The Unknown Masterpiece

by John Brooke

  Dieter’s heart was delicate, always struggling from the tug of war within. And, inevitably, didn’t Fred’s disrespect bring on the doubts about Fred’s judgment?

  Yes, mein herr. These messy tears…this bloody mess!

  Dieter’s fears for their client’s best interests crashed head-on into Fred’s wrongheaded decision to face the media on behalf of the witchy frau. It left Dieter in a sheltered bow in a chestnut tree in a Gellert park on a sunny morning in November, service rifle trained. Perfect concentration that day. Yes, sick to his stomach and crying like a baby all that night, and all that lonely weekend; but never missing a day at work. Not Dieter Taub. The client had sent a politely coded note commending his sense of duty, his ability to act. Dieter took it to the toilet at the office and ripped it into pieces before flushing it away.

  Threw up one last time and carried on, empty and alone.

  No more dancing. No more Zup. Fred completed the soul’s dark circle, so inevitable in Dieter’s life.

  If Dieter hadn’t followed Martin Bettelman. If Martin hadn’t loved that damned angelic boy.

  Seeing that face on Della’s monitor — deathly pale, exquisitely white, obscured in adolescent rags but unforgettable — Dieter Taub had finally twigged. That boy had been at Zup. Once, last summer. Martin had brought him in to show him off. His new toy. Robert. It was hard to see a fragile waif having the wherewithal to take Martin’s gun and use it. But Dieter knew all too well how several fortunes’ worth of beauty could bring a man to kill.

  Adding just a hint of liner, Dieter finished his eyes. Nothing extravagant. He could not afford to be noticed today, and maybe never again. He opened the little compact, padded on the powder. Too much, far too much, an effect made worse by the unseemly overlay of blush. But it was not night out there, it was just past noon. And it was an effect most people automatically looked away from.

  The cheap wig ensured this. Dieter Taub fitted it with no joy at all.

  Then he put on his clothes, took the market bag and went out the door.

  Where the right side of Greta’s shapely bottom clenched in pain with each quick step.

  She held her stride. Now, Dieter, he moved slowly. He had to, the wound on his buttock still smarted deeply if he moved too fast. But Greta proceeded apace, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, brisk and businesslike, past Josephina’s tired colleague — who stood there gazing up at the wrong floor! No wonder anyone with anything of value to protect turned to the private sector. Did the poor man even turn to look? Greta did not risk a coquettish glance behind as she turned the corner. She brushed a finger under her blue eye. Was that another tear, welling in response to a humid December wind? Or was it from a heart that had been pushed too far? A burned-out FedPol agent might have been surprised to know Greta’s sense of futility was equal to his own. If these things can be compared. He would certainly have feared Greta’s anger.

  Finally: the source of all her grief.

  Greta knew she had missed Robert by a matter of hours, possibly minutes, the day she’d gone to Martin’s apartment and found it empty. The spectacle of paintings floating in the Rhine on the evening news had shattered the numb shell that formed after Fred. They said Robert’s distraught mother threw them in the river? The French were truly absurd. That little faggot had to kill Martin and steal their contingency assets. Beautiful Robert was the cause of everything. If his silly mother knew how Greta was going punish Robert for bringing all this waste and pain…

  If, if, if.

  Turning down Mulheimer, Greta flashed a smile for the Turkish grocer standing at his door, enjoyed the aroma of soup passing the Hungarian café. She wished she were younger. If Greta were younger, the world would be different. She knew this. The younger boys were so much more comfortable in their shoes. Perhaps she would even be able to enjoy that music. It was surely Adelhard’s horrendous noise that pushed her patience past its limits that awful night at Zup. If, if if. But you can’t go backward, Greta knew.

  She let herself in and climbed the long, steep stairs.

  Halfway up she paused and tamped sweat from her pancaked brow.

  Halfway up, halfway in between. It took a lifetime to know oneself. Perhaps it took two.

  Regardless of her fury, Greta was wanting to look her best for the beautiful boyish man.

  ***

  He was sitting on Martin’s cheap divan, hands folded in his lap, for all the world like he was awaiting his turn at the dentist. He was contemplating his latest prize, propped in a patch of sunlight against the opposite wall. A naked boy kneeling by a stream. Adoration V. Swiss. Early Modern, verging on naïve. A variation on Adoration III. Same boy with the bowl-shaped mop of hair. Dieter Taub had often paused to wonder at it as he toured operations at the Kunst. At that moment the natural light (as opposed to museum lighting) enlivened the steely blue in the artist’s flowing water.

  ‘Robert?’

  He barely glanced as the visitor entered then softly closed the door. He was not worried, or, better to say, not interested in the reaction he provoked.

  Greta found herself irked by his blasé indifference. She announced herself again. ‘Robert?’

  He turned. His beauty was disarming. It left a mortal shaking. Worse, he seemed to know it. An edge of sunlight showed the limpid eyes, not so much shocked as disgusted. ‘What are you trying to prove?’ he asked in French. He meant Greta’s meticulously over-made eyes and face and hair.

  Rude. Thoughtless. An angel’s fatal flaw? It left Greta feeling unnatural.

  A girl’s instinctual reaction was defensive — she took three strides and punched Robert in the face. ‘Well, you’re no angel, either!’ And she kicked him hard in the back where he lay, curled defensively on the floor.

  Greta knelt, too aware of the tight skirt riding high with the movement on her nylon-covered thighs. She laid her market bag down and cupped his jaw, forcing him to face her. It was true. Up close, the beautiful thing was just another man. A bloodied nose, probably broken by a highly trained fist, blackening creases around his clenched eyes as his nerves struggled to contain the pain: these things revealed a normal man. She touched his nose. He winced. Definitely broken. She asked, ‘Why that one?’ She meant Adoration V.

  Robert did not respond. He tried to look away. Greta held his fragile face firm in one hand, grasped his puny shoulder with the other. ‘Talk to me, mon beau.’ The angel’s eyes briefly flickered, then closed. Greta shook him. ‘Why that one?’

  Robert’s tearing eyes stared into hers. ‘Because it’s me,’ he murmured.

  ‘Because it’s you?’

  ‘I see myself.’

  ‘Isn’t that romantic.’ Greta drew her thumb along a stream of tears discolouring the deathly white cheek, leaving a pinkish trace. Releasing her grip, he lay motionless as she carefully removed the unframed painting from her market bag. ‘And why not this?’ she asked. ‘This painting has caused a lot of trouble.’

  The beaten eyes looked, then looked away. ‘It’s not me.’

  Contemplating the shadowy image, Greta agreed, ‘No…it’s not you.’

  ‘Ugly,’ Robert whispered.

  ‘Ugly?’ The painting was shades of brown and gold and green. It was unknown and likely justly so. But it was not ugly. It was a shoemaker. ‘You killed him because it was ugly?’

  No reply. A dead-like stare.

  ‘Eh? Talk to me, my beautiful Bob.’

  ‘Ugly,’ Robert repeated in a breath.

  Greta tapped his broken nose. Robert cried out, jerked violently away.

  Greta easily rolled him back so they were face to face. ‘Answer the question, Bobby.’

  ‘Don’t call me that.’

  A flick of a finger to the bridge of his nose. A scream. ‘You’ve hurt me far more than I can ever hurt you. But I can hurt you a lot. Your client rejected it and so you killed him… Bobby?’

  ‘I’m not Bobby.’ So sullen.

  ‘Sure you are.’ Greta was perplexed by his defiance
. ‘To me, you’re a beautiful Bob.’

  ‘Fuck off,’ he whispered. She touched his nose. He flinched, blurted. ‘I have no client!’

  ‘Come on, Bobby. Who wanted this shoemaker? Who was it for?’

  ‘No one! …for me!’

  Greta sighed. ‘Don’t lie. It’s too late to lie. How much were you going to make?’

  The angel lay there, tears flowing, breathing hard against the pain. When it calmed, he muttered, ‘Martin brought it.’

  ‘To sell to you, for you to sell. To whom?’

  ‘No. To give. To me.’ Obviously was none too subtly implied.

  Greta jolted. ‘A gift?’

  Robert’s bleak stare signalled yes.

  ‘Because Martin loved you. Martin loved your delicate ass… Well, that sounds right.’ She put two thick fingers and large thumb firmly around a fine French nose, now bent and pulpy, pinky blue. ‘Tell me about it. Tell me about killing Martin. You know, I was thinking of killing him myself.’

  Robert wouldn’t answer.

  ‘Eh, my Bobby?’

  ‘Don’t call me that.’

  ‘But I will. Bobby.’ A slight toggle. Robert gasped. ‘Tell me how this love story ends.’

  ‘Call me by my name or go to hell!’

  ‘Hell?’ Greta twisted hard, Robert screamed, she put her free hand over his mouth and told him, ‘You’ve no idea, Bob.’ As Robert shook and writhed, Greta held him fast, repeating, ‘My name is Bob. Beautiful Bob. I love beauty and I don’t like pain.’ Several times, like a rhyming song from a children’s tale. My name is Bob. Beautiful Bob. I love beauty and I don’t like pain…

  Till finally Robert lay still, exhausted by pain, and breathed. ‘I didn’t kill him.’

  ‘No? Who did?’

  ‘It was dark. It happened so fast. I…I just ran.’

  Greta patted the sweat-soaked, silky head. ‘I don’t believe you, Bobby.’

  ‘Fuck you.’

  ‘Did you love him? Did Bobby love Marty?’

  ‘I love myself.’

  ‘Bon. Down to the nut of it. And Martin’s gift just wasn’t right.’

  ‘I didn’t want that ugly thing. It has nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Poor Martin. You’re a mean little bastard, aren’t you? Eh?…my beautiful Bob.’

  ‘Don’t call me that, you bizarre old hag!’

  Too insolent. It earned him a hard slap that broke his perfect mouth.

  Robert spat a tooth, more blood. ‘I hate that thing.’

  ‘And you told him.’

  ‘Yes, I told him!’

  ‘And you broke it.’

  ‘It’s ugly. Like you.’

  Greta grabbed Robert by a knot of sweaty hair. ‘And you killed him.’

  ‘No! No! No!’

  ‘And then you come up here and help yourself to the rest of Martin’s art.’

  Now Robert’s eyes opened wide and fixed on Greta’s. ‘Why leave them here? Martin said they came from cellars where no one ever saw them. I thought, now that Martin was…’ He shrugged again. Dead. ‘So I took them home. For my collection.’

  ‘But they’re not yours, my Bobby.’

  ‘Are they yours?’

  ‘Mine?’ Greta let go of Robert’s bloody face and sat there on the floor of Martin’s secret lair, staring at the stolen Hodler. As it will, artistic beauty calms: A naked boy kneeling by a river. A naïf. Humble. Pure. And nothing like this bizarrely twisted Robert — beyond the surface, no resemblance at all. Robert was in deep denial if he believed he saw himself in Adoration V.

  …After a time, Greta mused, ‘All I ever wanted was a cuckoo clock.’

  ‘Mon Dieu!’ Robert rolled his puffy eyes. He cared nothing for Greta’s hopes and dreams.

  Provoking Greta to slap him hard across an ear. ‘Rude, rude cretin!’ Robert curled into a ball of pain. Greta lectured crossly, ‘Do you know how many people I had to kill? And all because you did not have the grace to accept a little gift from silly Martin.’

  ‘Go to hell!…just go to hell.’

  ‘Why couldn’t you have just said thanks and kissed him?’

  ‘It was ugly!’

  ‘None of this would have had to happen.’

  ‘Leave me alone!’

  ‘Alone. I want to be alone. Is that a joke?’ The clichéd plea echoed, burning through Greta’s heavy-handed maquillage. Greta has to say that because that’s what Greta always says. But only to Fred — who was dead, because of this whiny, selfish French baby. ‘Are you laughing at me? Eh, my lovely Bob? You think I’m such a joke?’

  ‘Don’t call me that!’

  Greta leaned close enough to kiss the exquisitely defiant face. ‘Fuck you. Bob…Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob!’ Robert swung a feeble fist. Greta caught him by the spindly wrist and stood, hauling him up, hugging him tight, embracing him like a dancer. The bashed-up eyes gazed back, morbid, indifferent. Greta whispered, ‘I am going to fuck you, Bob. Then I’m going to break this thing again, right over your beautiful head. You ready for that, my Bobby?’

  Greta meant the refurbished shoemaker.

  Who ignored them both. Glowing, pouring tea…

  Lifting Robert and spinning him in an embrace, Greta moaned, ‘Oh, my Bobby. My selfish little bastard!’ Turning him, turning him over and over like so much pastry on a board, ripping Robert’s proletariat top from his porcelain back. ‘My self-centred fucking angel, and why not?…so white, so perfect, so — ’

  Greta stopped, clasped the scornful, silent mouth and kissed it. Deep, wet, tasting blood, looking for reaction. Very aroused herself now. Robert dumbly shook his head, No…

  Greta said, ‘Believe me, Bob, you don’t want to be alone. All the art in this ugly world’s not worth it.’ But it was definitely Dieter who threw Robert down on the divan, ripped his belt open, yanked his fly down, hauled Robert’s pants off in one swift brutal motion. ‘Look at you!’ And, lifting Greta’s skirt, always very proud in this erotic thrill. ‘Look at me. Mm? Are you ready for it? Do we have a perfect fit, my Bob? Eh? Cat got your tongue?’

  Greta was needing a response. Was getting nothing but a frightened moan. This passive thing was making Greta rage. She rolled him over and yanked him forward. The man/boy/angel screamed with pain as Deiter shoved himself inside, frenzied, shoving, grunting, ‘Go, Bob, go!’ Or words to that effect in German as the FedPol cop came through the door, gun drawn, aghast at the sight. And so clearly scared.

  Greta, bucking, bellowed, ‘Have you no shame? Get out! Get out!’

  Instinctively, Franck Woerli retreated a step, affording Dieter Taub the chance to rip the automatic from the holster positioned under Greta’s left breast. And fire.

  Woerli fired too — though it could well have been just muscles. The shot went through Taub’s mouth and he fell over. Still on top of, and well inside, a suddenly frozen angel.

  ***

  When he dared to extricate himself, Robert Charigot lay there touching himself, bringing his bloody fingers up to his perplexed eyes. The other man, slumped in the doorway, did not register in his calculations. He may even have still been alive, but Robert was not interested. Putting himself back together as best he could, taking his new painting, he stepped around Inspector Frank Woerli, and inched his painful way down the long stairs. He left the shoemaker. He hated it. He only wanted to get home, back to his room with Adoration V.

  But Robert Charigot passed out on the street, waiting for the bus.

  44

  Too Late for Franki

  Inspectors Nouvelle and Milhau arrived at the scene in Mulheimerstrasse much later than the promised hour — thanks to Commander Boehler and his paranoia. Aliette stood at the door to the tiny apartment, momentarily sick at the sight of two bodies, an ugly, tragic mess.

  It was a different feeling when her eyes finally locked on the shoemaker, propped in a slice of sunshine against the humidity-stained wall. She registered a distinctly flat place in her heart, somewhere between stunned and stupid, yet somehow
not surprised. She had no doubt it was the original, and beautifully restored by Gregory Huet. It was also obvious that Huet was another man she had completely misread. Where would this losing streak end?

  Aliette shook herself and got to work. Replacing the painting in the flowery market bag, she instructed Bernadette to take it down to the car and wait there. Aliette would make the appropriate calls. One French cop on Commander Boehler’s blacklist was plenty. Bernadette was to stay in the car until the Basel police arrived. If there was a problem, Berndaette should quietly leave. Upon her return to rue des Bons Enfants, she would leave the painting in the bag in a discreet spot in Aliette’s office. ‘Not a word to anyone, ma belle.’

  Aliette would take the bus back, if need be.

  ‘But —’

  That was an order. Inspector Milhau obeyed.

  Aliette canvassed the stairs. The dormer apartment was well removed from a busy street in the middle of a busy day and most residents were gone to work and elsewhere. No one even answered till she’d got to the second floor. No one there had heard or seen anything.

  She called Basel City and asked for Inspector Morenz.

  Then she waited, musing on futility. All signs indicated Franck Woerli had gone down in the line of duty. Foolishly perhaps, in fact probably, but one had to believe that in taking action Agent Woerli had moved beyond mawkish self-pity. Someone would be proud of Franki. A good police officer, a stupid waste of a man. Whether thirty extra minutes spent playing checkpoint Q&A could have made a difference would remain grievously moot and forever ironic given that the overly picky Customs officer was officially Woerli’s FedPol colleague, while in practice his heart belonged to Boehler and surely (though never officially) a memo flagging a certain French inspector had been sent.