Shooting Gallery

by Lind, Hailey

  “You’ll get over it,” I replied. “I ain’t jokin’ here, big guy.”

  Michael straightened up. “In that case, let me remind you that should you finger me for the Caravaggio—which, for the record, I do not for a second believe you would actually do—I might, albeit only under torture or threat of indictment, be forced to spill the beans about your dear grandpapa’s role in that little affair. It would break my heart, of course. And you? Could you do that to such a wonderful old man?”

  “Just for your own damned record, I don’t believe for a second that you would rat out Georges,” I said with a glare. “Wouldn’t that violate the code of honor among thieves?”

  “You watch too many trashy movies, sweetheart.”

  This was true. “Was there a reason you came here today, Michael, or were you just bored?”

  “You underestimate your charms.”

  “And you overestimate yours,” I shot back.

  He smiled. “I need a date.”

  I snorted. “Yeah, right.”

  “Seriously.” He picked up a paintbrush from the worktable and caressed its sable bristles with his long, tanned fingers. I wondered if it was possible to envy a paintbrush. “I have been invited to an exceedingly formal and exceptionally dull cocktail party in Hillsborough next Tuesday, for which I need a date. A respectable date. You are the most respectable woman I know.” He paused and grinned. “And I happen to enjoy your company.”

  Oh, please, I thought. San Francisco was full of lovely, well-educated, and eminently respectable women who would be delighted to accompany Michael to a barbeque in hell, much less to a cocktail party in Hillsborough, an exclusive enclave on the peninsula south of San Francisco. So why was he asking me?

  “You’re up to something,” I said.

  “Annie, my love, we really must work on your trust issues.”

  In the Bay Area we did not have disagreements, fights, hatreds, or to-the-death blood feuds; we had issues. I was beginning to have issues with people who had issues.

  “Still ain’t interested.”

  “Tell you what,” he said, flipping the lucky brush into the air, where it rotated several times before landing, bristles up, with a clink in a glass jar. He strolled over and stood so close that I could feel the heat of his body. I wished he didn’t smell so damned good. “If you come to the party with me on Tuesday, I’ll make sure the Brock gets the Chagall back.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t have it.”

  “I don’t, but I might be able to locate it. If you will do me this one small favor.”

  Could he find the Chagall? Probably. Would he give it to me? Good question.

  His green eyes wandered down my overalls and up to my face, gazing into my eyes with a soulfulness that communicated in a thousand ways that I was the most supremely desirable woman on the planet. Better than a supermodel lounging in the sun on a deserted tropical island. In a thong. Topless.

  “Annie, my love,” he said, his voice husky, and leaned in as if to kiss me.

  I had no false modesty. I knew I was an attractive woman, especially when I made a little effort. I also knew it was highly unlikely that wars would be fought in my honor, that a king would give up his throne for me, or that my overalled and sleep-haired charms were sufficient to distract a professional art thief from thieving.

  “Cut the crap, Michael,” I barked. “I’m onto you.”

  The seduction routine came to an abrupt halt. “I’ll pay you the money from last spring.”

  “You’ll pay that anyway. You want my company? It’ll cost you.”

  “All right. How much?”

  “You get the Chagall back and Bryan off the hook, and quickly. And my going rate is a hundred fifty an hour.”

  Michael’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Is that what faux finishers charge these days? That’s almost as much as a first-class call girl.”

  I gasped.

  “It’s a deal,” he said.

  “Fine,” I replied, surprised—and a little worried—that he had agreed so readily. Note to self: consider raising your price. “But I want the money you owe me and I want the cash in advance. And FYI: Your money buys my scintillating conversation. That’s all.”

  Michael reached into his jeans pocket and extracted a thick roll of Benjamins. I gaped at it, though I supposed in his line of work Michael had to be prepared to hightail it out of town at a moment’s notice without leaving a paper trail. The most I usually had on me was a twenty, and maybe sixty-eight cents on the floor of my truck.

  Michael peeled off four of the hundred-dollar bills. “That’s for last spring,” he said and looked at me with an arched brow. “How long does a date take? Four or five hours? I pick you up, say sevenish, and have you tucked in by the stroke of midnight?” He counted off seven more bills.

  “I need a new dress, too,” I piped up. What the hell.

  Michael sighed. “Make it sexy. But classy.”

  “And shoes,” I said, going for broke. “Don’t forget the shoes.”

  He handed me several more hundreds. “There. Shoes and a bag and silk stockings and whatever else you think you need. Just come through for me, Annie.”

  “Why, Michael, have I ever failed you?” I purred, batting my eyelashes and tucking the wad of cash into the bib of my paint-splattered overalls. Helen of Troy had nothing on me.

  Michael smiled and headed for the window. “I’ll pick you up on Tuesday. Seven o’clock sharp.”

  “Wait a minute,” I called after him. “Where are we going?”

  “To a private home. Our charming host made a fortune in the high-tech industry. There will be a number of businessmen from Hong Kong.”

  “I don’t speak computer,” I warned.

  “Anton said you speak a little Mandarin.”

  “Emphasis on little, there, sport.” When I was a child my grandfather had taught me how to say Please, Thank you, Where is the bathroom? and How dare you accuse me of something so outrageous? in seven different languages. Georges LeFleur was a practical man.

  “Hello and good-bye will suffice. No one will expect you to do anything except look pretty anyway.”

  I scowled at him. He smiled at me.

  “One more thing,” I said. “Have you ever heard of Robert Pascal?”

  “Sure. His stuff is too heavy to steal, too hard to fence, and too ugly to boot. Why?”

  “Just curious.”

  “Don’t be. There are some nasty rumors about him.”

  “Like what?”

  “Stay away from him, Annie,” he said soberly. “I mean it. Oh, and about that Picasso.” I hugged the painting like a mother hugs a child threatened by a bully. “Didn’t the Nazis steal that from the Steinbergen family during World War II?”

  “No.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because Frank would never be involved in something like that.”

  “Frank DeBenton?” Michael queried, his eyebrows raised. “As in DeBenton Secure Transport? How much do you know about your landlord, Annie?”

  “Enough to be sure he wouldn’t traffic in stolen art. Unlike some people I could mention.”

  “No fair! You know I have rules.”

  “No group jobs?” I said, referring to his oft-repeated preference for solo thievery.

  “No group jobs,” he repeated. “And no looted art.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” I said sarcastically. “When it comes to stealing what’s already been stolen, you’re a veritable Eagle Scout.”

  “I should hope so,” he said, not at all perturbed. “ ’Til Tuesday, then.” And with that he climbed out the window and silently slipped down the fire escape.

  I gazed after him. What had he been implying about Frank? Why was he paying me a boatload of money to go to a cocktail party? And what were my chances the evening would end in a bail hearing?

  The hundred-dollar bills in my pocket rustled as I locked the window against further intrusions and hung a Do Not Disturb,
Artist in Session, And Yes I’m Talking to You, Pal sign on the door. I placed the Picasso face-up on a worktable and began testing various absorbent cloths and heat settings on the sample canvas I’d made. When I put wax-absorbent paper over the crayon mark and applied a medium-heat iron, the colored wax lifted out of the sample canvas without leaving a residue. A quick call to Anton confirmed my approach was sound. I was sitting on the couch, taking some cleansing breaths and screwing up my courage to attempt the process on the Picasso, when the telephone rang.

  “Chérie! So you have some good news for your old grandpapa, no?” It was my beloved grandfather, Georges Francois LeFleur, world-class art forger and all-around scoundrel.

  “News? What news? Where are you calling from, Grandfather?”

  “Ah, my darling, you air zo modest. Quelle charmante! Ze dashing Monsieur Brooks has set hees cap for you, eh?”

  Georges LeFleur had been born in Brooklyn and spent the first fifteen years of his life speaking Brooklynese. As an adult he had reinvented himself—several times, in fact—and now spoke English with a nearly impenetrable French accent.

  I adored my grandfather and understood him as few others could, but at times he drove me crazy. He would not call me when I needed information, but burned up the international telephone wires when he thought I had hooked up with a dashing, larcenous art thief.

  A man much like himself, in other words.

  “Grandfather,” I said with as much patience as I could muster. “‘Colin Brooks’ isn’t even his real name. I know him as Michael. And he doesn’t want me. He wants something from me.”

  “Are you sure, my dahling?”

  “Positive.”

  “Quel dommage.” He sighed. “Zo, what does zis man want from you?”

  “I don’t know. He invited me to some cocktail party in Hillsborough, at the home of a computer billionaire.”

  “ ’Illsborough, you say? Do you know ze ’ost’s nehm?”

  “No, I don’t know the host’s name,” I replied, suddenly suspicious. “Why do you ask?”

  “No reason, ma petite. Ce n’est pas grave.” Grandfather’s accent thickened in direct proportion to his guilt and his desire to conceal it. When he was flat-out lying he reverted almost exclusively to French, which was an excellent language to fib in.

  “What’s going on, Grand-père?”

  “I must go, chérie! Bye-bye!”

  “Wait! Grandfather, I have to ask you about Mom . . .”

  “We air lozing ze connection! Au revoir!” Georges was a great believer in losing the phone connection whenever he found it inconvenient to keep talking.

  Frustrated, I hung up. I knew Michael was up to something because Michael was always up to something. That he wanted me to play some role in whatever he was planning was annoying, and quite possibly unlawful, but not unexpected. What bothered me was that my grandfather, who apparently suspected what Michael was up to, would not tell me. Wasn’t blood supposed to be thicker than thieves?

  I sighed and shrugged off these thoughts. If I’d learned one thing about my grandfather it was that he was a stubborn old coot who would tell me in his own way and on his own time.

  I turned up the radio and painstakingly removed the stray red mark from the Picasso. Anton had given me a few tips to avoid lifting the legitimate paint as well as the crayon wax, and on the whole it was a tedious job. But artists were accustomed to tedium. Not even the Old Masters stood in front of a blank canvas and dashed off a masterpiece. Come to think of it, Pablo Picasso might have been the exception, at least at the end of his long life. No wonder other artists admired him so.

  By the time I’d finished it was nearly two o’clock. I examined the painting from all angles, held it up to a harsh light, looked at it under the magnifier, and double-checked it against the photograph on the Internet. It was perfect. I had done my job so well, in fact, that no one would ever know what I had accomplished. As a former art forger, I had long ago made my peace with anonymity.

  Now that Michael knew I had the Picasso it seemed wise to return it to Frank as soon as possible. I packed it carefully in its crate, switched off the radio, and shut down the computer. Then I grabbed my backpack and keys, set the alarm, hoisted the crate in my arms, locked the door, and cautiously negotiated the outside wooden staircase. I found my landlord in his office, his dark head bent low over paperwork.

  “Knock knock,” I called out.

  He jumped up to take the crate. “You should have called. I would have come to get it.”

  “I’m perfectly capable of carrying a painting, Frank. You’ve seen some of the things I’ve toted up and down those stairs—furniture and garden statuary and the like. Which reminds me—when are you going to put in an elevator?”

  “If I put in an elevator I’ll have to raise the rent. So, all done? Already?”

  “Good as new,” I said. “You’re not going to try to back out of our deal now that you know how efficient I am, are you?”

  “Of course not,” he said, looking surprised. “I’m just impressed.”

  “I’m kidding, Frank. You’re one of the most trustworthy guys I know.”

  The moment I said it, I realized it was true. Frank was as worthy of trust as Michael was of suspicion. Why was I entertaining even for a moment Michael’s hint that Frank trafficked in stolen paintings? Still, I had to ask.

  “So-o-o, funny thing, Frank,” I said. “I couldn’t help but notice that the Picasso looks a lot like the one the Steinbergen family says was stolen by the Nazis.”

  “Do you think I would transport stolen art?”

  Talk about an awkward moment. I wished I’d kept my yap shut. “Maybe not knowingly . . .”

  “There are online databases that track lost and stolen art from around the world, Annie. There’s even a software program to send pictures from a camera phone to an image-processing server connected to the database. Whenever I take possession of a painting I access up-to-the minute information on its origin and provenance. If it’s flagged, I report it to the appropriate authorities.”

  “Really?” I said, impressed. How does Michael manage to fence his purloined art? I wondered. I filed that away as a conversation starter for our “date” on Tuesday.

  “This Picasso is similar to the one the Nazis took from the Steinbergens, but rest assured they are two different paintings.”

  “That’s a relief,” I said. “I’d have hated to see you hauled off to San Quentin on my say-so alone. My next landlord might not be as reasonable as you.”

  “What a touching tribute,” he said dryly. “I must say, though, I’m pleased to learn that your ethics are as strong as my own.”

  Dear, naïve man, I thought. “Since you’re so knowledgeable about art theft, could I ask you something? Why would someone steal an unimportant painting from a museum?”

  “Is this a hypothetical question?”

  “More or less,” I dissembled.

  “Well, that depends. Most art theft these days is connected to drug dealers and gun runners, but those folks want the big-ticket, high-profile pieces.”

  “What do drug dealers and gun runners want with fine art?”

  “They use it as collateral for their deals, or else to launder money.”

  “I had no idea,” I said, appalled. A spot of art forgery was one thing—it could be rationalized as a victimless crime if one’s ethics were sufficiently flexible—but drug dealing and gun running left broken bodies in their wake.

  “Art theft is the third most lucrative international crime, behind drugs and arms dealing,” Frank said. “But that wasn’t your question, was it? When a stolen piece of art is relatively unimportant or inexpensive the motive tends to be personal. I’d start with the museum’s employees.”

  “An employee?”

  “You worked at the Brock, Annie, so you know that most museum workers are underpaid and overworked. They’re often art lovers themselves, and a few will yield to temptation. But since they’re not motivated
by profit their choice is usually a minor piece that’s a personal favorite. Most of the time they take items from the storage areas and the theft isn’t discovered for months or years, if at all. What’s with this newfound interest in art theft?”

  “Just idle curiosity.”

  “That right?”

  “Don’t you want to see the Picasso?” I said to distract him.

  Frank opened the crate and examined the painting. When he looked at me, I saw relief in his eyes. “Amazing. You’re a miracle worker, Annie, truly. I owe you one.”

  In the past six months Frank had rescued me from a goon holding a knife to my throat, escorted me to a gala I desperately wanted to attend, and reduced my rent so I wouldn’t have to relocate my studio. All in all, I figured we were probably even. But I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

  “Oh, one more thing, Frank,” I said as I started for the door.

  “What’s that?”

  “Be careful. Really careful. Maybe return the Picasso to its owner right away.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing. Nosirree. But you might want to lock it in one of your trucks and drive away.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve got to run. Bye, Frank!” I waved gaily, raced out the door, and told myself I had done what I could.

  After all, wasn’t Frank the one who said I was a trouble magnet?

  Chapter 8

  Sculptures are tricky. If a bronze is poured in an artist’s original mold, is it a genuine product of the artist, or of the foundry worker, or of the heir to the copyright? A Rodin sculpture cast by Rudier a century ago is now worth a fortune, while a cast made by the Rodin Museum in recent years is considered a mere copy.

  —George LeFleur, letter to the editor, Bulletin of the Society of Museum Curators

  Flowers are amazing things. They inspire artists, lift flagging spirits, and seal romantic deals. They can even unlock doors.

  I’d learned the secret of flower power from Sherri the process server, who once described how she used flower deliveries to gain access to her quarry and to soften the blow of being served distressing legal papers. The best source for flowers was the San Francisco Flower Mart at Sixth and Brannan, which opened at the crack of dawn and was jammed with Vietnamese flower vendors, Jewish florists, and mothers of every ethnicity looking to save a buck or twenty on wedding arrangements. I had once dragged my butt out of bed at four-thirty a.m. to witness the lily-scented free-for-all, but on the whole I preferred sleep to really fresh flowers.