The Night Cafe

by Taylor Smith

  The door of Koon’s studio was swinging open and shut, banging in the breeze. Each time it swung inward, they could see a foot in a paint-splattered Birkenstock lying still on the floor.

  Twenty-One

  Russo unsnapped the holster under his jacket and withdrew his gun. Hannah watched as he slipped ahead of the uniformed deputies and approached the swinging studio door. Behind them, Detective Towle, her FBI agent brother and his partner Ito had all drawn their own weapons.

  “August Koon?” Russo called out. “Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.”

  The door squeaked in the wind on its hinges.

  “Police, Mr. Koon!”

  But Hannah knew August Koon was in no position to invite them in. The foot in that grubby Birkenstock visible through the swinging door lay still as death. There was no telling if anyone else might still be in the studio, though. She wanted to push Russo away from the threshold. Why did he have to be the first to charge in?

  “I wish I had my gun,” she murmured.

  “Don’t care for the things myself,” Teagarden whispered.

  Russo waved the uniforms out of the line of sight of anyone who might be inside the studio and positioned himself by the hinges. Glancing back, he nodded at the others to stand ready, then slowly pushed the door inward. Koon lay in a crimson pool just inside the door.

  Russo, Lindsay and the uniforms entered cautiously, spreading out to check for anyone else. After a moment, Hannah heard someone call, “Clear!”

  She and the others approached, but Russo raised a hand. They stopped at the threshold.

  “You guys,” Russo ordered the uniforms, “check the house, see if there’s anyone inside. Lindsay, get on the radio, give them the address, tell them we need the LAPD out here. We’re in their jurisdiction. The rest of you stay outside. LAPD’s not going to be happy if we mess up their forensics.”

  He crouched next to the downed man to check for signs of life, but it was obvious he was gone. His collar was soaked through with blood, the throat slit, possibly with the canvas knife that lay in the pool around him. It was the same curved blade Hannah had toyed with the morning she visited with Rebecca, the steel encrusted now with spots of blood. Koon’s skin was pale, the eyes open and dull. His once cranky expression had settled into a vacant, vaguely surprised stare, as if something on the ceiling had transfixed him.

  Russo glanced over. “Is this August Koon?”

  She nodded. Pulling her gaze from the rumpled body, she took in the studio. Finished canvases that had been neatly propped against the walls were strewn about the room now. The easels were overturned, pools of paint mixed with blood spatter in a confused pattern of splotches not unlike Koon’s own work.

  She felt Teagarden close behind, peering over her head at the mess inside the studio. He smelled of something pleasantly spicy. “Please don’t take this personally, Hannah, but trouble does seem to follow you.”

  “No, I seem to follow it. Jeez Louise, what a mess.”

  He took her by the elbow and led her away from the door. “Let’s leave them do what needs must. You and I, meantime, can finish our chat.”

  Hannah sighed inwardly. Here it comes.

  “There can be little doubt now what we’re dealing with,” Teagarden said. “Did it never occur to you that there might be something odd about the painting you were asked to courier?”

  “After the mess at Gladding’s villa—yeah, it did. I thought it might be about smuggled contraband. It never occurred to me that the prize could be that ugly picture, so I tore the frame apart. I thought it might be reconstituted drugs. I searched every square inch of the frame and the portfolio, looking for anything—money, documents, hell, even a microchip—but they were clean.”

  “And the canvas?”

  “I could see from the back that it was old and grimy, but Koon said he often painted over the same canvas several times before he was satisfied. I didn’t think dirt signified much. I even checked the stretchers.”

  Teagarden blanched. “You took the canvas off the stretchers? Oh, please, Hannah, tell me you didn’t roll it.”

  “Would it have mattered?”

  “I told you, love, it was painted in 1888. The pigment will be unstable. Rolling the canvas could crack it and break bits off. It certainly would not be healthy for it.”

  “Assuming it is your missing van Gogh.”

  “True, although it’s not a good way to handle any painting, old or new.”

  “Well, relax. I didn’t take it off the stretchers, just examined them as best I could. I was already worried about having destroyed the frame. I didn’t want Gladding on my case because I’d damaged his painting, too.”

  Teagarden looked visibly relieved. She knew what his next question would be, but he waited. He was a wily old fox, probably a master at interviewing in his days at Scotland Yard, letting the silence stretch awkwardly until the nervous suspect felt the need to volunteer something.

  Well, Hannah could play that game, too. She turned away to watch as Detective Towle hung up the car radio mike and went back to talk to Russo.

  “Well,” Teagarden said finally. Score one for the kid. “You still haven’t told me where the painting is, Hannah. I know you didn’t leave it at the villa. Believe me, I searched everywhere. So I presume you brought it back to Los Angeles?”

  She shook her head.

  “Bloody hell! You left a priceless masterpiece behind in Mexico?”

  “I was trying to get my butt out of there, Teagarden. I didn’t know who might be looking for the thing.”

  “Please tell me you put it in a safe-deposit box.”

  “Yeah, right. I had no idea who I could trust. Who was to say Gladding didn’t have every banker in Puerto Vallarta on his payroll?”

  “An airport locker?”

  “First of all, I wasn’t going to walk into the airport carrying an art portfolio. And second, nobody has lockers anymore. You should know that.”

  “True,” he conceded. “Not since the IRA decided they made good places to hide bombs. So—”

  Russo chose that moment to come over, Agents Towle and Ito close behind.

  “This is going to take a while,” Russo said. “Hannah, you might as well go and be with your sister now. There’s nothing more you can do here.”

  “Hannah tells me she left the van Gogh behind in Puerto Vallarta,” Teagarden said.

  “Correction. I hid a painting by August Koon. Until someone proves otherwise, that’s what it is, far as I’m concerned.”

  Teagarden demurred, but Russo agreed. “I don’t think there’s any reason to suspect that Hannah knew she was carrying anything other than what it seemed to be.”

  She might have felt grateful for the vote of confidence, Hannah thought, if it weren’t for the fact that she still felt like the world’s biggest patsy.

  “I believe we could cut through a lot of red tape if you were to tell me where you hid it,” Teagarden said. “I can be on the next flight to Puerto Vallarta, recover the van Gogh and bring it back to the States to be returned to its rightful owners. I presume you could arrange for me to bring it through U.S. Customs?” he added to Towle.

  The agent nodded.

  Hannah weighed the offer. It might be a good idea, but how could she be sure? Once burned, twice shy—and at this point, she was feeling well and truly singed. Could she trust anyone? And what about Gladding? What were the odds he hadn’t had Rebecca and Koon killed to cover his tracks? Could these guys protect her from him? For how long? The man was vindictive and he had a long memory, by all accounts.

  If the painting was the van Gogh, then it should be returned to Yale, of course. But what if turned out to be just a Koon? Gladding had paid for the thing. No matter how lousy his taste, why he would want the thing, or how serious his other legal problems with the feds, he was the rightful owner until proven otherwise.

  “I’d rather retrieve it myself. When I do,” she said, cutting off Teagarden’s protest, “you can exa
mine it or have any expert you want look at it. But right now—and please don’t take this the wrong way—I don’t know you any better than I knew August Koon there.”

  “Then let me suggest something else,” Towle said. “We have a contact in Puerto Vallarta, the man I told you about the other night, Hannah. We could send him to retrieve it.”

  Oh, right, she thought grimly. Donald Ackerman. Like she trusted him any more than the rest of these clowns. And like he was going to be thrilled to help her out after she’d left him locked in the trunk of his car.

  “Look, guys, the painting is safe for now.” Please God, let that not be wishful thinking. She turned to Teagarden. “I have a family emergency to take care of. My sister needs me. This can wait until tomorrow, right? Then, I promise, I will pull out all the stops to make sure the painting gets back here so you and your experts can examine it. Deal?”

  It was obvious Teagarden wasn’t at all happy about the idea, but he was off his turf here. And given the linked murders in Malibu and the Hollywood Hills and the probability they were related to a man wanted on a number of federal warrants, Yale University’s missing painting was no one else’s top priority today.

  Hannah nodded to Towle and Ito. “Guys, you know where to find me.”

  “Tomorrow.”

  She glanced at Russo, then turned and started for her car. He caught up to her as she was opening the door. “Hannah.”

  “What?”

  “Going back to Mexico is not on, you know that. You’re going to get yourself killed. You should let those guys take this over.”

  “I finish what I start, John.”

  “I respect that, but you don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into here. How many people have already been killed over this?”

  Truthfully, she didn’t really know. On the other hand, was she going to let John Russo start deciding what she should and shouldn’t do? “So, you’re worried about me? Is that why you had your trainee there sic her big brother on me? How could you do that, John?”

  He sighed wearily. “I am really sorry about that. I swear to God, it wasn’t deliberate and I’ve already read Lindsay the riot act about it. She was sitting at the next desk over when I was talking to you the other day and she heard me mention Gladding’s name. She perked right up and asked me about it after I hung up. I knew she had a brother in the FBI, but it never occurred to me that she’d tell him.”

  Hannah rolled her eyes. “She’s a pistol, that one.”

  “Extremely ambitious.” Russo hesitated.

  “What? Come on, spit it out.”

  “I know you’ve been worried about your finances. Are you sure it didn’t cloud your judgment on this one? I mean, Moises Gladding?”

  “Are you saying I sold my soul to pay a freakin’ tax bill? Give me a break.” She yanked open the car door. “I’ve gotta go.”

  It would have been gratifying to rev her engines and roar off down the driveway, leaving the whole damn lot of them in the dust, but that was the problem of driving a little hybrid. It didn’t really lend itself to the grand gesture.

  Moises Gladding, aka the Argentine James Dunning, settled comfortably into the overstuffed armchair in his suite at the Beverly Hills Crowne Plaza. He selected a throwaway cell phone from his briefcase and dialed the associate scheduled to supply the radioactive explosive device that Liggett would use at San Onofre.

  The Libyan had been a client for years, a frequent, well-financed customer for the goods and services Gladding offered. This was the first time the arms dealer had put himself on the receiving end of this relationship. There were few people with the skills and resources needed to prepare a weapon of this type, so it wasn’t as if he’d had much choice in suppliers. But ever since the attack at his villa, he was beginning to wonder if he had made a wise decision.

  The Libyan answered on the second ring. Gladding identified himself by the code name he always used with the man and asked for confirmation that his item was ready for pickup.

  “It will be at the drop-off location on Sunday as agreed. And my payment? When can I expect it?”

  “It’ll be at the specified coordinates when your end of the bargain is fulfilled, not before.”

  The airwaves between them hummed for a moment, and then, “Of course. I would expect nothing less. After all, we are colleagues of long standing, are we not?”

  “I thought so.”

  “And you doubt it now? But why?”

  “There was a disturbing incident at one of my residences this week. I wonder if you know anything about it. The place was ransacked, as if the attackers were looking for something in particular—an objet d’art, perhaps.”

  “I am very sorry to hear of this, but you cannot think it had anything to do with our arrangement.”

  “I would hope not. And yet delivery of my purchase was delayed.”

  “Only because it is a delicate item and certain components can be difficult to acquire. It is nothing personal, I assure you.”

  “What happened at my villa was very personal.”

  “I am very sorry for your difficulty, but again, it can have nothing to do with our arrangement. Our business association is a sacred trust to me, a trust built up over years of excellent relations.”

  “Yes, years,” Gladding said. All the more reason that he knew how to read the man, and knew he was lying. “I’ll call you on Saturday to confirm the exchange.”

  “Excellent,” the Libyan said. He sounded relieved.

  He shouldn’t be, Gladding thought, disconnecting. The Libyan would learn what happens to those who cross Moises Gladding—as would the courier who had disappeared with his painting. It was time to tie up that loose end as well.

  Twenty-Two

  It was early afternoon by the time Hannah shook herself loose of the cops, the feds and the charming Brit she hadn’t decided to trust. Squinting in the bright April sunshine, she was digging around in her messenger bag for her sunglasses case when her hand landed on her cell phone. She dropped it in the console, found her shades, and settled in for the fifty-something-mile trip down to her sister’s place in Corona del Mar.

  At the last stop before she merged onto the freeway, she glanced at her phone screen. The cell had been on vibrate while she’d been at the gallery and at Koon’s studio, and she’d missed three calls, one from her mother’s house and two from her brother-in-law’s mobile phone. Multiple SOSs from Ma and Neal could only mean that Nora was incapacitated and that Hannah’s presence was urgently required.

  She barreled down the freeway on-ramp. She’d be there soon enough. This business with Rebecca was too emotionally fraught to discuss over the phone. She was feeling pretty ragged herself and she’d lose it for sure if she heard Nora crying. Best not to risk it at seventy miles an hour.

  As much as this circling of the family wagons was about Nora and her loss, Hannah had the uncomfortable feeling talk would inevitably come around to her own unconventional line of work. The family was pretty traditional, so every time the black sheep of the flock got caught up in some cockamamy incident, the weary sighs were bound to follow. Oh, Hannah, what kind of trouble have you gotten into now? This time, she feared there would be a new chorus: What kind of trouble did you bring down on Rebecca?

  She smacked herself mentally upside the head. She had no time for self-pity. As for self-recrimination, the only blame she carried here was possibly leaving a masterpiece in a dank closet in a firetrap hotel. Brilliant. If The Night Café disappeared or was ruined, she’d go down in history as the moron who lost it—a dandy addition to her résumé.

  Enough. She popped her iPod into the car adaptor, selected an upbeat playlist and cranked up the volume to drown out the squeak of the hamster wheel in her head.

  An hour later, she pulled into the driveway of her sister’s house on Shorecliff Road. The quiet little hybrid’s silent arrival gave her a chance to steel herself before launching into the emotional Sturm und Drang to come. When she finally walked up to th
e entry, she’d barely touched the bell when the door flew open. Her mother and Nora were wedged in the space, arms wide, faces tearful but relieved.

  Nora threw her arms around her. “Finally! We’ve been so worried.”

  “I’m so sorry I didn’t get your messages earlier.”

  Her mother took Hannah’s face in her hands. “Thank goodness you’re safe.”

  Hannah kissed her warmly and put her arm around her, steering her inside. Nora’s husband walked out from the den and gave her one of his bone-crusher hugs. Sixteen-year-old Natalie came bounding down the stairs, and then it was her turn, too, for hugs and tears and worried complaints about why Hannah hadn’t called.