by Ritter Ames
“Are we back to considering the younger generation overthrowing the elder?”
“I don’t think so, but maybe.”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “Your instincts again?”
“Hear me out,” I said. “I’m thinking Rollie was in Florence in a kind of reconnaissance mission ahead of us, and the place emptied after what he found there. He’s not a good guy, but he didn’t like what the other bad guy was doing.”
“Leaving the two men arguing on the street.”
“Possibly?”
“You don’t think Junior is trying to take over the throne with a coup?”
Suddenly all the running and bursts of adrenalin caught up to me, and I rested my head on Jack’s shoulder as I talked. “Moran told me this afternoon he wants to retire to his vineyard. His whole demeanor said he didn’t want to be involved in anything currently going on. I’m thinking he’s hanging in until he can comfortably hand the keys over to Rollie.”
“I need to look at more connections,” Jack mused. “See if I can find alliances to back up any of these ideas. Wait a minute, we’ve gotten sidetracked. You were talking about something else.”
Right, my idea. I started again. “All those copies of the same painting you saw in the crate on the roof,” I said. “We haven’t seen a half-dozen copies of the scene come in yet. We haven’t been looking for it either. Ralf said his cousin was commissioned to make five copies of an abstract, but only put the forger’s mark on four. You don’t remember if any of the ones on the roof had forger’s marks. So…”
Something new tickled my memory.
“What?” he asked. He twisted to look at me “Your eyes say you’ve thought of something else.”
I raised a finger to stop him from saying anything else. There was an idea there, but I had to tease it out. I remembered what Moran told me.
“Moran said all the numbers were changing. What if he was referencing all the numbers of copies coming in with and without forger’s marks? When copies are shipped into countries as ‘copies,’ they aren’t tracked. Nothing is thought about doing so. They’re copies with no provenance. If they’re sold later as originals—”
“They would be discovered because the original is in its normal residence or museum.”
“If it’s where it belongs. What if it’s being cleaned…or restored?”
“Like your friend Nelly did as a profession?”
“Exactly. If the restorer is set to clean a masterwork and can plan ahead—”
“Lord, that reminds me.” Jack shook his head, then took my hand. His expression had me holding my breath as he spoke, “You have more unexpected work ahead. While I waited for the doctor, Whatley called your mobile. I answered when I saw his name in Caller ID.”
“What did he say?”
“The returned tapestry wasn’t the original. When it went to the exhibit and was displayed, an expert noticed something and told your clients it was a fake. They went to the Beacham office and concluded the worst when it was empty and the door nailed shut. Luckily, Whatley heard about it and spoke to them. They’re expecting your call when you get back.”
“Good lord, what do I say?”
“Call Whatley and see what he told them. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to listen to a lot at the time, but once you know what he said you can couch your explanation accordingly.”
“Something I don’t need on top of a nosy reporter biting at my heels about the break-in.”
“I’d forgotten about Ferguson. You’re right. Bad luck all around.”
“I’ll probably need to talk to their insurance adjuster as well.”
“Most likely.” A spasm of pain flashed across his face.
I sandwiched his hand with both of mine. “Are you okay?”
He nodded, but wrapped his free arm around his torso, as if holding in the pain. “Let’s explore this. Keep my mind occupied. If a work is listed as a copy from the beginning, as opposed to an original, a lookalike could be created in a forger’s workshop and shipped into the country as a copy with no customs red flags whatsoever. The switch made after the copy entered legally and without scrutiny.”
I nodded.
“Still, why kill the forgers?” he asked.
“Simon said they couldn’t hold their tongues,” I said. “I’ve been thinking perhaps they were trying the forgers/restorers like interns, to see whose talents were consistently superb and whose weren’t. Those who talked were targeted. Also, nerves might be involved. Remember, il Carver wasn’t targeted until he got suspicious and started hiding out. If anyone acted concerned about the operation or out of character, they were eliminated. Or if they started telling who they worked for. Anything sketchy or worrisome.”
“So he killed them for Ermo Colle.”
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
“You think Moran controlled the palazzo where all the fakes were made. I’ll wager if we go into the files looking hard for forgers who’ve recently been in Florence, we’ll find a couple of the dead forgers worked for Moran. I’m beginning to think Simon hadn’t just switched sides. He was hired to break the competition.”
“Definite possibility.” I pulled out my phone and added a note with my memo app. “I’ll get Nico tracking passport information for the months preceding some of the forgers’ deaths.”
“What about Ralf’s cousin? He didn’t work for Moran, so does he skew the pattern?”
“I imagine he was one of victims who annoyed Simon and got taken out due to attitude. He was young. Ralf is cocky, and I can’t imagine a Burkhard relative not being the same. Especially one known for being young and successful at what he did. Maybe he talked about the wrong thing at the wrong time. He’d been at a bar drinking with friends the night he was killed, remember.”
Jack frowned. “Yeah, but one thing bothers me about his death and Ralf connecting him to Colle. The red hair found on the scene. If it’s your assertion the Amazon worked for Rollie—which makes more sense the more I think about it, by the way—what would the reason be for her to kill the young artist? Or is the hair a coincidence?”
The cold hard look in Rollie’s eyes flashed in my memory. Moran’s words about the killing soon stopping echoed in my ears. I took a deep breath. “Nico said something almost prophetic when you and I were in Florence. While he was drowning in all his and Cassie’s research he said this thing was bigger than we’d originally thought. If Rollie found out Simon was executing Moran’s forgers, who’s to say he wouldn’t decide it was open season for Ermo Colle’s contractors?”
“So both sides had their own hit squads going after each other’s forgers.”
“What I’m thinking.” I nodded. “And since Tony B didn’t work for Moran, he had to be working for Colle. Which explains why the Amazon killed him. Rollie put out the hit on Tony B. That’s a project you could take to MI-6, tying evidence of the hits to Rollie and the Amazon to convict for the murders.”
“Yes, and with the knife and information on Simon too, we can get MI-6 interested from the turf wars angle. Keep both sides busy while we’re working on new angles to stop the heist.”
“With luck, MI-6 might even find and share intel we can use. We’ll all be working together without having to worry about moles leaking info on where we are in stopping the heist, since MI-6 won’t be privy to that information.”
“Good point,” Jack replied. The PA came on announcing landing preparations. He waited until the speaker quieted before saying, “Back to the numbers thing. Why did your friend Nelly need multiple passports in different names and countries of origin?”
“Damn.”
“Don’t beat yourself up,” he said. “You’ve filled in a lot of blanks tonight. Your theory about the copies is a good hypothesis and one to research. Who knows where it may lead? We know multipl
e copies were made, but it’s not being done for motel art. Whoever is in charge of this thing, though, I think we can narrow our suspected organizations down to one—”
“I don’t believe Moran is totally innocent,” I added.
“I’d never presume that,” Jack agreed. “As I was saying, this isn’t for some kind of cut-rate market. The perpetrators have a more lucrative reason. The guns we found in Florence make it all the more worrisome.”
“Moran said something reminding me of it. Something like, ‘The easiest or best way to make money isn’t necessarily art.’”
Jack nodded. “Yes, if we aren’t careful, art may reach a point more for laundering gun and drug money than for true connoisseurs to add to collections. It’s probably not as big as Hollywood would have us believe, but it’s a known concern.”
“Makes me more prone to thinking Moran is behind the copies after all,” I said, chuckling a little. The question Rollie asked me about my motivation for trying to catch them put point to my thought as well.
“Imagine the satisfaction of getting the worst bad guys to pay millions for copies of art worth practically nothing. All to launder gun money. I’d think it was karma except every time a painting goes for an unheard-of price, it drives up the price for everything else. Soon, no one will be able to afford good art.”
“Yes, looking closer at the copies is an angle we’ve virtually ignored up to this point,” he said. “While we may have taken the long route to get home, the journey was definitely worth it.”
“Cassie and Nico should have a field day with the idea of crunching numbers nonstop.”
“Just know, if they don’t want to do it, the whole numbers thing was your idea,” he said.
I slapped his leg. “See, this is why you don’t have a dedicated team like I do. You’re a chicken. No one wants to be led by a chicken.”
“You admitted you’re a wimp,” Jack said. “A chicken and a wimp. I’d say we make a good pair, as long as you qualify your wimpiness as only relating to cold. I doubt Simon would ever call you a wimp. Or your father.” He yawned.
“If they can,” I said.
“Don’t think about it too much,” he warned. “You did the right thing.”
Jack’s car was still in my hotel’s garage, and he stayed with me from the time we left Heathrow. I had a feeling he was doing it simply to keep an eye on me. From his coloring, I wasn’t sure he’d be much help if anyone crossed our path along the way. “You’re not going to drive while you’re on pain pills.”
“Believe me, there is no longer any pain medication in my system,” he said, holding his side as he spoke. “I’ll be as careful as any little old granny until I get into my flat. Then I’m going to sleep for a week.”
“You’re sure you don’t want me to drive you?”
“I’ve been knocked around much more than this and successfully drove myself home.”
“Yeah, but that was when you were younger. You’re what…” I thought of the roulette wheel. “…thirty-two?”
His frowned deepened, and I didn’t think it was from the pain. I knew for sure it wasn’t when he said, “I know what you’re hinting at. I haven’t forgotten what I said.”
“Good, we won’t have to talk about it.”
Go ahead, pull the other one, Jack.
Twenty-Four
Instead of a week, Jack called the next evening, surprising me out of a funk I’d let myself fall into. Cassie and Nico were even deeper in their researching in New York, and had a few leads to check out. I’d started my day apologizing in person to the owners of the tapestry we now knew was fake, and spent an hour with their insurance appraiser giving what info I could without risking our mission. Then I spoke to the head of the Beacham legal team in New York. A part of me wished I didn’t know Simon was dead, so I could track him down again and kill him myself.
To make matters worse, my new pet reporter learned I was back in the U.K. and phoned on my way back from meeting the insurance underwriters.
“Hallo, Lincoln Ferguson here,” he greeted. “Remember me?
I was glad he couldn’t see my eye roll.
“Yes, of course I remember you, Mr. Ferguson,” I replied, striding quickly across a zebra crossing with a midday crowd of Londoners.
A horn honked at someone behind me, and he asked, “Have I called at a bad time?”
“I’m on the run between appointments.” I laughed, trying to keep it light. “Pretty normal for me. I’m rarely working quietly behind a desk.”
“Exactly the kind of detail I’m interested in,” he said.
Damn. I couldn’t win. I took a deep breath. “Really nothing interesting, I can assure you, Mr. Ferguson.”
“Call me Linc.”
I moved out of the walking masses and over to a quiet corner park. “I don’t want to sound rude, but I’m just back into the country and I have a full agenda.”
“Wanted to see if we could meet. Tea, beer, wine, your choice. You know, a pre-interview interview sort of thing. I have some questions.”
Exactly what I was afraid of. “I’m sorry, Mr. Ferg—Linc, but I really don’t have time at the moment.”
“With your assistant gone and all,” he said.
My antenna went to the stratosphere. “You do your research.”
“Just my job.”
I forced another laugh. “Well, I’m currently trying to do mine, and I don’t have enough hours in the day as it is. How about I call you when I see a break in my schedule.”
“Brilliant,” he said, and surprised me by winding things up quickly. “I’ll look forward to it. You can reach me at—”
“The number on Caller ID?”
“Correct.”
“I’ll make a note of it,” I said. “Thank you. Have a good day.”
“You as well.”
I wasn’t optimistic.
The rest of the day was spent in my hotel room on a tedious succession of phone conversations with contractors and building permit supervisors, trying to get the office repaired. When Jack rang, I jumped at the chance for dinner out. I was puzzled when he said to wear a warm coat, but assumed it was a hint he wanted his bomber jacket returned. I spent a half-hour cleaning stains on the leather and rubbing it with oil, feeling pretty proud of my work when I finished. I washed my hands, grabbed my leather coat and the Fendi, and left my hotel room with the jacket left draped over the desk chair. I forgot it. Accidentally.
We met near the Tower complex on the river walk along the Thames. It was one of my favorite haunts in London, and I assumed it was why Jack chose the spot. I was wrong about that as well.
A half-hour later we were cruising the Thames, alone on a lovely launch with our own captain to pilot the boat and a waiter on hand to whisk away each empty dish and refill our glasses. Light jazz played softly over the speakers. Our view from the middle of the river showed London glorious, as the city was lit for the unending night under the navy blue sky. We dined on superbly grilled salmon and vegetables covered with a fruit sauce I would have eaten by itself. The bread was like a first dessert, but the caramel creation at the end topped it all. He brought wine for me, a marvelous white, but his glass stayed filled with water.
“Jack, this is fabulous.”
“I wanted to change the memory of our last date along the Thames,” he said.
“Well, this certainly does it. An amazing end to a pretty boring day.”
He looked pretty amazing too. I’d expected poor wan Hawkes, but twenty-four hours of sleep obviously did good things for him. The waiter came and removed the table, shifting it to the back corner of the boat. Jack stood up and offered me a hand.
“Boring days are good,” he said. “We’ve had more than our share of exciting ones in a row lately. I fear they aren’t over yet.”
“I think I can forget excitement for…well, this evening.” I pointed to the padded benches along the side. “Do you want to sit over there?”
The waiter removed our chairs.
“Or we could dance,” Jack said. “Remember, it was my punishment.”
“Oh, I think you’ve been punished enough lately, but I’ll take a few spins around the deck with you.”
I realized why the music had been slow tunes all night. Mind, I wasn’t complaining; the ambience was lovely. A few minutes of cheek to cheek, and he was whispering in my ear. Memories of growing up, coming to London with his mother to see exhibits at The Tate and the National Gallery. I listened, taking in the true tone of his anecdotes, drinking in the intoxicating smell of him, and saying a silent prayer he was back again and almost in one piece—and I hadn’t lost him.
The thought about my mandate made me cringe a little, and I was about to tell him I’d changed my mind when he said, “I’m going to break a few laws telling you this, but yes, I’m sort of with MI-6. At least, I work with them and they work with me. Chiefly, I’m with the Home Office.”
I pulled back in surprise. “Ohmigod, Jack. I can’t believe you said that.”
“It can’t be a shock. You’d figured out most of it.”
“No, I’m not shocked at what you said. I’m shocked you finally told me.” I returned my head to his shoulder—the one without the broken ribs underneath—and said, “But how is the Home Office connected to art? I thought it was all caught up in immigration and visas, drugs and counter-terrorism. Stuff along those lines.”
“As we discussed on the plane, more and more art is being tied recently to drug and gun money. It’s all a question of security and law and order,” he explained, his voice remaining low. The information went into my ear and not any farther. “My position was created to act alone. To get me in places a unit couldn’t. To determine what was a threat and what wasn’t. Different people know me with different histories. Some rather colorful histories, by the way. My connection to the art world through my mother gives me more insight, and my ability to recognize faces adds to my purpose. The only problem I ever have with the job is the inflexibility of the ranks. But I haven’t let it hold me back. Much.”
