“On to Zappa’s Deli?” Chris asked brightly.
“You bet. It’s only a mile from here according to Google Maps; what do you say we walk?”
“You’re on. I could sure stand to stretch my legs.”
“Me too. Besides that, it should put us there at about the middle of the lunchtime crush with a lot of other people, which is good. I don’t think it’s a good idea to stand out too much.”
“And besides that, I’m hungry,” Chris said, striding toward the front entrance. “Come on, kid, get a move on.”
CHAPTER 15
The two men were at their easels a couple of yards from each other, each looking very much the hard-working artist that he was: paint-stained smock, brush in one hand, thumb-hooked palette in the other.
“Have you heard anything from Tiny?” Frisby Macdowell asked, not looking up from the painted oak panel before him. Frisby was even wearing a beret.
“Nothing,” said his employer, Geoffrey London, entirely engaged in his own project.
“It’s getting worrisome, wouldn’t you say? You’d think that by this time—”
“Tiny is not the most predictable of men. I should think you’d know that by now.”
His tone was meant to indicate that the topic had now been exhausted and shouldn’t they be getting back to work? Geoff’s fellow ex-forger, the fussy, pedantic Frisby, was on his way to becoming a confidant, but he wasn’t yet a member of the inner circle, entry to which was hard to come by, having been granted so far only to Tiny, to Alix, and maybe even to Alix’s friend Chris, although that was still up in the air.
As with other fusspots and pedants, Frisby also tended toward obtuseness, and he failed to get the message. “I do know that, but it’s been almost a week now. In my opinion—”
“Frisby.” Geoff set his brush in the can of linseed oil beside him and walked to his colleague. “Tiny marches to his own drummer. He’ll be back when he’s ready. Now: to the matter at hand. How is it going?”
The matter at hand was the Arnolfini Portrait for the German couple. It was almost done, requiring only some lightening of the linear highlights along the pleats of the lady’s sumptuous green dress. Geoff himself had spent a good hour trying to come up with a color mix that exactly matched van Eyck’s results, but had eventually decided his skills could be put to better use, and he had called Frisby up to the studio to try his hand at it. Since then, Frisby had been laying experimental color patches on square after square of blank canvas leaning against the painting itself.
“I’m not sure,” Frisby said. “I think this one might do it, but . . .”
Geoff looked from the patch to the high-definition photographic enlargement taped to the wall. “No, we’re still not all the way there, I’m afraid. This malachite green is certainly the right base, but . . . have you tried adding just a tad more of the Cremnitz to it?”
“Yes, I have. A tad more, a tad less.” He gestured at the dozens of patches. “Nothing does it. I think I’ll try a less opaque white—a zinc white is what I was thinking about. That might do it.”
Geoff registered shock. “Frisby, zinc white—”
“I know, I know. Zinc white did not exist until the end of the eighteenth century, a little late for van Eyck’s use.”
“Only by about two hundred years.” He put an avuncular hand on Frisby’s shoulder. “Frisby, my boy, I thought you understood. The reputation of Genuine Fakes rests on the buyer’s expectation that they will be as genuine as possible in every sense of the word.”
“True, but also fake . . . in every sense of the word.”
The hand was withdrawn. “I don’t see that cynicism is called for. From the first I have adhered with unwavering consistency to the principle—”
“Hm, am I mistaken, or didn’t somebody once say that consistency was the hobgoblin of little minds?”
“‘A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines’ is the way Mr. Emerson put it, I believe.”
“And I couldn’t agree more,” said Frisby, who loved a good argument. “So when a long-anticipated painting is already overdue, it seems to me that unwavering adherence to consistency becomes foolish, that perhaps a little flexibility might be in order. Especially when this particular buyer wouldn’t know zinc white from cadmium red.”
“That is not the point—” Geoff began sternly, but let the rest of what he was going to say drop. He shouldn’t have had to explain it to someone who’d been working with him for more than year. This was exactly why Frisby had yet to achieve inner-circle status. “Simply do as I ask, please.”
Frisby finally realized he was being rebuked, and he wilted. Good jobs were not something that came easily to ex-convicts. “Of course, Geoff. I understand completely. It was only a suggestion.”
“Keep on with the Cremnitz white,” Geoff said and left him to it, going back to his own easel and his new problem. It was a new commission, another double portrait, this one to be done in the style of Modigliani’s Jacques and Berthe Lipchitz, the 1916 painting now at the Art Institute of Chicago. Geoff was no fan of twentieth-century art in general, but Amedeo Modigliani was, in his opinion, a true descendant of the post-Renaissance, his sinuous, elongated forms with their almond eyes and swanlike necks unmistakably redolent of El Greco, and Pontormo, and Parmigianino, all of whose methods Modigliani had studied as a young painter.
Geoff had already sent photos of his underdrawing to Mrs. Pulsipher in Salt Lake City, and they had met with her enthusiastic approval. Fine, but the painting part was proving tricky. Duplicating Modigliani’s smooth, sweeping strokes and modeling was never easy, but this picture was particularly challenging. Modigliani had done so much tinkering, so much dibbing and dabbing, that it was next to impossible to decipher the mixing and layering of colors, even with the help of X-ray and ultraviolet photos. Geoff was now taking his fourth stab at getting merely the background right—all those overlapping russet and sienna browns.
As difficult as it was, it was work that he enjoyed, and he smiled, thinking about how this particular painting had come to be so “overworked.” Years later, Lipchitz described it. He had asked his friend Modigliani to do a portrait of him and his wife. Modigliani had happily complied, and at one o’clock one afternoon they began posing for him. By sunset, Modigliani was satisfied; it was done. But Lipchitz, by then having achieved some financial success as a sculptor, wanted to do more for his impoverished friend than give him the ten francs that a single afternoon’s work brought, so he requested changes and “improvements”—to which Modigliani’s grumbling reply was, “All right, if you want me to spoil it, I’ll keep at it.” Which he did, keeping at it for two full weeks, probably the most time he’d ever spent on one painting, and resulting in the most money he ever made on one.
Poor Amedeo, Geoff mused, mixing still another brown-yellow-red paste. The man had been a virtual template for everyone’s image of the romantic, starving artist in his garret. He did live in a garret; he was, if not starving, not doing very well; he was young, and handsome, and debonair; and he lived a loose, promiscuous life full of drink and drugs. More than once he was heard to say that he intended to drink himself to death. And he did, most assiduously. Before turning thirty-seven he was gone (followed in short order by his faithful, pregnant, long-term mistress, who threw herself from a fifth-story window the day after his funeral). Modigliani had died never having dreamt of the value and respect his work would one day command. To think of what he might have—
“I think I’ve got it, Geoff,” Frisby said. “Will you have a look?”
Geoff went to Frisby and stood looking over his shoulder. After a few seconds, he nodded. “I believe you do, Frisby, I believe you do. That’s perfect.”
“Do you want to take over from here, then, Geoff?”
“No, no, no, you finish it up yourself,” Geoff said kindly. “I couldn’t do any better than you are.” He was feeling guilty over his earlie
r harshness.
Frisby’s eyes shone. He was being forgiven, or at least getting another chance. This was the first time anybody but Tiny had been delegated any substantial work on a Genuine Fake. Geoff clapped him on the shoulder again and turned to go back to his own painting, but froze after a single step. “My God,” he said.
“What?” said the startled Frisby. “What is it?”
Geoff looked at his watch. “Yes, she should have landed in San Francisco by now,” he muttered.
“Who should have landed in San Francisco? Geoff, what’s the matter?”
Geoff was already on his way to a telephone in the living quarters of the loft. “I have to call my daughter!” he shouted back. “Right this minute!”
CHAPTER 16
Zappa’s Delicatessen is in the 300 block of Columbus Avenue, a mere dozen blocks north of downtown San Francisco, an easy, pleasant stroll, but culinarily speaking, getting there takes you halfway around the world. Three blocks from cosmopolitan, quintessentially American Union Square, you walk beneath Grant Avenue’s Dragon Gate and for the next eight blocks you might as well be in China, but the moment you hit Columbus, a block south of Zappa’s, you have left mu shu pork and dim sum behind and are now in Little Italy, AKA North Beach. Here, and for the next several blocks, if your life depended on finding a chow mein noodle, you’d be out of luck. The cafés and restaurants (and most of the streetside establishments are cafés or restaurants) are proudly, flagrantly Italian—Trattoria Pinocchio, Calzone’s Pizza Cucina, Sotto Mare, Caffè Trieste, Rose Pistola, Da Flora, and on and on.
As the world knows, the cuisines of China and Italy are unmatched for their mouthwatering aromas, so by the time Chris and Alix reached the door to Zappa’s and edged by the exiting, sack-bearing customers, they were practically slavering, their oat fudge bars mere distant memories.
“Maybe we should eat first?” Chris suggested as the smells of salami, olive oil, garlic, and earthy red wine really hit them, the sentence ending with a hopeful uptick. “Before we get down to asking questions? Give us some energy, you know?”
Alix’s response was a stern and withering look. Chris was not easily cowed, but they both knew that Alix held the moral high ground here. First things first. They hadn’t come to San Francisco for its dining pleasures.
“Or not,” Chris said with the faintest of sighs.
But the sigh was sufficiently dolorous to make Alix give way a little. “Well, I suppose we could at least order our lunches first, before throwing questions at the staff.” Besides, she was starving too, and ordering food was at least a step in the right direction.
Chris perked up. “Right. Get on their good side. Excellent thinking, Holmes.”
Alix had expected that Zappa’s, being “the last of the true Italian salumerie,” would have changed little since the old photo of Tiny had been taken, but she hadn’t anticipated its looking exactly the same. Nothing at all had changed: the same shelves stocked three deep with bottles of wine and olive oil; the same long counter atop a huge deli case filled with cheeses, olives, sliced salamis, and cold cuts; the same slicing machine (or its twin), the same red, white, and blue G.G. Zappa & Figli plaque right where it was before and looking just as dusty. If you asked her, the salamis and hams hanging from hooks in the ceiling were the very same ones too, but surely that couldn’t be true (could it?). The only difference was that a slim, serious young man with dark hair, “Gabe” according to his name tag, was behind the counter, where Tiny’s blond “freinde” Waldo had once stood mugging at the camera.
“How does he stay that skinny working in a place like this?” Alix wondered to Chris as they waited behind the half-dozen customers milling about and placing or picking up their orders.
“I know I couldn’t. Must be new here.”
“Hope not. I was counting on someone older, someone who might know Tiny from before.”
While they waited, they made their lunch choices from a sandwich menu posted on the wall: Italian salami and provolone for Alix, meatballs with marinara sauce for Chris. But watching Gabe make up a fat, fabulous-looking “Pavarotti Special” (prosciutto, sausage, mozzarella, sun-dried tomatoes, and onions on a flour-dusted ciabatta roll) for an earlier customer changed their minds, and when their turn came, that was what they both asked for. On Gabe’s recommendation they each ordered a bottle of Moretti beer to go with it.
“Oh, say, Gabe,” Alix said with calculated nonchalance as they watched him slap together their sandwiches. “I have an uncle, haven’t seen him in years, but I know he used to live around here. Beniamino Abbatista? Uncle Beni, I used to call him. I know he used to love this place. He’d write me letters about it, you know?”
Without stopping his swiftly moving, plastic-gloved hands, Gabe glanced up, not saying anything but his expression was clear enough: So? You are telling me this, why?
Chris was also looking mutely at Alix. Her thoughts were equally easy to read: You’re overdoing it, making him nervous. Just get to the damn point.
Alix quickened the pace. “So, anyway, do you know who I mean? ‘Tiny,’ they mostly call him—you know, because he’s so big. I thought maybe he might have mentioned my name—Alix? I’d love to catch up with him, and I was wondering if you might know him. I thought maybe he still comes in.”
He shrugged. “Mustard or mayo?”
Alix gave up. “Mustard,” she said.
“Mayo,” said Chris.
“This all gonna be on one check?”
“No,” they both said together. It had taken a long time, but Alix seemed finally to have gotten through to Chris that, while she appreciated the way her newly rich friend automatically reached for whatever bill was presented, she couldn’t keep on accepting it. And Alix couldn’t afford to pay for her. So how about going Dutch as a regular thing? Chris had resisted but thus far, on this trip at least, she was going along with it and Alix was grateful.
Another shrug from Gabe as he began wrapping, after which the plastic gloves were tossed into a canister behind the counter. “Sorry I can’t help you. That’s $14.50 each.”
“Thanks,” said Chris with resignation. She was already envisioning a long afternoon of knocking on strangers’ doors. “Is there a park or something around here where we could eat these?”
But Gabe wasn’t the talky kind, and he was already engaged with the next customer.
A pink-cheeked, middle-aged man with receding, pale hair that seemed to float above his scalp like a cloud of cotton candy approached them as they were taking napkins from the countertop dispenser. He wore a short-sleeved white business shirt with a tie. The name tag above the pocket said only Manager. “Did I hear you say you were looking for a place to have those sandwiches? Why don’t you try Washington Square Park? It’s just a couple of blocks up Columbus and it’s far and away the best place around here for a picnic. You can sit on a bench and get some shade if you want it, or out in the sun on the lawn. It’s nice. Safe too. Lots of kids and families around, especially this time of day.”
“Sounds perfect,” said Chris. “Thanks.”
“Enjoy,” he said and turned to answer a question from another customer.
They opted for shade, seated on one of the green benches along the northern border of the block-square lawn, backed by the brooding, gray, neo-Gothic facade of the old St. Peter and Paul Catholic church and screened from the sun by a hedge row of boxwood pruned into a sort of canopy. A pair of the area’s famous green-bodied, cherry-headed parrots chittered and flitted through the branches above them. When they finished their sandwiches they sat back, nursing the last of their beers and trying without much success to catch glimpses of the swift-moving birds.
After a few moments of digesting in silence, Alix said, “Chris, take a look at that guy over there, will you? Brown baseball cap, glasses, skinny. Be subtle.”
“I am always subtle,” Chris intoned. “Subtlety is my middle name.” She followed Alix’s line of sight toward a bench some twenty yards off. “W
orking on a crossword puzzle or something?”
“Yes, does he look familiar to you?”
“No. Do you know him?”
“No, but I think I saw him at the airport when we were getting off the plane.”
“So?” Chris tilted the long-necked bottle of beer to her mouth.
“So I think he’s following us.”
“Because he was at the airport, and now he’s here?”
“Because the reason I remember him is that I happened to notice him pretty carefully watching everyone disembark, and when he saw us, I could see the flash of interest in his eyes. I mean, he was really studying us.”
Chris laughed. “You actually saw a man staring at two good-looking broads like us? How utterly amazing. The nerve of him.”
When the man’s head came up, they both looked away. “All right, tell me this,” Alix said. “What was he doing at the airport?”
“How would I know that? Probably waiting for somebody.”
“No, you can’t get through security to wait for somebody anymore, you know that. You need a ticket.”
“All right, then maybe he was catching a flight himself.”
Alix shook her head. “No. If he was catching a plane, then what is he doing still in San Francisco? And other than catching a flight, the only way to get into the secure area of an airport is to get off an incoming plane yourself. So he must have arrived on an earlier one. Why would he be hanging around watching a later flight disembark?”
“Well—”
“And what are the chances of him showing up right here, right where we happen to be, two hours later?”
The Trouble with Mirrors (An Alix London Mystery Book 4) Page 11
