The Perfect Fake

by Barbara Parker

  Tom laughed.

  “It is so not funny,” she said.

  “I’m sorry, babe. If he searches my pockets, what are they going to do? Shoot me? No, no, no. They’d kick my ass out the door. And Leo Zurin would tell your dad he’d rather not invest in Miami real estate.”

  Allison muttered, “You’re delusional.”

  “Well, would you please give me an alternative? Look. I promise you, I won’t do this unless it looks safe. Suarez told me that if it doesn’t feel right, don’t take any chances. All right? Okay?”

  “I want to go with you.”

  “No, and don’t ask me again.”

  “A simple no would be nice.”

  “No.” He kissed her. “Sorry.”

  After a second, she nodded. “Do you want me to call my father now?”

  “Let’s wait till after I get Suarez taken care of. One thing at a time.” Tom sat down and turned on his computer. “Could you ask the desk where the nearest Internet kiosk is? I need to get the photos off the camera and onto my Web site. No parlo italiano.”

  “Non parlo.” Allison knelt on the floor to unzip her suitcase. Unpacking would occupy her mind.

  “Babe, find me the one-gig flash card, will you? I’ve only got the five-twelve in the camera, and I want to be sure you don’t run out of space. It’s in the bottom of the messenger bag.”

  Sitting on the side of the bed, Allison pulled out several sheets of paper, most of them color screen shots of the map, so when she saw a large black-and-white image of faces looking back at her, she put her glasses on. It was a copy of a photograph. The men were in suits and ties and the one woman in the photo wore a sleeveless sheath dress—clothing several decades out of date.

  Allison was about to set it aside when she saw her grandfather, Frederick Barlowe. She held the copy with both hands as she recognized more faces. Her grandmother Margaret. A much younger Royce Herron. And two young men—boys, really. The slightly shorter one was her father, with his long narrow face, as now, but without the wrinkles and shadows and the beard she was used to. His brother, Nigel, had been caught in the middle of a laugh. His eyes—dark, like Stuart’s—looked back at her with open amusement. She couldn’t remember if she had ever seen Nigel. Surely she must have, but she’d been a baby when he died. The copy was stapled to another sheet, which was a handwritten list of the people in the photograph.

  “Tom? Where did you get this?”

  Tom glanced up from his notebook computer. She turned the copy so he could see it. He said, “That’s a photograph taken in Toronto at a map fair in the late sixties.”

  “Why do you have it?”

  A couple of seconds passed before he said, “Rose e-mailed it to me. Royce Herron’s son gave her the original. I thought it was interesting, both our grandfathers in the same photograph.”

  “Are they?”

  “The man with the short gray hair. That’s my grandfather, William Fairchild.”

  Allison looked at the second page again. “Right.” Puzzled, she said, “Were you going to show it to me?”

  “Yeah, I forgot it was in there. Did you find the flash card?”

  She lifted her eyes and met Tom’s. “What is it you aren’t telling me? I’m picking up something strange here. The other day at the library, you were asking me questions about my family. How did my mother die? What happened to my uncle Nigel? Now you have this photograph. Why?”

  Tom walked over and took it from her and looked at it. “You’ve never seen this before?”

  “No.”

  “You probably didn’t notice. It used to hang on the wall in Judge Herron’s study. After he was killed, his son found it on the desk and gave it to Rose. I saw it at her house. We were in Manarola, and I remembered it and asked her to send it to me.” Tom sat on the bed beside Allison. He said, “The truth is, I was trying to find out as much as I could about your father in case he tried to back out of paying me.”

  “What’s this photograph got to do with it?”

  “It’s nothing. Come on. Eddie’s on his way up, and I’ve got to get ready to meet Suarez.”

  Furiously, Allison jerked the photograph out of his hand. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but you’re sneaking around trying to get evidence against him, like you did against Manny Suarez. What are you thinking? That my father is part of the deal with Contreras? Or he sent Larry to kill you? What?”

  “We are not going to talk about it now. Give me the photograph, Allison.”

  “No.”

  “Fine, then.” Tom got up and walked away from her, then came back. “You used to hate him, and now you’ve gone so far the other way you can’t see anything but this fantasy you’ve created. You and your dad had a misunderstanding, and if you could just get past it, things would really be great again, like when you were three years old. He isn’t what you think, Allison. The only thing he cares about is his money. Why is he paying me a hundred thousand dollars to forge a map? Because he’s desperate not to lose millions if Zurin pulls out of The Metropolis. There is so much shit going on you can’t imagine. Jenny Gray told me that the former head of zoning quit because he’d been blackmailed. Somebody set him up with a prostitute and took pictures. Maybe Larry was behind it, but is your father that ignorant? I mean, wouldn’t he suspect?”

  “I’ve heard those rumors,” Allison said, “and I wouldn’t have trusted Jenny Gray to tell me the day of the week.”

  “Stuart was having an affair with her. He paid her five thousand dollars to leave him alone and threatened to call Immigration if she opened her mouth.”

  “That is the most despicable, pathetic lie.”

  Tom opened his mouth, and it stayed opened for a second before he said quietly, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you.” He reached for her hand.

  She backed away. “Don’t come near me right now, Tom.”

  A knock sounded on the door, then a voice, as though someone was putting his lips near the crack. “Hey. You guys in there?”

  “That will be Eddie. We’ve got his room key.” Tom shouted, “Just a second, man.” He looked at Allison. “I need to know. Will you help me?”

  Her nerves were so tight she felt as though she might scream. She took a couple of breaths.

  Tom came close but didn’t touch her. “If you want Eddie to take the photos of Suarez, I’ll show him how, but I really need you to talk to Stuart for me. I have to go to Champorcher when he delivers the map to Zurin.”

  Allison turned her head toward the door, then said, “No, I’ll take the photographs. And I’ll talk to Stuart. Show him the map first, though. You have to do that.”

  “All right. I’m sorry. I don’t have the answers for you, Allison. I don’t.” Tom put his hand on her arm, and she didn’t draw away. “When you talk to him, you shouldn’t mention anything else.”

  “Not damned likely,” she said.

  At exactly ten AM, Manny Suarez strode into the piazza from the southern end, a man about medium build, dark hair, carrying a newspaper and a paper cup. The wind opened his black coat and flipped it around his knees as he walked. He paused to take a sip from the cup. Allison put the viewfinder to her eye and followed Suarez as he moved toward the church on the opposite end. He stopped at the bench under the obelisk.

  Tom was already there, facing the hotel. Navy blue jacket, no hat. Taking his hands out of his pockets. Suarez standing, his back to the camera, Tom half hidden.

  Tom started to stand up, then sat down again. There was some conversation.

  Allison heard Eddie murmuring, “Turn around, you son of a bitch. Turn around. Let’s see that face.”

  Tom shifted. Suarez turned, and for an instant, as his eyes moved over the hotel, Allison was tempted to pull back, but she remained perfectly still except for her index finger on the shutter. Suarez was handsome, about thirtyfive, with curved eyebrows and a widow’s peak. The wind ruffled his hair.

  Suarez sat beside Tom and put the newspaper between them. He dran
k from the paper cup. There was a little more conversation. Then Suarez got up with his newspaper and moved toward the lower right of the viewfinder. Allison started to follow, but swerved the lens back toward Tom.

  Tom sat there with his hands in his pockets for a while. The cup was beside him. He picked it up, looked inside, then put his fingers across the top and slowly turned it upside down. No coffee. Tom removed a black object.

  “That’s it,” Eddie whispered. “Allison, do you have it?”

  “I think so. Yes. But his coat is so dark.”

  When Tom held the object in front of the paper cup, it became a plastic bag with something inside, but the details were too small to make out. Tom put the bag into the paper cup, stood up, and walked out of sight at the bottom of the screen.

  Releasing a breath, Allison stepped away from the window and looked at the camera. She had hit the shutter 173 times.

  Chapter 31

  At four PM, Stuart, a thin, gray-bearded figure in a tan cashmere coat and polished shoes, stepped into the lobby of the Hotel Mercurio. Allison

  met him and took him upstairs. Tom was waiting. He opened the map tube and rolled out the Universalis Cosmographia on the table in their room and handed Stuart a magnifying glass. Allison glanced over at the door to the adjoining suite. It was cracked open. She could guess why: Eddie Ferraro would have a way in if Stuart grabbed the map and tried to run with it. Allison didn’t expect that, but Tom was becoming obsessive. He had even taken the map tube into the bathroom when he showered.

  At last her father set down the magnifying glass. “Excellent. It’s exactly what I wanted. This is mindbending.” He ran his fingers along the margins. “I could swear it’s the same map with the blood magically lifted.”

  “When do we deliver it?” Tom said. “ We do not. That wasn’t part of our bargain. I owe you fifty thousand dollars. We can go to a bank in the morning. It’s too late now, but in the morning I can transfer the funds, and our business is concluded.”

  Tom rolled the map back into its tube. “Give me directions to Champorcher. I’ll meet you there and collect payment after.”

  The Hotel Cellini was a ten-minute walk, but Stuart seemed determined to do it in five. Allison kept up with her father’s long strides as they went south on Via dei Fossi toward the river. To avoid a slow group of shoppers, he stepped off the sidewalk to the street, which was made of square gray bricks aligned in fan-shaped curves. The windows of the small shops seemed to blur past.

  Allison said, “Tom wants to see Mr. Zurin’s reaction. He says there might be questions about the restoration.”

  “Do you expect me to believe that? He deliberately waited until after the banks were closed to show me the map.”

  “You know the reason,” Allison said. “Tom wants to be there when you show the map to Leo Zurin.”

  “We’ll go to a bank in the morning.”

  “He won’t do it. I’m sorry. I suppose that after so much work, he wants to see how the map is received. It’s not much to ask, is it?”

  They had reached the street that ran along the river. Allison took his arm. “Come on, let’s go across.” They headed east on a broad sidewalk that in summer would have been teeming with visitors. A wall separated the street from a grassy slope and the river at the foot of it.

  “He wants to be there,” she said. “Maybe it doesn’t make sense to you, but it’s what he wants. Why are you opposed?”

  “Tom Fairchild is unpredictable. He might say the wrong thing to Leo Zurin. And he shouldn’t be anywhere near Rhonda, after what he did to Larry.”

  “He had cause.”

  “So he says. Larry has another version.”

  “I’m sure,” Allison said.

  “Where is Larry? Have you seen him?”

  “No. He’s not likely to show up around Tom, is he?”

  “Rhonda’s concerned. She hasn’t heard from him since yesterday.”

  “One day? He’s probably drunk somewhere.”

  “Could be, if I know Larry,” he said.

  A narrow boat skimmed the surface of the Arno with four men inside, like some kind of eight-legged water bug. The water was gray glass except for the rippled V of the boat’s wake and the circles left by the oars.

  Allison brought her eyes back to her father. “What about me? Do you know who I am?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing. It’s just—nothing.” She rested her crossed arms on the wall. “Sometimes I feel like we’re strangers. Do you ever feel that way?”

  “Of course I don’t. You’re my daughter.”

  “When did you stop smiling? I remember you used to laugh a lot. I remember that.”

  Stuart held his palms up and grinned like a clown in greasepaint. “How’s this?” When she failed to react, he resumed his gaze across the river. “Now who’s the sourpuss?”

  Allison said, “I’d like to go along, too, if you don’t mind.”

  “Go where?”

  “To Champorcher. I’m curious who this Mr. Zurin is.”

  With a short laugh, Stuart said, “We’ll have a regular party of it.”

  “Tom and I can fly to Milan in the morning. Actually, he doesn’t want me to go, but I’m going anyway.”

  “All right, then. I’ll square it with Rhonda. We’ll rent a car at the airport. Best if you and Tom make your own arrangements. I’ll get directions to you.” Bracing his hands wide on the cracked top of the old wall, he took a breath as though he’d been walking up a steep hill. “Mary and Joseph and the angels. I didn’t think it would happen, and now it’s almost over. This time next month, we’ll be all right. That damned building will go up. I’ll see about getting some of the legal work to you.”

  Allison shook her head.

  “No?”

  She pushed her hair behind her ear. “I’d rather not be involved with The Metropolis.” She looked at him steadily, then said, “When Tom was in London, he saw Jenny Gray. I told you about her. She used to work for Larry at one of his restaurants, sort of a hostess. She told Tom that Larry was paying bribes to public officials. He had somebody on the zoning board photographed with a prostitute. I believe her. That’s so like Larry, and I don’t want to have anything to do with him anymore. I’m going to assume that you didn’t know about it.”

  “Is that a question?”

  “Maybe it is,” she said.

  He took his hands off the wall and dusted them. “If and when you are my lawyer—and you’ve just indicated that you’ve no interest in it—then you may ask me about my business. I will tell you this much. The Metropolis is the last project of its kind that I’ll be involved with.”

  She laughed without amusement. “Have I just been fired?”

  “Don’t be silly. Of course you haven’t.”

  “By the way, Jenny is dead. She was strangled to death in her house the day Tom and I left London.” The shock that passed over his face told Allison the truth. Jenny had been his mistress. Not for long, not happily, but he had slept with her. Allison felt as though she were trying to balance on top of the wall.

  He said, “That’s too bad. Do they know who did it?”

  “No. What a strange thing, too. She was the one who found Royce Herron dead.”

  Stuart squinted slightly in the dull winter light. “Was she? Yes, I believe you mentioned it. Well. What time is it getting to be?” He pulled back his coat sleeve to see his watch. “Nearly five. Rhonda’s expecting me. She’s afraid the map is no good. I’ll be happy to disappoint her.”

  “Wait. Before you go—” Allison opened her bag and felt inside for the small, leather-covered box she had put there earlier. The edges of the brown calfskin were scuffed, and most of the gold embossing had worn away. “Do you know what this is?”

  “Should I?”

  “You don’t recognize it?”

  “Is this a riddle?”

  “In a way. A couple of weeks ago, when I came to your office—it was the Sunday of the map fair,
and Tom had just left—I asked if you remembered the gift you’d brought me from Dublin when I was about three years old. This is it. It’s in here.”

  “Is it?”

  “You said it would always tell me where you were.”

  A helpless smile appeared as he shook his head. “I’ll need a hint.”

  “You don’t remember, do you?”

  “That was a long time ago, Allison.”

  She pressed the brass catch on the front of the box. On faded red velvet lay the miniature globe on its brass stand, blue and ivory, each continent outlined in gold.

  He took it from her. “Yes! The globe. I remember now.” He gave it a spin.

  “Where’d you get it? Do you remember the shop?”

  “Oh, my goodness, no. I probably paid fifty pounds for it, though. Nice little piece, isn’t it?” When he handed it back, he tilted his head and looked at her sideways. “Was there a trick question in there someplace?”

  “No, I was just wondering how much you remembered. That’s all.” She tried to put the globe inside its nest, but her hands were shaking, and it slipped to the pavement and rolled. “Oh!” She picked it up and wiped away some dirt.

  “Careful,” he said. “Is it broken?”

  “It’s fine.” She straightened her glasses, glancing up at him, and their eyes held.

  “Well. See you tomorrow, then,” he said.

  Rhonda heard him come in. The heavy door of their suite slammed, and she looked up from the bench at the end of the bed to see Stuart throw his coat over the sofa. She had been buckling the strap on her shoe.

  She walked to the wide opening between the bedroom and parlor. “My God, Stuart. Was it that bad?”

  “Was what that bad?”

  “The map. What did you think I was referring to?”

  He pursed his lips, and pressed his hand over his beard, then went to the bar and lifted the lid on the ice bucket. “The map is perfect.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I said it’s perfect. It’s a fucking masterpiece. Leo will love it. Tom Fairchild earned his money.” Stuart twirled the lid and caught it. “He wants to go with us, he and Allison. To deliver the map.”