Frame-Up (25 page)

That brought Markov out of his funk.

“What do you mean alone? We're to leave him alone with this?”

I knew I had to quell Markov before he got the Vans in an uproar. “It's perfectly normal, Mr. Markov. The professor says that he's developed techniques of authentication that are not generally known. What are you afraid of?”

Markov glared at me. He spit out the words. “Paintings can be switched, Mr. Knight.”

“That's not a problem, Mr. Markov. I've discussed this with the professor. He'll agree to be thoroughly searched before examining the painting as well as afterward to guarantee that the actual painting never leaves this room. Would that satisfy you?”

Markov ruminated over the possibilities. He was hesitant but not hesitant enough to derail a multimillion-dollar scam. He finally agreed, as long as he would be allowed to do the searching. The Vans also consented.

It was an indignity to the professor, but the point of the precautionary search was obvious. Having survived an assassination attempt, this indignity seemed tolerable. I had warned the professor that a search might be a nonnegotiable condition of his examining the painting in private.

The professor and Markov stepped into a side room of the vault. Five minutes later, they returned, and Markov assured the group that the professor had nothing on his person with which to switch or harm the painting.

The Vans, Harry, and I, and even Markov left the vault to allow the professor to perform his “tests” in private. The bank manager, Mr. Van Houten, remained out of sight in the vault's side room.

The wait was shorter than expected. Within two minutes, the
professor stormed out of the vault, red in the face and perspiring, waving the canvas over his head with considerably less care than one might show for a priceless masterpiece.

“Is this a joke? You brought me here for this?”

To say that the group was stunned doesn't begin to describe the atmosphere. The jaws of Markov and the Vans were at half-mast. Even Harry — Mr. Qian — seemed genuinely shocked.

Van Drusen, who was closest, tried to grab the arm of the professor to rescue the painting. The professor, seeing him coming, fairly threw the canvas at him.

“Here! Take it! You insult me with this.”

Markov recovered enough to seize the professor in mid-frenzy. He shrieked at him. “What are you talking about, old man?”

The professor was flying in high gear. He pulled loose and grabbed the canvas out of the hand of Van Drusen. He held it up to the face of Markov and matched him in volume. “This — this insult!”

Before the entire scene disintegrated into total panic, I stepped between the professor and Markov. “Quiet! Both of you! Professor, quietly, what are you saying?”

The professor took his cue and lowered his tone. He held out the canvas so that we could all see it and practically whispered the words. “This is a common giclee print of the master's painting on canvas. As copies go, it's a good copy. But it's a copy. Look here. There are no brush strokes. There is no elevation of the oil. You could buy this copy in any good art store in Amsterdam.”

As a matter of fact, that's exactly what I had done that morning. The real trick was to substitute it for the painting that had been in the locked vault to which I had only half of the code. I let the professor in on the trick that morning so he'd know what to expect. He played his part to perfection.

The total effect on the Vans and Markov was numbing shock, considering the amount of money that had suddenly vanished from their prospects. But the shock had a short shelf life. It was time to move to scene two before it dissipated.

Harry picked up my signal. He took the canvas from the professor
and looked closely at it for the first time. It was difficult to tell whether the facial expression he was registering was anger or frustration. When he spoke, it was in a heavy Chinese accent.

“I don't know what you people are up to. I find this deceit unpardonable. Do any of you have an explanation?”

Since no one did, no one spoke.

I picked up the ball in profound humility. “I sincerely apologize, Mr. Qian. I don't know—”

Now Harry turned on me. “Apparently you don't, Mr. Knight. I misjudged you, I thought you were a sincere dealer of substance. You're apparently no more than a common charlatan. You've abused my trust. I see now that you're just — a buffoon.”

The more he spoke, the heavier Harry's Chinese accent grew. And out of what old movie he pulled the word “buffoon” I couldn't even guess. But before he blew the entire scene with bad dialogue, I thought it best to find an exit line.

“Mr. Qian, I'll make this up to you in our other dealings.”

“You will not, Mr. Knight. There will be no other dealings. Mr. Van Houten, I'll thank you to return my check.”

Van Houten, who had not closed his lower jaw since the professor's tirade began, simply held out the three million dollar check. Harry snatched it out of his hand and stormed through the front door to fresh air and silence.

Professor Denisovitch followed close on Harry's heels in a huff. They summoned separate cabs and were out of sight by the time the rest of us reached the street.

The Vans were holding the discredited canvas between them squinting at the surface lacking brush strokes. Markov was back in the vault room searching the empty vault for any trace of the actual painting by Professor Denisovitch that had apparently disappeared into thin air, while I went through the front door and hailed a third cab.

Harry and Professor Denisovitch each directed their cabbies to travel a separate route to prevent anyone from following either of them. By different paths, they arrived at the airport and went straight
to the Turkish Airlines counter. I had booked separate flights for each of them to Boston, one by way of Istanbul, and the other by way of Ankara, for no other reason than to frustrate followers.

I took my cabbie on a roundabout ride to the Prinsenhof, a small hotel on the west side of the city on Prinsengracht, a short way up the canal from the house in which Anne Frank had found refuge from the Nazis. The symbolism was not lost, and I needed peaceful, obscure accommodations for one night.

I called Mr. Devlin and told him that Mr. Santangelo's three million dollars were intact, and he could cancel the line of credit with the bank.

I was delighted to add that the mission had been accomplished. I'd be in Boston the following night with the Denisovitch painting that had been in the original vault, ready to do some serious business with Fat Tony Aiello.

“Michael, how in hell did you get that painting out of the vault?”

“Ah, a magician never divulges his secrets, Mr. Devlin.”

“Michael, this is your senior partner speaking. How did you get the painting?”

I was hoping he'd insist. I was dying to tell it anyway.

“This morning I went to the bank where the vault is. I gave a tip to the bank manager that will probably bring an Italian curse out of Mr. Santangelo when he gets the bill. Anyway, he played along. I rented a small box in the same vault room as the vault that was holding the actual Denisovitch painting. The box I rented had just one code so I was the only one who had access to it. I bought a good giclee print on canvas of the Vermeer painting at an art shop for about a hundred dollars. It's good enough so an amateur could be fooled if he weren't suspicious. I put it in the vault box I rented.

“That part was easy. It took a bit of acting to get them to leave the professor alone in the vault room with the actual painting. He let them search him for anything he could use to make a switch. Of course, they found nothing, so we all left him alone in the vault room. The last thing the bank manager did before he left the vault room was
to leave open the box I had rented that morning. No one noticed because they were all focusing on the original vault box. When the professor was left alone in the vault room, he could just slip the painting he had done, the one he was supposed to be examining, into my rented box and close it. Then he took the giclee print that was in my rented box, and stormed out to berate us all for insulting his intelligence with the giclee print. He missed his calling. He could have been an actor. Now I just have to go back to the bank in the morning and get the Denisovitch painting out of my vault box. I should be back in Boston with the Denisovitch painting tomorrow night.”

The next morning, I awoke from a deep sleep and had a hearty breakfast. I took a cab back to the bank and sought out the manager. He welcomed my approach with a cautious smile and a question as to whether or not we might be in for another “interesting” day. I assured him that, God willing, we'd seen the last of those.

I used my code to retrieve the Denisovitch painting from the vault box and closed out the rental. Another tip, sizeable by any standard, to the manager on Mr. Santangelo's account would hopefully insure discretion in case Sergei Markov returned with the odd question.

Ten hours later, I touched the sandy, salty, gritty, reclaimed soil of East Boston. It felt to me more like the emerald-encrusted Land of Oz. If they were going to do me in now, at least it would be on my home turf.

I grabbed a cab directly to South Station, where I salted away the Denisovitch painting in the locker I had previously rented “just in case.”

Next stop, my apartment. With the time change from Amsterdam, it was still mid-afternoon in Boston. One shower, shave, and change later, I was ready to do business.

I called Mr. Devlin at the office. I told him that if things broke right, I'd have some real pay dirt that he could take to Mr. Santangelo by the following morning. That naturally brought on more questions that I was not quite ready to answer. I cut in with a promise.

“Mr. Devlin, tomorrow morning the rest of the dominos should
fall into place. What do you say to breakfast at the Ritz Carlton? You and me. My treat.”

“Michael, how the h —!”

“Great, Mr. Devlin. Nine o'clock. Your signal's fading. I can barely hear you.”

Actually, you could hear him in Chelsea, but I needed an exit line.

My next call was to Professor Denisovitch's office just to be sure he was back in safe territory. Helga Swenson's stentorian tones set the little hairs in my ear vibrating. When I spoke, she recognized my voice and the change was instant.

“May I speak to the professor, Ms. Swenson?”

There was a pause as if my words had startled her. I knew I was not going to like what followed.

“Is he there, Ms. Swenson?”

“Don't you know? You were the one—”

“Ms. Swenson, I don't have much time. Are you saying he hasn't come back yet?”

“I haven't seen or heard from him since he left for London. Didn't you—”

“I'm sorry to interrupt. He was flying in yesterday. Could he be at his home?”

“I tried there this morning. Nobody there has seen him.”

“Is there anywhere else? A club? Another office? I don't know. A relative?”

“No. None of those.”

I held the phone against my head to think for a minute. This was a complication I hadn't counted on. I also knew there was no time to deal with it at the moment. I could hear Helga's voice on the line.

“What did you say, Ms. Swenson?”

“Should I call the police?”

Something instinctive inside was giving me the answer.

“No. Not yet. I can do some checking. I'll get back to you. If you hear anything, call my cell phone.”

I needed time to work this out, and I knew I had nothing like the kind of time it might take to locate the professor. I figured that if he was dead, it could wait. If he was alive and kidnapped, the chances were good that whoever did it would be contacting me or Helga Swenson.

I pulled my thoughts together to focus all my attention on the next call. I got Tony Aiello on his cell.

“Hey, you bum, where you been?”

“Pleasure to hear your voice too, Tony. Have you been well?”

“Yeah. Peachy. What about that picher?”

“I've been fine too, Tony. I know you were concerned.”

“The picher, ya bum. What about it?”

“The answer to your question, you art lover, is that I got the “picher” that was in the vault box in Amsterdam. I told you I would. Don't tell me you doubted my word.”

“You are so full of crap. Get it over here. I'm at—”

“I don't think so, Tony.”

“What the hell'd you say?”

“I said, ‘I don't think so.' You've got to listen better.”

“What're you pullin', you little bum? I get ahold of you—”

“Tony, I told you once. It's very important that you and I be nice to each other. It's important because we have business to do with each other. And it's not going to happen any other way. Let me repeat. I've got the painting. It's where you'll never find it. But other people will if anything should happen to me. And that wouldn't do you any good at all. So to go back to square one, we have business to do.”

There was silence. I could almost hear him choking on his own anger, but business came first.

“So where do we meet?”

“Well, Tony, you seemed to take so well to the Parker House, I'll make reservations for eleven thirty tomorrow morning. We'll be at ‘our table.' By the way, that'll be reservations for two. You and me. Leave the baboons in the cage.”

This time he answered by slamming the cell phone shut, which
was actually music to my ears. This was overtime in the seventh game of the Stanley Cup finals. I needed a big win, and I figured that having Tony distracted by his passion to have me sliced into his next cacciatore could be a helpful edge. Or it could lead to my actually being one of his ingredients.

The flight from St. Petersburg to Moscow is about the length of a flight from Boston to Washington, D.C. It gave Alexei Samnov's imagination time to fabricate a dozen different reasons for his being summoned to a meeting with the gentleman. None of them offered peace of mind.