“What if, perish the thought, you should start to lose now? Do you think we could cope with gambling debts on top of everything else?”
“I suppose I should have to become a truly serious portrait painter. I could do Mr. Poe’s portrait, or his marvelous wife. I’d like that. He’s already bought one of my pictures. Paid ten thousand dollars for it.”
Matthias stared into Christian’s bleary eyes, holding them steady. “I want you to stop gambling, Chris. Now. Never again.”
“All right.”
“I mean it.”
“Entendu.”
“I’m having dinner with the Poes tonight. He wants to talk to me about his Cabrini Green project.”
Christian’s expression became extremely serious. “Are you back to stay, Matthias? Are you coming back into the firm?”
“Tell me about Peter Poe.”
“Well, he’s quite a nice fellow, actually. Nice to absolutely everyone. Always doing people favors. Always doing something generous for the city. Unlike those piggy junk bond arrivistes in New York, there’s nothing at all arrogant about him. No hauteur. The newspaper and television people love him. Of course, he’s not exactly our sort.”
“Will you for once give that garbage a rest? I’m an unemployed architect and an incompetent painter. You’re one step removed from a gigilo. The only one of us worth a damn is Annelise. She takes care of animals.”
“Would you care to order, sir?” said the waiter, who’d been hovering too near.
“Another martini,” Christian said. “And he’d like another glass of wine.”
“No, I wouldn’t.” The waiter left. “Where does Poe come from? Why haven’t I heard of him before?”
“He comes from here, which is to say, the Northwest Side. What’s that neighborhood? Five corners? Eight corners? He’s Polish. I think he was born Poricki, or Poretski or something. In any event, his father—he was a construction worker, I believe—he died when Poe was a little boy and his mother moved the family back to Pittsburgh, where she came from. Poe went to some horrid little college, changed his name, and moved to Philadelphia. Did you know he tried to pass himself off as a descendant of Edgar Allan Poe? Quelle absurdité. Old Edgar never had any children, did he?”
“You seem to know quite a lot about Mr. Poe.”
“Spend so much time in Indiana, don’t you know. And I’ve come to know a few of his people. Everyone in town gossips about him.”
“Where did he get his money?” The question embarrassed Matthias. It was the sort of thing his mother and her friends would ask, and probably had.
“He started out in Philadelphia real estate. Rehab, and some suburban townhouse developments. Did well enough to buy into one of those casinos in Atlantic City. Not exactly what you’d call old money.”
“Christian …”
“I think he was frustrated there because Donald Trump—who was still rather flush in those days—monopolized all the attention. And the business. Three casinos to Mr. Poe’s one. I think Mr. Poe is rather obsessed with Mr. Trump, bent on succeeding where Trump failed, and all of that. He went back to Philadelphia and built a big building or two, carried on as if he owned the place. The Main Line would have none of that. He worked up some scheme to put up the world’s tallest building in Philadelphia. Can you imagine that? They cut him dead. Wouldn’t allow anything an inch higher than the Mellon Bank Center.”
Matthias found himself fascinated by every word. “Is he honest?”
Christian looked at him blankly. “You make a poor Diogenes, brother dear. He has an enchanting mistress, who is also his private secretary, with the extraordinary name of Mango Bellini. His wife is very beautiful—a fashion model of some sort—but it’s a strange relationship.” He slumped back in his chair as his second drink came, not speaking again until the waiter departed. “And that is all I know about Mr. Peter Poe.”
“Why did he come back to Chicago? Why not New York?”
“New York is such a mess. You know that. And there’s so much competition. Chicago is better pickings. It was probably ready for a man like him. The way he puts it is, ‘You can do business here.’ Sounds like a nice nineteenth-century municipal slogan, don’t you think? And he certainly is doing business. He may even do business with you now, big brother. Think of that.”
Zany was treated courteously enough by the Art Institute people, but not very swiftly. The museum staffers he initially talked to decided it would be best if he spoke with the institute’s curator of twentieth-century European art, but the curator was in a meeting that took more than an hour to conclude. When it was over, he had to take an important phone call, and then make one. Finally he received Zany with much graciousness, only to refer him to an archivist Zany doubtless could have spoken to the minute he walked through the door.
“My God, what happened to it?” she asked, when Zany unrolled the painting.
“It was in an accident.”
“An accident?”
“I guess it looks kind of gruesome, doesn’t it? It was in a boating accident. In Lake Michigan. That’s how it ended up with my police department. As I explained to your curator, I think it’s valuable. I’d like to find out who owns it.”
She hesitated. “The people on the boat …?”
“There was only one, and she’s dead, I’m afraid.” He didn’t want to bring up murder. The archivist looked apprehensive enough as it was.
“The fact is, we haven’t been able to identify the woman yet. I’m not actually sure she owned the painting. I thought it would help if we could find out who does.”
“All right, Detective …”
“It’s chief. I’m the chief of police out there. But just call me Zany. I mean, my name’s Zane Rawlings. My father liked to read Zane Grey.”
She looked as if she had never heard of Zane Grey. “I’ll see what I can do, Mr. Rawlings.”
She led him back into a large, well-lighted library.
“If it’s in private ownership or been sold recently, I probably can’t help you. But perhaps it came from one of the major collections. I don’t recognize the painting, but it’s definitely a Kirchner. Ernst Kirchner. His is a sad story, like so many artists’. He was one of the German painters condemned by the Nazis. He died in Switzerland just before World War Two. Committed suicide.”
“Because the Nazis condemned him?”
“Because his paintings were condemned.” She took a large book down from the shelves. “This one was done before World War One, I think, judging by the people’s clothes.”
Taking Zany back to a large table, she set down the book and began leafing carefully through the pages. There were half a dozen or so small pictures of paintings on each. The process reminded Zany of someone going through mug shots.
“Why, here it is. Das Rot Turm. The Red Tower.”
“Does it say who might own it?”
“Good heavens, it’s the Albrecht Collection. It says they purchased it in 1933, but knowing the Albrecht, it’s probably still there.”
“What’s the Albrecht?”
“The Albrecht Collection of German Art. It’s here in Chicago. They call it the German Museum.”
Zany had a vague recollection of the place from his Chicago policeman days, but had always thought it was a private collection, not a public museum. He’d never been to it.
“Do you have the address?”
“Yes. It’s on the Near North Side, near the river, where the old breweries used to be. But I’m not sure they’re even open. It’s a very strange place. It was founded by Karl Albrecht. He was a big patron of the arts in Chicago years ago, but something of an eccentric. He established this museum, but with the stipulation that the paintings were never to be sold or loaned or even moved from where he hung them. The place used to be open a couple days a week, but I think it’s just by appointment now, if that. I was there once, but I don’t recall seeing this painting, or any modernist paintings. Albrecht bought a lot of modern art, but he stored
it all away. I don’t think he liked it very much.”
“Is Albrecht still alive?”
“Oh, no. He died years ago. His daughter died just this week. It was in the papers. There are some grandchildren. One of them lives in Chicago. Christian Curland. He’s a painter. Does portraits, after a fashion.”
Zany caught a hint of disapproval in the way she said the word portraits.
“Would you have his address, too?”
“I’ll check.”
Poe’s motor yacht, the Queen P, was 116 feet long at the waterline—as considerable a vessel as some of the old excursion steamers that had been so common on the lake a century before. Normally, the Queen P carried an operating crew of five, plus stewards and other servants, but it was so automated and filled with advanced electronics that one person could operate it on the water alone. Sometimes, when in a perverse or reckless mood, Poe did that. He took as much pride in his skills as a mariner as he did in his ability to pilot airplanes and helicopters. He couldn’t dock it entirely by himself, of course, but when done with his solitary cruises, he would lay off the harbor and sound the vessel’s deafening boat horn to summon crew from dockside to come out to help him with the mooring ropes.
It embarrassed him that he had never learned how to handle a sailboat, but he was going to attend to that, starting that night.
Mango was on the after sundeck, sitting on the edge of a lounge chair and smoking a cigarette, swinging her leg, looking agitated. He nodded to her, but went directly up to the bridge, where the captain was waiting for him, having been told to have the Queen prepared to get under way that afternoon.
“Everything’s ready, Mr. Poe,” he said. The man had served as a second officer on cruise ships and had a pleasantly obsequious manner. “We were low on fuel but I’ve topped off the tanks. What’s our destination?”
“I’m taking it out myself,” Poe said. “I want everyone off the boat in five minutes, except Miss Bellini. Leave a couple of men on the dock to cast off the lines.”
The captain hesitated only an instant. “Yes, sir.”
Poe started toward the control console, then stopped.
“Wait a minute,” Poe said. “Someone delivered some paintings to the boat from the Train art gallery over the weekend, when I was up at Lake Geneva. They’re supposed to be in my cabin—in a flat wooden box. Did you see who it was? A girl, maybe?”
“No one delivered anything while I was on duty, sir. We shut down for a day, since you were going to be up at the lake. I gave the men some shore time. If one of the stewards was still aboard, he might have put it in your stateroom. Shall I call them up to the bridge?”
Poe frowned. “I’ll ask them later. Right now, I want them off the boat, too. Everyone off. Get going. I want to get under way.”
When all the crew were clear of the craft, Poe started the two powerful diesel engines, then went out onto the open-air port wing of the bridge, where there were auxiliary speed and steering controls. The Queen P was very new, and was equipped with a sideways-facing propellor amidships, set in a small tunnel that ran from side to side of the boat under the waterline. With that, he could swing the vessel out with ease.
“Prepare to cast off!” Poe shouted to the waiting deckhands.
He touched the engine lever, then paused and looked back to the deck where Mango was now standing at the rail. “Mango! Come up here!”
She gave him a questioning look, but flicked her cigarette into the water and turned for the companionway. In a moment, she was beside him.
“You know how to run this thing,” Poe said. “Take it out.”
“Peter. For God’s sake.”
“I taught you how. Do it.” He leaned over the railing. “Cast off!”
Mango stepped to the controls and, looking over the side, gentled the huge craft into reverse a moment, to provide slack for the mooring lines. When the men had slipped them free and thrown the ropes onto the yacht’s lower deck, she used the thrust of the amidships propellor to push the boat away from the dock, then backed slowly aft into the channel. Having got that right, she steered to starboard and eased the vessel into forward speed, heading for the open lake and sounding the horn in warning.
Poe stood leaning against the bulkhead, watching her every move. When they were past Navy Pier and clear of the breakwater, he came to her side and kissed her neck.
“I just wanted to see how your nerves are holding up,” he said.
“I guess I’m all right,” she said. “Today’s kind of a downer.”
“Did you have to do that? Shoot the poor son of a bitch?”
Mango said nothing.
“I didn’t ask you to do that. Nothing like that.”
She looked away, then walked into the enclosed portion of the bridge. He followed, seating himself at the helm, adjusting the throttles.
“Where are we going?” she asked, coming to stand beside him.
“I’m making for Michigan City. I want to put you on ice for a few days, just in case. You can stay on the boat if you want. I’ll take a chopper back. Go make me a drink, a gin and tonic.”
She responded obediently. When she returned, he nodded her to the seat at the bridge windows next to him, frowning when she lighted yet another cigarette.
“Why’d you do it, Mango?” he said quietly, which was not a good sign. He often lowered his voice when he was really angry. “I don’t mind that the bastard kicked. I half expected it. A guy who’s going to mess with booze and broads with a bad heart like that deserves what he gets. We figured on that. But that fucking bloodbath in the car. Why’d you do it, Mango? Why did you screw up?”
His eyes were on the open water ahead. Hers were fixed on him as she spoke.
“I didn’t screw up. I had no choice, Peter. He wouldn’t go to the hotel. He had that place in the park and he wouldn’t go anywhere else.”
“You could have called it off. We could have tried something else.”
“You told me you had a timetable and we had to stick with it. I always do what you say, Peter. Always. I had him pick up that other girl because I thought I could use her to set him up. There was some reform alderman who got set up that way with a black hooker back in the seventies. Under the El tracks. Only the cops were in on that one and were waiting for him. By the time I could get to a phone, she might have finished with him.”
She took a long drag of her cigarette. “So I did what I had to.”
“Where did you get the gun?”
“It’s his. It was under the front seat. It’s perfect this way, Peter. Even if they turn the whole town upside down, all they’ll find out is that he picked up two hookers on Broadway and one of them blew him away. I took all his money. I wiped off all the fingerprints. Nobody saw us. There’s no connection with the hotel room I took. I didn’t call the cops so there’s no recording of my voice. It’s perfect. That girl had a straight razor on her. The cops said so. She might have done him herself. This happens to Johns all the time in this city. This one just happens to be a big deal.”
Poe glanced at her. She was wearing a tight-fitting knit dress and sandals. “Where’s your stuff? Your wig and all that?”
“Down below. In my bag.”
“Burn it. Everything. Use the barbecue grill on the sundeck. When we get out a little farther, we’ll dump what doesn’t get burned. This really makes me nervous, Mango.”
“It’ll be all right, Peter.” She looked unhappy.
He pushed the Queen P’s throttles forward a little. When the Chicago skyline was a diminished presence behind them, he put the engines back into neutral. Mango was standing over the little grill. He watched her add more charcoal lighter. There was a roll of steamy smoke and then a burst of flame. Poe hurried down the companionway to the cabins below.
Unlocking his, a grand stateroom that might have been the bedroom of a deluxe suite in one of his hotels, he went to his special locker. The wooden box was there, the seals broken.
He opened it and took out
a rectangular package wrapped in thick canvas. It contained two paintings. The Red Tower wasn’t with them, just as Mango had said. Poe had been hoping that somehow it had been overlooked. He went through the wrappings again. Nothing.
Mango came into the stateroom. She had taken off her sandals and was barefoot. “You don’t look very happy, Peter.”
“I want that painting. How did this box get in here? If she was going to steal it, why did she bother to come here at all? Why did she leave these?”
“Maybe someone took it from her. Or took it from here after she was gone. You’re sure there was no crew around?”
“This just doesn’t make sense. Haven’t those torpedoes of ours turned anything up on her?”
“Nothing. Nothing yet. They went through her apartment. Nothing.”
“I don’t like this, Mango. Why do I have to worry about this petty shit when I’ve got so much else on my mind?”
“I’ll take care of it, Peter.”
“This is small. Tiny. One lousy painting. I’ve got major deals going. I don’t have time for this.”
“I’ll take care of it. Calm down.”
“Well, don’t fucking take care of it the way you took care of that goddamned O’Rourke!” He picked up one of the other paintings, a picture of food, partially peeled fruit. His hands were shaking. He rolled the canvas up and threw it against the wall. Then he kicked a chair. “Shit!”
She stepped away from him, then reached to her back to pull down the zipper of her dress, letting its front fall loose.
“Peter.”
He turned. His face was flushed and his eyes a little wild. “Not now, Mango.”
She came close to him again, pushing her breasts against his chest.
“You’ve got to calm down, Peter. Let me help you calm down.”
“No. I want to burn this stuff, too. The box, and both these paintings. Then I’m going to call Train and tell him the girl never made it to the boat.”
Christian had a date for the evening—as he put it, with a “prospective client”—in Oak Brook. From an upstairs window, Matthias watched with dread, disgust, and amazement as his brother whizzed the shiny Jaguar off down the narrow street, barely missing another car pulling out of a parking space. Alcoholics, he’d been told, ended up in jail, a mental institution, or an early grave if they didn’t stop. Christian seemed bound toward his fate, whichever it was, with madcap zeal.
The Big Score Page 12