The Perfect Fake

by Barbara Parker

  “Buy some thermal underwear. Catch up on my sleep.”

  “You have a reservation at the Bayswater. I didn’t cancel it.”

  “No, thanks. After what I went through, I want a place where they bring me breakfast in bed.”

  “Where will you stay?”

  “I don’t know yet,” he said.

  “Are you going to tell me?”

  “Soon as I buy a cell phone.”

  “When are we going to Italy?” she asked.

  “Probably Monday. I’m not sure.”

  “What city? I can book the flights for us.”

  “I’ll let you know, Allison. I’m still working all that out, okay?”

  She put her hands on her hips and mocked his baritone voice. “ ‘Don’t worry, Allison, I’ve got it all under control.’ ”

  He gave her a sharp look. “Exactly right—starting at the bank.”

  “You’re not getting cash. My father made arrangements for a Barclays bank card. All I have to do is transfer the money to your account.”

  “Five thousand plus expenses,” Tom said.

  “Yes, plus expenses.”

  He scooted back from the table far enough to reach into his thigh pocket for a small notebook. He flipped to a page with a perfectly straight column of numbers in fine-point black ink. Beside each number he had written a few words. He explained the entries:

  $100 to a bartender in Alice Town, who had pointed out a fisherman who wouldn’t ask questions; $200 to the fisherman to take him across the harbor to South Bimini. $1,500 to the retired Chalk’s Airline pilot who borrowed a friend’s single-engine Cessna to fly Tom to Nassau. $3,000 for a private charter flight from Nassau to Jamaica, just in time to catch an 8:10 AM Wednesday flight to Toronto, $950. Hat and sweatshirt at the Toronto airport, $75. Flight to London, $625. The other $150 covered food, the Heathrow Express to Paddington Station, and the taxi fare to Claridge’s.

  “It comes to six thousand, six hundred dollars,” Tom said.

  “Why should my father pay for all that?” Allison objected. “Bribes? Private charter flights? A hat?”

  Tom flipped the notebook closed. “Yeah, maybe I should’ve stayed on the boat and let that Croatian gorilla take the map. Maybe I should’ve come back to Miami with it and dropped it off at your dad’s house.”

  Allison lifted her eyes and let out a breath.

  He said, “I also need eight thousand for some things I need to buy in London.”

  “Eight thousand dollars? What things?”

  “Computer equipment and a high-resolution digital camera. He knows about it.”

  She stared at him. “On top of the expenses you just showed me? Plus the additional five thousand toward your fee.”

  “Correct. A total of nineteen-six.”

  “I’ll have to talk to my father.”

  “You do that, but when we leave here, we’re going to the bank. I want the five thousand plus my expenses. Otherwise, he can find some other sucker to do it.”

  She refilled her teacup, added some milk, dropped in a sugar cube, stirred it, then set the little spoon on the saucer and crossed her arms. “I’ll give you the five and I’ll reimburse your expenses getting to London, but you get nothing for the computer and camera until you show me your receipts.”

  “Whoa. What a hard-ass. Did you take that course in law school?”

  She looked at him without comment.

  “Allison?” Tom leaned across the small table. “How did your father persuade you to commit a crime?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You’re helping me commit forgery. Did you ever consider that?”

  “I am not helping you do anything. I’m helping my father.”

  “To forge a map.”

  “It’s not a forgery.” Even as she spoke the words, they sounded false. But only technically false. Stuart wasn’t buying a forgery. He was buying a replacement because he had to; there was no choice.

  Tom interrupted her thoughts. “You know what I don’t get? Your father told me he paid ten thousand dollars for the Corelli map. But he’s willing to pay me fifty—plus expenses. Why?”

  Allison took a sip of tea before she said, “Money isn’t that important to him. He wants the map, and he can afford it. Collectors are like that. You should know.”

  “I didn’t think your father was really that much into maps.”

  “You’re so wrong. He started collecting when he was a child.”

  “I heard he tore the pages out of a seventeenthcentury Tommaso Porcacchi atlas and gave them away as Christmas presents.”

  She felt an angry flush creep up her neck. They had fought about the Porcacchi, but that wasn’t any of Tom’s business. She said, “What right do you have to criticize anybody?”

  “Oh, man.” Tom hung an arm over the back of his chair and laughed. “Yeah, you got an A in that course, didn’t you? Are you done with the tea?” He put on his ugly Maple Leafs cap.

  “Almost.” She lifted her teacup. “One other condition. I want Jenny Gray’s address. Don’t tell me you don’t know.”

  “Maybe I do, but you’re not getting it. By the way, Allison, I don’t believe your story about needing to find her for some immigration case.”

  “Okay, here’s the truth. I’d like to know what happened to the maps stolen from Judge Herron’s house, his and some of my father’s. I just want to find out, that’s all.”

  Tom said, “The police say map thieves took them.”

  “The police aren’t sure. They also think that Jenny could have tipped someone off.”

  “Someone like who? Me?”

  After a long moment, Allison shook her head. “I considered it, but . . . no. Unless your time in prison changed you. They say it can.”

  “I’ve never been in prison, Allison. Jail, yes.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Jail is for misdemeanors. Prison is for serious crimes. Do I look like a career criminal to you?”

  “Well...you do look a little scruffy.” She smiled. “Must be the hat. Want me to take you shopping?”

  “Are you buying?”

  “No. We’ll go to Marks and Spencer.”

  He stood up and pushed in his chair. “I should have flown first-class. I could’ve used those little toiletry bags they hand out. It was a pain sitting up in coach for sixteen hours. Have you ever flown coach, Allison? Ever?”

  They went to the Barclays Bank on Regent Street. Allison asked to see the manager. She mentioned her father’s name, and they were taken into a private office paneled in mahogany. Stuart had chosen Barclays because he knew someone in upper management. With a couple of phone calls, Tom Fairchild’s account was quickly approved.

  While Tom showed his passport and filled out the forms—using Allison’s hotel as his London address— she studied him from the other end of the desk. A few days ago she had wondered if he’d been involved in Royce Herron’s murder, and if his detour by London was to pick up his share of the loot from Jenny Gray. Allison had tried out that theory, but it didn’t ring true... unless he had changed more than he was admitting.

  Tom Fairchild might not be capable of murder, but fraud? Theft? Absolutely. Aside from going over her outlines for the bar exam, Allison had one goal: to make sure the map was done correctly and delivered to her father on time.

  Coming out of the bank, she had to grab Tom’s arm to keep him from walking into the path of a double-decker red bus that swept toward them from the right in a rush of mist and engine noise.

  Tom laughed. “I love those buses!”

  Allison said, “Let’s go find you a coat.” She lifted her closed umbrella to signal a taxi, and a moment later one stopped at the curb. Tom opened the door and let her get in, then told the driver to take the lady to Claridge’s.

  “Wait!” Allison said. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m a big boy. I won’t get lost.”

  “But I need to know where you are.”


  “I’ll call you,” he said, backing away.

  As the taxi took off, she fumbled for the door handle. “Stop!”

  “Make up your mind, young lady. Claridge’s or not?”

  Allison scrambled around on her knees and looked through the back window as Tom in his sweatshirt and blue knit cap vanished into the crowds on Regent Street.

  Chapter 14

  His wife’s bedroom smelled of her clothes, perfume, the roses on her dresser, and, more faintly, of dog. Stuart stood in the doorway of the hall

  that connected his suite to hers. The dim light leaking through the curtains revealed to him the chaise longue with heavy tassels on the arms, a four-poster bed piled with pillows, and a leopard-print satin robe that had slid to the carpet.

  When he approached, a shape suddenly leaped from the folds of the comforter, yapping and snarling. Stuart ignored it.

  Rhonda mumbled, “Fernanda? Just leave the coffee on the table.”

  He said, “Rise and shine.”

  She lifted her eyeshade. “Zhou-Zhou, no barky! It’s just Daddy.” Rolling over, she squinted at the clock. “Oh, Christ, Stuart, it’s six forty-five. Why did you wake me up?”

  He turned on a lamp. The dog sniffed the hems of his suit pants as if it had never seen him before. Stuart picked it up and tossed it onto the bed, where it tunneled under the pillows. He swung around a poster and tickled the bare foot that hung out of the covers. Rhonda pulled her leg in.

  He said, “News flash. Allison just called from London. Tom Fairchild has arrived.”

  Rhonda sat up and threw her eyeshade to the nightstand. “What does he want?”

  “To finish the map—as we agreed. I always thought we could count on him.”

  “Don’t gloat, Stuart.” She scooped her hair off her face. “Showing up is one thing. Forging a map is something else.”

  A low growl came from the bedcovers. Stuart wondered if dogs ever became trapped under so many layers and suffocated themselves. He said, “Rhonda, I would like to know two things. First, what was Marek Vuksinic doing on that boat? And second, why was he looking through Fairchild’s bag?”

  “How should I know? What did Allison say?”

  As he paced from the end of the bed to the window, to the chaise, and retraced his steps, Stuart told her. But he didn’t mention the amount of money Fairchild had demanded this morning, or that Fairchild would probably get more, and more.

  “Where is Marek Vuksinic now?” he asked, flipping the curtain aside to look out the window. Another day blue enough to tear out your soul.

  “Larry says he flew home.”

  “Home?”

  “That’s all he told me, Stuart.”

  He said, “I used to trust Larry. I’m never sure anymore what’s up with him. Something’s going on, Rhonda. I am swimming in the ocean at night, hearing splashes that are not my own.”

  With a roll of her eyes, she said, “You aren’t happy, are you, unless you have something to agonize about. I imagine that Marek is giving his report to Leo. Telling him you were charming, the project is under way, and Leo can have the penthouse. I don’t know.”

  “What did Larry tell Marek about the map?”

  “Nothing! Larry knows the consequences. My God, Stuart, coming in here at the crack of dawn to harass me like this!” She stood on her knees, and her full breasts wobbled under the thin silk negligee. “Why don’t you go ahead and confess everything to Leo? Everything! Or just shoot yourself and get it over with!”

  “That would simplify things for you, wouldn’t it, my love? Good-bye, Stuart. Hello, life insurance.”

  “For God’s sake.”

  In no better mood than his wife, Stuart snapped his fingers and said, “I almost forgot. Allison believes that Fairchild has Jenny Gray on his London agenda.”

  “What for?”

  “Who knows? Could be...anything. Should I go find out?”

  Rhonda lay back against the pillows, and her lovely golden hair fanned out around her face. “If I see you with that slut again, I will kill both of you.”

  He laughed. “I believe you would.” As he stared across the room at her, his desire withered, and anger and grief rolled over him in equal measure. He had wanted her from the first moment, and she had used it—used him. He had always known this and did not care, cared only that she would stop using him. But Stuart had come to see, lately or years ago, that she had never loved him.

  He let the curtain fall shut. “Tell you what. Go to Hawaii without me. I’ve got a pile of work to finish here. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it better on your own. I’d only hold you back.”

  “If you’re going to be petulant, I’d rather be by myself,” she said.

  He patted her foot through the covers as he walked by. “Go fuck your tour director.”

  The dog hurled itself after him. Strange reaction, to bark when someone was leaving, but the dog had the intelligence of a radish. Stuart thought that if its teeth tore his trousers, he would be justified in bringing his foot down on its neck. As if reading his thoughts, the dog turned away and jumped back on the bed.

  Stuart closed the door.

  Curving down the stairs to the first floor, he hummed a tune that matched the electrical buzzing in his brain. As though long-dead circuits had come on, he saw that he’d let Larry go too far. Stuart liked the mathematics of international markets; it was the brass-knuckled swagger of the street he couldn’t stand. So he’d let Larry do it. The problem with Larry, though, was that his ambition exceeded his intelligence. Larry could pick out a good wine. He could throw a good party. People liked Larry. Too often, the wrong people. Larry had brought Oscar Contreras into the tidy group of investors in The Metropolis. Contreras, a swarthy Peruvian partial to Italian suits and too much jewelry, who was—or pretended to be—the right hand of the next president of Peru. Oh, delusions!

  But if they could hold it all together ...if Leo Zurin put in his share of the cash. If the bank could see an account balance of fifty million dollars by the end of the month. If Tom Fairchild could turn back the clock on that map. Then Stuart could sell his interest in this godforsaken development...and retire to Provence, to Fiji, to Tierra del Fuego. If Rhonda wanted to go with him, she could. If not, he would find a mistress. Several of them. Warm and brown-skinned—

  Suddenly his stomach roiled.

  Why was Tom Fairchild seeing Jenny Gray? What was he after? How much had she told him?

  There was hardly any traffic on the causeway to Miami, and no one in the Pan-Global reception room when he unlocked the door. He went immediately to his office and turned on his computer. The link for British Airways was on his desktop.

  Six days a week at exactly 8:00 AM, Fernanda would bring a tray to Mrs. Barlowe’s room with coffee, rolls, and juice, or tea and dry toast if the Barlowes had gone out to dinner the night before. She would bring folded copies of The Miami Herald and Investor’s Business Daily. She would open the curtains slowly, allowing Mrs. Barlowe’s eyes time to adjust. She would start Mrs. Barlowe’s bath, lay out a fresh towel, then take Zhou-Zhou downstairs for breakfast and a walk.

  This morning, as Fernanda balanced the tray on her hip to reach the doorknob, she heard Mrs. Barlowe shouting. Not at her husband—he had left an hour ago. The words were muffled, but Fernanda could make out some of them.

  ...right now...I am losing my mind...have to do something before it’s too late...he’s already at the office....

  Uncertain what to do, Fernanda knocked lightly and went in. She was surprised to find the sliding door to the terrace wide open and Mrs. Barlowe fully dressed. The big suitcase she had packed for their cruise was lying on the luggage rack, and Mrs. Barlowe was taking things out of it. Phone to her ear, she walked to the closet with an armful of swimsuits and returned with two sweaters and a fur coat.

  She saw Fernanda and said into the phone, “Wait. Hold on.” She motioned toward the dresser. “Just leave it there. I’ll pour the coffee.”

  “Mr
s. Barlowe, is everything all right?”

  “Yes, fine. Just leave it, I said.”

  Fernanda noticed the dog on the end of the bed at the

  same moment that Zhou-Zhou leaped off, barking at something that had just brushed past Fernanda’s leg. In another instant Zhou-Zhou was across the room, then behind the chaise, and on the bed again, and off, and Mrs. Barlowe was screaming, “What is that? A cat! How did it get in here?”

  “ Ay, Dios mío.” Fernanda hurriedly set down the tray as a large black cat streaked into the closet. Zhou-Zhou stood at the closet door barking so hard his topknot trembled. “Mrs. Barlowe, I am sorry, that’s Othello, Miss Allison’s cat.”

  “What’s it doing in my house?”

  “She’s in London, and she didn’t have anywhere—” “Get it out or I’ll call the Humane Society!” With the cat draped over her arm, Fernanda slid

  through the bedroom door. It slammed shut behind her. She hurried down the stairs. “Bad cat. Bad! How did you sneak out?”

  Fernanda wondered if she would be fired. She herself had thought many times of quitting. She would have done it long ago, except that the pay wasn’t too bad, and the things that Mrs. Barlowe threw away had sent two of Fernanda’s nieces through dental hygiene school. Fernanda would take Mrs. Barlowe’s old clothing and lamps and pillows and dishes out of the trash and give them to her sister to sell at the flea market.

  Fernanda still had hope that one day she would be working for Allison, and that Allison would have a good husband and a baby or two. But the girl was not beautiful in the way that men liked, and she had a brain, which was another drawback. Fernanda had lit candles and prayed, but Allison would be thirty-three her next birthday. She would be like Fernanda, a woman alone with a cat.

  Larry came from inside the house, and the movement of walking made him queasy. He’d been out until four o’clock this morning. His mother sat at the far end of the screened enclosure in a wide pink hat with a glass of orange juice—more likely a mimosa—and the business section. Her sandal dangled from her foot. A waterfall splashed over coral rocks, and the glitter on the pool was like a knife between his eyes. He hoped she’d make it fast, whatever she had to say to him.