Brush With Death (5 page)

“Seriously.”

I snorted again, and spotted the Main Cloister through the Gothic arches ahead of us.

“Why do you never believe me?”

“Because you're a liar. And a cheat.”

“Not anymore. At least, not as much. I've gone legit.”

“Oh, please.” I unlocked the carved walnut front door and pushed Michael into the cool spring night. “A leopard doesn't change its spots. How did you get in here, anyway?”

Michael nodded at the alarm box above the door. “Pretty rinky-dink system.”

“That thing? That's just for show,” I fabricated as I led him down the circular flagstone drive. Michael had no doubt disarmed his first burglar alarm the day he mastered potty training. The columbarium's ancient system would slow him down for a minute or two, tops. “I turn on the state-of-the-art system and release the guard dogs when I leave. We call them the Hounds from Hell.”

“You're a terrible liar, Annie,” Michael said as we reached the sidewalk.

“I happen to be an excellent liar,” I said, miffed. If I did one thing well, it was lie. I'd had a lifetime of practice. “You're just a suspicious person. Must be the crooked company you keep.”

“How
is
your grandfather?”

“Fine, thanks. Leave him alone.” Georges and Michael had worked together on a number of projects over the years—a world-class art forger and a world-class art thief made for a profitable alliance—and I tried not to think about the prison sentences they would receive if the authorities ever caught up with the dynamic duo. “Listen, Michael. If anything goes missing from this place, anything at all, I'm coming after you. I swear I will.”

Michael cocked his head, his green eyes searching my face. “What would I want from a columbarium, Annie? I already have a fireplace full of ashes.”

“That's sick. Where's your car?”

The last time I'd hung out with Michael he'd been driving an elegant champagne Lexus. The time before that it had been a snazzy red Jeep. I wondered what it would be this time. A '59 Thunderbird? A brand-new Corvette? A monstrous Humvee?

He gestured at a dented, ten-year-old white Ford pickup truck.

“You're driving a
truck
?” I loved my own truck because it was handy for hauling ladders and tubs of paint, inexpensive to run, and even cheaper to insure. Michael didn't need the cargo space and could afford to drive the best. Had he fallen on hard times? More likely he was working on a scam I wouldn't figure out until the cops came a-knocking.

“I like trucks,” said Michael. “Bolsters my image as a manly man.”

“How did you know where to find me, anyway?”

“I dropped by your studio today. Mary said the columbarium was not to be missed.”

“There's a public tour the first Saturday of each month.”

“She thought you might give me a private tour.”

“She thought wrong.” I leaned against the fender and crossed my arms over my chest. “I find it hard to believe Mary was such a chatterbox.”

Michael chuckled. “I suspect she entertains romantic notions about the two of us.”

“Yeah, well, Mary's dating a Samoan wrestler named Dante who's never even read
The Divine Comedy.
”

“I suppose you've read it in the original?”

“I would if my name were Dante.”

“I'm afraid you've lost me,” he said with a slow smile and a quizzical look. “I don't see the connection between a Samoan wrestler and
The Divine Comedy.
”

“I'm just saying Mary's view of romance is different from mine.”

“I imagine most definitions of romance are different from yours, sweetheart,” Michael said, grinning now. “Speaking of romance, I dropped by your studio after meeting with your boyfriend.”

“Josh? What business do you have with Josh?”

“Who's Josh?”

“You said you had a meeting with my boyfriend, Josh.”

“I met with Frank DeBenton, of DeBenton Secure Transport. Remember him? I have to say I'm surprised at you, two-timing good ol' Frank.”

“Frank's my landlord, not my boyfriend.”

“Oh? You two seemed rather, shall we say,
cozy
the last time I saw you. So, tell me about this Josh person. Wait a minute—don't tell me he's Mr. Muscles?”

Last fall I had made the mistake of mentioning Josh, stud muffin extraordinaire, to Michael. It seemed he had remembered.

“Josh is a kind,
decent
person.”

“Bored already, huh? Well, these things happen.”

“You know what? Just go away,” I said, irked at Michael's unerring instinct for pushing my buttons. Josh was out of town for a few weeks, and without his sweet smile and beautiful body clouding my mental processes I was rethinking our relationship. He was a great guy, but I was starting to wonder if I represented Josh's Walk on the Wild Side. Worse yet, I feared he might be my Walk on the Mild Side.

However, I wasn't about to admit that to a no-good thieving scoundrel. “You are the least qualified person in the world to give romantic advice.”

“Cold, but true.” Michael handed me a business card, kissed me lightly on the lips, and opened the truck door. “
À bientôt, chérie.
Don't forget to unleash the pooches of perdition before you leave.”

I watched the taillights disappear into the darkness and glanced at the card in my paint-stained hand.

No way,
I thought. No. Freaking. Way.

Chapter 3

—Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574), Italian art historian

—Georges LeFleur

My mind was still reeling at the thought of Michael X. Johnson, International Art Thief, working on the side of the angels when I pulled into the gravel parking lot behind my apartment near downtown Oakland. My art studio and the majority of my clients were in San Francisco, which meant that most mornings I faced the Commute From Hell across the Oakland Bay Bridge. For the past two weeks I had been reveling in the novelty of a breezy commute to the columbarium, a mere five-minute drive from where I lived near Lake Merritt.

Home was the former maid's quarters of a nineteenth-century Victorian that had been divided into apartments: one on the first floor, two on the second, and mine on the third, tucked under the eaves. Small but spacious, my four rooms were flooded with cheerful sunlight during the day, thanks to the dormer windows that dotted each wall, while at night the slanting roofline created a warm and cozy ambience, especially when I lit the candles on the mantel and hearth of my nonfunctioning fireplace. I loved my airy little retreat, high above the street and surrounded by mulberry trees. Best of all, the rent couldn't be beat. The old Victorian was owned by a pair of aging hippies who lived in a dome house in the Santa Cruz Mountains and with whom I had struck a tacit bargain: I didn't ask for repairs, they didn't raise the rent.

In deference to my slumbering neighbors, also single professional women, I crept up the squeaky stairs, let myself into my apartment, then slipped down the hall to the bathroom and ran a hot shower. As I stood under the steaming water I tried to figure out what the hell Michael was up to this time. Twenty minutes later the hot water ran out, and I was still clueless.

I pulled on an old T-shirt, climbed into bed, and flipped through the two and a half channels I received with the rabbit ears antenna on the television I had rescued from the curb on Big Waste Pickup Day. It was well after three in the morning and I was hoping for a rerun of
Casablanca
or even
Three's Company,
but all I could find was an infomercial for a hair thickener. A thirty-something woman wearing a distressing amount of baby-blue eye shadow tearfully recounted the horrors of having to wear a turban to hide her thinning hair.

The turban reminded me of
La Fornarina.
After my close encounter with Michael at the columbarium I'd lacked the courage to prowl about for the copy Cindy Tanaka thought was genuine, especially since I suspected it was a fool's errand. Raphael's signature masterpiece was worth a fortune, but more importantly it was a fundamental part of Italy's cultural heritage. The legendary love that had inspired the painting was one of the most romantic stories in the history of art, which was saying a lot. There was no way it could have ended up at the Chapel of the Chimes without someone in the art world knowing about it.

And why was I entertaining the notion that Cindy knew what she was talking about? She was writing a dissertation on public mourning rituals, I reminded myself, not art history. Still, Cindy had done some homework on the oddities of the art world. Clearly she felt there was reason to wonder, and the graduate student did not strike me as a person given to wild speculation. Who was this “someone” who asked her to check out
La Fornarina
? I blamed sleep-deprivation for not following up on that little tidbit.

What really gave me pause was Michael's sudden appearance. Could it have anything to do with the rumor of a genuine Raphael hanging, virtually unprotected, at the columbarium?

Tomorrow I would swing by the columbarium and take a look at the painting so that I could assure Cindy—and myself—that it was indeed the copy it claimed to be.

I flipped the channel to yet another infomercial, this one for hay baling equipment. A clean-cut man with a deep tan and squinty eyes explained, oh so sincerely, that big round balers and small round balers were necessary for the success of today's modern rancher. I wondered if there were any ranches left in the crowded Bay Area. The last time I'd seen a round bale of hay was in the French countryside, when my grandfather took me on a tour of the magical Loire Valley.

The telephone shrilled and I snatched up the receiver, my heart in my throat. “Hello?”

I must have telepathic powers. Born and raised in Brooklyn, master art forger Georges François LeFleur had long ago given his heart to
la belle France.
He now spoke his mother tongue with an accent as heavy as a traditional French cream sauce, a fact of which he claimed to be unaware.

“Everything's fine, Grandfather. How are you? Where are you?”

“
Alors,
zees I must not say,
chérie.
One never knows when ze Interpol may be listening,
n'est-ce pas
?”

“Why would Interpol be listening,
Grandpère
?”

“Zey air such clowns. Zey sink zey can catch your
grandpapa.
”

“What do you mean? Who is after you, Grandfather? I mean, other than the usual suspects?”

Last year, ignoring my heartfelt pleas, Grandfather had published a memoir of his long career in the art underworld.
Reflections of a World-Class Art Forger
had become a runaway international best seller, and Georges had been on the lam ever since. All a prosecutor would have to do to secure a conviction for art forgery against the old reprobate would be to quote from his damned book. Indeed, were Grandfather ever brought to trial, I suspected he would insist upon reading it to the jury himself, so proud was he of what he considered—not without cause—to be a life of extraordinary artistic accomplishment.

“Ah, zees man. I
'ate
'im.”

“Who do you hate, Grandfather?”

“Doughnut Somezing. Doughnut Spumoni.”

“ ‘Doughnut Spumoni'? Are you sure that's his name? Sounds like a dessert.”

“
Bof!
'Ow should I know?
Quel connard!
”

“Grandfather!”

“So, who is this guy?”

“A leetle Italian bureaucrat.”

“Why is a little Italian bureaucrat after you?”

“Pairhips because he envies me.”

“Perhaps. Any other reason? 'Fess up, old man.”

“Zere was zat leetle incident in Firenze.”

A shiver ran down my spine. “Did this incident have anything to do with
La Fornarina
?”

“
La Fornarina
was years ago. 'E could not prove a zing.”

“So you know nothing about a fake Raphael floating around?”

“Are you sure?”

“Ah,
ma petite,
'as your old
grandpapa
ever lied to you?”

I bit back a rude retort. Georges had lied to me plenty, and had taught me to be an artful forger and an artful fibber as well. His modus operandi, though, was to bluster in French, change the subject, or pretend a solar flare had zapped his phone. I tried to take comfort from the fact that this time his denial was in English and he was still on the line. “What's going on, Grandfather?”

“Zis man 'as published a list of my
plusieurs réussites.
”

“Your many accomplishments? You mean your forgeries?”

“That's not good.”

“It ees worse! 'E 'as included two by
Jazz Hart
!”

“That
is
worse.”

Jazz Hart was a thirty-something British forger who churned out fakes that relied more on the gullibility and greed of art dealers and collectors than on technical skill. He'd forged
The White Horse
—which Gauguin had painted in 1898—with polymer paints, which were not invented until the 1950s. Georges' generation of art criminals dismissed Hart as a third-rate hack.