He put it back and went to his painting. He made three mistakes in a row, and took his pallet knife, scraped off the oil, and did it again. Nice thing about oil. Make a mistake, take it off and do it again. Her bank balance worried him. The old-master-style paintings worried him. She never exhibited any of them downstairs. He wondered why not. Slowly he began to get an idea, and he didn’t like it.
She had said she sold her portrait paintings for twenty thousand dollars. Maybe she wasn’t kidding. She came back, and he made an excuse about a hard day the next day. She frowned.
“Something I said?”
“No. I just have to leave. See you in a couple of days. We have a night problem tomorrow.” She knew he was a SEAL, she would buy that.
The next night, as soon as he was off work, he drove to the main library on Eighth Street downtown. He went to the reference room and found three huge books on Rembrandt and his fellow painters in the 1600’s in Holland. There were hundreds of pictures, and at last he found what he was looking for. A school of painters who did works that looked much like the portraits that Xenia did. He studied them for an hour, and when he was almost ready to give up, he found a series of four portraits that looked almost identical to the type that she was doing.
He read the name. Roycen Van Dyke. He’d died in 1673. The article about him said that he was a perfectionist, that he did few paintings, and that he sold even fewer. The archives recorded only twelve of his works, but experts figured there were probably a hundred or more that had been lost or destroyed, or maybe were sitting on dusty shelves in some studio storage rooms in Europe or the United States.
What a perfect cover. More of the Van Dykes could be “found” and sold at a good price. Not for millions, but for maybe a hundred thousand. He had to confront her about it. No way around it.
The next night he worked hard on his oil, and was pleased with the two hours of effort. Then Xenia came in and he knew he had to talk to her about his suspicions, to find out for sure. She invited him for a beer, and they went into her room. At once he went to her painting and stared at it. Then he was sure. The shadings, the tones, the size of the bust in the picture. He turned to Xenia, who came with two bottles of beer.
“Roycen Van Dyke,” he said.
Xenia closed her eyes and wilted. She put the beer on a table and sank onto the cot.
“Why did you have to find out? Why? Things were going so well. I sell two of them a year and then I can paint what I want to.”
“Where?”
“A man in Santa Barbara specializes in ‘recovered’ old masters and not-quite old masters.”
“And you do get twenty thousand each for them?”
“Yes. I don’t know how much he sells them for. I picked Van Dyke because he’s almost unknown in this country. But he has enough of a name that some private collector will look him up and buy. For fifty or sixty thousand that collector has what looks exactly like an old master and he can show it off to his friends.”
“It’s called forgery and fraud.”
Her voice was small. “I know. Damnit, I know. I’m better than this. I should be getting five thousand for a painting, maybe ten or fifteen thousand for my own work. But I’m stuck here showing off my tits and hoping for a three-hundred-dollar sale of a nude.”
“You could stop doing Van Dyke.”
“Sure, and really starve. I tried that. Who do you suppose pays for the rent when the other four can’t get up their share? Who pays for all of the lights and heat? Yeah, you’re being kept by the goodness of Van Dyke, whether you know it or not.”
“You’ve got to walk away from it, Xenia. If they nail you, it could mean ten years in prison. Then how would you paint?”
“I can’t leave it yet. Right now I don’t have the studio contacts to show my work where I can get enough money. Maybe in a year. I have one who shows me. I need three or four more. They are hard to find, and they take forty percent. I’m jacking my prices up to three thousand for my big works, instead of three hundred. So far I’ve sold one up in Laguna Beach of all places. I need more time. Maybe these two Van Dykes and two more and I’ll be set.”
“Do you sign them?”
“Oh, God, no. That would be a sure giveaway. These are supposed to be old ones he wasn’t too proud of and they got lost somewhere. So he didn’t sign them.”
“If this dealer in Santa Barbara gets arrested, would he give you up?”
“Charlie? Sure, if it would save him a couple of years off his sentence. He’d give up his mother and his brother. Who also are both in the forgery business.”
They sat there looking at each other.
“X, I don’t know how to help you.”
“Nobody can help me. I do it on my own. I always have. Always will. Now get the hell out of here and let me have a long cry. Maybe I’ll speak to you again, and maybe the fuck I won’t.”
5
Training the next two weeks was the hardest Murdock could remember. He made sure it stayed that way. Men could die in the field if they couldn’t run fast enough, if they couldn’t shoot straight, and for a dozen other reasons that could be prevented or at least made less likely by tough, realistic training.
For the past two days they had been at Niland, near the Chocolate Mountains in the desert just east of the Salton Sea. Today they had split into squads for training in tactics, and each unit went in a different direction. They were to meet at a certain flat-topped mountain at 1400 for some joint operations.
The Navy bus they arrived in was loaded heavily with ammo. Each day they fired their weapons until they ran out of rounds, then worked the rest of the daylight with simulated firing drills and attacks on various gullies, sand dunes, and giant cacti.
The platoon marched back to the bus shouting the age-old Army chant: “You had a good home and you left. You’re right. You had a good home and you left. You’re right. Sound off. One, two. Sound off. Three, four. Cadence count. One, two, three, four — one, two…”
They went through twenty different verses to the ditty, some of them not fit for a family audience, and were marching with style when they came to the bus and stopped. The bus had pulled along the cool waters of the Coachella Canal of the massive irrigation network from the Colorado River that made the whole Imperial Valley green and areas to the west and north blossom with farm crops.
Senior Chief Sadler stared at the men. It had been a tough training day. “That water looks good, doesn’t it? I’m not saying you can take a swim and cool off, but I’m not saying you can’t. Fact is, I’m going to get my boots off and get my feet wet right now. Platoon dismissed.”
There was a shout from thirteen throats as the men dropped their packs, weapons, and combat vests, and dashed for the swiftly running waters of the canal. Every summer people drowned in the canal when they misjudged its swiftness. The SEALs didn’t mind. They had trained in this powerful flowing water and knew what it could do. They splashed into it with their desert cammies on. They could wash them and cool off at the same time.
Murdock, Sadler, and DeWitt watched the men.
“Good job, Senior Chief,” Murdock said. “I think you might work out in this job.”
“Thanks, Skipper. We’ve got a good team here. It’s pulling together like no outfit I’ve ever worked with before.”
“When their asses are on the line, the men know they have to work together, or they’ll die alone,” Murdock said. He dropped his weapon, pack, and pants, which had his billfold in them. “You guys going to let the men have all the fun?” He ran for the canal and did a surface dive, then floated downstream with the current.
It was almost 1800 when the men straggled out of the canal, dug out dry cammies, and changed clothes. They spread their wet clothes in the sun to dry.
Senior Chief Sadler blew three short blasts on his whistle. “Listen up. We have just been attacked by a group of twenty infantry from across the canal. Form up now in a line of skirmishers and return fire.”
They were a
ll out of ammunition so they dry-fired a few times, then went bang-bang. Two minutes into the exercise the whistle blasted once. “End of alert,” Sadler said. “Get dressed and on the old pony. We’ll eat our last MREs on the way back and then stop at Jack in the Box.”
The men cheered.
“About time,” Jaybird called. “I got myself killed twice back there by hand grenades.”
“We noticed,” Sadler cracked. “Your service will be in ten minutes.” The rest of the SEALs hooted in delight. At last they had a mouth that could match Jaybird’s.
The trip back was routine, but it would take three hours. Bill Bradford sat on the bus dozing, trying to figure out what to say to Xenia when he saw her again. They were in the same little building, right next to each other. He knew her secret and he didn’t know what to do about it. He certainly wasn’t going to turn her in. She must know that. Was there any way he could help her? Maybe find some more outlets to hang her work? That would take time, and luck. Good painters were everywhere. You had to be distinctive to stand out and get noticed. He didn’t know what to do.
* * *
It was after ten o’clock when he pushed in the dark doorway at the gallery on India Street. He’d seen lights upstairs, so Xenia must be there. Bradford went up the steps, making some noise so she would hear him coming. She leaned against her doorway as he came down the short hall.
“Well, at least you didn’t bring the cops,” she said. “I’m almost clean here. I force-dried one to get some small cracks in the oil. Then sent it to Santa B. The other one is done, but I can’t force-dry it for three more days. You still talking to me?”
“Damn right. Trying to figure out how I can help you.”
“Hey, God couldn’t help any, what chance do you have?”
“God?”
“Sure. I used to go to church. They said pray. I prayed. They said put your troubles on Jesus. I heaped them all on his shoulders. None of it helped a fucking damn bit. So, if those two didn’t make a dent in my problems, why in hell do you think you can?”
“Hey, with a SEAL all things are possible. Let’s get our heads together and see what we can work out.”
“Oh, God, but I’ve been hoping you would say something like that. I’ve been fucking scared to death you would cut and run. Yeah, let’s get together, but first come in here, I’m in a real need. I’ve just got to have somebody about six foot two spread out on top of me and socking it to me hard and fast.”
* * *
It was nearly an hour later before they both came down from their highs and their breathing and heartbeats had returned to near normal. They sat on the side of the cot sipping at cold beers.
“Great,” she said. “Perfect.” She sighed. “I wish the rest of it was so easy. Once I get this last portrait out of here, I’ll breathe a lot easier.”
“Your last one?”
“Going to try. Going to work like a schizophrenic nymphomaniac and try to get a gallery in La Jolla to represent me. I’m going into the fifteen-hundred-to-five-thousand-dollar class and see where the goddamn chips fall.”
“Sounds good for a start. What about Laguna Beach?”
“Too much competition. There are a hundred forty galleries up there. Would you believe it? Probably twice that many good artists. No, I’m going to hit Long Beach, and LA and Beverly Hills. I’ll do good theater, dressing the part for each different location. If I try for a spot in redneck Santee, I’ll go nude.”
“So how do you force-dry an oil painting?”
“Some say it can’t be done. I set it in the direct sun for three hours at a time, then put it in my refrigerator for an hour, then back in the direct sun. Hardens the outside, but not all the way through. Then when the inside hardens completely in about three weeks, the outside will develop what I call my aging cracks. Looks pretty damn good.”
“Three more days?”
“Yep, if I can hold out and if the damn fraud squad doesn’t run right up my ass.”
“You keep the wet one hidden?”
“Oh, yeah. A sliding panel I built in the wall. Take a fucking magician to find it. Only you, I, and Rollo know where it is. If he ever gave me up, I’d slice his balls off.”
“Let’s see what you’re working on now,” Bradford said. It was a seascape off a windy hill with a huge house in the background and a woman sitting on the cliff watching the sea. Xenia had it about half done.
“Yes, I like it. What is it, three by four feet? Big enough to get a lot in there. Just don’t try to get in too much.”
“Yes, old master.” She poked him in the ribs. Then she kissed his cheek. “Damn, I like having sex with you.”
* * *
The next day, the SEALs training went wet. They swam ten miles with flippers and in wet suits, then jogged for four miles, and wound up with rubber ducks surfing in on the crashing Pacific waves. They went in and out three times, and the eight men in each boat made the surfing each time without dumping the boat in a breaker.
Bill Bradford gave a long sigh as he changed into his civilian clothes and headed over the quarterdeck to the parking lot. He turned on the local news station as he always did. It was just past five o’clock, the national five minutes were over, and the local news came on.
“The weather has turned sultry again, and the weatherman says there’s a chance of some southern flow moisture coming to us out of Baja California if the onshore flow will hold off a little and not blow all of the rain into Arizona.
“San Diego Police and the FBI arrested a local artist today on charges of fraud in a complicated scheme to paint and then sell copies of seventeenth-century old Dutch masters as originals. The charges are fraud, conspiracy, and interstate transfer of the fraudulent paintings. Santa Barbara Police cooperated in the arrest. They say the dealer there was selling the ‘just found’ lost old-master paintings for as much as a hundred thousand dollars to private collectors. The name of the local artist has not been revealed pending the search for more members of the conspiracy.
“In other news, another water main broke this morning—”
Bradford snapped off the radio and pulled to the side of a Coronado street. He shook his head in surprise and denial. He suddenly felt cold and shivered. How? It had to be Xenia. Why didn’t they give her name? Were they hunting him? He thought it through, and decided that the police would only want to talk to him. They couldn’t charge him with anything. He wasn’t that good a painter. He started the Honda and drove on to the co-op studio on India Street. Two men in suits and holding hats sat in the small display area. Rollo stood there talking to them. He turned.
“Oh, Bradford. Didn’t know if you’d be in today or not. These men from the FBI want to talk to you.”
“Why? They want to buy a painting of mine? Hell, they can talk as I paint. I haven’t done any good work now in three days, and that has to stop. Upstairs, gentlemen, and you’ll see how a starving artist works.”
One of them started to protest, but the other shook his head and they all went up the stairs. At the door to the studio, Bradford stopped and held up his hand.
“Yes, I heard about the arrest of an artist for fraud. It can’t be me. However, I’m allowing you into my studio, but not authorizing you to search the place or to remove anything. Are we agreed on that?”
“Yes, we agree. We just want to talk to you,” said the taller FBI man Bradford mentally named Jeff.
They talked. It was what Bradford had expected. Yes, they had Xenia in custody.
“I’d seen some of the portraits she did and was blown away at the quality of her work. She’s a gifted artist. I liked the modern work she does better, like the marine she’s working on now.”
“Did you know that she was painting copies of old masters?” Mutt, the shorter of the FBI duo, asked.
“I’ve had some art training. Anyone who has had art history courses can recognize the style and type of painting of the seventeenth-century artists. Every artist born copies old masters for practice
, to see if he or she can get the light just right, get the tone and feel of the painting.”
“Did you know she was selling them?” Jeff asked.
“Of course. We try to sell everything we paint. That’s why we have a gallery downstairs. Would either of you be interested in a nice marine for your office? I specialize in marines.” He picked up a finished and dry oil from a table. It was oil on canvas and not yet framed. “How about this one? I can have it hanging on your wall for only a hundred and forty-nine dollars. Plus tax, of course.”
The FBI men looked at each other and shook their heads.
“Mr. Bradford. Did you know to whom she was selling the copies and how much she was getting for them?”
“Hey, her business. We try not to pry. If Rollo sells a nude to a grade-school teacher, I’m supposed to report him? Hell, this is a co-op so we can pay the rent, not so we can baby-sit each other. Of course I didn’t ask her how much she sold her paintings for. I knew the prices downstairs. We don’t snoop on each other. There are six of us here. Have you talked to everyone?”
“You’re the last,” the Mutt FBI clone said.
“Good. Now if you’re not going to buy a painting, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I’ve been working on this windswept tree on the cliff for two days, and I still can’t get it right. If you can’t help me there, then I’d appreciate it if you leave.”
“So far, Mr. Bradford, you haven’t been charged with anything. We understand you’re in the Navy. It would be in your best interest not to leave town for the next few days.”
“I’ll try to remember that.” He pointed to the door. The feds took one last look around and went out the door and down the steps. When he figured they should be out of sight, he started down. Rollo was halfway up.
“You heard,” Rollo said. “She must have been getting big bucks for those old master copies.”
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