Faking It

by Jennifer Crusie

  “Hi,” Gwen said when Tilda came into the office. “Davy still alive?”

  “Yes,” Tilda said. “And that’s not funny.”

  Eve waved at her from the table, her mouth full of muffin. “How’s Monet?” she said when she’d swallowed.

  “Boring as ever,” Tilda said, as Steve went to sit at Eve’s feet in hopes of muffin. “He deserves to be on a bathroom wall. Oh, and speaking of Davy, he wants to do a gallery show of my old furniture and I said yes. Well, gotta go to work.” She headed for the door.

  “Hold it” Gwen said, sounding panicked, and Tilda sighed and turned back to get orange juice and fill them in on the night before.

  “He’s convinced this is the way to get everything back,” Tilda said as she finished. “I argued, but—”

  “Don’t argue.” Eve hauled Steve onto her lap to pet him better. “They’re FBI. Which I actually find sexy.”

  “That’s Louise,” Tilda said. “Pull yourself together. Or in your case, separate yourself better.”

  “I’m against this,” Gwen said gloomily.

  “I know,” Tilda said.

  “Mason’s going to be thrilled,” Gwen said, even gloomier. “He’ll be all over the place. There’ll be dozens of people all over the place. I’ll never finish another Double-Crostic again.”

  “I know,” Tilda said.

  “At least Mason isn’t a hit man,” Gwen said.

  “Plus there’s all those free lunches he shells out for,” Eve said helpfully. “A man who pays for food is good.”

  Gwen frowned at Tilda. “Is there any chance that the four of them are toying with us? Like this is a plot they’re doing together?”

  Tilda looked at her over her glasses. “Any chance that Davy, Simon, Ford, and Mason decided to drive us crazy at random? Sure, why not? I have to go. Give Steve to Nadine for the day, be nice to Davy when he comes back, and don’t let Ford kill him. The last thing we need here is a murder investigation.”

  “I won’t be here,” Gwen said. “I’m having lunch with Mason. Someone else will have to draw the chalk outline.” She got up. “This is going to be a disaster.”

  She went out to the gallery, and Tilda frowned after her. “We should do something about her.”

  “Like what?” Eve said, still cuddling Steve. “The only thing that would make her happy is a nice trip somewhere on a boat—”

  “A boat?” Tilda said.

  “—and you know she wouldn’t go. She won’t leave us.”

  “Why a boat?”

  Eve shrugged. “I don’t know. She’s doodling boats on everything now. And her pencil cup has five little paper umbrellas in it. She says she’s saving them for a rainy day.”

  “Boats and umbrellas.” Tilda sighed. “Well, at least it isn’t teeth. I have to go to work. Davy has plans for after lunch.”

  “Naked plans?” Eve said.

  “No,” Tilda said. “We’re not doing that anymore.”

  “Me, neither,” Eve said, and didn’t sound happy about it.

  “Simon misses you,” Tilda said helpfully.

  “Simon misses Louise.” Eve put Steve on the floor. “He doesn’t know me.”

  “His loss,” Tilda said.

  “I don’t know.” Eve pushed her orange juice glass away and sat back. “I’m not that interesting. Not like Louise.”

  “Eve, you are Louise,” Tilda said. “You know, maybe you should pull yourself together after all. Tell Simon the truth.”

  Eve closed her eyes. “There’s a part of me that wants to. I think, ‘He’s great in bed and he likes Nadine and he’d be the perfect lover and husband and father to my kid,’ I mean, he’s the guy who really could pull me together.”

  “So tell him.”

  Eve tilted her head back so she could meet Tilda’s eyes. “Are you going to tell Davy you’re Scarlet?”

  “Never,” Tilda said.

  “Yeah, that’s what the other part of me says.” Eve stood up. “Especially with Simon’s damn mother rule. Maybe I should do what you do, bury Louise in the basement and never let her see the light of day.”

  “Hey,” Tilda said. “There’s only one me. Nobody’s buried in the basement.”

  “Tell that to Scarlet,” Eve said.

  AT NOON Clea met Ronald for lunch. “This better be good, Ronald,” she said as she sat down at the patio table, already annoyed because Mason had left for another business meeting without telling her where he was going. He’d been having a whole hell of a lot of business meetings, and she was pretty sure he was having them with Gwen Goodnight. And now Ronald was taking her to lunch in the sun, but her picture hat kept most of it from her face, and she looked wonderful in picture hats, so that was better. She relaxed into her chair and looked around at the other women, chatting away while the rays destroyed their skin. What were they thinking?

  “It’ll be good,” Ronald said. “It’s the best restaurant in German Village. Well, one of the best. It—”

  “Not the food,” Clea said. “What have you got on Gwen Goodnight?”

  “Oh.” Ronald sat back. “So that’s why you wanted to meet.”

  “Ronald,” Clea said, “I’m having a very, very bad week. Tell me Gwen Goodnight had a sex change and is really a retired shoe salesman from Des Moines.”

  “No, she’s Gwen Goodnight,” Ronald said, looking puzzled. “Her maiden name was Frasier. She was an actress and a dancer.”

  “Good,” Clea said, feeling cheered. “There must be something shady in her past, then.”

  “Not really,” Ronald said. “Her first daughter was born six months after she was married, but that’s not really scandalous anymore.”

  Clea stared at him coldly. “Ronald. You’re not helping me.”

  “There was a lot on the Goodnights,” Ronald offered. “They changed the family name in 1948 from Giordano. They moved here in the sixties.”

  “I need dirt, Ronald,” Clea said.

  “One of them went to prison for art forgery,” Ronald said helpfully. “That’s when they changed their name.”

  “In 1948,” Clea said. “Do you have anything from this century?”

  “Not really,” Ronald said. “They haven’t done anything since Gwen’s husband Anthony died. I told you, the gallery’s on its last legs. There’s nothing there.”

  Clea resisted the urge to slap him. It wasn’t his fault there was nothing there. Also, she was beginning to suspect that Ronald liked being abused. “Well, thank you for trying, Ronald.”

  Ronald leaned forward. “I’ll do anything for you, Clea, but really, can’t we forget this whole thing, go back to Miami—”

  “No,” Clea said. “My art collection is here, Ronald.” My future husband and his money are here, Ronald.

  “Did you find the rest of the Scarlet Hodge paintings?”

  “No,” Clea said, feeling bitter just thinking about it. “But I found two people who had sold them. Somebody else is collecting them.”

  “Why?” Ronald said.

  Clea blinked at him. It was a damn good question. The only person who wanted them was Mason, but he didn’t fit the descriptions of the buyers, tall men with dark hair and very different wives . . . Clea sat up slowly. “Davy Dempsey.”

  “Why would he want paintings?” Ronald said. “He has no interest in art.”

  “He’s living at that gallery,” Clea said. “You said Gwen Goodnight had been an actress, right? It was the two of them. He’s running some con at that gallery.”

  “He’s gone straight,” Ronald said.

  “Oh, sure, like you did.” Clea bit her lip, and Ronald breathed faster. “No. He’s up to something with Gwen Goodnight. I bet they’re scamming Mason. They’re going to use those paintings to get him to propose to her. Then Gwen will pay off Davy.”

  “That’s not Davy’s kind of con,” Ronald said.

  “Davy is capable of anything,” Clea said.

  “No,” Ronald said, and Clea looked at him, surprised. “I�
��m sorry, but that’s not his con.”

  “Well then, why does he want the paintings?” Clea said.

  “I don’t know,” Ronald said.

  “Find out,” Clea said and picked up her menu, feeling much better now that they were making progress.

  “No,” Ronald said.

  Clea frowned. “It was interesting the first time you said it, Ronald. Now it’s just annoying.”

  “I’m not hired help, Clea,” Ronald said. “I’m your lover. I deserve some respect.”

  Clea thought about it. On the one hand, life would be simpler if she let him storm off into the sunset. On the other, he was useful. And he was going to pay for lunch.

  “You’re right, Ronald,” she said, smiling at him ruefully. “You’re absolutely right.” She leaned toward him, bathing him in her smile and her cleavage. “But you will find out what Davy’s up to, won’t you? For me?” She breathed in deeply.

  Ronald breathed deeply, too. “Of course.”

  “Oh, good,” Clea said and went back to the menu.

  THAT AFTERNOON, Davy borrowed one of Simon’s shirts for the flea market, trying to look prosperous but not rich, somebody Colby would buy as honest.

  “It has to be my shirt?” Simon said.

  “Tilda doesn’t have anything that fits me,” Davy said. “Boy, one night without Louise, and you’re a mess.”

  “Four nights,” Simon said. “Does that strike you as odd?”

  “That a woman would avoid you for four nights? No.”

  “I checked her out through the Bureau,” Simon said.

  “You what?”

  “I was curious. I did it informally.”

  “Oh, good,” Davy said. “You know damn well Tilda’s up to something, and you alert the FBI.”

  “They were already alerted,” Simon said. “Someone’s up here looking into them.”

  “Fuck,” Davy said.

  “It’s part of something larger,” Simon said. “Some rich old man who died after a warehouse burned down. His grandson is insisting it’s arson. But the Goodnights are definitely on the list.”

  “Keep an eye on that list,” Davy said. “If they start to look like they’re going for anybody here, let me know.”

  “Certainly,” Simon said. “I don’t have anything else to do.”

  Downstairs in the gallery, Tilda was also annoyed.

  “I don’t get to come?” she said when Davy got the car keys from Jeff. “I leave work early and you’re doing this without Betty and Veronica?” She stopped. “Oh, good, I sound like an Archie comic.”

  “Stay close to the phone,” Davy said. “If I need you, I’ll call. Oh, and you,” he said to Nadine, who was trying to get a sock away from Steve. “You stay here, too. We may need you.”

  “For what?” Nadine said, looking up. “I get to play?”

  “This is not play, my child,” Davy said. “This is art.”

  “Uh-huh,” Nadine said and went back to retrieving her sock.

  Colby was on the edge of the market when Davy finally found him, directed there by an exasperated woman in a pink My Little Pony T-shirt who was trying to sell “real old handmade reproductions” of advertising signs. He looked like he was trying not to fit in, his polo shirt neatly pressed and tucked into Dockers that failed to disguise his paunch. He was at the age when his hairline was gathering strength to recede, and he smirked under its creeping edges, smug in the knowledge that he was better than everybody else there.

  Take him for everything he’s got, Davy’s inner con whispered.

  Davy strolled over and began to leaf through the prints that Colby had displayed in a V-shaped easel.

  “Those are all original artwork,” Colby said, which was such a blatant lie that even Davy was taken aback.

  “I’m really more interested in paintings,” Davy said.

  “Got those, too,” Colby said, sweeping his hand behind him to show a selection of framed artwork, very few of which were actual paintings.

  “Something colorful,” Davy said, and Colby offered him a still life of throbbing purple grapes and a portrait of a clown that looked as though it had been painted in orange Kool-Aid.

  “You know what my wife likes?” Davy said. “Dancers. And wouldn’t you know it, I can’t ever find a dancer painting.”

  “Don’t have one,” Colby said with real regret.

  Oh, hell. “Got anything close? People dancing in the air. Flying?”

  “Got just the thing,” Colby said. “It’s got no frame, though.” He began to dig under the table, and Davy thought, There is no chance that this—

  And then Colby was holding up the Scarlet, this one a checkerboard sky with two people with smeared heads who were sure as hell not dancing, not with that body language. Scarlet got more interesting with every painting.

  “It’s a little weird,” Colby said. “But it’s colorful.”

  “It’s smudged,” Davy said. “Their heads are all messed up. I don’t know. How much do you want for it?”

  “Well, this is an original artwork,” Colby said. “So it’s five hundred dollars.”

  Davy shook his head. “It’s messed up.”

  “It’s original,” Colby said.

  “Let me think about it,” Davy said and walked away before Colby could come down on the price. He crossed over to the next lane where he could see Colby between the booths while he punched in Tilda’s number on his cell phone. Colby was not a happy art dealer.

  “It’s me,” he said when Tilda answered. “He’s got it. Get Nadine and get ready.”

  “Okay,” Tilda said. “Andrew said he’d watch the gallery. Anything we should know?”

  “Colby’s an idiot,” Davy said. “Let him look down your blouse and you’ve got him. He’s also big on frames. Listen, when I pick you up, I don’t want to recognize either one of you.”

  “Okay,” Tilda said, a little more slowly. “Any special requests? Fishnet stockings? Funny hats?”

  “Nadine should look like a normal teenager,” Davy said, trying not to think of Tilda in fishnets. “I know that’s a stretch but she should be completely unmemorable.”

  “Okay,” Tilda said.

  “And you should look like an art dealer. Look professional and successful and bored. Be Veronica with money.”

  “Story of my life,” Tilda said. “Except for the money. Come and get me.”

  “That’s my plan,” Davy said.

  NADINE HAD outdone herself in jeans, a Britney Spears T-shirt, and a honey-brown wig with a ponytail. She’d done a clumsy enough job on her makeup that she looked completely authentic, a perfect replica of a teenager.

  “She looks normal,” Davy said to Tilda when they were back at the flea market and he’d given Nadine her instructions and sent her off to Colby.

  “I know,” Tilda said. “We were all so proud when we saw her. It’s a triumph of illusion.”

  “You did pretty good yourself.” Davy surveyed Tilda’s red silk separates and razor-cut wig. “I hadn’t thought of you as a blonde. You look like Gwennie. With a lot more edge.”

  “Blondes are hot,” Tilda said, watching as Nadine approached Colby. “I am cool. All she has to do is leave the print there?”

  “Yep,” Davy said. “Hot, huh? I don’t suppose you’d consider wearing that wig—”

  “In bed with you? No.” Tilda squinted across the market. “She’s there.”

  Davy turned back and saw Nadine slow in front of Colby’s booth. He sprang to life, smiling at her until she began to talk, gesturing to the painting. Then Nadine held up her print to show him, and his smile disappeared as he shook his head.

  “What is that print?” Davy asked Tilda.

  “It’s a Finster,” Tilda said. “One of her damaged proofs.”

  “You’re going to convince Colby a Finster is valuable?” Davy snorted. “Good luck. We’re doomed.”

  “No,” Tilda said. “Dorcas is really good. She’s just depressing.”

  Nad
ine talked on, and Davy imagined her with her eyes widened and her voice lightened, channeling Marcia Brady. “I hope she doesn’t overplay it.”

  “Oh, relax,” Tilda said. “None of us overacts. We could underplay in the cradle.”

  Across the way, Nadine held up her finger in the universal “Wait a minute” sign. She dropped the print on Colby’s table and started off down the fairway while he gestured to her to take it.

  “Give him a couple of minutes,” Davy said. “Then go over there and discover the print. It’s worth a lot of money, but you’re cagey about it.”

  “But Colby catches on,” Tilda said.

  “Then you confess that it’s worth thousands.”

  “Thousands,” Tilda said doubtfully.

  “Well, a lot of hundreds then,” Davy said. “You’re the art expert here. You’ll give him a lot of money for it.”

  “What if he sells it?”

  “He won’t,” Davy said. “Nadine’s coming back and he knows it. He’ll tell you it’s on hold or something and ask you to come back.”

  “I don’t see how we’re getting the Scarlet,” Tilda said.

  “You don’t need to,” Davy said. “Go over there and convince him that you’ll pay a lot of money for that thing.”

  “Right,” Tilda said, and he watched her thread her way through the crowd to Colby.

  Colby definitely perked up when she arrived, and it wasn’t just because she looked like money. You’re married, you jerk, Davy thought as Colby leaned closer to Tilda. Tilda laughed up at him, compounding the problem. What the hell was she doing? She was supposed to be a cool art dealer, not a fairway floozy. She looked over the paintings Colby showed her, clearly as uninterested in them as she was fascinated by him, and he expanded under her come-on. Come on, Davy thought. Enough of this already. Then Tilda stopped, her body language changing from pliant to alert. She picked up Nadine’s print, and Davy watched Colby’s face shift from lust to greed. It was like watching a silent movie: Tilda pulling back as Colby questioned her, her shoulders slumping as he got her to admit the print was valuable, his shoulders hunching as Tilda looked up and down the fairway for the phantom owner of the print.