Then I take my leave of the Barbell, who’s got his eyes closed too, apparently praying in on another line. I walk up the slate path to the house. It’s a warm day down there in Denver with the sun shooting through the leaves, and I come up to a girl in a sundress, maybe eight or nine, trimming rose hedges. I watch her unfold these clippers at least half her size and stand there studying the roses like she’s the Garden Society. She snips off a leaf or two, so concentrated I don’t think she’s heard me come up. I look down at my suit jacket and see I’ve got a boutonniere that could use a little refreshing, so I ask her if she’ll trade roses. She looks up at me real slow through some thick eyeglasses like she knew I was there all the time but didn’t want to begin thinking about how she would ever get me in shape for the Garden Society.
“I guess it doesn’t matter,” she says. Lops me off a white one and hands it over with all five fingers pinched up in a little rosebud of her own.
“That’s where you’re wrong…Miss Farsinelli, if I’m not mistaken. May not matter to other people out there, but it counts for you and me.”
“Actually they’re just a mongrel variety,” she says, pushing her blonde bangs up off her face, “but I guess they brighten up the place. They’re my hobby. Do you know hobbies?”
“Rather not get into it,” I say. “They tend to be PG-13, I guess you could say, and you’re not more than twelve if I’m not mistaken.”
“I can handle it,” she says.
“I’d prefer to speak to your father first,” I say. “Get his permission, so to speak.”
She nods, thinking this one over, then sticks out her arm. “Mindy Farsinelli,” she says. “I guess you’re here about the paintings.”
“What paintings would those be, Mindy?”
“School of Botticelli Madonnas,” she says. “We’ve had three of them in the past two days.”
“Apparently it’s a very popular school,” I say.
“Not the school,” she says, squinting up into the sunlight. “It’s just one painting, except that nobody knows which one is the real one, so they all come to my father. There are some people up there now, but you can wait if you want.”
“The pleasure would be all mine, Miss Farsinelli,” I say, tipping my hat. “Willie P. Lee. I’ll leave you to guess the P.”
She turns to whack off a few leaves, then turns back. “Pilose,” she says. “It’s a synonym for hairy.”
“Precisely,” I say. “Precisely indeed.”
“Do you know synonyms,” she says.
“Make the world seem all fresh and new, don’t they. Could you let your dad know I’m here?”
“He’s in up his study,” she says, turning away again. “But you could speak to mother, I guess.”
I step up onto the stoop and knock at the screen door, then stand there waiting. Mindy watches me out of the corner of her eye, then pulls out a little walkie-talkie from a pocket in her dress, pushes a button and says: “Mom. Come in, Mom. A Mister Willie P. Lee here to see Barry.”
After a minute or two I see the lady in question coming down the hallway in curves that have gotten away from her a bit, but make a nice contrast between man and woman that gets you considering. She’s got curly red hair with strands of gray through it and one of those cheery Irish faces that get the joke without you having to make it. Takes off a lot of the pressure, a face like that. Makes everything easy. She’s wearing one of those long flowing dresses that women tend to wear when they get a little older and fill out and don’t get enough attention. She looks me up and down with her pinky hooked over her bottom teeth and her lips bunched up around it.
“Special delivery,” I say.
“I see,” she says with the kind of grin you don’t really know what to do with in a PG-13 setting.
“I was hoping to see your husband,” I say.
“Let me guess,” she says. “About a painting.”
“More or less,” I say. “I take it I’m not the only one.”
“Believe it or not,” she coos, and out the corner of my eye I can see Mindy wincing, “in his old age Barry has become popular. I’m Bella. Come on in.”
She leads me up the hallway in these leather flip-flops, toenails painted purple. In the kitchen she has me take a seat and brushes a hip against my arm. Though admittedly I’m not much up on the science of feminine hormones, it’s safe to say she’s laying them on thicker than the dishes they’ve got piled up in the sink. She sees me checking out the housecleaning, laughs a sad little laugh, and picks up a walkie-talkie off the table.
“Mindy,” she says into the walkie-talkie, “the dishes aren’t done, and I’ve got company.” Setting down the radio, she asks if I’d like a drink. She’s having gin, she says. I tell her I’ll have one too, although honestly I’m sorry to make another glass for Mindy. She takes up the bottle from the countertop and splashes out the drinks. Grabs a chair and sits real close, runs two fingers down the lapel of my suit, offering me a glimpse into the kind of cleavage that makes you think of working up a little death by suffocation scenario for yourself. Would have been a hell of a lot more satisfying than bullets shot by men in pink paisley.
“How long are you in Denver?” she says.
“Just passing through, Bella,” I say. “Really I just wanted to see your husband for a moment.”
“I’ll have Mindy make up a bed so you can at least stay the night.”
“I wouldn’t want to trouble you,” I say, as Mindy marches in straight-backed to take up her post at the sink, ignoring us completely.
“But it’s no trouble to me,” she says.
“Your husband’s a busy man,” I say.
“Stop it, Willie. We don’t have long.” And just as she says it, a middle-aged couple comes clomping down the stairwell to the kitchen. He’s got a Blue Madonna rolled up under his arm like it’s the daily paper. I take it the verdict’s fake.
“Any luck?” Bella says.
“Don’t bother,” the woman snaps at me, not too pleased with the way she’s spent her morning.
“We were in there for two hours,” the man says.
“We had to go through the whole history of art,” the woman says.
“And then carbon dating, and natural color pigments, and I mean I just don’t care.”
“Even if it had been worth a million bucks, I wouldn’t do it again.”
“Barry’s fascinating, isn’t he,” Bella says, rolling her eyes. Mindy drops a plate in the sink, but nobody pays it much attention. The couple leaves without saying goodbye, and then there are some more sounds from the stairwell and the professor comes stumbling into the kitchen. His curly gray hair is grabbed up into a mess, his face is unshaven, and his clothes are at least three sizes too big, which makes him look even skinnier than he probably is.
“This is just all so incredible,” he says breathlessly. “Imagine the odds. I understand there’s someone else, Bella?”
“Yes,” she says, turning slowly to him as she sips her drink. “This is Willie Lee.”
“Yes, I heard,” he says. “Willie P. Lee. Why don’t you come up to my study, Mister Lee. It was me you wanted to see, wasn’t it?”
Mindy glances quickly at the three of us. I give her a little wink. She rolls her eyes and goes back to the scrubbing. I thank Bella for the drink and follow the professor up to his study. He closes the door behind us and invites me to take a seat, which I’d love to but I’m having trouble locating one, considering that the office, at least what I can see of it in the dim light, is more or less all paper. I mean there may have been furniture in there at one time, but now you’ve just got stacks of paper sort of shaped like furniture. In the end I choose a couchy stack of what looks like the complete Rocky Mountain News, 1977 edition. The professor takes a seat on a chair of art magazines behind a desk of student essays.
“I trust Mindy gave you a pleasant welcome,” he says.
“Very pleasant girl,” I say. “She has your eyes.”
“I think
you mean she has my spectacles,” he says, peering at me from behind his own, which are as thick as bottle glass. “The rest of her is all Bella, but unfortunately she inherited my eyesight. Not only are we both half-blind, but we’re extremely sensitive to light. I hope it’s not too dark for you in here.”
“Not at all, Professor.”
“Although perhaps Mindy did inherit my temperament,” he says, following his train of thought. “She’s certainly not the calamitous bundle of instinct you saw down there in the kitchen.”
“You mean your wife.”
“Now what did you say I could do for you?” he says, choosing to ignore this. I assume that with Bella he’s in the habit of ignoring quite a bit.
“Your eyesight must be quite a disadvantage for a man in your profession,” I say. “I mean being an art historian and expert in the school of Botticelli.”
“It’s terrible, isn’t it,” he says, laughing to himself. “Although in my opinion a Botticelli blurry is finer than just about any other painter crystal clear. Wasn’t he just amazing!”
“And quite a school, if you ask me. Sort of place you’d want to send your kids if you could afford it and they spoke Italian.”
“Indeed,” he says, nodding his head like no truer words were ever spoke. “And as far as the work I do authenticating paintings, you might be very interested to know that with the advances we’ve made in recent years, much of my job is done in the lab. Amazing, isn’t it. Of course there’s no substitute for old-fashioned expertise, but more often than not, through methods more scientific than artistic, we can date and often authenticate a painting without even looking at it. First of all there is carbon. Everything that lives or has once lived contains carbon. This includes pigments derived from plants, naturally, and so in the laboratory we can….”
“I don’t want to take too much of your time, professor,” I say. “Although it does all sound fascinating. Really I just wanted to ask if you recall authenticating the original Blue Madonna quite a few years back.”
“Oh yes I do,” he says. “In fact it was one of the first Botticellis I ever saw in the United States. I had done graduate work in Florence, and of course Florence is a gold mine for someone in my field.”
“Do you remember the man who owned it.”
“Yes of course,” he says. “His insurance company flew me to New York for a consultation. Harry Shore was his name, I believe. He was confined to a wheelchair, I remember, but rarely have I met a more forceful man.”
“Do you remember how much you judged the painting to be worth?”
“That’s not really my department,” he says. “I don’t buy or sell them, I just authenticate them. But judging by today’s market, I should think it’s worth at least a million dollars.”
“I happen to be working for Mister Shore,” I say. “The painting you saw has been stolen from his house, which through a series of events I’d rather not get into explains all these fakes turning up.”
“It’s astonishing,” he says, “and he’ll have a nightmare with his insurance company. But I don’t mind helping out if people come to me. In fact there are several tests I can do right here in my study. Just yesterday I was able to do a few simple color tests on the reds in the Madonna you’re referring to, and I explained to the nice woman who brought it in that the natural red pigments used in Italy during the Renaissance would have long since….”
“Interesting stuff,” I say, beginning to understand here why Bella may be looking for a friend, as pigments never talk dirty and shut off the lights. “Do you remember the woman’s name?”
“I’m sorry I don’t think I do,” he says.
“Well has anyone from the Shore family been in contact with you? They’re concerned, to put it mildly.”
“I’m sure they are,” he says. “But no, I haven’t spoken to them.”
“Mister Shore has a daughter named Fernanda. Did you ever meet her?”
“Fernanda? No, I don’t believe I have. He was married at the time, I remember, but I don’t recall him having any daughters.”
“One last question, professor, and then I’ll let you get back to work. These fakes you’ve been examining – in your judgment are they well done?”
“They’re not bad at all,” he says, pursing his lips and squinting through the eyeglasses. “The ones I’ve seen appear to be done by the same hand, and whoever he is, he does appear to be at least relatively well versed in the style of painting used during the Renaissance. The brushwork is not obtrusive. The layering of colors is consistent with what we see in Botticelli’s school. The problem, in my judgment, is the colors themselves. They show no signs of aging – they have no depth – and if we took them into the laboratory, a carbon test would confirm that those paints are synthetic and likely bought at a common supply store not more than a few years ago.”
“Professor,” I say, “I want to thank you for explaining all of this to me. I’ll leave you Mister Shore’s number in case anything interesting comes up.” I take a pen from his desk, scratch out the number on a copy of the Rocky Mountain News, and stand to shake his hand.
“I most certainly will, Mister Lee. I most certainly will.”
Then I slip out of the office before he goes scientific on me again and take the stairs back down to the kitchen.
“Any luck?” Bella says. She’s at the table with another gin and a cigarette. Mindy’s nowhere to be seen. May be out doing the shopping or paying the bills, for all I know. The girl appears to be running the place.
“Luck’s not my strong point, Bella.”
“That’s before you met me,” she says.
“Maybe so,” I say, “but I’m investigating these fake virgins and am hitting the road again.”
She pouts those lips a little, shaking her head. “What is it with these virgins anyway?”
“It’s a scam,” I say, “and some people are trying to make money off of it.”
“Well good for them,” she says. “I’m getting my first vacation in years thanks to it. They’re flying him down to authenticate one of the Madonnas.”
“Where’s that, Bella?”
“Mexico. We’re making a week of it in a five-star hotel. Thirty years of marriage, and I finally get a five-star hotel. I plan on sitting by the pool until I’ve got one killer tan.” She slips the flowing dress from her shoulder until I can see most if not all of one fine large breast. “No tan lines in Mexico, Willie. They let you go topless down there.”
“And where would this be in Mexico, sweetheart?”
Acapulco, she says, and I can’t help recalling Harry Shore saying something about his daughter Lulu and her little orphans living down that way. It’s probably a coincidence, but then rule number one of the private investigating business is never trust a coincidence, which is a rule that comes in handy when I find Kafka and Twiggy standing out on the sidewalk, and Ralph and my El Camino nowhere in sight.
Kafka’s slumped across Che Guevara on the hood of the Volkswagen. He’s wearing a black leather cap and looking more than a little hungover. Twiggy’s dressed in black leather head to toe. Today’s theme must be Village People.
“Find out anything interesting?” Twiggy says, apparently having decided to ignore our morning wrestling match.
“What the hell happened to Ralph and my car?”
“Who’s Ralph?” they say in unison.
“Big fella sitting behind the wheel of an El Camino?”
“Oh,” Kafka says, slumping back down across Che. “We told him we’d just seen Fernanda over in the food court of the Cherry Creek Mall, and he took off.”
“Not bad,” I say, agreeable surprised, for once, by their ingenuity. “Ralph’s a very dangerous art thief, and we’d do well to steer clear of him.” Kafka hardly appears to hear this. He’s leapt up to open the hood as an old woman in a gray sweat suit approaches on the sidewalk, walking her dog. In the trunk, or whatever they call it on a Beetle, he’s got what looks like at least twenty Madonnas
stacked side by side. “Merry Easter,” he says to the woman as he hands her a painting.
“Well isn’t that lovely,” the woman says before muttering off down the sidewalk with the painting in one hand and the leash in the other.
“We’re taking it to the next level,” Kafka says to me, looking a bit embarrassed about it if you want to know the truth.
“Fair enough,” I say, “because so am I. How’d you find me this time, if you don’t mind me asking.”
“We paid off the concierge with a painting,” Kafka says. “And then you weren’t too tough to follow in that El Camino piece of crap.”
“This from a man driving an airbrushed Volkswagen,” I say.
“Enough,” Twiggy says, turning to face me with her legs set wide like she’s ready for round two. “What brought you here? Who lives in that house and what’s he got to do with our paintings?”
“My paintings,” Kafka says. Twiggy winces but doesn’t take her eyes off me.
“He’s just an old high school buddy of mine,” I say. “We were planning our thirtieth reunion.”
“Enough,” Twiggy says again. “We have a proposition to make. We can just keep following you, which will be even easier now that you’ve lost your ride. Or you can start working with us.”
“We split the painting in two once we find it?”
“You can have the painting,” she says. “We want the money coming to Fernanda.”
“Why should I work with you two characters?” I say, choosing for the moment not to mention that no money’s likely to come near Fernanda anytime soon. “I doubt Kafka could find a painting in that trunk if you asked him to do it again.”
“Then we keep following you,” Kafka says, smiling under the brim of his leather cap. “Try not to walk too fast. Also, Twiggy thought to steal your suitcase out of the backseat of the El Camino, but we’ll be sure to hold onto it for you.”
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