The Trouble with Mirrors (An Alix London Mystery Book 4)

by Charlotte Elkins

  Oh, no. Not bloody likely, as he himself might say. She mumbled a few words about the Rubens that turned out not to be a Rubens, then leaned over the easel, searching for something to talk about before he probed any further. She settled on the “ground”—the foundation layer laid down on the canvas, or in this case the panel, to provide a good base for the pigments to adhere to. “Geoff, that’s a chalk and glue ground, isn’t it? But it’s sort of . . . yellowish. Why is that?”

  “That’s not the ground, Alix, that’s a film of drying-oil that I’ve applied over the ground—”

  “To make it less absorbent? But there are so many more efficient, less time-consuming ways to do that now. Who uses drying-oil anymore?”

  “Nobody, but—”

  “—van Eyck did,” she finished for him. “Got it.”

  “Exactly. And Mr. Schulte, who commissioned this work, has requested the deluxe $15,000 treatment, which means it is being executed precisely as van Eyck himself would have done. Well, as nearly as I can approach his technique,” he added in a rare show of modesty.

  “I understand, Geoff, and that’s commendable, but when it’s finished no one’s going to be able to see the ground. Seriously, what difference does it make what’s underneath?”

  Geoff’s chin came up. “It makes an ethical difference, as I would have expected you of all people to understand. The man is paying for the treatment to be as authentic as possible, and I am honoring his wishes. And what, may I ask, brings that dubious smile to your ordinarily lovely face?”

  She was smiling because it always struck her as funny, and charming in its way, that a totally unrepentant old rascal of a forger could be as dedicated to a set of uncompromising ethical standards as her extraordinary father was. What made it so charming, and him so charming, was that it was true. He had been a forger—maybe he still wasn’t quite a hundred percent straight; she’d never entirely gotten rid of her last lingering doubts on that subject—but he was also (with the possible exception of Ted) the most moral, principled man she knew. It was still hard for her to believe that a combination like that could genuinely exist in one person. From what she’d seen of the world, her father was the only living example.

  Alix wasn’t about to go into this, though. The yellowish ground had served its purpose of diverting him from hearing about everything that had gone on in Washington. “Geoff,” she said, “I had a bit of a shock yesterday when I got home.”

  Over a pitcher of fresh orange juice—Geoff got it delivered daily from a local grocery supply—in a grouping of chairs that overlooked a surprising and lovely brick-pathed, brick-walled little garden he’d put in behind the warehouse, she told him what she’d come home to.

  She succeeded at downplaying it, so that his reaction was nothing more explosive than a natural parental concern, along with some predictable tut-tutting about the way things were in the world today.

  “They didn’t really do any damage, and nothing that they took is worth very much,” Alix said. “But Tiny’s mirror . . . that really hurts. You know how much I loved that thing.”

  “I do, indeed.”

  “I dread telling him it’s gone. If I can summon up the nerve, I’ll ask him to make me another after a little time passes. I’m really going to miss it.”

  “There’s no need for nerve, my dear. Tiny would jump straight out of this window if you asked him to, so I expect he’d be happy to comply.”

  Alix finished her orange juice and stood up. “Is he around, Dad? I may as well face it now.”

  Geoff had remained in his chair. “As a matter of fact, he isn’t.” A tiny frown creased the space between his eyebrows.

  “He’s not here today?” Alix felt herself growing tense. Something was wrong.

  “Alix, I haven’t seen him since Friday.”

  “Four days?” She sat down again. “That’s longer than usual, isn’t it?”

  “Longer than ever.”

  She was aware that Tiny, while a loyal and efficient employee, was a bit . . . different . . . in a number of ways, one of which was his habit of occasionally disappearing for a couple of days at a time. When he returned to Venezia, always ready to more than make up for the lost time, he offered no explanation and by mutual agreement was asked no questions. But four days? Now there was a scowl on her face too. Tiny’s mirror stolen . . . Tiny himself missing . . . ?

  “That’s worrisome,” she said.

  “More than you realize.” He was looking down at his steepled fingers. It had been a long time since she’d seen him so somber. “He doesn’t have any money, you see. Well, no more than a couple of hundred dollars, surely. I can’t imagine what he’s living on.”

  “But he’s only been gone a few days. Couldn’t he use checks, credit cards?”

  “He doesn’t have a checking account, he doesn’t have any credit cards, no stocks, no savings account. Tiny . . . well, he doesn’t like to leave a paper trail. It’s an old habit—from the ah, mm, old days—that he’s never quite shaken.”

  The old days. As generally used by Geoff, the phrase meant what it meant to anybody: some period in the more or less distant past. But that telltale “ah, mm” in front of it—that signified that he was talking about the very particular time period during which he and Tiny were on the wrong side of the law and often not more than a few steps ahead of it. Back then, the need to “get away for a while” popped up quite a lot, in Geoff’s case as well as Tiny’s. Alix remembered very well her mother’s frustration with his absences, although, as children do, Alix herself took them for granted. Didn’t everybody’s father disappear for a few days every now and then?

  “I still don’t understand,” Alix said. “He must have plenty of cash, then. I’ve always assumed you paid him pretty well.”

  “Of course I do,” Geoff said, bristling just a little. “His current salary is thirteen hundred dollars a week, with another few hundred when he’s assisting me with a Genuine Fake.”

  “But that’s more than sixty thousand dollars a year—”

  “Closer to seventy, actually. There’s quite a lot of Genuine Fake work these days.”

  “So how can he not have any money?”

  Geoff sighed. “All right, let me explain the situation. Let’s simply say that Tiny isn’t much of a money manager—which puts it extremely mildly. And he knows it. He prefers not to have a lot of cash available. So, at his request, he receives about eight hundred dollars a week in cash, the greater part of which probably goes for his rent.”

  “He pays his rent in cash?”

  “I told you, he pays everything in cash. To continue: Another two hundred goes to his family in Italy—he has me send it directly to the post office in Pieve di Teco, which Wikipedia says is a tiny village in the Ligurian Alps—and the rest is put, by me, into a mutual fund, for which he’s the beneficiary—but it’s in my name, so that he has to ask me to get access to it. So yes, he’s been building up a nest egg, but by his own choice, he can’t get at it on his own.”

  “Well, have you tried at all to get ahold of him?”

  “How? I have no phone number for him, no email address.”

  “You don’t?”

  “Alix, you have to understand. Tiny is his own man, one of a kind in more ways than you know. And he prefers to keep, as they say nowadays, a low profile.”

  “Well, what about going to where he lives to check on him? For all we know he might be—” The expression on Geoff’s face stopped her. “You don’t even know where he lives?”

  She really didn’t know why she should be surprised. Geoff and Tiny were both wonderfully sunny, open men in most respects, but there were chapters of their lives that remained sealed up tight, even from her—even from each other, as she’d just learned. A common trait among ex-cons, probably.

  “No, I don’t,” Geoff said. “Tiny is a very private person. I don’t like to infringe . . .” He brightened. “Wait a moment, I do know something that might be helpful. I know where he has his morn
ing coffee. The most authentic prima colazione in Seattle, so he claims. Not only true Italian caffè latte, but almond croissants and brioches that are the closest thing to Milan. It’s called . . .” He tapped his lower lip, trying to remember the name. “No good. Senior moment, can’t think of it, but I know that it’s up near Pioneer Square, on that pedestrian street, the one with all the galleries—”

  “Occidental Mall?”

  “That’s it, yes! They might know where he lives.”

  “Caffè Umbria, I think you mean.”

  “Right!”

  “Okay, good, but if he doesn’t let even you know his address, why would he tell the people who work at a coffee shop?”

  “Well, he might not have done. But if he’s there most mornings, they might have gotten to talking, and who knows, it might have popped out.”

  “You’re right, it’s worth a try.”

  “Yes,” Geoff said. “We’re probably making a mountain out of a mole hill about the whole thing, though.”

  “Yes, we probably are.”

  “Coincidences do happen, after all.”

  “Yes, they do. All the same . . .”

  Now they both rose. “We’ll take my car,” Geoff said.

  “No, thank you. I’ve driven with you before. I consider myself lucky to still be among the living.”

  Geoff gave his head a rueful shake. “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth—”

  “Thank you, King Lear. My car’s in the lot. Let’s go.”

  On the slow, rumbling descent in the freight elevator, something occurred to her. “Wait a minute. If you pay him in cash, and he doesn’t leave a paper trail, how does he pay his taxes? How do you pay his Social—”

  Geoff’s face clouded over. “Er . . .”

  “Or don’t I want to know?”

  He was silent for a few moments, but as he swung open the elevator gate, he said, “Alix. Tiny—my oldest, dearest friend Tiny—insists that he has to have it this way . . . for reasons of his own, I should add, to which I’m not privy . . . and I can assure you that I’m not going to send him on his way for the sake of a few trivial rules. So, yes, Tiny’s employment is off the books.”

  “A few trivial rules?” She wasn’t exactly surprised, but she was disappointed. “Don’t you realize how much trouble it could get you into?”

  “I realize it perfectly well, but I should think you would see that the ethics of loyalty and friendship do not permit me to let the man down.”

  Ethics again. She couldn’t help sighing.

  How in the world was she ever going to juggle her relationship with the two most important men in her life, and the relationship between them? It was one thing when they occupied separate compartments in her existence, but as of last weekend they were in the same one, and it was the most important of all: family, the only real family she had. Two men with sincere, deeply felt views on morality, views that governed large parts of their lives, but oh, what a difference! Of course, only one of them knew they were related now, and that made it easier, but that would have to end some day (well, wouldn’t it?). She foresaw a rocky road ahead.

  When they got to the car, he spoke again. “You will be glad to know, however, that Frisby and the others are strictly on the books, and I do rigorously pay all my own taxes, business and personal.”

  “You’re right,” she said, her smile coming back. Maybe there was hope after all. “I am glad.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Occidental Mall is a one-block stretch of Occidental Avenue, in Seattle’s generally scruffy Pioneer Square district, that has been converted to a handsome pedestrian-only zone. A tree-shaded, sun-flecked passageway surfaced with rose-colored paving stones, it is lined with mostly upscale galleries, boutique shops, and, near its southeast corner, Caffè Umbria. Alix had been in the coffee shop a few times for a mid-afternoon latte, and she agreed with Tiny’s evaluation of their coffee, to say nothing of the gelato, which she rated Seattle’s best. Outside were sun-dappled tables populated by contented-looking people who were enjoying coffee, conversation, and newspapers, and looking as if they’d been there awhile and meant to stay a considerable while longer. Just as in Italy, indeed. If she and Geoff hadn’t been there on more serious business, she would have suggested that they take one of the tables and have a cappuccino themselves.

  Inside it was as she remembered: roomy, pleasant, not too crowded, not too vacant, with just the right amount of quiet, coffee-house buzz.

  “Good morning, we’re trying to contact an old acquaintance,” Geoff told the barista. “Unfortunately, we don’t know where he’s living at the moment, but we do know that Caffè Umbria is a frequent breakfast stop for him. A rather large gentleman, Italian—”

  “You mean like Italian from Italy?” the barista said, pausing in his work at the machine.

  “More like Italian from Little Italy,” Alix supplied.

  “Big Italian-American guy who comes in here for his prima colazione,” the barista said. “Well, that gets it down to only about a thousand or so. Could you maybe narrow it down a little more for me? Espresso con panna!” he yelled, setting two small cups on the counter. “Espresso macchiato!”

  “His name is Beniamino Abbatista,” Geoff said. “Everyone calls him Tiny.”

  The barista was shaking his head. Near him, the employee at the register, who was working with a line of customers but had overheard their conversation, was doing the same. “Old guy or young guy?” she asked.

  “Young,” said Geoff.

  “Old,” said Alix.

  The cashier laughed. “I guess it’s a question of perspective. How old?”

  “Late fifties,” Geoff said, smiling. “Ancient as far as you three are concerned.”

  Both of the employees shook their heads some more. “As I said,” the barista said, “that still describes a lot of people, and I doubt if I know any of their addresses. How about you, Carla?”

  “Could be that he pays with a credit card,” she offered, “so you might be able to track him down through that, but you’d probably have to go through the police to do it.”

  Geoff sighed. “Well, thank you for—”

  Alix had an inspired thought. “He’s got this pocket watch that plays music when he opens it. He takes it out about once every ten minutes.”

  “Once every bloody minute,” Geoff amended under his breath.

  “Oh, him!” The barista chortled. “When you said ‘rather large gentleman,’ you meant ‘large,’ as in ‘UPS-truck-large.’ Yeah, he’s opened that thing in here a couple of times, and you have to love it. It’s like a sing-along. All these other old paisanos—excuse me, middle-aged Italian gentlemen—hum right along with it. Seems like a nice guy, but as to where he lives, I don’t have a—”

  “I might know,” Carla said. “Be back in a sec, Monte,” she told the next person in line and motioned Geoff and Alix to the front window. “You see, up the block, Perigord Galleries? That green doorway right before it? That goes up to the apartments and studios and things they have on the upstairs floor. Well, I’ve seen your man go up there sometimes after he comes out of here in the morning.”

  “Thank you,” Alix said. “We’ll give it a try.”

  “It’ll probably take a key,” the barista put in. “You’ll need to ask at Perigord.” He twirled an imaginary mustache and put on a French accent. “Monsieur Jean-Denis de la Porte. Oo, la la.”

  As it turned out, neither the mustache nor the accent was imaginary. M. Jean-Denis de la Porte possessed both: a fussy, waxed, jet-black, moustache worthy of Hercule Poirot and a rich, fruity accent not heard since the demise of Maurice Chevalier.

  “I have not seen him to come or to go for several days, but this is not so unusual. Always he returns, eventually.”

  “Yes, I know,” Geoff said, “he’s the same with me, but in the past if he were going to be gone more than a day or two he always checked with me to see if I needed him.”

  “Needed him?”

  �
��Yes, he works at my business.” Geoff took a business card from his wallet and handed it to the gallery owner, who scrutinized it with care, looking from the card to Geoff and then back again. “London, London . . .” he mused, trying to place the name.

  “Correct, I’m Geoffrey London,” said Geoff a little impatiently. “Do you suppose it would be possible for us—”

  “And you”—de la Porte turned to Alix with a sudden, smiling burst of recognition—“you are the Whisperer of Art, is that not so? From your photograph I know you!”

  Alix managed to convert the resultant instinctive grimace into something that she hoped might pass for a smile. “Yes, that’s me,” she agreed, resolving afresh to swear off publicity “opportunities” for the foreseeable future, or better yet, forever. “And we’re both very concerned about Mr. Abbatista. We’re afraid that he might be ill or that something might have happened to him. Would it be possible for us to check on him upstairs?”

  He hesitated. “I have a key, of course, but, you know, we don’t like . . .” A hesitation and then an elaborate Gallic shrug. “Ah, well, for the Whisperer of Art, an exception, it can be made.” With a snap of his fingers he summoned an assistant and spoke in rapid French, of which Alix could only follow the gist. The assistant, Moira, was to show the lady and the gentleman to M. Abbatista’s apartment upstairs, and if there were no response, to open the door for them and accompany them inside for a brief time. Did Moira recognize the lady, by the way? No? Had she not seen the new Art World Insider? No? Well, treat her with every courtesy. We have a celebrity in our little shop.

  It wasn’t necessary to go back to the street to get to the stairwell. There was another door that led to it from the gallery, and as they followed a few steps behind Moira, Geoff said: “This is a day of mingled pride and sadness for me, Alix. A watershed. The torch has been passed. My daughter is now the family célébrité. The child has become more renowned than her aged and passé parent.”