by Joseph Flynn
But everyone survived.
Bonnie and Ethan recovered from their injuries.
Lawford was quadriplegic, for six years. Through a recuperative process none of his doctors understood, he regained the use of his left arm. The one he used to paint. Ethan grew up watching his crippled father do magical work with his one functional limb. Early on, he came to imitate him, painting seated in a chair using his left hand.
The boy used his right hand for just about everything else.
In some form of cosmic compensation, Lawford Winger’s son was the most accomplished student he had ever taught. As far as was possible, given their circumstances, the Wingers were a happy family. Living in Iowa City. Surrounded by extended family.
Then Ethan headed east to please his mother.
Wanting to earn money to send home, he became adept at finding jobs that used his skill set. When Uncle Ted, who worked for the FBI in Seattle, found out that Ethan not only had a matchless eye for doing his own work, but could also spot forged paintings with stunning accuracy, he put his nephew in touch with the Bureau’s art crime team as a consultant.
Now, Ethan was riding with two Frenchmen to a museum he’d never heard of.
His assignment, being a rush job, paid a pretty penny, but at the moment another topic interested him more. He glanced at Pruet and Odo and said, “Let me know if I’m out of bounds here, but is it true France has more beautiful women than any other country? I’ve heard some talk that it does.”
Ethan had yet to do his first nude, not without ten other painters in the room.
He was making decent money, even after what he sent home, and he was looking to spend a few months somewhere interesting, filling in the gap in his résumé. He’d thought about going to California, Florida, the Caribbean … but before that morning France had never entered his mind.
Duh.
The two older guys gave each other a look. Then the tough-looking one who’d said his name was Odo told him, “For me, there is exactly the right number of beautiful women in La Belle France.”
Pruet leaned forward and interpreted for the young man.
“M’sieur Sacripant is a happily married man, and he has every reason to be.”
“Cool,” Ethan told Odo. “Way to go.”
The Corsican nodded, pleased by the compliment from his old friend and the implicit understanding of the young American. Once you found the right woman, who needed to count the others?
“What about you?” Ethan asked Pruet, being forward in the American fashion.
Of course, the young man had asked to be informed if he was out of bounds.
Pruet chose not to do that. He said, “I was married to a very beautiful woman, but it did not last. I am divorced, and I’ve chosen not to take a census of my alternatives.”
Ethan turned red, realizing he’d put a foot wrong.
“Sorry.”
Pruet was merciful. “I still have my eyesight, and I can tell you there are always many young women in the Latin Quarter who might make you act as foolishly as I once did.”
Ethan beamed. France shot to the top of his list.
A minute later, they arrived at the museum and went inside.
Inspiration Hall’s founding art collections, six hundred and twelve pieces, oil paintings, pastels, watercolors, sculptures large and small from around the world, were the bequests of three of the ten richest men in the United States: Tyler Busby, who held majority positions in oil, shipping and media companies; Darren Drucker, who was known as the greatest stock picker the world had ever seen and Nathaniel Ransom, author of the SoftKill debugging and computer security programs and owner of the company of the same name.
When Pruet, Odo and Ethan stepped through the front door, they presented their credentials — a note from Putnam Shady handed to Pruet by McGill — to a smiling man in a good suit who said he was the museum’s publicity director. He asked them to please keep the details of anything they saw strictly to themselves until after Inspiration Hall’s official opening. They said they would do just that.
They were offered the services of a guide, but they preferred a self-directed tour. In fact, they agreed to go their separate ways. The Frenchmen would start with the Busby collection. Ethan, a child of the digital age, wanted to see what Nat Ransom had brought to this party. They agreed to meet at the Drucker collection.
Pruet and Odo did not linger either to appreciate or study any of the paintings in the Busby collection. They conducted a survey that proceeded at a brisk walk. They were looking for a specific painting by Renoir. The original or the forgery they had seen in New York.
They found neither, and came to an abrupt halt, Pruet a bit breathless.
And far more disappointed.
He’d hoped to find his family’s painting, demanding that it be taken down from the wall, filing charges against Tyler Busby with all the relevant authorities. He wanted the splash he made to be a media sensation that would carry the news to Paris overnight. Le Monde would announce his triumph to Papa with a banner headline.
Odo didn’t need any of his police training to see how deflated Pruet was.
“Nothing is ever easy, mon ami,” he told the magistrate. “If it were, we would all grow lazy.”
Pruet gave Odo a doleful look. “I could do with a year or two of indolence, thank you.”
“You say that, but within a month you would begin to fidget. Another month and you would take up crossword puzzles. From there madness would be but a step away.”
Odo had delivered his prognostication with a straight face.
Pruet told him, “If I remembered how, you might make me laugh.”
“Very well then, if comedy is not the answer, let us return to police work. Having seen the forgery of your Renoir, and having made an attempt to buy it, we may have scared the villain who might otherwise have placed the painting in this museum as his little joke on the world. We cannot be sure who that villain is —” Odo raised a hand to forestall Pruet’s objections. “We can’t be sure who the villain is, but we know who the art dealer who displayed the forgery is. Let’s go back to New York. I will have a private and very personal discussion with Madam Duvessa Kinsale. She will tell us everything she knows. I can assure you of that.”
Pruet had reached the point where he would let Odo have his way.
“Very well, we will go back to New York. We’ll collect our young American friend on our way out.”
They found Ethan Winger examining a painting in the Drucker collection. He was jotting notes in a spiral bound pad. He was so intent on his work he didn’t notice the Frenchmen’s approach until Pruet cleared his throat.
Looking up at them, he wore a look of amazement.
“Do you believe this shit?” he asked.
Pruet and Odo shared a look of incomprehension.
“What shit would that be, m’sieur?” the magistrate inquired.
“You mean, you didn’t see any forgeries in the Busby collection? I found eight among the Ransom paintings, and two so far in the Drucker collection.” He consulted his notes and saw he had the numbers right. “Yeah, eight and two, and I bet there are more in the Busby rooms.”
Pruet leaned forward, his eyes now narrowed in keen interest. “You are sure you’ve seen forgeries?”
“Yeah, that’s my job. Didn’t anyone tell you?”
No one had. James J. McGill had been in a great hurry when he left them at his offices, asking only that they take the young man with them to the museum. Not wanting to be rude, they had quickly agreed without asking Ethan Winger’s role.
“No, no one told us,” Pruet said.
Odo said, “You are very young. Are you … expert at you work?”
Ethan grinned. “I’m better than that. I’m a natural. Come on, let’s take a look at the rest of this fun house.”
He hurried off, Pruet and Odo quickly bringing up the rear.
They saw Ethan moving past the paintings of the Busby collection almost as quickly
as they had. After the first half-dozen, he came to an abrupt halt and clapped an open hand against his face. His hand fell and he shook his head.
“What is wrong?” Pruet asked.
Before he responded, Ethan did a slow revolution, looking at the paintings all around him.
“They’re fakes. They’re all forgeries. Every last damn painting I see here.”
“How can you tell?” Pruet demanded. “You all but ran past these paintings. You did not give them a moment of study.”
A young man, Ethan didn’t have much patience with people who doubted him.
He told Pruet, “You said you had a beautiful wife, right? If she were standing in a line-up of a dozen women who looked a lot like her and were dressed exactly the same way, how long would it take you to pick out your ex?”
Pruet shrugged. “I would know her immediately, but I lived with my former wife. I knew her intimately.”
“And I know the work of all the painters whose work is supposed to be hanging in this place. My family, at great expense and effort, went to museums the way most people go to DisneyWorld. My father taught me how to look at paintings. To see how the artist went about his work, accomplished his goals. But he never had to tell me anything twice. I got it right away.”
Ethan tapped his foot, looking for a way to explain himself better.
He said, “Do you know anything about music?”
“I am a classical guitarist,” Pruet said.
Ethan looked him up and down, nodded and smiled.
“That’s cool. Then you should get what I’m about to tell you. Let’s say you and another guy play the same piece of music. You each play it perfectly, note for note. But you play it with both passion and nuance because you’re the composer. The other guy is playing the piece at a wedding reception. Could you hear the difference?”
“Of course. Immedi —” Pruet now saw what Ethan was saying. “You can really see art that way?”
Ethan bobbed his head. “I can see the love, the joy, the pain, the sorrow that went into every brushstroke. I can identify with it because I know what I feel when I paint. What I see here in all these forgeries is the work of one hand, a master craftsman. Who has none of the genius of the original artists.”
Pruet and Odo shared another look. New York would have to wait.
McGill walked into the room, saw the tableau, three guys lost in thought.
“What’d I miss?” he asked.
The Andrew Hudson Grant Foundation — Chicago, Illinois
Presidential travel was often likened to moving a circus. Packing the elephants was never easy. The trip Patricia Darden Grant made from Washington to Chicago that morning was an exception. The president flew from the White House to Andrews Air Force base on Marine One, her personal helicopter. Instead of taking the 747-200B commonly referred to as Air Force One, she boarded a Gulfstream C37A, an executive jet with a lower profile than the iconic 747. By virtue of her presence aboard, the craft was given the call sign Air Force One.
The military’s version of the plane had capabilities not available on the civilian version, worldwide military communications capability for one thing. A classified cruising speed for another. The usual two pilots were supplemented by a third as a safety precaution. A flight surgeon was also aboard. Lacking the defensive features of the presidential 747, two Air Force F-15s flew escort.
Not wanting to tie up air traffic at O’Hare and attract attention to her unpublicized visit, the president flew into Chicago Executive Airport, next door to the far busier airline hub. Disruption to commercial flights was minimal, nothing more than the usual need to circle O’Hare a time or two.
From CEA, the governor of Illinois, Edward Mulcahy, provided the president with helicopter transport to the Marcor Heliport just off West Chicago Avenue. From there it was a short straight shot east to Michigan Avenue and a brief jog south along the Magnificent Mile to the offices of The Andrew Hudson Grant Foundation. A column of six black Secret Service SUVs pulled up in front at spaces the CPD had kept clear for the president’s party.
The cops also blocked off the sidewalk to allow the president, wearing a large brim hat and sunglasses to enter the building without delay. An elevator car, with three Secret Service special agents was waiting for the president and took her to the building’s top floor.
The president and her security detail were greeted by more special agents and Joan Renshaw, The Grant Foundation’s acting director. Joan was two years older than the president, just as Andy had been. In fact, Joan and Andy had shared the same birthday, August twentieth. The celebrations on that day often overlapped. Gifts were always exchanged.
Joan had known, and worked for, Andy for five years before he met Patti Darden.
Andy had described Joan to his wife as, “My Galia Mindel. She keeps the foundation running smoothly. Solves any problems that come up.”
Each woman silently acknowledged the importance of the other to Andy and conducted herself accordingly. Their behavior with each other was unfailingly polite even when they were alone in a room. Underlying that air of propriety, though, was the feeling that it required an exhausting effort to maintain. One lapse of concentration might bring the whole facade tumbling down.
Despite the fact that Joan had failed to attend Andy’s funeral service — explaining to Patti in a note that she had been too grief stricken — and declined an invitation to be a guest at Patti’s wedding to Jim McGill — her mother was ill — Patti had kept her on at the foundation.
It would have been foolish to do otherwise.
She kept things running smoothly.
Solved any problem that came up.
The truth was, Joan’s performance was as good as billed. Whenever Patti had a quarterly discussion with her to review the operations of the foundation, she found everything in perfect order. All funds were accounted for down to the penny. Every expenditure for operating expenses was meticulously noted and entirely legitimate. Each grant-in-aid from the foundation went to an organization, a cause or and individual that met with Patti’s wholehearted approval.
In return for Joan’s superb performance, she and every employee under her were the best paid people in the field of private philanthropy.
Even so, the lack of affection between the two of them remained constant.
They hadn’t spoken of missing Andy to each other even once.
And now Joan trembled at the sight of seeing the president.
With all her Secret Service agents and all their guns.
Patti didn’t greet Joan with an embrace or even a hello. She removed her sunglasses and said, “Why don’t we go to your office, Joan? We need to talk.”
Eiffel Tower — Paris
Gabbi Casale looked out at the Seine from the second level observation deck of the tower. Winter was the time to visit the Paris landmark, if you wanted to avoid the tourist crush. The scarcity of visitors at that moment allowed Gabbi to hear the footsteps approaching her from behind. The sound stopped maybe ten feet from her position.
Without turning around, she said, “If you’re trying to be ominous, you’ll have to do better than that.”
The footsteps began again, doing a shuffle step, moving into a cramp roll and finishing with a stomp. Gabbi looked to her right and saw Tommy Meeker, her replacement as the State Department’s regional security officer in Paris, leaning against the rail the next to her.
“Tap dancing lessons are coming right along,” she told him.
“Surprised these tired old legs can even shuffle after you make me climb six hundred steps to get up here.”
“You couldn’t spring for eight euros to take the elevator?”
“Eight point two euros, and I don’t have a rich kid brother.”
Gabbi said, “I would have reimbursed you.”
“Now, you tell me. So how did the trip to Avignon go?” Tommy asked.
“Good. I learned some important things.”
“You’re working with James J. McGil
l again, aren’t you? Helping him with a case?”
Gabbi flashed him a smile and said, “I’m a painter, you know that.”
“Uh-huh. And what kind of help can I provide to my friend the painter now?”
“I’d like you to check the movements of a beautiful woman and locate the residence of a distinguished academic,” Gabbi told him.
Tommy glanced at her and then turned his view to the city below them.
“Can’t I do just the first part, and keep the woman if she’s my type?”
“If you visit her in prison often enough, she might spare you some of her time when she gets out. Probably won’t look quite so fetching by then, though.”
Gabbi handed him a photo of Duvessa clipped from a magazine and mentioned a date. “I’d like to know if she used the Solférino Metro stop or the RER Musée d’Orsay stop that evening.”
“I hope you’re asking because you know she had a Navigo pass.”
The prepaid monthly transit pass bore the user’s photo, and allowed the use of the subway system by swiping a card past an electronic reader. Since 9/11, and facing its own threats from terrorists, France had become meticulous about collecting and storing records of those who moved about Paris and the country at large.
Being ever so polite to the country in which it had established its first foreign embassy, the United States had hacked French intelligence systems without ruffling any feathers or even letting their hosts know that they’d intruded at all.
Which was only fair as all of the allies of the U.S. tried to do the same to Washington.
“I’m assuming she did have a pass,” Gabbi said.
“If she didn’t, there won’t be any security video from that long ago.”
Gabbi nodded. “I know. Please see what you can find. The second half of the favor is by far the more important part. Find M’sieur Simonet’s primary residence and you’ll get a gold star in your personnel file. The French will send you a case of champagne, too. So you might want to make it look like you found him through a legitimate source.”