Chasing Cezanne

by Peter Mayle

  The butler brought wine. “Pernand-Vergelesses,” said Denoyer. “I hope you like it.” He gave an apologetic shrug. “We’ve never been able to get on with the Californian whites. Too old to change our tastes, I’m afraid.” He raised his glass. “It’s very good of you to come.” As he sipped his wine, his eyes went to the envelope that Andre had put on the table, then they flicked away, as if it held no more interest for him than a package of cigarettes.

  Andre smiled. “I was in the neighborhood anyway.” He turned to Madame Denoyer. “I hope your daughter’s well?”

  “Marie-Laure?” There was a brief pout, a kind of facial shrug. “When she’s here, she wants to be skiing; when she’s skiing, she wants to be on the beach. We spoil her. Non”—she shook her finger at her husband—“Bernard spoils her.” She looked at him, an equal measure of affection and mild reproach in her expression.

  “Why not? It pleases me.” Denoyer turned to Andre. “In fact, you just missed her. She went back yesterday to Paris, and then I expect she’ll spend the weekend at Cap Ferrat.” He smiled at his wife. “And Claude spoils her much more than I do.” The mention of Claude seemed to remind Denoyer of the reason for Andre’s visit, and he leaned forward, his eyebrows raised, a casual nod of his head in the direction of the envelope on the table. “Are these the photographs you took?” The nod was a fraction too casual, the tone of voice too offhand. Neither was convincing, or so it seemed to Andre.

  “Oh, those. Yes. They’re probably not worth looking at.” Andre smiled.

  Denoyer held up both hands, the picture of polite disagreement. “But you took all this trouble, came all this way.” He reached over and picked up the envelope. “May I?”

  The butler padded out from the house and murmured into Madame Denoyer’s ear. She nodded. “Can they wait, chéri? Because I’m afraid the soufflé can’t.”

  Despite its geographical location, it was a French household, with French priorities. The hideous thought of a soufflé collapsing into no more than a desolate withered pancake took precedence over everything else, and Madame Denoyer lost no time in leading them through to the dining room. As they sat down, Andre saw that Denoyer had brought the envelope with him.

  The room was far too big and grand for the three of them, and they were seated around one end of an enormous mahogany table that could comfortably have accommodated a dozen. Andre had a mental picture of the Denoyers dining alone, one at each end of the table, with salt, pepper, and conversation being ferried up and down by the butler. “I expect you entertain a great deal down here, don’t you?” he asked Madame Denoyer.

  Again the fleeting facial shrug. “We try not to. All people here can talk about is golf, adultery, or income tax. We prefer to have our friends from France stay with us.” She looked at the golden dome of the soufflé held out by the butler for her approval and nodded. “Are you a golfer, Monsieur Kelly? I’m told the course here is excellent.”

  “No, I’ve never played. I’m afraid I’d be a social disaster if I lived here.” He broke through the top of his soufflé, inhaled a whiff of herbs, and spooned black tapenade into the fluffy cavity. “I’m not even very good at adultery.”

  Madame Denoyer smiled. The young man had a sense of humor, and such unusual eyes. What a pity Marie-Laure had left. “Bon appétit.”

  As a mark of due respect to the savory but fleeting lightness of the soufflé, there was no conversation while it was being eaten. Then came more wine, and with it Denoyer’s views on the French economy, mostly gloomy, and some polite questions about Andre’s work, life in New York versus life in Paris, favorite restaurants—pleasant, banal stuff, the social glue that holds strangers together during dinner parties, nothing probing or too personal. And nothing about the photographs, although Denoyer’s eyes kept returning to the envelope beside his plate.

  The main course was fish, but fish that had escaped the usual Caribbean death of suffocation by batter. It had been fried—lightly fried, in a coating of pumpernickel bread crumbs, garnished with slivers of fresh lime and served with pommes allumettes that snapped in the mouth in the most delicious and satisfying way. It was, Andre thought, fish and chips that deserved four stars and a mention in dispatches, and he complimented Madame Denoyer on her cook. “There’s hope for Bahamian cuisine after all,” he said.

  Madame Denoyer picked up the small crystal bell beside her wineglass and rang for the butler. “That’s kind of you.” She grinned at him, mischief taking years off her face—suddenly she looked exactly like her daughter—and tapped the side of her nose. “But the cook’s from Martinique.”

  Andre never ate dessert, preferring a last glass of wine, and Denoyer was quick to suggest they take coffee in the living room. This, too, was designed to hold a crowd, and they sat in a central island of armchairs under a slowly turning ceiling fan, surrounded on all sides by a sea of marble floor.

  “Now,” said Denoyer, “let’s see what that old rascal Claude has been up to.”

  6

  THE Monday night ritual of Rudolph Holtz had been strictly observed for several years. Business appointments ended at six p.m. sharp; social invitations were neither issued nor accepted. Monday evening belonged to him, and it followed precisely the same course each week. After an early light supper—the menu never varied—of smoked salmon from Murray’s and a half-bottle of Montrachet, Holtz gathered together the latest sale catalogues and gallery announcements, together with his list of existing and potential clients, and climbed the steps to his four-poster bed. There, among the pillows, he plotted. It had become an invaluable part of his working week, an undisturbed period during which he had devised many profitable coups, some of them quite legitimate.

  Beside him, Camilla was already asleep, her eyes shielded from the light by a mask of black satin. She was exhausted—quite drained, in fact—having spent the weekend with some madly social friends in Bucks County. She was snoring, a gentle, regular whiffle that reminded Holtz of a pug he had once been fond of, and he patted her absentmindedly from time to time as he sifted through the catalogues, occasionally jotting down a name next to a particular painting. This part of his work, which he thought of as a benevolent service—finding a loving home for art—he enjoyed a great deal; although, of course, it couldn’t compare with the deeper satisfaction of depositing a seven-figure check when the sale went through.

  He was considering a small but charming Corot, which he thought might fill a gap in Onozuka’s Tokyo collection, when the phone rang. Camilla whimpered softly and pulled the sheet over her head. Holtz glanced at his bedside clock. Nearly eleven.

  “Holtz? It’s Bernard Denoyer.”

  Holtz looked at the clock again and frowned. “You’re up early, my friend. What time is it over there? Five?”

  “No, I’m in the Bahamas. Holtz, I’ve just seen something that I don’t like at all. Photographs taken last week outside my house on Cap Ferrat. The Cézanne, Holtz, the Cézanne. Being loaded into a plumber’s van.”

  Holtz was suddenly bolt upright, his voice louder. “Where are they, these photographs?” Camilla moaned and covered her head with a pillow. “Who took them? Not those bastards at Paris Match?”

  “No, I have them here. The photographer left them with me—a man called Kelly. He works for a magazine, the one that did the big article on the house last year. DQ? Something like that.”

  “Never heard of it.” Camilla’s moans continued. Holtz put a second pillow over her head. “Kelly—does he want money?”

  Denoyer hesitated before replying. “I don’t think so. He said he’s going back to New York tomorrow, so I won’t be seeing him again. But what’s going on? I thought you were moving the painting to Zurich. That’s what we agreed. To Zurich, and then to Hong Kong, and not a soul will know—that’s what you said.”

  Holtz had dealt with many uneasy clients in the past. In most irregular transactions such as this one, there was a period of limbo—sometimes hours, sometimes days or weeks—when one side had to rely to
tally on the other to fulfill an agreement. Holtz made sure that the burden of trusting others never actually fell upon himself, but he could understand the insecurity that must accompany a decision to place your fate or your money in another man’s hands. He settled himself back among the pillows and assumed his best bedside manner.

  There was absolutely nothing to be concerned about, he told Denoyer, providing there were no more photographs in circulation. And that, he said, glancing at the sleeping body next to him, he was in a position to verify. Cutting Denoyer’s questions short, he went on: Claude was not a problem. He would do what he was told. Loyalty would ensure his silence. As for the van, it was a simple disguise. The driver was not a plumber but a Holtz employee, a courier experienced in transporting various precious items without drawing attention to himself. Would anyone suspect an artisan’s grubby old Renault of containing a valuable painting? Of course not. Denoyer could be assured that the Cézanne was now making its discreet way safely across Europe. Holtz omitted to mention that it would be stopping in Paris en route, but that was none of Denoyer’s business.

  “So you see, my friend,” said Holtz, “you can relax. This is a minor inconvenience, nothing more. An accident. Enjoy the sunshine, and leave the rest to me.”

  Denoyer put down the phone and stared out at the soft Bahamian night. This was the first time in an honest and well-ordered life that he had worked with anyone like Holtz, and he was not enjoying the experience: the feelings of vulnerability, risk, lack of control, nervousness, even guilt. But it was too late now. He was too deeply involved. There was nothing to be done. He got up and poured himself a cognac. Holtz had sounded confident about tracking down the negatives and copies of the photographs, if indeed there were any. The young man seemed to be genuine. Perhaps he was making too much of a perfectly innocent coincidence. Even so, Denoyer would be relieved when it was all over.

  As it happened, Holtz was far from being as confident as he had sounded. If what Denoyer said was true, he had only until tomorrow. Leaning over, he removed the pillows from Camilla’s head and shook her awake. She pushed up her sleeping mask. One bleary eye opened, a narrow slit, looking curiously naked without its customary makeup.

  “Not now, sweetie. I’m exhausted. Maybe in the morning, before the gym.” Like many short men, Holtz made up for his lack of stature with a voracious libido, which Camilla often found rather tiresome. She patted his hand. “A girl needs a night off now and then, sweetie. Really.”

  It was as if Holtz had not heard her. “I’ve got to have the address of that photographer you use. Kelly.”

  Camilla struggled into a sitting position, the sheet clutched protectively to her bosom. “What? Can’t it wait? Rudi, you know what a complete disaster I am without my sleep, and tomorrow’s—”

  “It’s important. Something’s gone wrong.”

  Camilla saw from the set of his mouth that further argument was useless—he could, as she knew, be quite a savage little brute sometimes—and got up to fetch her handbag, stubbing her toe on a Louis XV commode and hopping back to the bed on one leg in a decidedly unglamorous fashion. She took out her address book and turned to the Ks. “My toe’s just going to balloon, I know it will. That bloody commode.” She passed the book over to Holtz. “Am I allowed to know what this is all about?”

  “I dare say you’ll live, my dear. Let me make this call.”

  By now fully awake and highly curious, Camilla took a mirror from her handbag and adjusted her hair while she started to listen to Holtz’s end of the conversation with someone called Benny. Then she rather wished she hadn’t. She certainly didn’t want to hear all the messy details. Not tonight anyway. Resuming her mask, she dived back into her burrow of pillows and feigned sleep.

  But sleep for Camilla was some way off. She was drowsily aware of the conversation coming to an end, and then felt the soft, insistent touch of Holtz’s hands on her body, turning her toward him. She looked down at the top of his head; somehow he was still short, even when horizontal. The hands persisted. Camilla gave in to the inevitable and sighed, moving her injured toe as far as possible from the risk of collision with Holtz’s scrabbling feet.

  Andre looked back through the rear window of the cab as the striped barrier swung down to guard Cooper Cay against invasion by the common herd. It was a perfect, shining morning, the flowers vivid against tropical green, the groundskeepers sweeping and clipping so that residents might be spared the horrors of seeing a fallen leaf or a dead bloom. He slumped down in the seat, nursing his disappointment, feeling as though he had spent the last twenty-four hours wasting his time.

  Denoyer could hardly have been more charming or, for most of the evening, more relaxed. Far from reacting to the photographs with the astonished concern that Andre had expected, he appeared to have been more interested in the state of his garden than in the Cézanne. There had been only one revealing moment, and that only a sudden, puzzled frown when he’d seen the van, but recovery had been almost instantaneous. The plumber was an old copain of Claude’s, he said, who often ran errands. The Cézanne was occasionally lent to a friend’s gallery in Cannes. That must explain it, Denoyer had said, although he would certainly have a word with Claude about the casual method of transportation. And that had been that. Denoyer had been effusive in his gratitude for Andre’s concern and had insisted on paying for his stay at the clubhouse. But the evening—indeed, the whole trip—had been an anticlimax.

  There was some small consolation that afternoon when he reached New York to find that the thaw had continued and the sidewalk outside his building was no longer an ice rink. As he climbed the stairs to his apartment, he decided that he needed cheering up and, with thoughts of Lucy and dinner in mind, unlocked his door and made for the phone. He was halfway across the room before he stopped short and took in the chaos spread around him.

  Every one of the cartons had been opened and upended. Books, pictures, clothes, souvenirs from trips, were strewn in muddled heaps across the floor and against the wall, as though flung by violent, angry hands. Andre walked over to his worktable, the harsh crackle of broken glass under his feet. The filing cabinets where he kept all his transparencies, organized by year and country, were open and empty. Next to them, the equipment storage closet had been stripped of everything except a collapsible tripod and an old plate camera he had been meaning to have restored. His other cameras, his lenses, his filters, his lighting gear, and the custom-made bags to carry them in were all gone. He went through to the galley kitchen, opened the fridge, and saw, without great surprise, that they had taken every roll of film. Welcome back to New York, home of the thorough thief.

  In his bedroom, he found drawers sagging open, closets bare, clothes tossed everywhere, the mattress pulled from the bed. He felt stunned, numb. The outrage, the sense of being violated, would come later. Picking his way through the debris of his possessions, he perched on the stool at his worktable and began to make the calls that had to be made.

  The police: polite, but weary. This was one of several hundred criminal incidents that had taken place in the city since the weekend, and on a list headed by homicides, rapes, overdoses, and the start of the hunting season in the subway, petty larceny ranked low. If Andre would like to bring the details into the precinct house, the burglary would be officially recorded. And there, barring an extraordinarily lucky break, the file would gather dust. Andre was advised to change his locks.

  The insurance company: instantly defensive, with the professional skepticism and the barrage of fine-print questions that provide such comfort in times of crisis and misfortune. Were all doors and windows locked? Was the alarm system set? Did Andre possess all the required paperwork—receipts, dates of purchase, serial numbers, estimated replacement costs? No action could be taken without this crucial information. Meanwhile, he was advised to change his locks. As Andre hung up, he remembered the company’s advertising slogan, delivered at the end of every commercial by a voice dripping with saccharine sincerity: som
ething about a friend in need.

  Lucy: and finally some sympathy. She told him she would be there as soon as she had closed up the office.

  She stood in the living room surveying the wreckage, her face tight with dismay and anger. She was wearing the beret he had bought her in Nice. It was the best thing he had seen all day, and it made him smile.

  “It suits you, Lulu. I think I’ll get you a bike and a string of onions to go with it.”

  She took it off and shook her hair. “If you’re going to be all manly and brave, I’m not going to take you out to dinner. Lord God, what a mess.”

  They started in the bedroom, Lucy quick and deft as she folded clothes, hung them up, or consigned them to the laundry basket. After seeing Andre’s labored efforts with a sweater, she sent him off to the living room, hoping his domestic education had at least included lessons on how to operate a broom. Without thinking, he picked out a Marley CD and put it on, and it wasn’t until he turned away from the stereo that something struck him as very odd: There shouldn’t have been a stereo. Why hadn’t it gone with everything else? And then, as he started to sweep up the shards of broken glass, he went over what had been taken; or, rather, what hadn’t: not the stereo, not the TV, not the shortwave bedside radio, not the mobile phone, not even the half-dozen silver Art Nouveau photograph frames that were now lying on the floor beneath the shelf where they normally stood. It didn’t make sense, unless the burglars were planning to set up as professional photographers. But if all they wanted was equipment, why take his transparencies? Why take his stock of film from the fridge? Why tear the place apart? What were they looking for?