by Hailey Lind
So Edward Brock had recommended hiring the X-man, had he? Kind of made a person pause and think. Given the facts that Harlan was missing, and Anton was missing, and I had no idea where to find Michael, maybe I should see if I could track down the one person who might have a clue as to what was going on: the estimable Mr. Edward Brock.
I searched my fanny pack for more quarters, but only came up with a bunch of pennies and a couple of nickels. Damn that cell phone. When somebody finally designed a model that recharged itself, I would be the first in line. I checked the clock at the nurses’ station. It was a little before eleven. I had to get back to my studio and do some damage control.
First, though, I wanted to see if I could find out anything else about Edward. What I needed was someone who was in the City’s art gossip loop. I pointed the truck toward the Mission District, a part of San Francisco that used to be labeled “affordable,” which meant it was crime-ridden, drug-ridden, and the only place that would rent to poor immigrants. On the other hand, it was full of the sense of community that develops when thousands of people from Latin America live, work, and raise their children in the same area. Along Valencia, bands played loudly until all hours, tacos were served twenty-four hours a day, and funky used-book stores stayed open until midnight. As in so much of the City, the Mission’s affordability had dissolved in the past few years as more and more yuppies and dot-com well-to-dos had moved in.
It was still a lively area, though, edgy, artsy, and young. I squeezed into a hard-won parking space and walked over to a small doorway sandwiched between a sushi bar and a Laundromat. I rang the bell before using the low-tech way to gain entry to the apartment building’s quirky front door without a key: by holding the ring in the back, pulling it forward, and pushing the door in at the same time.
I started climbing the cramped staircase and spotted Bryan Boissevain coming down, a buff, handsome black man dressed as if heading off to the beach, in a tight T-shirt and cutoff jeans. My dear friend Bryan worked as a freelance architect in the top-floor apartment he shared with his partner, Ron. The two were big boosters of the City’s culture, and Bryan was a huge gossip. If there were dirt on anyone at the Brock, he would know about it.
“Annie!” he exclaimed. “To what do I owe this pleasure? And what in the world happened to your face, girl?”
“You should see the other guy,” I said with a smile. Visiting Bryan was always a mood-booster. He flung an arm around my shoulder and escorted me up to his place, talking the whole time.
Bryan and Ron had a wonderful apartment that they had stripped to the bare bones and painstakingly redone, salvaging most of the original intricate molding that rimmed the twelve-foot-high ceilings. Colored light beamed in through a large stained-glass window on one wall of their living room. Bryan started showing me their latest project, a full-scale arboretum on the rooftop deck, but I interrupted to say I was in a huge hurry and then got to the point.
“Edward Brock?” he exclaimed when I had finished. “Oh, my God, yes, baby doll. I can’t believe you haven’t heard. I mean, even you must hear something once in a while, no?” Bryan seated me on a Lucite barstool at the granite kitchen counter and started opening cupboards and taking out glasses.
“I’ve been kind of busy recently, Bryan,” I apologized. Somehow, when I was with Bryan, I felt completely out of touch, yet also totally at home.
“Oh, honey,” he said as he began to fix me a glass of fresh lemonade, over my halfhearted objections. The scent of lemon oil filled the sunny kitchen as he enthusiastically squeezed the fruit halves by hand. “Let me tell you. He’s got the taste for blow, in a big way,” he said as he set a frosty glass in front of me, leaning on his elbows over the counter.
“Cocaine?” I said, sipping the sweet, tangy drink. “So you’re saying he’s hooked?”
“Oh, yes, baby doll. A big-time clubber, too, although he’s a little old for it, in my book. Straight people should stop clubbing when they turn thirty.”
“Is this from the book of rules for straight people as written by a gay guy?” I teased him.
“You bet your booty it is,” Bryan asserted. “The problem with straight people is that they don’t pay enough attention to things like etiquette.”
“I take your point,” I replied dryly. “So, do you know if Edward has any steady girlfriends?”
“There’s that Q girl.”
I practically spit my lemonade out through my nose. “Q?”
“Quiana Nash. Goes by Q. A bit of a skank, in my book. Great eyes, though.”
“Tall, blond, skinny?”
“Like every other model out there.”
“I thought Quiana was seeing someone else.”
“Who isn’t she with? Supposedly she’s been living with some other fellow from the Brock—you never see him out in the scene, though. And there are others, believe you me.”
I mulled that one over. “So, what would you think if I told you Edward Brock had developed a sudden interest in Egyptology?”
Bryan let out a snort. “That boy is interested in fast cars, fast women, and easy drugs. End of story. If he went to Egypt, you better believe it was to score something illegal. Don’t tell me you’re interested in him, Annie. I know you’re hard up, but you can do so much better.”
“I am not hard up.” As if celibacy were something to be ashamed of, I thought grumpily. Or maybe it was only celibacy by choice that was admirable. “I’ll have you know I spent the night with a very attractive man last Saturday.”
“He was gay, right?”
“Not every attractive man in this city is gay, Bryan. Most of them, but not all.”
“Did you do the wild thing? C’mon, girl, dish!” The look on my face must have dished me out because he continued, “Oh, no, honey, that’s even worse. You mean you spent the night with a cute guy and you didn’t get any? And he wasn’t gay? What am I going to do with you?”
“What about Harlan Coombs?” I asked in a blatant bid to change the subject. “Ever heard of him?”
“You mean that art dealer fellow? The one that disappeared? There were rumors that he was doin’ the horizontal tango with a sixty-something femme fatale on the Brock’s board of directors.”
“Please tell me you’re not talking about Agnes Brock,” I said, feeling a bit queasy.
“No, the other one. Camilla Culpepper.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Camilla was a bit of swinger in her salad days. And she still has quite the eye for the young men.”
“But isn’t she married . . . ?”
Bryan sighed. “Oh, baby doll, wake up and smell the twenty-first century.”
I glanced at the kitchen clock, which was inching toward noon. “I’ve got to go, Bryan. Thanks for the lemonade, and the information,” I said.
“Baby doll, I know you aren’t involved in what’s going on at the Brock, right? It sounds like something dangerous happening with that crowd. Did you hear about that poor janitor who was killed the other night?”
I assured Bryan I would be careful, then hurried to my truck and navigated the lunchtime traffic over to the Brock, parked on a side street, and started rummaging through the mishmash of junk behind my seat. Beneath a layer of trash and miscellaneous art supplies, I unearthed a clipboard with a number of invoices on it, some pink reading glasses decorated with rhinestones that I’d bought at the drugstore because I thought they looked campy, and a large faux-tortoiseshell hair clip.
Piling my hair atop my head as best I could and fastening it with the hair clip, I put on the glasses, applied some lipstick I kept in the glove box for emergencies, and buttoned my black coat over my Indian skirt. I was regretting my casual dress, especially the Birkenstocks. They were clunky and ugly, and a bit of a local joke, but were also supremely comfortable if you were on your feet a lot, as I was. Oh, well. Maybe no one would notice the shoes.
Clutching the clipboard to my chest officiously, I strode up to the museum entrance. “Good
afternoon,” I said in my most professional voice. “I am here to see Mr. Edward Brock.”
An elderly docent with a pleasant smile hurriedly stashed a crossword puzzle below the counter. “Do you have an appointment?” she asked.
“Is that the New York Times Sunday crossword?” I gushed in a conspiratorial whisper as I leaned closer. “I am a fiend for the Sunday crossword.”
She laughed. “Me too, but I’m not supposed to be doing it while on duty.”
I rolled my eyes in commiseration. “Great-aunt Agnes has quite a hawk eye, hasn’t she?”
“Ah—Great-aunt Agnes? Mrs. Brock is your aunt?” The docent looked at me with respect tinged with worry.
I rolled my eyes again and added a little shoulder hike, hoping I wasn’t overdoing it. I was counting heavily on the widely shared dislike of the old bat to work in my favor. “Yeah, can you believe we’re related?” I said. “Anyway, I promise I won’t mention the crossword puzzle if you’ll tell me what you got for thirty-two across.”
“Meringue,” she said, glancing down at the half-hidden puzzle. She waved me through with a hesitant smile, even offering to call ahead for me. I told her not to bother—I wanted to surprise dear Cousin Edward. I winked at her and she winked back.
I hurried down the Brock’s lushly detailed hallway for the second time that week, keeping my head down in case I passed someone who might recognize me. The museum’s offices didn’t see a lot of Indian skirts and Birkenstocks.
While pondering the most effective means of attack, I searched for Edward’s discreet brass doorplate and finally found it at the end of the hall that led to the conference room. I raised my hand to knock, then reconsidered. Maybe a frontal assault would make more sense. Pushing the door open, I was relieved to see that the outer office was devoid of a secretary.
“Edward?” I called, wading through the thick red pile carpet to the inner office door.
No response.
I felt a tingle on the back of my neck and spun around. Nothing. I needed to calm down. But what if Edward were in there, lying in a pool of blood like poor Joanne? What if the Hulk were lurking inside, waiting for me? What if . . .
Hearing Edward’s voice from down the hall, I ducked into the inner office. Rats, he was with someone. Either that, or he had gone off his meds and was talking agitatedly to himself. The surge of confidence I’d gained from my interaction with the woman at the door had yielded to the realization that I might be out of my league here. Tricking a kindly docent was one thing; conning a con man like Edward was quite another. I spied a carved black lacquer chinoiserie screen in the far corner of the office, gave in to cowardice, and hid behind it. I’d just wait here for him to finish up his business, then slip out and try to talk my way through the embarrassment if caught. Anyway, it was too late now—Edward and his guest were coming into the inner office.
“For God’s sake, Edward, calm down,” his companion said.
Well, well. The X-man must have caught a fictional red-eye from the fictional conference in New York. Now we were getting somewhere.
“That’s easy for you to say,” Edward snapped. “She just called Naomi to ask about me. And about you, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“She didn’t ask about me, she asked about Colin Brooks. She knows me by a different name entirely,” Michael said in that calm, patronizing tone he so often used with me. “Now, here’s what we need to do—”
“I’m sick of you deciding what ‘we’ need to do,” Edward told him. They were standing close to me now, just on the other side of the screen. I held my breath. “I need to find Harlan, that’s what I need to do! He had you put the wrong painting back in the vault, damn it! My ass is hanging out in the wind and you tell me to calm down?!”
“Listen to me, Edward, and listen carefully,” Michael replied soothingly. “You need to get hold of yourself. All you’ve done is borrow family property for a little while, right? That’s not a crime.”
What a load of bullpucky. Yeah, Edward had “borrowed” The Magi—to have it replaced with a forgery. If Edward bought what Michael was selling, he was dumber than I thought.
“So here’s what we need to do,” Michael said again in that ever-so-reasonable voice. “You stay here and act like you’re doing something useful. I’ll find Harlan and the other painting. It stands to reason that if the one in the vault is a fake, and the one Harlan sold to the New Yorker is a fake, too, then the real painting is still out there. Harlan probably has it or sold it, so at the very least, I can steal it back. If you don’t blow it for us in the meantime.”
“I need the money, Colin, and I need it soon,” Edward whined. “The people I owe are breathing down my neck. Plus, there are those goons from New York. I sent them to see that Kincaid chick, but they’ll be back—”
“You sent them where?”
“I had to give them something. I told them she knew where Anton and Harlan were.”
Hearing a muffled scuffling, a thud, and a gagging sound, I peeked around a corner of the screen and saw Michael was holding Edward by the collar, up against the wall.
“You sniveling little shit,” Michael spat. “That woman is my concern, do you understand? They better not have hurt her, or I’ll take it out of your worthless hide—you got me?”
Edward gagged and whimpered as Michael tossed him into the desk chair like a discarded doll.
“Try to act like you belong here, will you?” Michael said with angry disdain, turning on his heel and stalking out of the office.
I was ashamed to admit that I’d felt a little thrill when Michael had Edward by the throat. For a pacifist, I seemed to be responding rather readily to violence these days. And what was that about “That woman is my concern”? At the moment, though, more urgent worries took precedence.
Number One: I had to get out of my hiding place and follow Michael somehow. Number Two: I had to find a bathroom. The lemonade was making itself known in a big way.
I soon caught a break. Edward sat at his desk, no doubt licking his wounded pride and trying to figure out how to pin the blame on someone else. After a few moments, he picked up the phone and dialed.
“We have to talk. Now. No, in person. Meet me at the diner. Mm-hmm. Twenty minutes.” Edward stood, smoothed his shirt, and left the office at a trot.
Priority Number Two moved into the Number One spot. But first I wanted to try something. I walked over to the desk and saw that Edward’s phone had a tiny digital display screen. When I hit the REDIAL button a telephone number popped up on the display.
Just call me Super Sleuth, I bragged to myself as I wrote the number down and waited to see who answered. Although the phone rang and rang, no one picked up. No problem, I thought smugly. Now that I had a friend in the SFPD this would be simple. I’d give Annette the number and ask her to find out to whom it belonged. Pleased with myself, I turned to leave and find a bathroom.
Unfortunately, the man standing in the doorway seemed to have another plan in mind.
Chapter 11
The inclusion of an animal always enlivens a scene. A dog or a cat in the foreground is especially coveted in today’s art market.
—Georges LeFleur, “How to Market Your Forgery,” unfinished manuscript, Reflections of a World-Class Art Forger
I let out a little screech.
The X-man rolled his eyes.
Michael was standing in the doorway to the outer office, much as he had been when I first met him at Anton’s: shoulder against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest. He was wearing his brown leather bomber jacket, a bright white T-shirt, and well-worn Levi’s.
He did not look surprised to see me.
“If you’re going to continue in this line of work, Annie, you will have to learn to stifle your scream impulse.” He gave me a leisurely once-over. “Love the hair. But what in the hell happened to your face?”
My hand darted up to soothe my wild curls. “I am not in ‘this line of work.’ I am a legitimate small-business owne
r who gets a little jumpy around you criminal types.”
“That so? What about those stunts you and your dear grandpapa pulled off in your younger days?”
Maybe I could bluff. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Michael snorted.
Maybe not.
“Who told you?”
Crossing over to Edward’s desk, he began searching for something, cool as a cucumber. “Well, let’s see,” he said. “There was Ernst Pettigrew. And Anton. And Harlan Coombs. Plus Joanne Nash. And let’s not forget Naomi. She mentioned it several times, I believe. Then there was Agnes Brock. And Sebastian Pitts. No love lost there, eh? Oh, and your grandfather, of course. He’s very proud of you, you know.”
My grandfather? He’d spoken with my grandfather? I couldn’t get Georges to return my calls, but he was happy to chat with Michael the art thief?
“I think maybe your Slovak friend said something about it as well,” he added.
“Bosnian.” I sighed. “He’s Bosnian.”
Seems the whole world was in on my little secret. I could move to Chicago, I thought. I liked Chicago. Except for the weather. Sometimes I wondered why I was working so hard to be a legitimate artist.
Michael paused in his methodical search and looked at me. “You seem a little jumpy today, Annie.”
“Two people have been killed, Michael—Colin—whatever your name is. Two. And Ernst is still unaccounted for. Not to mention that someone torched my studio, put my friend in the hospital, and kidnapped me. And for all I know, the man responsible is standing across the room from me. On top of everything else, I have to pee like nobody’s business.”
“Oh, please. You don’t really think I had anything to do with the murders, do you? I’m a thief, Annie. A non-violent thief. I swear, though, this is the last time I do a group job.” Michael spoke in the melancholy tone normally reserved for those lamenting the decline of morals in our modern society.