“Well, then, how do you explain it, Geoff? Assuming I’m right, how could the lab get it so wrong?”
“Well, I need to think about that. This Laboratoire Forensique Pour l’Art—their tests are the most exhaustive in the business. Thank goodness they never had a go at anything I did,” he said with a smile in his voice. “They really are very, very good.”
“I know, but I’m very good too,” Alix said in a rare fit of braggadocio, “so I repeat: How did they manage to get it wrong?”
Geoff laughed. “My goodness, no one can accuse you of false modesty, can they?”
“Yeah, I wonder who I got that from.”
“Look, dear, the truth is, I just might have an inkling of how it could have happened. It’s a bit outlandish, but if anybody could bring it off, Weisskopf would be the man. Let me look into it for you.”
She had heard people talking—Gaby and Emil—in the courtyard outside and thought she’d better finish. “I have to run now—”
“King Minos must want his throne back,” Geoff said. “Give him my warmest regards. Goodbye, then, child. Lovely to talk to you, as always.”
“Same here. Let’s stay in touch. Thank you, Geoff… and thank you, Tiny.”
“Prego, mia bambola. Ciao.”
18
The moment she stepped back out into the Central Court—even before she was entirely through the entryway—she winced with embarrassment, regretting that she hadn’t thought to cough or shuffle her feet to let them know she was coming. Gaby and Emil were sitting side by side on a low stone wall, part of the foundation of a building that was no longer there, and it wasn’t that she actually caught them doing anything that either she or they had to be embarrassed about, but the sudden, startled way they sprang apart at her appearance made it obvious that she’d just barely missed it.
The movement took perhaps half a second and didn’t cover much space, but it left no doubt in Alix’s mind that Gaby Papadakis and Emil Varga were lovers.
Yuck. With Panos for a husband, she really couldn’t fault Gaby for looking for extracurricular companionship—but Emil? Carping, shambling, nit-picking Emil? Alix was disappointed. She would have thought the woman had better prospects than that. And better taste.
“Hi, there,” she said brightly. “Didn’t know anybody was out here.”
“Oh, is that Alix? Hi, there!” Gaby said equally brightly, pretending that she didn’t know Alix was pretending. She was flustered, though. Her hands fluttered at her waist and the neckline of her shirt, checking to see how disarranged she might be.
“Hello, Alix,” Emil said rather boldly. He might not have liked being interrupted, but he didn’t in the least mind Alix’s knowing he and Gaby had something going.
Eyes front, Alix kept moving across the courtyard. “See you later, people. I haven’t checked out the buffet yet and I’m starving.”
Alix was telling the truth when she said she was hungry, and she went straight back to the buffet. She was still thinking about Gaby and Emil and the way they’d leapt apart when they’d become aware of her. Could she have jumped to a false conclusion? Well, of course she could have, but with people, as it was with art, if her intellect and her stomach disagreed, she generally put her money on her stomach. Too, she remembered now that she’d sensed a history between Gaby and Mirko as well. Maybe becoming Mrs. Papadakis hadn’t put her old opera-star lifestyle behind her after all.
Interesting to think about, but right now it was the buffet that was on her mind. Three small, linen-topped picnic tables had been set up in the area. One stewardess stood behind the buffet table to assist, and a second stood by, available to serve those who chose to have their dinners there. Panos and Edward, who must have arrived after the others, had their heads together in conversation at one, and Izzy and Lorenzo were dining at the other. That is, Izzy was dining; Lorenzo, with a knife waving alarmingly around in one hand and a fork in the other, was excitedly declaiming away. Alix heard only a few snatches—“… Even Frege’s propositional functions cannot…,” “… Yes, but only if one considers the performative function of language as separate from…,” “I don’t have to tell you what Wittgenstein would say about that, ah-ha-ha”—but they were more than enough to dissuade her from joining them. The third table was occupied by Mirko, who had unsurprisingly arranged himself so that he was as far from the others as possible and facing away from them. Alix wasn’t about to intrude on his privacy.
It was Ted she was hoping to find, of course, and there he was, near the buffet table, looking as if he were thinking about joining Panos and Edward for a little undercover legwork, but was perhaps doubtful about seeming too pushy too soon. When he spotted Alix, he smiled and waved her over. He looked pleased to see her, but with Ted in undercover mode, you never knew if it was all part of the act or not.
“Hey, Alix.”
“Oh, hi… Rollie.” She couldn’t believe it; she’d come within a millisecond of calling him “Ted.” She’d practically had to bite her tongue to stop herself. One more indication that maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t quite as ready for this kind of work as she thought she was. Well, she’d make sure that didn’t happen again.
“Alix, what do you say we grab a couple of dinners and find some place where we can sit down and do some catching up?”
“Sure, Rollie.” Smoother that time. “Love to.”
The smiling stewardess behind the buffet table (Did they ever stop smiling?) provided them each with a handsome, over-the-shoulder canvas satchel trimmed with leather and embroidered with a tiny Artemis logo in the usual Prussian blue. “If you could bring back whatever is left, it would be appreciated. Or, if you prefer, simply let me know where to find it. The satchels themselves are yours to keep, of course. They’re specially made for us by Balenciaga.”
Alix laughed, and when Ted looked quizzically at her, she shook her head. “Nothing.” The thought that had popped into her mind was How nice for Mirko, the Homeless Billionaire. Now he won’t have to use a paper bag anymore.
With their satchels they wandered away from the others, with Alix steering them clear of the Central Court.
“Ted—”
“Rollie,” he corrected with a smile of patient endurance.
But Alix was in no mood to be endured. “Rollie,” she said crossly, “don’t you think you could have warned me you were coming? I mean, really, if this is the way—”
“Warn you? I tried to call you three times yesterday and Jamie tried twice.”
Oops. “Oh, those were from you?” she said lamely.
“You might want to try checking your messages every now and then.”
“Okay, my fault, sorry about that. I’d do it more often if I didn’t feel like such a moron sitting there repeating kleptomaniacal to a telephone until it decides I’m telling the truth when I say it’s me.”
Ted laughed. “Maybe you need another word.”
They walked companionably for a few minutes through brightly colored reconstructions and evocative ruins. It wasn’t quite dark yet, but the soft, amber security lights had been turned on, so there was a lovely, warm luminosity to everything. The old stones themselves had a velvety sheen.
“Rollie, should we really be talking like this, off by ourselves? Won’t it make the others wonder?”
“About what? A rich, young bachelor gadabout like me glomming on to the only really good-looking, sexy woman aboard? They’d wonder a lot more if I didn’t.”
“Hm, did I hear something like a compliment in there?”
“Completely inadvertent,” Ted said, laughing. “Not that it isn’t true, of course.” The laugh settled down into what she thought was a genuinely warm smile. Even those usually steely blue eyes softened. “I’m glad to see you, Alix. I was glad when the chance came up.”’
“I’m glad too. In fact, when I…” She was starting to babble, and she cut herself off. What was it with this guy? She couldn’t remember the last time anybody had a knack like his for throwing h
er off her stride. “It’s very nice to see you too,” she finished politely.
“Hey, what do you say we have our dinner in there?” Ted was looking into the open-sided room on their left, with another of Knossos’s more famous frescoes on one wall.
“The Queen’s Megaron,” Alix said.
“Is that what it’s called? That dolphin fresco on the wall, I remember seeing a picture of it in a book when I was a kid. It was like a new world opened for me. The thought that these people from so long ago—almost four thousand years, isn’t it?—could have art up on their walls that was so… so playful, so pretty, hadn’t ever really registered before. I thought of Bronze Age people as, you know…”
What was this? Was he a little flustered too? He was certainly babbling. Food for thought there. “Sure,” she said, “I love the dolphin fresco too. It’s not real though, you know.”
“I know. All these frescoes are replicas. The originals are in the Heraklion Museum, aren’t they?”
They navigated around a giant clay storage jug, climbed over a low, slab-like plinth that served as the base for several of the Minoan culture’s distinctive, red, downward-tapering columns—originally wood but replaced by Evans with concrete—and sat themselves down on the lip of the plinth, in an open embrasure that permitted a clear and easy view out to the sides, up and down the pathway that led to it.
“Yes, they are replicas,” she said, “but what I meant was that not even the original fresco is really original. Or real. There’s no such thing as a ‘real’ dolphin wall fresco. It doesn’t exist. It never did.”
He frowned at her. “You’ve been spending time with Lorenzo, haven’t you?”
That made her laugh. “Actually, I have, but what I’m talking about is that Evans got it wrong. The dolphin fragments that were found in the ruins had originally been in the Treasury, not this room at all, and they came from a floor painting, not a wall painting.”
“Is that so?” he said with a smile. “I’m impressed. Here I thought I had a lot of useless information. So tell me, is there anything ‘real’ around here?”
“Yes, right next door, the Queen’s Toilet, an honest-to-God flushing toilet, possibly the oldest one in the world. If you’d prefer—”
“Thanks, but I’d rather eat in here, if it’s all the same to you.”
“I agree, Rollie—look, can I call you Ted in here, since nobody’s around?”
“Can you do that—call me by one name sometimes and another name at other times, without slipping up?”
“Sure, no problem.”
“Because not everybody has an easy time with that—which is understandable.” He was giving her a chance to change her mind.
“It will not be a problem,” she said firmly, as much to herself as to him. “And while we’re talking about good old Rollie, where’s that awful ‘Bahston’ accent he had in Santa Fe?”
“Hey, that hurts. I was proud of that accent, but I don’t need it here. Look, the only reason I’m Rollie de Beauvais at all this time is that I already had all the paperwork ready and waiting—driver’s license, Social Security card, business cards, even a birth certificate if I ever need one. Everything checks out. And it doesn’t hurt that ‘de Beauvais’ fits for the nephew of a Belgian countess.”
“And is there a Belgian countess in reality?”
“Oh, sure, and she was really meaning to be on the cruise. That much is true, but—”
“But she doesn’t really have a wrenched knee.”
“No, she doesn’t. But she does have some suspicions about these investments Papadakis has supposedly been making for her, and she’s had them for a while now. I’ve spoken with her about them several times, and just a couple of days ago, when we were talking, I came up with the idea. She loved it, and here I am.”
“Okay, I understand all that, but how—”
He held up his hand. “At some point, do I get to ask some questions too?”
She smiled. “Ask away; the floor is yours.”
“All right, question one. What do you say we have something to eat?”
“I’ll second that.” She opened her satchel, which held what looked like enough for three people, and that suited her fine. She started with a transparent carton that had hummus in one compartment and sticks of radish, celery, and cucumber in the other, and quickly got to work on it. Ted did the same.
“Two,” he said, “how about filling me in on what’s been happening so far?”
“Whew, where do I start? I assume you’ve already heard a little about my, ah, misadventures?”
“No, I’ve heard a lot about your, ah, misadventures. You seem to have made yourself the number-one topic of conversation. Not that I’m being critical, you understand,” he said, munching away, “but generally speaking, we in the spook business don’t consider that the best way to start off an operation.”
“Oh, well, excuse me. I sincerely apologize for getting whacked on the head.”
“I’ll let it go this time, but see that it doesn’t happen again.”
“Trust me, I’ll do my best.”
He stopped chewing. “Alix… you are okay, aren’t you? I understand you refused to see a doctor.”
“I didn’t need a doctor. Honestly, I’m fine, thanks. It’s still a little tender where I got hit, but that’s all.”
“Good.” He poked around in his satchel. “You think there might be some wine or something like that in here? Ahh…” He pulled out a half bottle and let out a sigh as he read the label. “Bollinger Special Cuvée Brut. Damn, more champagne. I was hoping for some simple, plain white wine, Chablis or something.”
“Aw, I feel for you. Life can be hard sometimes.”
“Well, I guess I can stand it if I have to. Want me to pour you some too?”
“Please.” She laid some more cartons out on the plinth beside her. “This is wonderful, a feast.” There were oily black olives, Greek salad, string beans with almonds, and cold salmon with capers and what looked and smelled like fresh dill sour cream dressing. Rolled inside a thick napkin were sturdy, full-size metal utensils and tiny silver salt-and-pepper shakers. The plastic glasses were stemmed champagne flutes.
Ted got the cork out with a soft pop and poured both their glasses from it, topping them off as the fizz settled. “Alix, what’s your take on what’s going on?” he asked, handing her a glass. He raised his to hers and they nonchalantly clicked glasses.
“I don’t have one. All I have are questions.” Between bites of salmon, she went over the confused and confusing thoughts that had racketed around her head when she’d awakened that morning: Who had slashed the painting? Why? Did it have something to do with her raising doubts about it, or was that simply coincidence?
Ted came up with no better answers than she had. At one point near the end he laughed, and she raised an inquiring eyebrow.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” he said, “I was just thinking that I left DC yesterday on an assignment concerning a pyramid scheme involving fractional-share investments. Interesting in its own way if you like that kind of thing, but really pretty straightforward, even pedestrian. And when I get here I find out that you hadn’t been onboard for five minutes before you’d totally stirred things up—”
“Ted—”
“You managed to get yourself assaulted and damn near killed—”
“Ted—”
“You’ve gotten everybody all shook up with the accusation—an unsubstantiated accusation, I gather—that the most valuable and coveted painting on the ship is a fake—”
“Ted—”
“And that same painting has since been slashed by some villain, identity unknown—”
“Ted—”
“And all of this was accomplished within half an hour of your setting foot on the Artemis. Amazing, really.” He was laughing again. “I can see that working with you might have its problems, but being dull is never going to be one of them.”
“Ted, dammit—”
“Yes?�
�
But she’d forgotten what she was trying to say, so she jumped to the attack. “It was not an accusation about the Manet. I haven’t accused anybody of anything, have I? It was an observation, an educated deduction. And it was certainly not unsubstantiated. It is a fake. And yes, I know about the letters of authenticity and the lab tests and all that. How it got by the lab… okay, I can’t explain that. But I do know it’s a fake, a copy.”
“I must have missed something. What’s your substantiation again?”
She went through her rationale with him, judiciously leaving out the fact that she’d consulted with Tiny and Geoff. Ted, she knew, had some lingering doubts about Geoff’s moral fiber and credibility. Not that Alix didn’t have them as well, but there was a big difference. Ted had gotten to know him as a member of the team that had worked so hard and successfully to get him put away for his several crimes; Alix had known him as his well-loved child.
“ ‘The background’s too good’?” he repeated doubtfully. “That’s your proof?”
“You don’t think I’m right?”
“Well, maybe when we get back to the yacht, you could show me—”
“I can’t show you. Panos has locked it away in some special storage place and nobody can get near it.”
“I see.” He frowned down at his glass.
“You don’t think I’m right, do you?”
“Alix, you made a believer out of me in Santa Fe, so when you say something like that, yes, I do think you’re right—well, probably right. But you have to admit it’s not what anyone would call incontrovertible proof.” He held up the second small bottle, taken from her satchel, and when she nodded he twisted off the cork and refilled their glasses.
“Ted, I’m just telling you what I saw and what I concluded from it. I’m convinced I’m right, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to prove it, especially since the lab decided there was nothing suspicious about it, and I can’t get another look at it anyway.”
A Cruise to Die For (An Alix London Mystery) Page 16
