The Counterfeit Murder in the Museum of Man (30 page)

In all seriousness, and sex needs be taken seriously even as the mounting tension and the giddiness of license make one smirk inwardly … In all seriousness, sex might well be the most palpable if not the ultimate indulgence in earthly beauty. In this spirit, Merissa would not have the lights dimmed, and nor should she have, given the visual feast she knew herself to be. At the risk of being unchivalrous, I would like to paint if only with words such details as Merissa’s finely sculpted clavicles, her darkly prominent aureoles, which were ever so slightly pebbled and pink-brown against the creamy swell of her breasts, her shapely legs,
and her remarkably well-toned nether cheeks. But also the fan of her rich hair, her smiling mischievous eyes, her perfect nose and lush mouth. As one Amis or another has remarked, the most beautiful part of a naked woman is her face, the Duc d’Orleans notwithstanding. (Delacroix’s oil of the Duc d’Orleans displaying his unclothed mistress to the Duc de Bourgogne has the former veiling the upper part of her body.)

Among other things, Merissa provided me with a whole new appreciation of the adjectival phrase
clean-shaven
. Her depilated state was such as to vitiate, nay, razor to the roots, the synecdochic and metaphorical links between what I describe and the eponymous small felid. Indeed, her cloven, glabrous quiddity achieved nothing less than a second order of nudity, one that had me on my knees indulging in what an eminent poet has been amused to call the oral tradition. But even then, though tongue-tied and up to my nostrils in pungent lubricity, immersed in the pleasure of giving pleasure, I thought of the young Augustine and his prayer — Oh Lord, grant me chastity. But not just yet.

In returning the favor with enthusiasm and practiced competence, Merissa persuaded me that the vulgar compound for one who fellates should be used as an endearment rather than as an epithet. Especially, as in my case, if that one is a woman.

It was perhaps inevitable that we should experience cell phone interruptus. Yet the movements necessary for Merissa to turn the damn thing off — a torsal twist and a reaching of lovely arm — presented to me her whole dorsal splendor and made me think sex was, among many things, a cleaving of symmetry. This brief relapse to the mundanity of modern electronics had the salutory effect of making us more or less start over again, intermission leading to re-intromission, so to speak.

I cannot claim that Merissa proved a “revelation,” as fiction-a lists are wont to say. Sex ends up being sex whatever bells
and whistles of the flesh precede the final tupping. But she was appreciative, eager, friendly, and, to say the least, generous in the succession of venues she offered for my unflagging delectation, the last of which I declined, much to her merriment.

“Oh, Norman, you really are an old stick in the mud.”

“Yes and no,” I murmured, “yes and no.”

But I am not good at adultery. For all its culminatory excesses (the sound effects on Merissa’s part must have carried into the hall), the encounter left me unappeased and hankering, but for what, I did not know. What I could not fathom, as the aforementioned gratitude took hold, was what, if anything, I owed Merissa. Respect, certainly. But it’s presumptuous to assume I owe her anything. One has to assume the gratifications are mutual. In fact, she may regard me as little more than an overripe plum she plucked from a low branch. Or found lying on the ground. She’ll surely tell Diantha, as though by mistake, scoring points, giving them something to spat about and then patch up, closer than ever. Women are a strange species.

And what about my own motives? Other than simple lust, though lust is seldom simple, how much of my sudden ardor for Merissa might have sprung from anger? Was there not an element of preemptive retribution? Because I feared that Diantha was off cavorting with her minstrel boy and his merry band of drug addicts? It wasn’t any sense of conquest. I have no urge to take pelts of the kind you either hang on the wall or record in your diary. But I did worry in wondering if I had indulged the primal act of possessing the woman of a man I had murdered.

I decided not to analyze any of this too closely. Drained but not satiated, I made my way home with a noticeably subdued Alphus next to me in the front seat, both of us staring out at a steady rain through the metronomic
swish swish
of the windshield wipers.

Limbo can be hell. In three days I face the Governing Board. If they ask for my resignation, then life as I have known it for several decades will cease to exist. Even now, when I glance around my office or walk through galleries of the museum, I feel like I am walking through my past.

If fired, what will I do, I ask myself now in a steady refrain of foreboding. Vegetate? Smell the roses? On what, my own funeral wreaths? I am far too old to revive my youthful dreams of doing field archaeology. I will be financially embarrassed, as my pension will be puny and many of my securities have become insecurities. All work may be honorable, but I can’t quite see myself bagging groceries at the supermarket.

I suppose I should have delayed writing to Elgin Warwick about his mummy scheme. Felix shook his head in disbelief when I showed him a copy of the letter I had sent.

“So what’s his response been?”

“Nothing. A deafening silence.”

“Not good. Not good. Guys like Warwick are used to getting what they want. Especially when they’re willing to pay for it.”

I looked out the tall windows of my office at the overcast sky and said nothing.

“You know, Norman, you don’t make it easy for people trying to help you.”

I apologized. But how to explain that I needed to tie up at least one loose end and that the letter to Warwick did just that,
perhaps in more ways than one. Because I have still not heard from Diantha. Bella called to tell me that Elsie was doing fine. “She teach me hand talk, Mr. Norman.”

“That’s nice,” I said, grateful for at least that tidbit. Still, I was craven enough to ask, “Is Diantha there?”

“No, Mr. Norman. She says to be back later.” I did not press it. If I have not succumbed to the temptation to call Merissa and propose another lunch, to put it euphemistically, it’s because my emotions are in one big mangle. Of course, I would like to roger her royally again, to use the British idiom. Nor, in desisting from making such a call, do I want her to think I am slighting her.

That’s the simple part. I suspect my real reason for wanting to contact Merissa is to hear about Diantha. Has the former told the latter about our little tryst, thereby giving Diantha justification for carrying on with her slanging troubadour? Merissa, for all her feather brains, would sniff out my intentions immediately. And laugh. God, why does love reduce us, big grown-up people, to little more than adolescents?

For all that, there have been a few dim bright spots. If I wasn’t in such danger of losing all that I cherish, I might have enjoyed the anomaly of being out on bail on a charge of accessory to murder while working hand-in-glove with the police on two cases, including my own. That strange state of affairs was no more evident than in my meeting with Lieutenant Tracy at police headquarters, a meeting at which we both had significant developments to relate.

Indeed, for the first time in what is becoming a history of close cooperation with the SPD, I was taken into the office of Chief Murphy. He is a busy man of my years with a pear-shaped head, stem up, the hard eyes of a lifelong cop, and a brusque, friendly voice.

He stood upon our entry, extended a hand, and shook mine
warmly. “I want to thank you personally, Mr. Ratour, for your help in the Sterl case. I am distantly related to the Sterls through marriage. I can tell you the pressure that came from all quarters has been … memorable.”

I thanked him in turn and took a chair with the lieutenant in front of the man’s big desk.

He knit his hands together. “Just so that you know, Mr. Ratour, I am pulling every string and chain I know to get Jason Duff to drop those charges against you. But Jason’s like a bulldog once he gets a bone in his mouth.”

“He says just because you’re helping in one case doesn’t mean you aren’t involved in the other,” the lieutenant put in.

“It would help me considerably,” I said. “I appreciate very much what you’re doing for me.”

“Bribe me with a bottle of good bourbon when I get it done.”

We settled down to business. “This is strictly off the record, Norman,” the lieutenant said, “but we arrested Andrijana Jakovich yesterday. She’s been singing like an opera star ever since.”

“So it was murder.”

“As clean a case as we’ve ever had,” the chief said.

“What about Branko?”

The chief leaned forward. “His face is plastered in so many places, you’d think he was running for office.”

“He was last sighted in Pittsburgh,” the lieutenant said. “We don’t expect him to get far.” He paused. “We’ll need affidavits from you and your people as to the authenticity of the video you sent us. Routine stuff.”

I allowed as that would not be a problem. I then opened a large manila envelope I had been holding in my hand. “These are the coins from the boat that you allowed me to have tested. These are results.” I spread out a couple of the photos. “It seems
the coins on the boat are also fakes. In fact, identical to those given to the museum.”

The two policemen inspected the samples and photographs. “Fascinating,” the chief said. “Who does it point to?”

“Max Shofar,” I said, but without much conviction.

They waited. I said, “He might know who does this sort of thing, but I don’t think he deals in fakes. He’s got too much to lose.”

“All right.”

“But if Heinie … von Grümh took the originals, the real coins … to a forger, then Max might know where to look. I wouldn’t mind talking to him again.”

The chief glanced at his lieutenant, who said, “It’s okay with me. But, Norman, if you find or suspect anything incriminating, we’ll take it from there.”

We parted on friendly terms. I drove home with such a sense of elation that I ran an orange light before I could stop. I was pulled over and given a warning by a crew-cut woman cop who could have been a bodybuilder.

People have gotten used to me showing up at the museum with Alphus in tow. For the sake of appearances, I keep him on a leash attached to a collar around his neck. I know it makes me appear weird, but frankly, I have too many other things to worry about. Alphus understands why I need to do it.

On this particular afternoon, we had two important appointments. Just after lunch, Max Shofar dropped by for what I told him on the phone would be an important updating on the von Grümh case. He can be a gracious person when he wants to be, especially in his unfeigned and knowledgeable appreciation of the objects in my office and in the collections generally.

“I always go away renewed after I’ve visited here,” he told me, seated in front of my desk in a blue blazer and tan trousers.

I explained the presence of Alphus who was seated off to one side as a kind of pet-sitting I had to do. He nodded at my primate friend, who nodded back very civilly.

We exchanged some small talk, mentioning Merissa, but in no particulars. I detected an enhanced level of respect in his attitude toward me. I wondered if Merissa had told him about my amorous accomplishments. More than likely it had to do with my role in the Sterl case.

“So what’s this updating you mentioned on the phone?”

I leaned forward over my desk and caught a whiff of his subtle cologne. “We found the originals in Heinie’s sailboat.”

The man’s face lit up. “Well, that gets me off the hook.”

I waited a moment. “Not quite. I’ve learned that the so-called originals are also fakes.”

His smile turned knowing and rueful. “He shouldn’t have done it.”

“Done what?”

He paused, glanced over at Alphus, evidently pondering what to tell me. He said, “Heinie outsmarted himself.”

“How so?”

“I would say he found a forger to knock off copies of his collection to go to the museum. For that he got the kind of public applause he so desperately needed and a hefty tax break. But the guy he went to made two copies and kept the originals.”

“Who might that be?”

Again he hesitated. He sighed. “Okay, for defensive purposes, I keep track of the better fakers. They’re getting so good with lasers and metallurgy, it’s more and more difficult to distinguish between what’s real and what’s a replica, to use a nice term.” He looked at Alphus with surprise, as though noticing something odd.

“Who?” I repeated.

“Well, of course, there’s the Lipanov establishment. Bulgaria. They make replicas, have for a long time. But I don’t think they would have done business with Heinie for what he wanted.”

“Okay.”

He thought for a moment. “Since Heinie had a boat, he could have taken them to Levi Stein. He’s an Anglo-Israeli who set up in the Bahamas some time back. He makes replicas openly and forgeries on the side. Or so I’ve heard.”

I was taking notes. “Anyone more local?”

“There’s Henry Song in Manhattan. I’ve heard he supplies the growing market in China with first-rate fakes.”

“That doesn’t sound like it would have been Heinie’s cup of tea.”

“You’re right. He would have looked down his nose at Chinese-made fakes.”

“But no one local?”

“I’ve heard of a Swiss guy out in the Berkshires in one of the small towns. Nothing really substantial. And more in the line of antiques, swords, old guns, even medieval armor.”

A distant, dim bell rang in my memory, but more as a number than anything tangible.

“Otherwise,” Max continued, “he would have had to go to Europe. And that’s got problems of its own.”

“Such as?”

“Taking them out. Bringing them back. It isn’t like the old days.”

“And you never put him in touch with anyone?”

He looked at me with rueful resignation. “Norman, I’ve told you. I don’t deal in fakes. I go out of my way to find them because they’re toxic. That’s why I’m trying to stay away from this whole thing.”

I believed him. I thanked him and asked, as casually as I could, “Do you mind if I ask you a couple of basic questions regarding Heinie’s murder?”