Crooked (12 page)

Maureen shook her head, punching the accelerator to beat out a cab for the left lane of the bridge.

“Whoa. Wait a minute,” she said aloud, smiling at Patrick. “Caller ID.”

“Huh?” Patrick crunched his empty beer can and tucked it under the seat.

“The McNarys got pushed around today. Tonight I push back.” Maureen finished her beer, crunched the can, and tucked it under the seat.

BB was on her way home from the Phillips auction when her phone bleeped. She put her Christie’s catalogue on the limo seat and answered.

“Yes?”

“Hi, sweetums.”

BB cocked an eyebrow.

“Mr. Palihnic. Calling to offer me another stolen work of art?”

“I know all about how you moved
Trampoline Nude, 1972
to Honk Kong via a certain courier named Olbeter.”

“You might have a hard time proving such an absurd notion.” BB suddenly felt warm.

“Perhaps. But understand that it’s not necessarily to my advantage that you hang for this. So before you set the cops on me again, I think we should powwow. What say dinner, someplace civil to encourage us to be on our best behavior?”

BB had to think about this. Even if H bit the hand that fed him, his witnessing the painting was not hard evidence. But it could make things a tad uncomfortable, and it could make the papers.

“I mean, this whole thing, provable or not, might be just the sort of thing your competitors might want to believe, if not run through the gossip mill,” Nicholas continued. “And let’s not forget all that mess in Milwaukee a couple years back, respectable art dealers caught red-handed beating someone up with a baseball bat. How much time did that woman Karos get? Ten years? No need for you to end up like her. I’m not in the business of turning people in to the cops. No profit in that. For either of us.”

“Mr. Palihnic, I’m coming to realize you’re less like a dog and more like a cat. You’re annoying, often despicable, but nonetheless a curious little animal.”

“Don’t forget cuddly. Cafe Loui, at eight? It’s right in your neck of the woods, and I’ve made the reservation.”

“Hope you don’t object to being stood up.”

“I’ll wait.
Ciao.
” Nicholas hung up.

The limo pulled up to BB’s uptown studio, and she disembarked. Moth-sized flakes of snow fluttered down from the sky. She disengaged the security system, locked the studio door behind her, and climbed the stairs to her apartment. The light was blinking on her answering machine. She hit the playback button and kicked off her shoes.

“BB, this is Olbeter, just calling to let you know that everything went smoothly. But you already know that, I’m sure. Any other time I can be of service, you know where to reach me. Please let me know when I can send someone by for the fee, uh, tomorrow?”

Bleeep.

“Bea, it’s your old friend Ozzy. That nice Mr. Palihnic dropped by today—I tell you, he’s a treasure. A wealth of information about what’s stolen, that sort of thing. Great gossip. You wouldn’t believe the places things have been stolen from, and the people involved. Fascinating. He said he had a real juicy one, but that he couldn’t tell me what it was. Said you knew about it, and that he could only tell if you said it was OK. I’m calling for the poop, babe. Do tell.”

Bleeep.

“Good evening, BB, it’s Irwin Inquith, in Hong Kong. I just got a most curious call from somebody named Palihnic. He said he was a friend of yours, and that he’d be coming to Hong Kong and wanted to see what I had. But he was very confused, BB, very confused. He said he was sure you said I had
Trampoline Nude, 1972
for sale. I said I did not, that he must have misunderstood you. Naturally, I said nothing about our sale of
Trampoline Nude, 1978,
all things being confidential, don’t you know. Anyway, if you get a chance, could you give me a ring? ’Night.”

Bleeep.

“It’s Karen. Thanks again for lunch and the auction. I’ll be staying home tonight, going through my mail, feeding the cat, you know. So don’t wait up. Remember, you have got to make some magic this week, sweetie. I didn’t want to ruin our time today, but I looked at the books again yesterday and you need cash, Bea, or there’s going to be real trouble. No fooling. Come up with something fabulous. I know you will. You always do. Bye.”

Bleeep.

The machine’s evil red eye stopped blinking. BB was by now stripped down to her black stockings and panties, her hair loosed from its clip. She scowled. She was agitated, but also increasingly titillated by the impending danger. She was looking forward to reining Nicholas in.

Ernesto, the doorman of 501 East 61st Street, had a large, waxed handlebar mustache. It was eight o’clock and he was admiring his greasy whiskers in one of the lobby’s numerous mirrors when a redhead in blue coveralls pushed through the front doors. A toolbox hung from one of her hands, an orange utility phone hung from her belt, and snow dusted the hood of her parka. A Verizon identification card was clipped to her breast pocket, and she jabbed at it with a thumb.

“Phone company.”

“Can I help you?” Ernesto’s handlebar wobbled.

“Yeah, I need to see the junction box.” She stepped past him and looked down the corridor. “It in the basement?”

Ernesto tapped her on the shoulder. “There is a problem?”

“Mrs. Brandenburg and Mr. Tannenbaum both said they been getting crossed lines. Call ’em. They’ll tell you.” She walked over to the doorman’s desk and dropped her toolbox on the floor.

Ernesto picked up the house phone but was unable to reach either party. Little wonder. Earlier that evening, Maureen had looked up Drummond’s exchange in a reverse phone directory on the Web and got a mess of other phone numbers belonging to the residents of 501 East 61st Street. When she was a block away from the building she dialed one after another until she’d got two that didn’t answer.

Hesitating only briefly, Ernesto shrugged and led the way to a basement stairway.

“Past the laundry room, all the way at the end near the gas meter.”

In her years as a police detective, Maureen had on occasion been involved in wiretaps, which at first she’d assumed were highly complex. However, the technicians were only too glad to show the buxom redhead the breadth of their knowledge. A typical explanation went something like: “See this thing? Well, you clip this to the peg, then you press this, and listen into this. And if you wanna record something, you plug this thing inna the phone thingy with the clips and push ‘record.’” Only slightly more complicated than stringing lights on a Christmas tree. When she quit the force, Maureen had invested twelve hundred bucks at the 007 Shop over on Christopher Street for the gadgetry, and this was the first time she’d had a chance to use it. Sure, it was illegal, but the information wasn’t going to be used for evidence but to be a fly on someone’s wall.

She found the junction box, rigged her device on two long wires, and tucked the gizmo discreetly behind the metal cabinet.

But her mind wasn’t entirely on the task at hand. Where would a man like Brady take her to dinner?
He damn well better call.

C h a p t e r                           1 7

 
B
lue light splashed on the walls from behind a phalanx of palmettos. The floors were black, the walls white, the marble columns fake. Hurricane lanterns wired with flicker bulbs created wobbly orange domes of light at each table.
C’est Cafe Loui.

BB’s beaded clutch dropped on the table like a lead maraca, and she sank into the seat opposite Nicholas. She wore a simple black strapless cocktail dress, and her hair was loose for a change. Half lidded, she looked Nicholas over without a word, her demeanor alight with all the enthusiasm of one confronted by an IRS audit.

“Wine?” Nicholas smiled amiably.

BB declined with a wave.

Nicholas shrugged, his tweed suit crunching, and poured some wine for himself. “And here I thought you would be relaxed, ready to talk turkey.”

BB pulled the wine bottle from its bucket and poured herself some wine.
Still with the games,
Nicholas thought.

“Well, I think you should know right off that my idea in buying you dinner is to concede the match.” Nicholas heaved a theatrical sigh. “I’ve been beaten.”

“How so?” BB folded her arms, obviously not believing a word of it.

“I’m saying, I don’t want to go to jail anymore. I’m saying that…” Nicholas drew closer to the lamp and lowered his voice. “I’m saying you got the painting out of the country, I can’t prove you did it, I don’t know where it went, and even if I did, I couldn’t get my hands on it.” He pulled back and gave a big, noisy shrug.

“You were a busy boy this afternoon. Made some calls. What’s this really all about?” BB flashed a sour smile. “Extortion?”

“That?” He waved it off. “It was just to get you to show up. Would you have shown up otherwise?”

BB’s smile withered, and she busied herself with a napkin before asking, “What about the man you murdered? How’s that working out for you?”

“The DA can’t make it stick. Not that they aren’t trying. They’re tailing me most of the time these days.”

BB tensed.

Nicholas continued. “But not now. I ditched them in a bowling alley on University Place.”

“So?” Her sour smile returned.

“So here’s what.” He leaned in confidentially. “The Moolman was a recovery job for which I would have cleared twenty thousand. Nothing to ruin my life over. Not worth it if it were to ruin our relationship.”

“Relationship?”

“Sure.” Nicholas grinned. “I believe we have a potentially constructive relationship. You buy paintings. I get paintings.”

“You think so?” BB attempted a casual laugh, but it came out rather like a hiss.

“Sure. I come upon stuff all the time. Which reminds me, don’t you occasionally pick up the stray Herbert von Clarke?”

“Von Clarke?”

He slid a hand into his breast pocket and pulled out a Polaroid of him holding a bright green and purple canvass.

“All I want is twenty percent and it’s yours.”

She reached for the picture, knocking over her wineglass. “Shit!”

A von Clarke about this time would put her solidly in the black. Nicholas knew that she had a buyer right up in Tarrytown who would pay three and a half million easy for one of this guy’s lush, vibrant abstracts.

Nicholas made the photo vanish, leaning in with his napkin to help mop the tablecloth. His hand brushed hers, and it was sizzling.

“So, do you want von Clarke’s
Day After Day,
or not? I have to move fast on this one, and there are other interested parties. But I thought this might bury the hatchet between you and me.”

“Where did you get it?”

“Let’s just say I found it, and leave it at that.”

“You stole it?”

“No. I recovered it.”

“Then the insurance company will want it back.”

“Not this one. It happens every once in a while. Along with what I’m looking for, I recover a painting that isn’t on any hot sheets. Have Karen check it out.”

A waiter arrived.

“Oh, I see we’ve had an accident.” He snapped his fingers at a distant busboy. “Let me move you to another table.”

BB stood. “Why give it to me?”

“I’m asking you to broker it for me because you can get a lot more than I could. Everyone knows you’re the best dealer in town, get the highest prices. I’m making out even at twenty percent.”

“Don’t bother with the table,” she said to the waiter. She looked positively chalky in the blue light. “We have to leave. I’m sorry.” Grinning thinly, she turned and made for the door.

Nicholas threw two twenties on the table, shrugged at the waiter, and followed her gamely.

Outside, it was a windless night, and big, mothlike snowflakes fell straight down, accumulating into a gelatinous mush on the sidewalk.

“So, what’s it going to be?” He watched BB as she hailed a cab. She slid in, leaving the door open. Nicholas climbed in next to her. He thought about asking where they were going, but decided he’d just wait and see. She was still thinking. So let her think.

She needed that painting, that was clear. But not on his terms. She was the alpha dealer, she called the shots. He couldn’t wait to see what shot she came up with.

They didn’t speak for the block-and-a-half drive back to her studio. She led the way up to her apartment, and only when she turned, took his head in her hands, and kissed him did those dark eyes in that pale round face latch on to his.

She’d almost forgotten how different it was, kissing a man. The jaw felt wide and powerful, pricking her cheek with its fine stubble. And when Nicholas’s body moved to hers, his hands grasped her by the rib cage in a way that both startled and aroused. And that damn suit of Nicholas’s was like grappling a bale of hay. BB didn’t necessarily like the whole sensation—it was unpredictable, and even wrong, though sometimes sex is better that way.

Nicholas was only a little surprised. He was attracted by forceful and deceitful women. Not only did it often translate into sexual assertiveness, but it posed a challenge to maintain the upper hand. A chess master has no time for novices. His dinner with her was all about gamesmanship, and inserting sex into the gambit was a bold move on her part. And of his: bishop for the queen, to force her to start sacrificing pawns and maybe facilitate checkmate in a blunder.

This woman took what she wanted. Fine. Let her think that she’s taking him for a ride. She was sexy, so why not sex?

In the midst of being pushed back onto her desk and scattering stuff onto the floor, he had an unexpected thought. Of Mel, and Sunday dinner the next day. Dottie. It didn’t make him want to stop what was going on. Safe to say men were pretty hardwired when it came to sex. Nicholas in particular. But thoughts like that were like having your mom at the prom. He managed to supplant that with the notion that Karen might walk in on them at any moment.