Chasing Cezanne
Page 23
It was Andre who suggested a detour to Nice airport. “First, the place is always crawling with cars, so we might have a chance of losing them. And when they see us turn off, they’ll think we’re going to take a plane. We go into one of the parking areas, straight through the other side, and out.” Franzen nodded, tightening his grip on the steering wheel.
“Goddamn it,” said Holtz. “They’re going to take a plane.” Paradou did his best to stay within sight of the other car as it joined the melee of traffic fighting its way through the labyrinth of service roads that coiled around three sides of the main bank of buildings. He was foiled by a tourist bus pulling out in front of them, lost two precious minutes, and by the time the road cleared, the Citroen was gone.
“Go straight to the terminal,” said Holtz.
But as they quickly discovered, Nice airport has two terminals, a considerable distance apart. Leaving Camilla and Holtz in the car outside one of them, Paradou ran up to the other and was rewarded by the sight of the back of Franzen’s Citroen as it swerved out of the car park and took the exit road marked Toutes Directions.
Sweating, murderously angry, short of breath, he got back to the Renault, to find it surrounded by a knot of taxi drivers—voluble, gesticulating taxi drivers, who were shouting at the two figures cowering in the back to move their putain car from the rank where it was forbidden to stop, where it was trespassing on the taxi drivers’ God-granted right to every parking space outside the terminal. He pushed through them, none too gently, and got into the car. “The bastards conned us,” he said. “I saw them go.”
Andre looked back at the traffic behind them on the Promenade des Anglais. Every other car seemed to be a white Renault. “I can’t be sure,” he said. “But I know they weren’t behind us coming out of the airport. I think we’re OK.”
Franzen grunted. Cyrus stayed silent, going over in his mind what he would say to Denoyer. Andre and Lucy continued to keep watch through the rear window as the signs for Villefranche and Saint-Jean came up and the Citroen turned down toward the sea.
Denoyer waved goodbye to his wife, pleased to have the afternoon to himself while she and Claude went into Nice. In previous years, he had always loved his first few days back on Cap Ferrat: the peace before the summer guests came, the garden with its pines and cypresses such a sculpted, orderly pleasure after the extravagant vegetation of the Bahamas, the different taste of the air, the comfort of his wine cellar and his library. There was much for a man to enjoy. But this year it wasn’t quite the same. Try as he might to believe the reassuring words of Rudolph Holtz the last time they had spoken, the Cézanne was never far from his mind, and the lack of information over the past few days was disturbing. He would call Holtz again tomorrow—no, he would call him now. Surely there would be news.
He was halfway across the hall when he heard the sound of the buzzer.
“Monsieur Denoyer?” said an unknown voice over the intercom. “Livraison.”
Something else that Catherine had ordered. There was always a flurry of deliveries during their first days back. Denoyer pressed the button that opened the main gate and went to stand outside the front door.
The white Renault sat in the airport’s short-term parking area, cooking in the sun, a situation that did nothing to improve the already overheated tempers inside the car. Camilla sulked, thoroughly bored with Rudi, Paradou, nasty little cars, France, and wild-goose chases. Her solution to the problem—to walk over to the terminal and take the first flight to Paris—had produced a predictably stinging response from Holtz. She now sat, lips firmly sealed, staring with distaste at the perspiration running down the back of Paradou’s thick neck. Holtz was muttering to himself, thinking out loud.
“That might be it,” he said finally. “They think they can sell independently; they might be going to do a deal. It’s all we’ve got anyway. Paradou? Cap Ferrat, as fast as you can.” Camilla recoiled as Holtz suddenly turned to her. “You can find Denoyer’s house, can’t you? You spent enough time there.”
“What are you going to say to him?” But Holtz was already far away, his imagination hard at work on a story of Franzen’s theft, double-crossing, duplicity, and his own hero’s role as last-minute savior.
It had been a startling, almost shocking half hour for Denoyer as he tried to absorb the details that Cyrus and Andre took turns in describing. While they talked, his eye kept returning to the paintings propped up against a chair. Whatever else these people had done, he thought, they had at least brought back his Cézanne. And that indicated a certain honesty. Could he believe them? Could he trust them? Did he have to, with the painting back in his possession?
“It goes without saying,” said Cyrus, “that you may not want to have anything more to do with us”—a doleful look—“but should you decide to go ahead with the sale, I think I can promise you the utmost discretion, and obviously I’ll be happy to provide any references you may require.”
Denoyer looked at the four attentive faces around him, looked again at the paintings—the forger had really done a formidable job—and shrugged. “You’re not expecting an instant decision?”
Of course I am, thought Cyrus. “Of course not,” he said.
The buzzer sounded out in the hall, and Denoyer excused himself. He was a puzzled man when he came back into the room. “Someone who says he’s with Rudolph Holtz,” he said. “I didn’t open the gate.”
Through the open window, they heard the popping sound of two gunshots in quick succession, then a third. “I think he’s opening it himself,” said Andre. “Is there another way out of here?”
Denoyer looked through the window. At the end of the drive, a figure was kicking at the bars of the gate. “Come with me.” Scooping up the paintings, he led them through to the back of the house, out across a terrace, down into the tunnel to the dock. “I have to call the police,” said Denoyer. “This is outrageous.”
Camilla flinched as that dreadful man emptied a fresh clip of ammunition at the gate. She was on the verge of a serious migraine, she could tell. “Rudi! Rudi! Stop him! This is Cap Ferrat, for God’s sake!”
Holtz ignored her, watching Paradou test the lock with another kick. The Frenchman shook his head. “Do you want to try ramming it with the car?”
Holtz chewed his lip, staring through the bars, trying to accept that it was too late. Denoyer was probably calling the police by now, and there was only one way out: the way they had come. It was time to leave; he couldn’t risk getting trapped. And he realized he wasn’t going to get hold of the painting—not here, at any rate. But Pine would go back to New York, and once he was in New York … A movement in the distance through the tops of the trees made Holtz squint into the sun. He saw a small shape move across the dark mirror of the sea, leaving a long white gash on the surface that led in a straight line from below the house. He stepped away from the gate. “Forget it,” he said. “Take me to the airport.”
None of them drew breath until the water-ski boat, low in the water with five on board, was two hundred yards offshore. Lucy relaxed her grip on Andre’s hand. “I hate to tell you,” she said, “but I get seasick unless I’m distracted.”
Andre looked at her and smiled. He had never seen a less sickly-looking face in his life. “Would the thought of another week in Paris take your mind off it?”
“It would help.” She reached up to wipe the spray from his face. “Two weeks would definitely do it.”
Denoyer eased the throttle back to idling speed and turned to look at his house. “Outrageous,” he said again. “Guns! Gangsters on Cap Ferrat! Scandaleux. I can tell you one thing, Monsieur Pine. We go straight to the police in Saint-Jean, and after this, there will be no further dealings with Holtz.” He smiled at Cyrus, who was shielding both canvases with his jacket. “Naturally, I would be much happier if there were one less forgery in the world.”
“Indeed,” said Cyrus. “Absolutely. See your point entirely. Nico?”
The Dutchman sighed. He leane
d over to Cyrus and selected a canvas. He brought it close to his face, kissed it, and, with a backward jerk of his arm that threatened to capsize the boat, flung it over his shoulder. It landed flat and bobbed gently on the surface, the Woman with Melons staring up at the sky as water washed across her face.
“I hope to God that was the right one,” said Cyrus. But he said it to himself.
BOOKS BY PETER MAYLE
“Peter Mayle [is] something of a wonder … chronicling the scene around him in irresistible prose.”
—Time
A DOG’S LIFE
A Dog’s Life, enhanced by the splendidly whimsical drawings of Edward Koren, is the irresistible memoir of Boy, Peter Mayle’s adopted dog of uncertain origins and dubious hunting skills, who has clearly inherited Mr. Mayle’s gift for pedigree prose and biting wit.
Fiction/Pets/0-679-76267-1
HOTEL PASTIS
In this novel of romance, adventure, and tongue-in-cheek suspense, Simon Shaw has decided to chuck it all and transform an abandoned police station in the Lubéron into the small but world-class Hotel Pastis, only to discover the hard way that an inept band of bank robbers have chosen the neighboring village for their next heist.
Fiction/0-679-75111-4
TOUJOURS PROVENCE
Taking up where his much-loved A Year in Provence left off, Peter Mayle offers the reader another funny, beautifully (and deliciously) evocative tour of life in Provence. This is an enchanting portrait of a place whose characters are full of the wit, charm, and tales only those who live there could possess.
Travel/0-679-73604-2
A YEAR IN PROVENCE
In this witty and warm-hearted account that was a major national bestseller, Peter Mayle tells what it is like to realize a long-cherished dream and actually move into a two-hundred-year-old farmhouse in the French countryside. A Year in Provence transports us into all the earthy pleasures of Provençal life and lets us live vicariously at a tempo governed by seasons, not by days.
Travel/0-679-73114-8
Available at your local bookstore, or call toll-free to order:
1-800-793-2665 (credit cards only).