False colors

by Powell, Richard, 1908-1999

  I tried to sort out my thoughts. It was hard to do, because they were blowing around in my head like dead leaves. The fact that Nancy and Nick hadn't been shot and left in the Vernon

  house meant that they might still be alive. Kay might still be alive, too. Lassiter probably had some tricky plan for getting rid of them, and it might take time to put it into effect. So I could do one of two tilings. I could go to Lassiter's house and see how many answers I could buy with five bullets. However, Lassiter might have taken Nancy and Nick and Kay somewhere else. I would lose a lot of time if I guessed wrong on that.

  The other thing I could do was call the police and try to sell them the idea that Lassiter and Joe Molo had murdered McCann and had kidnapped the others. But the cops might find that story hard to believe. They might want to figure it the easy way: Nick killed McCann, and ran off with Nancy. Knowing Nick and Nancy, I couldn't go for that. But the cops very probably would. And while I argued with them, it might get too late to do anything. So picking the police could be as wrong an answer as going alone to Lassiter's. I hefted McCann's revolver, and tried to stop my thoughts from blowing around.

  The doorbell rang.

  My thoughts were still whirling all over the place and I went to the door and opened it. I don't know what I expected. Maybe I thought Nancy would come skipping back from a shopping trip. It wasn't Nancy, though. It was a cop in uniform.

  "Morning, sir," he said. "We've been checking all the houses in the street. A call came in about a shooting along here. Whoever called wasn't clear about the address and. . . and. . ."

  His voice trailed off. His glance dropped from my face to my right hand. His face tightened and he jerked back and reached for his hip. I didn't have to look down. I could feel what was in my right hand. I had walked stupidly to the door carrying McCann's revolver.

  I*slammed the door in the cop's face. Now I didn't have to decide about going to the police. They'd be coming for me. And they wouldn't listen to my wild yarn, either. For a while it would look like a perfect case: a murdered detective, and a murderer caught with a revolver in his hand. Outside the cop yelled to his partner to run and cover the back. I stuck the revolver in my pocket and raced through the house and across the

  garden and into the narrow back street. To the right it was a hundred feet to Eighteenth. To the left it was three-quarters of a block to Nineteenth. The cop would take the shortest way around. I turned left and ran down the long stretch of alley.

  Behind me a whistle stabbed the air. I let out a last notch of speed. The cross street leaped toward me. For two seconds I was a good target but cops don't like to shoot toward busy streets. I made the corner and swung right. I was headed north on Nineteenth Street. It's a one-way street for southbound traffic, and a trolley was coming toward me. I cut across in front of it and doubled back, running alongside the trolley so it hid me from the cop in the alley. That ought to fool the guy. The trolley rattled past Delancey Place and made its stop at the corner of Pine. I caught it there and climbed aboard.

  "People like you running in front of trolleys," the motorman said, "are asking to get killed."

  I was too breathless to answer him, but he was really right. I went back in the car and paid my fare. Three blocks south I got off, with everybody taking a good look at the idiot who risked his life to ride three blocks.

  Now I had a spare moment for thinking. Going to the police was no good. Trying to get into Lassiter's didn't look hopeful either. In a few minutes the section would be boiling with cops, and they would be hunting for me. There was one chance left: Sheldon Thorp. Nancy had probably told him nearly all the story last night. He could make the cops listen. He could walk right into Lassiter's place. And Sheldon liked danger. He ought to find the idea of collecting a murderer new and exciting.

  Sheldon lived on the Main Line in the big estate section of Bryn Mawr. I was afraid to telephone to make sure he was there, because even five minutes delay might let the cops block off the whole area. I walked to the parking lot at Seventeenth and Pine where I keep my jalopy. The attendant had to move cars to let me get out, and the radio in his booth kept blaring out a news program the whole time. It was too soon for bulletins

  about the murder, but I couldn't help flinching every time the announcer started on another bit of local news.

  I got in the car and drove to the Parkway and out through Fairmount Park and over to Montgomery Pike. Along the way I left a lot of scorched rubber on the paving, but it still took twenty-five minutes to reach a driveway that looked like the one I wanted. It had been years since I dropped in to see Sheldon at home. I sent the jalopy skidding up the winding drive. My first glimpse of the house gave me a bad moment because it didn't look familiar. But as I curved around in front I saw the familiar low Colonial lines. What had thrown me off was that Sheldon had added a wing.

  I jammed on the brakes and jumped out and ran to the door and leaned on the bell. It shrilled and shrilled inside the house. When nobody came I pounded the door. There had to be somebody home. Where were the servants? Where—

  A voice inside yelled, "What's the idea?" The door jerked open. It was Sheldon. He stared at me and said, "You don't have to knock the house down. What's the matter?"

  "It's Nancy," I gasped. "She's in trouble. You've got to help. She—" I had to stop for breath.

  "Take it easy, Pete."

  "We haven't much time. We—"

  "Settle down or you won't make sense. I know you when you get excited. Sorry you had to wait. I was all set to go on a trip a week ago and gave the servants a vacation. So there wasn't anyone else to answer the door. Come on in and sit down and cool off."

  He led the way into a trophy room off the hall. It was filled with things he had shot in Africa. Sheldon hadn't mounted his animal heads flat on the wall the way hunters usually do. He had them fixed to look alive and dangerous—peering around corners, crouched to spring, snarling. It was done with indirect lighting and shadows that made you think the whole animal was there, instead of perhaps just a head and one paw. Sheldon dropped into a leather chair. To his right the black nose and one mad eye of a Cape buffalo glared at me from around a cor-

  ner. In the shadows behind him, light rippled like a soft blue flame along the barrels of rifles and shotguns.

  "All right," he said. "Let's have it."

  "I don't want to waste time repeating anything you already know," I said. "How much did Nancy tell you last night about Nick Accardi and the painting and Lassiter, after you took her home?"

  "Pretty much everything, Pete. Oh, she tried to hold out on me on one thing. She wasn't going to tell me she was hiding Nick upstairs."

  "How did you get it out of her?"

  He shrugged. "I could see she was covering up something. She had a whispered talk with William. She would jump and look at the stairs any time the house creaked. There were a couple of cigarette stubs around. They weren't her brand or yours, and William doesn't smoke, and her parents are away. I added up a lot of little things, and finally asked her who she was hiding. But I knew the answer before she told me."

  "All right," I said. "Then I only have to tell you what happened today."

  I began giving him the story. Sheldon listened without a comment. His face looked as cold and still as a cameo against the background of dark oak paneling. It was hard to talk to the guy when he didn't show any emotion. You might have thought he was one of the trophies in the room, neatly stuffed and posed in imitation of life. There was nothing but a quiet drumming of his fingers when I told him about the murdered detective. I blurted out the rest of the story. I found myself shouting at him to wake up, that we had to get going, that we had to do something.

  He leaned forward. His eyes caught the light, and glinted like the gun barrels on the wall. "Are you blind?" he said. "Nick's a convict on parole. The cops wanted him. Nancy was hiding him. The detective walked in on him and Nick shot the guy and ran off with Nancy. Can't you see it?"

  He could have made me
feel better by kicking me in the

  stomach. I gulped a few times to get rid of the sick feeling, and said, "You can't believe that."

  "What can't I believe? That Nick's capable of killing a guy? Or that Nancy hadn't fallen for Nick? She had, I tell you. She admitted it, after I found she was hiding him upstairs."

  "You're twisting things around. Sure Nick could kill a guy. Of course Nancy could fall for him. But he wouldn't kill a guy in cold blood, and she wouldn't run off with a murderer."

  He smiled. It was just a nicker of amusement around the lips. Gainsborough used to paint smiles like that on the faces of his English gentry. "You let Nick sell you a bill of goods. Poor artist led astray by wealthy dealer. I don't buy it. Nick's a crook. He forged a Van Gogh. My guess is he tried to peddle it to Lassiter and got turned down. Then maybe he threatened to tell everybody that Lassiter paid him to do it, unless Lassiter bought it anyway."

  "What about Kay Raymond?"

  "Lassiter wanted to get the painting out of circulation, to avoid trouble. Kay's his girl friend. He asked her to help."

  "I tell you she was a prisoner in that house of his!"

  "A prisoner?" he said, tilting an eyebrow. "A suite of her own? Her own furnishings? Her own telephone? Don't you know the difference between a prisoner and a kept woman?"

  "But Nancy must have told you what Kay said last night! You can't believe that—"

  "Maybe she got mad at Lassiter and decided to cause trouble. Women do things like that. You just don't know them."

  "Lassiter's a crook. He tried to buy me off."

  "That Rembrandt you mentioned? I don't see your proof. He wants you to check a painting that may be worth a fortune. You're an expert on that stuff. If it is a Rembrandt, your say-so would carry a lot of weight. You're so suspicious of the guy you see things that aren't there."

  My lungs felt like flat tires that I couldn't pump up. We were wasting time. A minute lost here might make us too late. And yet I could see Sheldon's point of view. He hadn't been through this the way I had. He hadn't talked to Nick or worked

  with Nancy. He hadn't listened to Kay's tortured voice coming through the dark. Nearly everything he knew about the case had come to him secondhand. I had to give him some proof. It had to be firsthand stuff. There was only one way to try to get some, and that was a gamble.

  I said, "Suppose I prove to you that Lassiter is a crook?"

  "Prove it, Pete? How?"

  "From your own art collection. Right now."

  "I don't get you."

  "You bought a lot of stuff from Lassiter. You must have it here. If Lassiter's a crook, he must have sold you some fakes. And I'll prove they're fakes."

  His hands dug into the arms of the chair, and his face went red. "That's ridiculous," he said. "I know art. Nobody can put fakes over on me."

  "All collectors say that. They hate to think they might be fooled. I know it'll hurt your pride if I find fakes. But this is a matter of three lives. How much of your stuff came through Lassiter?"

  "Nearly all of it. But-"

  "Where's your collection? Show it to me."

  His fingers tightened on the chair arms, then relaxed. Big dents were left in the leather. "All right," he said. "I'll give you a chance. Come on."

  He led me through a couple of rooms and down a hall. At the end of the hall he drew back a curtain and opened a heavy fire door. He snapped on a switch, and the room beyond glowed with indirect lighting. We walked in. This was the new wing he had built. The outside matched the rest of the Colonial house, but the inside seemed to be a steel and concrete box for his art collection. There weren't even any windows.

  "Not many people have seen this," he said. "I'm not one of those collectors who can't be happy unless a lot of people are mooning over his stuff. Here's the first room. Take a look. And don't try to kid me about any fakes unless you can prove it."

  He was scowling, and I knew how he felt. It would murder his pride if I proved he had been taken. That would be all right

  with me. I was worried about a different kind of murder. I started with a quick tour of the room to get a general impression of the stuff. Most of it was modern. There were paintings by Georges Rouault, de Kooning, Guglielmi, Soutine, Modigliani. I went back over them one by one. It was tough trying to spot anything wrong. There isn't much forgery done of a painter's work while he's alive. You can ask him if he did a doubtful painting or not.

  "The stuff looks all right," I muttered. "I can't tell."

  He smiled. "We'll move on to the second room, then."

  "Can't you believe me, Sheldon? Fakes or no fakes, Lassiter's a crook. He's a murderer. And right now maybe—"

  "Losing your nerve, Pete? Afraid you can't prove it to me? Do you want to give up?"

  "Let's take the next room. I'll prove it to you."

  We went into the next gallery. A look around it made me dizzy. It blazed with light and color. Over there was a Cezanne. Here was a Matisse. On that wall was a primitive by Rousseau, and original posters by Toulouse-Lautrec. There was even a Gauguin. There were twelve paintings in the room. I checked them fast. Nobody can take quick looks at most paintings and make hairline decisions about whether they're fakes or not. But I was hoping for a fake that would jump out at me, like the Trouillebert landscape pretending to be a Corot that I had spotted at Lassiter's. I looked them over but nothing jumped out at me. Worse than that. They all looked right. I couldn't prove that either but I couldn't help feeling it.

  "You've got to listen to me," I said. "We're losing time. Anything can happen while we gawp at pictures. I tell you that Lassiter—"

  "You told me he sold fakes. Where are they?"

  He wasn't frowning now. He was beginning to look happy. He was having fun, letting me prove he was right and I was wrong. But the only thing I was wrong about was that Lassiter had sold him fakes. "Got another room?"

  "Sure, Pete. Some beauties in the next. Come along and tell me how bad they are."

  I went in and looked at four walls hung with paintings by the masters who made the great break with classic art. Manet, Monet, Renoir, Degas, Seurat. It was lovely, but through my eyes it was worse than a nightmare. I didn't even try to check each painting. They looked even better than the ones in the last room. If anything was wrong I would need a laboratory and months to prove it. And on top of that I didn't get the feeling that anything was wrong.

  "What do you say, Pete?" Sheldon asked.

  "There isn't anything to say."

  "Not even a few compliments? You haven't looked closely. Now take this Monet. . ."

  He began going around the room, pointing out things I ought to notice. I was too sick to pay attention. He wanted to bleat about his victory and how smart he had been with his millions. My brain went to work dully counting up how much he must have spent. I got a total and blinked a few times and went back a little more sharply over my count. It came out even higher this time. It was a startling amount even for a guy with his money to spend on art.

  "Got some more?" I said.

  He chuckled. "I thought you'd quit on me. Three more rooms, Pete. But one of them only has two paintings, and the last room only has one. Let's take a look in here."

  The next room was devoted to still-lifes, nineteenth and twentieth century, by most of the painters represented in the other rooms. All I did was look around and try to figure price tags. A guy who had started collecting years and years ago might have picked up some of these cheaply. But Sheldon had only been at it three or four years. Paintings like these weren't for sale nowadays at bargain prices. I got another incredible dollar figure. It sent a tingle out through my body. I hadn't found any fakes on the walls but maybe I had found one somewhere else.

  The inside of my throat felt like charcoal. I swallowed a couple of times so I could talk, and said, "Let's have another room."

  "All right. The next is just a little one. Only two paintings. But they're my favorites and I like giving them a room of their own."

&
nbsp; He walked to a door and opened it. He walked lightly, quietly, like an animal on the hunt. I followed him into the room. This was his Picasso room. He had two of them on the wall, both from Picasso's blue period. Sheldon had done an interesting job of decorating the room as a background for the paintings. The walls were apple green and the ceiling was jade green, and the contrasts made the blue of the paintings vibrate. There was a door at the far end covered with a misty yellow silk drapery. The color was wrong. It unbalanced his blue-green scheme. I put my hand in my pocket and touched the fabric that would have been just right. What the door needed was blue-green silk.

  Sheldon turned to me and the smile on his face had a mocking twist. I hit him with a right hook. He lurched back against the door and I leaped at him and locked my fingers on his throat. It felt good to get my hands on the murderer.

  20.

  If things had been even I wouldn't have had a chance. But I had caught him off guard. He clawed at my face, and I slammed his head against the door and dug in harder on his throat. He went sliding to the floor with his hands pawing at me weakly. He liked danger in his hunting. He liked to take risks. He had taken one too many with me. I rattled his head against the floor and saw his eyes popping and his face turning purple. How did he like losing a hunt?

  He hadn't quite lost it. I was too busy to think of the yellow silk drapes and the door back of them on which I had slammed his head. I didn't hear the door open. I didn't see the yellow

  drapes flick aside. All I knew was that some enormous force yanked me off him and sent me spinning through the doorway and crashing onto the floor in the next room. I started rolling as I hit and caromed off a table and staggered dizzily to my feet. I squinted through a blur. Something was coming at me. It had a round head sunk into thick sloping shoulders. Long arms dangled from the shoulders. Fingers as fat as bananas groped toward me.

  "Joe!" a voice snapped.

  I blinked, and the blur thinned and the creature moving in on me turned into Joe Molo. He was weaving toward me in a wrestler's crouch. The voice snapped at him again. Molo paused, frowning.