“Welcome aboard, Ms. London,” she said. “My name is Artemis.”
“Artemis? Really?”
“Yes, really. Sometimes I think it is why Mr. Papadakis hired me,” she said with a smile, although it must have been a pretty tired joke with her by now. “I am the chief stewardess.”
As expected, her accent was Greek, although her syntax, unlike Donny’s, was flawless. If she and Donny really were relatives of Papadakis’s, then the Papadakis gene pool was awash with DNA for good looks, of which poor Panos had missed out on his fair share, assuming the photos she’d seen were accurate.
She moved aside to let Alix precede her into a simple foyer. “Mr. and Mrs. Papadakis have asked me to apologize on their behalf,” she said smoothly. “They would have liked to greet you personally, but they are occupied in hosting a pre-launch reception on the aft deck for island dignitaries and friends. And for those of our cruise guests who wish to attend, of course. They are hoping that once you have had a chance to refresh yourself and see your stateroom, you will want to join them.”
“Of course.” Stateroom, she thought. Well, that’s another good sign. Originally she hadn’t been sure whether she’d be treated as one more member of the crew or as a bona fide guest. But now—stateroom, the VIP treatment in general—it was clear that it was to be the latter. Good, that was going to make her privy to more of the information she was supposed to be keeping her eyes and ears open for, and, what the hell, admit it: It was going to make the whole enterprise a lot more enjoyable.
Artemis led the way into the yacht’s main atrium, of which the centerpiece was a four-story spiral staircase with veined marble steps and dark, richly polished wood banisters and support columns. The walls were done in tones of rust and sand, with accents in the same exotic wood that was on the staircase. Evenly spaced along the walls were eight fluted, shoulder-high marble columns (with capitals of the Ionic order, as Alix dimly remembered from some long-ago art history class), each one supporting a Classical bronze or marble head. Greek sculpture was something she knew little about, but these beautiful and evocative fragments struck her as being of museum quality. The teakwood floor had been so freshly sanded that its earthy fragrance still hung in the air.
Artemis took her up one flight of the spiraling stairs, paused at the top, and surprised Alix by saying, “This is Miss London,” to the smooth wooden post around which the staircase wound. “She will be one of our cruise guests and is entitled to full freedom of the ship.”
After a moment the pole said, “Efkharisto, Artemis.”
“I know efkharisto means ‘thank you’,” Alix said, “but I never heard it from a pole before.”
Artemis pointed to the recessed junction between the pole and the sixth step upward. “Video camera,” she said, “and speaker.”
Alix peered. “I still don’t see it.”
“That’s good; you’re not supposed to. There are many of them on the ship, in all the public areas. Mr. Papadakis is a cautious man.”
Alix frowned. The idea that she and the other guests would be under continual surveillance for the next week struck her as being closer to the paranoia that Ted had mentioned than to caution, even considering the multimillion-dollar cargo they were carrying. All of the cruise guests, after all—and there were only six of them, five collectors and herself—had been personally invited by Mr. Papadakis. What did he imagine could possibly happen? Did he really think one of them would walk off—swim off? Jet boat off?—with a Renoir?
Artemis saw what she was thinking. “They will not be operational during the cruise, Ms. London. It is only for this afternoon’s occasion with so many people aboard, not all of whom are personally known to Mr. Papadakis. There are almost one hundred of them. They have already seen the pictures and had their tour, and now that food and drink are available, they have been asked to remain above deck, where the reception is underway. That is why the cameras are operational.”
“I see. Where are the paintings, anyway?”
“Why, right here. In the music room. Behind you. And others on the walls of the main salon, just beyond.”
Alix turned to look. The digital auction catalog that Edward Reed had e-mailed her was divided into two sections, Impressionist and Modern, and it was immediately obvious that the music room had been given over to the Impressionists. There they were, hung on the ash-paneled walls of a thickly carpeted room that spanned the width of the yacht, a glorious cross-section of the art of painting as it was in France in the final quarter of the nineteenth century. From the catalog she recognized the Degas, the Manet, the Renoir, the Cézanne, the Gauguin, beautiful paintings all.…
“Wow,” she breathed, taking a step toward them without consciously intending to, almost as if the pictures were powerful magnets and she was an iron filing that couldn’t help itself. On her second sleepwalking step she came smack up against a distinguished-looking man who had stepped into her path from the side.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t—”
“No, don’t apologize. My fault entirely. I should have been watching where I was going.”
“Distinguished looking” didn’t begin to do him justice. In his fifties, slim and elegantly tuxedoed, very erect, with a pencil-thin mustache that belonged on a thirties’ matinee idol, his longish but carefully styled dark hair made even more perfect by the wings of silver that swept back from his temples, he radiated civility and good breeding. His accent, much like her father’s but more la-di-da, completed the picture.
“You’re Alix London?” he asked.
“I am, yes. And you’re—?” There was something familiar about him, she thought.
“My name is Edward Reed.” Nope, nobody she’d met before. “I’m curating the auction—”
“Of course, “she said, holding out her hand. “You’re an art dealer in Manhattan.”
“A gallerist, yes,” he said, gently correcting her.
She’d heard that some high-end dealers, feeling that the term “dealer” implied that they practiced a low form of trade or were in it for the money (surely not!), now preferred to be called “gallerists,” but this was the first one she’d actually met. Until now it had struck her as a silly affectation, but on Edward Reed it was a good fit.
“Miss London—”
“Alix.”
He acknowledged this by dipping his chin. “Alix, I was just in the process of looking things over down here. The hordes were driven through earlier and left only a few minutes ago, and I wanted to make sure everything was in order, which it seems to be. But while we’re both here, it would be my privilege to introduce you, shall we say, to the collection.” He smiled invitingly.
And the smile made her realize why she’d thought she knew him. Edward’s smile, his aristocratic bearing, his flawless grooming, his polite, cultivated speech—all brought back memories of the patrician collectors and connoisseurs she’d met through her father in the pre-Venezia, pre-prison days when Geoff was a welcome regular at society events, at the Met, at the Frick, and in the elite condos of the Upper East Side. These people were cordial, considerate, perfectly mannered, and unfailingly polite. And yet, without their being openly supercilious or condescending, you were always aware of a subtle dismissiveness just below the surface, a cool, objective distance they preserved between themselves and others who were not of their own exalted breed. It was a type that sometimes fascinated, sometimes repelled her. Which it would be with Edward she didn’t yet know, but so far she found him agreeable enough.
“Oh, I’d like that,” she said. “I’m very eager to—” She suddenly remembered Artemis, who was standing politely by. “But Artemis was just taking me to my room, and I don’t want to hold her up.”
Edward flashed his smile at Artemis. “Oh, but I’m sure the lovely Artemis would allow us a peek. Just the gem of the collection, its shining jewel, perhaps?” His eyebrows lifted. “Yes?”
Artemis glowed. “A few minutes won’t hurt.”
&
nbsp; “No more than five, I promise. I want the pleasure of being there when Alix sees it for the first time.”
The gem of the collection (she wondered uncharitably if he might be referring to the super-high estimated sale price that had been set for it) hung at the front of the room. Edward smiled at it as if at a precocious child of whom he was particularly proud. “Luncheon at the Lakeside.”
The simple four-by-six card beside the painting agreed with him. Édouard Manet, 1861, Le Déjeuner au Bord du Lac. An engraved brass plate nailed to the bottom of the gilt frame simply said, “Manet, 1832–1883.” The canvas was fairly large, about three feet by four.
Edward sighed. “I love Manet.”
Alix nodded. Manet was one of her favorites too. One of the two men most often credited with being the father of Impressionism (the other being Claude Monet), he was a lifelong individualist, a man who rejected labels, refusing to refer to himself as an Impressionist or as anything else. Besides which, in her opinion, some of his paintings were among the most beautiful and appealing artworks that had ever been created.
Le Déjeuner au Bord du Lac was a handsome early work, a quiet pastoral scene showing a decorous middle-class family of three—a man, a woman, a girl of eight or ten—picnicking beside a lake with their beached rowboat a few yards behind them. Alix had been taken with its photograph in the catalog and had looked forward to standing before the real thing, as she was doing now.
But as she took it in, she felt the beginnings of a fluttery, uneasy feeling in her stomach, and she knew what that implied. She stared harder at the painting, almost scowling at it.
“Is something the matter?” Edward asked.
“I don’t… I’m not… there’s something… Edward, does this look all right to you?”
“All right?” He paled, literally paled. “My God, did they do something to it?” She could see his eyes dart wildly over the surface.
“No, no,” she assured him, “I don’t mean it’s been damaged. No, the condition looks perfect.”
He wasn’t much soothed. “Then what?” His voice shot up to an unbecoming near-screech.
“Well, I don’t know,” she said lamely. “It’s just that something doesn’t seem right about it. I can’t put my finger on it—yet.”
“Alix, you’re making me very nervous here. What do you mean, not right?”
“I’m sorry, Edward. Look, I was probably just imagining it. Something must have hit me wrong. It was an overnight flight, you know… jet lag… I don’t know. Please, forget I said anything. Just ignore it.” She finished with an apologetic shrug.
Edward remained decidedly unsoothed. “I’m trying to see what it is about it that disturbs you, and frankly… ”He shook his head.
Alix caught a glimpse of Artemis stealing a discreet glance at her watch. “Oh, Artemis, I’m sorry. Why don’t you show me my stateroom now? Edward, I’ll see you up at the reception?”
“Yes, yes, I’m going there now,” he said absently, continuing to stare moodily at the painting. I’ve offended him, she thought. That didn’t take long. A mere five minutes aboard the ship, and I’ve already antagonized my first person.
But that didn’t change the feeling in her stomach. Something wasn’t right.
10
She followed Artemis down the forward corridor, over more of the same ultra-soft beige carpet that had been in the salon, to a door on the port side, which Artemis opened for her.
“Whoa,” Alix murmured. She’d known to expect something spacious and well appointed, but this place was the size of her entire apartment in Seattle and outfitted like a layout in a designer showroom.
“I hope you’ll be comfortable here,” Artemis said with a perfectly straight face.
“It seems quite nice,” replied Alix with what she hoped was an appropriate nonchalance.
Artemis presented her with the key card, offered to help her unpack, told her that she could be called upon at any time for anything Alix needed or desired, wished her a memorable journey and left, softly closing the door behind her.
Memorable, Alix thought with a wry laugh. It was already memorable, and it hadn’t even started. That sense of something being “off” about that Manet was still with her, but maybe she was better off leaving it till morning when she’d be rested. After all, she probably was jet-lagged and was certainly sleep deprived, and maybe the only thing that was “off” was her nervous system.
What she should do right now, she knew, was to forget about it for the time being and go on up to the reception as requested. She moved decisively toward her luggage, which had been set on a long, low table at the foot of the bed. A quick wash was in order, a change of clothes, and then she’d go up and meet her hosts.
Except that she knew she wouldn’t, not quite yet. What she would do was go back to the music room and spend a little more time with Monsieur Manet and see if she could resolve what it was that was nagging at her about his painting. And she figured the Papadakises could bear to wait another twenty or thirty minutes for the pleasure of meeting her.
She did pause to perform the quick wash, and then she was out the door in a flash, practically trotting down the passageway, the lush carpet completely muffling the sound of her feet, and pausing only for a smile and a wave at the spot where the sixth step of the spiral staircase joined the central post. As she’d hoped, Edward Reed had gone; she had the music room to herself. She went at once to the Manet, which was at the front, behind a low stage that held a grouping of musical instruments—a full-sized Steinway concert grand piano with a bright red shawl laid across its closed lid, a harp, and a cello on a stand. The Manet was hung in pride of place, centered over the piano. She leaned back against the piano to study it from five or six feet away and opened her mind to it.
Nothing popped out at her, or at least nothing pertinent. What a long way this Déjeuner was, she thought absently, from Manet’s more celebrated Déjeuner, now in Paris’s Musée d’Orsay. That painting, Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe—the Luncheon in the Grass—had made him both famous and notorious, scandalizing the Parisian public with its depiction of three people, two men and a woman, lazily enjoying what looks like a lovely nineteenth-century French picnic in a Paris park. The painting is prettily done and the scene was commonplace enough in the art of the time—except that the two men, a pair of dandies, are fully clothed and the woman is stark naked, every inch of her. Her discarded clothing lies in a heap on the grass beside her. The nude woman, oddly enough, is being treated as if she weren’t there, the men apparently absorbed in lazy conversation with one another. The painting, now much admired, ignited an uproar at the time, French standards of propriety being stricter than they subsequently became.
But that wasn’t to happen until 1863, two years after the Déjeuner before Alix was completed. This painting, Déjeuner au Bord du Lac, was painted when he was still an unknown artist (not a starving one, however; his father had been a judge, his mother the goddaughter of the Swedish crown prince), and his work hadn’t yet developed its mature style. The style… she frowned; was it something about the style that was bothering her? She moved in for a closer look.
Two decks below her, in the closet-like security command center next to the engine room, twenty-year-old Yiannis Alexopolous sat before a console of six color monitors on two levels, each screen divided into four quadrants showing four separate locations on the yacht. He set down the empty plate that had held the best keftedes he’d ever tasted—the meatballs ground as fine as custard, the tomato sauce as thick and sweet as honey—licked his lips, and took hold of the tray filled with little squares of baklava, lemon cake, walnut cake, and half a dozen other desserts he didn’t recognize. He didn’t need to recognize them; he knew they’d be delicious. Yiannis ate like this only two or three times a year, when his third cousin twice removed, Panos Papadakis, hired him to put in an evening’s security duty for a party. The incredible food alone would have been enough to make him jump at the chance—all he wanted to eat
, plus whatever he could get away with stuffing in his clothes—but the money, as much for three hours of sitting there doing not much of anything as he got for two full days’ work in the butcher shop, made it the best job he ever had or ever would have.
The only problem, if you could call it that, was that it was boring to stare and stare and stare at six television screens showing twenty-four different passageways or stairways or public rooms in none of which anything ever happened or even moved. Not that he was complaining. He moved the tray to his lap, leaned back and popped a square of baklava into his mouth, closing his eyes to savor the taste: super-sweet and sticky. Perfect. When he opened his eyes he thought he actually saw something move on one of the screens. He quickly swallowed what was left of the baklava and rose halfway out of his chair, the better to see what it was. No, not movement, but a change. The lower right quadrant of the screen had gone a strange, fuzzy gray. He checked the location key posted below the monitors: aft stairway, deck three.
He hesitated. His instructions were to call Mr. Christos, the security chief, at once if anybody who hadn’t been cleared was spotted below decks, but this was different, probably just a glitch in the system and he was reluctant to—
But now it was the lower left window of the monitor—the music room—that was affected as well. Horizontal streaks of gray spread rapidly across it and in one second it was as blank as the other one. No, something weird was happening. He was all the way out of his chair now and excitedly punching the telephone button for security. “Mr. Christos—”
A Cruise to Die For (An Alix London Mystery) Page 8