Chris stole another look at him. “You’re positive it’s the same guy?”
“I am, yes. The glasses, even the gawky way he’s sitting, scrunched up like that, all knees and elbows.”
“So what do you think we should do?” Chris was staring fixedly at the man now, with an unsettling gleam in her eyes.
“Well, I don’t think we should confront him, if that’s what you mean,” Alix said nervously. “I might be wrong, after all. I think the best thing to do is wait and see and keep an eye out—”
“Oh, the hell with that,” Chris declared, tossing her lunch bag into a trash can beside the bench and standing up. “Come on.”
She strode forcefully toward the man. Alix, after a moment’s wavering, jumped up and tagged along after her.
The man still seemed to be absorbed in writing something in his magazine, but when the six-foot-plus Chris LeMay loomed over you, feet apart and hands on her hips, not two feet away, she was hard to ignore. He looked up, wide-eyed and blinking through smudged, plastic-rimmed glasses.
“Something we can do for you, buddy?” Chris said.
“I beg your pardon?” He wasn’t as old as Alix had thought, probably in his late twenties, a slight, bookish young man who looked as if he might be a graduate student at one of the local universities. He was sharing the bench with a heavy-set older man in a battered leather jacket, who was smoking a cigarette—holding it in the old European way, not between his first two fingers but pinched between the thumb and the first finger, palm up.
“Were you at the airport this morning?” Chris demanded. The older man, already at the far end of the bench, nervously edged even farther away. He had the look, not quite of a street person, but of someone who’d been through the wringer himself and wanted no part of anyone else’s troubles.
“Yes, I was. How do you—”
“That’s what I thought. I hope I’m not being too intrusive, but I’m kind of a curious person and I can’t help wondering why you’re following us.”
He uttered an incredulous laugh, followed by a frown. “Ma’am, if I’ve offended you in some way—”
“Let’s see some ID, buddy.”
Alix’s mouth practically dropped open, although she really should have known better than to be surprised. Chris had changed some as she got used to having more money than she knew what to do with. Her taste in clothes, for one thing, was less flamboyant and more fashion-conscious than it used to be. But Chris herself was as audacious, bold, and brassy as ever and this little impromptu interrogation was right in character.
“Are you . . . are you a cop?” he asked, eyes even wider.
That was enough for the old man, who quietly gathered his newspaper and paper bag and slipped away to find another place to have his lunch.
“What I am, pal—” Chris began, but Alix cut in before she could get them both in trouble.
“No, we’re not police officers, but we did happen to notice you at the airport, and now again here, and so we couldn’t help wondering—”
But this wasn’t direct enough for Chris. “What are you doing in this particular park?”
“Doing Sudoku, not that it’s any of your business.” He stood up, which made Chris back off a step and seemed to increase his self-confidence. “Let me ask you something: What are you doing in this particular park? How do I know you’re not following me? And where’s your ID?” He was doing his best to show some backbone and establish dominance, but his pale eyes, nervously blinking away behind those smudged glasses, didn’t do much to make his case.
“Look, buster—” Chris said, but in fact, she had lost a little of her moral authority and he sensed it.
“No, you look. I came here for a little peace and quiet, but obviously I picked the wrong place for it. Fine, you can have the park. I’ll find someplace else. Jesus Christ.”
Without waiting for a response he slammed the magazine down on the bench (and there was the Sudoku partly filled in) and tramped off, but a few yards away he turned for a final shot. “And I’m warning you,” he yelled. “Stay away from me! Hassle me one more time and I’ll bring the cops down on you. I mean the real cops!” Unfortunately, his voice had broken on the word “real.” He finished with a muttered “Some people!” as he shook his head and walked away.
It was more than loud enough for those nearby to hear, and the two women found themselves on the receiving end of some strange looks, which sent them on their way. They didn’t see much profit in sticking to the man in the baseball cap, so they started across the lawn, threading through the people sitting on it and having their own lunches, back toward the block that Zappa’s was on.
Alix was giggling. It was something she almost never did, but she couldn’t help it now.
Chris scowled at her. “What?”
“Let’s see some ID, buddy,’“ she said in something like Chris’s vibrant, deep growl.
Chris grinned. “You think that was maybe overdoing it a little?”
“A little?”
“Alix, he was following us.”
“Well, you know, now I’m not so sure. What he said was true. From his point of view we could just as easily be following him.”
“No, there’s a difference. The odds of it being a total coincidence are zilch, right? Somebody’s following somebody. The difference is, we know we’re not following him. Therefore—”
“—it has to be him. All right, what do you think we should do? Go to the police?”
“Without a name? With no proof? I don’t think so.”
“He didn’t seem very threatening, did he? I don’t think he means to hurt us.” She paused to boot a soccer ball back to a couple of kids who were kicking it around.
“Neither do I. You know what, I just wonder if the guy’s a PI. Not looking like one is probably a big plus in that line of work. Why he’d be following us—or who would have hired him to do it—I have no idea.”
Alix thought about that. “And I just wonder if it’s not us he’s really interested in, but Tiny, and he thinks we might lead him to him. I can’t think of another reason.”
“But how would he know we’re here looking for Tiny ourselves?”
Alix shook her head. “I don’t—”
“Pardon me, ladies?” The polite query came from a man coming toward them—the manager from Zappa’s Delicatessen. “I hope you enjoyed your sandwiches.”
“Very much,” Alix said. “And thanks for recommending the park.”
He stood there, chewing the corner of his lip, trying to decide something, then said to Alix: “I hope you don’t mind my asking, but . . . well, are you Geoffrey London’s daughter? Alix London?”
Instinctively, Alix pulled back. When a stranger brought up Geoff’s name out of the blue, nothing very good was likely to come of it.
“Yes,” she said tautly.
“I thought so,” he said. “You don’t know me—”
But to her surprise, she realized she did know him. “You’re Waldo!” she exclaimed.
His turn to be surprised. “I am, yes, but how do you know that?”
She scrabbled about in her bag and came up with the old photo of Tiny in front of the counter, and Waldo, laughing and mugging behind it.
Waldo beamed when he saw it. “Oh, isn’t that great! Look at Tiny. And look at me—was I ever really that young?” A rueful shake of his head. “Thirty or so years ago, this had to have been.”
“Just twenty, actually,” Alix said with a smile, “and you haven’t changed that much. I’ll make you a copy of it if you like.”
“I would, very much,” he said, handing it back, then got more serious. “You asked in the shop whether Tiny ever mentioned you, and in fact he did, many times, and very affectionately. And you’re looking for him now? May I ask why?”
Alix quickly decided to level with him. “He’s disappeared, Waldo—a week ago—and we’re worried about him. We’re pretty sure he’s in some kind of trouble, and we think maybe he can use some he
lp—money, anything. Oh, and this is my friend Chris LeMay.”
“I’m a friend of Tiny’s too,” Chris said as they shook hands and the three of them continued toward Columbus Avenue.
“Well, I can tell you that he did come through here a couple of days ago. He stayed one night with me before taking off. I’m worried about him too.”
“Do you know what the problem is?” Chris asked. “He left Seattle without a word to anybody.”
Waldo shook his head. “No. I was hoping you might be able to tell me. He sure didn’t want to talk about it, and I learned a long time ago not to push him. He was headed for Monterey, that’s all I know.”
Alix stopped walking so abruptly that Waldo stumbled over her foot. “You know where he is?” she exclaimed.
“No, just that it’s Monterey and he expected to be there for a while.”
“Why Monterey?” Alix asked, frowning. “I don’t think I ever heard him talk about Monterey.”
“Well, he has somebody down there, I know that—a distant cousin, I think it is—and Tiny seems to think he’ll give him some kind of work that’ll let him stay pretty much out of sight and put bread in his mouth at the same time.”
“You don’t know the person’s name?” Chris asked. “The kind of business?”
Waldo chewed on his lip some more. “All I can tell you is that the guy’s name is Tino, not that that’s going to be much help.”
“Why not?” Chris asked. “How many Tinos can there be in Monterey? How hard can it be to look them up? We can do a White Pages search on the web.”
“We could, yes,” Alix said, “but Tino’s usually just a nickname for any name ending in t-i-n-o, and there are a lot of them: Albertino, Costantino . . .”
“Valentino, Celestino . . .” Waldo put in.
“Faustino,” Alix added, “Juventino . . .”
Chris rolled her eyes. “Oy.”
“Not that his name couldn’t be Tino,” Alix pointed out. “Sometimes it is used as a given name.”
“Hey, wait,” Waldo said, “I do remember something that could be useful. He said this Tino ran a seafood place down there, so I’m guessing he’s going to be working in the kitchen or maybe somewhere else behind the scenes—picking up from the wholesalers, or maybe cleanup and custodial, that kind of thing.” He shrugged. “I don’t know any more than that. Sorry. You know Tiny; he doesn’t exactly go around broadcasting his plans.”
Alix smiled. “Yes, we know Tiny.” Then she looked at Chris. “Well, anyway, I guess I know where we’re off to next.”
“Monterey, here we come,” Chris responded. “Waldo, thanks a lot, you’ve really been helpful.”
He was doubtful. “I don’t know how helpful I’ve been. There must be a thousand seafood restaurants down there.”
“It’s a start,” Alix said stoutly, but her confidence at this point was not very high.
When they said goodbye to Waldo, he asked them to let him know how things went with Tiny, and if there were anything he could do to help, but his last words were: “Now you won’t forget to send me that picture, will you?”
“So what do you say?” asked Chris as they watched him walk back toward the deli. “Want to fly down or rent a car and drive? Probably two hours either way under normal circumstances, but 101 can have some horrendous tie-ups.”
“It sure can,” said Alix, who spoke from experience. “Let’s fly, then. Then we—”
She was interrupted by the ringing of a telephone, which was emanating from Chris’s giant shoulder bag and playing a plaintive melody that Alix recognized but couldn’t place. “Now why would your father be calling me instead of you?” Chris muttered. They sat down on the nearest bench while Chris shrugged off the bag and set it next to her, then started her usual poking around in its depths.
“What makes you think it’s Geoff?” Alix asked, puzzled. “You haven’t even found it yet.”
“I have individualized ringtones. Different melodies for different people,” said Chris, very nearly elbow-deep in the detritus that filled the bag. “Not for everybody I know, but some.”
“You do? What’s that one?”
“‘Starting Over.’ You don’t know it?” The snatch of melody tinnily played a second time. Chris was now pulling things out of the bag; lipstick, mirror, Kleenex, Purell, sunscreen, wallet, keys . . .
“Don’t know it,” Alix said.
“John Lennon?”
“Nope. That is, I do know John Lennon, but . . .”
“Can you believe this?” Chris was grumbling at her bag. “Where did I stick that . . . Ah, here we go.”
She extricated the phone and held it to her ear. “Yes, Geoff, hello. No, we’re both fine and she’s right here. Oh, I suspect she just forgot to take the phone off airplane mode. Here she is.”
“Airplane mode, individualized ringtones,” Alix muttered as she took the phone. “If these things are so smart, why didn’t it know when I got off the plane?” And then, more clearly:
“Hi, Geoff, have you been trying to get me for a while?”
“Oh, no, merely all day long,” he grumped. “When . . . if . . . you ever look at your phone again, you’ll find three messages from me, or perhaps it’s four; I’ve lost count.”
“I apologize for that. I’ll be more careful from now on, I promise. Is everything all right?”
“Yes, fine, but while I was working alongside Frisby this morning, I realized that I had greatly misled you. And myself, for that matter. I had him putting in some color highlights in the Arnolfini, and as I stood beside him looking at his progress, I suddenly realized that if I were there watching as a casual observer at that point, I would have assumed, quite naturally, that he had painted the entire picture. Why would I have thought otherwise? But all I really did see—see with my own eyes—were a few streaks of green he was laying on an otherwise finished work.” He laughed. “You see?”
Alix reran his words through her mind. “I’m afraid not.”
He made a frustrated little clucking sound. “Of course you do. It’s precisely the same situation that existed when I saw Tiny working on the mirror. I didn’t stand there watching him for hours on end; I was that casual observer. The fact is, when I told you I saw him painting the panel, I should have said I saw him painting the cherubs, and I more or less automatically assumed he’d done the whole thing, but in truth I have no recollection of seeing him working on the clouds or the sky, or the figures, which means . . .”
CHAPTER 17
Which means,” Chris said when Alix finished telling her about it, “that the whole thing—everything but those cherubs—might really be authentic sixteenth-century work. Something valuable.”
“Yes, I’ll go along with that if we remember that ‘might’ is the operative word there. The fact that Geoff didn’t see him paint it doesn’t mean he didn’t paint it, it just means that maybe he didn’t . . . or maybe he did, and we have no way of knowing which it was, at least not at this point.”
“At this point!” Chris repeated excitedly. “That reminds me: I need to make a quick call. If things work out, we just might find out which it was before this day is done.” She’d hit the Connect button while she was talking and quickly began speaking to the person on the other end.
“Dr. Norgren’s office, please . . . Oh, hi, yes, it’s me. Are you going to be able to fit us in? Five o’clock? Yes, we can make that easily. Thank you. But listen, there’s news. We just heard from Alix’s father, who now remembers that all he personally saw Tiny painting was the cherubs, not the—”
That was the last Alix was able to hear. A kid on a toy motorcycle had chosen the sidewalk directly in front of their bench to demonstrate to a friend the excruciatingly realistic engine-revving racket his tiny machine could make, and Chris first turned away from them (and from Alix) to continue speaking, then had to get up and move a few yards farther onto the lawn.
It was five minutes before she rejoined Alix on the bench, by which time the kids
had moved on to entertain other park-sitters trying to have a quiet afternoon. “What was that all about?” Alix asked. “Are we supposed to be somewhere at five? It’s after four now, you know.”
“Worry not, I’ve taken care of it. We’ll get there in plenty of time.”
“Get where? What’s up?”
“Don’t look so suspicious. Everything’s good—better than good. The thing is, I took you at your word when you said you didn’t mind my looking into this thing a little on my own, so I got hold of Christopher Norgren, who’s now the senior curator of paintings at the Legion of Honor here—”
“. . . and used to be at the Seattle Art Museum.”
“Right, the same. He’s really an old pal of mine. He and his wife used to be regulars at Sangiovese, so I got to know them pretty well.” This was a reference to the upscale, art-themed wine bar that Chris owned in Seattle’s hip Belltown district. By now it had become a weekly destination for Geoff too, who held court there for an hour or two every Thursday, never failing to draw an attentive, admiring audience of artists and would-be artists to Sangiovese’s Fireside Niche.
“So anyway,” Chris went on, “I told him we were in Frisco and if he had the time we’d really appreciate it if he’d have a look at the mirror himself and pass along any insights. So naturally, he promised he’d try to fit us in. I was supposed to check with him this afternoon and I just did. Five o’clock. He’s got a meeting till then, and he has to be at some kind of dinner thing at six, so he’s really shoe-horning us in.”
“That’s great, Chris, I remember what a nice guy he is. But what’s he supposed to work from? This crumpled copy of the magazine? He couldn’t—”
“Hey, come on, give me more credit than that. While you were snuffling up coffee at Sea-Tac, I was busily trying to locate the photographer who took that picture, in which endeavor I was unsuccessful. But employing the perseverance for which I am so well-known, I was able to contact his studio and to convince his assistant to email an ultra-high-resolution image of the mirror—not the whole magazine cover, just Tiny’s mirror—to the Legion. Which she did, but the esteemed Dr. Norgren has not yet had a chance to get to it himself, so we’re all going to look at it together.”
The Trouble with Mirrors (An Alix London Mystery Book 4) Page 12
