Authors: Alafair Burke
H
ank Beckman was only forty-eight years old, but there were days when he felt old as dirt. The creeping reminders of the ever-present passage of time certainly didn’t help: that little potbelly that materialized a few years back without any explanation, each move of the pin to a lighter notch on the weight machines at the gym, the pain he’d developed in his side last week when he’d bent over for the newspaper a bit too early in the morning.
But not all indications of age were physiological. He’d joined the bureau when he was twenty-nine years old, meaning he’d be eligible for retirement at fifty. In many professions, a man of his age might be hitting his stride. But law enforcement was a young man’s—no, it was a young
person’s
game. It shouldn’t be. Hank knew more about people—their desires, their instincts, their weaknesses, their motivation—than he could have ever begun to understand as a rookie. But these days, it seemed half their cases came down to bank records, cell phone towers, and computer cookies instead of a deftly handled interrogation. He’d done his best to keep up with advances in investigative techniques, but sometimes it was easier to hand off the actual mechanics of the keyboard work to an intern.
Today’s work, however, could not be delegated. He had lost Travis Larson. He needed to find him.
Hank had last seen the man yesterday morning, parking the stolen BMW on Washington Street. After work, he’d picked up a Subway sandwich to go and headed directly to the Newark apartment complex. No lights on at home. No BMW in the lot. He’d stayed on the place until finally risking a walk up to the man’s landing. The Subway buy-one-get-one coupon he slipped halfway under the front door had still been there this morning and remained there again when he’d found time between field interviews for a drop-by.
No Larson. No BMW.
If Larson wasn’t home, Hank would start from his last known location. He had pulled up Google Maps on his computer, then zoomed in to the few blocks that divided the West Village from the Meatpacking District. From there, he dragged the orange figure of a man onto the map to see the location from street-level photographic view. He remembered the twenty-year-old intern who had shown him how to do it: “See? He looks like the little guy on a bathroom door.” Like she was teaching a computer class at the senior citizens’ center.
He dragged the cartoon man up Washington Street. It seemed that every other click, he did something wrong, shifting out of street-level view, or zooming in to a close-up of broken concrete. He started to get a hang of the movement, taking a virtual stroll past Perry, past West Eleventh, past Bank, until he found the BMW’s parking spot. He rotated the view to home in on the side of the street where Larson had disappeared. He saw two empty storefronts and a laundromat called Happy Suds.
Problem was, the images on Google Maps could be several years old. He was pretty sure the shoe store he’d seen on that street yesterday morning occupied the same space as Happy Suds in this picture. He called information for the number at Happy Suds, but there was no such listing. No surprise. Retail turnover in that neighborhood was faster than the $20 tricks that used to be turned under the Highline before the gentrification. Yet another business owned by one hardworking person to service the needs of other hardworking people, probably closed to make room for a shop hawking thousand-dollar handbags.
He needed another strategy.
He “walked” his little orange bathroom guy down Washington, jotting down the street addresses that appeared at the top of the screen as he passed each of the three storefronts that lined the portion of the street where he’d last spotted Larson. Then he Googled each address to determine the current occupant of the space, wondering whether Larson might have reason to go there early in the morning. The Happy Suds address came back to the designer shoe boutique. He tried not to think about the half a paycheck he’d blown on a pair of those shoes for Jen’s birthday. Three weeks later, she had moved out. He skipped the second address, which he recalled as being papered over, and moved on to the third address. It currently belonged to Pete’s Flowers.
He knew no more than he had yesterday.
He went ahead and entered the address of the abandoned storefront in the middle. It pulled up mentions of two different businesses: a frame shop and a gallery.
He searched for the name of the frame shop and learned that it had moved three months earlier to Chelsea.
And then he typed the gallery name: Highline Gallery.
Interesting. Larson was a man who lied for money. Art held far more promise in that arena than either flowers or high heels.
Even as he hit the enter key, he recalled a headline he’d seen tucked into the back pages of today’s paper. By the time the search results appeared on his screen, he remembered the story of a body found at a gallery that had just opened two days earlier.
He double-clicked on the first news story. Highline Gallery. Plagued by trouble since its initially successful opening. Protesters alleging child pornography. Body of an unidentified male adult found yesterday morning. The contents of the gallery missing. Windows papered over. Gallery manager no stranger to either the limelight or controversy. Former child actress. Daughter of womanizing director Frank Humphrey.
He pulled up a photograph of Alice Humphrey. Red hair. Good-looking. He could picture her with big sunglasses and hot shoes, just like the woman he’d seen enter Larson’s apartment. How had the QuickCar employee described the woman who cruised away in the BMW? “A pretty white girl with long red hair.”
Shit. Hank’s little hobby wasn’t going to remain secret much longer.
T
he city of New York claims more than eight million residents. It is the financial and media capital of the world. Photographs of its iconic skyline are recognizable by children raised in villages on the other side of the globe. And most of the majesty—the power, the deals, the fame—unfolds on the tiny little island of Manhattan. About thirteen miles or so long, north to south. Only 2.3 miles wide at the fattest part of the island.
One might think that a person who had spent nearly her entire life on that tiny little island would have long ago memorized its every last square inch. Certainly Alice had noticed in Missouri that her ex-husband’s hospital colleagues—the ones who’d been born and bred in St. Louis—could rattle off directions to any spot in the region, even the outskirts. But New York was different. In New York, where people walked to their local grocer and newspaper stand, neighborhoods still meant something. To a resident of Chinatown, the Upper East Side might as well be Rhode Island.
Alice had lived in the East Village since graduate school. Her apartment was less than two miles from Centre Street, but she could count the number of times she’d been down here in those eight-plus years on three fingers: once for jury duty, once to accompany her father to a radio interview on the
Leonard Lopate Show
, and once for that ill-fated karaoke party on her thirty-third birthday.
Now, though, she knew she needed legal advice.
“Here we are. Eighty-six Chambers. See how easy it is for the nice taxicab driver when you know the address?”
Alice was tempted to stiff the driver for the snarky remark, but kept her promise, tacking a 25 percent tip onto her credit card tab before dashing through the bitter cold wind to the lobby of Jeff’s building. She hollered at the sight of the closing elevator doors. “Can you hold that?”
Apparently not. She managed to nudge one knee in front of the sensors, absorbing a hard blow before the doors bounced back open. The messenger inside, clad in cycling gear and tattoos, didn’t even bother to look sheepish. As they ticked past the fourth floor, he threw her a glare and she realized she was clicking her nails loudly against the wall behind her.
Too fucking bad, dude.
“Wait. Drew told the property management company that
you’re
Drew Campbell and
you
were the one starting the gallery?”
Every square inch of Jeff’s desk had been blanketed by papers and open books when she’d arrived unannounced at his office, but Jeff somehow managed to appear as if he had time only for her.
“Yes. And the police must be buying it. They came to my apartment today and were asking me all these questions. Had I ever used an alias. Whether I ever knew Drew by another name. The cop told me yesterday that they didn’t find Drew’s wallet or anything else with his body. They must not have been able to confirm his identity, so now I’m wondering whether anything the man ever said to me was true. Basically, I have no fucking clue who he actually was, but now the police seem to think that I was the one who started the gallery, and I did it using a fake name.”
“How could they possibly believe that? It’s crazy.”
“Any crazier than a complete stranger offering me a dream job with a rich, anonymous boss?”
“Sounds like it was a con. Maybe he was planning to ask you for money to keep the place afloat but got himself killed before the ask.”
“The ask, huh?”
“The grift. The pigeon drop. The swindle. The scam. I’ve got the lingo, babe.”
“Campbell played me like a fiddle. Coming across as an art expert. Being all self-deprecating about his work, saying his client was one of his dad’s old friends. He even threw in a martini-drinking mother for good measure, the ultimate bonding experience.”
“Let me call these detectives and try to get a read on the situation. Maybe we can get them to see this in another light.”
“I don’t think it’s going to be that easy.” She pulled the print out of the digital photo from her purse and unfolded it on his desk.
“Is that—”
“No. It’s not me. He must have found a shot of someone who looked like me and then Photoshopped it onto a picture of him kissing someone else.”
Jeff squinted as if sheer will might bring focus to the grainy picture. “I don’t know, Al. That’s some damn good Photoshopping.”
“He was also pretty good with fake IDs. He gave the property management company a supposed copy of my driver’s license. Looked like the real thing except for the name Drew Campbell.”
“Did you give him a copy of your driver’s license when he hired you? Maybe he just scanned it and changed the name.”
“No, it wasn’t my driver’s license photo. It was cropped from a picture of Ben and me at Christina Marcum’s wedding last summer.”
The bride had been a childhood friend of theirs. Jeff didn’t know her personally but had attended the wedding as Alice’s plus-one, back when they were officially “on.” Alice wasn’t particularly close to Christina, but she loved that photograph of her and her brother.
“Maybe Drew—or whoever he was—hacked your computer?”
“Well, that’s what I was wondering too. But then I remembered something. May I?” She moved to his side of the desk and pulled out the keyboard tray. “Christina’s sister’s the one who took the picture. I only saw it because she posted it on Facebook.”
Alice pulled up her own Facebook profile and clicked on “Photos.”
“See? There it is.” The picture had a clear, straightforward angle of Alice’s face, perfect for clipping as a head shot.
“Is your profile set to private?”
“What’s that mean?”
“Can anyone in the world see it, or do people have to be your friend first?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
He reached for the mouse and gave it a few clicks. “Your entire profile is public, so Drew definitely could have gotten the driver’s license picture here.” He pulled up her Wall posts, showing the messages Alice and her friends had posted to one another over the past few weeks. “Alice, this is insane to have this public. Anyone, anywhere, can read all of this.”
“Who cares? ‘Happy Birthday. Have a good day.’ It’s all a bunch of nonsense. You mean to tell me I should have anticipated that some guy using a fake name would con me into taking a fake job and then use pictures off my Facebook profile to set me up?”
“It’s not just nonsense, Alice. Look, two days ago you posted ‘Wafels & Dinges.’ To you, that’s a bunch of nonsense, but it’s also an announcement to everyone in the world you’re at the Wafels & Dinges truck.”
“I posted it after I was back at the gallery.”
“Okay? Well, how about this one? ‘Fantastic opening at the gallery. Off to celebrate at Gramercy Tavern. Fifteen minutes until martini time.’”
“Please don’t criticize me right now. Wait. Oh, no.”
“What?”
She didn’t pause to ask permission before taking the mouse from him and scrolling farther down her page. She clicked the Older Posts button at the bottom of her wall. “No, no, no, no. I was just assuming that this was all bad luck. That Drew was running a scam and decided that an out-of-work art history major was a pretty good mark. But look: the morning before the gallery opening where I met Drew? Look at my post.”
Phillip Lipton exhibit tonight at Susan Kellermann Gallery. Most underrated artist of late 20th Century.
“You think Drew went there that night looking specifically for you?”
“Can you honestly tell me that I should have any idea
what
to think right now?”
I
t had been four weeks since Alice’s last visit to the Susan Kellermann Gallery. This time, she headed directly to her destination. She no longer had the luxury of a woman who could pause to admire a building’s architectural details.
A man in white painter coveralls carried a ladder into the gallery, followed by an identically clad man hauling a bucket of paint and two rollers. She caught the door for their convenience, then began to step inside behind them.
“Yoo-hoo. Hello there. I’m sorry, but we’re closed. Come back Tuesday night. We’re getting a Jeremy West exhibit ready now. Great stuff.”
From the neck up, the woman at the back of the gallery resembled the gallery owner Alice had seen a handful of times: same tight black bun, same gaunt pale face, same burgundy-stained lips. But today Susan Kellermann wore a black T-shirt, baggy blue jeans, and clogs. The dichotomy between her head and body brought to mind Mr. Potato Head.
“I need to ask you a question about the Phillip Lipton opening.”
“I’m afraid I don’t represent Phillip any longer. I think he’s a free agent now, if you want to try to contact him directly.”
“I’m not buying art. I’m looking for one of your customers.”
Kellermann’s attention had turned to a five-foot-diameter ball of twine being manhandled by two of her workers. “Careful. There’s nothing holding that together but a few drops of epoxy. About six inches more in this direction.”
“Please, Miss Kellermann. It’s very important.”
She peered at Alice as if she were a black speck tainting a perfectly tidy white wall, but then something in Alice’s face got her attention. “Pull one string loose, and the two of you will roll that thing all the way back down to Dumbo yourselves, where I’ll allow West to wrap you inside it as performance art. Got it?”
“Ah, yes, that handsome devil from opening night. Rough around the edges, but
very
charming. Agreed to purchase
Carnival One
for a client.”
“He hired me for a gallery job, but now it looks like the entire thing was a con.” She didn’t mention the nagging fact that the man was dead. Hopefully Kellermann hadn’t heard enough about yesterday’s murder at a new downtown gallery to start making connections. “I need to track him down. Do you have his payment information? Maybe the address where the canvas was delivered?”
“If only I did. I’m afraid all I have is a name, a disconnected phone number, and one very pissed-off nonagenarian.”
“I take it the sale didn’t go through?”
“I wouldn’t usually mark a piece as sold without a deposit, but he was very persuasive. He said he was acquiring the canvas for a client. Usually, dealers pay up front and then I take the art back as a return if the client isn’t satisfied with the selection. Steven, however—”
“He told you his name was Steven?”
“Yes. Steven Henning.” It was the same name Drew had used with the property management agent in Hoboken. “He told me he was certain the client would defer to his selection but was absolutely headstrong against letting Steven pay for a piece without his first viewing it in person. Supposedly Steven was going to bring the client in the following day but wasn’t willing to risk the piece being sold in the interim, or the client would have his head for needlessly dragging him around the city. And it was all very mysterious: a wealthy man, a serious collector, like someone whose name I’d recognize if only Steven trusted me enough to share it. He made it sound like he was between a rock and a hard place with a very difficult client.”
The story sounded familiar. It was the same shtick he’d handed to Alice.
“Frankly,” Kellermann continued, “having spent several weeks trying to appease Phillip Lipton, I suppose I empathized a bit too much. The art market’s in the crapper right now, so sometimes you’ve got to bend over backward to make the sale. And, what can I say, I have a weakness for a man who looks like George Clooney.”
“But he didn’t return the following day with the mysterious, wealthy client.”
“Oh, no, he most certainly did not. When he hadn’t appeared by late afternoon, I called the number he’d given me. It was a takeout falafel stand, as far as I could make out through the broken English. No art dealers on premises,” she added with a wry smile. “Unfortunately, our talented Mr. Lipton was not particularly understanding. All artists have unrealistic expectations, but I think Phillip really expected this show to be a comeback that would set the art world afire. He was shocked we didn’t sell out at the opening. I, on the other hand, was happy to have sold two pieces in this market, but when I had to notify Phillip that the
Carnival One
sale had fallen through, he was apoplectic. That wife of his only encourages him. Consider me one more art dealer in that very talented but absolutely insane man’s long path of self-destruction. I have Steven Henning to thank for that. I suppose from that look on your face that I wasn’t the only one to fall for him, hook, line, and sinker?”