by Aaron Elkins
We walked to the U-Bahn station at the other side of the plaza and caught one of the subway trains headed downtown. "First of all," I said as we sat down, "I owe you an apology. You were right and I was wrong about what happened to Peter. I went to look at the Hotel Paradies in Frankfurt. He never walked into that place voluntarily."
"Of course he didn't. Do you think there's some connection to the show, then?"
"Yes. So does Harry, by the way."
"Ah, that explains it. I spent an hour over a cup of coffee with him yesterday. He was being very charming and ingenuous, but I was being grilled, all right. About Peter's work, about his habits, his schedule.... He really enjoys being a detective, doesn't he?"
I laughed. "He loves it."
"And how's your own detective work going? Have you gotten anywhere on the forgery?"
"No, except that my best guess now is that it's one of the three from the cache. And it may not be a forgery at all, in the narrow sense. It might be one of Bolzano's copies masquerading as an original, or maybe a genuine old painting that's been restored or reworked—or re-signed—so that it's not what everybody thinks it is."
"Mmm, interesting. But it still leaves a lot of possibilities, doesn't it?"
"Oh, and one more possibility: If it isn't from the cache— if it came out of Bolzano's own Florence collection—then I'm pretty sure it was substituted after and not before it became part of the show. At least," I said, struck with something that hadn't occurred to me before, "I'm sure about it if what the Bolzanos told me is true."
"What did they tell you?"
"That Peter himself was there for the packing."
"That is true. He and Earl spent two days down there getting the pictures ready for shipping."
"What about Egad? Did he go too?"
"I think so, yes. Later, for a day or two. Some sort of paperwork."
We got out at the zoo station and climbed the stairs up into the cold. "You know," she said thoughtfully, zipping up her jacket, "if the forgery did get into the collection after it left Florence, I don't see how it could have happened without one of our own people knowing about it." She frowned, thinking it over. "Isn't that so? Colonel Robey, Egad, or Earl. Or me, I guess, if you want to include eveyone. Or even Peter."
"I don't know about you and Peter, but otherwise I agree with you. It's hard to imagine anyone else having the access or the knowledge to do it. Of course, there's Jessick, or maybe one of the workmen, or some visitor—"
She shook her head. "The guards had specific orders. Only senior staff—and that doesn't include Conrad Jessick—was allowed near the paintings. Anyone else had to have a senior staff member with him. Of course, a guard might have been careless, or even bribed.... Chris, is this starting to sound as bizarre to you as it is to me? I feel like I'm in a movie or something."
"Me too. Let's forget it for a while." We were at the entrance to the zoo. "Still feel like going in?"
"Sure. I missed lunch, though. Can we stop for a snack?"
I was hungry, too, and we followed the signposts to the Zoo Restaurant, past indifferent antelope, gnus, and zebras. We joined a few hardy Berliners and ate outside in the pale sunshine, on the Sud-Terrasse: orange-checked tablecloths and rattan chairs overlooking a wintry but mostly ice-free pond with quacking ducks. Huddled in our coats, we had bratwurst and rolls, hot potato salad, and the invariably good German coffee.
"No," Anne said, dabbing mustard from her lips with a paper napkin, "it just doesn't make sense. How could any of those people be a forger?"
"We're not talking about a forger. Whatever the counterfeit is, it's not a copy that was dashed off in the last few months—or in the last ten or twenty years. It may have been doctored a little to match one of Bolzano's paintings, but that's all. We're talking about a crook—a big-time crook—but not a forger."
"If that was supposed to make me feel better, somehow it doesn't."
"Well, maybe this will. Remember, the most likely possibility is that the forgery is one of the ones from the Hallstatt cache. And if that's true, the crook we're dealing with is probably some sneaky Oberleutnant who's been dead for twenty years."
"Maybe." She looked up from a crumb she was holding out on her palm to a nervy but irresolute sparrow at the edge of the table. "But Peter wasn't killed by a sneaky Oberleutnant who's been dead for twenty years."
"No, not likely. You know, except for Earl, I don't know anything about the others on the staff. Who is Egad, anyway? Where did he come from?"
"Attaboy," she said to the sparrow, which had finally made its move and flown off with its prize. "Is Egad suspect number one?"
"Have to start someplace."
"All right, Egad is Edgar Franklin Gadney, a DOD civilian—"
"Department of Defense?"
"Uh-huh. He's on special assignment to this project— like me. Ordinarily he works for EDPSC as—"
"Would it be too much trouble to speak in words, please?"
"Sorry, the European Defense Personnel Support Center. He's deputy director for subsistence contracting."
I laughed. "Maybe you ought to go back to initials. I don't understand the words either."
She smiled at me. "That's the first time I've seen you laugh."
"It is?" Was it really?
"Yes, you're a very serious person." Very Serious Person is the way she said it. "Terribly formidable and intimidating.
"I am?" She was only half-joking, and I was genuinely surprised.
"Uh-huh, but you look almost human when you smile. It warms up your eyes. You look much better than you did a few days ago, by the way."
"I think you're absolutely fantastic-looking," I blurted out to my own surprise, and God help me, I think I blushed. I had been away from the wars too long; my courtship technique was a little rough.
"Thank you," Anne said, and pleased me by seeming to be pleased herself, but then unnerved me by continuing to regard me and my reddening cheeks with those lovely, solemn, violet eyes.
"Would you like another wurst?" I asked romantically.
"Half of one," she said, "and how about some more coffee?"
"Fine," I said, and made my escape to the cafeteria line.
By the time I returned, I was firmly back at the helm. "Now then," I said briskly, slicing the sausage in two with a plastic knife, "what does it mean to be DDSC of the EDPSC?"
"It means Egad's the deputy purchasing agent for the commissary system."
"Am I wrong, or does that translate to 'assistant buyer for the grocery stores'?"
"No, you're right, but don't look so condescending. It's a tough job, and he's absolutely amazing with details. And he knows everything there is to know about army logistics. Ask him sometime what's involved in getting fifty thousand quarts of Belgian strawberries onto the shelves in ninety commissaries in six different countries before they spoil, if you don't believe me."
"I believe you."
"Which probably won't do you any good. You'll hear about it anyway. Everybody does. But it's worth it. Without Egad—especially since Colonel Robey tends to be a little, well—"
"Off in the clouds?"
"Immersed in thought, I was going to say. Anyway, without Egad, peculiar as he can be, The Plundered Past would be a madhouse." She shook her head firmly. "Nope, sorry. I can't see him as the bad guy."
"All right, who can you see?"
"Well, I could see Earl. Not for any special reason, I mean, just ... What is it? Did I say something clever?"
"I was just remembering something. Harry's a little suspicious of him, too."
"He is? About what? Why?"
"I don't know. He was asking me what I knew about him."
"Oh yes, you knew him from before, didn't you?"
"A little. He's one of the most respected conservators in the States; nobody better. I grant you, though, he oesn't add much to the general hilarity level, does he?"
She laughed and pushed away her empty plate. "Are we going to look at some a
nimals, or are we not?"
"By all means." I picked up her napkin. "Mustard," I said, and dabbed at the tip of her nose, thereby establishing a more intimate level between us, in my own mind at least.
We went from enclosure to enclosure in the handsome zoo, looking at the Elefanten, the Bären, the shaggy Büffel, and one grouchy, cold Kängaruh, and when we got cold ourselves, we went inside to watch the apes get fed.
"What about Robey?" I asked, while the keeper brought out cardboard boxes of oranges, bananas, and lettuce. "How much do you know about him?"
Anne burst out laughing. She had a way of doing it with a sudden little explosion of air, as if she'd been holding her breath, that always made me want to laugh, too.
I smiled, but I didn't know what about. "What's the joke?"
"What made you ask about Colonel Robey?"
"Well, he's the only one we haven't talked about, and—"
"No, I mean, why did you ask just now? This minute?" She was still snuffling with laughter, hardly able to talk, and with her eyes she motioned me to look at the glass-walled, tiled cell in front of us.
I frowned. "The orangutan ... ?" And then I shouted with laughter, too. It was impossible not to. The thing was, it looked exactly like Robey. Not something like him, but just like him: soft heavy body, dreamy drowsy eyes, even a wispy cloud of orange-red hair that covered but didn't hide his scalp. While the other animals ate, the orang sat placidly, slowly rotating a banana before its face, lost in contemplation of its mysteries.
"God," I sputtered, "put a pipe in its mouth and a uniform on it, and it could chair our next staff meeting. Nobody would know the difference."
We had to move on, to a morose gorilla, before we could stop laughing.
"That's better," I said. "More like Earl."
Her hand went to her mouth. "Chris, please, don't start me off again." She pulled in a deep breath. "Whew. Now, what was the question?"
'Tell me about Mark."
"Right. He's head of HNR—darn, did it again; it's an occupational hazard—Host-Nation Relations. As I understand it, The Plundered Past truly was his personal idea, and so he likes to oversee it, but Egad does all the real administration, and I help where I can."
The apes had gotten their food, and the building was getting stuffy, so we went outside again, averting our eyes from the orangutan. We stood for ten minutes in front of the cage with the famous Chinese pandas, waiting for them to do something, but they slept, snoring, the whole time, curled up in chubby balls of black and white.
Anne looked at them and laughed when they scratched their noses or turned over in their sleep with discreet little snorts. And I looked at Anne, trying to figure out what it was that was so devilishly attractive about her. She was pretty, but not that pretty. She reminded me, in fact, of the heroines in romance novels. Not quite beautiful in the usual sense (whatever that is); eyes set a little too far apart (never too close together); nose a trifle too pert, even tilted (never too long or hooked down); mouth a little too wide and generous (never narrow, and never, never ungenerous). The total effect was devastating.
She caught me looking at her, or maybe I let her catch me, and we turned away from the pandas to begin walking again. "I know a little about everyone involved with the show now, except for you," I said, cunningly shifting the conversation to a personal level. "Who's Anne Greene?"
"So I'm a suspect, too?"
"You wouldn't want me to play favorites, would you?" I was ready to kick myself for being arch. This fumbling, getting-to-know-each-other process was positively painful. It had me self-consciously chafing over almost everything I said. What had been titillating fun at eighteen or nineteen—at least that was the way I remembered it—was agony for an out-of-practice thirty-four-year-old.
But still titillating.
"Yes, I would," Anne said, "but I'll tell you anyway. I'm on special assignment to Colonel Robey. Ordinarily I work in Community Liaison Services—"
"Usually called CLS, of course."
"No; for some reason ordinarily called Community Liaison, but you're learning. I'm a sort of glorified tour guide, a contact between visiting VIPs—congressmen, foreign dignitaries, media people—and the military community. I have to make sure they get to see who they're supposed to, and don't get to see who or what they're not supposed to. And I seem to spend a lot of my time smoothing over rough spots before they become 'incidents'—not always successfully."
"You don't sound like a glorified tour guide to me. Where are you headquartered?"
"Berchtesgaden. That's where I'm taking off for tonight. The annual visit of the Congressional oversight committee on military morale starts tomorrow." She grimaced. "The big event of the social year."
"I didn't know there were any American facilities in
Berchtesgaden. Isn't that where Hilter had his mountaintop retreat—the Obersalzberg, is it called? Are you anywhere near there?"
"We're in it. Or on it. The whole Obersalzberg is a U.S. military R and R operation. Some of the Nazi-era buildings are still standing, and they're army hotels now. There are restaurants, a golf course, ski lift—it's a great place to show visitors, which is why I'm stationed there; lucky me."
"You like it?"
"Anybody would like it. Hilter had a great eye for scenery. The Bavarian Alps are breathtaking. It'll be like heaven after Berlin."
"I imagine so. How long will you be there?"
"Eight days. I'll be back next weekend for the reception."
Eight days? I wanted to groan with dismay. Eight whole days? I smiled and said, "That'll be nice for you."
We had left the zoo and turned into the Tiergarten, that elegant swath of woods and meadow in the heart of the city, green even in December. We walked up the Spreeweg, past the Schloss Belvedere, the delicate canary-yellow chateau that serves as the presidential residence in Berlin, and then along John-Foster-Dulles-Allee, where we watched chilled, miserable-looking scullers in sleek five-man shells gliding an ice-free quarter mile or so up and down the Spree.
For perhaps fifteen minutes we didn't talk while I moped along, and then I had an idea. "Berchtesgaden sounds great," I mused casually. "I wonder if my ID card would get me in. I'll probably be able to use a little R and R before long."
"Are you serious? Wednesday's Christmas; why don't you come down for a couple of days? I'll give you the super-duper tour usually reserved for only the most august visitors, like TV anchormen."
"Gee, that's a great idea," I said as innocently as Tony Whitehead might have done it.
"Fine," she said, and again we walked without saying anything, but conscious of something good in the air. This boy-girl maneuvering wasn't all agony by any means.
"How did you get assigned to the exhibition?" I asked. "I suppose you got involved with all the hoopla over the cache, and then just stayed with it?"
She nodded. "That's the way it was. Hallstatt isn't that far from Berchtesgaden, and when that soldier stumbled on those crates in the Salzbergwerke—that's the salt mine ... oops, I believe you sprechen deutsch, if I'm not mistaken."
"Anne, I really am sorry about that."
"I know you are," she said laughing. "Don't go all frowny on me again. God, you're so intense."
"Intense? Where do you get these ideas about me? That I never laugh, that I'm intense.... I am not intense. I am anything but intense. I am easygoing; relaxed to the point of somnolence."
"So why the puckered brow?"
I unpuckered. "I seem to get a little nervous around you, that's all. How about some chestnuts?"
We bought an aromatic bagful from a vendor who had them roasting over a brazier of charcoal, and munched while we walked. Mostly I asked questions and Anne told me about herself. She was thirty years old; she was from Syracuse, New York; and she had an M.A. in career counseling. She'd joined the air force as an educational-services officer after they'd promised her tours of duty in the Far East and Europe. They'd kept their word on the tours, but in time-hallowed m
ilitary fashion she'd been assigned to Community Liaison, and there she'd stayed. To her surprise she'd enjoyed it. She'd been a captain for two years, and a pair of major's oak leaves was in the offing if she decided to stay in.
She'd been married for two years in her early twenties, she told me, getting down to important things, but had made a bad job of it, and she now saw two or three men on an intermittent basis, but they were just friends. More or less. (You can imagine how fiendishly subtle my ensuing questions were. Nevertheless, I could get no elucidation beyond "more or less.")
"All right," she said, tossing a steaming chestnut from hand to hand. "Now you. I'm having a hard time figuring you out."
"What is there to figure out? I'm not very complex."
"I don't know about that. You look like a, well, like an average guy with not too terribly much upstairs, if you'll forgive me for saying so, so that it's a shock when you start talking. You're very articulate, you know, very cogent—"
"Formidable," I said. "Intimidating."
"Highly. But then when you loosen up, there's another layer that comes peeking through, kind of wistful and vulnerable—that's very 'in' now, you know—with a sense of humor ... even sexy, I suppose, if you happen to like the type."
"Thanks, I think." On balance, it was an improvement over Bev's evaluation. "What can't you figure out?"
"Which layer is really you?"
"Oh, the sexy one. Ask anybody."
"Well. I'm certainly glad to have that settled. Now, what else should I know about you?"
I was glad to talk about myself, and Anne was a good listener. In twenty minutes she knew more about me— about my recent past—than I'd ever expected to tell anyone.
"You walked in one day and your wife wasn't there?" she asked incredulously. "Just like that? Out of nowhere?"
"Yes." We were at the eastern edge of the Tiergarten now, which is also the edge of West Berlin. We had walked along quiet, pretty paths at the very foot of the ugly Wall, past the gaunt, shell-scarred Reichstag, past the Brandenburg Gate (visible through one of the checkpoints), past the colossal marble soldier atop the Soviet Army Memorial (the Grim Raper, the West Berliners call it).