“Pretty impressive stuff, eh?” he said, licking his bottom lip.
“S’pose so,” Troy agreed, and lowered the final box into a rough circle he’d made of the five statues in the center of the exhibit hall. “Don’t know much about it myself.”
“Oh, now,” Bobo leaned against the crate he was tapping, “you would like these. Based on the work of Rodin.”
Troy must’ve had a blank look on his face, because Bobo added to his thought.
“Naked ladies,” he said, using some interesting hand gestures to accent his words, “with good proportions.” Apparently believing Troy was missing the point, he continued. “Not like the women today,” he said, shaking his head, “no stick figure girls. No, these women have shape. Voluminous shape. Hourglass, ya know?”
“Ha.” Troy took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his forehead. “I guess so.”
“I’m talkin’ ‘bout titties, man.” Bobo’s voice rose with excitement.
As Bobo got more and more worked up, he flailed his arms out to the side. His shoulder bumped the crate next to him, and, almost impossibly, it started to sway. In slow motion.
Troy watched as it leaned past its tipping point. It was going down.
He lunged toward the crate at the same time Bobo reached out and grabbed the edges nearest him. Troy barely reached out and wedged his fingertips under the top edge of the crate that was falling toward the floor. He heaved as his hands got under the box, and Bobo shuffled around to help. Together, they started to push the box back upright. Troy was shocked at how little he had to push… Bobo seemed to be carrying most of the weight.
The saved statue wobbled back onto its base and rocked once more before settling down.
“Jeezus, Mary, and Joseph,” Bobo wheezed, “that was damn close.”
Breathing heavily, Troy replied. “I know. I can’t even believe that dang thing tipped. It’s the heaviest of the lot!”
Bobo started chuckling. “Tipsy and naked. Sounds like a good party to me.”
It wasn’t that funny, but it was one of those perfectly timed quips that caught Troy just right. He started laughing too. Then Bobo started laughing at Troy laughing, then Troy laughed harder until he couldn’t catch his breath. Then Bobo doubled over and laughed harder still. And then the sound of a giant champagne cork popping and blowing out its bubbling, fizzy contents erupted from Bobo’s backside.
“Oh, shit,” Bobo said, suddenly looking ill.
Troy had tears streaming down his face. “I’ll say!”
Bobo couldn’t help but laugh even more as he put a hand on his backside, holding his legs tight together. He waddled away and glanced over his shoulder at Troy, who was hunched over, his hands on his knees.
“I gotta get over to the house,” Bobo called to Troy, waving a hand over his shoulder, “only brought two of them damn underwear things to work today.”
Troy waved back. “Go… please… go.”
When the old guy was gone, Troy took a moment to compose himself. He stood in the gallery, wiping his face and catching his breath. The driver came in with a clipboard, got Troy’s signature that everything was delivered intact, and after noting the smell – it was impossible not to – he left in a big hurry.
Troy walked slowly around the exhibit hall, wondering how much more he would have to move the heavy statues. Along the sides of the hall were images he suspected must be the Ruben works Bobo was talking about. He was right; lots of curvaceous women and men, nude or almost nude.
Just around the corner, on a wall by itself, a with couple of lights shining down on it, hung the painting by his ex-roommate. Savannah Smiling. While he was no student of the arts, Troy could tell it was a pretty picture. In the lower right-hand corner was a small signature in red: Tayler Evan. Just below that, in tiny black print,was a row of odd-looking dots. Troy stepped over the velvet rope that held onlookers back a few feet from the painting.
He leaned down to inspect the dots and saw that it was a perfectly straight line of perfectly round splotches or circles of color. There was one blue dot, one red, one was yellow, and the last was black. He wasn’t an artist, but he knew this was odd. Knowing he wasn’t supposed to, Troy ran his fingertips over the surface of the painting. Smooth. Too smooth. Not a single brush stroke rose from the surface. It wasn’t a painting. It was a print… a picture of a painting. Dangit, thought Troy. And that’s when the designer walked in.
“What the hell are you doing?” demanded Francis Millicent, the person who would soon be ordering Troy to move statues to and fro. “Don’t touch that, you brute, it’s a piece of fine art.”
“Beg pardon, ma’am,” Troy said, sidling back over the rope, “but it ain’t. It’s a fake.”
“It absolutely is not,” Francis declared, walking closer. “I do not believe a vagabond like yourself would have neither the training, nor the understanding, to determine if such a work was a fake or not. It clearly has the—”
“Printin’ marks,” Troy interrupted her, “in the lower right corner.”
She huffed and rolled her eyes. Pulling what looked like a jeweler’s loop out of her pocket, she leaned in to study the area of the print Troy had pointed out. She turned around quickly, the loop dropping out of her hand, her mouth agape.
“Oh, my God,” she said.
“Yup,” said Troy, “Savannah is gone.”
12
Dead Artists
Samantha Eliza Dawn, the model and inspiration behind Tayler Evan’s painting called Savannah Smiling, could not believe what she was hearing in her Art History class. Her friends were all there, Alain, RayRay, and Becky, but none seemed to understand exactly what their professor was telling them.
Mortimer LeFleur stood in front of the class, leaning on a stool, arms crossed, a 1920s style cigarette holder – containing an unlit Virginia Slims cigarette – in his left hand. His white silk shirt draped over his shoulders like a blouse, and a bright purple and blue scarf tied into an ascot wrapped his neck in color. His pants were solid black with peg legs and were so tight they looked as if they might’ve been spray painted on him. And naturally, this entire ensemble was topped with a dark raspberry-colored beret over a thick mop of curly black hair. A pencil thin moustache straight from a Boris and Natasha cartoon completed his vintage look.
To Samantha’s incredible annoyance, Professor LeFleur would lick the front of his top teeth before every single sentence he spoke. The smacking sound grated on her every nerve. Most days she did everything in her power to shut out his endless droning, prattling on and on for hours about artists she had never heard of, nor cared anything about. But today was different.
“And so, we have the dubious distinction of announcing poor Tayler Evan’s demise,” he said in a nasally voice. “I understand the young man took his own life with a belt strung from a beam. Tragic, though poetic, I suppose.”
Some in the class were affected deeply, even to the point of tears. Some could care less. They didn’t know Tayler, so it merely emanated that odd feeling that you were expected to be sad or forlorn, but eh… it hadn’t happened to you or someone you love.
Samantha fought back her own tears. She hadn’t fully recovered from the loss. She and Tayler hadn’t exactly been boyfriend and girlfriend, but it seemed they’d been on the cusp of a deeper relationship. A fact that seemed to miff Becky Patton to no end – though she never said it out loud.
“And, I suppose you have all seen his painting?”
There were some murmurs around the class and some students turned to look at Samantha. Being the subject of the now infamous painting brought her a great deal of unwanted attention. A local news reporter would not stop calling her to ask for an interview. She blocked his number. But she couldn’t block the stares and gawking she got walking down the street, in class, at work, wherever she went. Hermit life had been the order of the last few days.
“Well,” LeFleur said, and stood up and swished back to his desk, “I suppose we can talk a
bout the effect that death can have on an artist’s work, can we not?”
Any art student worth anything knew that so many of the artists considered masters were not always appreciated while they were living. Some were poor, depressed, destitute souls while alive, constantly battling a muse that would not let them rest.
LeFleur picked up a marker and wrote on the white board behind him: Posthumous Success. He underlined it and turned back to the class.
“Well?”
“Van Gogh?” someone in the back said meekly.
“Of course,” he said as he scribbled the name on the board. “Anyone else. Come now, surely I’ve taught you more than this.”
“Toulouse-Lautrec.”
“Oooh,” LeFleur hummed, “one of my favorites. Next?”
“Gauguin.”
“Mmhmm.”
“Monet.”
“So misunderstood, can we agree on that?”
“Vermeer.”
“Ahh, yes.”
Mortimer LeFleur tossed his marker on his desk and turned to face the class. He made a show of locking eyes with each student one by one.
“So, who among you will be famous?” he asked. “I mean, after you die?”
“I’m going to be famous while I’m alive!” a student chimed in from the back.
A few tittering chuckles sprang up around the room.
“Unlikely,” LeFleur said, then arched an eyebrow and smiled.
“Well, that’s really the bitch of it all, ain’t it?” Samantha couldn’t believe what had just popped out of her mouth. “I mean, we won’t know, ‘cause we’ll be dead. And nobody else will care about nothin’ but the money they can make by selling our work.”
LeFleur gave her an odd look. He stood and walked toward her desk. His usually cartoonish façade seemed to soften.
“Oh, but that is so rarely true, my dear,” he said to Samantha. “More often than not, the work that survives and endures does so not because of the rape of the work for monetary value, but more because of the magic and wonder and mastery of the form imbued on the canvas or in the clay by a misunderstood genius.”
Samantha felt the breath catch in her throat and a lump grew there. She blinked and fought the tears forming in her eyes.
“Hell, show me the money,” another student yelled suddenly from the back of the room.
LeFleur didn’t look away from Samantha; he simply raised his arm and pointed toward the door.
“Out!” he said to the student who had spoken, “and don’t come back.”
LeFleur finally turned away from her and addressed the rest of the class. He stalked around the room, his slipper-like shoes padding softly on the industrial tile floor.
“If I’ve taught you anything,” he said to them, “I hope it’s that art and money have nothing to do with each other.”
“Are you okay?” Alain leaned over and whispered to Samantha.
She wiped a single tear from her cheek. “Yeah, I’m good.”
“The nerve of that guy,” Becky chimed in.
“A gentleman of the gutter,” RayRay added.
LeFleur reached his desk and picked up a copy of the Savannah Morning News. He unfolded it and held it up in front of the class. The front page was a huge color photograph and in striking block letters the headline read: STEALING SAVANNAH. The photo was taken at the Jepson Center Museum of the exhibit where Tayler’s painting hung. It showed the empty spot on the wall and the director of the museum holding up what looked like the painting that used to be hanging in that empty spot.
“It appears,” Professor LeFleur said in an ominous tone, “that the painting has been stolen and replaced with a print. Right under the noses of the museum’s crack security staff.”
Samantha felt her mouth drop open. Glancing at her friends around her, she saw they were in shock too.
“Oh, my God, no,” she heard herself say out loud.
In the picture, behind the director, she could see three people. One she recognized as the museum’s designer and stager, a second she thought must be a janitor because of his faded blue jumpsuit and nametag patch. The third person was unmistakable. Cowboy hat, dark curly hair, stubbly beard.
“Is that… Troy?” Alain whispered.
“Yeah,” Becky answered, “he works there. I think he works at night, unloading, cleaning, that sort of thing.”
“And so,” Mortimer LeFleur said, breaking up their conversation, “it seems we have a mystery on our hands, do we not?”
The class was silent, dumbstruck by the news. First a suicide, now a theft.
“Does anyone think this is not a coincidence?” Samantha asked in a hushed voice to her friends.
“Not likely, Sami-san,” RayRay said.
“But who?” Alain asked.
“Had to be someone who knew the painting was good enough to become valuable after Tayler’s suicide,” Becky added.
“Or maybe they stole the painting and then killed him to increase its value,” Samantha suggested.
“But, he wasn’t killed,” RayRay argued. “Even the police investigated and said it’s clear it was a suicide.”
“Yeah,” Alain said, “that’s what they said, but haven’t you ever watched C.S.I.? Someone could’ve made it look like a suicide. Right?”
“Seems a bit far-fetched, don’t you think?” Becky asked, an obvious look of doubt on her face.
“And now it seems,” LeFleur continued his narrative, “that Mr. Bill Gates, who had offered to purchase the painting, has put up a reward of half a million dollars for any information that leads to finding the original. Quite the development, eh?”
Silence filled the room. Samantha thought she saw Mortimer LeFleur lick his lips… but it was more subtle… subconscious… as if he was savoring the moment. Something in her mind snapped.
“He did it,” she said under her breath.
“What?” Becky asked.
“LeFleur,” Samantha turned toward her, “he did this. I don’t know how or why… but he did it.”
“No way,” Alain protested. “He’s a wuss. He couldn’t pull that off.”
“Check out his legs,” Samantha whispered, “his quads are huge. He obviously works out.”
“Yeah, he does,” Becky chimed in. “I see him at the box all the time. He’s a crossfitter.”
“And, he would have access to the museum at any hour… unfettered access,” RayRay added.
“So, what now?” Alain asked. “Go to the police?”
“No, we got nothin’ on him,” Samantha said. “We need help. We need someone who can check out the museum and Tayler’s apartment. We need to find a link between LeFleur and Tayler. Someone on the inside.”
“Who the heck is that?” Becky asked.
Samantha pointed at the newspaper LeFleur was still holding up.
“That guy,” she said, nodding toward the picture.
“The janitor?” Alain asked.
“No,” Samantha said. “Troy. I’m gonna go see Troy.”
“Can I come too?” Becky fluttered her eyelashes.
“No,” Samantha said, “I’m going alone.”
Becky pouted, but said nothing. Samantha looked at the man in the photograph they knew as Troy. She wondered what he knew and if he could help. At this point, they had nothing else to go on, so it was worth a shot.
The class bell rang and Mortimer LeFleur dismissed them. Samantha clicked her phone on and dialed the museum.
Part II
Hard Lines
“You have to color outside the lines once in a while
if you want to make your life a masterpiece.”
-Albert Einstein
13
Late Lattes
Troy walked into The Coffee Fox. Looking up at the menu board, he thought it might as well have been written in a different language; Spanish or French… maybe even Alabamanese. It was written in chalk that was way too neat to have been done by anyone but a teenage girl who drew cute little circles over t
he letter i and made the open parts of the other letters wide and round. Hell, they almost looked like cartoon characters. A pimply-faced kid behind the counter wearing a dirty white t-shirt with a v-neck collar, a flannel shirt tied around his waist, a leather cord around his throat with a fake shark’s tooth at the end, peg-leg skinny jeans, and a dark green knit beanie on his head, stood watching Troy through half-closed eyelids, as if existence in this universe was far too boring and even further beneath him.
“You got… coffee?” Troy asked, squinting up at the menu.
The kid snorted and pointed at to the board without looking up at it. “We got cappuccino, we got lattes, we got espressos,” he said with a sneered. “So, um, yeah, dude, I think we got coffee.”
“Yeah.” Troy knew the kid assumed he didn’t know what those were… and he was almost right. “I see that.”
He remembered his first latte, the one Karah had bought him so many lifetimes ago on Pawleys Island. Wonder what she’s up to now, he thought.
“So, bro,” the kid huffed impatiently, “which one you want?”
“Gimme that white chocolate latte thing.”
“Dude,” the kid said, his head lolling around his neck, “that’s Starbucks. We don’t have that.”
Dangit, Troy thought. “Whatcha got that’s close to that?”
“Vanilla cappuccino it is,” the kid said, punching a button on his register. “That’ll be twelve-fifty.”
“Good God-a-mighty,” Troy exclaimed a little louder than he planned, “what’s it got in it? Vanilla diamonds?”
“Yes, sir.” The kid inhaled, as if explaining a simple concept to a child. “That’s absolutely correct. It has vanilla diamonds in it. You want it or not?”
Troy took out his wallet and handed the kid a crumpled twenty. “Seems like a pretty stiff price for a dang cup o’ coffee.”
“It’s the finest in Savannah, sir,” – the kid pulled out his phone and punched the numbers into his calculator to make the change – “and trust me, you’ll love it.”
The Complete Troy Bodean Tropical Thriller Collection Page 76