Chameleon's Death Dance

by BR Kingsolver

  “Yes. Do you have to be at the Gallery, or can you access the system from home?”

  “I can do it from home.”

  “Good.” I didn’t think the police were going to let her into the Gallery. “Do you keep up with the art scene?”

  She snorted. “Of course. You want to know who’s active, right? Who collects, goes to the artists’ shows, gallery openings, all that stuff.”

  “Yes, and the donors. The ones with the money.”

  I drove her to her place, a small duplex on a street of small duplexes. Judging from the people I saw out walking, the majority of the residents seemed to be students. She logged into the Gallery’s system from her computer and printed me out the lists I asked for.

  While she worked, I wandered into the second bedroom, which she had turned into a studio. A half-finished painting of a nude woman sat on the easel. Leaning against the wall were a finished portrait of a nude man and a landscape similar to the pictures at the restaurant.

  “You do nice work,” I said as I came back to the living room where she worked on the computer.

  “Thank you.”

  “Which do you enjoy most, the landscapes or the figure studies?”

  “I just started doing the nudes,” she said. “I haven’t painted any people since I was in France. The models are friends of mine. I’m thinking of doing a series of erotic scenes using them. What do you think?”

  “They’re both very good looking. Are they lovers?”

  “Yes, and lovers of mine. We’ve talked about it. I think there’s a market for eroticism. This is such a decadent city.”

  I thanked her for the lists and said I’d get back in touch. Even though I could have run the same lists myself, having her do it had saved some time. When I hacked into the Gallery’s system, I could focus on looking for things Langston and Wang wouldn’t want seen, such as the finances. Langston wouldn’t have used his own money to buy stolen artworks.

  Chapter 10

  Myron Chung, Loss Control Director for North American Insurance, flew in the next day from Atlanta along with a couple of his assistants. He called me from his hotel, and I went there to meet with him. It took almost two hours to tell him about everything I’d learned in Vancouver, and I gave him a list of the stolen goods I had recovered.

  Myron was Oriental, short and thin, around fifty years old, with black hair that formed a ring around his bald head. “Well, there should be a reward for each piece you recovered,” he said. “It might take a little while, and each insurance company will pay after they verify each piece.”

  I nodded. “That’s what I expected. Where do you want me to take it all?”

  He thought for a moment. “Let me contact a few people. I’ll call you when we figure out a secure location.”

  “Okay. So, what now?”

  “I’ll be contacting the local Chamber security head and your Inspector Fenton.”

  I still didn’t understand why Myron had come to Vancouver. “I thought that NAI wasn’t involved with the Vancouver Gallery.”

  “We used to be, until about eight years ago. Another firm outbid us for the contract. You can see how well that worked out. NAI conducts annual audits on the facilities we insure. We would have caught the discrepancies.”

  Myron walked to the window. The view overlooking the harbor was stunning. He stood looking at the scenery, and I waited.

  “Obviously the current insurer is done,” he finally said without turning around. “Their inattention will harm their reputation, and I don’t think their finances can absorb the loss they’re going to take. Your report of widespread trafficking in Vancouver makes me wonder what else is going to turn up. We’re here to see what falls out and then pick up the pieces.”

  “No one will ever be able to touch the board members who are involved,” I said.

  He turned away from the window. “Probably not, but with your help, we can convince them to resign. Hopefully, with the Chamber’s help, we can get a board of directors who are trustworthy.” He grinned. “We might even get some of their unorthodox acquisitions returned in exchange for not making a public fuss.”

  After my meeting with Myron, I felt like I needed a break. Cheryl had told me about a place she sometimes went slumming with her sister. I went home and changed clothes, then set out to find The Blues Note.

  Compared to what I was used to, the term ‘slumming’ didn’t apply to that bar. The music was pretty good rhythm and blues, but the menu actually listed real meat, fish, and chicken in addition to artificial meat and soy protein.

  She also said a lot of mutants hung out there. That was true, but they were upper-middle class mutants. No one too shaggy or weird. A few well-dressed lycans and vampires were sipping twenty-credit cocktails. I tried to envision a brawl, but failed. None of the patrons would have risked their clothes. It sparked me to thinking about how few mutants I had seen in Vancouver.

  Wil called that night after I got home.

  “What the bloody hell are you mixed up in now?”

  “I miss you, too,” I responded. “How sweet of you to call.” Honey dripped from my voice.

  The silence from the other end told me that he was rethinking his approach. Smart man.

  I heard a deep sigh. “Can you please tell me what’s going on with the Vancouver Gallery of Art?”

  “It seems that the director and assistant were art thieves. They died, leaving stacks of stolen paintings and lots of questions behind. As to how they died, I was a witness to both, but not involved with either. Why?” I put some honey back in my voice. “Are you concerned about my safety? That’s so sweet.”

  “I’ll be in Vancouver tomorrow evening.”

  “How wonderful! Will you be staying long?”

  “As long as it takes to straighten that mess out.”

  “Oh, goody. I hope you haven’t packed light. Mess is an understatement, Wil. I suppose you know Myron Chung is here as well.”

  “Yes. He contacted the Chamber in Vancouver, and they contacted me.”

  “And they asked you to come up?”

  “No. But I figure that anything big enough to put you and Chung in the same city will likely require my attention sooner or later. Sooner is probably better.”

  I picked Wil up at the airport and took him to dinner. I’d made reservations at a quiet little bistro with a live jazz band. We had privacy to talk in public, which is what I wanted. He was far less likely to yell when we were in public.

  We sipped our wine while waiting for our meals, and I brought him up to date. He got pretty agitated when I mentioned getting shot at while masquerading as Danielle.

  “Damn it, Libby. You aren’t invulnerable, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “You don’t act like it. You tell me that a sniper came within inches of blowing your head off with all the emotion most women express in talking about a trip to the beauty parlor.”

  I took a deep breath and studied his face. If we played poker, I’d own him. His face was so expressive, and his emotions, at least when he was around me, so visible. It was endearing, and I knew he’d never be able to lie to me. It almost made me feel a little guilty, but it wasn’t my fault that he was so ready to believe people.

  “It’s over,” I said. “It was days ago, and I already had my freak out.” I leaned across the table and took his hand. “I am very aware that I came close to dying. Believe me, I don’t take that lightly. I considered abandoning this whole thing and telling Myron to shove it.”

  His face softened. “So, why didn’t you?”

  “I’ve put so much work into it, and I hate to leave a job unfinished. So, I ditched the Danielle Kincaid persona. No one here knows Elizabeth Nelson. I introduced myself to the cops as an insurance investigator. I’m playing this one above board.” I winked at him. “Mostly. As far as the people who paid the shooter, I’m starting over and hoping I won’t draw their attention in the same way.”

  I pulled his hand to my lips. “And
besides, now I have you to watch my back.”

  The following morning, I drove Wil to Chamber headquarters and dropped him off. My next stop was at Myron’s hotel, where he informed me that we had a meeting with Inspector Fenton and Wil at Chamber headquarters.

  I was traveling in circles, as per usual. I called Wil.

  “Are you going to come down to the lobby and let me in, or do I have to get undressed in front of the guards at the desk?” I hated going through building security. Even though I had a valid permit to carry a gun, having to show the world two pistols, six knives, plus whatever else I might be carrying at the time was so embarrassing. People never seemed to understand about the garrote or the explosives.

  He chuckled. “Yes, I’ll come down and save everyone the trauma.”

  The conference room on the twelfth floor overlooked the harbor and the hills beyond the north shore. In addition to the Vancouver cops and local Chamber security, the meeting included Myron and me representing NAI, three people from West Coast Assurance—the insurance company for the Gallery—and five people from the North American Museum Alliance. It was a large room, and it was crowded.

  Fenton briefed the gathering on the murders, Wang’s death, and the stolen paintings they recovered from Wang’s home and Boyle’s workroom. When he finished, he turned the meeting over to Wil.

  “I guess I’m going to be coordinating this investigation,” Wil said. “Inspector Fenton, of course, will continue to be the lead on the murders of Director Boyle and David Abramowitz. Doctor Williams of the Museum Alliance will be conducting an audit of the Gallery’s books and inventory.”

  He took a sip of his coffee and pointedly looked around the room. “There are a lot of interests, and a lot of money involved here. I expect everyone to be cooperative, and play nice with each other. Information will be shared. Anything and everything you learn, find, discover, guess, or suspect will be reported to the Chamber.”

  I raised my hand. “Does that mean that I should give you the information I’ve gathered on the richest families in Vancouver?”

  “Yes, it does. And I hope that those in this room are professional enough to understand the sensitivity of our situation. My understanding is that billions are potentially involved. Billions and careers. Yours and mine.”

  Dead silence.

  After the meeting, I took him aside. “Are you serious about wanting my suspicions about the cream of society?”

  “Of course,” Wil said. “But I’m going to control the dissemination of such information very carefully. You and I should discuss the kind of information we will divulge, and what remains eyes-only. Are you free for dinner?”

  “Am I free for dinner? Where do you plan to spend the night, Mr. Wilberforce?”

  He gave a slight shrug. “I wouldn’t presume to tell you what to do or ask for your schedule. Libby, I’m too smart to get in your way, and you aren’t working for me.” He handed me a key card. “I have an apartment in the building across the street. We can sleep wherever is most convenient. Considering what you have stashed at your place, it might be wise to limit the amount of traffic out there.”

  That sobered me. I’d been taking extreme precautions to make sure no one followed me home. “Yeah. Myron is supposed to let me know where I can take all the recovered loot. I’ll be glad to be quit of it. Where shall I meet you for dinner?”

  I had discussed Kieran with Myron and Wil separately, and then Wil and I spoke with Fenton. In spite of their skepticism, they gave me leave to use her in our investigation.

  I drove out to her place that afternoon, but didn’t find her at home. Thinking I might find her at the bistro where she showed her paintings, I dropped by there, but again struck out. I called Fenton.

  “Inspector, are any of the Gallery’s employees back at work?”

  “Huh? Oh, hell no. We have the place shut down. Why?”

  “Just wondering. What are they all going to do? Starve?”

  “Go on holiday, I imagine. They’re all on paid leave.”

  I changed the subject. “Did you ever get a hit at the hospitals? You said you were checking on that blood trail that led away from Boyle’s murder.”

  “Nothing. We know someone else was there because the blood type was different than Boyle’s.”

  “Whoever it was probably went to a doctor in the mutie zone,” I said.

  Silence on the other end of the line, then after a long pause, “That would make sense. We don’t have many assets inside that community, but I’ll send out a feeler.”

  I hadn’t had any reason to interact with the mutants in Vancouver. Danielle, of course, wouldn’t go near the poorer parts of town. I did some research, and found that the city of Vancouver wasn’t very friendly toward poor people, especially mutants.

  North of the city—way north—the forests had been heavily settled by lycans. Far south of the city, near the old border with the United States, were several large vampire communities heavily involved in ranching. Several slums east of the city had mixed mutant populations.

  Vancouver itself, including North and West Vancouver, was a corporate city. Almost the entire population, including any mutants, worked for the corps. From rich executives, through middle management to the people who actually did the work, almost everyone had jobs with benefits. The neighborhood where I rented my safe house was lower corporate class, mostly blue-collar workers, but it had maintained paved streets, neatly kept houses, and all utilities were included in my rent.

  I drove east to find the slums. It was a long drive, and I found non-corporate and corporate neighborhoods in patches, with the poorer areas usually near the water. The flooding when the oceans rose had destroyed more than half of the twentieth-century city and pushed the settled parts far from the original city.

  Morphing into a vampire persona, I walked through several neighborhoods. Even the slums were better off than the middle-class non-corp mutant areas of Toronto. I checked out a clinic, and couldn’t imagine a bleeding criminal walking in and getting patched up. The place was near-corporate quality.

  After wasting the afternoon, I decided that I was on the wrong track. O’Bannon had either bled to death, or his client arranged medical care for him. In my experience, assassins were paid to do a job and be discreet about it. The exceptions were those employed by organized crime. The top of the criminal hierarchy employed their own doctors. My dad did say O’Bannon had worked for the mob in Europe.

  My phone rang as I drove back into the city.

  “Are you on your way?” Wil asked.

  It took me a moment to figure out what he was talking about. Checking my chrono, I realized I was already five minutes late to meet him for dinner. I checked the van’s GPS.

  “Wil, I’m so sorry. I’m at least half an hour away, even if traffic cooperates. Will they hold our reservation?”

  “I’ll check.” He evidently held the phone away from his mouth because for a couple of minutes I could hear people talking in the background. “They have an open table an hour from now,” Wil said. “Take your time and drive carefully.”

  I wondered if that was a snide comment on my driving. Even though it was rush hour, most of the traffic was headed out of the city. I knew the ferries would be full carrying commuters to the myriad islands and across the various inlets.

  Wil had chosen a Japanese restaurant. We sat outside on a terrace overlooking the harbor, dining on sushi and tempura.

  “Wil, when I was masquerading as Danielle, I was given a tour of the Clark mansion by Marian Clark herself. I saw two hot paintings I immediately recognized, and when I checked later, two others I saw turned out to be stolen, too. There were stolen paintings in the Robertson and Henriquez mansions. All three have family members on the Gallery’s board, and Marian Clark holds the chair. In all three cases, the art is displayed in public areas of their homes. They aren’t even bashful about it.”

  “That certainly complicates things,” Wil said.

  “Do you think we
can shame them into giving the paintings back?” I asked. “You know, blackmail them? Myron thinks it’s a possibility.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Do you really think that would work? People at that level are more likely to drop a bomb on you than succumb to pressure.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Our table was in a corner near the kitchen, out of the way and out of sight of the main dining room. I didn’t see Kieran until she passed the maître d’s station on her way out of the restaurant. Her companion was a gray-haired, distinguished-looking gentleman who looked vaguely familiar.

  “Wil, see the cute redhead over there?”

  “The tiny one with hair down to her butt?”

  “Yeah. That’s Kieran Murphy, one of the assistant curators at the Gallery.”

  “Interesting. The man she’s with is Michael Reagan, head of the largest criminal organization in Ireland. He has an estate on Vancouver Island near Victoria.”

  “Really? I think he was at a reception I attended at Marian Clark’s. Langston Boyle’s assistant, Barbara Willis, said one of his customers for stolen art was a Michael Reagan.”

  “I wouldn’t doubt it. Wasn’t Kieran Murphy the girl you wanted to bring into the investigation?”

  “Yes. Fenton’s empath said he couldn’t read her, but both of us felt she was hiding something. How would you get to Reagan’s estate?”

  “One of three ways. Boat or ferry, seaplane, or helicopter. I imagine he uses a helicopter. It’s about an hour by air, three hours by fast boat. My intelligence reports say Reagan’s estate is defended like a military base. He’s caught up in a turf war with another gang in Ireland and Scotland, so the past few years, he spends most of his time here.” Wil eyed me warily. “You aren’t thinking of breaking into his place, are you?”

  I gave him my best offended glare. “I don’t break into places.”

  He laughed. “What do you call it, then?”

  “I don’t break things. That’s amateurish. I reconnoiter a place thoroughly, then I choose the best time and place to unobtrusively enter. I’m only interested in whether Reagan has any of the art Chung is paying me to find.”