“It’s been a while. How are you?” Claudine said.
Claudine favored her mother’s side of the family, a line of quiet jewelers always sepia-toned in Gilda’s mind. Claudine seemed to have been lifted from a black-and-white movie. As a twelve-year-old in front of her birthday cake, she brooded like Lauren Bacall. Even after all these years, Gilda never could tell you what she was thinking. Tonight she wore one of her mother’s old dressing gowns, a 1940s number in ribbon silk.
“It’s been too long. We’ve missed you at the Villa.”
“I’ve been—busy.”
“I see.” Claudine had never been one for blabbing about her feelings, but something was different. Claudine used to visit every few days, weekly at the least. She was family at the Villa. Nearly everyone had known her since she and her brother André were kids. Now, they were lucky to see her every few months. Claudine had a new job, but Gilda suspected it was more than that. “Well, don’t be a stranger. You have someplace to sit?”
Claudine moved a gilded chair next to a display of Jean Patou’s Joy. The warm waft of amber and wood that had permeated the boutique’s walls over the decades enveloped Gilda. Claudine pulled up another chair. “Father Vincent? Can I get you a seat?”
“If you girls don’t mind, I’d like to finish my devotions in the car.”
Gilda watched him, his Indian skirt rustling behind him, head outside.
When the side door closed, Claudine said, “It’s a surprise to see you.”
“A good one, I hope.”
“Of course.” Claudine’s expression betrayed no emotion.
Gilda pursed her lips and pulled Adele’s list from her handbag. “It will be a good one, I tell you. I’ve got your promotion right here.”
Claudine sat and took the list. “Paintings and addresses. What is it?”
“The Booster Club is working on another case. We’re helping an art forger take care of a few things before she dies.”
“Adele Waterson, isn’t it?”
Gilda raised her eyebrows. “How much do you want to know?”
“You sprang her from prison? I saw on the news that she’d escaped.”
“Ruby and Father Vincent did most of the work. She’s dying, and Larry the Fence wanted her to have the chance to get a few things done before she croaked.”
Claudine watched with her cat-like gaze. Inscrutable. “What does she want with these?” She waved the list.
“She wants them destroyed.” At Claudine’s open mouth, Gilda added, “But we don’t have to replace them with the originals. It has something to do with respect for artists.”
“Really?” The faintest glimmer of a smile played on Claudine’s lips. “I remember Adele, barely. Only met her once. She tended to stay in the background. She was working with Punch’s gang before they moved to L.A. Larry the Fence’s niece. She’s dying, you say?”
“Doc Parisot’s coming by tomorrow to look her over. Grady can help get her records off the computer.” Grady might be the Villa’s oldest resident, and his brain might be preoccupied with daytime TV, but he was a hacker extraordinaire. He’d even been approached to work for the National Security Agency. These days, the hacker community thought he was a Belarusian teenager named Britney. “Adele has a brain aneurysm that could kill her any time. Larry said if we sprang her from prison and helped her out, he’d make sure the Villa was relicensed.”
“Did he know what Adele wanted you to help her with?”
“I doubt it.” She raised her chin. “We got one of them, though. From the Oak Hills golf club. I had to run into the men’s locker room, and you’ll never guess who—”
“It’s best I don’t know anything about it.” Claudine shook her head. “A prison bust and a heist. You should be more careful.”
“We did it for good reasons.” When Claudine didn’t reply, Gilda fastened her gaze on her and stared for the count of three. “Your father would have loved it.”
Claudine’s eyes took on a faraway look. Hank used to get this look, too, when he was planning a job. The familiar cavern of emptiness opened inside Gilda.
“I know.” Claudine picked up a tester of Joy perfume and sniffed it, her mind clearly far away. “They’re going to want to know how I got this list.”
“Oh, come on. They didn’t hire you because you were a cop. They wanted you for your background. For tips like these.”
The girl simply watched her.
“Can’t you say you ‘found’ the list somehow?”
Claudine looked at the paper. “They know Adele escaped. Everyone does. It wouldn’t take Einstein to put two and two together.”
“So they figure it out. What does it matter?” Gilda scooted her chair closer. Light sparkled from a faceted display bottle filled with purple water. “Adele’s dying. What’s the point of tracking her down? They’ll be grateful they don’t have to insure all those paintings.”
“They don’t insure them all. Other companies would be involved. Plus, if the owners can prove that their paintings were stolen, the insurance company will be out solid cash. A lot of it.”
“The originals were stolen. This list makes the insurance company look smart, like they’re on top of things. Trustworthy.”
Claudine examined her fingernails, but Gilda knew she wasn’t inspecting the manicure’s condition. “All right. I’ll do it. I’ll say I got the note anonymously. You’re sure it’s correct?”
“Absolutely.” Their business was over, but Gilda remained seated. Before Hank died, conversation would have segued to Cook’s menu or gossip in the community. Now, Claudine seemed ready for her to leave. “Will we see you at the Villa anytime soon?”
Claudine’s expression stayed immobile. The girl barely even blinked. “I’ve been busy.”
“I see.” Gilda backed up her chair and clutched her cane to stand.
“Wait a minute,” Claudine said. Graceful as a panther, she rose and slipped behind the counter. She returned with a pink box wrapped in a ribbon. “Dad wanted me to give this to you on your birthday, but I think you should have it now. He told me when he was at the hospital. When he….” She looked at her hands.
The throb of emotion rose in Gilda’s chest. She didn’t need to unwrap the box. She knew what it was. Shocking by Schiaparelli, in the real perfume form. They didn’t make it anymore, but somehow Hank had always come up with a bottle for her birthday. She dabbed at her eyes.
“I miss him,” she said.
Claudine enclosed Gilda in her arms. “So do I.”
11
Gilda was unprepared for the drama she found on her return to the Villa. Every light blazed from the second floor and part of the third, and the murmur of voices reached her even in the lobby. Only Bobby remained downstairs, shuffling his deck of cards.
“What’s this?” Gilda pointed her cane at the ceiling.
“Warren and Adele are at it. Started a few minutes ago. Warren’s sure she’ll be the end of the Villa.”
“Why? I thought we’d been through all that.”
“Can’t say. I’m staying far away.”
Gilda took the elevator to the third floor, where a throng of people in bathrobes and slippers choked the hall outside Adele’s door. Parts of phrases in Warren’s deep voice—“you can’t deny it” and “no gratitude” were a few she heard—were answered by words so soft that Gilda couldn’t make them out.
“Clear the way,” Gilda said, poking her cane into one resident’s rear end. The residents parted. She pushed the door open further.
Adele sat on the bed with her head bent and arms hugging herself. Warren, hands on hips, towered over her. A whitewashed canvas leaned on an easel near the window. That was new.
“Now, what’s going on in here?”
“She’s been in contact with someone on the outside,” Warren said.
“Keep your voice down. We’re all adults here,” Gilda said. “Adele, is this true?”
The girl didn’t move. She stared at the easel and b
arely blinked.
Gilda turned to Warren. “Tell me more.”
This was apparently what he was waiting for, because his arms dropped to his sides. “I was—”
“Just a minute.” Gilda turned to the hall. “You can all go back to what you were doing. I’ll fill you in at breakfast.”
“This has to do with all of us,” Mary Rose said. She clutched a hot water bottle and had on only one slipper.
“She’s right, you know,” Mort said.
Gilda realized in all of these years, she’d never seen him in nightclothes, and here he was, in a bathrobe. She glanced toward his legs. Nothing else, either. All that walking to the woodpile for whittling material kept him in good shape. “They’re not going to talk with everyone hanging around. Go back to bed.” She shut the door without waiting for a reply. “Go on,” she said to Warren.
“I was checking the Villa’s perimeter” —Warren still clung to a few of his warden habits— “and I saw a guy leaving by the back exit, the one that lets out from the stairwell. He ran off before I got to him. It didn’t take long to figure out where he’d been.” He fastened a steely gaze on the back of Adele’s head.
“And?” Gilda said.
“I came upstairs and found this.” He waved at the easel and a box of art supplies.
This was bad. Adele was a fugitive. If anyone caught her at the Villa and started poking around, they’d be scattered to Medicare facilities throughout the region. Horrible. Adele knew better than to contact anyone. And art supplies? She couldn’t be forging again, could she?
When Gilda found words, her voice was cold enough to send chills down her own spine. “Adele? What do you have to say for yourself?”
She turned toward them. Her eyes, wide and moist with tears, must have taken up half her face. “I just wanted to paint.”
“Paint what?” Gilda said. A moment passed in silence. The crowd outside must have left, probably for a pick-up poker game in the TV room, or maybe to adjust the odds of Adele’s continuing residency at the Villa.
“I don’t know,” Adele said.
“I didn’t hear you,” Warren said.
“I said I don’t know.” Adele turned her body toward them and pulled her legs up under her chenille bathrobe. “All I could think about when I was in prison was that I wanted to paint. You don’t know how awful it is to see the seasons change or note someone’s expression or pass a stack of books in all their different colors and not be able to put it on a canvas.”
“She called someone.” Warren yanked the phone’s cord from the wall. “I don’t know why I didn’t do this earlier.”
“It was the art supply store. That’s all. I sent the bill to Uncle Larry. Besides, I know the guy. He’d never turn me in.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Gilda said. Honor among thieves was a noble concept, but in her experience it was a lot more rare than crime movies led one to believe. Adele’s friend might be willing for now to keep his mouth shut about Adele. It was a short step to deciding to make some money off this information. He could bleed the Villa long after Adele was in her grave.
“You say you just want to paint. Right. You get out of the joint, and, boom, you’re churning out the forgeries,” Warren said. “We keep things clean in the Villa. We have to.”
“Mostly,” Gilda amended. Adele was here, after all. Not exactly legally.
“No, I’m not forging.” Adele’s eyes had dried, but they were still wider than a puppy’s. “I don’t have anything to copy. See? No photo, no nothing. Besides, you don’t just slap an eighteenth-century painting on a brand new canvas.”
“Maybe you’re doing modern ones now.” Warren’s legs were planted shoulder-width apart. A fighting stance.
“She did say she wants her forgeries destroyed,” Gilda told Warren.
“Her parole officer wouldn’t want her painting. I’m sure it’s a condition of her release.”
“She doesn’t have a parole officer,” Gilda pointed out. “Skipped that step.” Warren was right, of course. Being caught with Adele on the premises was bad enough, but being caught with Adele and the tools of her trade was worse.
“You know what I mean.” He stepped forward, and his words came out loud. “I can’t stay here with her in the building. We’re risking everything.”
“I understand.” Gilda made a decision. “Warren, you go back downstairs. Hush people up. Adele and I are going to have a talk. I’ll come see you later. You can decide then if you want to leave.”
Warren cast a wary glance at Adele, and, with the phone curled under one arm, opened the bedroom door. “Okay. I’ll wait up to hear from you.”
* * *
To Adele’s dismay, when the door closed behind him, Gilda stayed. The older woman sat on the bed’s edge and rested her cane against the mattress. Adele had always assumed that one day she’d be an older woman, too. Her hearing or—she shuddered—vision would dim, joints would ache. She’d slow and drill down on her perspective on life. Her hand reached for the base of her skull. She’d never even reach her thirtieth birthday.
“It’s just the two of us girls now,” Gilda said. “I want the truth. You’ve been very selfish, you know.”
She’d let the Villa’s residents, so generous, down. “I know.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to paint so badly, but I shouldn’t have taken the risk. It’s crazy. You’ve all been so kind to me. Maybe I” —her gaze traveled from the Southern belles on the wallpaper to the scarred dresser to the blank canvas— “I don’t have much time. Is that an excuse?”
Adele let Gilda pull her hand into her own. She had expected it to feel dry and papery, but Gilda’s skin was as soft as silk velvet. “An explanation, maybe. Not an excuse. None of us here have a lot of time. You get used to it as the years pass.”
Adele dropped her head. “I’m sorry.”
“Can we trust you?”
She nodded.
“I mean it. Can we trust that you won’t put the Villa at risk by calling outsiders?”
“Yes.” Adele looked up, pleading. “I promise. No more. I’ll apologize to Warren, too.”
“Good.” Gilda’s expression softened, and she dropped Adele’s hand. “Do I seem foolish to you? Old and out of touch?”
“No.” Her voice quavered.
“I don’t believe you. I was your age once, too, although not as quiet.”
“I’m so grateful to everyone here, but—”
“But what?”
“You’re all strangers. I guess” —she took a deep breath— “sometimes I don’t know how to act or what to say.”
Gilda studied her a moment. Adele felt like she was being absorbed for a portrait. “We’re just people, you know. A little older, that’s all. Stand up for yourself.” Her voice took a practical edge. “Never mind. I talked to someone who used to be in the Booster Club about your paintings. She works as a detective for an insurance agency now.”
“What is she going to do?”
“Find out where your forgeries are and collect them. If she can.” Gilda leaned forward. “Honey, as much as we’d love to, we can’t gather up your paintings on our own. It’s a stroke of luck that we know someone sympathetic on the inside.”
“Thank you,” Adele said. “This is better than I’d hoped. Will she give them to me?”
“My guess is that her company will destroy them, or….”
“Or what?”
“Or use them as evidence to prosecute you. Not that it matters now,” Gilda added quickly. “As long as you don’t get caught.”
This was so much better than Adele could have hoped. She imagined the paintings toppling into an incinerator, one by one, and she relaxed back onto the bed’s headboard. The little something extra Adele had added to the forgeries would vanish with each canvas. “Thank you,” she repeated. “I mean, thank you so much.”
Gilda might have blushed under her coating of ivory foundation. “Never mind. What are you doing with this
painting?”
Adele smiled one more time in gratitude. “I’m not sure. I have a lot of ideas.”
She wished she’d brought her sketchbook. They’d let her have one in prison, but she’d been forced to leave it behind. In it, she’d started a hundred projects. Some were studies of a stray leaf in the exercise yard or the strands of hair that escaped another inmate’s ponytail. But what she really loved to paint were people. People’s faces, especially when they didn’t know they were watched, told volumes about fear, love, and hope. Their faces were better than movie scenes. Gilda’s face, for instance. She wouldn’t mind painting that. She went to the easel and absently uncapped the green pigment.
Outside, the wind had picked up, and the flagpole’s line in the schoolyard clanked as its clasps hit metal. Gilda studied the back of the canvas, propped on an easel, illuminated only by the desk lamp. “You don’t have anything here to use as a subject. Do you do it from memory?”
She’d already reached for the fine brush, the one she used for outlining. “Could I—could I paint you?”
Gilda drew back. Adele had seen this reaction before. People wanted to be painted, but they never thought they were “proper” enough somehow.
“Oh, honey. In this get-up?” She patted her leopard print housedress.
Adele talked. She knew words would relax Gilda, and her character would once again seep into her expression. Portraiture could be difficult. People put on masks at first. Usually, with time, the mask melts into a person’s real spirit. Gilda was at heart an entertainer, and Adele knew she couldn’t hide her personality for long.
Adele’s hand moved quickly. Just green now. Color would come later. Her fingers remembered what to do. “I feel like I’m making a thought tangible when I paint.”
“That’s marvelous.” Gilda’s stiffness softened.
“Not really,” Adele said, absorbed more by the transfer of her vision to the canvas than by her words. “My work is commercial. Not artistic.”
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