by Thomas Swan
An hour later, Astrid’s shuttle to New York rose up through a ceiling of black clouds and leveled out in a purplish-blue sky. Long pink clouds were strung out like ribbons that had come untied from a magenta red sun. Astrid stared at the streaks of color reflected on the airplane’s wing and felt alone and unrooted. She closed her eyes and softly cried.
Chapter 22
Frédéric Weisbord lived in the Saint Étienne district of Nice on a sloping acre of land that his wife Cécile had selected to satisfy her somewhat eccentric love of gardening. The buildings consisted of a rambling turn-of-the-century house and a structure that doubled as garage and barn. Beyond the latter were the gardens: one for vegetables, the other for flowers, where once were planted ten long rows of clairette grapes. The Weisbords had purchased their property at the same time Gaston and Margueritte DeVilleurs settled into their home in Antibes, and for twenty-one years Cécile cared for her precious flowers and vegetables. Frédéric, for his part, became so deeply involved in the olive oil business that he ultimately closed his private law practice. Early in their marriage Cécile miscarried and was never again able to bear a child, yet even the lack of a family had become an agreeable arrangement in what most people who knew the Weisbords considered to be a union between two eccentrics.
Tragedy struck when Cécile ’s heart, weakened in childhood by rheumatic fever, could not keep up with the arduous hours she devoted to her gardens. Less than a month into her sixty-sixth year, on a sunny June day, just after she had divided her prized begonias and had begun to replant them, her heart stopped. Weisbord had been off on one of his business trips, and when he returned home he found a long black hearse in the driveway. The housekeeper, a no-nonsense Italian woman named Idi, described how she had discovered Cécile, too late to bring medical attention.
For six weeks, Weisbord mourned the death of his wife though not her constant nagging to stop smoking. After another few weeks, the new widower returned to his old schedules and soon was traveling more than ever.
Almost a year to the day following Cécile’s death, Gaston DeVilleurs died. Weisbord actually grieved; at least he went through the motions; and went so far as to shed authentic tears at the funeral. But forty-eight hours after Gaston was laid to rest, Weisbord turned to the important task of settling the dead man’s affairs and putting in motion all the terms and conditions that he had carefully integrated into Gaston’s last will and testament. Weisbord had devised a few dozen ways to receive fees and commissions while Gaston was alive, and now that he was dead, the lawyer knew exactly how to extract the largest of all payoffs.
The DeVilleurs paintings were worth a fortune, and Weisbord stood to collect a 17.5 percent commission on the gross proceeds from the sale of each one. Weisbord’s income from the sale of either of the two Cézannes in the DeVilleurs collection might be as much as $4 million. All of the lawyer’s fees could be found on seven of the fifty-six pages required to set forth the details of the will—a masterpiece of obfuscation.
There were complications, however. Margueritte had proved to be more obstinate and independent than he had anticipated. Her threat to sell the self-portrait to the Musée Granet was troubling, but considerably more annoying was the disappearance of the painting from the DeVilleurs collection. It was obvious that the owner of the new art and framing studio in Cannes was involved so Weisbord would visit Peder Aukrust and demand the return of the painting.
On Friday, the day after the DeVilleurs portrait disappeared, Weisbord drove to Cannes and located the framing shop on Rue Faure, encountering a blind that had been pulled down on the door with a small sign attached to it, which read Fermé. When he inquired with neigboring merchants, he was told that the new proprietor, a Norwegian named Aukrust, kept to himself but was known to take occasional trips to Paris, where he would try his luck in the smaller auctions. On Sunday Weisbord read in the newspaper that a Cézanne self-portrait in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts had been destroyed. He scissored out the article and put the clipping in the top drawer of his desk.
Not until Monday afternoon did he receive an answer to his repeated phone calls to the framing shop. Then he learned that the shop would be open the following morning at ten.
Shortly after ten, Weisbord entered the shop. A young artist was making an impassioned presentation of his paintings to Peder Aukrust, who flatly refused to take more than one painting on consignment. “Better than a boot in the ass,” the artist conceded then gathered up his assorted renderings of water scenes and brushed past Weisbord.
“I am the owner,” Aukrust said, “What may I do for you?”
Weisbord fished out a cigarette and lit it.
“Please don’t smoke,” Aukrust said and pointed to a pot of sand inside the door. “Sometimes the oils are not completely set on the paintings.” He held up the canvas left by the just departed artist. “See? The smoke will cling to the light colors.”
Weisbord eyed the big man skeptically, drew heavily on the cigarette, then plunged it into the sand. He coughed, only slightly at first, then into a continuous and irritatingly loud outbreak.
Aukrust waited for the coughing to subside. “How can I help you?” he asked again.
“I am Frédéric Weisbord, associate and legal adviser to the late Gaston DeVilleurs—”
“Madame DeVilleurs has mentioned your name,” Aukrust interrupted.
“You were in her home last week as was Bilodeau from the Granet in Aix. I was there to explain and enforce the terms of her husband’s will, and—”
“I am very busy, Monsieur Weisbord,” Aukrust broke in. “What exactly is it you want?”
“You can tell me where you’ve hidden the Cézanne self-portrait,” Weisbord demanded with a clear, firm voice pulled miraculously from the miasma in his tobacco-tarred throat.
Aukrust held out his huge hands. “A Cézanne in my shop? You flatter me, Monsieur Weisbord.”
“There, behind that door.” Weisbord took several steps.
Aukrust moved faster and stood in front of the door. “There’s nothing there, only my workroom and supplies.”
“I want to see,” Weisbord said stubbornly.
“This is my shop, or have you forgotten?” Aukrust said, a touch of irritation in his voice. “If you’re looking for a Cézanne, go to Paris. There are twenty-four in the Louvre.”
“Last Thursday,” Weisbord sputtered. “You ... you took that painting!” The painful wheezing returned, and he began to spit into his handkerchief. “Don’t deny it!”
The wheeze became a scratching, guttural noise, then for a moment he made no sound at all for the simple reason that there was no air in his lungs with which to make any sort of noise. He gasped, desperately trying to breathe, his face white as bleached bone. Aukrust looked on, fascinated that he was witnessing the awful process of suffocation. Suddenly, Weisbord shook violently, and air magically flowed into him. He fell into a chair, his chest heaving heavily.
“A drink of water, please,” he said in a thin, nearly inaudible voice.
Aukrust eyed him closely. “There’s no water here.”
“There must be water in that room!” Weisbord said. “I won’t follow you.”
Aukrust hesitated for a moment, then unlocked the door into the back room and went into it, closing the door behind him. He returned with a glass of water. The lawyer took it and drank.
“I suffered from tuberculosis when I was young and occasionally have these spells. A nuisance, nothing more.”
He stood and as if there had been no interruption said with a voice now fully restored, “I am here to recover Madame DeVilleurs’s painting. If you refuse to give it to me, I shall take other measures. Hear what I say, Monsieur Aukrust; the full force of the law is on my side, and I will use it if I must.”
Aukrust ignored the threat and took Weisbord’s arm and led him to the door. “Smoking is very dangerous,” he said, pretending to care. He turned the handle. “But if you threaten me, you’ll find you are flirting with
a force more dangerous than cigarettes. Even more deadly.”
Aukrust gently pushed the lawyer through the door, closed it, then pulled down the blind. The sign that read Fermé swung slowly like a pendulum.
Chapter 23
Ilena Petrov
M. K. Malinkousky
Member of the Presidium
Russian Academy of Arts
Kropotkinskaya ul. 21
119034 Moscow
Dear Mr. Malinkousky:
Aleksei Druzhinin, of the University of Moscow, suggested that I write to you, and to send along his personal best wishes. Professor Druzhinin was my favorite teacher when I attended the university, and he is deeply concerned over the loss of our Cézanne self-portrait. He believes you may know of ways to put the information in this letter into the hands of people who will find the guilty ones.
During the weeks since the incident, I have asked the St. Petersburg police to take a more active role in the investigation, but they have shown little interest. I was interviewed briefly, but could only repeat how I had discovered the painting the morning after it was destroyed. Two museum guards were also interviewed, but they had been assigned to the auditorium the previous day and had not been near gallery 318 where the Cézanne was displayed. There have been no other inquiries, and I cannot explain the indifference. Perhaps it is because there is so much art in the Hermitage that the police feel the loss of a Cézanne is but one drop in a vast lake of so many paintings.
I have made inquiries on my own and have talked with every worker who might remember seeing a person or group of people who acted in any unusual way. One person, a floor supervisor who has been a museum employee for many years, did recall talking briefly to a man who had a lung illness because the tubes in his nose were attached to a cylinder of oxygen that he carried on a strap slung over his shoulder. The man was bent over and had been in the galleries next to 318 and, quite certainly, in 318 also. When the supervisor was asked if this man acted strangely in any way, he said he did not think so at the time, but when he thought about the man, he remembered that he wasn’t old at all and had a strong voice, not an old man’s voice.
There were two more pages of amateurish speculation and Oxby had read it all several times, but on his final reading he stopped after reaching the description of the visitor with the cylinder of oxygen. Did he really have emphysema? Did he have any authentic breathing disorder? Oxby’s copy of the letter had come from Investigator Sam Turner, Police Division, Interpol, who had received it from the Moscow office of Russia’s National Central Bureau, which had been sent the letter by agent Yuri Murashkin in the National Russian Intelligence Office, who had in turn been given the letter by M. K. Malinkousky in the Russian Academy of Arts.
Oxby sent Sam Turner a fax:Sam: In re the Ilena Petrov letter: Can you arrange for an interrogation of the supervisor who saw and talked with the man carrying an oxygen cylinder? I’m curious to know in what language they spoke, how old the man was, and if he remembers any other physical characteristics; where precisely was the man when first seen, and where precisely when last seen. Run as complete an interrogation as you can under the circumstances. I know you’re good at this sort of thing.
J. Oxby
Chapter 24
Margueritte DeVilleurs guided Peder Aukrust over the back roads to the Chateau du Domaine St. Martin, a small luxury hotel eight miles from Nice, tucked away in the hills above Vence. They lunched by the pool where the sun was warm and the air was cooled by October breezes coming from the Montagne de Cheiron to the north. Margueritte was at her happiest when she described Frédéric Weisbord’s wild frustration over the disappearance of the painting. “He was like a child searching for his favorite toy, and when he couldn’t find it, he was undone by it all. Such a fool.” Her smile faded and her head shook. “His lungs are so weak, he’ll kill himself, and I’ll have no regrets or feel even the smallest sorrow.”
“He paid me a visit,” Aukrust said casually.
“In your shop?” There was surprise in her voice. “He knows you have the painting?”
“He suspects it. He threatened to call the police.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That he should go to Paris if he is looking for Cézannes.”
“You haven’t heard the last of Freddy. He has political connections and isn’t above giving a bribe when he needs help.”
Aukrust nodded his understanding, then said, “What have you done about the will?”
She shook her head sadly. “Freddy has been making changes to Gaston’s will for the last two years, I now realize. Occasionally he would give me a paper to sign—I’d signed dozens over the years. But I didn’t know that I had agreed to have the paintings put up for auction, with the money going into a trust. And I certainly didn’t know that Freddy would be entitled to commissions from each sale.”
Aukrust said, “He won’t have anything to say about the portrait because he’ll never touch it again.”
Margueritte shook her head, “Don’t be put off by his frail health.”
They went about the afternoon as if they were old friends, with Margueritte occasionally nannying the big Norwegian with her good-natured warmth. “You have made this a happy day for this old lady,” she said as their day together finally ended.
He looked at her somewhat quizzically. “Why are you being kind to me?”
Margueritte showed surprise. “What a silly question, Peder. Because I like you.”
“You are only saying that because you want me to do something for you. A favor—”
“How can you, if you don’t know me?”
“No, Peder. I’m saying it because I mean it.”
“Perhaps if I knew you better, I wouldn’t like you, but I hope that isn’t how it would ever be.” She had spoken directly to him, but he had turned away from her and was staring numbly at the darkening sky.
She put her hand on his arm. “I’ll say it again, Peder. Please be careful.”
It was after eleven when Aukrust turned onto Rue Faure and drove past his shop. He parked, turned off the engine and the lights, and waited for a lone walker to pass his car and vanish in the shadows. The street was dark except for the night lights in display windows and a solitary streetlamp nearly fifty yards away. He walked slowly toward his shop, paused to look in the window of a bookseller, then went ahead to the door of his shop and unlocked it. He slipped inside and felt along the wall for a panel of switches, and at the instant his fingers touched the light switch a fist crashed into his stomach and another fell solidly on his jaw. He lashed back, landing a glancing, undamaging blow, then was struck a third time on the top of his shoulder with a hard object that also scraped against the side of his head and tore his ear.
The pain was intense. He stumbled backward, separating himself a valuable few feet from the ambush. He was certain there were two men, armed no doubt, but he had no idea with what. His only advantage was in knowing how his shop was laid out—the location of counters, doors, and light switches. To his right, in the darkness, he heard heavy breathing then a voice that spoke in a slangy French he couldn’t understand. Another voice replied, and he heard a faint shuffling. He edged along the counter until he was in front of the locked door that led to the back of his shop. The bare amount of light in the shop came through three small diamond-shaped glass panels in the entrance door. Two figures were vaguely silhouetted in the dim light.
Aukrust opened a drawer under the counter and took out two spools of picture wire. He rolled one of the spools across the floor, and as soon as it clattered against the wall, he rolled the other.
“What is that?” one voice asked.
“The flashlight! Put it on!” the other replied.
In that brief moment of confusion, Aukrust rushed at the nearest figure, crashing furiously into a small body, his right hand grabbing a handful of hair, his left smashing powerfully against a mouth, snapping off teeth and causing blood to fall over cut lips.
“Arr�
�te! Arrête! ” a frightened voice yelled out.
Aukrust responded with a backhanded swipe to the face, but was at that instant hit low in the back by whatever had crashed into his shoulder a half minute earlier. As he turned away he caught what turned out to be a four-foot length of pipe. He held onto it tightly with both hands, then yanked and twisted it, throwing his attacker off balance. He grabbed a shirt and began pummeling a head and a chest. Aukrust’s shoulder and the side of his head and ear were bleeding, and the pain he felt became his license to inflict pain. One of the attackers bolted for the door and was gone before Aukrust could react.
He locked the entrance and turned on the light. The remaining assailant was sitting on the floor, his back against a display case, his arms, like a doll’s, flopped out beside him. There was both fear and anger in the face that stared up at Aukrust. Aukrust returned the stare, sizing up a twenty-year old with black, matted hair and a scruffy mustache that failed to make him look any older. Blood oozed from the corner of his mouth.
“Who sent you?”
The eyes on the young man hardened, and he did not answer.
“Weisbord? Was it Weisbord?” He spied a piece of paper in the young man’s shirt pocket and snatched it away before a hand reached up feebly to prevent him.
At the top of a brief note was printed the name André, followed by the address of Aukrust’s shop, and below that a phone number. Aukrust went to the phone behind the counter and dialed the number. It was late, the phone would not be answered immediately. He counted the rings...six... seven, then a woman’s voice.
“Allo?...allo oui?”
“Monsieur Weisbord?” Aukrust said in a loud whisper.
“Who is calling?” the voice asked warily.
“Tell him...” Aukrust paused, “that it Doctor Turgot.”
“He is asleep, I—”
