The case wobbled on the tips of his fingers for a moment, and it took a frantic swipe for him to pluck it back out of the air. When he did, the arm that held her slipped enough to let her take in something close to a full breath, the first she’d had since he’d had her; but in another second he’d adjusted and she was clamped more firmly than ever in the vise of that thick, leather-sheathed arm. But that one lungful of air had instantly sharpened her mind, and what she was thinking was how desperately he had lunged for that case, and would surely lunge for it again if she… if she…
Behind her eyes, the starbursts started silently popping again, tiny fireworks, and her thoughts began to lose shape, to fragment and to fall away. If she didn’t do something now, right now, she’d black out in seconds and be dead not long after. She let her knees go soft again and sagged, making herself a dead weight, as if she had already lost consciousness, and when he was forced to readjust for this, loosening his hold on her throat a little, she was able to gulp another quick breath and use the brief spurt of energy to snatch at the map case with both hands, get her fingers around it, and yank it out of his hand.
He fumbled for it with his free hand, still struggling backward with her. She dug in her heels again to make it harder for him, managing to hold the case at arm’s length in front of her, where he couldn’t reach it without letting up on her neck. They were only a dozen feet from the door now and moving toward it fast. His hold had retightened, but before the constriction could affect her she jerked the case up, as if at his head. It was a feint and it worked. He flinched, bending to the side and giving her the freedom of movement she was after. They had stumbled into, and almost tripped over, a steel-framed chair near the door, and it was down onto the metal back of this that she smashed the map case. The case was sturdy; it dented only a little. He was babbling frantically to her now, or rather at her, wild with desperation. She took heart from that and whacked the case against the metal frame once more. The dent was now a crack, and the case had given way and bent almost double at its center. And Leather-jacket was nearly hysterical.
But she was losing strength—the starbursts had given way to wavering black spots that grew and shrank and moved in and out of focus. The world began to tilt. Nausea roiled deep inside her. She was able to raise the case yet again but neither her muscles nor her mind would cooperate in bringing it down on the chair, and she could only hold it there, just out of his grasp, her fingers numbed, her vision darkening. Leather-jacket uttered a kind of low moan and grabbed for it with both hands. Alix let go—she couldn’t have hung on to it any longer anyway—and as he clutched at it, her eyes rolled up, the world went red and then black, and she collapsed to the floor.
The next instant the police were on him and it was over.
25
“Well, I can’t say it was easy, but I finally got my coffee,” Alix said, thirty minutes later, as she started on her second cup with a happy sigh. A fabulously, wickedly sweet, sticky Albanian pastry had already been consumed and two more waited in the basket, but not for long.
Ted smiled at her across the table, hands circling his own cup. It had taken him a while to loosen up, but now he seemed relaxed. Some of the police were enjoying similar snacks at other tables. The Porto Eda kafe, not yet reopened to the public, was providing free refreshments for them all. (“To thank because we don’t shoot up the place,” Yiorgos had said.)
Ted was just finishing up a brief explanation of what she’d stumbled into—the “international operation” he’d referred to earlier. It had gotten its start only a few hours after he’d arrived on the Artemis. He’d gotten word through the FBI grapevine that an Albanian mafia bust had been in the works for a while, in which the police there hoped to take down some top-level mafiosi on customs violations (in much the same way that Al Capone, having successfully eluded conviction on murder, prostitution, and Prohibition-related charges, was finally jailed for tax evasion). At the center of the planned bust was an illegal importation of paintings to take place a couple of days hence at the Hotel Porto Eda in Saranda. Since a couple of days hence was the very date that the Artemis, practically bulging with masterpieces, would be calling at Saranda, it didn’t require massive brainpower to figure out that there might be a connection between the two.
Knowing that Yiorgos was on leave from a colonelcy in the Hellenic Police, Ted had guessed correctly that he was the representative from the Greek side. He’d told Yiorgos who he was and, with the Bureau’s go-ahead, had offered his help. Yiorgos had been quick to accept. What exactly was going to happen they didn’t know, but the Albanian police had set up a surveillance van near the hotel that morning and had been tuned to room 204 ever since. Yiorgos and Ted had been brought over in a police boat at eight a.m. They had assumed that Panos would be at the heart of it and were surprised when he didn’t show up on the nine o’clock ferry, but their puzzlement ended when Emil and Gaby walked off it carrying the map case and headed straight for the Hotel Porto Eda. They had then—
Alix, her mouth filled with a chunk of pastry number two, had practically choked.
“Gaby? Gaby was… was dealing with the mafia?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“So she and Emil—”
“Alix, I don’t have all the details yet, or anything close. We had a nice, neat theory all constructed around Panos, and now, with this, instead of a theory we have dozens of bits and pieces, and we don’t know how they fit together yet.”
He finished what was left of his coffee, grimacing when some of the grounds apparently went down with it. “Look, I have to get back to Yiorgos and the others. For you, the cruise is over; we’re sending you back. You’ve had a tough time of it, and, frankly, there’s really nothing for you to do anymore.”
He waited, probably expecting a fight, but Alix shrugged; she couldn’t argue with what he’d said. Besides, she was ready to be done with the Artemis.
“Your luggage is on its way here from the yacht. Then we’re flying you to Athens, and from there to DC tomorrow, where we’ll book a hotel room for you for a couple of nights—three, if you want them. You would have been spending them on the cruise anyway—”
“DC? Why?”
“You’ll have some paperwork to take care of, and being there will make it easier. Besides, it won’t hurt for you to relax for a day or two, take a little time to decompress and see the sights—on us; you earned it.”
“Uh-huh. And of course you’re flying me business class. Or will it be first?”
He laughed. “Sorry, kid, Panos isn’t paying for this, the Bureau is, so you get to go civil-servant class, otherwise known as K class, otherwise known as common-rabble class.”
“You’re staying with the cruise?”
“Sure am, but only till tomorrow. You know, the auction is scheduled for tonight at sea, and then tomorrow morning the yacht’s supposed to make a quick stop at one of the islands, Kythera, I think, where Panos is planning to get off and fly back, to St. Barts. The guests are welcome to stay with the cruise to Rhodes and then back to Mykonos if they want, but I’m going to get off with Panos. Get some more face time with him, maybe have lunch together while we’re waiting for our flights.”
Befriend and betray, Alix thought.
“Anyway, I’ll be back in DC the day after tomorrow myself. Let’s get together for lunch.”
“Now where have I heard that before?”
“Trust me, this time I’ll be there, and I’ll have more to tell you by then. Let’s say one o’clock at the Garden Café in the National Gallery. You know where it is?”
“The National Gallery, sure. The Garden Café I’ll find.”
“It’s a nice place to eat, and it’s only three blocks from HQ. Oh, one more thing. The paintings that were in the case? They’re fine; you didn’t damage them. I thought you’d want to know.”
She was confused. “What difference does it make? They’re forgeries; aren’t they?” She frowned. “Aren’t they?”
“No, wh
y would you think that?”
“Because you told me it was a forgery ring.”
“The hell I did. You said it was a forgery ring.”
“Yes, but by not contradicting me, you led me to believe…” She gulped. “They weren’t?”
“No, ma’am.”
“They were… they were… oh, God, the real Manet? And the real Monet? And I was just whacking away…?”
“Yes, ma’am. Le Déjeuner au Bord du Lac—the authentic, unslashed one—and a Monet Cathédrale de Rouen, equally authentic and even more beautiful, in my opinion.” He grinned. “Cat got your tongue?”
She nodded dazedly. “If this was a kiddie cartoon, this is the part where my eyes would spin around like pinwheels, and I’d go stiff as a washboard and fall over in a faint.”
“I don’t recommend it.” His laugh mellowed into an affectionate smile. “Good job, Alix. A little unconventional maybe, but a good job. Okay, kiddo, you wait here. Have another cup of coffee. When your luggage shows up the cops will get you to the airport. Your flight’s not until four. See you in a couple of days. Have a good trip.”
26
The luncheon buffet served in the National Gallery of Art’s elegantly porticoed, classically columned Garden Court is periodically rethemed to reflect a particular kind of cuisine, and this month the theme was American, which, as usual in culinary circles, meant meaty, heavy, unpretentious, and big on gravies and starchy vegetables. Pot roast, turkey pot pie, and a salad of glazed turnips, carrots, and beets were among the dishes on the buffet table. After four days of Continental fare, nothing could have suited Alix better, and Ted must have felt the same way because both of them filled their plates on their first trip to the buffet table, Ted with the beef, Alix with the chicken, and both of them with the root vegetable salad, buttermilk biscuits, and a wedge of Monterey Jack cheese.
“Don’t you want to go back and get something else?” Ted asked as they returned to their table alongside the fountained pool that was the court’s centerpiece. “I can still see a tiny little space on your plate with nothing on it. Right there, see? Between the roll and the cheese.”
“That’s more empty space than I can see on yours, pal,” Alix said. “Besides, I’m saving room for dessert.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. How can you not have room for Georgia pecan pie with caramel sauce?”
Alix arranged her napkin on her lap and poured herself a glass of the Pale American Ale they had ordered from the drinks waitress. “So. I have a million questions. Tell.” She buttered her roll and waited.
“Mm, the pot roast’s exactly like my grandmother used to make,” Ted said. “Done to death, fatty, gristly… just delicious. American cooking at its finest. All right, I’ll start at the beginning.” He had to stop and think, though, to determine where that was. “Okay, the Manet. Or rather, the two Manets.”
While they ate, he explained. The copy, the one that had been slashed, had been commissioned by Panos from Weisskopf a year earlier, and had been among the auction pieces until it was slashed, as Alix and everyone else knew. But what Alix and just about everyone else didn’t know was that Panos had brought the original aboard too, and hidden it in the Papadakises’ stateroom, his intention being to sell it to the mafia in Saranda, as he’d done several times before with other paintings.
“I’m already lost,” Alix said. “It was Gaby and Emil who were selling it. How did they get their hands on it? Surely, Panos didn’t—”
“No, he didn’t. Gaby stole it, if you want to be literal about it.”
“What do you mean, if I want to be literal? Did she or didn’t she?”
“Oh, she took it, all right, and she gave it to Emil to sell, but what she didn’t know was that Emil knew about it from the start and was already planning to take it across and sell.”
“Now I’m really lost.”
“Well, there’s more to Emil than meets the eye. Turns out he has mob contacts all over Eastern Europe, and he was Panos’s emissary to the Albanians. When Panos had something to sell, it was Emil who’d arrange the deal, and when the yacht called at Corfu, he’d carry the painting, maybe two paintings, across to the Albanians, bring the money back to Panos, and take a not-so-modest commission for his efforts.”
“Not this time, though?”
“No, this time the plan was to screw Panos, take off with the money to Zagreb, where he comes from, and live happily ever after.”
Alix picked reflectively at her food. She’d eaten the velvety turkey and the carrots and now had only the peas—not a favorite—to work with. “Okay, what about that Monet? Where did that come from?”
“That’s still being worked on, but it looks as if Gaby did exactly what Panos was doing: had Weisskopf make a copy for her—without Panos knowing about it, of course—and substituted it for the one that was supposed to be in the auction. Emil, meanwhile, had arranged to sell the real one, the one it’d been copied from, when they got to Saranda—along with the one he was supposedly selling for Panos.”
“And then they would both take off with the money and live happily ever after in Zagreb?”
“That was her plan. His plan was to screw Panos and Gaby. See, she didn’t know about his arrangement with Panos any more than Panos knew about his arrangement with Gaby. You know where the cops grabbed him? Tiptoeing out the back door all by himself, to the car they’d rented. With five million euros in cash.”
“He was just going to leave Gaby in the lurch?”
“That was the idea. True love. Gaby was foaming at the mouth when she heard. They had to put him in a separate car to make sure the poor guy got to the station in one piece. What would you say to another go at the buffet?”
“You read my mind.” At the table Alix spooned herself another portion of the turkey pot pie, and Ted tried it this time as well, and both got some candied-walnut-and-grape salad to go along with it. The drinks waitress was hailed, and they ordered another bottle of ale to split between them.
Alix didn’t quite have a million questions, but she had plenty, and over the next half hour he did his best to answer them with what had been learned so far and with surmise for what hadn’t.
“I can’t believe it,” she said at one point. “She actually tried to kill Panos?”
“That’s what he says, and he’s got the lumps to prove it. The hairbrush is being analyzed, and the specks of blood on it are his, all right. And if the freshest fingerprints—the most superficial ones—on it are hers, which I think they will be, than at least we’ll know she walloped him with it.”
“Walloped, I can see. Stealing his paintings, running off with Emil, I can see. She’s hurt, she’s vulnerable, she’s got some… issues. But murder? Uh-uh, there you’re wrong.”
“Sorry, but I don’t think I am,” Ted said, pouring the beers for them. “I don’t think Panos would even have been her first victim. I think she had Weisskopf killed too. She has a family full of mafiosi, you know. A discreet phone call to Uncle Icepick or whomever…”
“Oh, guilt by association, is that it? Yeah, I’ve had a little experience with that myself. You want to tell me what possible reason she would have for murdering Panos’s forger?”
“Because we’re pretty sure that he was her forger too; that he made the Monet for her, and that Panos was on the verge of finding out, and that was something she couldn’t let happen.”
“Oh, brother, talk about speculation.”
“I also think she murdered Donny,” Ted went on, with an edge to his voice now. “So does Yiorgos, and so does just about everybody on the crew when you press them for ideas. The two of them have been the subject of gossip for years. He visits her in her—”
“I don’t believe this.” Alix was growing more heated. “This is how the FBI works? Gossip, for God’s sake? Ted, what evidence is there that Donny was murdered at all? What makes you think he didn’t drown out there, trying to make off with the petty cash? He was going to be put off the boat the next morning; he ha
d the money on him—” She realized that she was rapping on the table to emphasize each point—lecturing him, really—and made herself stop.
“Finished?” He waited without expression for a few seconds. “As a matter of fact, he did drown, according to the medical examiner.”
“Well, then—”
“He also had a blood-alcohol level of .08, which isn’t all that terrible as long as you’re not behind the wheel of a car, but he was also filled to the gills with what is rapidly becoming the drug of choice for your sophisticated date rapist. Mix enough of it with enough alcohol—it doesn’t have any taste—and your date is practically a zombie. Anything’s doable. Rape, robbery… or, to pluck a wild example out of the air, throwing some all-but-unconscious person off the deck of a yacht without having to go through a struggle.”
Alix’s heart constricted. “What’s the name of this drug?”
A Cruise to Die For (An Alix London Mystery) Page 23
