A Brush With Death (2 page)

“We must do that,” he said, but already his mind had reverted to Van Gogh. “I was so sure I'd get that assignment. I'd been studying all about Vincent van Gogh—I read his letters and everything. All three volumes. Poor bastard, what a rotten life he had. Only sold one painting in his whole life. Can you imagine, painting about a thousand, and only selling one? It went for peanuts. And now, when it's too late to do him any good, he gets over fifty mil for one canvas. Not one of his best either, in my opinion."

“It's a kind of lunacy. No painting could be worth that much."

“It's like anything else. It's worth what somebody's willing to pay for it."

“They must be people with more money than brains."

John had lifted his empty glass, and the waiter came trotting with another Bloody Marie. I was more hungry than thirsty, and grabbed the celery that he set aside, the easier to gulp down the vodka.

“Are you interested in hitting the slopes over Christmas?” he asked. “Some good skiing in Quebec."

“ want to go home for Christmas!” I exclaimed.

“Oh, yeah. Well, it's only the nineteenth. You could cut a few classes, and we'll head up to the Laurentians for a couple of days."

“I'm writing exams, John. If you'd let me know you were coming—and why didn't you write, or phone, since you apparently have a phobia of pens?"

“Exams! Oh shit. Do you
have
to..."

“This just happens to be my career we're talking about. Of course I have to. You were the one who thought I should finish at the university,” I reminded him.

He took another swig of the drink. “I probably never would have heard the end of it if I hadn't."

I am not slow to wrath, and John is not usually bitchy. My joy at seeing him was quickly congealing to annoyance at his attitude. “Why don't they bring our food? I have to study this afternoon,” I said impatiently.

John didn't say anything, but the brown eye he flashed at me had lost its puppy warmth. He sensed my mood and asked, “How is the studying going anyway?"

“Fine."

“I'm sorry I'm such lousy company. It's just that I was really hot on the Van Gogh thing. It would have meant we could more or less settle down, somewhere in the Netherlands probably. I wouldn't have to be jauntering all over the world. I'm getting a bit tired of it. The glamour wears thin after you've circled Orly or Dorval or Leonardo da Vinci airport for the umpteenth time. You begin to wonder just what the hell you're doing, living half your life in the clouds, and the other half chasing after crooks."

“The Netherlands!” I said weakly. When I dream of our future life, I assure you it does not involve dikes or tulips. It was those disparaged trips to Paris and Rome that whetted my appetite. “Holland, huh? How nice. I'm studying the wrong language."

“The Hague's a nice, clean city."

“Clean, yes.” Cleanliness I could get at home. I picked up my glass and drained it, and lifted it for a refill.

He studied me carefully. “You don't like it."

“Not much."

“What is it that's turned you off?” I watched with amazement as his face stiffened, and his eyes took on a look of some negative emotion. “Is it another guy?” he asked, in a hard, don't give a damn voice, that didn't fool me for a minute.

“No, silly. It's Holland.” He gulped noiselessly, his jaw unstiffened, and a quiet little smile lifted his lips. Not anger then; it had been fear. “Couldn't Paris be your basis of operation? You said Paris had Van Goghs too. And anyway, Jeff got the job, you said."

“Yes, Jeff got the job, so we can forget about the Hague. Oh good, here's our food."

The beef, simmering in a wine and mushroom sauce, melted in the mouth. The snowpeas were just right, with a vestige of crunch, and lightly sautéed in butter and shallots. I have never had bread like they make in Quebec anywhere else. A puff of yeasty air, held in place by a crisp brown crust. The Médoc John chose to go with it wasn't bad either. I could hardly find room for the chocolate mousse. When I tell you I left two whole forkfuls on my plate, you will realize the meal was more than filling.

John scrawled his signature, hardly glancing at the bill, though my Argus eye noticed that it came to three figures. It was cheap at the price.

“It's almost worth the lethal traffic for a meal like that,” John said, patting his tummy. “So, I guess I take you to your place to hit the books. Can I see you tonight?"

“You bet. What will you be doing this afternoon?"

He hesitated a telltale moment before answering. “I have a little something I have to look into."

My sixth sense received a red flash. “John, are you on a case? You said you came to visit
me
!"

“I did! Of course I did. But while I'm here, there's a guy I want to look up."

He was helping me on with my coat, lifting my hair out from the bunched-up hood with loving, clinging fingers.

“What guy?” I pinned him with a demanding stare.

“No, you're busy: You go on and study. I'll see you tonight."

“What guy?” I repeated.

“Well if you must know, he's a forger, Yves Latour by name, but..."

Blood sang in my veins. My ears hummed, and the portals of paradise opened a crack. “I'll study tonight. Tell me all about him while we drive to his place. Are we going to do a stakeout?"

He shook his head and laughed. “It looks like it."

“Where does this Yves Latour live?” I asked.

“That's the first thing I have to find out. He won't be in the phone book. Let's sit a minute while we sort this out."

We sat in the marble and plush lobby of the Bonaventure while he told me about Yves Latour.

“Since art has become such big business, there are a lot of guys doing forgeries and imitations. Of course some of them get caught by all the new analytical methods—X-ray rigs, analyzing the pigments by optical emission spectographs, infrared spectrometer. They use a laser microanalyzer and gas chromatograph—mass spectrophotometer and..."

“I get the idea, John."

“The company sent me on a course,” he grinned. “They have lots of other complicated technical stuff. The Doerner Institute in Bavaria is one of the best, if not
the
best for that kind of work. Even with all that technology, some of the forgers still escape them."

“Can't all those spectro things tell them the age of the canvas and paints?"

“A lot of the old masters used wood, not canvas. The forgers have gone hi tech too. They pry off an old table top of the right period, and use the right pigments. Get the craquelure quality of the finish by putting it in an oven. One guy even ground up an old lead clock weight to add to his white pigment, to beat the half-life test. The guys are good. In spite of all the technology, the human eye and common sense are still the best detectors."

“Does Yves Latour do all these tricks?"

“Some of ‘em. Van Gogh moved around a lot, and he was usually so poor that he used whatever came to hand. The same colors keep cropping up—vermilion, cadmium yellow, ultramarine, cobalt, viridian, but in different kinds of pigments, so he's hard to pin down. He even did some on coarse, unprimed canvas—like hessian, though he usually used ordinary primed canvas. He was a bit of an experimenter, so you can't just rule out anything of the right age."

“His style is certainly distinctive though."

“A distinctive style is the easiest kind to forge, believe it or not. What tipped us off is that too many ‘new’ Van Gogh's started turning up. Not copies, new paintings never seen before. Of course Vincent was prolific, but even
he
had his limits. Latour started with sketches. Sold half a dozen, then struck out into oils. That's where they caught him. They found impurities in his reds. He escaped Europe a step ahead of Interpol's Art and Fraud Squad and skipped to North America. The guy's a Belgian, incidentally."

“Like Hercule Poirot."

“Yeah, and about that cagey. But he doesn't speak English, just French and Dutch, so we figured he came to the biggest French-speaking city outside of Europe, Montreal."

“Where does your company come into it?"

“We took a hosing on Latour. Two of his forged drawings were stolen shortly after they were bought. We have reason to believe Latour ‘sold’ them to a friend, who arranged to have them stolen, and they split the hundred thou we paid in insurance. So I'm here to find Latour and whop a confession out of him, and make him promise not to be a bad boy again. If he pulled his sell and steal act on paintings instead of just sketches, we could be in big trouble."

“And of course you're here to see me,” I reminded him with a sapient eye.

“Hey, that's the main reason. But while I'm here ...'

“Let's find a phone book."

“He won't be listed as Yves Latour. What we'll have to do is hit some galleries and find out who's been trying to peddle some Van Goghs."

“Let's try the phone book at least. Maybe he's anglicized his name to Tower. That's what Latour means."

“It's worth a shot."

Incredible as it seems, there was a Y. G. Tower on Côte des Neiges. John said Yves's second name was Gerard. He had the car brought around and I directed him up the mountain to Côte des Neiges. The name seemed particularly suitable that day. It looked like a snow coast. I peered out the car window for numbers while John set his jaw to the precarious task of driving in the snow, in Montreal's lawless traffic. As we drew near, we realized Latour lived in one of the apartment high-rise buildings, which made it possible for us to park in the visitors’ parking lot. We pressed half a dozen buttons to get into the building. Y. G. Tower was on the seventh floor, apartment
5.
We took the elevator up and began looking for his door.

It occurred to me that a forger might keep a gun, and when he found himself in imminent danger of arrest, he might use it. “Do you have a gun?” I asked John.

He patted his pocket and grinned. “I never leave home without it. But I don't think we're going to visit Yves yet. I'd like to get in and have a look around first. It might be interesting to see who he's forging these days."

“You can do that after you arrest him."

“I'm not a cop, and I'd just as lief we keep the fuzz out of this, for the time being at least. I want a nice leisurely look around, which I won't get if Yves puts up a fight. If what I find is interesting, I'll call in the A and F boys. For that matter, we don't even know Tower is Latour."

“What do we do if he's at home?"

He took a cigarette lighter and a package of cigarettes out of his pocket. John doesn't smoke, so I knew he was up to something. “A camera?"

“My Bic-Pic,” he grinned, and lit it. It really was a lighter too. “I'll get a shot of Yves for my own personal files. When he leaves, we'll come back and search."

We were checking out the apartment numbers as we went along the hall. “It must be around that corner,” I said. “We can't just lurk around the hall for hours on the chance that he'll come out."

John stepped up and tapped on the door. “The French I hear on the street here isn't much like the French I know. In case Latour speaks the local lingo, you'd better talk to him."

“What will I say?"

“Wing it.” I stared in mute horror. There were sounds behind the door. “You can ask him if he's interested in donating to the orphans’ overcoat fund,” John said, taking out a cigarette and readying his Bic-Pic.

“You've got to be kidding!"

Before we had time for argument, the door opened and a friendly looking man said,
"Bonjour. Puis-je vous aider?"
He didn't speak the local patois. And of course he didn't speak English. My French was coming along, but I felt so foolish I didn't want to dun him for money. To stall for time, I said,
"Parlez-vous anglais, Monsieur?"

I saw John stick a cigarette between his lips, take aim and light it.
"Un peu,"
the man said, still smiling. He really seemed very nice. He had a lot of curly hair, dark brown, streaked with gray. I thought he was about thirty-nine or forty. The hair nestled on his forehead, and clung to his neck. He wore a mustache not unlike John's, which is full and untrimmed. The outfit he wore was slightly Bohemian, which supported the artist theory. His loose purple shirt was embroidered in the front, vaguely suggestive of the sixties.

Confusion made me nervous, and I stammered out a foolish question in franglais about wanting his views on the commercialization of Christmas for my university newspaper. He asked me what university I attended, and of course I said McGill.

"Ah, c'est bon. Mes élèves ne sontpas si belles,"
he smiled, including John to avoid the idea he was hitting on me.
"Je suis professeur à l'Ecole des Beaux Arts."

John lit his cigarette again, for good measure. The man went on to say that he was just on his way to class, but if I was doing a survey, I could put him on the side of the angels as deriding the degradation of a holy feast to a money-spending spree. “Adults are old enough to realize the meaning of Christmas is love, not commerce."

I said,
"Merci beaucoup, Monsieur,"
and we left.

Once the door was closed I turned in excitement to John and whispered, “He teaches at the Beaux Arts, John! It's got to be Latour."

“Of course it is. The guy's as phony as a three dollar bill. Funny he gave himself an English name, when he doesn't speak the lingo. His accent sounded European, didn't you think?"

“It sure wasn't
joual
.” We headed to the elevator.

“What's
joual
?"

“That dialect you hear in the streets. It's the French-Canadian accent, kind of like English Cockney, or American Brooklynese."

“Funny name they chose for it."

“It's the way they pronounce
cheval
."

“So you're learning to speak horse?” he asked, and laughed.

“Only incidentally. That's not what they teach at McGill. It looks as though this is your chance to get into Latour's apartment. He said he was leaving for a lecture."

John looked cagey. “That's what he
said
. It might be worth following him. If he is going to a class, we'll have time to come back and search. If he got the idea I was doing more than lighting a cig, he might have been lying."