for Moto. Could Moto know he walked away with the fifteen mil …?” Helen broke off in the middle of her thought and jumped up from the table.

“
Jesus! What is it?”

“
Wait. Wait,” she said over her shoulder, rushing into the hall and picking up the
Post
from the side table. “There was an item on Page Six this morning about a gallery uptown.” She moved back into the kitchen. “Listen.”

“
It’s gotta be Moto.” She waved the paper in front of him. “Do you think he’s actually coming to New York?”

“
I don’t know. It’s the
Post
.” Aaron let his skepticism fill in the blanks. “They could be making it up. It’s been known to happen.”

“
Maybe. Maybe not. If Sargasso has been working for Moto, acquiring art in Europe, this Drake Delrusse might be in contact with him.” She paced the kitchen. “Sargasso could be buying for the gallery on Moto’s behalf. You know, to have things ready for when he arrives from Japan. It’s worth looking into.” Her voice revealed her eagerness. “Your FBI friend might be able to check with customs to see if the Delrusse gallery has recently received any shipments from Florence and who sent them.” She stopped talking abruptly and stood still, her thoughts coming together suddenly. “Oh my god, Aaron. We might actually find out what name Sargasso is using and nail the bastard!”