A Brush with Death Read online

  “I didn't."

  It was unsettling that I had to ask my fiancé such questions as had he been to Australia. His unhappy answer bothered me not a whit. That rancor was for Penderson, not me. But we would have our argument later. I thought about the Van Goghs all being from the same museum, and soon connected it to earlier worries about insurance. “Good lord! Do you mean Latour plans to knock off a whole museum!"

  “I don't know what he's up to, but it's something big.” I saw that what I had taken for simple excitement contained a large part of frustration as well.

  “I see what you mean. He wouldn't be forging copies if he meant to steal just the originals. What he must have in mind is substituting the fakes. That seems like a roundabout way to steal a billion or so dollars."

  “A billion? Make that about five billion."

  “If he could get into the museum undetected when no one's there, why be so obliging as to substitute fakes for what he steals?"

  “It beats me. Unless he plans to knock off more than one museum, and doesn't want the first one to be detected."

  I swallowed. “Wow! When you said big, you weren't kidding."

  “It's humungous. A hell of a lot bigger deal than Latour was ever involved in before. He certainly isn't in this alone. Nobody would think that big, to knock off the entire collected works of a famous painter like Van Gogh. No, it's just the Amsterdam collection he's after. And even for that, he'd need inside help. There's got to be a guy connected with the museum in on this one."

  “You said there were two hundred plus pictures there. Latour only had about ten, didn't he?"

  “Exactly ten. And not actually the ten best either. I mean any old Van Gogh is worth a mint nowadays. Michelangelo's grocery list went for fifty thou a few years ago, and Vincent's laundry list would be worth something. But if Latour's forging, why not forge the most valuable paintings? He copied some of the smaller, less valuable ones, some not from Vincent's most favored period, toward the end of his career."

  “Maybe he just painted the ones that were easier to forge, and plans to sell them."

  John shook his head. “No, if he meant to pretend they were newly discovered Van Goghs, he would have done imitations, not dead ringers. You know, pictures in Van Gogh's style, with his sort of subject matter, but nothing Van Gogh had done before. He would have done a slightly different version of Starry Night, for instance. Van Gogh often did series, like the Sunflowers, the Cypresses, and the various Chair paintings. That's what Latour did before, in Europe. This time he wanted the copies to be so perfect that he had slides of the originals projected while he worked. He had a tape measure, to make sure he got the dimensions perfect, and he did them on old canvases. They were forgeries, not imitations."

  “So he plans to pass them off as originals,” I concluded.

  The coffee came, and John signed for it. “I've got to call a guy about a joual," he muttered.

  “The Van Gogh Museum?"

  “That too, but first I'd better put a tail on Latour. I'd feel like a jackass if he split on me. You pour yourself some java. I won't be a minute."

  I listened from the sitting room and heard John rifle through the phone book. “Is this the Discreet Detective Agency?” he asked. Apparently it was, because he asked to have a man sent to his hotel room immediately. After a minute, he lifted the receiver again and asked for long distance. He was calling the Netherlands. While he talked, I luxuriated in the splendor of the sitting room, enjoying the coffee and looking forward to the arrival of a private eye from the Discreet Detective Agency. This was how life should be—a mixture of luxury and intrigue and romance. And it was how it would be, as soon as I graduated and married John.

  In that ideal world, I wouldn't have an exam the next afternoon. Fortunately I was up on my Existentialists. Existentialism had seemed a sophisticated philosophy to me in my younger days, so l had read about it. I had a nodding acquaintance with Sartre through Simone de Beauvoir before starting my formal studies. I'd already read Camus's Le Mythe de Sisyphe twice, and knew that he claimed in vain to disassociate himself from the Existentialists. If only my professor didn't include a compulsory question on the dialectical materialism controversy, I was home safe. I tended to get bogged down there. Who doesn't?

  When John came back, he had taken off his jacket. I silently admired his expensive shirt, and enjoyed a mental picture of the chest (hirsute but not apish) beneath it. I was feeling amorous, and thought we might enjoy some romance before the detective arrived. I knew the gleam in John's eyes had a different origin and asked politely, “Did you learn anything from Amsterdam?"

  Instead of answering, he put his head back and laughed like a hyena. “We've got it! The Amsterdam connection."

  I felt a surge of adrenaline that had nothing to do with John's physique. “Somebody from the museum? Who?"

  “An assistant curator named Jan Bergma."

  “Do you know him?"

  “Nope, but I soon will. He's in Montreal."

  “Then he can't be helping Latour."

  “He helped before he left, and he'll help again when he goes back—in January. He probably provided the old canvases. He arranged a sabbatical working for the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, to study American painting."

  “Wouldn't he have gone to the States to do that?"

  “Sure he would, if Latour spoke English, and if Latour had been going to the States. Check that phone book, will you, and see if Jan Bergma just happens to live on Côte des Neiges."

  My fingers were shaking with excitement now too, but I couldn't find any Jan Bergma listed at all.

  “Never mind; he must have an unlisted phone. I can check Bergma out at the museum."

  “I don't understand exactly how Bergma helped Latour. I mean I assume he's going to replace the genuine Van Goghs with Latour's copies when he goes back to Amsterdam, but why did he have to come to Canada to do that?"

  “Who knows? Maybe they're lovers. Or maybe Bergma followed Latour here and put the deal to him. Latour was here first."

  I considered this, and still wasn't satisfied. “If Bergma is a curator, why didn't he have Latour copy the most expensive pictures?"

  “That's the best part of it,” John said, nearly bursting with glee. “We were talking about the high cost of insurance and beefing up the safety at the museums a while ago, remember? Because Amsterdam has over two hundred Van Goghs, they're going to sell five to cover the insurance costs. Naturally they won't sell the best ones. They've had some pressure from the States to share the wealth, and insuring traveling exhibits is rapidly becoming impossible, so they're going to sell five outright. It's all very hush hush. Only a handful of top execs in Amsterdam know about it."

  “But Latour copied ten."

  “Yeah, the choice of which five to ditch hadn't been finalized when Bergma left, but the field was narrowed down to ten—the ten Latour's already copied. Bergma's got to be in on it. That's as good as an affidavit in my books. After he returns to the museum in January, Bergma will do the switch, and the five copies will be sold with full authentication from the museum. Nobody's going to question authenticity in a blue-chip purchase like that. Then he sells the real originals to a private collector."

  “The fiend!"

  “Your nice friendly Latour, who's on the side of the angels when it comes to Christmas wallowing in a spending spree."

  I still foresaw difficulties. “But who'll buy the originals Bergma steals when everybody thinks they were sold legitimately to some museum?"

  “You have to realize this whole thing has been simmering for a year. I bet the buyer was in on it from day one. There are lots of closet-connoisseurs out there who'd buy the Mona Lisa if they could get a hold of it. They don't want to show it off to the world. They're not in it for the prestige. They're kind of greedy psychos. They just want to own the thing, and gloat over it in private. If we hadn't figured this out, those originals would have been spirited off to some castle in Arabia, or Japan, or some stately
home in Europe. Places like that are damned hard to get into."

  I enjoyed a mental image of John shimmying up a crenellated castle wall in Bavaria, with wolves yapping at his heels. I poured him some coffee and between grins and praising himself, he drank.

  “I knew this was too big for Latour to handle alone,” he said. “Bergma's the brains behind it. All we have to discover now is who's the purchaser. They say that every successful enterprise needs three people: a dreamer to come up with it—that's Bergma."

  “You mean schemer, don't you?"

  “Whatever. The schemer, that's Bergma. A doer—that's Latour. He's really doing the work. And they need a son-of-a-bitch."

  “That's the buyer? Why do you choose him for the son-of-a-bitch?"

  “That kind of wealth is obscene. If those rich guys weren't so greedy and selfish, nobody'd steal priceless objets d'art that belong in museums. We'll get him too before this is over. We're going to play this one real cool. No cops. Let Latour and Bergma think they're getting away with it, and nab the three of them when the deal goes down."

  After we had talked about all this for a little longer, there was a tap at the doors “That'll be the P.I.,” John said.

  I didn't plan to miss a minute of this, and followed him to the door. Led astray by movies and TV, I had pictured some glamorous Humphrey Bogart-type private eye, drinking his booze out of a bottle and talking out of the side of his mouth. What greeted us was a completely undistinguished-looking man in a rumpled suit and hooded jacket. He was short, middle-aged, with snuff-colored hair and dark eyes. What came out of his mouth when he spoke was the local joual, of which I understood about two words in ten. His name was Monsieur Menard, and he was from the agency.

  “Do you speak English at all?” John asked.

  "Mais oui, certainement. I speak Engleesh good like français."

  “That's great,” John said, and drew him into the room. He wrote down Latour's address and description, our hotel room number, and told him he wanted Latour followed, but very discreetly.

  “We are deescreet—the Deescreet Detective h'Agency. This Latour, he's playing around with your woman—wife? You got the picture of her?"

  “No. No wife. Just follow him. Get pictures of anybody he meets. I want time and place. Comprenez?"

  "Wye.” Joual for oui is wye.

  “Never mind why,” John said. “Just tail him, real close."

  “It's okay, John. He said yes,” I explained, and smiled apologetically at M. Menard.

  John looked embarrassed and said, “Oh, I see. Well, merci. Call me here. I may not be here all the time, but you can leave a message by phone."

  "Wye. I stick with him like the glue."

  M. Menard left. It was already after four o'clock, and loathe as I was to leave, I did have to crack the books. I reluctantly put on my coat. Then, when it was too late, John turned romantic.

  “You're not leaving!” he exclaimed.

  “I have an exam tomorrow afternoon, a toughie. Existentialism. But it's my last one. We really have to talk about the Christmas holidays, John."

  He drew me into his arms, snuggling his hands under my coat, and rubbing his whiskered lips against my cheek. “Existentialism, huh?” he murmured, in a tone that had nothing to do with philosophy. “Sure I can't convince you to ...''

  “Don't tempt me. Give me four hours."

  He glanced at his watch. “That'll be just about dinner time. Why don't you study here, and..."

  Quite apart from the fact that my books were at my apartment, I knew how much studying I'd get done if I stayed. “I'll take the subway home, John. Don't bother driving me. You probably have some scheming to do."

  “There are a couple of guys I have to call. I better get in touch with the office. I might just give Parelli a toot as well. I don't want to get all tied up with badges, but I could use an unofficial pipeline. It's Christmas, and he might have a few days off. He works out of Toronto, but his home's in Montreal. Some backup will come in handy, since there are at least three guys to contend with. You remember Gino Parelli? He was a nice guy."

  “The Mountie?"

  “That's right, the guy that helped me catch Ronald. I'm sure you haven't forgotten your old friend, Ronald.” He challenged me with a laughing eye.

  Ronald was the SOB who kidnapped my uncle and tried to get the Stradivarius in Toronto last summer. He was a boyfriend before that. John was always a little jealous of him.

  “How could I forget Ronald? So handsome,” I sighed.

  “And so stupid."

  “I'll meet you here around eight-thirty,” I said.

  “Take a taxi, will you? I don't want you on the subways after dark."

  “This isn't New York, you know."

  Knowing my love of luxury, he said, “Are you okay for dough?” His hand was already sliding toward his wallet. “I don't want to step on any feminist toes, but we are engaged."

  “I'm okay. Since you're feeding me, I can afford taxi fare. See you."

  He came to the door with me, kissed me again, and I left reluctantly to hotfoot it to the Metro station. Actually coldfoot it would be a more appropriate word. A bitter wind had blown down from the North Pole while we were indoors. It laughed at my pitiful attempts at holding it off. Sheepskin and suede didn't begin to do it.

  CHAPTER 4

  As I studied, I came to the conclusion that Existentialism wasn't for the nineties, or if it was, it showed us a very sad picture of mankind. In that philosophy, there is no ideal man or human nature or God. We're each in it alone, in our discrete time and place, destined to define humanity by our actions. Human nature is the sum total of human actions, always in the making, never established. And in the last few decades, we were writing a sorry definition of mankind. It seemed ironic that the lifeworks of a die-hard idealist like Van Gogh should become the prey of robbers and criminals.

  I tried to concentrate on my work, but “the case” was always there, at the periphery of my mind. So was John. I was happy he was here, even if he hadn't come specifically to see me. Would he have called if he hadn't been coming? For three weeks he hadn't bothered to pick up the phone. Even if I could afford it, which I couldn't, I couldn't call him because I never knew where he was. I was going to get this situation straightened out before he left. His work was dangerous. He could be dead, floating in a canal in Amsterdam or in the Seine, and I wouldn't even know it till his bloated body was fished out of the water. Or almost as bad, he could be with another woman.

  I wanted to tie that down too. Was he seeing other women? We hadn't discussed it. I didn't sit home every night, but I made it a point never to go out with the same man more than twice. It was so easy to meet men at the university that this was no problem. With John though, he'd probably only meet one or two women in any city he happened to be in. Was he having little flings in various capitals? Was that what accounted for those occasional weeks that passed without a phone call? Tonight, for sure, I'd get an answer.

  I wanted to look ravishing enough that he desired no one but me, and to this end I set aside the books early enough to put on all the bells and whistles. The Montreal ladies turn out in high style, very cosmopolitan. I guess it's the French influence. I had totally flattened my wallet on a chic little black, pencil-thin dress with long, tight sleeves. It cried out loud for diamonds, but had to make do with a chunky, modern necklace. Not even gold-plated, but in the dark, who'd know the difference? I consoled myself that I'd seen Diana Vreeland wear one of a similar design on TV.

  As it was too late to visit a hairdresser, I piled my tawny mane up on the back of my head and used Sherry's hair curler to curl a few dangling strands, to soften the look. Romantic was the effect I was striving for. Maybe I should have settled for dramatic. It's hard to make an angular, square-jawed face look romantic. At least my nose was straight, and my lips full. A hint of silvery eye shadow glitzed up my dark eyes. A smear of rouge and I was ready. My fingers encountered a little bump as I rubbed the rouge in.
With seventeen square feet of skin on the human body, did that incipient pimple have to choose my face? I rubbed again, and thank heavens it melted. It was just a lump in the rouge.

  Next I tiptoed to Sherry's bureau and “borrowed” a dash of her Giorgio. I didn't figure this decision was doing mankind any irreparable damage because I would have done the same if she'd been in her room. I used her beauty aids; she used my books and picked my brain. Although she attended the university, she didn't believe in wasting money on books. She was an old-fashioned girl, there for a husband.

  On those rare occasions when I had a fancy date, it was understood I wore her second-best coat, a long black, fitted wool with a huge black fox collar. I feel like a Russian princess in it, and besides it's as warm as toast. Actually it looks a lot better on my long, lean frame than it does on Sherry, who has less height and more curves. I was happy to see, when I went to the closet, that she'd worn her beaver home for Christmas. I slid into the black coat and called a cab. There was an air of tingling excitement flaming through me.

  A few heads turned as I strode through the hotel lobby. The heady fumes of Giorgio wafted toward my nostrils in the elevator. I felt sorry for the middle-aged, middle-class couple who shared the space with me. They had probably already had their dinner, and were going back to their room to watch TV. I think the woman took me for a call girl. She looked at me out of the side of her eyes in a condemning way and pursed her lips. I ignored her, and stifled the urge to wink at her husband.

  A bright smile was in place as I tapped on John's door, knowing I looked good. He'd sweep me into his arms and kiss me. He answered at the first tap and pulled me into the room. He was still wearing the same shirt and tie he'd worn that afternoon. It was hard not to notice that his hair was sticking up, indicating that he'd been reefing his hands through it. And of course that he didn't pull me into his arms was the biggest disappointment of all.

  “You're late! Where have you been?” he asked impatiently. I knew then that the evening wasn't going to go the way I'd planned.

  “What's happened?” I demanded.