19 Purchase Street

by Gerald A. Browne

  Gainer didn’t think so. From what he’d read, Monet had appreciated advantages when he could finally afford them. Monet had owned a motor car in 1901, a Panhard-Levassor, and had had a chauffeur. He had eaten his share of foie gras from Alsace and truffles from Perigord, had worn suits made for him of fine English wool, the trousers fastened at the ankles by three bone or gray pearl buttons. His boots were of the best leather, made especially for his feet, his shirts were of intricately pleated cambric with ample elaborate cuffs.

  Emerging from the tunnel, the first thing Gainer’s eyes came on was the Japanese bridge, the same that Monet had rendered on canvas so many times in so many different moods of light. The bridge spanned about thirty feet over the narrower end of Monet’s pond. The pond was about two hundred feet long and at its widest point fifty feet. It was the soul of that piece of land. On its bank was a mirror forest of bamboo, enormous ferns, masses of rhododendrons and azaleas, tall blades of iris guarding soft purple blossoms half in and half out of the water all along the edge. And water lilies, great gatherings of them with their white faces wide open at this time of day, their leaves like flat, floating hearts.

  Leslie recalled having seen some of Monet’s water lily series years ago at the Louvre. She had been entranced by the nuances Monet had caught, the simple qualities, and had thought at the time the man must have been blessed with special, unusual eyesight that enabled him to see the aura of the blossoms. Des Nymphéas, the water lilies, had been Monet’s subject for thirty years and were the last thing he painted. There, on the bank of his pond, on the very spot where Leslie now stood, was where he had set up several easels in a row and worked on canvases in sequence according to the changes in the light.

  It seemed to Leslie she could feel Monet’s presence. She turned her head slowly, and would not have been surprised if there had stood Monet with his white Santa beard and round crowned straw fedora. Instead, she saw Ponsard, who was urging them to press on.

  They walked along the path that duplicated the pond all around.

  Gainer was not so caught up in the esthetics of the place. He had at least an eye and a half out for a good spot to kill Monsieur Ponsard, the expert. At one point, when he and Leslie were far enough from the others, he whispered, “Get the girl away from here.” Leslie kissed him near his ear and told him she’d try. They went back through the tunnel and up the center path to the porch of the house. Ponsard was relating a piece of trivia about Monet when Astrid interrupted: “I have to pee,” and she went into the house.

  Ponsard started to go on with what he had been saying, then left the sentence unfinished and also went inside. He did not know Astrid well, had been with her only twice before, but he knew her well enough not to let her wander alone among precious things. He could too well imagine her lack of resistance to an irreplaceable Monet memento, such as the Japanese ceramic in the glass cabinet in the drawing room. Ponsard called out for her.

  No reply.

  Aha, she was up to something! He went from the entrance hallway, through the main salon to the drawing room at the extreme east end of the house.

  There was Astrid. But she was not paying any attention to the glass cabinet or anything else in the room. She was reaching up in under her skirt past the sash that she had knotted at her waist. On seeing Ponsard she immediately let her skirt drop, sat in one of the wicker chairs, her hands laced in her lap and with a slight, innocent upturn to the corners of her mouth.

  “What were you doing?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You have something inside your dress.”

  “I had an itch you know where.”

  “Let me feel.”

  She expected him to go up between her bare legs, but he frisked her above her waist, found the leather case she had concealed there.

  She resorted to the truth, only because lying was now useless, and told him how she had lifted Gainer’s wallet, hoped that Ponsard would see the justice of poor her having done that to a rich American.

  What Ponsard saw was a possible threat to the transaction he had just made for the two paintings. Astrid’s petty thievery might cast suspicion on his own honesty, and although he had the bill of sale all tidy and tight, the two Americans could make a legal fuss.

  He grabbed Astrid by her hair, pulled her head up by it and slapped her with a forehand and a backhand, sharp, powerful slaps that caused her cheeks to blotch red.

  She didn’t cry out or struggle. She had been slapped as hard and more on other occasions. Slaps didn’t last so long.

  Ponsard shoved his hand down the front of her dress, so harshly he ripped the neckline. He brought out the leather case.

  It was not a wallet.

  Ponsard flipped it open, saw the photograph it contained. A man and a woman with an obvious family resemblance. The man was this American, Crawford. The woman was … the order in Zurich. It was her, no mistaking it.

  It wasn’t a coincidence.

  Becque, the careless son of a bitch—Becque was somehow to blame, Ponsard was sure.

  His mind rapidly replayed the day, and he now realized that all the while these Americans had been looking down his throat. Well, he thought, Astrid, the undeveloped whore with the practiced mouth had inadvertently shifted the advantage in his favor. Instead of expressing his gratitude he told her he wasn’t going to pay her—unless she did exactly as he said. She was to take the leather case and, unnoticed, place it on the floor of the rear seat of the green Bentley. In the event it was missed it would be found there and he would still have the edge.

  Astrid agreed, took the case, deposited it again down her neckline and ran from the rooms as though reprieved.

  Ponsard stayed there. He reached in under his suit jacket, around the back of his trousers to where the seam of the seat met the waistband. Located there was a concealed pocket, tailored to hold what Ponsard called his bébé doux, his sweet baby.

  A .25 caliber Browning automatic. Made in Belgium, so compact Ponsard could practically palm it. It actually had the word Baby trade-marked on its grip.

  Under other circumstances the Baby would not have been Ponsard’s first-choice weapon. He had never relied solely on it, carried it only as a backup. However, he was skilled with it, and its deadliness had served him efficiently three times in the past. It would do. He released its clip, checked that it had eight hollow-nose cartridges, rammed the clip home and slipped it into his jacket pocket.

  Ponsard was a very experienced killer, an expert at art and death. He’d been extensively initiated at the age of nineteen during the Algerian revolution when the French soldiers seemed to be creating new, excruciating ways for people to die. With that behind him, Ponsard became a middleman in the system when he was twenty-five. His profession and his slightly fatuous manner were a perfect cover, helping him to fill orders in almost every major city in Europe.

  Without a hitch.

  Until now.

  Ponsard turned to leave.

  Gainer was standing in the doorway.

  How long had he been there? Had he seen the Baby? Ponsard had to assume not. He smiled, “You’ve been exploring on your own.”

  Gainer nodded twice, thought he should return the smile but couldn’t.

  “I thought we would start upstairs,” Ponsard said, “perhaps with the bedroom where Monet used to sulk whenever he disliked his work or whenever the asparagus was overcooked.”

  Ponsard passed Gainer, nearly brushing him, then led him through the salon and up the main stairs, all the way chattering on the subject of Monet. How the artist always began his day at four in the morning with a cold bath, how when success came to him he was not loyal to the art dealer Durand-Ruel who had subsidized him through the many desperate years, how overcome with doubt he would often pile his paintings in a corner of the garden and burn them.

  At the door to Monet’s bedroom Ponsard stopped and gestured for Gainer to precede him. Gainer stepped into the room, scanned it perfunctorily, turned to Ponsard.


  Ponsard was not there.

  Nor was he in the hall.

  Gainer went from room to room. No Ponsard. Why would he disappear like that? Gainer looked out a closed second story window. Below, off to the right were Leslie and Astrid, strolling between beds of snapdragons. Gainer saw them pause and lean over to put their noses into some blossoms. He saw Leslie’s lips move, saying something. Leslie offered her hand. Astrid took it. They were like a pair of excited youngsters as they ran down the path, across to the gate and out to the road. Gainer watched them drive off in the Bentley.

  Good. Thank you, Leslie.

  Which was also Ponsard’s thought, as he observed the same tableau from a small round ventilating window in the attic area. Now he could more easily cope with the situation, with this amateur. And the woman later. His plan included the river that ran close by Monet’s pond—a body in the Eure would be taken to the Seine in an hour. The Seine, with its increasing width and undercurrents, would carry it to the sea, never to be found. It had, after all, happened to cows.

  Gainer went to the far end of the second story hall, found a narrow stairway down to the kitchen. He peeked into the adjacent dining room. The large table in the center of the room was set with blue and yellow Limoges porcelain on pale yellow linen, everything, including tiny-footed open salt cellars, in its place, as though any moment Monet and friends Clemenceau, Rodin, Cezanné, Renoir and Sargent would be taking their chairs for a meal. It was a little eerie, Gainer thought.

  He went out the east end of the house, where a sort of sideyard open area was punctuated by several lime trees. On the lookout for Ponsard, he passed through the shade of the trees and entered Monet’s main studio.

  The afternoon sun was striking through the skylights. Gainer stood in a trapezoidal block of it, scanned the huge room. It was immaculate, not even a cobweb in the lattice of steel beams that supported the roof. In the center of the room was a soft sofa and a long hard bench, the two of them back to back. Here, according to his mood, the old Monet had rested his legs and fixed his failing but painfully critical eyes on his Decorations des Nymphéas, those nineteen oversize panels were his final important work.

  Gainer sat on the bench. Felt the wood of it warm on his buttocks. As though Monet had just risen from the spot. Gainer told himself it was either the sunlight or his imagination. Actually, the sun wasn’t hitting there. Gainer sat for a long moment. Part of him said he was wasting precious time, but it seemed he was bound to the bench.

  Don’t worry, Norma, he whispered.

  He stood up abruptly and went out to the long path that ran parallel with the front of the house. At once he saw Ponsard at the opposite end of the path, about a hundred and fifty feet away.

  Gainer did his best to appear as though he was merely strolling, relaxed. He kept his eyes on Ponsard.

  Ponsard waved to him with his left hand, his right hand in his jacket pocket. He started walking toward Gainer.

  Wait, Gainer told himself, as he advanced. Wait for a sure shot. At fifty feet, forty, it was difficult for him to resist the ASP. He could see Ponsard’s fixed smile, the lock of Ponsard’s eyes. The smile was not in the eyes. The eyes were changed, cold, etching into him.

  Thirty feet.

  Gainer’s street mind and legs came suddenly into accord. He jumped aside, off the path. Heard a cracking report. Felt a burn across the back of his left shoulder as though a hot wire had been drawn across it. Rolled twice over in the packed dirt of that adjoining path and lay prone, concealed behind the density of tall marigolds. The ASP was in his hand, although he didn’t remember having taken it out.

  A second cracking shot.

  A bullet cut through the leaves and stems a foot away. Another missed by more.

  Ponsard was firing blind. He was on his knees two paths over, peering through the flowerbeds, hoping to make out the contradictory gray that would be Gainer’s suit. Directly in front of Ponsard was a profusion of pink roses, enormous blossoms. He remained absolutely still, taking shorter, quieter breaths, certain that Gainer would make the nervous amateur’s mistake of moving. Ponsard had his Baby ready for that moment. He listened for Gainer, heard only the summer afternoon sounds, predominantly the humming of the wings of the bees busy in the flowers of Monet’s garden.

  One particular bumblebee queen was working very hard, lifting the overlapped petals of a half-opened rose to reach its center. The black and yellow bumblebee queen rubbed her hairy body over the rose’s stamen until she was covered with pollen. This was a fresh rose. No bee had been there before her and there was so much pollen she would have to make several trips. She squeezed between the tighter inside petals, made her way out, paused, perhaps to get her bearings so that she would be able to locate this particular blossom among so many. She started her wings and took off, intending as direct as possible a flight to her nest beneath the tool shed. However, she had flown only ten feet when the concentration of rose fragrance attracted her. The attar of rose so strong it was as though a hundred blossoms had opened at once and were blowing their sweet breaths at her.

  She lighted on the back of Ponsard’s hand, the one he had used to apply his cologne. His gun hand.

  He felt a tickle. Saw the bumblebee, fat and black. Tried to brush the bumblebee off, but its legs had been in nectar and they stuck. Distrubed, the bumblebee bent its four front legs, straightened its two hind legs and jabbed its barbed stinger into Ponsard’s flesh and, as it did so, into a superficial nerve end.

  Under other circumstances Ponsard would have yelped, but now he stifled it so that it came out guttural, more of a growl. He could not, however, stifle the pain that shot up to his shoulder and down his fingertips. His fingers lost their grip, went rigid.

  Baby was flung into the air and down into the rose bushes.

  There it lay, on the ground among fallen petals, the blue-black of the Browning .25 caliber automatic, its business end pointed directly at Ponsard. He got down on his stomach, reached for it, was unable to avoid the thorns. The more he stretched the more the thorns pierced him. He put his shoulder to the bushes on the perimeter, but they were meshed, would not give enough. He looked at Baby, only about a foot out of reach. His right hand was going numb and swelling from the bee sting. His wrist and knuckles were bleeding from the rose thorns. The damned garden had become his enemy. He’d be lucky to get out of there alive.

  The gate.

  If he could make the gate, run to the nearest neighbor’s house about five hundred feet down the road, he’d be all right. Unlikely Gainer would shoot him with anyone as a witness. Otherwise he’d have done so before, Ponsard reasoned. He sucked hard on the bee sting. Took four deep breaths. Got into a crouch and ran down the path.

  Gainer heard movement before he saw the man. Saw through the gladiolas and hollyhocks the gray of the top of Ponsard’s head bobbing as he moved. Gainer didn’t know what to make of it for a moment, and then he realized Ponsard was making a try for the gate.

  Gainer figured he was a dozen years younger and seventy pounds lighter. He went full out, made up for Ponsard’s head start, was first to reach the end of the paths where the front wall was interrupted by the gate.

  Ponsard knew he was cut off. The gate was impossible now. The only way to go was the tunnel, which was just to his right. He made a zigzagging dash for it.

  Gainer stopped and got the flat of Ponsard’s back in the aim of the ASP, but when he squeezed the shot off he did not have him, and the bullet chipped into the wall beyond. Ponsard was at the mouth of the tunnel. Another shot by Gainer apparently did not hit anything because in his hurry he had jerked it.

  Gainer paused, tried to take stock. Ponsard was now across the road and railway tracks somewhere in the area of Monet’s pond. From what Gainer remembered of it, that meant Ponsard was cornered. Unless he swam the river, and Ponsard didn’t impress him as the swimming type.

  We’ve almost got him, Norma.

  The back of Gainer’s left shoulder throbbed as though it
was a separate, hurt part crying out for attention. He touched the place, felt the sponginess of the fabric of his jacket and brought his hand down red. How bad was it? He flexed the shoulder to test it, realized the wet that was running from his armpit down his left side wasn’t entirely perspiration. His shirt was sticking to him there, the blood already turning gelatinous.

  I’m okay, Norma.

  He entered the tunnel, proceeded slowly and kept flat against its wall. He did not know Ponsard had lost his gun, and when he reached the opposite opening of the tunnel, he slipped out in one swift motion, keeping low. Surely Ponsard had been watching the tunnel. Better move. He used some thick azalea bushes to go off to the left, careful with every step, putting his weight down only where the ground was soft. Every moment expecting to confront Ponsard, he worked his way around the upper shore of the pond, all the way to the sluice at the eastern end. Near there he crawled to the edge, remained concealed behind a huge patch of iris. Belly down, he parted the tall green blades for a view of the pond. With the concentration of a hunter, he scanned its banks for any giveaway sign of Ponsard, could not see clearly the opposite end of the pond where the Japanese bridge was located because the sun was now partially west and reflecting off the surface of the dead calm water. The water lilies seemed to have spectral images rising from them, undulating in the brilliance.

  Gainer decided to press on. With the same care, he moved around the lower edge of the pond, going from iris to agapanthus to petasites, thankful for their cover but aware of how little protection they provided from a bullet. Close to midway above the lower edge at a rose tree, he flushed a bird. A female wild canary that made a fuss as it flew up.

  Ponsard was in the thicket of black bamboo at the western end of the pond, had been there all the while, remaining still, moving only his eyes. He had a professional’s patience. (Once in an apartment in Brussels he had stayed put in a small utility closet for eighteen hours until conditions were right for filling an order.) From his vantage in the bamboo he had seen Gainer come from the tunnel but had lost sight of him after that. Now, a bird had given Gainer’s position away.