“Stop saying that.” I hissed. The owner of the shop, a stout man with an impressive mustache waved his arms and rolled his eyes. I couldn’t make out what he was telling the police, but the journalists just behind the yellow caution tape were taking copious notes.
I dragged Cindy into a nearby café while she hiccupped and tried to catch her breath.
“I didn’t talk, I said nothing, right? You were there, did you hear me say anything about anything?”
“Who did you not talk to?” Von Meiter ruled out the Mob, which was comforting. I eyed the charred remains of the shop. Not comforting enough.
I positioned her with her back to the wide café window so I could keep an eye on the street. Nic had jumped into the fray and was speaking very loud, very bad Italian drowning out the owner as well as the police.
“No, no, just…” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. I pulled out a tissue and handed it over.
“You always had all the right things.” She blew her nose and wadded the tissue into the palm of her hand.
“What is your fault?” I kept one eye on Cindy and the other on the store owner. Nic threw up his hands and turned away from the scene as if abandoning the whole issue.
“Just a minute.” I waved to a waiter and ordered three glasses of house red. I exited the café to retrieve the third member of our jolly party. Something else Californians know, when surrounded by devastation: share your wine.
The store owner stroked his mustache and gestured broadly for the benefit of the journalists. Journalist. There was only one left at this point, a young woman who, I’m sure, was hoping for an exclusive. She’d have to wait a little longer.
I swooped in and took the man by the arm. “It’s all right, let’s have a drink.”
He brightened at the invitation and willingly followed me into the café. After seeing Cindy, he fell on her with loud cries and kisses.
“But you should not be here. You were picking up!” He finished, anger replacing his initial relief.
“I missed the boat, I couldn’t make it through the turnstiles, they were checking boarding passes.”
I regarded her for a minute, but she revealed no more. I pushed a glass of red wine to the owner. “Your whole shop,” I said sympathetically.
He nodded miserably and drained his glass. I gestured to the waiter for another.
I cupped my hand in my chin. “Why do you think this happened?”
Cindy stiffened. He muttered in Italian. Something about dealing with the devil. I did not let on I knew his native language. Partially because I didn’t want to try to sort out what happened under a barrage of accented Italian, and partially because it’s handy to not let on you understand even half the words a man mutters under his breath.
“I don’t know.” He said in English. “You,” he turned to Cindy. “You know them, why aren’t you on the boat?”
“I told you, I couldn’t get on!” The two squared off against each other like a couple arguing minutes before their fiftieth wedding anniversary party.
As precious as that was, I needed to move it along.
“You had such an interesting and eclectic inventory. How will you replace it?” I leaned in and tried to catch his eye, but he wouldn’t meet my gaze. He instead stared into his wine glass, then deliberately picked it up and drained it again. I raised my hand for another glass.
The wine was quickly delivered.
He picked up the full glass and finally looked at me. “Why?”
“I’m interested. I’m looking for a hippo like this.” I pushed the photo of William the Met hippo across the table. He glanced at it but shook his head. Cindy turned away. She nervously fingered the stem of her glass.
“Aren’t we all?” Cindy said under her breath, in English by the way.
The owner leaned back in his chair, wine glass in hand. He watched the action outside the window. The young journalist scouring for quotes encountered Nic who held her enthralled as he happily lectured to a new audience.
“Is this something you can get for me?” I tapped the photo.
He shrugged and squinted at the wine as if it was the most interesting item at the table. He muttered something in Italian.
“You have a guy?” That was the loose translation.
He nodded unsurprised thatI understood.
“You have a guy where?” I pressed.
“Albania. Butrint.” Cindy admitted. She set her own empty glass on the table and looked expectantly at me, but I wasn’t interested in plying her with wine.
I nodded and pulled the photograph back. I had never been to Albania; it wasn’t exactly a fashion shoot destination. Although I supposed you can find anything interesting to photograph in any country. The ruins of Butrint were, as far as I knew, the one single tourist attraction on the Albanian coast.
Didn’t have a boarding pass. I studied Cindy who, with no more wine coming, was now holding the store owner’s hand. I cocked my head. Did she pose as a tourist to shuffle the merchandise though by boat or small cruise ship? I was pretty sure there were no customs at every port, that wouldn’t be sustainable. Did she actually catch a ride on one of the ships? That took quite a bit of nerve. I was impressed despite myself.
I planned on quizzing her later, but there was no need, she was suddenly willing to talk. I don’t think it was because she wanted to help me. But she seemed fond enough of the little owner.
“It’s my fault. I said it would be a great way to make money. Just pick up some bags of merchandise from Albania, the ships just do the one stop and take the bus back to Venice.
She meant she took the bus, not the ships. “That’s a long bus ride.”
She grimaced but said nothing more.
“How can I find your contact?” I just plunged ahead. The police were clearing out, the fire had been battered into an ashy mess. The young journalist’s attention was flagging even though Nic’s enthusiasm was clearly not. He gestured broadly as if to encompass the whole of the Adriatic history lecture. I glanced at my watch; the poor thing had twenty minutes to go before Nic would be willing to wrap up, ending with a summary and quiz.
Cindy shook her head, tight lipped. But the man who just lost everything was suddenly not so circumspect.
“Odyssey Cruise bag, this week only.”
“I don’t speak Albanian.”
He sighed and in English, “No one does.”
I left them with a band new bottle of wine. I approached the waiter to pay the bill, but before he could pull out the credit card machine, the manager stopped us. He ceremoniously returned my card. “No, no pay. We pay for his wine.”
I touched his shoulder. “Thank you.”
The journalist had made her escape, not waiting around for the pop quiz. Nic was finally glancing around, hopefully wondering where I was, but I wouldn’t bet on it. I quickly looked at my phone: all quiet on the Northern California Front. I scrolled through my contacts, there was the shop name and map. I deleted the contact and smiled at Nic.
Cindy emerged with the owner who held the bottle of wine close to his chest. She kissed his cheek before approaching Nic and me.
“You don’t need to get all involved. It’s no big deal. They were just mad that we shortchanged them, we didn’t have any more hippos.”
“None were found.” Nic commented.
She looked at him, surprised. “Found?”
Chapter 15
Tiffany texted, let the realtor in.
In a couple minutes, I texted back.
Passport is early, open from 2:00 to 3:00 PM
She’s at the door, let her in now, Tiffany texted.
Nic had pulled ahead of me striding past crowds, swinging his arms to give him more space in the crowd. I followed clutching my pinging phone.
There is a reason why middle-aged people are always looking at their phone, and it’s not because we are playing Candy Crush, although that is a good guess. The demands from every generation are funneled into a single de
vice. Older parents need immediate answers, younger children need immediate reactions. Situations that require management and wisdom, arguments that require a referee, all jamming into the phone nagging and cajoling and not taking turns. If Steve Jobs weren’t already dead, he should be shot.
Just one more minute, tell her to wait, I texted. I’m on my way. Nic was too far for me to call out. I gave up and veered to the embassy. A woman without a man may be like a fish without a bicycle but a woman without a passport is a beached whale not even Greenpeace can save.
The embassy men were delighted to see me and handed over the passport with a flourish and a number of comments on my improved photograph. I nodded and thanked them, saying no, it’s not necessary to show everyone in the office my photo, thank you.
It took me five minutes to get the passport into my hands. My phone pinged and buzzed in my purse like one of Miranda’s toys. Set on high.
Passport in hand I hurried to the apartment.
Nic was not waiting on the lower steps, he was up on the landing chatting away with, I assumed, the realtor in question. I hesitated. Should I let the woman in or text Tiffany that I was here and about to let the realtor in?
I just climbed the stairs, key in hand.
A petite bird-like woman stood comfortably on the narrow landing. Nic hovered over her. Unlike the tone of Tiffany’s text, the realtor smiled calmly and greeted me.
“I’m Maria. You must be Vic. I already met Nic here.” She wore a bright pink knitted Chanel, eschewing the long pearls for a chain made of inch-thick gold links. She wore enough pink and gold to illuminate the top of the dark dank stairs.
“A pleasure to meet you.” I reached around the woman and fitted my key in the door and swung it in.
Maria stepped right after me, Nic following.
Maria glanced around, hands on her hips. “I just can’t believe she is gone.”
“Did the girls contact you directly?”
“Yes, I was in Miranda’s address book. Thank God.” She wasted no time. She marched around the tiny place making notes on her phone. As I looked at the apartment through her eyes, I reluctantly compared it to Max’s place, something I avoided doing while I lived with Miranda because I never thought it was fair. Max lived on the ground or rather canal level. It was a godsend when he was finally reduced to a wheelchair. I could still take him out, rolling him straight onto a waiting boat. Boat rides were his favorite outing. Bouncing over cobblestones in a wheelchair was not comfortable, Max insisted that just the one street trip loosened every tooth filling he had. During the last few months, I hired a speed boat to take Max around the lagoon at full speed.
“This will work.” Maria glanced out at the canal view beyond the somewhat dirty windows. Max hired a cleaning service to come armed every month to keep his floor-to-ceiling windows facing the patio perfectly clear.
“How did you know Miranda?” I pulled myself out of the Max memories and tried to be at least a little more responsive.
She stopped taking notes and waved her arm in the general direction of the eat-in kitchen that doubled as the dining room. “Everyone knew Miranda.”
I glanced at the bare space. It seemed lonely. It needed the dining table pulled out to its maximum size and set in the middle of the room. It needed a bright tablecloth, colorful centerpieces, ignited sparklers and a crush of too many interesting people waving full wine glasses, competing to be clever, yelling to be heard.
“She was good at parties,” I offered.
“Ah, yes. I was at the last one, you know?” The woman regarded the scene of the crime with regret. “It was Egyptian, she played that old song, you know the one?” She made a motion like the flat hieroglyphs everyone misinterprets.
“Walk Like an Egyptian?”
“That is the one!”
“So much good wine, did the Egyptians drink wine?”
I nodded.
“We all got those little plastic statues as favors. It was quite fun.”
I stared at her as if she was a winning bingo card. Fun plastic statues. Miranda probably knew something of Egyptian artifacts; she couldn’t live with me post-Nicholas and not pick up something. Apparently, all she learned from me was that small blue statues made clever party favors. All the nice-looking statues made it to the table; the older ones, the ones that didn’t look quite as nice or as blue, those were dumped into Miranda’s drawer. Party favors.
Parties were not supposed to kill you. Well, maybe a really good party.
“I’m living here for now,” I said.
She sighed. “That’s all right, living here is probably the best thing. You can let clients in, right? But no more parties, okay? We want to keep the place clean. I have a couple already interested.”
She made a couple more notes. “You moved some of the paintings.”
“I took them to the King Tide Gallery.”
“Good.” She hesitated. “Maybe move out a few more? Keep that larger one, keep that set of four. And the bedroom…” She walked into the bedroom and regarded the enormous Nevelson hovering over the bed like the Borg cube.
“It’s a little intimidating,” I admitted.
“It wasn’t here when you lived here.”
I was taken aback. “No, how did you know that?”
“Miranda never stopped talking about you.” Maria smiled and waved goodbye as she left the apartment.
I looked at the intimidating art, black, spiky.
“I never stopped thinking of her either.”
“Water, water everywhere,” Nic mumbled. He had lined up the statues I had just purchased on the tiny café table. The sun slanted through the windows highlighting dust motes. Each statue was about three inches high, three were intricately carved with the symbols of the servant’s job—wheat thresher, builder, scribe. The other two were little more than an outline of a figure, made in haste or mass produced. The fakes looked better, plastic injection molding. Brighter colors.
Nic rejected those and lined up the five authentic statutes.
“Where did they originate?” I asked.
“That is the question.” He stroked his chin. “I would ask the question, the Cairo Museum will ask the questions, even the Getty will ask the question.” He smiled, “Maybe especially the Getty.”
In their early years as a flush new museum, the Getty acquisition team had made, as Nic put it, a couple of errors in provenance. The team spent obscene amounts of money acquiring anything and everything Hellenic, sure of their own expertise, not asking many questions. Some of the curators were legitimately fooled, some curators were fooled because they so badly wanted the beautiful Greek statues to be genuine. One curator walked away with a fortune and one was indicted for fraud. It had been rather ugly, but fortunately in LA, memories were short.
“My nice shop owner mentioned he had a contact in Albania.”
“They aren’t from Albania.”
“You think?” I needed more wine.
Ancient Egyptians didn’t bury their dead anywhere but Egypt. Egyptians conquered but did not colonize, which is why we all don’t walk like Egyptians. If you aren’t buried in Egypt, you won’t be able to enter the afterlife; you need the Nile, you need the West Bank. Egyptian artifacts came exclusively from Egypt.
I had a new passport with many, many blank pages.
“We could follow the trail to Albania.”
“Or just return to the source,” he finished. He was clearly unhappy about it.
“Don’t you want to know who is stealing artifacts and smuggling them out of the country?”
“They are just a few statues.” He gestured to the figures. Just statues. Just workers to be buried with their masters.
“Which means there’s more,” I quoted him.
He closed his eyes. “I’ll take care of it. You stay here and deal with.” He waved at the paintings. “All of this.”
Egypt is larger than it looks on a map. I hadn’t spent two years with Nic out in that desert not to unders
tand that. I needed more information than just It came from Egypt. Where? What dig? Someone had found a burial site, one that likely produced more than just these tiny statues. The more ushabtis you had, the wealthier you were. That’s a pretty easy equation. I wanted to know. I wanted to know why Miranda had been sacrificed, why Sig. Esposito had to lose his tiny shop filled with junk and antiquities. I wanted to know.
My phone buzzed. Rachael had some questions about the paintings. I texted her I’d be right over.
“Good idea,” I said to Nic. “You go back to Luxor. I’m going to Albania.”
Chapter 16
As I left the apartment, I passed a handsome young man. He tipped his hat, I nodded in response. I love this hipster-hat-wearing generation. The young men wear their ties and rolled sleeves and heavy beards with such panache. At the tender age of sixteen, Matt rocks the look and I accommodate him with gifts as trendy as I can manage. This young guy was at least ten years older than my nephew, but I was, in turn, old enough to lump the boys together. Distracted by thoughts of Matt, I texted him as I walked to Rachael’s gallery.
Afternoon cruise crowds thickened as I neared the square. I clutched my purse close to me. I will always be paranoid about my purse, worried, cautious. I glanced behind me but only saw a group of gondoliers, resplendent in their striped shirts, strolling out of a trattoria to the docks. I considered, for a minute, buying one of those hidden waist packs for my cash and new passport. Then, no, the last thing I want is more bulk around my already bulky middle. I held the purse to my side and walked.
I did not bring my now precious passport to Rachael’s gallery. Before I left the apartment, I stuffed it under the bed behind the first drawer. It could converse with all the vibrators, like a perverted Toy Story XX.
“I have good news and bad news,” Rachael started as soon as I walked through the door.
“Give me the bad news.”
“Some of the paintings are copies.”
I nodded, that made sense. I had no real skin in this game, I wasn’t depending on the collection to garner much more than a few memorable Italian meals. But I did need to retrieve the paintings for Tiffany. I hadn’t paid attention to where her paintings ended up. At the hotel? That seemed an unnecessary step. Ah well, that was for later. I had other concerns.
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