by Cara Black
“Gave my mother a real headache, trying to get his son, the old man, to empty it.”
“But I don’t care. Can’t I just see it? You’d really help me out.”
“She’s in charge, desolé, not up to me.” He opened the door.
She couldn’t let him go.
“Could I measure it? We’d go for the apartment if I knew I could fit the bikes and an old chest down there.” She smiled. “I love this street. Had my eye on the building. I know I could convince my boyfriend, but …”
“The soccer match on the télé starts in three minutes.” He picked up his bag.
Poor mec, she hated to push but couldn’t lose this opportunity. “Would you mind giving me the cellar key?” She gave another smile. “Won’t take me but ten minutes. Then I’ll tour the apartment with your mother.”
A sigh, then he reached for something inside the closet. Handed her an old-fashioned, rusted key. “Number C-twenty-four. Watch out for rat droppings. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
He wanted to get rid of her and watch the game. Fine by her.
Her penlight beam wavered over the dirt floor in the cellar tunnel. A row of water-stained coved doors with numbers stretched along the cellar tunnel. Only a single naked bulb illuminated the space.
C24 opened with the key and a wave of musty air hit her. What was she looking for? A sign that Yuri had found a Modigliani that had been left here for more than seventy years? All she discovered in the shadows were rat turds and a broken chair on the hard earth floor.
“Mademoiselle?”
A plump black-haired woman shone a flashlight.
“I’ve already rented the apartment.” Her words rolled with an Italian accent. “The storage goes with it. You’ll need to find another place for your bicycle.”
“A shame, but merci, Madame,” Aimée said, racking her mind for a way to prolong the conversation. This woman might offer some insight. “Nice cleanup for a space full of seventy-something years’ worth of garbage. Least that’s what your son—”
“Porca miseria, don’t get me started,” the woman said. “A health hazard. I could do nothing until that old buzzard’s son finally came. He should thank me, he should. Found a masterpiece, or so he claimed.”
The woman liked to talk. And used her hands, evidenced by the flashlight’s yellow beam waving over the damp stone walls.
“By masterpiece you mean a painting?” Aimée shook her head. “Like a Rembrandt?”
The woman shrugged. “I don’t know. He seemed excited enough. These things happen, sì? People find treasures at flea markets, in attics. Down here all that time, wrapped up. Wouldn’t surprise me if it’s worth a fortune, that’s how it always happens. But you only know for sure if you get it appraised.”
Aimée followed the flashlight beam back up the steps, glad to leave the whiffs of decay and humidity behind her. Mortar crumbled under her feet.
“That’s what I told him,” the woman continued. “Let an expert examine it. Take it to an auction house, or an art gallery, a museum—I don’t know.” She laughed, a deep laugh from her stomach. “He says to me, Madame Belluci, you’re right. I promise to buy you a nice dinner.”
“He took your advice! Did he buy you that dinner?”
“That’s the funny thing,” Madame Belluci said. “We have reservations tonight at La Tour d’Argent. He told me we’d have champagne with the art dealer.”
Reservations Yuri couldn’t keep. “Lucky you. A prominent, well-known art expert, I assume?”
“I don’t know.”
Aimée paused. “Then I won’t keep you, you’re busy.” She glanced at her Tintin watch. “Eight o’clock comes early, I know. Keep me in mind if a space opens up for bikes, okay?”
Madame Belluci ran her hand through her curly hair, blew a gust of air out of her mouth. “But I didn’t say eight. Dinner’s at nine.”
Now Aimée knew what to do. She forgot the unpleasantness of Florent’s groping—finding the parking ticket had led to the cellar and the concierge. Now the art dealer.
No one got reservations at La Tour d’Argent at such short notice unless they were connected. Yuri wasn’t, so she figured the art dealer must be.
Ten minutes later, she entered La Tour d’Argent on Quai de la Tournelle. Afternoon light spilled over the gold sconces, red carpet so thick it muffled her footsteps, the red-velvet-flocked wallpaper soaked up conversation. The place exuded privilege.
An entrée cost the price of a pair of gently worn Louboutins. Even if she won the lottery, not her type of place. A tuxedoed maître d’ took one look at her outfit. “Mademoiselle, our last seating for luncheon’s full.”
She pulled out her father’s police ID doctored with her photo. Shot him a measured smile and gestured to the tall reception podium.
“No fuss no muss, Monsieur. Please cooperate and show me the dinner reservations for this evening.”
He hesitated. Adjusted his tie. “Anything I should know?”
“Pre-security detail,” she said. “I’m sure you know what that means.”
President Chirac, while notorious for being a palace homebody, had a proclivity for spontaneous visits to restos of this caliber with his daughter. It drove his bodyguards and security detail nuts, but, according to one she knew, it was the best possible security—if no one at the restaurant knew he was coming, no assassin would either. Reservations would be made under a false name, but contingent on a green light from security, who’d make a quick sweep a few hours prior.
“Extra measures, Monsieur. I’m sure you understand, n’est-ce pas?”
The maître d’ gave a knowing look, inclined his distinguished white head. So Chirac had dined here before.
“Bien sûr.” He turned the thick vellum pages toward her.
“We’re wondering about an old friend, an art dealer.”
“Monsieur Luebet, party of three, at nine P.M.”
“And his gallery, Monsieur?”
“Laforet on Montparnasse.”
Maître d’s knew everyone. That was their job. Only three people—Yuri, the art dealer Luebet, and the concierge. Yuri hadn’t invited his stepson.
“Most helpful. Merci, Monsieur.”
He smiled and executed a little bow. “I’ll drop a word to the chef to have aiguillette de canard et foie gras, gelée de porto on the menu. His favorite.”
“You do that.”
A WORLD-CLASS FOUR-STAR dinner tallied for an art dealer expecting a fat commission on a Modigliani. Several scenarios spun in her head: Yuri, following the concierge’s suggestion, takes the painting to Luebet, with Damien driving the camionnette. Luebet, recognizing a true Modigliani, this unique lost treasure, strikes a deal with Yuri to handle the sale and perform a professional appraisal for authentication the next morning. Meanwhile Luebet, counting his poulets before they hatched, lines up potential buyers, interested museums, and makes a reservation to celebrate.
But if that had been the case, wouldn’t Yuri have lodged the painting with Luebet for safekeeping? She remembered his stricken look when he opened the pantry to discover it empty. And the fact that he was tortured—none of it made sense. But Luebet would know something.
Gunning her scooter, she reached the Boulevard du Montparnasse and found Luebet’s gallery closed. She tried the gallery number. Only voice mail. She left a message.
Who stole the painting? Who tortured Yuri? Not her job to find out, but she couldn’t put it out of her mind. Nor could she forget the Serb who’d found Saj’s name. But she had a business to run. She called to check in at the office.
“Any Indian attacks, Maxence?”
“Only a few sales calls, if you call those—”
“Attends, Maxence.” She didn’t feel good about a kid assuming René’s position and making sales pitches for their security. “I’ll handle those.”
“Bon. Iridium and Netex faxed the proposals back and accepted,” he said. “I was about to fax them contracts, but I’ll leave it for you.”
Two new contracts? He’d just faxed the proposals out this morning. The kid impressed her.
“All right, go ahead and prepare contracts. Use the template in my file and just fill in the parameters from the proposals. Anything else?”
“Virus scans have been run. I’m digging more in Xincus on Yuri Volodya. All quiet on the western front.”
“Good job. See you later.” She hung up.
Maxence had it under control. She tried to ignore her feeling of superfluousness and concentrate on the problems at hand—Yuri’s murder, this painting, and Saj.
She was still holding her phone when it rang again.
“Oui?”
“Mademoiselle Leduc, I’m Monsieur Luebet’s assistant,” said a smooth voice. “He’s unavailable today but I can schedule an appraisal tomorrow.”
Didn’t the inherited Matisse she’d lied about on her message merit more consideration? The longer she waited, the worse her chances of ever finding this painting. And then another scenario hit her—what if Luebet had arranged the robbery? Contracted it out to the Serb to steal the Modigliani so he could show up pink and innocent for the appraisal? But the Serb was dead, the painting gone. She could only spin theories until she spoke to Luebet.
“I’m afraid that’s too late,” she said. “Two dealers have already expressed interest in the Matisse.”
This should put fire under the receptionist to contact Luebet.
“Alors, Mademoiselle,” the receptionist said, her voice now rushed. “Let me see what I can do.”
“But if he’s not in Paris, I can’t wait,” she said. “A shame, I heard he’s the best.”
“As soon as his curating meeting finishes at the Musée Bourdelle …”
Aimée clicked off. Now she knew where to find Luebet. It was vital that she glean more about the Modigliani from him. She might even show him Piotr’s letters in exchange for information.
AIMÉE POCKETED HER scooter key, smoothed down her cashmere cardigan, and took a deep breath. That hint of spring hovered in the pocket of warm air engulfing the Musée Bourdelle’s open garden. Passing the garden’s massive, ample-figured female sculptures made her think of the kilo she’d gained lately. She wondered if she would have completely let herself go by the time Melac came back from his new assignment—one so hush-hush he couldn’t reveal its nature—if he ever came back. Her life was such a mess lately. She needed to figure out how to cope better with the constant worry over Melac’s safety, the danger he faced every day on the job. Not to mention she’d been neglecting poor Miles Davis. She made a mental note to straighten out her priorities. Later.
Aimée paid her fifteen-franc admission. A yawning member of the museum staff tore her ticket in half at the door. She hurried by the wall history explaining Bourdelle’s apprenticeship under Rodin and his mentoring of Giacometti, continued out through the rose-pink portico and turned left. A brown wooden door labeled ATELIER, then an arrow to LES BUREAUX ADMINISTRATIFS.
Inside she found not an airy, light-filled studio but damp, peeling walls, a rusted charcoal stove, aged wooden beams, and old metal sculpture tools, illuminated only by gray slants of daylight. She shivered, missing the sun-drenched garden she’d just come from. The cross-hatched wood-slatted floor creaked under her heels. Each step echoed, filling her with the sense of having stepped into another time.
“Takes you somewhere else, non?” A man spoke from the shadows. “As if the sculptor will walk in and take up from where he left off on that arm.” The stranger pointed to the half-finished marble figure. “Just as Bourdelle left it in 1929.”
True. She wondered if the dank cold had given the artist chilblains. Not her idea of prime working conditions.
She walked toward the shadow. A guide. “I’m looking for the administrative offices, the director.”
“Keep going.”
Aimée followed the directions, taking her through an ivy-walled walkway leading to a warren of offices. As archaic as the rest of the museum.
“Monsieur Luebet?” said the young secretary. “But you just missed him, Mademoiselle.”
Again, too late.
An older man in a suit emerged from a back office waving a folder. “Luebet rushed off and forgot this. Stick it in the mail for him, s’il vous plaît.”
Aimée sensed an opportunity.
“Monsieur Luebet’s gone?” Aimée said. “But he said to meet here.”
“And you are?”
Prepared, Aimée pulled out a card with a generic company name. “Lisette. We specialize in packing artwork. Custom crating, shipments.”
The man shrugged. “Something urgent came up at his gallery.”
“Vraiment? That’s a problem, since he’s not answering his mobile.”
“Try the gallery.”
She shrugged. “If he took his car, I’ll never make it in time.”
“You’re in luck, Mademoiselle. Luebet took the Métro today,” the man said. “He complained he couldn’t drive in because of all the street demonstrations.”
“Merci, Monsieur.”
The older man returned to the office, the secretary to the fax machine grinding out papers. Aimée slipped the file under her jacket. She’d hand it to him in person. Forget negotiating the Vespa through a demonstration and the underpass; faster to go on foot.
Minutes later she approached the side entrance of Montparnasse, the octopus-tentacled station with multilevel rail lines—the TGV, the suburban RER, and the deep Métro. Luebet might get off at Edgar Quinet station and walk up to his gallery on Boulevard du Montparnasse, or direct to Vavin. Either route offered a stop with a short walk to his gallery.
Two different lines and tunnels. Which one to take?
Hell, she didn’t even know what he looked like.
Or whether he’d told the truth about an urgent summons to his gallery. But she had to start somewhere. She took the closest tunnel, jumped on the first train—the Number 6 line toward Place d’Italie.
On the softly rocking train, she opened the file. Read the contents; scribbled lines from a curatorial committee on a grid-lined pad. Notes to himself about a Bourdelle sculpture exhibition at his gallery. Behind it a small, metal-clasped manila envelope labeled M—Find it this time.
What did that mean? Curious, she wedged her fingernail under the clasp, opening the envelope to find a wallet-sized Polaroid photo, overexposed and stained by emulsion. In it she could just make out Yuri standing before a small canvas spread on a worktable, and a tall man in a pinstripe suit holding the canvas’s corner—she took the man for Luebet. Both men were half turned toward a painting. Yuri’s atelier window framed them in the background.
The painting leapt out of the blurry detail of the photo. A younger Lenin with more hair—a bicycle in the background—holding a book, a paper? Its vibrancy shone through.
Luebet had been in a hurry all right if he’d forgotten this. Rattled—by what? But this was proof Yuri had shown Luebet the painting. She wondered who had taken the photo.
M—Find it this time. More pieces clicked together in her mind. Uneasiness ground in her stomach. If her hunch about this note was right, Luebet, a respected art dealer, was after this Modigliani, too. Could he have hired a thief himself?
Whom had he rushed off to meet? A buyer? Her thoughts spiraled. M—the thief he’d hired? The one who’d tangled with the Serb, caused his death somehow? She didn’t know how Feliks had died, but she was certain now that his death was directly linked to the painting’s theft. Two people, Feliks and Yuri, had been murdered over this painting. She remembered that white van that had pulled in front of them moments before the Serb fell on René’s windshield—was it connected? She was guessing the Serb had been interrupted in an attempted robbery by whoever had succeeded in stealing the painting, then killed him; but that person would have had no reason to come back and torture Yuri. That meant there were at least two ruthless parties involved in this mess, and still no painting. A web growing more complicated and dangerous�
�and somehow Luebet was involved.
René, always cautious, would have told her to pull out before getting too involved. Forget this while she could.
By now Luebet might have discovered he’d left this envelope behind. She imagined him irate on the phone with the helpful curator at Musée Bourdelle. Guilt invaded her for a moment.
But she had Yuri’s cash in her bag. And no other way to find her mother. She needed to reach Luebet. Talk to him.
The train jerked. Brakes squealed. A moment later it shuddered to a halt in the tunnel, throwing Aimée and her fellow passengers against the seats. Lights flickered. Her arm cracked against a bar before she grabbed it. Bags skittered across the floor; an old woman cried out.
The train car plunged into darkness—like night. The air filled suddenly with the smell of burning rubber. A loudspeaker crackled and buzzed. “Mesdames, Messieurs, due to an accident grave de voyageur, there’s an interruption on the line. Service is at a standstill. We ask for your patience.”
A murmur rumbled through the passengers in the darkness. Aimée imagined the knowing looks they would share if they could see each other. “Accident grave de voyageur” was the standard euphemism for a track jumper. A suicide.
Notorious on the Number 6 line, which served three hospitals, one of them Saint Anne’s, the psychiatric facility.
This could take God-knows-how-long, she thought, rubbing her bruised arm and imagining the grim scene ahead. With her feet she felt for her bag, which had lodged under the next seat, then recovered her penlight. She shone it toward the old woman huddled on the floor, whimpering and gasping for breath. With another passenger, she helped the old woman to a seat and tried to calm her.
After what felt like a long time, the lights flickered. The doors cranked open to another wave of burning rubber odor. Passengers were instructed to step down in the pitch-black tunnel to the narrow service walkway hugging the wall above the track. Taking the old woman’s arm, she eased her down onto the dark ledge and guided her along the blackened tunnel walls. Ahead Aimée could see lights reflecting on the gleaming white tiles on the wall of the platform at station Edgar Quinet.
“Not far, Madame,” she said.