Follow That Blonde

by Joan Smith

  “I'm going to peek in the window,” I said. Nancy came with me. We approached the gallery like a couple of thieves, wearing our sunglasses as a disguise.

  The gallery was small, but fairly respectable as far as architecture and decor went. The paintings in the window were nothing special. One was an inferior pre-Raphaelite nymph cavorting in a meadow, the other a scene of Tuscany that was either very old or wore half a dozen coats of varnish. There were a few people I didn't recognize inside—American tourists to judge by the Reeboks and sun hats. Their presence allayed my fears.

  Nancy and I strolled along to the jewelry store, where she became entranced by a tray of engagement rings. I was more interested in the mauve door. After sixty seconds, which seemed like at least half an hour, Nick hadn't come out. I had only seen Maria once, at the Contessa's party, and she hadn't paid much attention to me. “I'm going into the gallery,” I said.

  “Better let me do it. She might recognize you."

  “She saw you, too,"

  “I'll cover my hair with a kerchief."

  We argued for a minute, but in the end, it was Nancy who went in, her identifying mane covered by a kerchief and her face disguised by sunglasses. She just made a quick tour, and came about again. “There's nobody in the shop except Maria and the tourists and Nick. She's trying to get rid of the tourists fast. I noticed she kept looking at Nick with her bedroom eyes. He's safe from anything except possible seduction. The Americans—they're from Minnesota—gave three hundred and fifty dollars in travelers’ checks for a picture of the Ponte Vecchio that I wouldn't hang in the basement. Maria couldn't guarantee absolutely it was a Canaletto, but definitely of that period. Both appeared pleased with the transaction. Some poor housewife in Minnesota will have her living room disfigured with that awful brown square."

  I wasn't really interested in Maria's sales. “You're sure there's nobody else in the back of the gallery?"

  “I don't have X-ray eyes."

  “She's just waiting till the tourists leave, then they'll jump him. We better call that cop."

  No sooner were the words out of my mouth than the tourists came out, hugging their painting and smiling. I felt as if ten teenagers were break-dancing inside me. When Maria came to the window and closed the blinds, I felt actually nauseous with fear. Then she came to the door, opened it, and looked up and down the street, and closed it again, obviously locking it. We heard the metallic clank of metal on metal. We had left it too late. We couldn't get in now without breaking the door down.

  I was in no condition to monitor what was going on in the street. It was Nancy who spotted Conan, and poked me in the ribs. He had never looked more frightening, although he was dressed respectably in a business suit and tie. The man was a mountain of muscle, with the sort of build seen in Mr. Universe contests, meaty bulges oiled to display the grossly deformed human body. The suit only emphasized his inhuman face and jerky, muscle-bound stride. I thought of Bert's mottled body after Conan had caught him. Nick was willowy. He'd crumple like a reed under those ham-hock fists.

  If Conan went in that door, I would definitely have a heart attack. And where else could he possibly be going? Maria had phoned him the minute Nick called, and he had come running. Incredibly, he walked right past, but he looked with interest at the closed blinds, smiled menacingly, and hastened his steps. He turned right at the corner and disappeared.

  “I bet he's going in the back way!” I exclaimed.

  “We've got to stop him!” Nancy said. She was white with apprehension. “The policeman—oh, he's too far away. They could kill him before we get back. But we can't go in empty-handed. We've got to find a weapon."

  We ran after Conan, watching which way he went. He turned in at the back of the shop on the corner. We followed at a discreet distance. There was an alleyway. When he stopped a few doors along, we jumped out of sight behind a protruding shack at the rear of one of the shops. We heard the click of a door being unlocked, the faint squawk of an unoiled hinge. When we looked out, he had disappeared.

  “He wouldn't be sneaking in the back way if he weren't up to something,” I whispered. My throat ached.

  “What can we use as a weapon?” Nancy asked.

  There were bits of debris littering the lane. Nancy picked up a fallen branch. I wrestled a rusty piece of pipe from the reluctant earth, where it had been planted decades before to hold a wire fence, which was still attached to another pipe some yards along. We crept to the doorway. Conan had left the door ajar in his haste, or perhaps to obviate the possibility of more squawking hinges alerting Nick to his presence. The room appeared to be a storage area. There were two rough tables littered with junk and canvases piled against the wall.

  There was a door and a dark hallway at the far side of the room. After our eyes became accustomed to the gloom we could make out dim shapes. The light bulk at the end of the hallway, hiding and listening, was Conan. Fortunately he was turned sideways, not looking behind him. We ducked out of view and stood listening. The pounding of a pulse in my ears drowned out more useful sounds. I risked a peek. Conan was just taking a shiny revolver from his pocket. With his other hand, he seemed to be doing something to the tip of the muzzle. I thought he was putting a silencer on the gun.

  CHAPTER 16

  I got a tight grip on my pipe. I stood irresolute, on the verge of going after him. Then he slid the gun into his coat pocket, and I ducked in case he looked around. When I looked again a few seconds later, he was gone. He had gone into the front of the gallery then, where Maria and Nick were discussing the Frageau. Gone with the shiny gun hidden in his pocket. Nick thought they wouldn't kill him there, but what was to prevent them from moving his body? Another corpse would roll up on the banks of the Tiber, as they had been doing from time immemorial. I shouldn't have let him come. He'd only done it to impress me.

  We tiptoed into the storeroom and eased our way to the front of the corridor. A curtain separated it from the shop, but a partial view was visible from the edge of the curtain. Maria had already introduced Nick and Conan. They were shaking hands. I noticed the front right pocket of both men's jackets sagged a little, and wondered if Nick had noticed that Conan was armed. Blind as a bat and nervous, he wouldn't notice, but Conan was slyer. He was used to this kind of murderous activity. They began examining the painting. Most of their conversation, in Italian of course, went over my head, but I knew they were surprised that it was an abstract. I could interpret "meravigliosa,” “splendente," and a few other compliments. Then Maria's eyes lowered to the signature and she gasped, “Frageau!” She and Conan exchanged a quick, alarmed, questioning look.

  Nick couldn't have failed to notice that. He talked on unconcernedly. I understood some words—Paris, Hansen, morte, Frageau, Roma, cinquanta mille, and figured that he was saying something like, “This is from my Parisian period. I wouldn't want it confused with a Hansen. There's a bizarre rumor around that I'm dead—as you can see, I'm alive and well, and living in Rome. It's not quite as valuable as a Hansen. Frageau usually sells for approximately fifty thousand, I believe."

  “Frageau? But who is that?” Maria asked.

  “As guilty as a schoolgirl caught with her knickers down” was the way Nancy described her look later. It was that kind of a look—guilt tinged with uncertainty and fear. Maria looked at Conan, who was fingering his right pocket. Maybe Nick did notice. He began to do the same, while making departure sounds. I prayed like I haven't prayed since I had my tonsils out, and was convinced I was going to die. They'd let him go, and Nancy and I could slip quietly out the back door. It seemed my prayer was going to be answered. Nick turned toward the locked front door, leaving the painting with Maria.

  No one followed him. He jiggled the handle; it didn't open. Conan nodded to Maria. She went forward to help him. My jangling nerves began to subside. Maria's hands were on the lock, as though it was jammed or something. Nick reached forward to help her, with his back to Conan. That was when Conan made his move. His massive, un
gainly frame glided forward as agiley as a cat, while his right hand drew the gun from his pocket. I underestimated Nick. With equal speed and agility, he got Maria's body wedged between his and Nick's gun. In his hand, he, too, held a pistol.

  It was a standoff. Nick barked a few words at Conan. Conan looked at his gun, Maria hollered something obscene-sounding at Conan, and he tossed the gun to the floor. But Nick still wasn't out of the shop, and he was out-numbered. Nancy and I exchanged a scared stiff look and rushed forward. There were some excited exclamations from Maria and Conan. Nancy beat me to Conan's gun by inches. I unlocked the front door and we all scampered out into the street. Escape was foremost in our minds. Any calling of police would be done with walls and doors between us and Conan. Even without a gun, he could inflict serious damage. We did some speed-walking away from the gallery, without paying much attention to where we were going. I clung on to Nick's hand as if an avenging angel might sweep out of the sky and take him away from me. Nick was equally tenacious.

  “Did you spot Conan, or why did you decide to come to my rescue?” Nick asked. Perspiration beaded his brow, and he was breathing very hard and fast.

  “We saw him going around the corner and in the back way,” I said. “There wasn't time to call the police. We'll call them now.” I noticed Nancy had already gotten rid of her branch, so I leaned my pipe against a storefront.

  “Not yet. We don't have any evidence,” Nick objected.

  “He pulled a gun on you! What do we need, a corpse?"

  “I want to hang around and see who else shows up. Conan and Maria didn't know I knew I was Frageau. That really threw them. If they're in this with Boisvert and Lingini, why didn't they know? Boisvert knows I'm on to him. My phone call to Paris tipped him off if he didn't suspect already. He'd have been in touch with his wife."

  “Yes, and his friend's attempt to kill you confirms it,” I added. The speed walking was getting to me. I was gasping for breath. “Where are we going, to your car?"

  “Too obvious,” he muttered, and looked up and down the street for inspiration, but we kept walking back toward the car. Nick jiggled assorted car door handles as we went. He stopped at a black Fiat that the driver had left unlocked and opened the door.

  “We can't do this!” I exclaimed, already doing it. “What on earth will we say if the owner comes out?"

  “We tell him we made a mistake, thought it was our friend's car,” Nick said, as though I were a lunatic for asking.

  Nick was as nervous as a cat. He lit one of the awful Gauloises he'd been using to “age” the Frageau, and blew the smoke out the window. We all sat staring at the mauve door and the drawn blinds at the window. It took Boisvert and his crooked-nosed henchman fifteen minutes to arrive. It was the first time I had actually seen the elusive Boisvert. He looked a little like de Gaulle, but shorter and altogether less imposing, though he was half a foot taller than his cooked-nosed friend.

  “I thought Boisvert and Conan weren't working together,” I reminded Nick.

  “I only said Conan didn't know I knew I was Frageau. They must be working together all right. Boisvert was just holding out on them."

  “You left the Frageau there, Nick!” Nancy exclaimed.

  “That's the reason I went, to deliver the Frageau."

  Boisvert knocked on the gallery door and Conan let him and his friend in.

  “The clan is gathering,” Nick said, his eyes narrowed, but I think it was the smoke from the Gauloise that caused it.

  “Too bad Interpol isn't gathering,” I said. “Are we just going to sit here and watch them all eventually disperse?"

  Nick looked at me hopefully. “You wouldn't happen to be an Interpol agent?"

  “With these fingernails?"

  Nancy came to attention. “I wonder if Bert is—Interpol, I mean. Maybe that's why..."

  A mangy black dog wandered by. “Or Fido might be an agent,” Nick said hopelessly.

  I mentally finished Nancy's sentence. That's why Bert wouldn't return to the States.

  A short argument ensued, started by me. “I don't know how you expected Interpol to come, Nick. The only person you notified is Lingini."

  “I don't know where Claude and Réné are staying."

  “They're not Interpol."

  “They didn't come with Boisvert,” he pointed out vaguely.

  “Some catalyst. All that'll happen is that they'll take the Frageau and run. Sell it for another fifty thousand and leave you in the lurch—till they find time to kill you."

  “If they run, I'll follow."

  “We have two guns,” Nancy said. She took out Conan's with the silencer attached to the muzzle. I felt nervous, just being in the car with it, and told her to put it away. I was definitely not made for this adventurous life.

  “We better go to your car, Nick, if you're planning to follow them,” I said. Really the man was hopeless.

  “There are keys in this Fiat,” he replied.

  Within thirty seconds, there was also an irate citizen with a briefcase at the door, demanding to know what we were doing in his car. Nick was the soul of charm. "Scusi, signore." He explained the “error.” His friend had an identical car. We were to meet him, wait here. When we saw the keys in the ignition ... The man hmphed, threw up his hands, used the words, "polizia" and "ladro" (thief) a couple of times, then melted into smiles when Nancy unfolded herself from the backseat. Eventually the man left in his Fiat.

  “Still no Interpol,” I worried. And still no commotion from behind the mauve door of the Minosi Gallery. The curtains remained closed.

  As we all stood looking at the door, a motor scooter pulled up. The driver was not immediately recognizable, but beneath the black helmet there hung a black beard, and when Bert removed the helmet, we saw his moustache was in place as well.

  For a wild instant I thought Bert was an Interpol agent. What did I really know about him? He'd left Troy eight years ago. He'd been all around the world since then. A tour guide would make a good cover for an international agent, and Bert had always had devious twists in him. It was no mistake he had fallen into the Tiber and been saved from drowning by Nick. He had arranged it, as he had arranged a job at the Risorgimento. Probably he had even arranged to meet Conan and Maria. And now he was here, to save our bacon.

  He lifted the visor of his helmet and said, “So what's going down here, folks? I decided to drop by on my way to the hotel."

  My vision faded. Bert Garr an Interpol agent? Sure, and I was Mata Hari.

  “All hell's breaking loose,” Nick told him. “They're all in there. Conan pulled a gun and was going to kill me."

  “Conan?” Bert looked like a frozen fish, eyes goggling.

  “He was the first one to arrive."

  “I'm gone. I'm history. You didn't see me."

  “Bert, you chicken!” Nancy exclaimed. “Lana and I went in and rescued Nick. We're women! Are you going to run away from trouble all the rest of your life?"

  “You got it.” He pushed the helmet in place, stepped on the pedal and roared away. One corner of the beard had come loose and was flapping in the wind.

  Nancy gave a disgruntled look and said, “My hero."

  “We should have asked him to call the police,” I said. “Nick, you'd better call them."

  Bert's conscience, or maybe his wish to redeem himself in front of Nancy, got the better of him. He turned around and came rushing back. “Want I should send the cops?” he hollered.

  I said, “Yes!"

  “We wouldn't want you to put yourself in too much danger,” Nancy snipped.

  Bert looked like a dog that had been whipped. His face was red, but as he hadn't been lying, I assumed it was shame. He didn't answer her, but he didn't leave. While he sat there on the bike, trying to decide what to do, a big white Bentley pulled up in front of the Minosi and stopped, right in the middle of the road. A band of men with guns jumped out, and in the center of the small army strode Contessa Lingini, fashionable as ever in white linen
slacks and a brothel red top, cut in a low V in the back. In her manicured fingers she carried a dainty little pistol. Another car, an ordinary red Fiat, roared up behind it and Claude and Réné got out.

  Lingini tossed her head and one of the men tried the door knob. When it didn't open, he put his shoulder to it and broke it down, just like in the movies. Lingini strolled in as calmly as if she owned the place. We all looked at each other in confusion. “Maybe I should go and help her?” Nick asked doubtfully.

  I held his arm. “Let's wait and see if there's shooting. We don't know why she's here."

  There was no shooting. The first to emerge from the door, about five minutes later, was Conan, held down on either side by Lingini's armed men. His arms were pulled behind his back. Boisvert and his crooked-nosed friend were next, Claude was minding Boisvert, Réné in charge of the other. Last came Maria, with Lingini's long fingernails pinching into her upper arm in a way that would leave bruises. In her other hand, Lingini carried the Frageau. It was wrapped again in Nick's wrapping paper.

  Lingini spoke to one of the men, who stayed behind at the shop with the broken lock. The rest of them piled into the two cars, and as quickly and quietly as they had arrived, the cars zoomed away. The people passing on the sidewalk hardly even glanced at the drama.

  “Is this okay?” Bert asked in confusion.

  Nick hunched his shoulders “Who knows? The Contessa could be Interpol, or she could be..."

  “Holy Christ! You mean—the mob?"

  Nick hunched his shoulders again. “She must be one or the other, don't you think?” he asked doubtfully. “Such a public display of force..."

  Bert looked at Nancy. She looked a challenge at him. “Maybe we'd better follow that blonde,” Bert decided, and revved up the motorcycle, but he kept several car lengths behind.

  “Hop in,” Nick invited, and we wedged into the Alfa-Romeo. He turned the key; the motor didn't make a sound. Dead as a doornail. Nick kept turning the key and pressing on the gas. In frustration he added the persuasion of a fist to the dashboard dials. Eventually he remembered. “It seems we're out of gas,” he said sheepishly.