The Warhol Incident (12 page)

A man p
laying pool said something, likely sexist, in French. His smile could make Martin’s lechery look like it belonged to a choirboy. I returned his smile and made a pretense at drunkenly sauntering over. This was easily achieved by stumbling into the pool table and a barstool.

“Hey there,” I said, makin
g it painfully obvious I was American.

“Hey yoursel
f, babe.” The man spoke English. Maybe he deserved a prize, so I let him continue to stare down my top. “Looking to play? Or are you lost?” I sized up the guy from the moment I stepped inside. He was one of the hired guns, large, burly, and covered in street tats. He would know how to deal with unpleasant outsiders. I noted the scar tissue around his knuckles and eyes. He had either been some type of fighter, or he just really liked to hit people. Unfortunately, some of those people had hit back, maybe because he stared down their tops too.

“I
need a drink first to warm up before I hit the tables,” I slurred. “Are they open to anyone? Or just to people you like?” I attempted to be seductive, and he smiled.

“Francois, a drink for the lady,” he yelled to the bartender.
I glanced over, watching the bartender mix the drink. I was suspicious by nature, but I couldn’t risk being roofied. Francois mixed the drink and slid it down the bar.

“Mercy.”
I downplayed any and all French speaking ability I possessed. When in doubt, best to play dumb. Taking a gulp from the glass, I put it on the edge of the table.

“Warmer?” Burly tat guy asked.

“
You betcha. Do you wager here? I can never remember these things. I just came from Monte Carlo, and they wager on everything. I still have some of my winnings left.” I pulled a hefty stack of Euros from my pocket and saw the man’s eyes light up. Clearly, he thought he found an idiotic, drunken American girl, willing to hand over her money and who knew what else by the end of the night. That would make whoever was in charge happy, and maybe give Burly guy enough of a raise to go get another tattoo.

“We only play for mone
y here.”

“Well, that is the only reas
on to play, now isn’t it?” I cooed, cocking an eyebrow up at him.

“What’s your name, baby?” the man asked as he racked the billiards.

“Alex,” I responded, taking off my leather jacket and
placing it on a nearby chair. My knife was folded into the top of my ankle boot, but the pepper spray was in my jacket pocket. Figuring it was an everyday necessity for women, it likely wouldn’t be touched or thought of as suspicious. “And you are?” I asked, trying to sound playful and slutty.

“Claude,” he replied.
“My pleasure to meet you.”

“Not yet,” I gave him my best sexy eyes, “but we’ll see how things go.”
I picked up a cue. “What’s the going rate on games?”

“Two hundred, starting.” He watched my reaction, and
I wondered if I was exuding cop instead of drunken slut. I might need to step up the act a bit. Pulling out a handful of Euros, I slapped them down onto the table.

“How about we play for whatever that is
, and we can take it from there.”

H
e picked up the money, counting it quickly in his head and adding an equal amount to it before putting it into one of the side pockets for safe keeping. I was permitted to break, and I played well but not too well. I wanted to hook this guy by showing competence in the game play and betting without being an easy mark, but I made sure he won.

“Double o
r nothing?” I made a pouty face. “Come on, you have to give me a chance to win some of it back.” Ordering another drink from the bar, I expertly spilled most of it between the bar and the table without anyone noticing.  

“Okay.”
He was delighted by this prospect. Maybe he wasn’t used to getting five hundred a game.

I leaned over the table, making sure he got a n
ice eyeful before standing up and walking around to the other side to line up my shot. Leaning against the table in front of him, he got a nice view of my ass before I finally took my shot. I wanted him to be distracted, so when I won, he wouldn’t think it was because I was hustling him.

The g
ame was close, but I scraped by at the last minute. It was a good thing I spent most of my four years at college staying up late at night playing pool, and people argue college doesn’t prepare anyone for the real world. Ha. Claude cursed in French. I smiled and picked up my glass, swallowing the remainder in one gulp before turning the glass upside down on the table.

P
eople around us were watching now, and I could differentiate the regulars from those being hustled. There was one man, dressed slightly more sophisticated, in a black button-up shirt and dark jeans at the corner of the room, watching everything. He was the guy in charge. Taking a mental picture, he had close cropped dark hair, eyes that had seen too much, and a flare for the decadent. His entire presence radiated power. This wasn’t a small racket. I accidentally stumbled into some serious shit. Parker, you’re playing with the big boys now. 

“Another game.”
Claude was being demanding, but I agreed. I needed to demonstrate my willingness to throw a significant amount of money around if I wanted to be taken seriously. I also knew I needed to scrape by until the end and then lose. The house always wins was the only rule that mattered when it came to gambling.

“Sure, but o
nly if you buy another round.” I walked my fingers up his chest. My skills at flirtation sucked, but hopefully, it wouldn’t matter.

“Francois,” Claude called to the bartender and b
ought another glass. I sipped this one slowly, knowing now that I had the attention of the man in charge, I couldn’t get away with spilling half of it on the floor.

“Let’s
make it an even grand this time,” I suggested, placing the entirety of my winnings on the table. He was ecstatic. The next game continued, and I scratched at the last possible minute, giving him the opportunity to win.

“Again?”
Boss man got up from the booth and went into a back room. Was he coming back or did he see enough? Hopefully, my drunken tourist act had done the job. I made a pretense of reaching into my pocket.

“Sorry,
I’m flush tonight.” I was absentmindedly running my hand up and down Claude’s bicep. He had some muscle, but it was mostly blubber from drinking too much. “Maybe another night. You have to give me a chance to win my money back.” My pouty expression was visible once again.

“Come back anytime.
I’m always here.”

“M
aybe pool just isn’t my game.” Was now a good time to broach this subject? “Any other games you think we could play?” I picked up the glass and finished it off. “I remember doing pretty good playing blackjack.” Claude turned away from me and glanced toward the room Boss man disappeared into. The door was open, and the man was seated at a desk inside. He nodded almost imperceptibly.

“Come back tomorrow, and we’ll find something more to yo
ur liking.”

I left the
bar and headed to my hotel, keeping a careful eye on the rearview mirror to make sure I wasn’t being followed. There was no way of knowing if the bar I happened upon tonight would eventually lead to the men Jean-Pierre owed. Underground gambling might not run in just one circle, but I was certain I stumbled upon a powerful presence. There was no other explanation for the hired muscle and the back room head nod.

As I continued driving, my mind wandered
to Van Buren and his humdrum life. From what I observed, he was a complete homebody who stuck to a stable routine. No friends, no visitors, nothing. I slammed on my brakes and turned down the next street, reversing direction and heading toward Van Buren’s apartment. Maybe something new would surface at this late hour. It was almost four a.m. By my reasoning, Van Buren should have been asleep for the last four hours, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe he was like Marset, waking in the middle of the night to have clandestine meetings with strange men. I found a spot and parked.

All the lights were off, and there didn’t appear to be any moveme
nt in the apartment. I’d wait an hour and then go to my hotel. I was sitting in the car, trying to stay focused on the apartment but not managing very well. Stakeouts were incredibly boring, especially by yourself. It was dark, and I was tired. I fiddled with the radio for a while, but that got boring fast. Checking my phone, I debated if I should call Clare to keep me company, but it was the middle of the night. I thought about calling Mark or Martin. But Mark would want an update, and Martin would be confused by my call. I leaned back in my seat and stared out the windshield.     

“Holy crap.
” I jumped at the sound of knocking on the passenger’s side window. I glanced over while reaching for my knife. Dammit, I thought, hitting the unlock button on the door. Agent Delacroix of Interpol opened the door and got into my car.

“Par
ker, are you lost?” he asked in a demeaning tone.

“Not exactly.”
With my luck, I’d be going to the airport in the morning. Delacroix sniffed the air cautiously.

“Are
you drunk?”

“
Not exactly. My shirt might be.” He nodded at my comment as if it made perfect sense.

“Just thought you’d like to know, we’ve cleared Van Buren as a suspect.
You can stop tailing him.”

“What?”
I was mystified.

“He isn’t responsible, airtight alibi.”
Delacroix was all business. “I know you’ve been surveilling him all week. I’ve had a couple of guys watching you watching him.”

Dammit,
I was so consumed by watching Van Buren I didn’t worry about who was watching me. That was a rookie mistake, and if it had been the bomber, it could have cost me dearly. “Wait a minute, if he isn’t the guy, why the hell are you out here at five in the morning, giving me this update?” Especially since this was my first late night stakeout. I was getting an uneasy feeling about Delacroix and carefully reached toward the door handle of the car, preparing to flee if necessary.

He
genuinely smiled, a look I had never seen on his face. “Maybe you need to do a bit more homework.” He opened the door and got out of the car. “Go back to your hotel and get cleaned up. Come see me tomorrow afternoon. We have a couple of things to discuss.” He walked down the street and got into a black sedan. I sat, not moving for a few minutes, waiting to see if he was leaving. He remained parked a few cars away. Finally, I gave up and slowly pulled out of the space, executing a three point turn, and driving past the sedan. The silhouette of another person was in the driver’s seat of the vehicle, but in the dark, there was no way of knowing who it might be.

Back in my room, I was
more confused now than when I left. I pulled up the addresses on all the other Evans-Sterling suspects, but no one lived near Van Buren. So why were Interpol agents in the neighborhood if Van Buren wasn’t involved? But he had to be. He wired the money to Ramirez.

Wait a minute, I
thought about the wire transfer. To wire money all someone needed was photo identification. Could someone have forged an I.D. using Van Buren’s information in order to throw investigators off the scent? Great, Van Buren was likely a dead end, and I was back to square one. Whoever was behind this was an Evans-Sterling employee who was working the gallery. I skimmed through Jean-Pierre’s information, figuring if I was back at square one, I might as well start at the very first building block.

“Huh,” I said to the computer scr
een. Jean-Pierre lived across the street from Van Buren. Could Delacroix have been staking out Jean-Pierre’s apartment to see if the killer might be coming back for something, a missing painting perhaps? I shut off my laptop and went to bed. There would be no way of knowing what was actually going on until Delacroix read me in on his investigation, unless of course his entire plan was to lure me to his office in the afternoon just so he could personally escort me to the airport. I pushed the second thought aside, figuring he wouldn’t have wasted his time if that was the case.

*              *              *

That afternoon, I arrived, looking professional. For what, I didn’t yet know. I sat in Delacroix’s office, waiting for him to return from a meeting and resisting the urge to rifle through the files on his desk, looking for information; instead, I watched the second hand on the clock slowly tick by. When Delacroix returned, he glanced at the stack of files suspiciously as he sat behind his desk.

“Did y
ou do your homework, Parker?” he asked in an attempt to disgrace my intellect.

“You’re watching Gustav’s place.
” I glared at him. “Are you waiting for someone to return to the scene of the crime, so to speak?”

He
nodded to himself as a smug, omniscient grin crinkled the corners of his eyes. “I was on the phone a few minutes ago with Farrell. Seems you called in quite a few tips on this case.” He wasn’t answering my question, so I figured I might as well return the favor. We stared each other down for a few minutes.

“Are y
ou sending me home?”

He seemed
to consider something before he replied, “I heard you could be a hard ass. Stubborn, opinionated, difficulty playing well with others, probably means you don’t let people push you around.” I sat there, unresponsive to his commentary. I could be a team player, just ask Mark Jablonsky. Maybe I was a bit headstrong, but I always followed orders. Well, almost always.

“Is th
ere a point?”

“Just thought it might b
e fun to see what you shake loose on your own. You know Van Buren is clear, and from now on, stay clear of Gustav’s place. If we spotted you, someone else could too.” I continued staring at him, wondering what the hell he was thinking. “You’re free to go. Remember, report back anything you find. This is still my case.”

“You know, I no
rmally get paid for my services.”

“Funny, you don’t
seem like a street-walker.” I headed for the door, more pissed off than when I arrived. Out of the two of us, I was not the one who couldn’t play well with others. “Parker,” he called as I reached the hallway, “there might be some kind of reward for information that leads to the arrest of the bomber.” I snorted and continued walking.