The Perfect Fake

by Barbara Parker

  The answer came back quicker than Contreras had expected. “Excellent idea,” Leo Zurin said. “I’ll have a representative from my company contact you again soon.”

  The line went dead. Contreras motioned to the maid, who stood silently in the shade of the portico. “I’m ready for my breakfast.”

  Leo Zurin slid his mobile phone back into the pocket of his ski jacket, which hung over the adjacent chair. His mouth was a tight, thin line. In the space of sixty seconds, Marek had watched him go from annoyance to rage.

  “Trouble from the Peruvian?”

  “Son of a pig. As soon as the products are loaded, they’re his. After this, I won’t sell him a slingshot, and I’ll make sure no one else does, either. This is the last time I do business with a South American. They’re corrupt and backward. This is why they keep having revolutions.”

  Marek and Leo were sharing raclette for lunch outside a restaurant on the little piazza in Champorcher. The table gave a good view of the mountains, and Marek could smoke. The sun shone on Leo’s bald head and reflected in his dark glasses. Leo picked up the long, flat knife and scraped melting cheese onto his bread. “Here’s another surprise. Contreras is going to ask Larry Gerard to be his eyes and ears before he pays me. Ha. I thought that would make you sit up.”

  “It’s my fault,” Marek said. “I let Gerard put Contreras in touch with you.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Leo followed the cheese with a sip of wine. “From time to time we all draw a bad card. Can you be in Genoa on Tuesday? The shipment arrives that afternoon or evening. As soon as the parts are loaded into the container, they belong to Contreras. I don’t get all the money I wanted, but on the other hand, I don’t have to guarantee delivery in Peru. Where exactly is Peru?”

  “South of Colombia,” Marek said. “So. It looks like Tom Fairchild doesn’t work for Contreras after all.”

  “No, he doesn’t,” Leo agreed. “I finally heard from my friend at the International Map Society yesterday. Fairchild’s sister owns a map shop in Miami. He works there. His specialty is cleaning, coloring, and framing old maps.”

  With his fork Marek dragged one of the thumb-sized potatoes through the bubbling cheese. He turned the wedge to put the cooler side toward the coils of the heater. Leo was waiting for him to say something.

  “Yes, he works in a map shop. We knew that. But I still smell a dead fish.”

  “Some things are exactly as they appear,” Leo said. “Those mountains. This bread. The sun on our faces. And sometimes—not often, but occasionally—people do tell the truth.”

  Not twenty-four hours after Rhonda Barlowe had showed up at Leo’s house claiming the Corelli map had been stolen, her husband called Leo to say she’d made a mistake. Barlowe said Tom Fairchild had gone to London to talk to experts about fixing the stains in the map, but Rhonda didn’t know, so she thought the map had been stolen. Tom Fairchild went on to Italy to buy the special solvents and glue. The cleaning would be finished before the weekend, and Stuart Barlowe would personally deliver the map to Champorcher.

  This made no sense to Marek, but Leo wanted to believe it.

  Leo’s black eyes looked at him over the top of his sunglasses. “You think Barlowe is lying.”

  Marek imagined Stuart Barlowe’s face under the raclette heater. What lies would he tell then? “Why doesn’t he know where Fairchild is?”

  “They stay in contact by telephone,” Leo said. “Fairchild insists on being left alone to do his work.”

  “If he cleans old maps, why did he strangle the British girl?”

  “Maybe he wanted sex and she refused. I don’t care. He can do what he likes except ruin the Corelli, and if that should happen, I will tear off his arms and feed them to Stuart Barlowe. What in the name of Christ’s grandmother is taking so long?”

  Marek took a cigarette from his pack and lit it. “Will Larry Gerard be in Genoa?”

  “If Contreras sends him. Why?”

  “He’s a big problem. He talks too much.”

  “We need him to approve the shipment.”

  “Yes, but after that?” Marek let out a cloud of smoke. “Do what you want. You don’t need to ask my permission,” Leo said. “As long as I have my map, I wouldn’t be sorry if an avalanche took the lot of them.”

  Chapter 27

  Under an old umbrella with a broken rib, Allison hurried back to Eddie Ferraro’s house with a bag that his elderly aunt Lucia had filled with food—

  rosemary chicken and some Ligurian pasta and green beans. Allison went around puddles and stepped over small rivers that gurgled down the cobblestones from higher streets. The rain was melting the dusting of snow that a cold front had left two days ago. It was late on a Sunday afternoon, and the weather had sent everyone inside. Tomorrow the children would line up for the school bus and the shops would be open. Crates of vegetables and fruit would be put out on the sidewalks—if the rain stopped.

  The plan was to leave for Florence in the morning and print the map tomorrow night, but that depended on whether Eddie could make a usable engraving plate. Of the six blank plates shipped from Germany last week, he had already ruined three under the ultraviolet tubes in his light box. Unable to stand the suspense of waiting for another one to be thrown across the room, Allison had volunteered to fetch dinner. They had all been so busy with the map that the food had run out. Eddie had called Aunt Lucia to see if she had any leftovers.

  Turning the corner at the tobacconist’s, Allison went up the steep incline of Via Rossa. The wooden doors, which by optical illusion seemed to slant uphill, faced each other across narrow sidewalks and a street of flat, gray stones incised to keep pedestrians and pushcarts from slipping.

  Unless something unexpected occurred, the map would be finished a day ahead of schedule. Eddie had built his light box and mixed the ink and showed Allison how to make ink daubers for the engraving plate. Drinking pots of espresso, Tom stayed glued to his computer. At dawn this morning Allison had awakened to find a note on his side of the bed. He and Eddie had taken off for Florence with the digital image on a DVD. Six hours later, they returned with a transparency of the map and two backups, and they started on the engraving plates.

  Allison had wanted to go with them, but Tom had left her sleeping. It wasn’t that he was being nice. He was avoiding her. He didn’t want any of her questions about what had happened last Wednesday night. She and Eddie had been sick with anxiety, arguing whether to wait for a phone call or to contact the police. Then Tom had come back and said he’d fought with Larry. That, Allison could believe. It was the rest of it she found incredible. After Larry had left, Tom had been taken by kidnappers who thought he had money and they could get a ransom. After finally convincing them he was only a student, Tom had been released.

  Of course it was BS, but Tom had said to leave him alone, he had to work, and why didn’t she go study? Allison was sick of studying. In two weeks she would be in Miami taking the bar exam. She would either pass it or not. It seemed to have about as much relevance to her life as the tide tables in Fiji.

  She reached Eddie’s building and looked up at the tightly closed shutters of the workshop three floors above her. Whatever lies Tom had told her, Eddie had gotten something else. More than once she had walked into the room and they had stopped talking, then one or the other would come out with some inanity, like was there any beer left? Or was it still raining out there?

  The stone staircase at the side of the building led to a small porch, where Allison set down the bag and closed the umbrella. She had her hand on the doorknob when she heard someone inside shouting. Slowly she opened the door.

  It was Tom, and the anger in his voice surprised her. She didn’t hear anyone else and gradually realized that he was on the telephone. Not having seen Eddie on the street, she wondered if he was upstairs, too. She quietly closed the door and carried the bag to the small kitchen, taking care that her shoes didn’t squeak on the tile floor. Still in her hat and coat, she went to t
he stairs and looked up.

  He was saying something about being left twisting in the wind.

  “You could go back to Miami and say too bad, so sad, and leave me here. What would I do, sue you?...The map is what you want, but the way things are, I can’t be sure you’re going to agree with that....It’s not for you, it’s for Leo Zurin. Let him decide.”

  Realizing that Tom was talking to her father, Allison went up another step. The wood creaked, and she stopped.

  “Explain it to Zurin however you want, that’s up to you, but when you take him the map, I’m going along. That’s the deal.... Sure, you can get back to me, but make it quick. If we don’t have an agreement, there will be no map....You know how to reach me.”

  There was a short silence, then Eddie Ferraro said, “Do you think he’ll go along with it?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “You’d better think about putting a squeeze on him, Tommy. You might need some ammo if he tries to come back at you.”

  “Let’s wait and see what happens. I’ll tell Suarez it’s a go and keep my fingers crossed.”

  “I think those guys are the ones you have to worry about more than Barlowe.”

  “No shit. What’s an ATF agent doing in Italy, is what I want to know.” Then Tom laughed. “Hey, Eddie, you need a roommate? I might be staying in Manarola if this doesn’t work out. Jesus, I’m tired. Is that plate dry yet?”

  “Come have a look.”

  By now Allison had reached the top of the stairs. Carbon dust from the ink-making had grimed the floor, and shipping boxes had been tossed into a corner. Beer bottles and espresso cups littered the shelves. The two men leaned over the workbench, and the pool of light caught the gray in Eddie’s hair, and the movement of Tom’s magnifying glass over the engraving plate.

  “Dinner’s downstairs,” she said.

  They looked around at her from the worktable, then quickly at each other. Allison took off her jacket and her beret and laid them on the stair railing. She crossed the room and saw an engraving plate about three feet by two. Eddie had washed away the parts of the plate not hardened by the UV light. The polymer surface gleamed, revealing a tracery of fine lines, Corelli’s Universalis Cosmographia in reverse.

  “I guess we finally have one that works.”

  No one could pretend she hadn’t overheard their conversation.

  “Fourth time’s a charm,” Eddie said. “Tom did a brilliant job, but we still have to print the map, so we’ll make one more tonight just in case.”

  Allison shifted her eyes to Tom. “Why don’t we take a walk?”

  Eddie said, “Allison, we didn’t want to keep you in the dark. That’s a fact.” When Allison only looked at him, he sighed. “You two stay here. I think I’ll go pick up a bottle of wine. Give me a buzz on my cell phone when dinner’s ready.”

  He went downstairs. The door closed. Allison said, “You were yelling at my father. Why?”

  Tom’s hair was standing up in front as though he’d been running his fingers through it. “I didn’t tell you everything.”

  “What a shock.”

  “I couldn’t, Allison. There’s a lot I still can’t tell you, and I wish you would trust me on that. We’ll be home in a week. As soon as we’re out of here, I’ll explain everything, but not now.”

  “Oh, I thought you were staying in Manarola with Eddie.”

  “I was just talking.”

  “Stop lying to me, Tom. You said you never lied to me, but that’s what you’ve been doing.”

  “Look. I told your father I want to go with him when he gives the map to Leo Zurin. I have to. What if he says Zurin doesn’t like the map? Or if he decides not to pay me? What recourse would I have? I don’t want to be left hanging.”

  “Do you want me to walk out that door right now? I can, Tom. I can go right back to Florence and ask my father.”

  “All right. I’ll tell you.” But he hesitated.

  “Stop trying to invent something!”Allison said, “Just tell me the truth. Is it that hard? You can start by telling me where you went Wednesday night. Did you talk to my father about Larry? Did you have it out with him?”

  “No, he called me the next day. I haven’t seen your father. Come here. Sit down.” Tom put her on the end of Eddie’s cot, and he sat beside her. He took her hand. “Some of this Stuart can’t know about. I’m serious, babe.”

  She slowly said, “All right.”

  “I didn’t go anywhere—not voluntarily. Do you remember the men following us on the train? They were outside the hotel. They’d been tracking your credit card, so they knew where I was. They were going to come inside, but I came out, and they saw me and Larry get into it. After Larry split, they grabbed me and threw me in their car.”

  Allison stared at him. “Please tell me that’s a lie.”

  “You want to hear this or not?”

  “Yes. Go on.”

  The pale light leaking through the shutters gradually faded and went out entirely before Tom had finished talking. Allison understood, at the end of it, that two of the investors in her father’s real estate project were involved in an illegal arms deal that certain agents of the United States government wanted to prevent, and that to do so, they expected Tom Fairchild to plant listening devices in Leo Zurin’s house in the mountains near Champorcher.

  “Just two or three of them,” he said. “This morning, when Eddie and I went to Florence, they showed me one. It’s very small. It has a sticky side. I could put it under a table or on a wall. When we go back to Florence again, I’ll meet Suarez one more time.”

  “Oh, my God.” Allison leaned her forehead into her hands.

  “Nothing’s going to happen,” Tom said. “Leo Zurin will be in a good mood. He’s getting his map. He won’t be looking for microphones. That’s the last thing he’d expect, somebody bugging his house.”

  “What if Marek Vuksinic is there? What then?”

  “What if he is?” Tom shrugged. “He’ll mind his manners in front of Stuart.”

  “Are you really that sure?”

  “Yes. Don’t worry, Allison.”

  She searched his face. Long hours at the computer had left their mark, but she couldn’t see any sign of uneasiness. “Does Agent Suarez believe my father is involved in any way?”

  Tom hesitated, then said, “I don’t know what they believe.”

  “It’s Larry,” she said. “He’s behind it. He’s using Stuart. He always has. He’s a surrogate for Rhonda, you know that. Her little hand puppet.”

  “You really think she sent him after me, don’t you?”

  “Of course she did. It wasn’t my father. It’s Rhonda who’s been trying to stop you. First bribery, then Larry with a gun. I think she meant for him to kill you.”

  “I don’t know about that. What if he was trying to scare me off? I beat the shit out of him for nothing.”

  “What were you supposed to do, wait until he pulled the trigger?”

  “Wow. Tough, aren’t you?”

  “Please let me tell Stuart. All he’s getting is lies.”

  “Don’t,” Tom said. “I want to finish the map and get paid. After that, all hell can break loose between those two. But leave it alone for now.”

  “What a bitch.”

  “I mean it, Allison.” Tom held up a finger, warning her.

  “Okay. I won’t say anything.” She scooted around and sat Indian fashion on the cot. “May I be your attorney for a minute? When you see Suarez again, ask him to fix things with your probation officer. That’s the least he can do.”

  “I did ask him. He said no. They’re the federal government, and Weems works for the state.”

  “That doesn’t matter. The feds can crush the state if they want to. They can. They could say, ‘Tom Fairchild is ours, and if you touch him, we’ll charge you with a federal crime.’ ”

  “Thanks for the legal opinion, babe, but Suarez won’t go for it. You see, he can’t let it be known that he’s opera
ting out of his jurisdiction, can he, or his agency would get fried in the media. All he promises is a free pass through Homeland Security, and I hope he doesn’t screw that up.” Tom pulled Allison within reach and kissed the top of her head. “It’s not just me on the line, it’s Eddie. They threatened to send him back to the U.S. to stand trial on that old counterfeiting charge. He could go to prison for twenty years. I didn’t tell Eddie. I mean, why worry him, right?”

  Allison pulled away to look at him directly. “You’re doing this for Eddie? No, it’s okay, I just meant...my God, that’s so... noble.”

  “Noble? Not really. It’s my ass on the line, too.”

  “What did Eddie mean about needing ammunition against my father?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You and Eddie were talking, and he said you might have to put a squeeze on Stuart, and you said— You said you’d wait and see how it goes first. What did you mean?”

  Tom was shaking his head, looking blank. “I guess it meant...we would have to persuade Stuart to let me go with him to deliver the map. Sorry, Allison, I’m so tired right now I can’t think straight. All I want to do is get the map done, get the hell out of Italy, and forget this ever happened.”

  After a second, Allison nodded. She laid her palm against Tom’s and flattened them together. Her fingers were shorter and more slender. “We’re both starting over, in a way. I don’t know what’s going to happen with you and me, but ...we’ll just see. I’ve thought about my career, too. I’m just not as frantic about it anymore. And Stuart...well, I’m still trying to figure him out, but it’s changing. Most of my life, I’ve never cared if we ever spoke to each other, and even now, I don’t know what he really thinks of me, but I do love him. I can’t help it. He’s my father.”

  “Be careful, babe. People can disappoint you.” “Why do you say that?”

  “Just that... sometimes they aren’t what you want them to be.”

  Allison said, “How did Suarez get the okay to work in Italy?”

  “What?”

  “He’s an ATF agent. He’s looking into an illegal arms deal, but the weapons aren’t going into the U.S. The ATF is a domestic agency, like the FBI. And who are his friends working for?”