Simon could picture Savich pacing up and down that beautiful living room with its magnificent skylights.
“How’s Sean?”
“Asleep.”
“Is Lily asleep, too?”
“Nope. She’s here, knows it’s you on the phone, and wants to lay into you. I can’t stop her from coming up, Simon.”
Simon said, “Okay, give her my address, tell her to take a shuttle up here. I’ll meet her unless there’s a problem. I wish you could keep her with you longer, Savich.”
“No can do.”
Simon said, “I changed my mind, Savich. It may be turning dangerous, real fast. I really don’t want Lily involved in this. She’s a civilian. For God’s sake, she’s your sister. I take it all back. Tie her to a chair; don’t let her come up here.”
“Do you happen to have any suggestions about what I should do, other than tying her up?”
“Put her on the phone. I want to talk to her.”
“Sure. She’s about to rip the phone away from me in any case. Good luck, Simon.”
A moment later, Lily said, “I’m here. I don’t care what you have to say. Just be quiet, go to the hospital, get a good night’s sleep, and meet my plane tomorrow. I’ll take the two-o’clock United shuttle to JFK. Then we can handle things. Good night, Simon.”
“But Lily—”
She was gone.
Then Savich’s voice came on. “Simon?”
“Yeah, Savich. Well, I’d have to say it was a nonstarter.”
Savich laughed. “Lily’s my sister. She’s smart, and they are her paintings. Let her help with it, Simon, but keep her safe.”
Simon bowed to the inevitable. “I’ll try.”
He took two aspirins and went back to his gym. There was a Dumpster half a block away. Lying on the top was his wallet, with only the cash gone. He looked up to see two young guys staring at him.
When one of them yelled an obscenity at him, Simon started forward. They didn’t waste time and swaggered away, then turned when they figured they were far enough away from him and gave him the finger.
Simon smiled and waved.
• He was waiting for her, standing right in front of the gate, arms crossed, looking pissed.
Lily smiled, said even before she got to him, “I didn’t want to carry much because of my missing spleen. I’ve got a bag down on carousel four.”
“I’ve decided you’re going back to Washington to draw your cartoons.”
“While you find my paintings? Doesn’t look like you started out very well, Mr. Russo. You don’t look so hot. I think I did better on that bus than you did in your men’s locker room last night. And I want to find my grandmother’s paintings worse than you do.”
And she walked past him to follow the signs to Baggage Claim.
Simon didn’t own a car, had never felt the need to, so they took a taxi to East Seventy-ninth, between First and Second. He assisted her out of the cab, took her purse and suitcase, grunted because it had to weigh seventy pounds, and said, “This is it. I’ve got a nice guest room with its own bath. You should be comfortable until you wise up and go back home. How are they doing on that cult case in Texas? They got him yet? Wilbur Wright?”
“Not yet. What Dillon does is feed all the pertinent information into protocols he developed for the CAU—Criminal Apprehension Unit. Put that eyebrow back down. So you already know what he does and how he does it.”
“I should have asked, has MAX got Wilbur yet?”
“MAX found out that Wilbur Wright is Canadian, that he attended McGill University, that he’s a real whiz at cellular biology, and that his real name is Anthony Carpelli—ancestry, Sicily. Oh my, Simon, this is very lovely.”
Lily stepped into a beautifully marbled entryway, and felt like she’d stepped back into the 1930s. The feel was all Art Deco—rich dark wood paneling, lamps in geometric shapes, a rich Tabriz carpet on the floor, furniture right out of the Poirot series on PBS.
“I bought it four years ago, after I got a really healthy commission. I knew the old guy who’d owned it for well nigh on to fifty years, and he gave me a good deal. Most of the furnishings were his. I begged and he finally sold me most of them. Neat, huh?”
“Very,” she said, a vast understatement. “I want to see everything.”
There was even a small library, bookshelves to the ceiling with one of those special library ladders. Wainscoting, leather furniture, rich Persian carpets on the dark walnut floor. He didn’t show her his bedroom, but guided her directly to a large bedroom at the end of the hall. All of the furniture was a rich Italian Art Deco, trimmed with glossy black lacquer. Posters from the 1930s covered the walls. He put her suitcase on the bed and turned. She said, shaking her head, “You are so modern, yet here you are in this museum of a place that actually looks lived in. This is a beautiful room.”
“Wait till you see the bathroom.”
He didn’t tell her that he was leaving until he had the key in his hand that evening at 10:30.
“I’m meeting a guy with information. No, you’re not coming with me.”
“All right.”
He distrusted her, she could see it, and she just smiled. “Look, Simon, I’m not lying. I’m not going to sneak out after you and follow you like some sort of idiot. I’m really tired. You can go hear what your informant has to say. Just be careful. When you get back, I’ll still be awake. Tell me what you find out, okay?”
He nodded and was at the Plaza Hotel by ten minutes to eleven.
LouLou was there, pacing back and forth along the park side of the Plaza, beautifully dressed, looking like a Mafia don. The uniformed Plaza doormen paid him little attention.
He nodded to Simon, motioned to the entrance to the Plaza’s Oak Room Bar. It was dark and rich, filled with people and conversation. They found a small table, ordered two beers. Simon leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest. “How’s it going, LouLou?”
“Can’t complain. Hey, this beer on you? Drinks aren’t cheap here, you know?”
“Since we’re in New York, I figured the Oak Room would be our venue. Yeah, I’m paying for the beer. Now, what have you got for me?”
“I found out that Abe Turkle did the Elliotts. Talk is he had a contract to do eight of them. Do you know anything about which eight?”
“Yeah, I do, but you don’t need to know any more. I would have visited Abe Turkle second. You sure it’s not Billy Gross?”
“He’s sick—his lungs—probably cancer. He’s always smoked way too much. Anyway, he took all his money and went off to Italy. He’s down living on the Amalfi Coast, nearly dead. So it’s Abe who’s your guy.”
“And where can I find him?”
“In California, of all places.”
“Eureka, by any chance?”
“Don’t know. He’s in a little town called Hemlock Bay, on the ocean. Don’t know where it is. Whoever’s paying him wants him close by where he is.”
“You’re good, LouLou. I don’t suppose you’ll tell me where you heard this?”
“You know better, Simon.” He drank the rest of his beer in one long pull, wiped his mouth gently on a napkin, then said, “Abe’s a mean sucker, Simon, unlike most artists. When you hook up with him, you take care, okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll be real careful. Any word at all on who our likely collectors are?”
LouLou fiddled with a cigarette he couldn’t light, even here in a bar, for God’s sake. “Word is that it just might be Olaf Jorgenson.”
This was a surprise, a big surprise, to Simon. He wouldn’t have put Olaf in the mix. “The richest Swede alive, huge in shipping. But I heard that he’s nearly blind, nearly dead, that his collecting days are over.”
LouLou said, “Yeah, that’s the word out. Why buy a painting if you’re blind as a bat and can’t even see it? But, hey, that’s what I heard from my inside gal at the Met. She’s one of the curators, has an ear that soaks up everything. She’s been right before. I trust her information.�
�
“Olaf Jorgenson,” Simon said slowly, taking a pull on his Coors. “He’s got to be well past eighty now. Been collecting mainly European art for the past fifty years, medieval up through the nineteenth century. After World War Two, I heard he got his hands on a couple of private collections of stolen art from France and Italy. Far as I know, he’s never bought a piece of art legally in his life. The guy’s certifiable about his art, has all his paintings in climate-controlled vaults, and he’s the only one who’s got the key. I didn’t know he’d begun collecting modern painters, like Sarah Elliott. I never would have put him on my list.”
LouLou shrugged. “Like you said, Simon, the guy’s a nut. Maybe nuts crack different ways when they get up near the century mark. His son seems to be just as crazy, always out on his yacht, lives there most of the time. His name’s Ian—the old guy married a Scotswoman and that’s how he got his name. Anyway, the son now runs all the shipping business. From the damned yacht.”
Simon gave a very slight shake of his head to a very pretty woman seated at the bar who’d been staring at him for the past couple of minutes. He moved closer to LouLou to show that he was in very heavy conversation and not interested. “LouLou, how sure are you that it’s Olaf who bought the paintings?”
“Besides my gal at the Met, I went out of my way to get it verified. You know my little art world birdies that are always singing, Simon. I spread a little seed, and they sing louder and I heard three songs, all with the same words. One hundred percent? Nope, but it’s a start. Cost me a cool thousand bucks to get them to sing to me.”
“Okay, you done good, LouLou.” Simon handed him an envelope that contained five thousand dollars. LouLou didn’t count it, just slipped the fat envelope inside his cashmere jacket pocket. “Hey, you know what the name of Ian Jorgenson’s yacht is?”
Simon shook his head.
“Night Watch.”
Simon said slowly, “That’s the name of a painting by Rembrandt. That particular painting is hanging in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. I saw it there a couple of years ago.”
LouLou cocked his head to one side, his hairpiece not moving a bit because it was expensive and well made, and gave Simon a cynical smile. “Who knows? Just maybe Night Watch is hanging in Ian’s stateroom, right over his bed. I’ve often wondered how many real paintings there are left in the museums and not beautifully executed fakes.”
“Actually, LouLou, I don’t want to know the answer to that question.”
“Since Sarah Elliott just died some seven years ago, all her materials—the paints, the brushes—still exist. You take a superb talent with an inherent bent toward her sort of technique and visualization, and what you get is so close to the real thing, most people wouldn’t even care if you told them.”
“I hate that.”
“I do, too,” LouLou said. “I need another beer.”
Simon ordered them another round, ate a couple of peanuts out of the bowl on their table, and said, “Remember that forger Eric Hebborn, who wrote that book telling would-be forgers exactly how to do it—what inks, papers, pens, colors, signatures, all of it? Then he up and dies in ninety-six. The cops said it was under mysterious circumstances. I heard it was a private collector who killed Hebborn because a dealer friend had sold him an original Rubens that turned out to be a fake that Hebborn himself had done. Supposedly the dealer died shortly thereafter in a car accident.”
LouLou said, “Yeah, I met old Eric back in the early eighties. Smart as a whip, that guy, and so talented it made you cry. You wondering if it was Olaf Jorgenson who popped him? Hey, Simon, there’s a whole bunch of collectors who’d cut off hands to have a certain medal or stamp or train or painting. They’ve got to have it or life loses its meaning for them. Look, Simon, when you get down to it, they’re the people who keep us in business.”
“I wonder if Olaf ordered all eight paintings. I wonder what he’s paying for them.”
“Huge bucks, my man, huge, count on it. All eight Sarah Elliotts? Don’t know. I haven’t heard any other names floated around. Simon, I heard those eight paintings are owned privately by a member of the Elliott family?”
“Yes, Lily Savich owns them. And therein lies a very long, convoluted tale.” Simon rose, putting a fifty-dollar bill on the table. “LouLou, thank you. You know where to find me. I think I’ll be heading out to California soon to track down one of the major players—Abraham Turkle. He’s English, right?”
“Half Greek. Weird guy. Very eccentric, said to eat only snails that he raises himself.” LouLou shuddered. “You take care around him, Simon. Abe killed a guy who tried to rip him off with his bare hands, just a couple of years ago. So have a care. Hey, this Lily Savich hire you?”
Simon paused, cocked his head to the side. “Not exactly, but that’s about it. I want to get those four paintings back.”
“I hope the others are safe.”
“Much safer than the snails in Abe’s garden. Take care, LouLou.”
“Why are you going after Abe?”
Simon said, “I want to see if I can shake something loose. It’s not just the art scam. There are other folk involved in this deal who have done very bad things, and I want to nail them. Just maybe Abe can help me do that.”
“He won’t help you do squat.”
“We’ll see. His forging days in Hemlock Bay are over. I want to catch him before he takes off to parts unknown. Who knows what I can get out of him.”
“Good luck shaking the wasp nest. You know, I’ve always liked the name Lily,” LouLou said and gave Simon a small salute. Then, when Simon left, LouLou turned his attention to that very pretty lady at the bar who’d kept looking over at them.
15
Quantico
Dr. Hicks said quietly, “Marilyn, tell me, how did Tammy look when she came back to the motel?”
“She had on a coat and she just ripped it apart and showed me her nurse’s uniform. It was soaked with blood.”
“Did she seem pleased?”
“Oh yes. She was crazy happy that she got away. She just kept laughing and rubbing her bloody hands against herself. She loves the feel of fresh blood on her hands.”
“How did she get back to the motel? You said her hands were all bloody. Wouldn’t somebody have noticed?”
“I don’t know.” Marilyn looked worried, shaking her head just a bit.
“No, no, that’s okay. It’s not important. Now, you said she was wearing a coat. Do you know where she got the coat?”
“I don’t know. When she came to get me, she was wearing it. It was too big for her, but it covered her arm where she didn’t have one, you know?”
“Yes, I know. Mr. Savich would like to ask you some questions now. Is that all right, Marilyn?”
“Yes. He was nice to me. He’s sexy. I’m kinda sorry that Tammy’s gonna kill him.”
Dr. Hicks raised a thick brow at Savich, no look of shock on his face since he’d heard it all. He just shook his head as Savich eased his chair nearer to Marilyn’s.
“She’s well under, Savich. You know what to do.”
Savich nodded, said, “Marilyn, how are you feeling about Tammy right now?”
She was silent, her forehead creased in a frown, then she shook her head and said slowly, “I think I love her; I’m supposed to since she’s my cousin, but she scares me. I never know what she’s going to do. I think she’d kill me, laugh while she rubbed my blood all over her hands, if she was in the mood, you know?”
“Yes, I know.”
“She’s going to kill you.”
“Yes, she might try, you told me. How do you think she contacts the Ghouls?” Savich ignored Dr. Hicks, who didn’t have a clue who or what the Ghouls were. He just shook his head and repeated the question. “Marilyn?”
“I’ve thought about that, Mr. Savich. I know they were there when she killed that little boy. Maybe, from what she said, she just thinks about them and they come. Or maybe they follow her around and she just says that to pro
ve how powerful she is. Do you know what the Ghouls are?”
“No, I don’t have any idea, Marilyn. You don’t either, do you?”
She shook her head. She was sitting in a comfortable chair, her head leaning back against the cushion, her eyes closed. She’d been staying in a room at the Jefferson dormitory at the FBI complex, watched over by female agents. She’d washed her hair, and they’d given her a clean skirt and sweater. Even hypnotized, she looked pale and frightened, her fingers continually twitching and jerking. He wondered what would happen to her. She had no other family, no education to speak of, and there was Tammy, in the Caribbean, who’d scared her all of her life. He hoped the FBI would find her soon and Marilyn wouldn’t have to be scared of her anymore.
He said, “Has Tammy been to the Caribbean before?”
“Yeah. She and Tommy visited the Bahamas a couple years ago. In the spring, I think.”
“Did they take the Ghouls with them?”
Marilyn frowned and shook her head.
“You don’t know if they killed anyone while they were there?”
“I asked Tommy, and he just laughed and laughed. That was right before he got me pregnant.”
Savich made a note to check to see if there’d been any particularly vicious, unsolved killings during their stay.
“Has Tammy ever talked about the Caribbean, other than the Bahamas? Any islands that she’d like to visit?”
She shook her head.
“Think, Marilyn. That’s right, just relax, lean your head back, and think about that. Remember back over the times you’ve seen her.”
There was a long silence, and then Marilyn said, “She said once—it was Halloween and she was dressed like a vampire—that she wanted to go to Barbados and scare the crap out of the kids there. Then she laughed. I never liked that laugh, Mr. Savich. It was the same kind of laugh that Tommy had after the Bahamas.”
“Did she ever talk about what the Ghouls did to those kids?”
The FBI Thrillers Collection Page 16
