The Monet Murders (32 page)

“He said he wanted you to call him back.”

She spoke with the tolerance of a nanny for an idiot child and fired up a fresh Pall Mall.

I called, as instructed.

“Kowalski speaking.”

“Ed, it's Bruno Feldspar.”

“You sure about that?”

“Would I lie?”

“Of course.”

“What's up?”

“I'm curious. How are you coming with the artwork angle?”

“Still checking it out. I have an expert looking at one of the paintings. He's going to test it to see if it's real or a forgery.”

“Hmmm. And how, pray tell, did you come by this particular painting?”

“Some things should remain unsaid. You know what the Spanish say—what the eyes do not see, the heart does not feel.”

“Un-huh. Leave it to them to come up with some bullshit saying. Cops have a saying, too, you know—what the suspect conceals, a nightstick reveals.”

“And it even rhymes. Who said cops have no sense of humor? But let's just say I got ahold of the thing and no one is the wiser. What's more, I fully intend to return it, with no harm done.”

“Someone should write a poem.”

“Somebody did. ‘Ode to Virtue.' Aristotle.”

“The shipping guy?”

“Sort of. So . . . what can I do for you?”

“Well, since you're helping me, I thought you'd be interested to know that the recent Mrs. Watson was insured for fifty grand, with her loving husband the beneficiary.”

“That
is
interesting.”

“Isn't it. In real detective work, we call that a possible motive.”

“For what? Suicide?”

“Or for a homicide made to look like suicide. It's been known to happen.”

“But I thought life insurance companies didn't pay out on suicides.”

“They don't, if the policy was taken out within two years of the sad demise. Otherwise, they're on the hook for it.”

“How long ago did Watson take out the policy?” As if I couldn't guess.

“Two years and one month ago.”

“Figures.”

“Doesn't it? So I'm suddenly interested in art. Keep me informed. Anything you turn up might be useful. I wouldn't mind nailing a high-profile guy like Watson. Feather in my cap. Sounds like there could be a tie-in somewhere.”

“There's something else. I just happened to have a chat with Watson's houseboy. I couldn't be sure, but there was something funny about his manner, especially when I mentioned the killings in the house.”

“Yeah? That's interesting. You figure he saw something he shouldn't have?”

“It occurred to me. If it starts to look like Watson was something more than an aggrieved husband, you might want to have a talk with the houseboy. Between us, I don't think his visa is genuine, so if you hauled him downtown, he'd most likely be cooperative.”

“Figure he might skip?”

“I don't think so. I didn't make a big deal out of the killings, and when I saw him getting nervous, I changed the subject.”

“As my old man used to say, ‘ya done good.' He wasn't so hot with the grammar, but he could beat the crap out of a suspect with the best of them.”

“They don't make ‘em like that anymore.”

“That's what you think. Anyway, thanks for the tip.”

“No charge.”

I hung up. I put my feet on the desk and thought about recent developments. I started to calculate the possible haul
Watson could make by getting rid of his wife and simultaneously selling her precious Monet. There was fifty grand from life insurance, another hundred grand from selling the real Monet on the private market. What's more, right now he believed he had the second forgery, which even Bunny thought would pass most tests. Watson might be planning to sell that one too. If he could get a hundred grand for the real thing, he could plan on getting a similar number from some gullible collector for a first-rate forgery. Both buyers would hang the pictures in some safe place in their houses and gleefully pat themselves on the back, thinking how clever they had been. Only one would be right. But neither would ever say a word about how or when they had made their acquisitions. And a couple of generations from now, the heirs of the second buyer would try to sell their copy. At that point—as the French say, “quelle surprise!”

Then there was the fact that Watson was into Tony the Snail for about a hundred grand. Would Watson have the cojones to enlist Tony or his goombahs into staging a murder/suicide? And I don't think Tony would scruple at giving one of his boys the contract. They knew how to do this sort of thing. Tony would then get his money, and on top of that earn a fat fee for the job, which would still leave Watson with a tidy sum.

What's more, with Wilbur, the forger and boyfriend, out of the way, his part in painting the copies would never come to light. Then there was the element of revenge—no man likes the idea of someone else sleeping with his wife. Finally, there was that little matter of the nude portrait Wilbur had painted of Watson. Whatever had inspired that indiscretion would forever remain Watson's little secret. He might blush to
remember the circumstances, but he'd never have to explain anything to anyone else. After all, most likely the only other person who knew about it was me.

So it all fit, didn't it? And I remembered something Hobey had said just before he passed out that night—“Watson's your man.” Of course, Hobey was no detective, but he was good at devising plots. Was there really that much difference between a hack writer and a hack detective? Not from where I stood. On second thought, though, it wasn't right to call Hobey a hack, no matter what Hollywood thought of him these days. When it came to judging writers, Hollywood almost always got it wrong. As for me, well, I've been called worse.

But the question before the house was—had Watson already disposed of the real Monet, or was it sitting on Bunny's desk at UCLA?

And what if—against all odds—that one did turn out to be real? What then?

I had kept my rooms at the Garden of Allah. On the surface, this was a concession to the morals clause in Myrtle's contract, but in fact it was an arrangement that suited me better than living full-time in the house in Malibu. Show me a man who is living with a woman who doesn't secretly wish for a place of his own, a place to go off to now and then, just to be alone, and I will show you a man who will have changed his mind in a year or so. I can't be sure, of course, but I would bet the same thing applied to women. How could it be otherwise? We're not
that
different, men and women, I mean.

Myrtle had lost a lot of her nascent gaiety after the incident with Rex Lockwood or whatever his name was. That was not surprising, of course. Bashing someone to death with a poker is apt to take the shine off anyone's joie de vivre. She had reverted to a kind of Slavic melancholy that enhanced, rather than detracted from, her allure. She started going to the Catholic church and even asked me to go with her once, which I did. It turned out to be a solemn high mass, and the incense made me sneeze, so we didn't repeat that experiment.

She never told me whether she'd confessed that business with Rex to her priest, but if she had I had to assume the guy would keep his mouth shut about it. That was in their contract, as I understood it. And maybe that kind of confession was a good thing. After all, the priest could grant absolution, which is a lot better than what my old Presbyterian preacher could do. Under similar circumstances, he would have told you to turn yourself in, and a fat lot of good that would have done.

It occurred to us that as a White Russian princess, she should be going to the Orthodox Church, but the closest one was clear across town, and we figured no one in Hollywood would know the difference even if, in the unlikely event, someone spotted her going to Catholic mass. Besides, there are only so many sacrifices you can make for the Publicity Department, and Myrtle didn't like the Orthodox outfit. It reminded her too much of the Serbs.

Despite her mild reversion to religion, Myrtle was tough, and she carried on with her acting lessons and auditions as though nothing had happened. Her better-than-Garbo-like smoldering soon caught the attention of the big shots, and she was cast in a new sheik-of-Araby epic starring some guy
named Arturo, who was going to be the next big thing in profiles, flashing eyes, and all-around masculine appeal, even though the word was he was a fairy. So she was on her way. We celebrated that deal with champagne and lobsters, and we spent the rest of the evening in a variety of delightful positions, so that when we finally slept it was in happy exhaustion. We still hadn't figured out whether we were just half in love or all the way. I suppose it didn't really matter. Those were just definitions, after all, and the nights together were more than enough definition for anybody.

Anyway, on the evening of the day I talked with Bunny, I went back to my rooms at the Garden. Myrtle was working late.

As I walked past the swimming pool on my way to my bungalow, I heard a familiar voice:

“Hiya, Sparky!”

Catherine was sitting at a table across the pool. Hobey was with her. He was wearing a lopsided grin and an old-fashioned bathing suit, the kind with the upper half that looked like an undershirt. The whole outfit was orange and black stripes—Princeton colors, as it turned out. There was a third person there—a striking brunette. Like Catherine, she was wearing a skimpy bathing suit, and it was easy to understand why Hobey was grinning. He was sitting between two beautiful women; Hollywood had at last delivered on its promise.

Catherine waved me over.

“Just in time for cocktails, Bruno,” said Hobey.

“I accept.” I sat down in the fourth chair.

“This is my friend Hedda,” said Catherine, indicating the brunette.

“How do you do,” I said.

“Pleased to meet you, I'm sure,” said Hedda in an accent unheard west of the East River. Don't ask how I knew that. From the movies, I guess.

“Hedda's a journalist,” said Hobey with a wry smile. “Her full name is Hedda Gabler.”

“Really? It seems I've heard that name before.”

“It ain't my real name,” said Hedda. “My agent dreamed it up.”

“She writes a column for
Hush-Hush
magazine. About what the stars are up to,” said Catherine. “I thought it'd be nice for she and Hobey to get to know one another, him being in the business and all.”

I saw Hobey wince at Catherine's grammatical potholes, but he took a philosophical draft of his gin and tonic, and I did the same. He was obviously the broad-minded sort when it came to women. And with women like these two, who wouldn't be?

“What did you do before you became a journalist?” I asked.

“Notions. At a shop in Flatbush. But a girl gets tired of selling needles and buttons after a while. I wanted some excitement. You know?”

“Sure. So you came to Hollywood.”

“Kind of. To tell you the truth, I was brought. But the gentleman turned out to be not so much of one, so I gave him the bird and was lucky enough to meet another gentleman who said he wanted to be my agent, and he got me the job at
Hush-Hush
magazine, which is how I became a journalist.”

“The American dream,” said Hobey.

“Thank you,” said Hedda, assuming he had meant her. She had a beautifully vacant smile, long eyelashes that looked
real, and a superb figure that her bathing suit did nothing to disguise. I could almost hear Hobey's heart pounding for joy. Things were definitely looking up for him. And I had to give Catherine high marks for her thoughtfulness. She was generous in more ways than one. And I told her so when we were alone after Hobey and Hedda had gone for a swim.

“He's a nice fella,” Catherine said. “I was afraid he was going to fall in love with me. He seems like the type it happens to real easy. Some guys are like that. Not like you.” I don't know whether she meant that as a compliment or a criticism, but I didn't pursue it. “So I figured the best way to avoid that is bring in someone else. Hedda was sort of at loose ends; her agent would like to be simpatico, but he isn't, so I figured, why not introduce her to Hobey? He wants to be in love; she needs somebody, preferably in the business. And she's broad-minded. She don't mind that he's just a writer.”

“That is broad-minded.”

“I know.”

“How're things with Manny?”

She rolled her eyes. “About what I expected. Like old Macdonald's farm. Here a schtup, there a schtup, everywhere a schtup-schtup. But the good news is that he softened up, no joke intended, and gave me a part in a movie he's producing.”

“Congratulations. You're on your way.”

“I know. It's something about sand and tents. I get to wear a harem costume. Think it'll look good on me?”

“You could wear a suit of armor and still have them howling at the moon,” I said.

“Smooth talker. Well, I gotta get going. Electrocution lessons, dahling.”