by Craig Smith
'What do you have for me?' he asked.
Jane concentrated on her needlepoint. 'You're not going to like it.'
'I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you've got something that involves breaking a number of federal laws without benefit of immunity.'
Jane ran a couple of stitches through her needlepoint while another jogger passed them. 'Nothing outrageous, I don't think. About as felonious as crossing against the light, but given the present political climate it's probably to our advantage to have a bit of credible deniability, just in case. An ex-operative with a chip on his shoulder, a grudge in his heart, and a history of pissing in the wind ought to be sufficient for the occasion.'
'I fit the profile.'
'I assume you know J. W. Richland?'
'The televangelist?' Malloy fought the urge to complain, but Jane caught his tone.
'A friend of the Administration, T. K.'
'Tell me you want me to cut his tongue out. I'll work for free.'
Jane was a good soldier, but even she smiled at this. 'Nobody has to know about this. We're sure not going to put it on paper, and I don't think Richland will either.'
'I'll know. Isn't that enough?'
'Don't tell me you've gone out and bought a conscience?'
'I've been thinking about getting one ever since I left the agency - as long as they don't cost too much.'
'They cost plenty, T. K., and give you nothing but grief.'
'Voice of experience?'
Jane looked out across the park, the shadow of a smile playing at her lips. Italy - living her cover? It was hard to imagine Jane with a sex life, harder still to think of her belonging to the free love generation. 'I gave up the Girl Scouts years ago, T. K.'
'Could have fooled me.'
'Richland had a painting stolen from his estate. A few weeks ago he got a telephone call from an art dealer in Zürich who wants to sell the thing to him.'
'A ransom?'
'The preacher hands over twenty-five million, and he gets his painting back.'
'Million?'
'Who knew the Lord paid so well?'
Malloy thought about it for moment, and finally decided to ask the obvious question just to hear Jane's explanation. 'Why not go to the police?'
'Some question of provenance, I take it.'
'The Reverend J. W. Richland dealing in black market paintings? Wouldn't the Times love a piece of that?'
'Black market is such an ugly expression, T. K.'
'Almost as bad as smuggling.'
'Smuggling is the one thing you don't have to do. Charlie has asked Bob Whitefield to carry it in a diplomatic pouch. All you do is make the exchange and pass it to Whitefield at the Zürich Airport. Once he clears customs stateside, you take the thing back and make the delivery.'
'Why not just get Whitefield to take care of the whole thing?'
'If anything goes wrong, it won't be at customs, not with a diplomatic pouch. The risk falls to you.
Richland knows he's going to have to pay for this, by the way. As a favour to me I hope you charge him plenty.'
'Any indication that something might go wrong?'
'I got to be an old woman because I always expect something will go wrong.'
'Didn't I read that Richland is dying?'
'Old news, T. K. The doctors gave him six months to live eight or ten months ago. According to his new book, the preacher fired them all and went down on his knees.'
'Right. Pray for a Miracle. I tried it, but he's still on my TV.' Jane was silent, waiting. Not that he was considering a pass. Malloy had committed himself the moment he answered Jane's classified. If he walked away from this, he walked away for good. He wasn't ready to do that. 'So where do I find him?'
Jane tipped her head toward the south end of the park. 'He's at the Plaza. Ask for Mr Gideon.'
Slipping his city gun, a Sigma .380, out of its holster, Malloy tried to hand it to the muscle-bound plainclothes security officer guarding J. W. Richland's suite.
'That's okay,' the young man named Mike answered with an oddly soft voice, 'but I'll need this.' He reached tentatively for Malloy's cell phone. Malloy nodded permission and slipped his gun back into its tiny holster at the small of his back. The big man set the phone on a table delicately and brought a wand out of his hip holster. He passed it over Malloy's body, again with Malloy's permission. He was checking for transmitting devices.
'It's a funny world,' Malloy offered pleasantly, 'when a telephone is more dangerous than a gun.' Mike touched him lightly just to make sure Malloy was not wearing something as old fashioned as a miniature tape recorder, and agreed affably. It certainly was. Stepping away, he rapped his thick knuckles on the door, and Malloy heard the muffled voice of J. W. Richland.
The suite was a study in antique white: carpet, walls, furniture and curtains. At the window overlooking the park, a silver haired man turned cheerfully to receive Malloy. A young woman perched on a settee close by. Richland was average height, somewhere in his sweet- sixties. He wore a dark blue suit without the jacket, a white shirt, a scarlet tie and matching suspenders. The woman was a year or two beyond thirty. She had black hair pulled back tightly, not a lock of it out of place, lustrous dark eyes that missed nothing, and sensuously thick lips. Malloy was guessing she had bought the breasts.
She studied Malloy briefly with the air of one inspecting the hired help, then turned her attention back to Richland. It was enough to break the heart of a lesser man.
'Mr Malloy!' Richland shouted affectionately. He had his TV smile turned on, the Southwestern accent toned down. He met Malloy's gaze with intelligent blue eyes, and Malloy decided Richland didn't look like a man with a medical death sentence hanging over his head, no matter what his doctors said. Perhaps it was that thing the born-againers nurtured in abundance, overweening optimism. 'Thank you for coming on such short notice!'
Malloy was fairly sure no one in the last couple of decades had refused a meeting with J. W. Richland, short notice or not, but he answered in the spirit of the remark. 'My pleasure, Reverend.'
A curious thing happened as they shook hands. Richland met Malloy's gaze and let the moment stretch out a beat longer than necessary. He was not sure what the preacher expected to accomplish with this, but then it came to him. It was pure habit. This was supposed to be a great moment for Malloy, not a ceremony to be hurried through. Surely someday he would want to tell people about it. Shaking hands with J. W. Richland! Love him or hate him, it didn't matter. Richland was that big.
'You come highly recommended among people I respect,' Richland announced.
'Glad to hear it.'
Still holding Malloy's hand, he added, 'Are you as good as they say?'
There was a peculiar hint of challenge in this, but Malloy let it go. 'You know how it is these days,' he smiled and broke Richland's hold on him. 'A man is only as good as the PR firm he hires.'
Richland laughed with a bright explosion of mirth Malloy had a hard time disliking. 'Trust me, the real danger comes when you start believing your own press!'
'I'm a determined skeptic, Reverend, especially about my own press.'
'But you get the job done? That's what they tell me.'
This was serious. He wanted assurances. Malloy had not expected this and tucked it away to think about later. 'When I was twenty-four years old, a G. I. doctor
in Beirut told me "l don't die easily, sir. That's all I can promise you."'
Richland laughed grandly and clapped his hands. This was a gesture Malloy had seen him perform on TV. Usually when he did it he would say, 'Can I hear an Amen?'
'Don't die easily! My, that's good! He turned to the woman, who was still seated by the window. 'A man after my own heart, Nikki!' Then to explain himself, as if that were necessary, he said, 'Eleven months ago I had three doctors sit me down and tell me there was no way I was going to live another six months, Mr Malloy. You know what I did?'
'Yes, sir.'
Richland w
as not about to have his story interrupted, whether Malloy knew or not. 'I fired them! I took the medicine they were prescribing and poured it down the drain! Then I dropped to my knees and talked to the only One who has any say in the matter!'
Malloy smiled pleasantly, trying to decide how high to jack his fee.
'Nikki, come over here and meet another man who has cheated death!'
The woman stood and walked toward them. She had dressed for business in a dark blue pants suit and white blouse with a string of lustrous grey pearls, but she crossed one foot before the other - as if trained to walk for the pleasure of men. She reminded Malloy of a poisoned liqueur in a crystal decanter. He wondered if their affair had begun shortly before Richland's cancer or if like the angel of death she had shown up after the medical death sentence.
'Dr Nicole North,' Richland offered, 'Mr Thomas Killion Malloy.'
'Pleased,' she said without sincerity. Her voice had just a whisper of Texas in it, but Malloy, who possessed a discerning ear for language and accents, was quite certain it reached back three or four generations.
Richland waved his hand toward the couch and chair in the middle of the room. 'Have a seat!' he said. 'May I get you something? A croissant, coffee, juice? We've already had our breakfast, but I can call for something, if you'd like.'
Malloy had had a late night, and coffee sounded good, but he did not care to put off the meeting while they waited for refreshments. 'I'm fine,' he answered.
'Then let's get down to business, what do you say?'
'You need a painting brought into the States without attending to the usual formalities.'
Richland didn't care for the way he had put this, and for the first time since Malloy had walked into the room the preacher lost his smile. 'It's a bit more complicated than that.'
'Why don't you tell me about it?'
J. W. Richland glanced at Nicole North as if he wanted reassurance before he spoke. That wasn't especially interesting. He was dealing with an experienced intelligence officer, and he knew it. He could reasonably assume Malloy could read a lie almost as easily as he could tell one. What Malloy wanted to know, and what he could not find out by observing the preacher's body language, was whether or not he was serving the same stew to everyone.
'I acquired the painting a number of years ago, when there was not as much concern about. . .'
He looked at Nicole North for help. 'Cultural heritage.'
Richland nodded and repeated the phrase thoughtfully. 'A good thing in theory,' he said, 'but in practice if we went around returning everything we've dug up in the past one hundred years . . . well, you might as well close every museum in the Western world!'
'You think someone might have a legitimate claim to your painting?'
'Legitimacy isn't the issue, Mr Malloy. Any claim, any interference at all, and I won't see my property again.'
Malloy nodded as if he accepted this.
Dr North picked up Malloy's apparent skepticism. 'The painting was discovered at an archaeological site several years ago by my uncle - Jonas Starr.' She waited for a response at the mention of this name, but Malloy didn't react. He had never heard of the man. 'It's a twelfth century painting of Christ.'
'When I saw it,' Richland explained, 'I told Jonas that was exactly the way I had always pictured Christ. Do you know what he did? He handed it to me and said it was mine, just like that!'
'Where was the archaeological site?'
Nicole North considered the question without answering. Malloy couldn't decide whether she was dreaming something up or calculating how much truth she needed to give him. 'In southern Turkey,' she said finally. 'Not far from the city of Altinbasak.'
'And you think the Turkish government might try to reclaim it?'
'We're fairly confident they would if they found out about it. We also think they would have a lot of support if they took us into a court outside the United States.'
'Once it's back here,' Richland added, with a smile that confirmed his friendship with a sitting President, 'I don't expect we'll have any problems.'
'The thing is we're not sure we can trust the people we're dealing with,' North told him. 'It's quite possible that after we make the exchange someone might decide to tip off Swiss customs. The Swiss are well aware of Dr Richland's strong support for the President, and they would just love to create an incident to embarrass him.'
'The Swiss?' Malloy asked in surprise. The Swiss, he knew, had never aspired to create an international incident with anyone.
'They haven't forgotten the pressure America brought to bear on them over the matter of the bank accounts of the holocaust victims.'
As it happened, Malloy knew more about the bank accounts of the holocaust victims than he could admit. He was also, in select circles, an acknowledged expert on Swiss-American relations. Dr North's pretensions of authority on this issue indicated she didn't know that. 'When exactly did you lose your painting, Reverend?'
'Last winter,' Richland answered, levelling his gaze on Malloy. It was the kind of look an amateur gives for the Big Lie, which was strange because it was a simple, rather unimportant detail. More curious than anything, Malloy locked an accusing gaze on Nicole North. Unlike the preacher, she did not especially fear his powers of discernment. At that point Malloy decided they were handing out the same story to everyone. It probably wasn't in the President's interest to doubt an old friend, but he felt reasonably sure Jane and Charlie would not be taken in so easily.
'Last winter?' He managed to sound suspicious, as if paintings were rarely stolen in winter.
'February, wasn't it, Nicole?' Richland wiggled in his seat like a recalcitrant Sunday schooler.
'I think so. Yes.' Nicole North lied better than the preacher. She actually seemed embarrassed by Richland's discomfort.
'You went to the police, I take it?'
Richland looked confused and shook his head as he blushed. 'No. We . . .' His hesitation looked staged, but Malloy thought it was at least well-practiced.
'Dr Richland has to be extremely careful with the information he provides the public,' Nicole North explained. 'We felt at the time if he filed a complaint, he would just be exposing himself and his ministry to possible criticism.'
They both seemed pleased with this answer and were therefore surprised when Malloy responded incredulously. 'You mean to say you didn't even file a claim with your insurance company?'
They seemed not to have thought about insurance, only the police, and Nicole North's eyes widened ever so slightly as Richland stepped into uncharted territory. 'No. The painting was a gift, you see. We didn't even know what value to put on it. Besides, the claim probably would have become public knowledge. You know how those things go.'
'We made considerable effort at recovering the painting, Mr Malloy,' Nicole North said finally. There was a bit of chastisement in this. They were hiring him after all, not the other way around. 'Both my security people and Dr Richland's made inquiries. Unfortunately nothing came of our efforts.'
'I really didn't think I'd ever get it back,' Richland explained. He looked like a stage actor who has stumbled back into the script. 'Then we got a call. A Mr Roland Wheeler of Zürich.' Richland gave Malloy a smile he no doubt reserved for annihilating enemies of the faith. 'He wanted to know if we would be interested in acquiring a twelfth century portrait of Christ.' Richland's expression suggested the transparency of such a ruse.
'Wheeler insists he is representing the owner,' North added. 'Naturally he refuses to acknowledge Dr Richland's claim of prior ownership. He's keeping it at a private bank in Zürich called Goetz and Ritter. From what we can tell, they don't run banks over there the way we do here.'
Malloy resisted a smile at this, and changed the subject. 'You're comfortable with the painting's authenticity?'
'I will be before I release the funds. I'm going over Sunday and will examine it Monday morning. If everything is in order and you agree to help, you'll join me Tuesday at the bank for the exchang
e. Once I've completed the transfer of funds, you'll take responsibility for getting the painting to New York.'
Richland squirmed uncomfortably. 'If something happened after you took possession, Mr Malloy, say for instance the police in Zürich stopped you, just how would you handle the matter?'
'If I take the job, I'll arrange matters so that nobody stops me, Reverend.'
'You didn't exactly answer my question.'
'Let me make something clear to you. How I work is my business. This much I can tell you: I'll either bring the painting to you or I'll be dead, and someone in my employ will deliver it.'
The Rev. J. W. Richland sat back and considered this for a moment. Malloy was a quiet, dark-haired man fast approaching fifty. He had never been the muscular commando-type. He had built his career on his insight into human nature, the art of persuasion, and by inspiring loyalty in those people he recruited to work for him. When he made a promise, he kept it. When he worked a job, he got it done - one way or the other. After a quarter of a century of handling whatever came at him, he didn't especially care to explain himself to amateurs. 'That's quite a statement,' Richland said finally.
'You're hiring me to do a job you don't think your own people can handle. It goes without saying you want someone who is ready for every contingency. When I tell you the police aren't going to stop me, believe it.'
'Well then,' Richland answered, 'I suppose the only thing left is to persuade you to take the job!' The preacher's expression suggested that he was a man accustomed to getting his own way but was not at all reluctant to engage in the hard give-and-take of negotiations. 'I propose an advance of ten thousand dollars to cover your expenses and another one hundred thousand dollars cash the moment you hand me the painting.' Richland seemed proud of his offer, as if he assumed Malloy would not have dreamed of asking for such a figure.