White Lead

by Susan Daitch

  “It’s unlikely that Ashby would leave Sandro alone in Claiborne’s with so many valuable things, don’t you think? But what do I know. I’m just part of the hoi polloi.”

  “Most stuff is locked behind coded doors, as my studio was supposed to have been, and Ashby trusted the security-camera system, not knowing it had been disabled. He leaves. The Dagbents enter. Sandro expected to lead the Dagbents to the painting, not to be murdered by them. Sandro, whose voice quavered between registers, expressed panic, and the screams I heard upstairs were his. I’d left my door open when I ran downstairs, but I stopped in the stairwell because I was sick of interrupting Ashby having his fun. The studio door was shut and automatically locked when I returned. I’d assumed it had swung shut behind me, but the Dagbents found the door open, deposited the body temporarily, and shut the door behind them.”

  “How did Moonelli know the Dagbents?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “They figured the theft out together, then murdered Sandro on the spot? Makes no sense. Also, why go through so much trouble to steal a fake? Real or fake, how did they know Las Meninas was even at Claiborne’s? No one was supposed to know. It was a big secret about a picture worth a king’s ransom.”

  I had no answers.

  “We searched Ashby’s apartment and found his various collections, but no sign of the grand seigneur himself.”

  “I wasn’t one of his confidantes. Why don’t you interview Sheilagh?” I twisted my hair around a finger. I didn’t want to appear nervous, but my hands felt superfluous, like I had to do something with them—the uninjured one, at any rate.

  “Oh, we did, and we’re looking in every place she was so quick to offer us—from underground bunkers in the Hamptons to islands off Thailand.”

  Ashby had once been Julius Abramowitz. He could now be anyone.

  Chapter 20

  Out on the street, I called Demetrius. I wasn’t sure he was still talking to me, but he sounded both anxious and relieved that I’d called and asked me to meet him straightaway in front of a warehouse under the Gowanus Expressway, just beyond Green-Wood Cemetery. He was going to get me something I very much needed before I spoke to anyone else.

  Knox Barkley’s studio, if you could call it that, wasn’t under the Gowanus Expressway. Nothing much is except for strings of parked cars and vans. The address, just west of the overpass, was next to a halal butcher, and you could hear chickens and goats squawking and bleating their last. Inside, there were stacks of radios, blenders, toaster ovens, as if all the business conducted within was nothing more than the repair of small appliances, another obsolete profession.

  Knox was a wiry little man with long, hippie-style gray hair, ink-stained hands, a green visor perched on his head, and a voice like Peter Lorre’s. Also, he wore sleeve protectors on his arms. Apart from Jimi Hendrix blasting, music that he said covered the sounds of the poor animals next door, Barkley could have stepped out of a 1940s movie about a newspaper office. Marnie, who loved screwball comedies, would have taken one look at him and broken into snappy dialogue full of Marx Brothers lines.

  “I’m not supposed to be doing this line of work anymore, Demetrius.” Knox was clearly not happy to see Demetrius. He stood arm’s length from a counter that was a hinged affair made up of dirty wood and glittery cracked Formica.

  “That’s true, but you are.”

  “How’s your suspension going?”

  So people in Demetrius’s circle, whatever that might be, knew. And, apart from the story about living next to a petting zoo in the Bronx, I didn’t know very much about him and needed to trust him.

  “My friend here needs to disappear, to become someone else for a while.”

  “Don’t we all.” Knox tried an existential argument.

  “As long as it’s not money you’re manufacturing, I can pretend we were never here.” Demetrius could be very persuasive. I could tell that Barkley didn’t want to do the job but would give in. “And”—Demetrius wasn’t done—“you’re going to do this one gratis. You owe me.”

  “Okay, okay. Easy-peasy.” Whatever it was that Demetrius reminded Knox Barkley about, he seemed more amenable to cooperation, but not before a look of panic gave way to the resignation of someone who has no choice and he knows it.

  Barkley danced from the counter to the back in time with “Purple Haze,” then returned with a box-camera setup to take my picture. Knox was a forger of papers who was going to make me a new passport and driver’s license. He was also a vegetarian and a gun salesman who offered to sell Demetrius a Smith & Wesson from his car-trunk inventory. My new name was to be Star Hammersmith.

  “That sounds like a stripper name,” I said.

  “Star was an actual person; I don’t make people up. That’s for amateurs. I don’t have a lot of back stock at the moment, but I’ll tell you what I got and you decide. I have Huong Hoài Mi, which means “rose nightingale” in Vietnamese—sounds nice. Yes, of course it does.” He smiled. “Or Edward Sciarta—I’ve got him here, but I’m afraid you can’t really pass as either one. Stella means “star,” so if you want my opinion I think this is your best bet. It’s advisable to have a small percentage of truth in your lies. Don’t you agree, Officer Pitt?”

  Demetrius grabbed Barkley by the front of his shirt and lifted him off the floor. He was so fast that he shocked me and terrified Barkley. A couple of electric teakettles clattered to the floor. It was the closest I’d yet seen him come to clocking a man, but he restrained himself. We needed Barkley, and he knew it. The little man straightened his sleeve guards with what shreds of dignity he could muster and retreated to the back.

  While Knox was completing his handiwork, Demetrius and I went to the Greenwood Diner, an aluminum box on the other side of the overpass, for coffee. Demetrius also ordered a slice of cherry cheesecake.

  “Do you trust that guy?”

  “Knox is old school. His methods don’t work anymore due to the use of viable biometrics in documents that are very difficult to reproduce. He experimented with scanners and printers but felt these were cheating, took the art out of his craft, so he now works with altering stolen documents, which is a safer product.”

  “Like the stuntman who thinks the green screen and the special effects is cheating.”

  “Yeah, sort of. You could say Knox believes you really have to jump from the moving train.”

  “But I’d like to be able to walk away from the train without my neck being broken,” I said.

  The waitress brought our coffees and the cheesecake. Demetrius offered me a forkful and seemed genuinely hurt when I turned him down.

  “Allergic to cherries,” I explained.

  “Well, now that you’re here, now that I have your undivided attention, I have some good news and some not so good. Svalbard said Per disappeared after his daughter’s death and he has no knowledge of either twin.”

  “Svalbard’s a scared stooge.”

  “A person believed to be Per Dagbent was seen on a security camera holding up a drugstore. Apparently, he and his brother are addicted to painkillers—OxyContin, to be precise. This should come as no surprise.”

  It didn’t.

  “But now their whereabouts are unknown.”

  “Did you check hospitals?”

  “Yes, but these guys don’t go to hospitals. This we know. They will be ninety-nine-percent dead before they darken the doorway of Mount Sinai. The police can’t find the Dagbents, so you’re in the position of someone who wants to walk on a tightrope between two towers but can’t get the rope to catch on the other side, so you can’t even start your walk. We know why Sandro was at the auction house that night, but how do we know it’s the same man who threw turpentine at your head after strangling Sandro?”

  “What about Marnie?”

  Demetrius shrugged and held up his hands to show that he had nothing on her case.

  “I told you, Stella, I’m out. Suspended for the duration while I’m being investigated. I could fin
d out about Per Dagbent on the security camera, but that’s all I got.” He traced the bruises blooming on my cheek courtesy of the bakers. “There’s a small problem with your story.”

  “You don’t believe I was nearly fed to a Mixmaster?”

  His long legs were touching mine under the table. I didn’t move.

  “If the Dagbents put parts of your person in the macaroons as added protein, they draw attention to themselves, and they prove your point about their guilt, which is not in their best interest.”

  “But it’s also in their interest to get rid of me. This is obvious and overrides the above. What do they care if they get collared for the Moonelli murder. They’ve done worse. It’s what they do.” I focused on the spot above Demetrius’s elbow where muscle tapered into elbow. His feet advanced toward mine.

  “You need to find Las Meninas.”

  “No kidding.”

  He took a big bite of cherry cheesecake.

  “Do you think it’s safe for me to stay at Marnie’s place?”

  “I’m guessing it’s safer than your apartment, but have the locks changed.” He took another bite of cheesecake, licking a cherry from the spoon. He couldn’t possibly know how much this made my stomach turn.

  “You could stay at my place.”

  “With you and who else?” I asked.

  “A shepherd-collie mix, Zeppo, and Gertrude, the iguana.”

  “Another time, Demetrius.” I wanted to, but traveling to another borough at the moment seemed like traveling to Mars. I was tired, and I needed to sleep, or try to.

  “Okay, you don’t know what you’re missing.”

  “Actually, I do.” I didn’t mean to sound dismissive but as if, say, I needed to focus on survival rather than traveling to the pleasure dome in an unknown location. I always think certain things can wait, and then I find out they can’t. I “misunderestimated,” and there are no second chances.

  Chapter 21

  Marnie’s place had been ransacked. I had the locks changed immediately. All her electronics were gone, much of which she needed for her work. Her equipment was extremely valuable. I had just enough energy to deal with the locksmith, then I flipped the mattress back on the bed frame and collapsed into a tangle of sheets. Under a pillow, caught in the pillowcase, my hand touched something small and cool. I pulled it out: a silver lighter monogrammed “R. L.” I fell asleep haunted by what I had caused. Ove Dagbent pulled a long net behind him. R. L. could be anyone.

  I catnapped for maybe an hour and, in my groggy, semiconscious state, realized there was someplace I should have been and someone I should have called. I got Leon Kronstadt’s number from information, since there was no working computer left in Marnie’s apartment. He lived in Queens and sounded exactly like a younger version of his grandfather. I told him that I was sorry for his loss and sorry that I’d missed the funeral. I didn’t tell him that it was because I’d been a prisoner in a bakery or had been breaking into an apartment in Chelsea. He thanked me for trying to save his grandfather. We agreed to meet for lunch at the Jackson Heights Diner. He had something he wanted to give me. I threw my batter-and-cherry-syrup-stained clothes in the garbage and once again borrowed clothes from Marnie, changing into clean olive-colored jeans, a gray cotton shirt that buttoned over one shoulder instead of down the front, and black high-tops. That was what was handy and what fit.

  I arrived at the diner a little late. Leon had already done a round at the buffet and was sitting before plates of saag paneer with aloo and chana bhaji, but he waited as I quickly got a tray and served myself a masala dosa and a hot tea, cardamom pod floating on top. He was eager to tell me about the funeral.

  “You wouldn’t believe some of the people who showed up,” he said, laughing. “A couple of his old girlfriends who weren’t happy to see each other. One said to me, ‘Leon, you look just like Oscar.’ ” He imitated a deep, smoker’s Brooklyn accent. In truth, Leon, a tall gangly fellow with long straight brown hair and large glasses, looked nothing like his grandfather. “Another told me a story about the time she and Oscar went to a Fugs concert, high as kites. No surprise there.”

  “Did you know everyone at the funeral?”

  “No, not at all. All kinds of people came out of the woodwork. Your boss, Ashby, was there.”

  “That’s odd.” As far as I knew they weren’t acquainted, but Kronstadt’s had been elevated to theoretical if not actual landmark status following the murder. If there was a legend involved, Ashby would want to be seen and, if possible, photographed for whatever society reporter might happen to show up. “I guess he wanted to pay his respects. What are you going to do with the shop?”

  “Sell the inventory. Give the landlord the biggest Christmas present he ever had. ‘Yo, Broner.’ ” He changed his accent as if he were talking to the landlord. “ ‘No buyout necessary, asshat. We’re going out of business.’ ”

  Laughing, I nearly choked on my dosa.

  “You know my grandfather left notes or letters for people, as if he had a premonition something was going to happen.”

  “He was close to eighty. It’s not unusual for people to have wills, Leon.”

  “He left his collection of rare pigments to a woman in Santa Fe.”

  “Another girlfriend?”

  “Possibly. He loved lists and maps, you know. He has painters’ lists from decades ago, from scores of famous painters, detailing stuff they wanted and wrote down in their own handwriting. Those he bequeathed to the Museum of Modern Art. His map collection, including a map of the city drawn by Marcel Duchamp, was left to me. It had been given to him by his father. There’s a list for you, too. He was worried about you at the very end—not knowing, of course, that he only had one day left. He was aware of what happened at the auction house.”

  Leon passed me three sheets of lined paper stapled together at the corner. It was a list of various jobs for painters. Oscar had often referred painters to people who wanted custom painting of various parts of their houses, from faux marble to actual murals. At the bottom of the third page, a sort of Spider-Man figure had been scribbled.

  I glanced at the list:

  Painting animals in a child’s bedroom: lions, tigers, rhinos, tree sloths. Not abstract but as realistic as possible.

  Border in office. Cartoon characters: Krazy Kat and Ignatz, the Katzenjammer Twins, Little Nemo in Slumberland, Gertie the Dinosaur.

  Dour zoologists probably commissioned the first job. The second must have come from nostalgic cartoon historians.

  Mural touch-ups in hall at elevator entrance. Japanese-style painting.

  Nineteenth-century painting, not a master. Requires restoration.

  “Thanks, Leon.” I folded the list without reading it further and put it away. “But I’m not a painter. I’m more like a healthcare provider.”

  “What about the nineteenth-century job? You could do that.” He leaned over and pointed to an item on the list.

  I shrugged.

  “Yes, I know, but he thought you could do this because you work on nineteenth- century paintings and earlier, and that’s what this guy has. What you need to do is little more than touch-ups. No? Okay, what about the job touching up monochromatic modernists? It’s in that new building in midtown, the one where the crane collapsed during the hurricane. You could do that.” He tapped a finger on an entry on the second page.

  I knew of the building. It was one of those needle-shaped skyscrapers, not very wide but very high, where apartments sold for a gazillion dollars.

  “For a few hours’ work, my grandfather noted, this man will pay you enough to live on for a year. He appreciates skill; it’s written on the list. The man is based out of Zurich, I think, but he comes to New York from time to time. He’d have to, right? The notes say his name is Grilke, Ilya Grilke. The final e is pronounced like an a.”

  Leon had a point, and he wasn’t always going to be available to take me out to lunch, nor would I want him to. There would be no generous severance
package from Claiborne’s, as Ashby had, in his bullshittty way, said he would try to arrange. That had always been a ridiculous proposal. I needed work, no question about it.

  “Maybe I’ll contact the Krazy Kat people,” I said. “But I have to apply for the job as Star Hammersmith.” I dipped a fragment of dosa in coriander chutney. “Leon, did you find anything in your grandfather’s papers about a man named Birdwell?”

  “Birdwell? Yeah, I know a little about Birdwell. He met my grandfather in the early 1990s, maybe even earlier. He had been tramping around SoHo, back when there were galleries in that neighborhood, and, not really knowing the city, he kept walking east until he stumbled onto the shop. He wanted to talk to Oscar about art collecting—how can you tell how valuable something might be? It seemed totally arbitrary to him, and he was trying to figure it out—how a dealer, or whoever, assigns value to a work. When he saw a sign for an art-supply shop he wandered in, striking up a conversation, thinking, I guess, someone who sold supplies would have an answer or at least some insight. Art dealers wouldn’t speak to the guy, and my grandfather felt sorry for him. Birdwell saw the photographs on the wall and insisted on having his picture taken with Oscar as well. This was way before digital cameras. He mailed the shop a copy, and my grandfather kept it for no particular reason, maybe because Birdwell was so different from anyone else who ever walked in. He was so naïve, I remember Grandfather saying, so naïve.”

  “I don’t suppose he might have saved the envelope the photograph came in? It might have a return address.”

  “Oscar saved a lot of detritus, but he wasn’t a hoarder. It’s long gone, I’m sure. I’m still finding and sorting stuff. If I find anything about Birdwell, I’ll let you know.”

  Leon paid for our lunch, and for that I was eternally grateful.

  Chapter 22

  The platform of the Jackson Heights–Roosevelt Avenue F train was more crowded than I would have expected at that hour—late afternoon—going toward the city, destined to thread through Manhattan, then dive into Brooklyn. The F line is sort of like a long, stretched-out C shape as it makes its way through three boroughs. I waited. The announcement said there was a police investigation in Forest Hills at Seventy-first Street, but that could mean anything. Finally a moderately crowded train came into view, but as it clattered by the cars became increasingly crowded. People down the line at more populous stops had been waiting even longer, so by the time it pulled into Sixty-third Street at Lexington Avenue, the first stop in Manhattan, it was absolutely packed and stayed jammed all the way to Jay Street–MetroTech, in Brooklyn. But a few stops earlier a woman had gotten on at Delancey who was about my height, wearing tight parrot-green gym clothes, hair in two short pigtails gelled into spikes like an anime character. I got up to give my seat to a man carrying a little kid, and without thinking moved down the car to where there was a little more space and a pole that I could hold on to. The gym bird moved down the car, too. She was trying to look dreamy and preoccupied, but the F slows down and stops in the tunnel between Jay and Bergen to allow the G train to pass, and at this point I moved again, so that I stood right in front of her. Up close, her turquoise nails looked like pool tiles. She pretended to be completely absorbed in whatever was emanating from her headphones, bobbing her head and doing a small dance in place, barely bending and straightening her knees, swiveling her hips. People do this when they’re listening to music, thinking no one notices, but her in-place dancing seemed self-conscious, as if she knew I knew, and she was trying to come off as just any random person headed toward Coney Island. We were in the last car, and at Bergen I got off and began to loop. Looping is when you go from car to car, changing at every stop. It’s what panhandlers and musicians do, and it’s supposed to be illegal, but why this is I have no idea.