Murder Below Montparnasse (5 page)

She rolled her eyes. The Wall came down in 1989. “Who calls anyone Communists any more?”

Nearby lay Parc Montsouris, sloping grass hills and the reservoir, just beyond
la petite ceinture
—the abandoned and overgrown rail tracks edging the old Montrouge quartier. She’d grown up in the clustered lanes of small houses. Generations of her family had been dairy farmers here. Now almost all the farms were gone.

But she knew the quartier in the marrow of her bones, from the Montparnasse artist ateliers on rue Campagne Première—including famous ones, like Gaugin’s and Picasso’s—where publishing bohos now lived, to the Catacombs at Place Denfert-Rochereau, the only tourist attraction. The screams piercing the night from the psychiatric hospital of Sainte Anne. The nineteenth-century prison of La Santé hunkered scab-like on the fragrant lime-tree-lined Boulevard Arago.

A good place to lie low. Wait for the drop. And strategic. Access to the Périphérique ring road less than two kilometers away. A quick twenty minutes to the baggage handler
connection at Orly Airport. Morgane could almost taste success.

The walkie-talkie squawked. “Painting arrived?”

Morgane’s lips pursed. “Not yet,” she responded. Late. Even using the van, he was late for a simple snatch-and-grab. She hit the talk button. “Complications?”

“Unclear. We’re in a holding pattern.”

But the cargo plane wasn’t. This was their only chance until next week.

“Keep me updated.” The walkie-talkie channel went yellow.

“Something’s wrong,” Morgane said.

Flèche checked his watch. “I’ll say. He’s not the type to go drinking. But I’m going to find out.”

Dumb. How in the hell did he ever get the nickname Flèche, “sharp arrow”? Slow and dull were more like it.

“Wait until—”

“My cut disappears?” Flèche shook his head. Picked up his shearling jacket.

“You’ll ruin the plan, Flèche,” she said. “Screw up the timing.”

“Since when are you my boss?”

She wished he’d shut up. Hated working with a loose cannon.

“We all want this to go smooth, perform our roles. Yours is to.…”

She paused. They both heard the click from the courtyard door below. She put her finger to her mouth. Footsteps padded on the wet pavers, mounted the staircase until they stopped outside the door.

One knock. The signal. He was here.

R
APHAEL
D
OMBASLE’S NOSE
twitched as he studied the small painting in the Montparnasse gallery’s back room. His nose hadn’t twitched like this since he recovered the stolen Renoir in 1996 from a battered suitcase in the Gare du Nord left luggage. But he kept his face blank as he turned to the art dealer Luebet.

“No provenance? Or certificate of authenticity, Luebet?” he said, his fingers running over the painting’s carved frame. “So it’s stolen?”

“That’s why I alerted you, Dombasle.” Luebet gave a tight smile. Long white hair framed his hollowed face and brushed the blue jacket collar of his tailored pinstripe suit. A little
phhft
escaped his pursed lips. “The seller gave me a verbal agreement to furnish the painting’s provenance, of course, like they all do. But I knew right away.”

Of course he did. Small figure studies like this rarely came on the market or through an art dealer.

“But I’m acting in good faith, Dombasle.”

Dombasle figured Luebet had only alerted him because he’d been unable to sell the painting fast, before Interpol consulted the Art Data Registry. Luebet kept hands in both pots, as the saying went. The kind of informer who delivered when it suited him. Dombasle wondered at the timing.

“You’d rather a recovery fee than prison. Come out on the right side this time.”

“I thought we had an agreement, Dombasle.” Luebet’s voice tightened. “We share information, like last time. Why insult me when I follow the law?” Luebet shook his head.

“You haven’t heard me insult you. But I could.” Dombasle pulled out his tape measure and assessed the small canvas, but it was just a formality. He recognized the painting, which had been stolen during the bold daylight heist of a Left Bank townhouse. This painting was a perfect match, even to the stained signature. An early Berthe Morisot. A jewel of delicate brushstrokes, a charcoal-and-aquarelle study of a mother and child under a garden trellis—her signature subjects. The
comtesse
had allowed it to be photographed for the glossy architectural magazine’s ten-page spread of her townhouse collection—stupid. When the rich advertised what they had and where they kept it, what did they expect?

Luebet shrugged. Lit a cigarette and hit the air filter machine, which erupted in a whirr. “A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure,” he said. “Exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied, to quote Oscar Wilde. What more can one want?”

Dombasle watched the dealer expel a stream of smoke. “So the
comtesse
’s other stolen works.…”

“Went the way of the ghost. Vanished. Or so the rumor goes.”

“Care to elucidate, Luebet?”

Luebet shrugged. “Use your imagination.”

“Any Baltic accents attached to the rumors?” Dombasle asked. Eastern Europeans exchanged stolen paintings for arms or jewels or drugs—not so picky. Last year a Serbian militant was caught pulling Chagalls from his Zagreb basement to trade for a fleet of armor-plated Land Rovers. In turf wars, art was a gold bar of exchange for such gangs, who cared nothing for it but as a commodity.

Luebet, who had been prominent in the art world for forty years, sighed. “Or they’ve gone to Moscow-on-Thames.” The Russian oligarch billionaires bought up country manors around
London with irritating efficiency. Kept the UK economy afloat. Too bad that hadn’t happened here since the eighties with the Japanese château-buying frenzy. “The young breed operates pipelines outside my sources.” Luebet shrugged. “We’re old,
compris?
There’s a new generation.”

True. Dombasle wanted to get this over with, but sensed Luebet had another agenda. “
Bon
, I’ll contact the chief, he’ll inform the
comtesse
.” Dombasle grinned. “The usual drill. Tell your seller you’ve found a client who wants a verbal provenance. Arrange a meeting. Say you’ll bring the money. We’ll do the rest.” A cut-and-dried sting operation.

Luebet seemed to weigh his options.
“D’accord,”
he said finally. That hesitation in the dealer’s look indicated he had more information—a tip, a name.

“Something else on your mind, Luebet?”

“Rumors.”

“Concerning what, Luebet?”

“That’s just it, rumors,” Luebet said. “Years ago a story surfaced about a Modigliani that went missing in 1920—only shown once. Whispers only, you understand. That it’s been found in France. Worth … well, for years its existence was the stuff of dreams. Now the whispers say right after it was discovered it went missing.”

Dombasle knew the art dealer was fishing for something. Teasing the story out to find what Dombasle knew. But he wouldn’t play.

“Luebet, is there a point to you spreading rumors?”

“Word goes a fixer,
une Américaine
, runs a network transporting certain
objets d’art
.”

Dombasle’s nose twitched in full gear now. “The Modigliani?”

“Just rumors, as I said.”

“I need more than rumors, Luebet,” he said.

“
Alors
, I told you everything.…”

“Cut the act,” Dombasle said. “You owe me, remember?”

R
ENÉ
F
RIANT’S HIP
ached after the eleven-hour flight and the long line at US immigration. Four feet tall, he stood on tiptoe at the glass booth to pass over his French passport.

He smiled at the immigration officer.
“Bonjour.”

“You’re a tourist, Mr. Friant?”

His promised work visa hadn’t come through. Perspiration dampened his shirt. Nervous, his mind went back to Tradelert’s last fax, which he’d memorized on the plane:
No problem, H-1B visa’s in the works. Soon as the green light comes, we whisk you over the border at Mexicali, you come back in legal to work. Meanwhile say you’re consulting on a project for the week from Paris, no visa required
.

René preferred to follow the rules and laws, at least more than Aimée did. But the less said the better.

“For now, Monsieur.”

A loud thump and
TOURIST
stamped on his passport. “Enjoy your vacation.”

Then an endless walk through the terminal with his bags, goading the hip dysplasia pain. But currents of excitement ran through him as he waited at the airport curb. The air felt different, the colors—the newness of everything struck him. Fog settled over the taxis, the huge American cars.

“Over here, Tattoo,” Kobo, Tradelert’s rep, yelled from a battered Volkswagen.

René grinned. “Where’s the sun, Kobo?”

“You’re thinking of LA.” Kobo, tall and gangling, bent to give René a high five. A matchstick of a man, René thought, smelling of onions. Kobo tossed his bags in the backseat.

“But
Zeelakon Vallaaay
.…”

“We call it ‘The Valley,’ Tattoo,” Kobo interrupted.

“What’s with ‘Tattoo’?”

“De plane, de plane!”
Kobo laughed. “From the TV show
Fantasy Island
. Get it? You’re wearing the same suit, too.”

Wasn’t Kobo too young to have seen that eighties show? Strange, but René recalled that Americans watched the
télé
all the time. René’s aunt in the countryside stayed up late watching old reruns and made the same joke. Not that he found it funny. “Suit?
Oui
, but the weather doesn’t cooperate.” René smoothed down his beige linen jacket, wishing he’d packed his wool pinstripe.

The cramped VW was littered with food wrappers. “Andy’s meeting with our investor angels.” Kobo ground into first gear. “So I’ll drop you off at the car rental and meet you at Tradelert later, okay?”

René needed to fire his brain cells for the meeting. Hit the ground running. There had to be a café somewhere.

The drive-through, as Kobo called it, served brown piss for coffee. Back on the highway, everything spread out before him was giant—the quadruple lanes, the cars, the sprawling flat buildings, the signs and billboards advertising lawyers to call if you’ve been in an accident. It all felt more foreign now than it had on his brief weekend trip for the interview.

He’d made the jump to a new life in a new country: a job—writing code, designing mainframes, running security—his métier—and a mission: to meet a woman, preferably a tan, leggy Californian who would sit with him under the palm trees and eat hamburgers. He felt the thrill of possibility. Time to leave the ghost of Meizi, that heartbreak.

“Everyone’s so glad you’re on board, part of the team.”

“Me, too.” René felt a flutter of pride.

“You’re our distinguished French connection!” Another laugh as Kobo nudged him. He pulled into the parking lot of a car rental agency, let René out, waved, and took off in his battered VW.

Excited, René imagined the awaiting Jeep Cherokee he’d reserved. The job recruiter had raved about company bonding powwows in the countryside, “off-road”—wasn’t that the term?

“Your reservation’s confirmed for tomorrow,” said the car rental agent, “not today, Mister Free-ant.” René peered up at the Formica rental-car counter. The voice continued to boom like a loudspeaker above him. The gist of it was that the car with adaptations for his height hadn’t arrived. He needed to clear his jetlag-fogged brain and think. He had a meeting with Tradelert’s CEO in an hour. Thank God he’d gotten the international cell phone.

Kobo didn’t answer. Time to call another friend.

“W
ELCOME TO THE
Valley, René,” said Bob, one hand on the baby-blue steering wheel of his big, finned 1974 Cadillac, the other draped over the passenger seat’s shoulder rest. René had met Bob, a fellow programmer, last year when he’d come to Paris to work on a Netscape project. They had discovered a shared passion for vintage cars.

“Smart to snap you up,” Bob said. “But why the hurry?”

“Seems everybody’s gone into overdrive,” René said. “New venture capital interest, so the agenda’s on warp speed. We’ve got to get the security system up now. Such a challenge and thrill to get in on the ground floor.”

“They’re offering you stock options, right?” Bob turned down the radio, which was blasting Creedence Clearwater Revival.

René nodded. “I’m more interested in the work visa. I came in on a tourist—”

“Whoa, René, look out the window. See that temple?”

A gated block, the peaks of a tiled Japanese roof hinting at the wooden temple.

“No time for the scenic tour, Bob.”

“A twenty-four-year-old owns that. Took it apart, brought it over piece by piece from Japan and reassembled it.”

René nodded. “It’s a gold rush, eh, Bob?”

“More like a bubble. Make your millions and get out. That’s the smart thing.”

As they drove south, the fog evaporated into piercing blue sky. To the west, clouds like tufts of cotton hovered over the range of coastal blue-purple mountains. Again he was hit by the immensity of everything.

“All this feels like CinemaScope. The colors like Technicolor. But I thought California would be hot.”

“We’re in the land of microclimates, René.” Bob pulled into the motel off Alameda de las Pulgas. “Translates to ‘Avenue of the Fleas.’ ”

A bilingual country—would he need to learn Spanish?

Bob grinned. “The fleas thrived here, sucking the conquistador’s blood. But anyone can thrive here, René.” Bob flicked the transmission into park. “No matter who you are, where you’re from, or where your daddy went to school. Parlay your concept into money—that’s what talks here. That’s the Valley—never forget.”

René checked into the motel. The receptionist shook his head. “We have your reservation booked for tomorrow.”

Again?

“
Alors
, there’s some mistake. I reserved one room.”

“Mister Free-ant, right now the honeymoon suite’s all that’s available.”