by Peter Israel
The Mercedes eased into a slot about halfway down. The Renault van stayed double-parked. Four people got out of the Mercedes and entered Lascault’s building. Two were male, one female, and the fourth an immense black specimen with a tattersall cap on his head who looked like he could have picked his teeth with Jonnie Davis.
Mrs. Al Dove and friends, and it looked to me like the Americans had landed again.
You’d have thought they might have worried about what people would say. About all that uncollected garbage on the sidewalk, for one thing. Or about their taking their gorilla inside without a leash. Or about picking a Sunday morning to do their moving. But none of these things seemed to cause them the slightest concern. A few minutes later the two white men emerged from the front door struggling with a large flat oblong object about as tall as them and half again as long. Call it a painting and you wouldn’t be far off. The gorilla followed them out with another one of about the same size tucked under his arm. By this time the driver of the Renault van had the rear doors open. They slid the pictures inside, and the driver closed and locked the doors with a key.
Then Binty Dove came out of the building. She’d changed her clothes from the day before, except for the ivory-colored raincoat. She looked about ready for church. Otherwise, murder hadn’t changed her a bit. She stood on the sidewalk with her back to me, conferring with her troops, while the sun made shadows on the façades and the budding trees emerged tall and straight.
Then the driver got into the Renault van and Binty, after a glance up and down the sidewalk in either direction, walked into the street and climbed in on the passenger’s side. The three heavies watched from the sidewalk until the van had turned the corner, then turned themselves and single-filed into the building.
I hoped they’d at least brought a deck of cards, because it looked like they had a long wait in front of them. But I didn’t stick around to find out.
At that I almost blew them coming out of Paris. A gorgeous day was in the making, the sky a shade of blue you only see in postcards and movies, with a scattering of low white puffball clouds for comic relief. The air was so soft as to turn the hardest heart to reveries of picnics and nymphs and carousing in the bushes. In short: a city dweller’s dream and a traffic cop’s nightmare. Within a couple of hours every road leading out of the city would be choked and the Boulevard Périphérique a solid circle of inching vehicles. Horns would be blowing, tempers flying, radiators boiling over. Already at eight you had premonitions of it, in the no-quarter tactics of the early birds rushing to get out while the getting was good.
To go to L’Isle-Adam, you quit the autoroute in St. Denis and follow the Nationale 1 out toward Montmorency. The Renault van left the autoroute all right, but when we got to where the Nl forks into the N16, he veered right out of the turn lane. I went after him, but out of the straight-ahead lanes and only by stepping on a solid white line and a couple of families of Sunday revelers who had the right of way. Or so they thought, and so did the white-gloved gendarme who was directing matters from the center of the intersection. He whistled me down. I stopped on the arc of the turn and watched through the rear-view while he descended on me in slow imperious strides. Behind him the traffic was already starting to snarl, and it was going to take him the rest of the morning to untangle it. But he didn’t seem to care.
Before he got to me, I had my head out the window.
“Look, Officer,” I said in my best Yakima American, “I’m sorry as hell but I’ve got a plane to catch. Is this the right way to the airport?”
It’s a dumb enough tactic, but I’ve never known it to fail. He touched his fingers to his kepi. I could see the hesitation writ large in his eyes.
“It may sound crazy,” I went on, “but my mother’s just had twins! Can you imagine that? Twins? At her age? I just got the telegram this morning. You just can’t keep the old girl down! But the thing is, I don’t know whether I’ve got two new brothers or two new sisters or one of each, and the telegram didn’t say. Can you imagine? So I’ve got to go home to find out, only home is in Yakima, that’s in the state of Washington, and that means I’ve got to catch the wagon train out of Seattle which leaves every Monday morning at …”
Somewhere in there he asked me for my papers, but I gave him no mercy. I was making like an airplane. I had my head down out the window and my arms swept back inside the Giulia and behind him the horns were blowing like it was Bastille Day and New Year’s Eve rolled into one.
“Airport!” I shouted at him in the din. “AIR! PORT!”
Dumb enough, like I say, but pretty near foolproof, and if you work on your French, you can probably get away with it on the San Diego Freeway.
Finally he shouted back, “Fous-moi la paix!” which, broadly translated, means “Fuck off!” He pointed down the N16 and white-gloved me on. I didn’t give him time to change his mind.
The Renault van, though, was nowhere in sight. I was beginning to feel like one of J.-C. Fleurie’s minions. I pulled into the first gas station I came to, unfolded my map, and then saw right away what had happened. Because if the quickest way to Chantilly was the autoroute, the shortest was this very same Nationale 16. In other words, L’Isle-Adam had been scratched, and unless Bernard Lascault had yet another hideaway in the northern suburbs, they were headed right for Cookie’s.
I set the Giulia on the automatic pilot and stuck her in high. Some twenty kilometers up the road, in a place called Luzarches, I caught up with them. I had a crazy passing notion that if I’d wanted to, I could have taken them right there, on the highway, made off with the two Rillington-Blumenstocks, gone back to Paris and copped the real one, and set up shop for myself. B. F. Cage, courtier en tableaux. But it was only passing—the product, maybe, of too much Al Dove—and more to the point was the idea that the reception committee still waiting for me in Lascault’s apartment might be only part of the overall muscle. Because unless I missed my guess, Bernard Lascault had flown home from L.A. on a group plan.
Instead, then, I gave the van plenty of room, and when they entered the little village and turned to squeeze down the alley, I kept on going to the next town. Because suddenly there was no hurry at all. None at all. I had time for a basket of croissants in the local café and a double express, and even a telephone chat with my friend Dedini.
Monsieur le Commissaire was in his usual foul mood, heightened by his having been up half the night. And on a wild goose chase, and one set off by yours truly. No, they hadn’t found Al Dove in the métro. All they’d found was damaged government property. Dedini wanted Al Dove and Binty Dove and me, all at once. That was nothing new, but now he added Helen Raven and William Rillington to his list.
I told Dedini to sit tight. I was working on something, a plan, I’d call him later on. If he wanted to keep busy in the meantime, there were three stiffs over in Lascault’s apartment who needed a fourth for bridge. Only he shouldn’t knock before entering.
I hung up, paid for breakfast and the call, and went back outside to the Giulia. I started missing Dedini almost immediately. I also missed the Giulia, once I’d parked her again and gotten out. This was just outside the village, almost exactly at the place where I’d turned around on my first visit. I missed Pierrot the Nosepicker, too. At times like that a man needs all the friends he can get, but the only candidates I spotted when I skirted through the fields were a couple of peasants who looked like they belonged in somebody’s landscape, and they paid me no attention once they saw I wasn’t carrying an easel.
The wall was of stone and uniformly higher than my head. I chose a likely spot and pulled myself up. No siren went off, at least that I could hear, and a thick copse of poplars screened me from humanity. But suddenly, as I dropped down on the inside, I realized that I’d no plan at all.
FIFTEEN
The breakfast room was a cozy fishbowl affair, somewhat smaller than an exhibition hall, that bubbled out behind the mansion into some tulip beds. The Lascaults were receiving there that beautif
ul Sunday, Monsieur in white ducks and an elegant white turtleneck, Madame in a two-piece white ensemble of some light jersey material. The staff also wore white. In fact the only people who didn’t were the guests. Of these there were three, two of them invited. The invited ones were a pair of art-loving Californians called Binty Dove and Johnny Vee, sometimes known as “the Alligator.” The uninvited one was also from the shores of the Pacific, but not much of an art lover.
They were already into the scrambled eggs and kippers when I arrived. I took another coffee, just to be sociable. The field hand who’d brought me there seemed to want to hang around to make sure I drank it, but the only white on him was in his eyeballs and when Johnny Vee told him to beat it, he beat it. We’d only just met. This was outside one of the outbuildings I’d spotted coming through the trees and which was where, to judge from the Renault van parked next to it, the master and mistress kept the overflow of their collection. A considerable sweep of lawn separated it from the main house, and I was standing in its shadow, deciding my next move, when he made up my mind for me. “Lift ’em, ofay,” he said behind me. I lifted my arms and the rest of my body lifted with them, helped out by the forearm under my chin. He shook me down, and then he kept a respectful few paces in back of me while we crossed the sward.
The sun had turned the windows of the house into one-way mirrors. This gave them plenty of time to get their signals straight. Still there was one of those awkward silences when I came in, understandable enough, though, when you remember that around about then I was supposed to be all stretched out in Bernard Lascault’s apartment with my arms folded across my chest and a rose between my teeth.
Finally my hostess invited me to sit down. Johnny Vee seconded the motion.
“Siddown, Cage,” he said.
Freddy Schwartz had mentioned him. I only knew him slightly, and I’d never had any wish to deepen the relationship. I knew that his real name was more complicated than Johnny Vee, also that he’d picked up his nickname on the L.A. high-school basketball courts. Later on he’d played college ball in California and he’d been good too. Some claimed he’d thrown away a career in the pros Maybe so, but still in his early thirties, he was already called the heir apparent, and his daddy, they said, owned a whole pro league among his so-called legitimate enterprises.
In Chantilly, France, though, the Alligator was a long way from home. I think he felt it too, and reacted by trying to throw his weight around.
I didn’t sit down right away, though that had less to do with him than with what I saw over their heads. They weren’t hung, only propped up on chairs. Two chairs to each, and they took up most of the wall space in the room that wasn’t glass. There were people in these paintings too, but they weren’t portraits, more like studies of architecture and space, formal and weird at the same time, with balconies and archways and windows opening onto scenes that seemed to belong to some totally other time and place. I don’t know what you’d call them, and whether they were worth all the fuss is another question, but like the portrait they too seemed painted within an inch of their lives, and to my unpracticed eye they sure looked like they came from the same brush.
“What do you think of them, Mr. Cage?” asked my hostess.
I sat down then, between her and Johnny Vee, with Binty and Bernard Lascault across from me.
“More to the point,” I said, “is what you think of them, Mrs. Lascault. Do they measure up to your expectations?”
She gazed at me blandly—a sociable, aristocratic expression.
“They certainly do,” she said. “Of course it’s only a first impression—you realize this is the first time I’ve seen them—but I think they’re beautiful, marvelous. I’m very surprised, I must admit.”
“Then you’re going to buy them?”
“Buy them?” She seemed to enjoy the idea. “No, I should think not.”
“How come? Is the price too high?”
“Not at all. The truth is: I haven’t had to pay anything for them. Not one sou. You see, they’re a gift.”
“A gift? Who from?”
“Why, from all these people,” she said, gesturing magnanimously. “But most particularly,” turning to him, “from my dear husband.”
I couldn’t make out the slightest irony in her voice. The joke, it seemed, if there was one, was on me.
I stared across at Binty and Lascault.
“I’m glad to hear at least that you haven’t paid for them,” I said, fixing them. “The way I understand it, they may be fakes.”
I like to think I saw the nerves jump in Binty’s cheeks. At least that. But Bernard Lascault didn’t so much as swallow. I wondered if, like Al Dove, they’d known all along. Or only suspected.
“Fakes?” Cookie Lascault echoed to my left.
“That’s right. Painted by a man called William Rillington.”
“Well then,” she went on without a quaver, “hats off to the painter!”
It was my turn to be surprised. She’d straightened out of her habitual drooping posture, but without any of the stiffness of the dame in the portrait or the shrew I’d seen in action. Her gaze now had scorn in it mingled with commiseration, the look of someone who’s got the upper hand and knows it.
“I wonder how well acquainted you are with the history of Art, Mr. Cage. Not a great deal, I’d suppose. Otherwise you would know that history is full of works that have been re-identified and re-attributed at one time or another: the Cranachs, the Watteaus, the whole school of Rubens, for example. But does that lower their value in any way? Do the museums take them off their walls? A great painting is a great painting, Mr. Cage, no matter who painted it.”
The lesson, I thought momentarily, was over, but she was only warming to her subject.
“You called these fakes, Mr. Cage. But what does that mean? Fakes of what, after all? They’re not copies, are they? Of course not. John … John Blumenstock could never have painted them. Not if he’d lived a hundred years. But your artist … what was his name …?”
She snapped her fingers, searching for it.
“Rillington,” I supplied.
“Rillington. Rillington painted them, Mr. Cage. With his own two hands, starting from raw canvas. At the most he worked in the style of, à la manière de. But since when is it wrong or bad for one artist to be inspired by another? Where is the fakery in that?”
The shrill had come back, but different from the one I knew, full of gaiety and triumph. I didn’t get it in so many words, but the reason for it may have had nothing to do with art history. She’d said it herself: John Blumenstock could never have painted them. In her weird cracked way, maybe she was getting even at last.
Besides, they hadn’t cost her a centime.
“Where is the fakery, Mr. Cage?” she repeated loudly.
“Well,” I said, “there’s the little question of attribution. I’d say …”
“Attribution?” she interrupted. “Ah yes. Who painted them. I see what you mean. But that’s only money, Mr. Cage, crass money. The market. Right now a Blumenstock may be worth a fortune, while your Rillington is unknown. But who is to say that a hundred years from now, when posterity judges, the positions won’t be reversed? In any event, all that has nothing to do with the paintings or their real value. It’s paltry, ephemeral, of no importance. The sickness of our times, if you will. People make a great commotion over nothing. Art is eternal, Mr. Cage. But the people who make the commotion, the promoters, the dealers …,” this with a nod at the company present, “even the collectors …,” with a self-mocking laugh. “We’re nothing but fools, Mr. Cage. Here today and gone tomorrow. A pack of fools.”
She seemed to have finished. I glanced at the others. They had nothing to add. On the contrary, they were perfectly happy to let her say it for them. I looked at the paintings, then out past Johnny Vee at the sun-swept grounds, and the message came across loud and clear: all was well in Chantilly and the world, and the only one out of step was yours truly.
; “I’m glad to hear you taking such a lofty, long-range view, Mrs. Lascault,” I said. “The only trouble is that in all the commotion that’s been going on over these pictures, a lot of people have been getting pushed around. I happen to be one of them, but that’s the least of it. Two of them are dead, and a third would be but for a matter of a couple of centimeters. Maybe that’s of no importance either, but …”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” she interrupted coldly.
“No?” I said. “Well, maybe you wouldn’t at that, the world has a way of protecting you rich folks. But I’d venture to say your husband here does, even though he mightn’t admit it. And Mrs. Dove too. Not to say the celebrated art dealer on my right.”
I could feel the vibrations of hostility coming from him. I paid them no attention.
“There’s also the question of the police, paltry and of no importance as they may be, but they’re also making a commotion and this time they may not be so ready to stop. What’s more, if I’m not mistaken the shooting’s not yet over. Far from it. I can’t figure out what else our friend the Alligator’s doing this far from home. I mean, Vegas is a lot more his style than Chantilly, and I don’t imagine he came all this way just to peddle some pictures. Tell me, Johnny boy,” I said, turning to him finally, “who’s on your hit list besides me? Al Dove? Helen Raven? What about Binty here, maybe she’s on it too?”
He was halfway out of his chair, and his face had gone white. Maybe mine had too.
“You’re all washed up, Cage,” he snarled.
I couldn’t help laughing at him.
“Fuck it, Johnny,” I said. “Why in hell do you guys always have to come on like a bad Cagney movie?”
“Shut up!” Cookie Lascault shrilled behind me. “Both of you!”
He did, but I turned on her.
“No, maybe you don’t know about all that,” I said, “but your husband sure as hell does, and either way it doesn’t add much luster to your reputation.” I pointed at him across the table. “What was it you said, Mr. Lascault? That Paris isn’t Chicago? But if that’s true, all you’ve got to do is bring Chicago in, right? It’s as old as the movies: the hitmen from out of town. You buy off your wife with a couple of worthless paintings, you buy off the police too, and then you bring in your imported muscle to take care of anybody who squawks. It’s a costly affair maybe, and you’ve blown your Blumenstock racket in the bargain, but at the same time you’ve eliminated the middle man, right? Now it’s just you and your silent partner here. Tell me, Johnny boy,” I said, turning back to him, “what’s your percentage of next year’s take?”