Crooked (11 page)

C h a p t e r                           1 6

 
T
here was no look of surprise on H Olbeter’s face as he entered 113 15th Street. A dark Hispanic man of medium height and sturdy build, H sported a velvet-collared overcoat and shiny shoes. He stood in the doorway nodding while he carefully removed kid gloves, tugging at each finger separately, like some English gentleman entering his club for an evening of whist. When the gloves were stowed, he approached the bar.

“Anybody else in this place, my friend?”

Wax was shaking his head at a flashing chrome CD, evidently disappointed.

“Y’know, CDs replaced records ’cause of needles and skips. And they replaced cassettes ’cause these babies got no moving parts. But when one of these things goes haywire, man, you wonder why you ever threw your turntable on the trash heap.” Wax glanced up at H. “Somebody got a scotch a little while ago. Might be over there somewhere.”

“Martel, my friend, neat.” H stroked one of his pointy sideburns and took in his surroundings. It was then that he spied Nicholas in the corner booth, behind the flicker of a candle, watching him.

“Very classy place you have here.” H sat across from Nicholas. “You just hide back here and spy on your friends, eh?”

“And on anybody else who might be looking for me. Don’t forget, I once got cornered in a bar by Psycho Lawyer Bob.” Nicholas smirked.

“That loco took us to Belize.” H sipped his Martel. “Where to this time, my friend?”

“How come it took so long for you to get back to me?”

“That was just the other day. What, I’m supposed to wait at home for your calls? I’m a busy guy, Nicholas, got a lot of very classy clientele these days.”

“For instance?” Nicholas folded his arms, and his tan suit crunched.

“Confidential, my friend, all very confidential.”

“Someone told me you were stooping to courier work.”

“Stooping?” H smoothed his hair. “It so happens, Nicholas, that confidential courier stuff can be very lucrative—”

“Gofer work.”

“—high-security work that requires someone who can really keep their eye on the ball.”

“Like you, huh?” Nicholas shook his head and sipped his Macallan.

“It so happens, my friend, that I just made seven grand in four days transporting a painting to Hong Kong. Now, what you been doin’, amigo?”

“Confidential.”

“Funny thing. A little tweety bird told me you got yourself arrested for murder.”

“Never a dull moment.” Nicholas winced.

H smiled. “So while me and my lousy courier job put a cool seven grand in my pocket, your snooping got you jail.”

“Seven thou in your pocket?”

“Sure, I’m gonna get it. In cash too.” H flushed. Nicholas laughed.

“You mean to tell me you didn’t get the money up front? Not even half?”

“BB’s always come up with it before. She’s been real straight.” H swigged the rest of his Martel and tried to ignore the accidental disclosure.

“Really? I was at an opening the other day, at BB’s invitation. We talked about
Trampoline Nude, 1972
and she mentioned she had a buyer in Hong Kong.”

“Forget it, Nicholas. It don’t work. The painting I moved? It was a Moolman, but it was not
Trampoline Nude, 1972
. It was
Trampoline Nude, 1978
.”

Nicholas shook the ice in his glass. “How could you tell?”

“Because it had a big 78 right in the center, that’s what.”

“OK, OK. But you can’t blame a guy for trying, H. BB was acting awfully suspicious about Moolmans in general. I still think she may have it.”

“My friend, she’s a rich lady. She don’t need to move hot…”

H looked at the folder Nicholas slid in front of him.

“What’s this?”

“You know Mel Dormé, don’t you?”

“Of course. ‘The Velvet Fog.’”

“
Melanie Dormé?
With a capital
D
?”

“Ah, yes. Credit investigator. Very pricey.”

“Mel dug that up for me, and you’re right, it wasn’t cheap.” The promise of Sunday dinner hadn’t brought her price down any. “It’s about BB. Chase Bank account, loans, Visa, MasterCard, Diner’s Club, Merrill Lynch, Fidelity Investments. Check it out, and you tell me where your seven grand is coming from. She’s already written over twenty thousand in checks to her contractor this month and there’s not a penny in the bank. She’s overdrawn, and her credit is all soaked up. See, your plane tickets are on the next page, on Visa, which is maxed. BB hasn’t cut a rent check in three months. She’s strapped.”

H flipped through the folder, then went back to the first page and squinted.

“But with my own eyes I seen the guy in Hong Kong wire two and a half million dinero to her account. Day before yesterday, I think.” H rubbed a sideburn nervously.

Nicholas put the booth’s lone candle on the printout and pointed.

“See here? It all went to Christie’s and Sotheby’s.”

H squinted at the folder again.

“I think I must drop a dime on BB, see where my money is at.” H scowled, flipped open his cell, and made tracks outside to get a signal.

Nicholas sauntered up to the bar for another Macallan, smiling. Wax was nowhere to be seen, so he tapped himself a short Guinness while he waited for the bartender’s return. The debriefing of H hadn’t been a complete accident. Mel had not only supplied Nicholas with BB’s complete financial portfolio but her recent telephone records as well. Nicholas had recognized H’s number, listed on the morning after the painting was swiped. Just another reason he kept changing his own phone number. Any skip tracer, credit investigator, or hacker worth their salt could splay a person’s life out like so many cold cuts at an office party.

Nicholas’s real coup, though, was H’s description of
Trampoline Nude, 1972
. Moolman was noted for being a clever and playful artist. The theory behind his Trampoline Nude Series was that the title led to preconceptions about the paintings’ contents. People saw nudes, they saw the trampoline, all in abstract, of course. What Moolman had painted was merely the abstraction of a pineapple and a pair of bananas on a carving board, therefore proving the point that people see what they want to see, or are told to see. Especially when the subject is sex.

The numbers in the paintings were another precocious aspect of Moolman’s work. It was both a comment on the fact that people are always ascribing numbers to paintings, by way of price, thus losing the sense of actual aesthetic value, and a play on people’s natural inclination, again, to ascribe the painting’s title with the content. For example,
Trampoline Nude, 1972
had a large “78” painted in the center, right on the pineapple’s belly.

Nicholas knew where the painting was: Hong Kong. But that information alone wasn’t going to get him his finder’s fee. The trick would be figuring out a way to get it back to the U.S. and into his possession. The only way to do that would be to make BB get it back.

Maureen not only had to suffer sore joints from the effects of the Mace and a puckered purple eye socket from the punch, but she also took a lot of grief getting Patrick off the hook.

“If your mother was alive today…” Dad brogued over the phone, as much a threat as a lament. She was using the desk phone of a certain Detective Brady. After being pinched, Patrick had told the police at the local precinct that his sister used to be a cop. She’d gotten a “courtesy call” from Brady and had to do some fancy explaining to get her brother off the hook.

“Dad, this was all my idea; I take all the blame.”

“You know what killed your mother, don’t you?” Dad never spared the big emotional guns. Maureen flushed, freckles burning on her cheeks.

“Yeah, Dad, I know. You remind me just about every time I see you. It’s like I took a knife and stabbed her, right? It was me becoming a cop that gave her cervical cancer, right?”

“Don’t you take that tone with your father! Talking about your dead mother’s privates! And to think that after all the years at Holy Redeemer and Mass every Sunday that a child of your good mother’s could turn out—”

“Cut it out, Dad! Cut the Catholic guilt trip, OK? I’m gettin’ Patrick out of this, OK? I’ll have him home in a few hours. So have a Bud and choke on it.” Maureen slammed the phone down. Detective Brady looked across his desk at her.

“The Catholic guilt trip?” Brady’s mouth twitched, and he took the toothpick from his lips and put it behind an ear. He was a big man, with dark hair and eyes—like a football player with a holster under his arm. On his forehead was an indentation and scar from where he’d been shot in the forehead as a beat cop. A small-caliber bullet that had barely penetrated his skull.

“But what’s a good Catholic like him got against cops? God himself is police commissioner.” Brady crossed himself and winked.

“Dad was a fireman, four of my five brothers are firemen. I was
supposed
to be a fireman.” Maureen tried to unclench her jaw. It was making her head ache and her eye throb.

“So where’d you get the shiner, McNary?” Brady put the toothpick back in his mouth. Maureen sighed as she saw Patrick being led into the squad room. She shrugged wearily.

“I gave up my shield for a PI license, Brady. And I’ve learned they don’t call ’em shields for nothin’. Thanks again. I owe you one.” Maureen handed him her card and stood. Brady took his feet off the desk.

“OK, you owe me one. How about dinner?”

She thought he must be kidding, but he wasn’t. Was he asking her out? She stared at him, mouth agape.

“You asking me out? Or do you want me to buy you a steak?”

“Yeah.” Brady gave her a smile. “I’m asking you out.”

This quarterback was asking her? The girl with the shiner? She didn’t exactly feel like a Dallas cheerleader.

Maureen put a hand on her hip, shaking her head at the floor. “Can I ask a dumb question?”

“Shoot.” His dark eyes looked up at her, even and deep. Not cold, not hot. Deep.

“Why is it guys pick the worst time to hit on me? It’s always when I’m hungover, or have the flu, or am in an emergency room, or…”

“How about Monday?” Brady stood, sliding her card into his pocket. He was now looking down at her. A damn sight taller than Nicholas, that was for sure. She suddenly wondered if he was the kind of man who picked up his women and set them on the bed. Her feminine reflexes kicked in. A sly, flirty grin worked up one side of her mouth.

“Ring me Monday. I’ll let you know.” She tossed her hair as she turned away, and she left the room with a bit more swish than usual.

Maureen led Patrick downstairs and outside to where police cars were parked all over the sidewalk. Her borrowed Caprice was squeezed between a couple of squad cars, and they had to slide into the car through barely open doors. Without a word, Maureen pulled three Buds from under the seat and handed one to Patrick, who hesitated only briefly before popping the top. The way Maureen was brought up, it was a matter of course that you occasionally gave a teen a beer. The common Brooklyn wisdom went that it was better to have your kid—or kid brother—learn something about drinking with adults around. Besides, he’d earned it.

Rush hour had begun, and FDR Drive was a veritable speedway, tightly bunched cars at high speed jockeying for the Brooklyn Bridge exit, tires squealing as the pack cornered the Corlear’s Hook bend. As the Caprice ascended the South Street Viaduct, the sun’s orange beacon flared briefly from between the forest of downtown skyscrapers. In the rearview mirror, uptown was in twilight, a Canadian front pushing in a stern-looking assault of clouds.

“So what happened to you?” Patrick asked finally.

Maureen leaned on her horn and bullied her way into the right lane just before the exit.

“What do you think?”

“I think you got clobbered. You talk to Dad?”

“Shut up an’ drink your Bud. Your sister’s tryin’ to think.” Where the ramp inexplicably turned from two lanes to one, Maureen jerked the wheel right. A screech and a protracted honk from the guy she cut off faded away. Yeah, she’d gotten clobbered. It was the kind of thing that made her feel particularly aware of how much her ass was on the line without some backup.

Of course, if Brady had been there…She still couldn’t believe he’d so casually asked her out. Red hair. Must be the red hair. Some men just have a thing for it.

“OK.” Maureen pushed Brady out of her mind, and began an internal dialogue as she sipped her beer. “OK, so I took it on the chin. That’s done. What have we learned, other than I could use someone watchin’ my backside? These ain’t no dummies we got here. The Argentine fox, Mr. Yager, smart cookies both, know they’re bein’ watched and know what to do about it. I underestimated them, that’s all. But now’s not a time to get pissed off; now’s a time to make my next move. So, she won’t be goin’ back to Yager’s place, that’s for sure, an’ he’s gonna be watching so we can’t really follow. What’s next? I’m not gonna find this Swires guy by puttin’ an ad in the paper. But say he’s still alive an’ doin’ a job for Yager, then he’s gotta contact him, right?

“Shit. If Yager thinks he’s bein’ followed, you can bet he’s not gonna go meet Swires in person. So either the fox contacts him in person, which maybe she wouldn’t do for the same reason, ’cause she knows I followed her to her place. Dollars to donuts they now communicate only by phone. At home, or the office? These guys are gonna have tap checks on their phones. As soon as a call comes through, they’re gonna see a little red light go blink-blink. Of course, Drummond would have caller ID.”