Telling Lies (13 page)

* * *

“
Shit,” said Rebecca, leaning back against the limo’s soft leather interior, “that guy in the back of the gallery was a cop.”

“
Yes,” said Lior easily. “He’s Detective Aaron Gerrard, head of the NYPD Identity Theft Squad.”

Rebecca shot him a look. “Dammit. You knew he’d be there, didn’t you?” He nodded. “You set this up?” She shook her head. “Why?”

“
He’s the detective who’s looking into the Hammersmith affair with that P.I. I bugged, Helen McCorkendale.” Lior shrugged. “I wanted to see how much he’s figured out.”

“
And?”

“
He’s smarter than I thought.” Lior smiled.

“
This isn’t the time for one of your games,” she warned. “We’ve finally had a break in the case, and you put us square in the sights of the NYPD. Her icy blue eyes bored into him. “Did he make us?”

“
It doesn’t matter if he did. We’ll be done before he can do anything about it.”

She was quiet for a moment then leaned forward. “What about Delrusse? Think he got the message about what we were after?”

“
The intel I received suggests that the only message Delrusse seems to get is money. And, I think that came through loud and clear.” He gestured to the luxurious automobile and the extremely expensive clothes they were wearing. “Don’t you? If Moto gave him the commission to move the painting, he must have taken one look at us and thought that he’d hit the jackpot. Unless, of course he’s a total idiot.”

Rebecca shook her head. “Maybe not a complete idiot, but definitely a fraud! He barely understood the Russian I spoke to him. You heard how he kept replying in English. And I kept the Russian simple on purpose.”

“
He probably picked up what little he does know from listening to the émigrés in Brighton Beach, where he’s from, not from any trips to Mother Russia.” The edge of a smile turned up the corners of his mouth. Then he became serious again, his voice hardening into something low and mean. “Delrusse is too greedy to check us out thoroughly.” He lifted his eyebrows. “He wants us to be who we say we are. So, he’ll do a cursory search. We’ll come back as legitimate: an idle rich couple with lots of money to blow on art. But Moto, now he’s another story.”

Lior sat back and lit a cigarette, cracking the limo’s window and exhaling a curl of smoke in a small stream. “He didn’t get where he is by taking things on trust.” He watched the downtown traffic moving steadily and recalled the copious file the division had collected on the billionaire industrialist. He shook his head. “Moto prides himself on the fact that nothing gets by him and that he knows even the smallest details of every business deal. He’ll be much more suspicious and cautious. If he’s using Delrusse to move the painting, we have to be ready for anything.”

“
And if Detective Gerrard and his people get in the way?”

Lior slowly let out another lungful of smoke. “Then we’ll just have to move them out of the way, won’t we?” He ground out his cigarette until it was in shreds.

The Chrysler Building

New York City

N
o good deed goes unpunished.
As Helen sat and cooled her heels in the reception area of Hammersmith and Mann, she could almost see her assistant Maxine bending over her, shaking her finger in her face, and telling her this with smug satisfaction.

Maxine, who had been with Helen for over ten years, ran the office she kept on East Twenty-third Street. Ran was the operative word. Her savvy assistant made it her business to know the details of every one of Helen’s cases. She often offered her pithy insights, wanted or not. It’s no wonder Helen knew exactly what Max would say and do if she saw her sitting here today.

Helen had arrived at the Chrysler Building a few minutes early and waited in the lobby. She brushed the lapel of her gray Calvin Klein jacket, ran her fingers through her hair, and spent the remaining minutes admiring the elegant art deco details that marked the building as one of New York’s finest and most elegant. Its midtown location was not the usual choice for a financial firm, she noted as she rode a beautiful wood-paneled and silver-edged elevator up to the Hammersmith and Mann offices on the 60
^th
floor, precisely at the stroke of 10 a.m. Of course, the Hammersmiths had to find new offices after 9/11. For some reason they decided to stay here instead of moving back downtown. Maybe they wanted to put some distance between themselves and memories of their late father, or maybe they just got a great deal on the rent.

Now, after nearly an hour, she didn’t particularly care. The politely offered coffee was long finished, today’s
Wall Street Journal
tossed back on the chrome and glass coffee table, the receptionist’s reassuring smile more and more forced, and still no sign of either Gary or David Hammersmith.

Why
am
I doing this? Helen wondered, thinking again of Maxine’s favorite phrase. She knew it wasn’t just to help Laurel find Jeff Sargasso. It was a puzzle that needed solving. The thrill of the hunt. The rush that accompanied uncovering the truth and outing the bad guys. Admit it, Helen, you’re a thrill-seeking, disguise-wearing, catch-’em-anyway-you-can, P.I. She laughed out loud at the image of herself this presented and caught the receptionist glancing at her sideways.

She thinks I’m an idiot, sitting here all this time waiting for the phantom brothers to make an appearance. She’s right.
I’ll give it five more minutes, and then I’m out of here
.

Just as Helen was about to vacate the brushed suede couch, which she was sure would have a permanent impression of her butt imprinted on it, a young man appeared in front of her and glanced at his watch. “Mr. Hammersmith will see you now,” he said brusquely, as though she were the one who’d kept the big man waiting.

Helen bit back the nasty retort that threatened to jump out of her mouth and followed him down a long corridor toward a heavy, mahogany door. The brass nameplate on it said Gary Hammersmith. The assistant knocked lightly and opened the door for Helen, revealing a huge, expensively furnished corner office with a breathtaking view of the city. Power certainly had its perks, especially power inherited

Gary Hammersmith sat with his back to a large, modern desk, reading through a sheaf of papers. A man who looked very much like him, but was perhaps a few years younger, sat on a sofa to the left of the desk. The other Mr. Hammersmith. David.

Gary Hammersmith turned as Helen walked toward him and carelessly tossed the papers he’d been reading on its burnished surface. Not bothering to stand or introduce himself or his brother, he gestured for Helen to take a chair across from him.

The son of a scion is a real son of a bitch.
Helen sat down with a straight back and a deliberate calmness. Gary was a handsome man with a lot of hard edges on a lean, tan face and a mouth that seemed incapable of smiling. In his mid-forties, he was just beginning to gray around the temples. Helen wondered if he would start coloring his hair in an attempt to look youthful. She took in the perfectly tailored suit, the expensive gold Rolex and the dark, brooding eyes flashing with barely suppressed rage. “I have exactly five minutes, Ms. McCorkendale. What is it that you want?”

To smack you across your insolent mouth
, Helen almost blurted out. Instead, clearing her throat, she faced him with a steely gaze of her own. “As you know, I’m here on behalf of New York Fidelity Insurance. I’ve been retained to ascertain the status of a Mr. Jeff Sargasso regarding his employment at Hammersmith and Mann, so that a life insurance policy, which has come to light since his death on Nine Eleven, can be paid out to his beneficiaries.” She used her most business-like tone.
And, by the way, screw you, too,
she added mentally.

Gary Hammersmith steepled his fingers and stared off into a middle distance, considering his reply.

Helen glanced to her right at David Hammersmith, who hadn’t moved so much as an eyebrow on his unreadable face. Then she looked down at Gary Hammersmith’s desk, noticing the papers he’d tossed on it when she’d entered. Even upside down, she could read her name at the top of the page.
Shit. Am I busted?
She knew Alexandra Hammersmith had called New York Fidelity to express her extreme disapproval and consternation at Helen’s visit and inquiries. But Joe had confirmed her cover story and smoothed the waters. It was nice to have friends who proved how much they cared for you by lying through their teeth.

Gary Hammersmith finally snapped back into focus and nailed her with a laser-like stare. “Ms. McCorkendale, Jeff Sargasso is not dead. He’s just an arrogant son-of-a-bitch, a criminal, and a thief. He has fifteen million dollars, which he stole from my father and which belongs to my family.” He paused and cut his eyes toward his brother. “I intend to find him and do whatever it takes to get our money back. If you want to know anything else about him, I suggest you speak with Miayamu Moto,” he spat at her, nearly losing control.

Helen could feel his outrage and fury slam into her like a wave from a tsunami. Without realizing it, she’d moved as far back into her chair as possible and could feel its frame biting into her back. She shivered inwardly. Raw hatred, pure and simple.

“
Now, please get out of my office,” he muttered at her in a barely civil tone. He turned his back to her, sure that she’d comply with his order.

She rose and passed in front of his brother as she made for the door. What she saw in his eyes surprised her nearly enough to make her stumble. It was a look of smug self-satisfaction, directed not at her, but at the broad back of Gary Hammersmith, silhouetted in the light from the window he faced.

* * *

Outside, Helen gulped in big lungfuls of air, struggling to compose herself and steady her racing pulse.
“It’s alive. It’s alive.”
The bit of dialogue from
Frankenstein
popped into her head, making her grin with its absurdity.

Well, at least Gary Hammersmith and baby brother think so. But why would they believe that Jeff Sargasso is alive and well? Was it a hunch, or did they have hard facts, too?

I wonder what the Hammersmiths would do if they knew that Sargasso was posing as the Florentine art dealer Giacomo DeLuca and was coming to New York? Gary Hammersmith also seemed certain that Moto knew Sargasso had the fifteen million that was supposed to go to the billionaire just for the opportunity to look at the painting.

Our boy Jeff is certainly piling up an impressive list of enemies: the Italian police, the FBI Art Crimes Team, the Hammersmiths, and Moto, not to mention Laurel, Aaron, and myself.

The thought of her partners in crime caused a wicked smile to spread across her face as she walked home.

So engrossed was Helen in contacting one or the other of her buddies that she didn’t notice the other pedestrians giving her a wide berth as she flipped open her cell phone and practically danced her way along Forty-second Street.

Fiesole, Italy

“
Giacomo DeLuca.” Laurel tried out the name to feel the weight of it in her mouth. It was hard and unyielding, like a big, rough pit that would choke you if you tried to swallow it.

“
Giacomo DeLuca,” she said again, this time to Walter Mariotti. “At least now we know who the bastard is, not that it seems to make a difference to the police.”

“
Mi dispiace
. I’m sorry.” Walter placed his hand on her shoulder. “When I checked this morning, Ispettore Lucchese informed me that he had questioned DeLuca last evening and that he had—he paused searching for the words—“an air-tight alibi, as you would say.”

Laurel watched a line of clouds float by like mountains of meringue looking for a place to land as she and Walter discussed the latest developments in the murder of Fredericka Bellabocca. They’d returned to the peaceful setting of the
Teatro Romano
, where Walter had taken her when she’d arrived in Fiesole. Sitting on one of the ancient, smooth stone benches, she thought about what had happened in the days since then and felt frustrated and powerless in the face of it all.

“
Perhaps there will be an opportunity to catch him in New York,” said Walter.

She tried to put her feelings of anger and frustration aside. “It might not be that simple. First they’ll have to find him.”

Laurel had been elated when she’d spoken with Aaron and Helen early yesterday afternoon. She had told Walter how Helen had remembered the gossip item in the newspaper that tied Moto to the Delrusse gallery and how Aaron’s friend at the FBI had discovered the connection between Delrusse and DeLuca, who they now were certain was Sargasso, and who they’d learned would be leaving for New York in a few days. When Walter told her that DeLuca had already fled Florence, her elation soon turned to disappointment and then fury.