Follow That Blonde

by Joan Smith

  “And Bert's following them all alone!” Nancy wailed.

  “He thinks we're following him. Oh Nick, you've got to do something. Steal a car. Do something."

  He pulled out his gun and ran down the street, trying car door locks again. A driver pulled into the curb. “Police. I have to commandeer your car,” Nick said, flashing his wallet. In the confusion he spoke English. I saw the edge of his American Express card, looking not at all like a badge, but the female driver was so excited she just stood aside and let him jump in. The car had no back door. I hopped in front, Nancy ended up sifting on my knee in the front seat. Nick already had the car moving, and we had to get in as best we could.

  The road was thick with traffic. The only way we could keep an eye on our quarry was by Bert's motorcycle, which we spotted weaving in and out between cars. When we got into heavier traffic, Nick took to the sidewalk for a whole block. It is a very strange experience to drive fast in a car with a fully grown woman sitting on your lap so that you can't see anything, but can hear the horn blasting a long, continuous hoot. From the side window I saw bewildered people staring at us, giving a comprehensive Roman shrug that is a mixture of mild surprise and resignation.

  “They're going to the Contessa's place,” Nick announced.

  “Is it safe to follow if they're the mob?” I asked. “I mean, what can we actually do?"

  “Bert is still with them,” Nancy said in a voice that overrode any further objection.

  I understood from Nick and Nancy that the Contessa's Bentley and the red Fiat had roared into the Contessa's driveway. I wouldn't know. All I could see was trees. I was pretty busy trying to keep Nancy's hair out of my mouth, and my legs from falling asleep.

  We jolted to a halt across the street half a block away. Nick and Nancy jumped out. “Where's Bert?” Nancy asked, and began looking all around. “He was ahead of us. Did you see where he went, Nick?"

  “He must be around here somewhere."

  We watched as people began to stream out of the cars. It reminded me of the circus, where a whole army of clowns exit from a mini car built for one. It was during the confusion of the exit that Conan made his move. Two men, not small ones, were holding his arms. Conan shook them off as if they were mosquitoes. His big hands rose and he banged their heads together.

  In a flash, he took to his heels, down the driveway. The Contessa raised her gun and shot, but well over his head. She either didn't want to kill him, or was a terrible shot. Neither did she order her men after him. The two of them that Conan had disabled were picking themselves up from the ground. The others were fully occupied with Boisvert and his friend. She scanned the street for helpers, spotted Nick across the road and shouted to him to stop Conan. Conan took off in the other direction.

  Nick, to do him justice, ran after the raging bull, but there were several yards between them, and Conan was in better shape than Nick. We then learned where Bert was hiding. There was a roar of engine and his motorcycle shot out from the shrubbery a few yards beyond the Contessa's villa. He looked frightening in his Darth Vadar helmet and with that black beard. I don't think Conan recognized him. He just gave one look over his shoulder as he ran. Bert made right for him. Conan zigged and zagged, and ran into the grounds of the next villa. There was a fence with iron palings that would prevent the motorcycle from following him. Bert stopped the machine and leapt off. I wouldn't have thought he could move so fast. He caught Conan by the seat of the pants just as he was about to vault over the iron palings.

  He caught Conan off balance and pulled him to the ground, arms flailing. Bert's I mean. It must have given him a great sense of satisfaction to hit Conan, though I don't think the blows did much damage. It was Nick and Nancy, rushing forward with guns drawn, who stopped Conan from retaliating. I was rushing, too, sans gun. I doubt if either of them would have shot except in case of dire necessity.

  The Contessa came running down the street, led by her pack of pit bulls. She must have released them while we weren't looking. The air was rent with their yapping. They were well trained. At her command, they went for Conan. There was a confused melee of beige and gray and black squirming bodies leaping all over him. I counted six, although it was hard to do a good count—they were so active, darting here and there, trying to find a leg or arm to attach their teeth to. Bert got up and beat a hasty retreat to safety. When Conan was subdued, the Contessa whistled and the dogs released him. She had her gun trained on him.

  She said a few words to Nick, then walked off, cool as a cucumber, with Conan in front of her, her muzzle in his back. We all stood around at the car Nick had commandeered.

  “Oh Bert, you were so brave,” Nancy said, and threw herself into his arms. She was crying from joy.

  Bert gave a modest smile. “What goes around, comes around. Nick saved my life. Happy to be able to return the favor,” he said.

  “Thanks, buddy.” Nick grinned. “I owe you one."

  No one was so gauche as to intimate Bert hadn't exactly saved Nick's life. The important thing was that he had redeemed himself in his own and Nancy's eyes. It had taken real courage to tackle Conan, and in the pinch, he had done it. Already he looked better, more sure of himself, more mannish. I should have been feeling conscience qualms about doubting Bert, but I was so happy for him that all I felt was relief, and happiness.

  “I wasn't going to miss the chance of having that guy locked up,” Bert said. “I hope I blackened his eye. I sure as hell broke my knuckles.” He examined his bruised fist, blowing air on it to cool it.

  “Do we know for sure he will be locked up? I mean, there was some question whether the Contessa is Interpol or the mob,” I mentioned.

  “Interpol,” Bert said. “I crouched behind the bushes for a few minutes. Heard the guys talking. One of them—Claude, it was—asked Lingini if she was sure she didn't want the prisoners taken to H.Q. She said no, her place was closer, and she wanted to question them before she turned them over."

  “She showed me her identification,” Nick corroborated. “She's going to call me later in the day, when she's taken care of Boisvert and the others. She's a little busy right now. Shall we go?"

  Bert looked at his knockoff Gucci. “Holy cow! I'm late for work. I'll be in touch with you guys later. Hey, why don't you come down to the Risorgimento with me? We'll do lunch."

  “First we have to return this stolen car,” I reminded Nick.

  “Where's the Alfa?” Bert asked.

  “It's out of gas,” Nick said with an annoyed hmph, as though it were the car's fault.

  “So what else is new?” Bert laughed.

  He put on his helmet and went to pick up the motorcycle. As he drove past, he shouted, “I'll call a garage."

  He hadn't done a single bit of boasting about his heroism. That was unlike Bert. Rich men didn't have to dress up, he'd said. Maybe heroes didn't have to boast.

  “That Bert, what a guy!” Nick said. “He actually went after Luigi."

  “If the Contessa is an agent, how come she didn't have cuffs on Luigi?” Nancy asked.

  “They didn't fit. His wrists were too big. Imagine.” He looked wistfully at his own slender wrists and delicate hands.

  “Never mind, Nick,” I consoled. “They couldn't get them on Luigi, and they wouldn't be able to keep them on you. You could slip right out of them."

  “Is that another put-down, Lana?"

  “Put-down? Moi?"

  CHAPTER 17

  Our second visit to the Villa Lingini occurred at four o'clock on that same afternoon. In the interim we had returned the borrowed car, got Nick's car gassed up, and driven to the terrace of the Risorgimento to see Bert. He was there with his phony beard removed. “I got rid of the hair. Won't be needing it with Conan behind bars. The boss complimented me. You guys are late,” he said. “Italian traffic—Dante's Inferno revisited. I was fifteen minutes late for work myself. Pietro didn't care for that.” He wet the end of his pencil with his tongue, pulled out his order pad and said,
“Campari and soda for starters, folks?"

  “Perrier for me,” I said. The others ordered the same.

  Since the food at the Risorgimento was so awful and Bert was too busy to talk much, we decided to eat elsewhere. We went to Carlo's in the Piazza Mastai, for the hasty noon meal they call pranzo. As the sun rose high, the better to find us and blast us with heat, we went back to Nick's place. The Contessa called and invited him to the villa to explain the details.

  I had to admit there was more to her than fingernails and designer gowns. Some corner of her psyche must have become bored with the mindless social whirl, and her aging conte. What an enviable life she led, surrounded by all that Italian grandeur, and topped off with a title. She was the sort of lady Nick would marry one day. I knew why she was inviting him to her villa. She probably already had his bride picked out for him, one of her gilded friends. Or maybe she meant to keep him as her own boyfriend on the side. That husband was no prize.

  “What time do you think you'll be back?” I asked diffidently. Our adventure was really over now, and the sooner we rejoined our tour, the sooner I could begin to mend my cracked heart.

  “It wasn't a dinner invitation. We'll probably only stay half an hour. You're both invited, of course,” he said matter-of-factly.

  He'd never know how my heart soared at the news, and how hard I had to work to answer with equal blandness, “Oh, really? I guess that'll be all right, huh, Nancy?” She nodded.

  “Bert should be home soon. We'll wait for him,” Nick said. “I told her an hour."

  This gave Nancy and me time to refurbish our wilting appearance. Competing with a cosmopolitan contessa on her own grounds was futile. We opted for youthful American, Nancy in a pair of flowered jams and white shirt, I in a black and white flowered sundress. Of course I noticed immediately that Nick had shaved and put on a clean shirt and a light-weight suit.

  “I didn't realize it was formal!” I said.

  He looked self-conscious. “She's a contessa after all. But you look fine. She knows you're Americans,” he added.

  “We'll remember not to snap our bubblegum,” I said, ostensibly to Nancy, but of course for Nick's benefit.

  “Bert's washing up,” he said. “He should be down any minute."

  As soon as Bert came down, spiffy in a clean shirt and wearing a jacket, we left. On this visit, we got into the room with all the white and blue pottery. It held lots of other collectibles as well. Eighteenth-century chairs done in needlepoint, Persian rugs, Delft urns in faience, barrels of fresh flowers, Fabergé eggs. That kind of thing. The room was the size of a blowing alley. The Contessa hadn't bothered to change to entertain the riffraff. The pack of pit bull terriers patrolled outside the French doors, lending a homey touch.

  She served thimbles of sweet, strong espresso from a toy silver pot, with no offer of cream. We all declined the gooey cake that accompanied the espresso.

  “I thought you might be curious as to the finalizing of the case, Niccolò,” she said. She had garnered Nick on the sofa beside her. “I'm afraid I'll be reneging on that offer to buy the Frageau. Charming as it is, it doesn't fit my collection. I collect late nineteenth-century works.” She waved a hand vaguely at the Van Gogh. “And, of course, the Picasso in the front hall that Pablo gave me. Claiming to want a Frageau was merely my entree to the syndicate."

  Bert's eyes bulged and a strangled gasp escaped his lips. My own stomach began doing flip-flops at the sinister word.

  “Not that syndicate,” she assured us. “Luigi Mineo and Boisvert are rather small potatoes, really. French Interpol was investigating Boisvert vis-à-vis the Frageau scam."

  “Edouard Fargé tipped them off, I suppose?” Nick asked. A polite frown puckered the Contessa's brow. “Who is that? I don't recognize that name."

  Nick launched into a long exposition of the story Claude and Réné had told him about the drowned body.

  “Ah, Claude and Réné.” She waved a dismissing hand. “How imaginative the French are. French Interpol sent them to assist me. I had no use for them. They were mucking about, muddying the waters. Is that what they told you?” She gave a disdainful shake of her head. “Pure fabrication, but they had to say something when you overtook them. They phoned me from the Risorgimento the other day, when they were following Boisvert. I told them to do nothing, say nothing. In fact I dashed down to the hotel immediately to make sure they left—and to see what you were up to,” she added with a coquettish smile.

  “About Fargé,” Nick prodded.

  “There was no Fargé in the case,” she said. “That was pure fabrication, a clumsy effort to keep you from thinking you were under any cloud of suspicion."

  Nick's Latin blood simmered. “Why should I be? I'm the victim!"

  The Contessa took the global view. “The whole world of art is the victim in matters of this kind. Patrons become leery of buying for fear they're being cheated, and the dealers suffer in consequence. It was the purchase of a forged Corot by my husband that first got me involved with the Art and Fraud Squad. Poor Roberto, he knows so little of art. I could have told him it was a forgery if he had spoken to me before buying. Corot was prolific—three thousand paintings, more or less. But there are ten thousand ‘Corots’ in France alone.

  “But you're not interested in my dull story,” she said modestly. “It was the noted French collector, Pierre Duplessis, who first alerted us to trouble in the Frageau case. He bought a Frageau from Boisvert, and wanted more. He is very greedy, that Duplessis. He has eleven Renoirs, imagine! Boisvert hedged, and finally said the artist had moved to Italy. He had lost contact with him. Duplessis is like a bulldog. He said he would institute inquiries in Italy. Suddenly Boisvert remembered Frageau was dead. It was enough to rouse Duplessis's suspicions. He spoke to friends at Art World magazine. He had induced them to do a story on Frageau to increase the value of his paintings. They told him Conte Braccio had bought a Frageau from the Minosi Gallery in Rome recently, which suggested the artist was still alive."

  “How did Luigi Mineo get hold of a Frageau?” Nick asked.

  “He has long arms, reaching into many countries and many rackets. Mineo began investigating when he learned Braccio wanted a Frageau. He soon learned the Frageaus came from Paris—Boisvert, to be precise. So Mineo went to Paris and spoke to Boisvert. You may be sure he did his homework first. He would have known there was no one named Frageau painting in Italy, and suspected a racket. He asked around Paris and someone came up with your name, Niccolò, so he had that knowledge to hold over Boisvert's head. Of course, each recognized the other for a scoundrel. The criminal element, like the international art crowd, is a close fraternity. Mineo threatened that if Boisvert didn't come up with a Frageau, he'd report the whole thing. Boisvert had held on to a couple, waiting for the price to soar. Per force, he had to sell Mineo one, which he sold to Conte Braccio.

  “Meanwhile Duplessis had drawn Interpol into it. They contacted me, I went to the Minosi Gallery and began establishing contact. More coffee, anyone?” She looked around at four full cups and continued.

  “I cultivated Mineo's girlfriend, Maria Bambolini. She has social ambitions. I told her I was eager to acquire a Frageau. My interest in Frageau led me to you, Niccolò, and, of course, your agent.” She smiled at Bert, who preened. “I learned Maria had been seeing an American art dealer, whose sole artist had lately come from Paris. Mineo is heartless. He used that stupid cow, Bambolini, like a counter in his games. It was her role to entrap you, Mr. Garr, and get her greedy little hands on any stray Frageaus that were hanging about."

  “She didn't mention Frageau to me,” Bert said.

  “She wouldn't. They're not amateurs! She hoped to find where the Frageaus were, and help herself to them."

  “Why did Mineo keep beating up on me, if he set Maria on me in the first place? He seemed sore as a boil,” Bert said, in forgivable confusion.

  “He has his reputation to maintain. Maria is his woman. Naturally he had to make some show
of protecting her honor. Also it made a good pretext to follow you about, in hopes that you'd lead him to the Frageaus."

  Her attention soon returned to Nick. “At first,” she confessed playfully, “I suspected you were in on the racket, Niccolò. Playing dead, and meanwhile painting the odd Frageau for your friends. There were rumors of two new Frageaus on the market."

  “They're not new,” Nick told her. “They're old. I brought them from Paris with me. They were stolen from my villa, by Boisvert's man."

  “Ah yes, Boisvert brought an accomplice to Rome with him. He was worried when the story broke in Art World, of course, and came looking for you. I shouldn't be at all surprised if he planned to harm you,” she said nonchalantly.

  “The gun shots in my car led me to the same suspicion. I would have appreciated it if you'd dropped me a hint, Rosa,” Nick said politely.

  A cool tinkle of laughter rippled from her lips and she wagged one of her long fingers with the blood-red tip at him. “But then I wasn't quite certain you were innocent, Niccolò. When I went to your exhibition and saw those lovely tempera paintings, I felt you were not the sort to connive with Mineo. Still, those two Frageaus surfaced. Mineo knew I was after one, and had Maria put out feelers to me. He and Boisvert must have come to some sort of terms, though Boisvert still planned to double-cross him. Mineo never did produce the Frageau. He just told me he had a line on two. Boisvert kept them from him. We found the two in Boisvert's hotel room, by the by. You'll get them back eventually. They're being held as evidence."

  “And the one I delivered to the Minosi Gallery today?” he asked. “The one you carried off."

  “That, too. It's being fumigated. Really, those Gauloises! An amateur's way of aging, Niccolò. You painted that to stir up the hornet's nest. Rather dangerous. Boisvert went to the Minosi Gallery this morning with the intention of killing you."

  “Why did Luigi notify him I was there?"