by Anna Porter
CHAPTER 11
Kis was in the gallery, extolling the virtues of a small brown-and-beige painting to an expensively dressed woman. (American, was Attila’s guess.) He spoke appallingly accented English that had to be an affectation. A man who deals with foreigners all the time might think it was charming. Or disarming. Perhaps both.
“Excuse me for interrupting,” Attila said to the woman, then turned to Kis and went on in Hungarian. “You should know that we now have a murder connected with this business. My guess is the Ukrainians had something to do with it, although it could be one of the other guys you have been making nice with. Could we go to your office now?”
Kis whispered his apologies to the client and handed her over to the assistant hovering by his side. “Mr. Fontos will be able to tell you more about the artist,” he said. “His work is already in the Neue Pinakothek. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Attila wondered how the diminutive assistant managed to get a name that meant “important,” but he didn’t ask. The painting Kis had left him to sell reminded him of Gustav’s protest leavings on the carpet, a ploy he used only when Attila stayed away overnight.
Once in the gallery’s inner sanctum, he told Kis that a body had been found in the Gellért on the floor where Ms. Marsh had been staying before she checked out, in a bit of a hurry, it seemed, as she had paid for two more days in advance.
“Has she come by to see you in the past six hours?” he asked.
Kis stared at Attila.
“To ask about the painting,” Attila added helpfully.
Perhaps Kis was not used to the rough stuff, although if he was in the antiques trade and if he sold Old Masters, he must have been concerned about his clients and their ability to hire muscle when needed. Not many regular guys could afford to pay millions for pretty, old things to hang on their walls. And if that weren’t bad enough, the government took a dim view of exporting art. Kis would have to grease more than one greedy palm.
“She is eager to conclude the deal,” Kis said finally. He took out his white handkerchief and wiped his hands.
“And . . .” Attila prompted.
“I told her the Mártons would have to match another offer now. It’s not my doing, you understand, officer, it’s Dr. Krestin. He wants more money, and he knows — we both know — that he can get it.”
“From?”
Kis shook his head. “I am not at liberty to divulge that information. I am merely the agent. It is not my property, and I don’t determine the price. My client does. And Dr. Krestin has decided he can get a better offer from someone other than the Mártons.”
“This other offer, was it a Ukrainian gentleman?”
Kis shook his head. “As I told you the last time, I have not dealt directly with any Ukrainians. Yet.”
Attila knew the man was lying. He had been a policeman long enough to recognize the fixed, direct stare, lips closed tight in a stiff smile, and why he’d positioned his coffee cup in the dead centre of the desk like a barrier between them.
Attila wondered who would hire a Bulgarian thug. “Perhaps the other person is from Turkey?”
Kis shook his head. “Not Turkey.”
“Russia.” Attila moved his not inconsiderable body closer to Kis and flexed his shoulders to seem threatening.
“I don’t think you understand,” Kis said. “There are several bidders. It’s how this business works. When you have something valuable, you want to get the best price, and Dr. Krestin is not a fool.” He rolled his chair back, putting a few more inches between himself and Attila.
“How valuable?” Attila asked.
“Well, that depends on how much someone is willing to pay, officer,” Kis relaxed into dealer talk. “For a Titian, these days, you would be looking at more than eighty million dollars. And this is a large Titian. They don’t come on the market very often. The last time I remember, it was the Hermitage off-loading a piece Catherine the Great had bought in 1779, from Robert Walpole’s grandson, the profligate George. The new curator at the Hermitage thought it might not even be a Titian, but it fetched fifty million anyway.”
“Titian,” Attila said. He had only seen his paintings in books. Eighty million seemed like a hell of a lot for a piece of old art, but if that’s what it was worth, he could see why it could be a reason for killing someone. What kind of money would a person need to have if they could spend that much for something to hang on a wall? Hiring a guy like the dead man in the Gellért would be chump change.
All that money could be reason enough for Tóth’s desire to clear the field of bidders, so his preferred candidate — the Ukrainian, of course — would have an easier time buying the painting. Helena Marsh was an expert on Titian. What would Tóth’s take be if Attila managed to persuade the woman to leave now?
“How much do you think?” Attila asked to keep Kis going. He figured the temptation to show off would overwhelm whatever reluctance the man had to share what he knew.
“This one was done in Titian’s studio,” Kis said, his tone sliding into his comfort zone. “He may have had help from one or more of his students. A lot of Titians are not a hundred per cent Titian. But they are executed to his design, his choice of colours, even when the colours were mixed by the students. He would have painted all the major figures. He used to have five or six canvases on the go at the same time. He may have done a bit of each painting here and there and left the grunt work — filling in the sky or the earth tones — to his assistants.”
“Is it signed?” Attila asked, although, of course, he had no idea whether Old Masters bothered to sign their paintings. The two prints he had bought after the ex removed the watercolours were both signed and numbered. The vendor at the Budapest Art Show had assured him they were more valuable when they were signed and numbered. “The one Krestin is selling? Is it done, for sure, by Titian himself?”
“Yes, yes,” Kis said. “And now, I must see to my client.”
“You are expecting to see Ms. Marsh again, then,” Attila said.
“Only if the Mártons want to pay what the painting is worth.”
“Otherwise, you will sell it to a Russian,” Attila prodded. “Or to the Ukrainian.”
“As it happens, there are interested parties in all parts of the world. In Norway, in Italy, and the United States, of course. It’s not up to me,” Kis said, buttoning his jacket and making sure his handkerchief was neatly peaked in the breast pocket. “As I said, there are several bidders.”
“I suppose there would be no problem taking the painting out of the country,” Attila said.
Kis lowered his gaze to Attila’s midriff. “Normally, there would be a problem, since this is a work of great value, but my part in the transaction is over once a deal is struck. I am not the vendor. The deal is with Dr. Krestin. The buyer may wish to keep it in Hungary. If he decides to take it elsewhere, he would, of course, need to get the proper paperwork.”
“Of course.”
CHAPTER 12
When Marianne Lewis left the Tulip at 6 p.m. for a night cruise on the Danube, she was wearing the new yellow dress, high heels, and the white cardigan. (“So becoming, Marianne,” the manager offered.) She was carrying a small bag with a few warmer things, she explained, in case it was cool on the river. She took a cab to Szabadság Square, pretended to be interested in the grand building that used to house the Hungarian National Television and, before that, the Stock Exchange. She read the brass plaque on the side of the building twice while checking whether she had been followed. She saw only two American tourists trying to locate the U.S. Embassy, the white colossus on the far side of the square, guarded by several uniformed policemen and a few U.S. marines.
She walked back along Nádor Street to the Four Seasons Hotel Gresham Palace and flashed a smile at the doorman as she entered quickly, pretending to be busy on her cell phone. She sat in the lobby and waited to see if an
yone was following. She knew that if you looked like a tourist, it was safe to sit around in a good hotel in a foreign city, as long as it was not in the Middle East.
It was a quiet evening at the Gresham. Light music wafted from the bar. A few people were checking in or out. A half hour later, she went to the ladies’ room, where she changed out of the yellow dress into the track pants and a grey sweater, took off the black wig, gelled her hair into soft peaks, and added a bit of eye makeup and lip gloss. In the lobby, a big man in a blue tracksuit, pretending to read the newspaper, was sitting across from the front desk, where he had a good view of everyone coming in or leaving. He looked at her for a moment, returned to his paper, then looked at her again. She wondered whether she had seen him before, whether he was one of Azarov’s men.
She sat down in an armchair a bit to his left, where she could observe him, and ordered a café crème. She was polite to the waiter, but not too polite, and friendly but not too friendly to the concièrge when she asked about reservations for the Budapest Dance Theatre, then for a cab. She wanted to leave the general impression she was a guest in the hotel but not so as to draw undue attention to herself.
Using one of her disposable cell phones, she called James at Christie’s. Why would they ask her to identify a Corot when he was well past her own era of interest?
“Because it’s in Saint-Denis,” he said. “Close to where you live. And you had to have studied Corot, even if he was not of great interest.”
“I never cared for Corot,” she said. “What is it?” Could James have found out about Simon? If so, when? Very few people knew. Who could have told him?
“A Farnese Gardens, and it’s a late work, judging from the photograph they sent me. Or he didn’t even paint it.”
Corot had done at least twenty of those, she thought, and there were always copies floating around. Some of those may even be his own. Most of the Corots Simon had sold were fakes but, as he told her, this had not decreased their resale value. Besides, since they were fakes, they were unlikely to ever appear on the Art Loss Register.
“I’ll do it in a couple of days,” she said. Christie’s paid well and unusually quickly. Her only concern was whether James had decided to use her for this because he knew, or suspected, something.
She asked the driver to take a scenic route along the river and up through the Buda side streets. When she emerged from the taxi at the Budget rental in Óbuda, she was fairly sure no one had followed her. She had learned the evasive techniques from Simon, but back then she thought they were playing a game. It was a couple of years before he told her the truth.
The small grey Fiat was waiting two streets west of the Budget lot, where she had left it when she arrived. She had paid in Vienna for the whole week and had arranged to drop it off at their office in Dunakeszi, a short drive upriver. She applied a bit more lipstick and a touch more gel to her hair, drove the car to the Budget lot, and dropped the car keys into the car-return kiosk’s safety box, then she walked to the small railway station nearby. There was no ticket booth here and no lounge. It was just a short stop where the Budapest–Bratislava run took on food and drink.
The conductor stamped her Eurorail Pass and told her that it was good for only another two days. She should maybe purchase a new one.
She smiled at him, nodded, but didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to be remembered.
At the Slovak border, the Hungarian crew was replaced by a Slovak crew who stamped the ticket again.
She got off at Dunajská Streda.
Knowing little about Dunajská Streda, she had suggested the Roman Catholic church as a rendezvous. If there was one thing you could be sure of in a small town that had belonged to six countries in three decades, it was its people’s devotion to religion, and this part of central Europe was Catholic. The church was easy to find by its tall white tower. Heavy black door. It was cool inside, a white cross over the altar, a statue of the Virgin, translucent glass windows, wooden confessional, a couple of vases with flowers. A man was praying in the back pew.
She waited near the white baptismal font until he approached. Tall, lean, and slightly hunched, wearing jeans and a loose black jacket, he was about thirty years old and singularly plain.
“Have you been waiting long?” she asked in English.
“Not long,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. He looked down at his worn brown sandals. Then they stood quietly surveying the transept as if there were something there to see.
When he unbuttoned his jacket, her right forefinger curled around the SwissMini, but she didn’t take it out of her pocket. She could pull it out, aim, and fire it in under five seconds, another of Simon’s legacies. He was moving slowly, breathing through his open mouth. Since he had been kneeling only a few pews away, it couldn’t have been from exertion. More likely, he was nervous. A stale, unwashed smell hit her as he opened his jacket. Under it, his shirt was grimy and frayed around the collar. Lying flat under his right arm and across his belly, there was a loud orange-and-yellow painting: striped hay, round yellow sun, a patch of dark sky.
“My mother wants to sell it,” he said.
The woman she had spoken with was Gertrude, Géza Márton’s girlfriend from his youth. She had a strong Hungarian accent over a reasonable, old-fashioned French, the kind they had once taught in Catholic schools in central Europe: traditional, strict grammar but not much conversation. Helena had suggested they speak in German, but she wouldn’t abandon French.
“She said you would know what it’s worth,” he said.
“I don’t do Impressionists,” Helena said.
“We need the money.”
“I am sorry.”
“My mother said you want to meet her. And we thought . . .”
Buying this poor van Gogh imitation could be the price of a visit with Gertrude. Helena said she would think about it. When he didn’t move, she said she knew other people who might want the painting, and that bit of encouragement worked. She wondered what Géza had told them. He’d objected to Helena’s insistence that there had to be confirmation that the painting was his and had needed some persuading to make the call, but she noted that he already had the number. He would have had to explain why she was coming all the way to Dunajská Streda, why it was important that she should meet Gertrude. He had said he had never talked with Gertrude about the painting in Budapest.
“I’ll show you the way,” the young man said and walked stiffly up the aisle to the side door. When he opened it and offered to let her go through first, she declined. She did not like anyone behind her and this man seemed deceptively strong. It was an old habit that had saved her life before.
They walked along a narrow street, then through a square behind the church.
The house was small, but it overlooked the churchyard, pretty this time of year with sour-cherry trees heavy with bloom. “The gravestones are all Hungarian,” he told her. “Some of them were knocked over when Fico was in power. He always hated Hungarians.” Helena knew that Fico had been the Slovak prime minister for a few years in the 2000s and that he was an ultra-nationalist with an abiding hatred of Hungarians and tearful nostalgia for the time Hitler had granted Slovakia independence under Father Tiso, a Catholic priest with not much holiness and a fondness for fascists.
“My grandmother is in one of those graves,” he said. “She died in Budapest, but she wanted to be buried here. It was not easy to make the arrangements. We were both socialist republics by then, but suspicions didn’t die with Soviet rule. My grandfather survived for a little while. He missed the fertile earth here. Mother told me he never could settle for the scrub in Eastern Hungary.”
“They moved here after the war?”
He nodded. “I think they had no choice.”
“And you? Are you Slovak or Hungarian?”
“I was born in Budapest,” he said. “I’ve learned the language
here, but not much else.”
Gertrude was brewing tea in the tiny kitchen. She wiped her hands on her full gingham skirt and, although she seemed nervous and uncertain, she offered her hand for a friendly shake. “Was the train late?” she asked in French. She must have kept the skirt in a trunk for special occasions. It smelled of lavender and was in pre-war country style.
Helena shook her head. “Mais nous n’avons pas beaucoup de temps,” she said, “je suis presque en retard pour le rendez-vous avec votre ami.”
“If you mean my former husband, he is not my friend,” Gertrude said. “I haven’t seen him in twenty-five years, and our relationship has not — how do you say? — remained close.”
She was in her mid-eighties, but Helena could see she had once been an attractive woman. She had soft white hair with flecks of brown, brushed to one side and flipped at the ends. Her face was lightly lined under the eyes and around the mouth, which gave her a sad, thoughtful expression, as if she were trying to recall something upsetting. The only signs of age were the skin pouch under her chin and the deep wrinkles around her neck that she had tried to cover by pulling her collar up. She had blue eyes, the same shade as her blue blouse, and a high forehead she had emphasized by pinning her hair back from her face.
She led the way into a small living room that looked onto the churchyard. “Sit here,” she said, pointing to a pink chair with warped cushions facing the window. When they were both settled, Gertrude said, “You have come a long way to ask me about someone I hardly know now, and I am not sure I ever really knew.”
Her son brought in a pretty floral tea service on a tray and then left. The cups hadn’t seen much use — the thin gold bands around their rims were largely undamaged.
Her hands were steady when she poured the tea.
“Géza said you married János in 1957. You left him in 1981. That’s twenty-four years, a long time,” Helena said. “You must have known him reasonably well. In 1970, he was in the justice ministry, wasn’t he? He must have been quite special to have achieved such a high position. Géza said he was a man with little education.”