Burnt Sienna

by David Morrell

  “Yes.”

  The way Jeb said it made Malone shift his gaze from the magazine’s cover.

  “Bellasar was married three times before.”

  Malone frowned.

  “All of his wives were gorgeous, and all of them died young.”

  “What?”

  “The first lost control of her sports car and went over a cliff. The second broke her neck while skiing. The third drowned in a diving accident.”

  “It sounds like it’s bad for a woman’s health to be Bellasar’s wife,” Malone said. “With a track record like that, who’d be foolish enough to marry him?”

  “You’re assuming the other marriages were publicized. Bellasar’s a hundred times more sensitive about his privacy than you are about yours. In his case, it’s a survival trait. Believe me, the facts about his marriages and the subsequent quiet funerals are hard to come by.” Jeb paused to emphasize what he was about to say. “Before each wife died, Bellasar hired a noted painter to do a portrait of her.”

  Malone felt a cold ripple along his skin.

  “The paintings hang in a secluded room in Bellasar’s mansion in southern France. They’re a private collection of his trophies. He can’t stand imperfection. When his wives get to be about thirty, when they start to lose the bloom of youth and show the slightest blemish, a faint wrinkle around the eyes or an isolated gray hair that hints of aging, he wants nothing more to do with them. But his suspicious nature prevents him from merely divorcing them. After all, they’ve been around him too long. They’ve seen and heard too much. They could be a threat.”

  “I don’t understand. If he knows he’s going to get rid of them, why does he take the trouble of marrying them? Why doesn’t he just ask them to be his mistresses?”

  “Because he’s a collector.”

  “I still don’t —”

  “The way he looks at it, if he didn’t marry them, he wouldn’t own them.”

  “Jesus.” Malone glanced down at the magazine cover. “And after they’re dead, he still owns them as portraits.”

  “Painted by masters, their beauty immortalized, never aging,” Jeb said.

  Malone kept staring at the magazine cover. “So now he’s getting ready to have this wife killed.”

  “Sure looks that way to us.” Jeb let Malone think about it. “But if you go in and paint her, you might be able to figure a way for us to rescue her. The things she knows, she could be very helpful to us.”

  Dusk cast shadows. The car’s headlights illuminated the vine-covered trees.

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “I’m sorry this woman has a problem, but I don’t know her,” Malone said. “She’s a face on a magazine cover. She doesn’t have any connection with me.”

  “But you can’t let her —”

  “I don’t want to get mixed up with you guys.”

  “Even if it’s a way to get even with Bellasar?”

  “I can do that myself. I don’t need to let anybody use me.”

  “I can’t believe your attitude. You’re just going to stand back and let her die?”

  “Seems to me that’s what you’re doing,” Malone said. “Don’t push the responsibility onto me. I didn’t know anything about this woman until a few minutes ago. If you think she’s in that much danger, send in a team right now and grab her.”

  “Can’t. The timing’s wrong. The moment we play our hand, Bellasar will tighten his security even more. We’ll lose our chance to get someone close to him.”

  “So when it comes right down to it, you don’t care about the woman, either.”

  Jeb didn’t respond.

  “She’s only a device you’re using to try to recruit me,” Malone said. “Getting me in there to look around is more important than saving her.”

  “The two go together.”

  “Not as far as I’m concerned. I won’t be manipulated. I’ll get even with him on my own.”

  “If you’d just listen to reason for a —”

  “Damn it, you and Bellasar have something in common. You won’t take no for an answer.”

  Jeb assessed him a moment. “So that’s how it’s going to be?”

  “That’s how it’s going to be.”

  “Fine.” Jeb’s voice was flat. He frowned toward the lights of San Miguel ahead of them. His voice became flatter. “I need a drink.”

  “No hard feelings?”

  “It takes more than an argument to end a friendship.”

  But Malone couldn’t help feeling that the end of a friendship was precisely what had happened.

  13

  They headed along the main street of the picturesque town and stopped at a restaurant called Costa Brava across from the waterfront. All the while Malone drank a beer with Jeb, he barely tasted it. They both had trouble making small talk. The specialty of the house, a lobster dinner, was everything it should have been, but Malone couldn’t help wishing he was back at the Coral Reef. He was only now beginning to realize the full force of what he had lost.

  They returned home earlier than they usually would have. Malone offered a nightcap, but Jeb excused himself, claiming travel fatigue. Malone went out to his shadowy courtyard and stared at the savaged dunes and palm trees. He slumped on a hammock, closed his eyes to the stars, and brooded about Bellasar, about the woman called Sienna and the death sentence she didn’t know had been given to her.

  When he had first seen the magazine’s cover, the face on it had struck him as being commercially beautiful, no more than that. But as he had looked harder, he had begun to notice the subtlety around the lips, the nuance of the way she cocked her head and positioned her eyes. Her eyes. There was something about them — something in them — that spoke of a deeper beauty.

  Now that face and those eyes hovered in his memory. He kept thinking about her fiery brown skin: burnt sienna, his favorite color. He dozed and woke several times, continuing to brood about the beautiful doomed woman he’d been asked to paint. In an uneasy state between sleeping and waking, he imagined her perfect sensuous features — imagined, not remembered, for it wasn’t the face on the magazine cover that occupied him. Instead, it was his conception of that face, his depiction of the beauty behind it, a beauty that would be destroyed if he didn’t help her.

  And in the process, he’d be getting even with Bellasar.

  At dawn, he was waiting outside when Jeb carried his suitcase from the house.

  “I’ll do it,” Malone said.

  | Go to Contents |

  TWO

  1

  Sotheby’s was on Manhattan’s exclusive Upper East Side, where York Avenue intersected with Seventy-second Street. The February sky was a gunmetal gray that threatened flurries. Ignoring a cold wind, Malone kept his hands in the pockets of a fleece-lined leather bomber jacket and watched the entrance to the block-long auction house from a bus stop on the opposite side of the street. A succession of taxis and limousines halted in front, their well-dressed passengers entering the building.

  The time was shortly after 10:00 A.M. When Malone had arrived at Kennedy Airport late the previous afternoon, there had been just enough time to phone Sotheby’s before it closed and find out the subject of its auction today — Expressionist paintings — as well as the time the auction began — 10:15. He had spent a restless night at the Parker Meridian.

  Doug Fennerman had said that he’d be meeting Bellasar and Potter here this morning. Malone hoped that the plan hadn’t changed. His own plan depended on it. Having agreed to cooperate with Jeb, he had tried to think of a way to accept Bellasar’s commission without arousing suspicion. After all, he had been adamant in his refusal to do the portraits. Now that Bellasar had gone to considerable expense to punish Malone by tearing apart his life, would Bellasar believe it likely that Malone would simply throw up his hands in surrender, admit the error of his ways, and agree to do the portraits? Wouldn’t Bellasar question this reaction? Wasn’t it more in character for Malone to respond with rage?


  Do what I intended to do before Jeb showed up, Malone had decided. The only thing that’s changed is, I’m getting even in a different way than I imagined. His face felt burned by anger as much as the cold. He checked his watch again — 10:08 — returned his gaze to Sotheby’s entrance, and saw two muscular men get out of a limousine. Their cropped hair and rigid bearing suggested they had recently been in the military. Their slightly too-large suits allowed for concealed firearms while giving their bodies room to maneuver if they needed to act in a hurry. After scanning the area, they nodded toward the limo to indicate it was safe to get out.

  Malone felt a spark shoot through his nervous system when Potter stepped into view. The short, somber man wore a funereal overcoat that emphasized the pallor of his skin. His thinning hair was tugged by the wind as he stepped back to allow another man to emerge from the limo. Malone stiffened.

  From a dossier Jeb had shown him, Malone knew that the second man was sixty-one, but amazingly he seemed only in his late forties. He was tall but had a presence that made him appear to have even more stature. He had thick, wavy dark hair and broad, handsome features that Malone associated with Mediterranean countries. He had a solid-looking physique. He wore a white silk scarf over a superbly cut dark brown blazer and light brown slacks. No overcoat — he was oblivious to the weather. The impressiveness of the man’s separate parts was heightened by their totality, producing a sense of power and strength that made those around him seem insubstantial.

  Derek Bellasar. Potter had said Bellasar didn’t allow his photograph to be taken, but Jeb had shown Malone photos taken secretly from a distance. There was no mistaking him.

  Immediately, another man appeared, rushing out of Sotheby’s revolving door, smiling broadly, extending his right hand in welcome. He was Malone’s art dealer, Doug Fennerman, his red hair matched by his flushed face. Bellasar responded with only a cursory greeting. The gang’s all here, Malone thought, crossing the street, walking quickly closer but unable to reach the group before all of them disappeared into Sotheby’s.

  He entered the reception area about fifteen seconds after they did. Making his way through the crowd, he saw Doug give Bellasar a catalog of the auction, retaining one for himself along with a small numbered paddle that was used for bidding. Evidently, Doug was here to act as an adviser to Bellasar and do the bidding for him. Bellasar must have thought it demeaning to raise his own hand. The group, including the bodyguards, went up a marble staircase with brass railings and turned to the left toward a spacious auction room.

  Upstairs, Malone reached a desk where a Sotheby’s employee was registering anyone who intended to bid on the paintings. This close to the start of the auction, most of the attendees had already put in their names, so it took only a minute for Malone to present his driver’s license, give his name and address, and provide a signature.

  “Chase Malone?” the man asked in surprise. “Are you the —”

  Before the man could say anything about his work, Malone went into the brightly lit, green-carpeted auction room.

  2

  The murmurs of several hundred people filled it. Scanning the crowd, Malone spotted Bellasar, Potter, and Doug halfway down the middle aisle. The bodyguards stood at each side of the room, studying everyone. As the only voice became that of the auctioneer, Malone leaned against a stone pillar at the back and waited.

  The first piece, a not-bad Kandinsky, went for $600,000. Watching the price displayed in various currencies on an electronic board at the front of the auction room, Malone couldn’t help remembering that, ten years earlier, his own work had been priced at a hundred dollars. Now it went for hundreds of thousands. Given the poverty in the world, was any painting, no matter who created it, worth these exorbitant amounts? His complaint was hypocritical, he knew, for until now, he hadn’t refused any money. Most of his earnings had been saved to protect his independence. A good thing, he mentally added, for if the gamble he was about to take failed, he was going to need all his financial resources.

  The next item, a better-than-average Klee, went for $850,000. But it wasn’t until the auctioneer introduced the third painting, a starkly bleak Munch in the style of his famous The Scream, that a whisper went through the room. In the catalog, the item had a minimum estimated value of $1.2 million. As was customary, the auctioneer began the bidding at 50 percent of that figure: $600,000.

  Malone noticed a shift in the way Bellasar sat, a compacting of muscles, a gathering of energy. Doug made a slight gesture with his paddle, indicating to the auctioneer that he would open the bid at the requested amount. The auctioneer automatically raised the bid to $650,000, which someone else took and which Doug capped as soon as the auctioneer went to $700,000. That was the pattern. With barely a motion of his paddle, Doug outdid every offer. The signal was clear. Others in the room could bid all they wanted, but Doug would always go higher.

  The bidding languished at $1 million.

  “Going once,” the auctioneer said. “Going twice.”

  “One point one,” Malone said.

  The auctioneer steadied his gaze toward the back of the room, seeming to ask for confirmation.

  “One point one,” Malone repeated.

  Puzzled, Doug turned to see who was bidding against him and blinked in surprise when he saw Malone. Something he said made Bellasar and Potter spin.

  “One point one million,” the auctioneer said. “The bid is one point one. Do I have —”

  “Two,” Doug said.

  “Three,” Malone said.

  “Four.”

  “Five.”

  Even from a distance, it was obvious that the auctioneer was sizing up Malone, troubled by his sneakers, jeans, and leather jacket, wondering if he had the money to back up his bid. “Sir, if —”

  An assistant approached the auctioneer and whispered into his ear. What he said was presumably what several members of the audience were already telling one another. They had recognized Malone. His name was being murmured.

  “Very well,” the auctioneer said. “One point five million. Do I have —”

  “Six.” The voice was no longer Doug’s, but Bellasar’s: a baritone with a hint of an Italian accent and more than a hint of annoyance.

  “Eight,” Malone said.

  “Two million,” Bellasar said defiantly.

  “It’s yours.” Malone shrugged. “I guess you just can’t take no for an answer.”

  The fury in Bellasar’s eyes was palpable.

  “A black-market arms dealer’s money is as good as anybody’s, right?” Malone asked the auctioneer.

  Bellasar stood.

  “Of course, there’s blood all over the money,” Malone said. “But who says blood and art don’t go together?”

  The bodyguards approached from the sides.

  Avoiding them, Malone walked down the aisle toward Bellasar.

  “Chase, what are you doing?” Doug asked in alarm.

  Murmurs in the room grew louder.

  Bellasar’s face was rigid with anger. “You just forced me to pay a million more than I had to for that painting.”

  “I don’t recall twisting your arm. Maybe it’s God’s way of letting you know you have too much money. Why don’t you add that amount to what it cost you to tear apart my life? You’re interested in my paintings? I’ve decided to change my style. I’m now into performance art.”

  Reaching into the pockets of his bomber jacket, Malone came out with a tube of oil paint in each hand. The caps had already been removed. Squeezing hard, he shot two streams of scarlet paint over Bellasar’s dark brown blazer.

  Bellasar jerked his head back in shock.

  “The color of blood,” Malone said. “You could call it a metaphor.”

  He reached back to drive a fist into Bellasar’s stomach but changed position as one of the bodyguards lunged. Pivoting, Malone grabbed the man’s arm, swung, and sent him flying into a row of chairs emptied by members of the audience anxious to get away from the
commotion. “Call the police!” someone yelled. As the chairs crashed and the bodyguard rolled, Malone prepared a second time to hit Bellasar, but the other bodyguard rushed him. Malone knocked the man to the floor, felt something sting his neck, and spun to thrust the sharp object away, realizing with alarm that Bellasar had pricked him with something on a ring he wore. Something inside the ring. As Bellasar swiveled the ring’s crested top back into place, Malone’s neck felt on fire. The heat rushed through his body. He had time to punch the first bodyguard before his mind swirled. Frantic, he struggled, but somebody hit him, and the floor became rubbery, his knees collapsing. As out-of-focus hands grabbed him, dragging him along the blurry aisle, his hearing lasted slightly longer than his fading vision. He tried to thrash but was powerless. The last thing he remembered was the scrape of his shoes on carpet.

  3

  He awoke to a raging headache, finding himself strapped to a chair in a large, dark, echoing area. The only light was from a harsh unshielded bulb above his head. Two men, a different pair than the first two, played cards at a nearby table.

  “Need to go to the bathroom?” one of them asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Too bad. Besides, you already did.”

  Malone’s jeans were wet where he’d urinated on himself. His stomach was queasy. The back of his neck ached where Bellasar’s ring had jabbed him.

  In the distance, a door opened and closed with a metallic thump. Two pairs of footsteps scraped on concrete, approaching through the darkness. Bellasar and Potter stepped into view. Bellasar now wore a navy blazer and gray slacks; Potter looked even more somber than usual.

  Bellasar studied him. “You’re a fool.”

  “I’m not the one who paid a million more than he had to for a painting.”

  Bellasar spread his hands. “Money can be replaced. I was referring to your refusal to cooperate with me. If you’d accepted my commission, your life wouldn’t be in such disarray at the moment.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t and it is.” Bellasar studied him harder, then shook his head. “What did you hope to accomplish with that incident at Sotheby’s?”