The Perfect Fake

by Barbara Parker

  “ Ici, s’il vous plaît,” said Allison. She asked if he would bring some water and a bottle of white wine immediately.

  “Make that two beers for me,” Tom said. He was looking out the window at the people on the platform pulling their suitcases to other cars in the long train. “And tell him we don’t want to be disturbed.”

  She did so in her elementary French, followed by a five-euro note. “Bien sûr, ma’am’selle.” He nodded and closed the door on his way out.

  Wearily, Allison took off her jacket and hung it in the closet; she’d left her long coat in London. They would arrive at Milano Centrale, the main station in Milan, at 6:40 AM, then take the 7:10 to Genoa, arriving in La Spezia three hours later. Eddie Ferraro would drive them to an area called Cinque Terre—five little villages along the coast. Allison had heard of them but had never been there.

  Tom lowered the curtain in the window until the magnet clicked at the bottom, then turned on a light over the seats. He inspected the couch that would be made into one narrow berth, the curve above it that would pull down for the other. In the small compartment, on a train that was about to take them somewhere neither had been, there was an intimacy that Allison had not considered when she had bought the tickets. When Tom turned to speak to her, the same thought must have crossed his mind, too.

  “Well. This is cozy.” A smile slowly appeared. Allison gave him a warning look. She opened her tote bag, found her electrical adapter and phone charger, and plugged in her cell phone. “I have to call my father. He must be wondering where I am. Don’t worry, I know what not to say.”

  “Tell him we’re waiting to board a flight to Florence.” “Why?”

  Tom lifted the phone out of her hand. “Listen to me,

  Allison. No one knows where we are, especially not Larry and his gangster friend.” Tom held the phone over his head when Allison reached for it. “Your father tells his wife, his wife tells Larry...”

  “Larry couldn’t care less about the map.”

  “I said no.”

  “Okay, then. We’re on our way to Florence.” As she dialed her father’s mobile number, a knock

  came at the door. The drinks had arrived. Tom took the tray and paid the attendant while Allison waited for Stuart to pick up. When he did, she told him everything was on schedule. They would be catching a train soon to Florence—

  Tom mouthed airport, lifted his hands in a gesture of frustration, and Allison grimaced and mouthed sorry! She told Stuart she wasn’t sure where they’d be staying...and yes, Tom had already started working on the map.

  “Dad, where is Rhonda?...Well, I called Fernanda this morning, and she said that Rhonda took all the cruise wear out of her suitcase and packed her fur coat and some sweaters, so I thought you might know....”

  There was a long silence on the other end, followed by Stuart saying that Rhonda had an independent streak, didn’t she? He asked to speak to Tom Fairchild.

  Putting down his glass of beer, Tom took the phone. His end of the conversation was in monosyllables. Then a laugh. “I’m sorry, but that’s not how I do things. We agreed that I would make your map for you, and you would pay me. That doesn’t include the right to observe the process.... When I’m finished, you can see it.” He hit the disconnect button.

  “What was that about?” “If he calls back, don’t answer it.” Tom returned to his beer. “Your father wants to watch. Nobody watches.”

  “Did he say he was coming to Italy?”

  “No, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he shows up. Where is Mrs. Barlowe, if she’s not in Hawaii?”

  Allison shrugged. “She didn’t want to go on the cruise. Neither did my father, apparently.”

  Tom chugged his beer, then opened the next one and sprawled in the seat by the window to sip it. This was his habit, Allison remembered. First beer to give him a buzz, and the second to enjoy. She sat in the other seat to drink her wine. The liquid jostled slightly in her glass. Tom raised the curtain far enough to confirm that the train was in motion.

  “Hell of a way to see Paris,” he said.

  About ten PM the train attendant, now in a white jacket, collected the trays from dinner. He came back a few minutes later, opened the beds, and took the pillows from a drawer underneath. Did they need more water? Was there anything else he could do for them? Tom growled that he could leave them alone. Allison said, “Non, tout est bien, merci beaucoup.” She gave the man another five euros. He touched his cap. “Bonne nuit, ma’am’selle, m’sieur.”

  When he was gone, Allison frowned at Tom. “You can be so rude.”

  He held up his hands. “Sorry. Why don’t you get ready for bed, or whatever you want to do. I’m going to take a walk.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Nowhere. I’m going to let Eddie know we made it. I’ll be back. Lock the door behind me. If anybody knocks, ask who it is.”

  Allison understood. “You’re going looking for someone, aren’t you? What will you do if you find him? Beat him up?”

  “Not me, I’m a peaceable guy.” Tom stepped into the corridor, then smiled through the crack in the door. “I’ll just shove him off the train.”

  An hour had passed before she heard his rat-tat-tat. She got up from the seat by the window, where she had sat in the darkness with her arms around her knees to watch the flat landscape of central France roll by. Preceded by a mournful, faraway whistle, the train had passed a dozen small stations without slowing.

  She turned on a light and asked who was there. “Gaetano Corelli,” came the reply. She unlocked the door.

  Coming inside, Tom took a long look at what she was wearing: a Boston Red Sox T-shirt and plaid flannel pajama bottoms. “Wow, that’s hot.”

  “Shut up,” she said. “Did you see any mysterious men in black coats?”

  “Nope.” He sat down and untied his hiking boots. “I did the whole train and hung out in the bar for a while. What’ve you been doing, studying?”

  “Not really. I can’t concentrate. I keep thinking about Jenny Gray. That was terrible, what happened to her.” Allison folded her glasses into their case.

  Tom nodded.

  “It’s so ironic,” she said, “so bizarre, even, that Jenny knew Royce Herron—she was working on his maps— and he was shot to death, and now she’s dead, too. And you think that man did it. But why? And why would he be after you? All this on top of what happened on Larry’s boat with Marek Vuksinic. It’s all connected, isn’t it?” When Tom’s only reply was a shrug, she said, “Uh-huh. Sure. You don’t know anything about it.”

  “I don’t know,” he insisted. “Let’s get some sleep.” Tom took off his pullover. His T-shirt came up too, and he tugged it back down to his waist. His chest was not nearly as scrawny as it had been twelve years ago. Muscles moved over his rib cage.

  Averting her eyes, Allison closed her outline of tort law and clipped her pen to the notebook.

  “Hey, what’s this?” Tom had picked up the miniature globe that sat on the table. It was only two inches high from its top to its little brass stand. The oceans were enameled blue, the continents ivory, and a thin line of gold marked the equator. Without her glasses, Allison could see a fuzzy image of Tom spinning the globe on its tilted axis. “You used to keep this on your windowsill in your dorm room.”

  A picture flashed into her head: fat snowflakes falling silently in the pale gray morning, and Tom sleeping beside her, his arm around her waist.

  “I always take it with me on trips,” she said. “My father bought it for me in Dublin when I was a little girl, not even three years old. He was traveling a lot in those days for my grandfather’s company in Toronto.”

  “And he said the globe would tell you where he was.”

  Allison smiled. “You remember that?”

  “I remember a lot of things.” Tom held the little globe under the light and examined the continents. “You used to hate your old man. Is that why you came back to Miami? To see if you could make up with
him?”

  “That’s part of it. I never felt like I belonged in the North. I guess the older you get, the more family means to you—even if it’s only one person. We’re getting along fine now.”

  “That’s good.” Tom set the globe beside its box, which held a negative shape of faded red velvet that the globe would fit into. “So...is Larry pretty much running your dad’s business?”

  “No. Where did you get that idea?”

  “Larry was saying some things on the boat.”

  “He likes to talk,” Allison said.

  “What about The Metropolis? Larry’s in charge of that, isn’t he?”

  “He thinks he is. I’m not sure how much responsibility Stuart has given him.” She let her head fall against the seat. “It was my own choice to stay out of my father’s life. I was just this prickly bundle of resentment. I hated all of them, especially Rhonda. She and I will never be close, not that I give a damn. What did my father see in her?”

  “Big boobs?”

  Allison made a face. “Oh, please. They aren’t even real.”

  His grin fading, Tom said, “What do you know about the investors in The Metropolis? Like, who they are, what they do—”

  “Nothing. Why are you so interested?”

  “Just trying to fit some pieces together, that’s all. Here’s something Jenny told me. The zoning approvals were up in the air. There was a man in the zoning department who had to sign off on it, and he wouldn’t. Larry Gerard set him up with a prostitute. Her name was Carla Kelly. A friend of Jenny’s. They took pictures to blackmail him into going the right way on the zoning.”

  “What a lie. That... that’s not remotely true!”

  “I’m not accusing Stuart—not unless he knows about it,” Tom added.

  “Totally did not happen. If it did happen, which I highly doubt, Larry went behind his back.”

  “But you don’t put it past Larry. Do you?”

  Allison felt sick. She wanted to call her father, to warn him. “What are you trying to tell me? That Larry was involved in Jenny Gray’s murder? Is that where this is going?”

  “Well, yours truly is going to take a shower.” Tom went over to his backpack and dug around for some clean underwear. “Did you leave me any hot water?”

  “Not a drop.”

  “That figures.”

  While he was in the bathroom, she tucked herself into the lower bunk. He came out dressed in T-shirt and shorts, smelling of soap, with his hair sticking straight up in front. He unplugged his cell phone from the charger and tossed it to the bunk, then turned off the lights. Allison looked up at his silhouette. She held the top edge of the blanket at her chin.

  The way up was to step on a low table, then grasp a handhold on the wall. From the dim light through the window, Allison saw muscled legs and a tattoo just above his ankle, a Celtic design that hadn’t been there before. He thumped around for a minute getting comfortable, and when he was quiet, she said, “Is your nose right next to the ceiling?”

  “I’ve got about eighteen inches. Want to see?” “No.”

  “Whatever happened to Betty Boop?”

  “She grew up. Go to sleep, Tom.”

  The whistle sounded again and lights moved across the compartment, swinging from back to front. Then the train went around a curve, and Allison could feel her body shifting.

  Tom whispered, “Allison. You awake?”

  Her eyes fluttered open. “Yes.”

  “I want to explain some things to you. What hap- pened after I came back to Miami. Why I went to jail.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “Yeah, I do. You know the trouble I got into as a kid, starting after my father passed away. Shoplifting, smoking pot, truancy—enough of that, you get tagged as a juvenile offender, and that’s how the police and the judge and even your friends see you, and you start thinking of yourself in those terms. I was a bad guy and proud of it.

  “We first went out when we were sixteen, after that Green Day concert, remember? How did I get so lucky? That’s what I thought at the time. You were beautiful— you still are—and smart, and I wanted to be on your level. You were a little wild, too, admit it, but you turned things around for me. I graduated and put a portfolio together and got accepted to SVA. My family was behind me, and I did all right in the grades department. But you had your rich friends, and I couldn’t keep up. Then my mother got sick, and the money ran out. I felt like I’d been robbed of everything. Then she died.”

  The rush of the wheels on the tracks changed pitch as the train went into a tunnel, then out again.

  Tom’s voice seemed nearer, as though he had moved closer to the edge of his bunk. “That was probably the worst time of my life. I was drinking a lot. Two DUIs. Got into some fights. No reason, just generally pissed off at the world. I was in jail four or five times, a couple of days here, two weeks there. I jumped the fence at a rock concert, and a cop grabbed me, and I pushed him. That’s battery on a police officer, a felony. It would have pleabargained down, but I had an attitude and a list of priors. They gave me a month. I finished that, then got stopped in a car with a friend of mine who had half an ounce of cocaine in his pocket. A surprise to me, but since I was already such a badass, they charged me along with him. The court threw that one out, but another felony arrest went on my record.

  “I was doing some pickup construction work and helping Rose at the shop when I met Eddie Ferraro. He moved in with Rose, and he kept me going straight and threatened to beat my ass if I didn’t. Then he got arrested on that counterfeiting case and jumped bail. By then I’d started my design business, and I was sharing an apartment with a guy I’d met in rehab. I thought he was taking care of the rent, but he didn’t, and the landlord changed the locks. All my computer equipment and my stereo and CDs were in there. I didn’t have the money, so I went in through a window. The landlord showed up and we got into a fight. Somebody called the cops, and I was arrested for burglary, assault, battery, and grand theft. The landlord claimed five thousand dollars in damages. I didn’t do any damage besides the window, but that’s what he stuck me with. I was looking at a possible ten years in prison. Rose mortgaged the shop to pay for a good lawyer. He persuaded the judge to give me a three-sixtyfour—that’s a year in jail, minus a day—plus eight years probation. I’ve done two years. I have six to go. I still owe four thousand dollars in restitution.”

  When Tom’s silence stretched out, Allison understood that he was waiting for her to say something. “I can’t begin to imagine how hard it was for you. I’m so sorry.”

  “For what? I survived.”

  “I know, but . . .”

  “It’ll be okay when the map is finished.” Tom laughed. “My European vacation.”

  From the corridor a bell softly chimed, and a voice announced in French, then in English, that in fifteen minutes they would reach Lyon.

  “Tom?” She reached up and felt for his hand. “I’m glad you told me.”

  Silence. Then he took a couple of breaths. Blankets shifted. More silence. Then, “Allison?”

  “What?”

  “I’ll never get to sleep.” He jumped down to the floor, leaned under the upper bunk, and kissed her. His skin was smooth from a shave, and his mouth was warm. She tasted mint toothpaste.

  He stood up. “I hope you don’t ask me to apologize.”

  “It’s okay. I’ll forgive you this time.”

  “Sleep tight, Betty Boop.” He put another kiss on the end of her nose.

  When he had climbed into his bunk again, she said softly, “Boop-boop-a-doop.”

  Twelve years ago, he had rented a room in an old house in New Jersey, a converted attic with a view of lower Manhattan. His drawings of the skyline were pinned up all over the place. The last time they had spoken, Allison had gone over there to have it out with him. He had embarrassed her at a party. Was that it? She had danced with someone else, and he had gotten drunk. Or had it been the time he had gone two days without calling her? O
r their arguments about whether to spend Sunday renting a motorcycle or lying in bed. Whatever it was, she came to his place to collect whatever she’d left there. She yelled at him. He yelled back at her and called her a bitch. She slapped him and ran out. Now, after all this time, she couldn’t remember, not at all, what they had been fighting about.

  Slowly she came out of sleep, aware of a telephone ringing. It took her a while to figure out where she was. She heard Tom shifting in the upper berth, then a thud as he stepped to the floor. A light went on. Hiding her head under the blanket, she went back to sleep.

  Then Tom was telling her to wake up. He was fully dressed, pulling on her arms. “Allison, get up. Come on. We have to go.”

  “Not yet,” she mumbled.

  “Wake up, sunshine. We’re getting off in Torino.” “Where?”

  “Turin. We’ll be there pretty soon. I let you sleep as

  long as I could. We’re all packed.”

  “Turin?” She grabbed for the covers and moaned,

  “It’s Milan, not Turin!”

  “Allison, listen. When I took that walk earlier, I saw

  someone—not the man who was following me in London, but the guy sitting next to him on the Eurostar. I

  called Eddie, and he said to get off in Torino.” “Are you insane? It’s just some guy going in the same

  direction we are!”

  “No, it’s more than that. It’s the way he acted. How

  he avoided me. We’re getting off. Eddie is already on his

  way.” Tom shoved her into a sitting position and lay her

  clothes in her lap. “Come on, Allison. Move it.” She felt her way to the bathroom, and when she came

  out again dressed and awake, Tom was in his coat and

  cap, and the bags were stacked by the door. As she