Feint of Art:

by Hailey Lind

  With dawning horror, I realized they were coming straight toward me. What was wrong with these guys? They were supposed to go the other way! I looked around frantically, but there were no doors except the one I was standing next to, and it was locked. Deciding to run for it, I barreled back the way I had come, knowing I’d never reach the end of the hallway in time but hoping they would be so surprised to see me that they might pause. Or that, at least, they would have to slow down to shoot.

  “What the—” Suave Gordo the Goon exclaimed. “Hanks! Thomas! Stop her!”

  I bent forward and began swerving, hoping to make a harder target. At the same time, I heard a gun roar and the explosion echoed down the corridor, almost deafening me. My lungs were screaming in protest, and so were the muscles in my thighs, but the adrenaline carried me along. There was another shot, followed by another, this one originating much closer to me, and, unless my ears deceived me, traveling in the opposite direction. A glance over my shoulder confirmed that the Hulk had been hit. As I was looking back, I ran smack into a very solid mass that yanked me around the corner into the side corridor.

  Michael.

  “I thought you hated guns,” I said, panting.

  “I’m not the world’s greatest shot,” he confessed, hunkering down, “so I suggest you keep running. I don’t know how long I can keep them pinned down.”

  I hunkered down beside him. “Did you see Harlan?”

  “Yeah,” he said grimly. “Get out of here, Annie. I mean it.”

  “I’m not going to leave you here like this.”

  “I’d leave you.”

  “No you wouldn’t.”

  “I’ve already left you a couple of times, haven’t I?”

  “Not when somebody was shooting at me, you didn’t. Give me your cell phone. I’ll call for help.”

  “Lost it in the Blue Room.”

  “Yeah, what was all that about?”

  Michael peered around the corner and fired another round. “The museum has a smoke security device that’s supposed to blind thieves if they tamper with the artwork. Harlan set it off on purpose, then used a stun gun on the guards,” he said. “He even had special thermal glasses to allow him to see through the smoke. Gutsy bastard.” He paused and shot again. “Okay, here’s the plan. I’ll fire another shot or two, then we run like hell the other way. Got it?”

  He fired and we took off.

  I wish I could say that I easily kept up, but the truth was that Michael pulled me down the corridor at full throttle. Unfortunately, we were not fast enough. There was another volley of shots, Michael stumbled, I tripped over him, and we both landed on the linoleum with an audible splat. The gun skittered down the hallway, out of reach, and a red flower blossomed on Michael’s left shoulder.

  I looked up. The Hulk and the Fonz were upon us. Grinning ominously, the Hulk pointed a gun at my head.

  “Not here, idiot!” Gordo intervened, clutching a painting protectively in his arms as he trotted up to us. “This place is going into lockdown soon, if it hasn’t already. Take them into the supply room over there, and then shoot them. Get Harlan’s body in there, too.”

  Michael’s face had a grayish cast, but he struggled to his feet, with my help, one arm around my shoulder for support. I pressed my hand against his wound to stanch the bleeding and hoped this would be one of those times when the doctor would materialize and say, “Oh, it’s just a flesh wound. You’ll live.” Assuming we survived the next few minutes.

  Gordo used Michael’s master key to unlock a door and made an “after you” sweep with his hand. Since I figured this was the aforementioned Supply Room of Doom, I thought it best to stay out of it. Searching for some way to divert Gordo, I focused on the painting he was holding.

  “How do you plan to get that out of here, Gordo?” I asked, nodding toward The Magi.

  “Shut up, you stupid twit,” he replied rudely.

  “I may be a stupid twit, but at least I’m smart enough not to steal a fake.”

  Gordo glared at me. “It’s not a fake.”

  “Bad news, pal. It’s as fake as a three-dollar bill. I should know. My grandfather painted it.”

  Michael groaned.

  “David here swore this was the original,” Gordo announced.

  Oops. How was I supposed to know? Anyway, whatever Michael—or “David”—had been trying to accomplish by telling Gordo the painting was real, we were about to be murdered by the bad guys, so his plan wasn’t working.

  “If it’s not genuine, then where is the real one?” Gordo demanded, eyes narrowed speculatively.

  “Release us and I’ll tell you,” I said, trying to buy us time.

  “Tell me and I’ll release you,” he replied.

  Hmm. We seemed to have a bit of a standoff here.

  Suddenly, a woman screamed. “Harlan!”

  Camilla Culpepper staggered around the corner, feather turban askew, tears coursing down her face and mixing with her heavy makeup to create a grotesque mask of grief. An ugly patch of crimson stained the front of her striped dress. More frightening still was the gun in her hand.

  “Wh-which one of you murdered my darling, my Harlan?” she demanded in a broken voice.

  Duh, Camilla!—how about the guys with the guns? What a dingbat. I started making surreptitious little head nods in the direction of Gordo, the Hulk, and the Fonz. Next to me, Michael was doing the same thing.

  Camilla did not seem to notice. “Murderers!” she shrieked just before she started blasting away at random.

  Gordo dropped The Magi and returned fire while Michael pushed me into the supply room, then grabbed the painting, jamming the doorknob from the inside and wrapping his arms around me and The Magi. I pressed my face into his chest, holding his large, warm body tightly and listening to the reassuring sound of his heart beating. True, it would have been more reassuring if his heart hadn’t been beating quite so rapidly, but I wasn’t about to quibble.

  After what seemed like an eternity, the shooting and the screaming stopped. Neither Michael nor I moved a muscle for a long time, our breath coming fast and loud in the sudden silence. Finally, Michael relaxed a little.

  “Are you badly hurt?” I whispered.

  “No.” He brushed a damp curl from my forehead. “You all right? You look like hell.”

  I was drenched from the sprinklers, my beautiful evening gown was torn and soaked, and my stockings were ripped and full of runs. My unruly hair had overthrown Paul’s taming, and I was willing to bet that at the moment it was standing on end. I had no idea where my shoes were, I was sweaty, and my nose was running. I didn’t think it was very nice of him to draw attention to my appearance at a time like this.

  “Yeah, well, thanks,” I said. “You look like hell, too.” I lied. He looked good enough to nibble. I wondered if I’d ever get the chance.

  “You’re all right,” he said again, as if reassuring himself. His hand fell from my disheveled hair to my cheek, which he stroked with the back of his hand. He took a deep breath. “You’re a real pain in the ass,” he said. “You know that?”

  “I bet you say that to all the girls,” I replied, batting my eyes. I felt a flutter in my stomach, but I didn’t know whether to attribute it to the recent gunfire or to Michael’s closeness. Just then a commotion in the hallway suggested that the authorities had arrived.

  “We’re in here!” Michael shouted through the door. “We’re unarmed!” He turned to me. “Keep your hands up and move slowly. The police will have to sort out who’s who.”

  Why was it that the last two men I’d spent quality time with both knew the best way to act in a police raid? Maybe I needed to give that one some thought.

  “Do you think it’s . . . ?” I started, but Michael had already opened the door.

  I peeked over his shoulder. The Hulk and the Fonz lay motionless on the floor, covered with blood. Gordo was nowhere in sight, though large red drops left a gruesome trail down the hall. Camilla Culpepper was slumped on
the floor, stunned and disheveled. That should be quite a story to share with the girls over gin and tonics at the Belvedere Country Club. Apparently she was quite a shot.

  The Magi lay at our feet. A lot of people had been hurt because of this painting, I thought, so I should probably treat it carefully and not, say, put my foot through it, which was what I felt like doing. I tucked it behind some mops.

  “So is it really a fake?” Michael whispered

  “Not if you’re in the market for a genuine Georges LeFleur,” I said.

  “Then where’s the original?” he asked, frustrated.

  I shrugged. As if I would tell him, even if I knew.

  Michael and I emerged with our hands up. Annette the Unconquerable looked, I was pleased to see, a little worse for wear.

  “What in the hell happened here?” she demanded.

  Behind her, Camilla Culpepper was being cuffed and read her rights while cops were swarming over the bodies of Harlan and the Hulk. The goon I called the Fonz was moaning while two paramedics bandaged his arm.

  Michael started talking, portraying himself as a poor art curator caught up against his will in this web of lies and deceit. Colin Brooks was the name. Egyptology was his game.

  Two officers led Gordo down the hallway, handcuffed and bloodied, no longer Mr. Suave in any sense of the word, while Camilla started to babble something that made it sound as though she and Harlan had been in cahoots. It seems they were very much in love and had planned to elope with the proceeds from selling the drawings and the fake Caravaggio, but then that dreadful Joanne woman and her sister, Quiana, had tried to steal their money.

  Harlan and Quiana, Harlan and Emily, Harlan and Camilla. Evidently, this time at least, Harlan had been playing a few too many hands.

  Michael was still droning on, all innocence and cooperation. I began to wonder if he was delirious.

  “He’s shot in the shoulder,” I told Annette.

  “Get that man to the paramedics,” she ordered a uniformed officer. “And stay with him.”

  She turned hard eyes back to me. “You all right?”

  I nodded, suddenly overwhelmed. The adrenaline high that had sustained me through the worst of the evening was giving way to a major energy crash and I needed to sit down—fast. I also felt a little nauseated. Without intending to, I slid down the wall to sit on the floor.

  There was a loud and distinct ripping of cloth. I didn’t want to know, couldn’t bear to look, so I put my head on my knees. Someone draped a blanket across my shoulders.

  The next thing I knew, a familiar tuxedoed figure was crouched beside me, speaking in soothing tones. I looked up to see Frank, his face inscrutable.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, always the lady.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m okay.” I still felt shaky, but the nausea had passed. It couldn’t have been the champagne. That was too long ago. Must have been the blood and the bullets that had taken the starch out of me.

  “Let me help you up,” Frank said, and I felt a strong arm around my waist. Without thinking, I pushed him away, but immediately regretted it as black dots danced before my eyes and the noise of the hallway suddenly sounded very far away. A pair of arms wrapped themselves around me. “Whoa, there, now.” It was Frank again. “Why don’t you let me help you, Annie?”

  “My dress . . .” I said inanely, focusing on the least important aspect of this crisis.

  “Your dress, like you, my dear, is somewhat bedraggled. The good news is that you’d do very well in a wet T-shirt contest,” Frank joked softly.

  I focused on him with effort. “What are you doing here? I thought you’d already left with the bimbo.”

  “What bimbo?”

  “You know what bimbo.”

  “No I don’t.” Frank sounded honestly puzzled.

  “The woman you were talking to—the one with no body fat but enormous hooters.”

  “Francesca?” Frank sounded shocked. “She’s an old friend.”

  Oh, please. The name was as fake as the boobs.

  “She’s not old enough to be an ‘old friend,’ Frank. I don’t care who she is or what you do with her—though you should know that Frank and Francesca is too cute for words. I mean, come on—I just thought it was kind of inconsiderate of you, considering Hildegard.”

  Frank looked me over as if to determine if I’d sustained a brain injury. “Who’s Hildegard?”

  “Oh, right—I meant Helga.”

  “Helga?”

  “Heidi?”

  “You mean Ingrid, don’t you?”

  “It’s about time you remembered her!” I nodded triumphantly.

  Frank smiled. “There’s an old saying, Annie. ‘You leave the dance with the one who brought you’.”

  “I thought that was ‘You dance with the one what brung ya,’ ” I replied.

  “No, that’s ‘You smooch the one that brung ya,’ ” he said.

  “No, it isn’t. Besides, you hate your date,” I said, with a little sniffle. It had been a very long evening.

  “I don’t hate my date,” he said patiently. “I’m annoyed with my date, but that doesn’t mean I intend to leave her stranded.”

  Whether Frank was here out of a strict adherence to dating protocol, or because he gave a damn about what happened to me, didn’t much matter at the moment because his arms were strong, warm, and welcome.

  Annette appeared again, an island of efficiency in a sea of chaos. “I need to speak with Annie,” she said. “Mr. DeBenton, take her to the grand hall upstairs, would you, please? I’ll be up as soon as I can.”

  The grand hall was empty now except for the uniformed officers and a few damp partygoers wrapped in blankets, like me. We looked like a bunch of Titanic survivors, the bejeweled ones from first class.

  I saw Emily talking to a cop, but Miss Mopsy was nowhere in sight. The crackle of police radios and the murmur of official personnel filled the air. The area near the buffet table was a shambles, with slivers of paté and imported caviar spread across the floor. Forgotten scarves and dropped gloves and other debris were also strewn around.

  Frank guided me to an armchair near the entrance. The double doors were propped wide open, and I gratefully gulped deep breaths of fresh night air. He took a seat in a chair beside me. I couldn’t help but notice that, unlike me, he didn’t look at all bedraggled.

  “Kind of a fiasco, huh?” I ventured.

  “Just a bit.”

  “So much for a relaxed evening. I’m sorry, Frank.” He shrugged.

  A screech pierced the air.

  I had heard it once before, during an incident involving a whoopee cushion and the Throne of Power.

  “My Caravaggio! Where is my Caravaggio?”

  Agnes Brock. Who else.

  Chapter 16

  History will redeem the truly gifted art forger. Guido Reni copied the Carracci brothers so brilliantly that his works were considered genuine for many years. Although many are no longer so authenticated, Reni’s fakes are now nearly as valuable as the genuine Carraccis.

  —Georges LeFleur, “The Art of the Fake,” unfinished manuscript, Reflections of a World-Class Art Forger

  I had to hand it to Agnes. She sure knew how to make an entrance.

  “You!” she screeched, zeroing in on me despite my efforts to blend into the wallpaper. She pointed dramatically with a long, bony finger tipped with a bloodred nail that looked as if it were sharpened regularly with a whet-stone. “I knew you would be trouble the moment I spotted you! Frank! What is the meaning of this?”

  “Mrs. Brock, please, try to remain calm,” Frank said soothingly as he positioned himself between us. “I’m sure this will all be sorted out to your satisfaction in the next day or two.”

  Fat chance of that, I thought.

  “But, but . . .” Her shoulders slumped and all at once she looked old and confused. I felt a spurt of sympathy. Even though it wasn’t really my fault, I had had a hand in ruining he
r gala. Frank put an arm around her and escorted her to her office.

  I tipped my head back against the wall and closed my eyes, too exhausted even to think. In fact, I may have snoozed briefly. I heard footsteps approach and cracked one eye open. It was Inspector Crawford. Her gown was also wrinkled and stained, though nowhere near as tattered as mine. I wondered if she had borrowed her dress from a transvestite, too, but didn’t dare ask. Even in San Francisco few women could hear, “Did you borrow your dress from a transvestite?” without being at least mildly insulted.

  “What a night,” she said, sinking into a chair. “Well, Annie, in the immortal words of Ricky Ricardo, ‘you’ve got some ’splainin’ to do.’ ”

  I nodded, though I wasn’t taking any bets on how coherent my explanation would be.

  “Any idea where your Egyptologist friend got to?”

  “I thought he was with the paramedics,” I said, surprised.

  “So did I,” Annette said wryly. “Apparently we were both wrong. I hope he didn’t take off with the painting.”

  “He didn’t.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I’ve got it.” I could tell from her expression that Annette wasn’t convinced. Perhaps the fact that I wasn’t clutching a large oil painting made her skeptical. “Or I think I do. It’s in the supply room downstairs, where we were hiding. I took it from Harlan.” I had actually taken it from Michael, but Harlan was in no position to rat me out. “Which reminds me,” I added. “I have to check The Magi for the missing drawings.”

  “Sit, Annie. I’ll check this out, and I’ll be very careful. By the way, you were right about the key, we found one on Harlan Coombs. Security traced its serial number to an archival drawer, and we found records of overseas bank accounts, including one in Dupont’s name.”

  “So Stan Dupont was in on the whole thing?”

  “Seems like it. It’s not quite clear yet. We’re still looking for a common link among the players.” She stood. “Don’t you dare move a muscle, my friend.”

  I watched her stride toward the service door, nodding to Frank, who was carrying a Styrofoam cup of steaming coffee. He handed it to me, and I silently blessed his thoughtfulness.