The Puzzle of Piri Reis (11 page)

I didn't know if she wanted me to kiss it or shake it,
so I simply shook it. "Mrs. Hogg" I suppressed a grin
when I wondered just how the beautiful woman in front
of me managed to tolerate the surname.

Had I been stuck with that surname I would have
changed it as fast as I could, and even if I didn't, I certainly would never have named my daughter Ima as did
Texas Governor George Hogg.

With a nod, she lowered herself into a chair.

The sunlight reflecting off his balding head, Hogg
gestured to a wrought-iron chair across the table from
Nadine. He nodded to the silver platter in the middle
of the table. "What'll you have-coffee, juice, tea?"
He laughed. "Sorry, no booze. Too early"

His wife rolled her eyes.

He was loud and boisterous in an amiable sort of
way, and I could see why he had managed to build such
a chain of car lots. "Coffee's fine."

The maid, her dark face impassive, appeared out of
nowhere and poured me a cup of coffee. As she turned
to leave, Nadine stopped her. "You can take my cup,
Carmen. I'm finished."

Carmen nodded perfunctorily. "Yes, ma'am."

Jack nodded to her retreating back. "She's good help,
Boudreaux. That's hard to find today, you know?"

I didn't but I nodded anyway. "That's what I hear."

He paused, then grew serious. The cigar bobbing between his lips, he said, "When you called earlier, you
said the Piri Reis Map was missing. Stolen?"

Before I could reply, Nadine rose.

Hogg snapped. "Where do you think you're going?"

She looked around at him with a hint of disdain. "If
you remember, you insisted I help the Ladies' Club plan for the Fall Fashion Show. I have to dress. We
need to go over our final plans and make sure we have
help with serving at the show next Monday."

He grunted. "Serving? Take Carmen."

She looked at him in frustration. "Monday is Carmen's day off, remember?"

"So? Pay her double."

"I've already asked. Remember? I told you yesterday" She shook her head. "You never hear a word I say"

"Oh. Yeah. I remember. Well, go on" He nodded at
me. "Say good-bye to Mr. Boudreaux"

Nadine glared at him, lifted her shoulders, and in
a honeyed voice said, "Very pleased to have met you,
Mr. Boudreaux."

She strode majestically from the sunroom. Hogg
shrugged and grinned sheepishly. "You got to excuse
her. She came out of Las Vegas where she was a showgirl. She's still got some manners to learn." He flicked
his cigar ashes on the terrazzo floor.

I grinned reassuringly. "You're teaching her well."

He beamed at my compliment. "Well, I try to teach
her right. I ain't no-what is it?-role model, but I
know good manners when I see them"

"I'm sure you do"

"So, back to the map. No idea what happened to it,
huh?"

"That's why I'm here. I'm talking to everyone who
expressed an interest in it." Quickly I added, "You might
know something that will help."

He shrugged. "Sure. What do you need to know?"

I pulled out my note cards and pretended to read
from one. "You have tried to buy the Piri Reis several
times. Why?"

Removing the cigar from his lips, he knit his brows
in concentration. "You much into collecting artworks,
Boudreaux?"

I shook my head. "Not much"

"Well, I am. I'm trying to build a quality collection." With his cigar between his fingers, he made a
sweeping gesture that included all of the United States
and half of Europe. "A collection with enough class
that art lovers and critics from around the world will
want to see it."

Lifting an appreciative eyebrow, I said, "Quite a
challenge"

He jabbed the cigar back in his lips. "Yeah, but I
started from nothing. I worked my keister off while
people laughed at me. Now I'm worth over ten million
bucks. By next year, I'll double it. Not bad, huh?"

"Not bad at all, Mr. Hogg. Not bad at all. So that's
why you wanted the Piri Reis?"

He frowned. "Certainly. Why else? From all I heard,
it is one of the most valuable maps in the world. What
joker wouldn't want it in their collection? It would be
the crowning achievement for any collector."

"I'm curious, Mr. Hogg. Your collection of art, the
paintings, sculptures, various artifacts from different
periods of ancient history, all of those-you will en joy them during your life. What do you do then, donate to museums and libraries?"

"Not me. Soon as I can, I'm donating my entire collection and the funds to the university that will build a
museum of art and name it after me. After all, those
that got it needs to think about helping educate them
that don't. Right?" He stared at me, waiting for a response. He stared off into space and stretched both
arms over his head. "Can't you see it? The Joe and Nadine Hogg Museum of Fine Art. Got a nice ring, huh?"

For a moment, his audacity took me aback, but I reminded myself I was talking to a used car salesman.
Audacity was his forte, his way of life, and who could
argue with the man? He was worth over ten million
dollars.

But the title-The Joe and Nadine Hogg Museum of
Fine Art-somehow did not resonate with the cultural
synergy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the
Bonaventure Museum of Fine Art. Of course, they
could call it Hogg's Museum of Art or simply Hogg's
Museum, although both names resounded with the
same grating implication as the name, Hogg Pen.

"Good idea."

"Yep. That way, long after Nadine and me has kicked
off, we'll be remembered."

I nodded again. "I have no doubt. By any chance,
did you attend the exhibit on the navigational maps of
Christopher Columbus at the Wingate Museum of Art
on October second?"

"The night Odom croaked?"

I nodded.

"Not me" He studied me for a moment. "I don't go
to that stuff. I got the money to buy it, and that's what
I do and will keep on doing."

I frowned. "So, how do you determine the quality
of your purchase?"

He looked at me like I was crazy and shook his
head. "Why, by what my brokers tell me, naturally.
How else?"

"And you trust your brokers to be honest with you?"

Hogg snorted and shook his head. "From what I
pay those suckers, they'd better be," he said with a
harsh laugh.

"I understand that. So, if you weren't at the exhibit,
do you mind telling me where you were?"

His eyes narrowed. He studied me for several moments. "You don't figure I took the map, do you?"

I sensed a hidden challenge in his tone. "Stop and
think about it, Mr. Hogg. If one of your car lots came
up short on funds, and only five of your people handled the money, who would you suspect?"

He glared at me, his face growing red. "You figure I
took the map?" Before giving me a chance to answer,
he added, "For your information, I didn't take the map.
I wanted it but I didn't take it. I don't have to steal nothing. I can buy anything I want. You hear me?"

I was ready to believe him until his green eyes
darted nervously to the silver coffeepot on the table,
and he dragged the tip of his tongue across his lips. He was covering something. The signs were obvious, or
I was blind. "So, you won't mind telling me where
you were that night."

"I was here, all night. Ask my wife."

With a wry grin, I replied, "Believe me, Mr. Hogg.
district attorneys don't consider wives reliable witnesses."

"All right, then. Ask the maid, Carmen. She'll tell
you I didn't leave the house"

"Sorry. I can't ask her."

His brows knit, furrowing his forehead with deep
wrinkles. With a trace of belligerence, he snorted, "Why
not?"

"Because she wasn't here, was she? Your wife, Mrs.
Hogg, said the maid has Mondays off, and October
second was a Monday."

He stared at me, speechless.

I had him off-balance, so I remarked, "I noticed you
have a new Cadillac in the garage"

Slowly, he nodded, a puzzled expression on his face.
"Yeah. I got it about three weeks ago. That ain't no
crime, is it?"

I took a wild guess. "No, but maybe you can explain
what you were doing in front of Odom's house that
Monday night. You were seen pulling away from the
curb."

He stared at me defiantly for several seconds, and
then his gaze wavered.

In my gut, I knew he was lying. I smiled disarmingly and put on a little more pressure. "Come on, Mr. Hogg. I know you were at the house. I've got an eyewitness who saw your Cadillac at the curb"

His eyes narrowed, and then he drew a deep breath.
"All right. All right, so I was there"

He stared at me for several seconds. I could see tiny
wheels in his brain whirling frantically, the gears failing to mesh. He grimaced. "Yeah, I got there about
seven forty-five or so, but I didn't go in the house. I
went there to make a final offer on the map. I sat in the
car a few minutes, then decided not to. I drove away."

"Drove away? Before seeing Odom?"

,.Yeah. Hey, I know it sounds screwy, but that's what
I did"

With a wry edge on my words, I remarked, "I suppose your chauffeur will verify that?"

"Naw. I drove myself."

"Then explain something to me, Mr. Hogg. If you
wanted the map so bad, why did you go to all the trouble to drive over there, and then leave without making
another offer?"

Despite the air conditioning, sweat rolled down his
rotund cheeks. A look of desperation filled his eyes.
"Look, I got pride. I'd made so many offers, I knew the
old man wouldn't take a new one. I was frustrated, so I
sat there in the car and just suddenly got fed up with
the map and all its hoopla" Anger replacing the defiance in his eyes, he paused and glared at me, daring me
to dispute his words. "And that's all there is to it."

"Where did you go from there?"

"Down to the Alamo Sports Bar. The Jets-Buffalo
game started at eight. I'd laid some money on it. You
can ask Calvin Landreth. He owns the place"

I smiled amicably. "No problem then. Tell me," I
said, changing the subject, "being the connoisseur of
art you are, do you know of anyone who might have
wanted the Piri Reis enough to steal it?"

The anger in his eyes diminished. He pondered my
question. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm not no connoisseur. And to answer your question, I don't know
anybody who would steal it."

"What do you know of Ervin Maddox?"

He arched an eyebrow and grinned crookedly. "Maddox? Yeah, he owns an antique store on the River Walk.
He fancies hisself an expert on artifacts. Always spouting off about them"

"You ever do business with him?"

"At times."

"What about Leo Cobb? You ever do business with
him?"

Hogg grew wary. "Sometimes. Depends on the item."

"Do you think Cobb or Maddox might have taken
the Piri Reis?"

He considered the question a moment. "What are
they going to do with it? They can't put it on display."

"What about a private collection?"

"Sure" He snorted. "But what's the sense in having
a piece of history like that that no one can see it except
you?"

I lifted an eyebrow. "Just the fact you have it?"

A cynical grin played over his lips. "That ain't my
style"

That, I could understand. I rose and slipped my note
cards in my pocket. "That's all I needed to know, Mr.
Hogg. I certainly appreciate your time."

I paused at the end of Hogg's drive before pulling
into the street. A black limo with dark windows sat
next to the curb a block away. I thought nothing of it
until moments later when I pulled up to a signal light
and the limo stopped behind me.

A goombah who could have been a body double for
the Incredible Hulk in a thousand dollar Nicky Hilton
suit tapped on my window.

Reluctantly, I rolled it down a couple of inches.
"Yeah?"

"You Tony Boudreaux?"

I started to get cute, but I glanced at his massive
fist, which, I kid you not, was the size of the head of a forty-pound catfish out of a Louisiana bayou. Not a car
window existed that could survive its force. I nodded.
"Yeah"

He grunted. "Patsy Fusco wants to see you. Follow
us"

Through the side view mirror, I watched him lumber back to the limo. I could have sworn the ground
trembled.

I waited until the limo passed and pulled in behind.
Danny O'Banion had worked fast.

Patsy Fusco rose from behind his desk when I entered. A slender, neatly attired man, he looked more
like an aristocratic senior model for Gentleman's Quarterly than a mob boss. He smiled warmly and offered
his hand. "Ah, Mr. Boudreaux. Danny called me about
you. Good man, that O'Banion. You two know each
other long?"

I quickly outlined our history back to high school
and added, "I appreciate you seeing me, Mr. Fusco"

He laughed and slapped me on the shoulder. "Patsy,
Tony. All my friends call me Patsy. You're a friend of
O'Banion, and he's a friend of mine, so that makes us
friends, right?"