by April Hill
My second thought was of a purely economic nature. Being constantly broke makes you look at everything differently. I resent extravagance and conspicuous consumption wherever I see it. Just think of all the orphans and the homeless, who could have really used some exercise equipment.
“I don’t believe this,” I whispered to Matt, shaking my head with wonder. “Putting aside the fact that all this crap is revolting, how much do you suppose it cost?”
Matt took a rubber glove from his coat pocket and slipped it on his right hand, before inspecting an upholstered bench with metal clamps. “Maybe Tannhauser was handy with tools and upholstery. You know, the do-it-yourself type?”
I gave a bitter little laugh. “He called me when he needed to change a damned light bulb. I’ll bet all this junk is more expensive than golf or tennis … as a hobby, I mean.”
“No expensive memberships in fancy clubs to buy, though,” Matt observed thoughtfully.
“Or having to cancel on account of rain, “ I agreed. “Well, Lieutenant, from what I know of your disciplinary proclivities, all this equipment is probably right up your alley. See anything you’d like to take home?”
Matt grinned. “Definitely out of my league, and my price range—although this bench here could be handy.” He patted the padded black leather surface of a complicated apparatus that would have looked right at home in my gynecologist’s office, except for the leather restraints and matching hooded leather mask.
I made a face. “Forget it. It’ll never fit in the back of your car.” I wandered around the room, and found a shiny stainless steel gadget for which even my fertile imagination couldn’t think of a use.
“What do you suppose this is for?” I asked, pointing.
Matt glanced at the item, and winced. “You don’t want to know.”
“I don’t?”
“You don’t.”
I took Matt’s word for it. “How do you know so much about all this stuff?” I asked suspiciously, reaching for another mysterious device. “Is there something you haven’t told me about how you spend your weekends?”
“I read a lot,” he said. “Touch anything else and you go back to the car—after I try out that bench and a couple of those wooden paddles on the wall.”
I ignored him and began poking through the drawers of a corner desk. “You don’t think Tannhauser sat here to pay his damned electric bills, do you? Or maybe…?”
Matt reached over and smacked my hand. “Don’t touch it. This whole place might be a crime scene.”
Suddenly, something seemed to occur to him. “Did Tannhauser ever … Well, you know. Did he ever suggest…?”
My eyes went wide. “I don’t believe you just asked me that!” I wailed. “Of course he didn’t– I didn’t! Jesus, Matt, what kind of–”
“All right, all right!” he said, stroking my arm. “I didn’t think so, but I had to ask.”
“Why?”
Matt sighed. “Because it’s my job to ask,” he said wearily.
“Well it’s some fucking shitty job, then,” I sulked.
Matt nodded. “Sometimes.” He walked behind a black curtain at the rear of the room, and gave a low whistle. “I’m hoping you’ll tell me that Tannhauser kept parrots, or small animals—as pets.”
“Parrots?” I wandered to the back and lifted the curtain to join him. “You mean something he’d have to feed something at his own expense? Hardly. Now if you’d asked me if he ate parrots, I’d say that … Holy shit! What the–!” Matt was peering inside one of two enormous black wrought iron cages. “Jeez!” I breathed. “You could keep a real person in there?”
Matt nodded. “You guessed it, kiddo.”
I shivered. “Remember the story of Hansel and Gretel? How the wicked witch locked up little girls and boys in cages to fatten them up?”
He picked up a black leather riding crop from the top of the cage, slapped it against his palm, and winced. “Bad little girls and boys, from the look of it. You kept some company, babe. This guy was a real piece of work.”
“C’mon now, “ I suggested hopefully. “This junk is just make believe, right? Adult toys? You know—fantasy and game playing, like a sort of degenerate Disneyland? Kinky, but consensual?”
He nodded. “Mostly. But like anything else in the world, there are always a few freaks ready to take the ball and run with it—out of bounds, to continue the game analogy. That can get dangerous, even for serious players.”
I noticed but carefully avoided touching a series of metal dildos lined up on the table in an assortment of sizes, but I did pick up an oddly shaped gadget from the same table that had little clips and electrical cords. “Okay, tour guide. Do I want to know how this whatchamacallit is used?”
Matt took it from my hand and laid it back down. “Probably not. Try using your imagination.” He pointed to the electrical connections at the base of each dildo.
“Ugh. That’s shocking,” I joked weakly.
“In a word, and this is the last time I ask nicely. Will you please stop touching everything?”
I nodded grimly. “Absolutely. My mother always told me you never knew where things had been.”
“Good advice. Tell me something. Did you ever hear Tannhauser talking to anyone about this place?”
I shook my head. “No, and you know what really gets me? I can’t believe the son of a bitch was so cheap about paying me. Look at the investment he had in all this creepy junk.”
“Maybe all of it was deductible, as a business expense,” Matt suggested with a grin. “Maybe he found another use for his talents at photography.”
“Pornography?”
“Maybe, and maybe something even more lucrative.”
I sat down on the steel steps near the front door, watching as Matt finished the tour and took notes. “Most business people just take their clients out to dinner and topless bars,” I said.
“I get the feeling this was Tannhauser’s hobby, as well,” Matt said.
I waved my hand to indicate the entire roomful of toys. “Do you get this stuff, Matt? Really? I mean, does it…” I hesitated. “Does it turn you on? Be honest.”
“Not especially, but I’m a big believer in whatever floats your boat, as long as everybody’s on the same page.”
“You’re mixing your metaphors,” I observed.
Matt laughed. “In a room full of paddles, whips, and assorted flogging devices, you want to keep insulting me?”
“A lot of it looks pretty complicated, “ I said sweetly. “Are you mechanically inclined?”
He picked up a leaflet that looked like an instruction of some sort, and began thumbing through it. “I can probably figure out enough to…”
“Okay,” I said quickly. “Just kidding. Could we get out of here, now. I’m feeling creepy, again—and hungry, too.”
He dropped the leaflet, and pointed to a narrow door in the far corner of the loft. “I want to poke around a little more, while we’re waiting for Dan. We missed that door over there—a bathroom, probably. Just sit where you are, and keep your hands to yourself, and I’ll feed you on the way home. The place looks pretty clean, but I’ll need to get a forensics team down here, tomorrow, to go over it. There’re still a lot of cabinets to check out, and …” He opened a nearby cabinet and glanced inside, then pulled out a long, flat, paddle-like device of thick black leather. “Maybe I could requisition this thing for a couple of days. What do you think? I haven’t forgotten that last lie, you know, about the fire hydrant?”
I squirmed uncomfortably on the cold step. “It seems to me that you’ve done admirably, without specialized equipment, thank you.”
Matt chuckled, and started across the room to the corner. When I got up to follow, he shook his head and pointed to the steps. “I told you to stay put.”
I could have ignored him, of course, but he was still holding the paddle, and I had a very clear memory of what had happened the last time I’d refused a direct order. “What do you think that door leads
to?” I called after him. “A guillotine, maybe?”
The corner was dark, and there were a number of pieces of smaller equipment stacked in front of the door. I watched from the steps as Matt crossed the room, shoved the stuff out of the way, and reached for what I assumed was the doorknob.
“If that’s a bathroom,” I called, “I could use one, about now.”
Matt backed out of the doorway slowly, and closed the door.
“You don’t want to use this one,” he said, walking back to where I was sitting. He took a cell phone from his jacket pocket and punched in some numbers. His face looked drained of color.
“What’s wrong?” I asked hoarsely.
“It’s a damned slaughterhouse in there—probably where the killer did most of his work on Tannhauser.” Then, when someone at the other end of the line answered the phone, Matt called for backup—lots of it.
Matt’s partner Dan showed up five minutes later, and within minutes, the loft was swarming with cops. For the next hour, I stayed out of the way, and tried not to think about where this could all lead. Okay, I hadn’t particularly liked Gabe, and visiting his sicko playpen hadn’t improved my opinion of him, but what had happened to the guy was still horrible. Also, there was still a lot of stuff I hadn’t told Matt about Gabe and me, and I wasn’t looking forward to explaining certain aspects of it, should they come up. So, on the theory that keeping my mouth shut was probably an excellent idea, I sat on my cold steel step and watched the goings on until my rear-end began to get numb, and until I started yawning. Before I knew it, I had dozed off, and Matt was shaking me awake. He sounded angry, but I decided—wisely, as it turned out— not to inquire about what.
“Peterson, here, is going to take you back to the condo,” Matt explained, indicating the uniformed cop standing beside him, who looked maybe fourteen. “He’ll stay with you until I can get there.”
I rubbed my eyes. “I don’t need a babysitter,” I said irritably. “Certainly not one too young to be shaving. I’ll just sit here and wait ‘til you’re ready.”
Matt frowned. “Can you give us a moment, here, Ken? Alone?”
Peterson stepped back, and walked away a few feet. Matt took my elbow and leaned closer.
“Go home with Peterson, and stay there until I get back. No argument, and no discussion. You and I have a few things to talk about, and this time, I’m going to want straight answers.”
I shook my head stubbornly. “I’d still rather wait and go home with you. What do you want to talk about?”
Matt squeezed my elbow a little harder than necessary. “You’ll go now, and you’ll go with Peterson, or stay here and get your bare ass walloped in front of a roomful of cops and a police photographer. Your choice.”
I chose to be escorted home by Officer Peterson.
While I waited for Matt to arrive, I tried to imagine what he’d been so angry about, and what the “few things” were that we had to talk about. An hour and a half later, he walked in the door, sent Peterson on his way, and dropped a big black plastic bag on the couch.
“What did you find out?” I asked eagerly. “Were there any usable fingerprints?” But Matt didn’t want to talk about fingerprints. He wanted to talk about the big, black plastic bag, which he promptly tore open. Several of what you might call my “lesser known” works of art tumbled onto the couch.
“I found these stuffed in a closet in Tannhauser’s play pen. Something told me they were yours. I don’t know what, exactly—the overall look, the light. Are they yours, or not?”
There wasn’t much point in lying, so I didn’t. “You have a fine eye for style and detail, Lieutenant. Yes, they’re mine. I painted them, anyway—for Gabe. Those and a lot more, actually.”
“Why are they signed by, ” He glanced down at one of the canvases, “by some guy, some artist named Peter Kendall?”
“Some guy!” I cried. “Like only the richest working artist in America, today?”
Suddenly, Matt looked at the canvases again, and slapped his forehead. “That guy who sells on the shopping channel? On TV? All those damned little houses?”
“Not houses,” I corrected him. “Cottages.”
For a moment, Matt looked confused. “You’re Peter Kendall?”
“No! My God! Crime and fraud must be running rampant in the city of Los Angeles if all of you detectives are this stupid! It’s a fake, dummy.”
Thankfully, Matt ignored the word “dummy,” focusing on the bigger picture. Like on my mug shot, when I got arrested and then booked into the state pen.
“Is that legal?” he asked finally, his voice calm.
I gulped. “Uh … Not exactly.”
“So, you worked for Tannhauser as an art forger?”
“I suppose you could put it that way,” I grumbled, “if you insist on putting the absolutely worst face on everything. It depends on one’s definition of ‘art.’ There are those among us who would not use the word ‘art’ in referring to Peter Kendall.”
This time, Matt’s voice was strained, but resolutely patient. “Okay, let’s try this again. Is it legal?”
“Not exactly.”
Matt’s face darkened. “If you say that again, I’m going to blister your butt so hard …”
“Okay, okay,” I interrupted quickly. “Calm down. It’s only illegal to copy if you sign them with the artist’s name—the artist you’re copying.”
“But you did!”
I shook my head vigorously. “No, I didn’t. He did. Gabe, I mean. All I did was paint the fucking things.”
“Explain to me why that isn’t conspiracy to defraud?” Matt asked grimly.
“Shit!” I exclaimed. “What are you, now, a damned lawyer? You think I knew the bastard was going to sign them?”
So, I took a deep breath, and tried to explain.
“I’d been working for Gabe about a month, and helping out in the studio sometimes, as well. You know, retouching photographs, things like that. One day, he comes in and asks me if I could use a few extra bucks, and could I paint like Peter Kendall, and like a few other popular but less than brilliant hacks. I said I’d give it a try, why not? He paid me thirty bucks a canvas— when he paid me, and explained that he’d made a deal to sell them at one of those motel art shows that advertise on TV. You know, ‘starving European artists? Nothing over ninety-nine bucks and we guarantee to match your living room couch? These outfits make their real money on the junk frames they buy by the truckload from Mexico or China. Then they jack up the price to the wannabe art lovers who dote on crappy gilt frames that look like they came out of Marie Antoinette’s boudoir.”
I flopped down on the couch, my head in my hands. “I never actually copied a Peter Kendall. Everything I did for Gabe was done ‘in the style of’. Even I knew that if I’d copied one, I’d be infringing on Kendall’s copyright. So, I kept them close enough to fool the masses, but not close enough to get into trouble. But then, I found out that Gabe had lied to me. He was selling them to these no-name galleries all over the country, as the real thing. I blew my top, and he promised to stop doing it, not that I believed him. Gabe’s promises weren’t worth spit.”
“But, wouldn’t this guy Kendall know whether he painted them or not? When he saw one of them?”
“Are you kidding? Peter Kendall’s been turning out this garbage probably since he was ten. They all look alike, and when he was starting out, the rumor is that he didn’t keep good records. He was probably happy, back then, just to sell a couple in parking lots, to pay for groceries. That’s why he’s so vulnerable, today. Even if he did discover one of the fakes, it would take him the rest of his life and cost him a fortune to go after all the cheap ‘look alikes.’ I wasn’t worried. There’s probably zillions of people like me, doing the same thing. But signing a painting with his name is different. That’s fraud. Funny, isn’t it?”
Matt didn’t think it was funny. “I’ll tell you how funny it is when I find out how much time you’ll be spending in prison.”
“Okay,” I conceded, “maybe not funny, but stupid. Face it, though. A lot of people who buy art don’t really care about art. Or know anything about it. What they’re really buying is a famous signature. Picasso was the king of that kind of crap. He sold his signature—literally. His signature, beautifully numbered, framed and matted, and you wouldn’t believe the number of morons that lined up to buy them. Dali actually sold pieces of blank paper, already signed. When Michelangelo was just starting out, he used to borrow old paintings from museums to study them. Then, he’d make a copy, age the canvas, and give the museum his copy instead of the original. There’s the joke, of course. Later, anything signed Michelangelo was worth a fortune. That’s the really nice thing about art fraud, you know. The only people who get ripped off can afford it. They actually deserve being ripped off, for being pretentious idiots. Remember the ‘Shimada Irises’?”
Matt didn’t remember, but I did.
“The Shimada Irises, supposedly by Van Gogh? One of them sold back in the eighties for like 50 million bucks. Some Japanese company bought it. Anyway, two or three of the iris paintings were rumored to be fake, and they never went on sale again. Just disappeared from sight. It nearly ruined the company, along with the auction house involved in the sale. “
For a moment, Matt didn’t say anything. “Is that all?” He asked finally.
I sighed. “Do you know who Duncan Gilbert is—was?”
“The guy who painted all those foggy castles and knights?
“Bingo. Well, they’re very sought after, today. What about Victor Geddings?”
“The cowboys?”
“Frontier, really. Lewis and Clark on the Mississippi, and wagon trains facing into the sunset? Very big sellers in some places. People say that Geddings’ work looks absolutely fabulous over a leather couch.”
“You copied those, too?”
“Copying was too tricky. I made up similar things, undiscovered masterpieces. Luckily, both Gilbert and Geddings were like Kendall. They painted like demons, and never kept track of what they did. Geddings gave away dozens of paintings, just to pay his booze bills.”
