The Cézanne Chase (31 page)

Another car approached slowly. Aukrust recognized Weisbord's car. The car went by then accelerated and sped away.

I
t had been speculated that the meeting of security directors would be held in Blois, in the Loire valley near Amboise, but with adroit secrecy, the venue was changed to a location in the Fontainebleau area, thirty-seven miles southwest of Paris. Oxby's reaction was mixed, for it meant returning to scenes with memories both sweet and sad. On Sunday he drove from Orly airport to the little town of Nemours on the Loing River. He checked into the same hotel where he and his wife Miriam had spent a torturously unhappy weekend after she was diagnosed with acute lymphoid leukemia.

In a room that overlooked red roofs to the river, he relived those first few minutes when he and Miriam were finally alone. She had said that she was not good at bravery. But no one Oxby ever knew showed such courage. And she showed it every day for nearly six months, until one afternoon her eyes closed for the last time. Alone in a room of memories, he felt an inner peace come back to him, a comfort made whole by his love for Miriam, and by her love for him.

On Tuesday afternoon he drove to Bois-le-Roi, a small, unremarkable town on the edge of the Fontainebleau forest, then five miles beyond to the Inn Napoléon located on the edge of the fiftythousand-acre forest. It was late afternoon when Oxby turned onto a cinder-covered driveway and stopped beside the original inn, an old half-timbered affair of several stories pockmarked with patches of broken stucco. Next to it was a low building with a row of doors and windows that repeated in the style of an old motel. Beyond was a square structure with an onion-shaped dome and a long porch, on which were stacked metal lawn chairs. A crudely lettered sign read: SALLE À CONFERENCE. Whoever had selected the meeting site had done superbly well, because the Inn Napoléon was sadly uninviting, yet magnificently obscure.

Oxby had parked his car alongside several others and taken his fat satchel from the back seat, when a man came out of the inn and
walked toward him. Oxby knew Félix Lemieux, though not well. They had attended other conferences and over the years had talked on the phone or corresponded. The security director of the Louvre was small, even shorter than Oxby.

“Inspector Oxby, it is good to see you,” the little man said.

Oxby nodded, held out his hand and said in flawless French, “Comment-allez vous, Monsieur Lemieux?”

“Very well, thank you,” Lemieux replied in English, a rare courtesy. The diminutive man who would supervise security arrangements for the Cézanne retrospective continued to speak in English, a small smile on his face. “Madame LeBorgne arrived early. Have you met her?”

“We're old friends,” Oxby said, and put down his satchel. A year earlier Mirella LeBorgne had been appointed directeur of the Réunion des Musée Nationaux. Oxby had been surprised by the appointment and thought she was better suited as a teacher of art history than as head administrator of an agency known for occasional internal bickering. “I expected she would send someone from her staff.”

Lemieux replied, “She's insisted on coming so that she can be convinced the security will be skintight. If not, the exhibition won't open.”

“I can't blame her,” Oxby said.

“And I can't promise that security will be impenetrable the way she expects. It could never be,” Lemieux said.

“With luck, whoever's doing all the damage might slip and be captured before the exhibition opens.”

“You think that's possible?”

“Yes. And you can help by convincing Mirella LeBorgne that you've come up with one hell of a security plan then giving the press enough of the details so they'll write stories that will make the Granet out to be a bloody fortress.”

Lemieux looked puzzled. “I'm not sure I understand.”

Oxby leaned down to pick up his satchel. “You'll hear all about it, and I promise to confer privately with you.”

A young, bearded man wearing a striped apron came out of the inn. He nodded politely and plucked the satchel out of Oxby's hands. “I am Paul Rougeron,” the man said. “I welcome you in the name of my family, who own the inn. You are—”

“Monsieur Oxby,” Lemieux said helpfully. “The Rougeron hope to restore the inn to its old ways as a hunting lodge.”

Rougeron said ruefully, “A slow process.” He pointed to the motel- like building, “Your room is there, the first room to the left, if you wish.”

Oxby nodded. “That will be fine,” then turned to Lemieux. “I'm anxious to know who will be here.”

“There will be eleven of us.” He handed Oxby an envelope.

Oxby took out a printed list and scanned the names. Evan Tippett from London's National Gallery was not included. “No Tippett, I see,” said Oxby.

Lemieux's eyes turned heavenward. “Please, Inspector, I mean no offense, but there's not enough time to listen to Tippett lecture on his most recent fetish.” Abruptly, he spun around and started for the inn. “ We' ll have a drink.”

Oxby's room was simply furnished and illuminated by a single bulb that hung from the ceiling. The bed sagged in the middle, and the small bureau was missing its bottom drawer. Mercifully, the bathroom had one each of the necessary fixtures, and all seemed to be in working order.

“It's quite simple, and I apologize,” Rougeron said, “but come back in a year, when it will be very grand.” He grinned and handed Oxby a bottle of mineral water before going off in the direction of the kitchen.

Oxby unpacked his clothes and file folders. There was one chair in the room, a frail, wooden armchair with an unraveling cane seat. He placed it near the window, where there was better light and where he could prop his feet on the bed. He put the list of security council members on his lap and began the process of locking each name and title into his memory.

 

 

He sat motionless, eyes closed in deep concentration. Suddenly the quiet was interrupted by the noise of an automobile that pulled into the courtyard outside his window. The source of the racket was caused by the broken muffler on a dust-covered golden Oldsmobile of indeterminate vintage. Seated beside the driver was a blonde-haired woman Oxby immediately recognized as Astrid Haraldsen. Edwin Llewellyn climbed out of the back seat and stretched his legs and arms. Astrid got out of the car, as did the driver, a lean man in blue jeans and sweater who eyed the Inn Napoléon with the skeptical eye of a Guide Michelin investigator. Paul Rougeron came out to help with luggage and room assignments.

Two more cars came in rapid succession. First were Gustave Bilodeau and Marc Daguin, so Oxby deduced—their five-year-old Renault bore a Provence license plate. In the second car was Curtis Berrien, whom Oxby knew slightly. By 6:30 Oxby had put a red check next to each name on the security council roster. He had recorded Astrid Haraldsen's name and would learn who owned the golden Oldsmobile.

Though there were eleven names on Lemieux's list, it seemed that everyone had brought an aide or friend or, in the case of Llewellyn, one of each. Oxby counted thirty attendees and also discovered that the driver of what turned out to be a 1978 Oldsmobile was Scooter Albany, who had been invited—thanks to Llewellyn—to gather videotape coverage for a behind-the-scenes TV special of the Cézanne retrospective. Scooter immediately found the bar and began demonstrating his wizardry at keeping several conversations moving smoothly while writing notes with one hand and holding a perpetually fresh drink with the other.

Dinner on the first night was served from a buffet, with everyone mingling informally. Oxby moved among the council members, introducing
himself to those he did not know, pausing for longer chats with the ones he did, saving the Llewellyn group for last, where he found Sam Turner trying to persuade Astrid that until she had experienced a Calgary rodeo she wouldn't really understand the true spirit of North America. Sam was into the third year of his second hitch with Interpol and was anxious to return to the Royal Canadian Police before he would be too old to get back on track with a career assignment. Llewellyn asked how many Interpol agents had been assigned to the case.

Turner shook his head. “I'm afraid you're a victim of badly researched detective novels, Mr. Llewellyn. We're mistaken for some sort of supranational police force—that we chase the crooks. We don't do that. We collect information on drug trafficking or terrorism or the destruction of Cézanne's portraits but only when it's a crime that crosses international borders. We process the data and feed it back to the police authorities in countries that are dues-paying members of Interpol.”

“But how is it that you're here—and a member of the security council?” Llewellyn asked.

“Because Félix Lemieux asked the general secretary to assign someone, and I got the nod. I wouldn't mind playing policeman just long enough to put Vulcan away, but—” he inclined his head toward Oxby, “that's the inspector's job. Come around on Thursday afternoon. You'll hear a good bit on how Interpol operates.”

“I can't,” Llewellyn said with genuine disappointment. “I've got to be in New York.”

Oxby turned to Astrid. “Will you also be returning to New York?”

Astrid avoided answering for several seconds then with a thin smile said, “I'm afraid my clients have asked me to stop in Paris and look into a few shops.” She seemed genuinely upset, as if an expense-paid shopping trip in Paris was an inconvenience.

On Tuesday, presentations were made by André Lachaud and Curtis Berrien, with the greater amount of time spent in group discussions of the expenses and logistics of a major exhibition and of the complications related to securing adequate insurance to cover fire, damage in handling and hanging the expensive art, and massive liability coverage.

Early on Wednesday Scooter Albany took Llewellyn to Charles de Gaulle airport then drove into the center of Paris to drop Astrid at the Hôtel Vieux Marais on Rue Plâtre. A gray sedan followed the Oldsmobile out of the airport and into the city and parked a prudent distance from the hotel while Scooter carried Astrid's suitcase into the
lobby, returned to his golden Olds, and began his drive back to Fontainebleau. A bearded, dark-skinned young man wearing jeans and a green jacket got out of the car, walked to the hotel, and went inside, where he spoke with the desk clerk then returned to his car.

Scooter returned to the Inn Napoléon shortly after eleven and taperecorded an interview with Henri Trama, division commissioner in the Central Police Judiciary. The commissioner was a dark-haired man in his early fifties with deep blue eyes under thick brows and an exquisite aquiline nose that guaranteed his French heritage. Trama headed a special contingent of special investigators within the French interior ministry and had responsibility for the recapture of stolen art and antiquity and the prosecution of thieves, forgers, counterfeiters, and, occasionally, murderers. In spite of an outstanding worldwide reputation, Trama could be uncommunicative and a genuinely offensive boor.

During lunch, Gustave Bilodeau gave a brief presentation in which he praised “the gracious cooperation we have received from museums and private collectors who have agreed to loan their valuable Cézannes for the retrospective. January 19 will not come soon enough for all of my staff, who continue with great diligence to make this a memorable birthday celebration in honor of a great artist.

“There will be an auction in Geneva in December,” Bilodeau went on; “the DeVilleurs self-portrait will be entered for sale. Madame DeVilleurs accepted our offer to purchase the painting; however, her late husband placed unreasonable requirements in his will regarding the sale of paintings in the collection. But as I speak, the will is being vigorously contested, and we have hopes that the self-portrait will be sold to our museum. It is our dream to have the portrait in a place of honor when the retrospective gets under way.”

The first to speak in the final afternoon session was Sam Turner. His presentation was brief, and parts of it put a chill over the group, particularly his vivid descriptions, accompanied by before-and-after photographs, of the demise, as he put it, of the paintings. “Every piece of information we've received about these paintings has been entered into our computers. From this data we hope to find similarities between what occurred in St. Petersburg, London, Surrey, and Boston. Whatever we come up with will be sent out to you in what are called Modus Operandi Sheets, samples of which are being distributed to each of you. We've had success tracking down terrorists, but I'm afraid terrorists leave better trails than Vulcan. They usually send warnings,
and most are identified with a cause or a group we've got hard information on. That's why I ask all of you to send me any detail that comes your way, no matter how insignificant it might seem.”