The Runaway Bride (12 page)

The receptionist smiled politely at her. “I'm sorry, that is confidential.”

“I see,” Nancy said, trying to mask her disappointment. “Well, then—would it be possible for me to keep this catalog? You see, I love this van Gogh painting.”

“I'm sorry,” the receptionist said, still smiling. “We only have a few copies left of that catalog, and I'm not authorized to give them out.”

As soon as Nancy and George were out of the building, George said, “Now what? There's no way to prove Ken and Connor bought that painting—”

“Yes, there is,” Nancy said with a determined glint in her eye. “Come on—we've got to find a phone booth.”

• • •

Nancy's first call was to Midori.

After exchanging greetings, Nancy went on to
describe the van Gogh landscape in the Nobu catalog. “Does that sound like the painting you saw?”

“Yes!” Midori replied instantly. “Now that you mention it, it looked a lot like a van Gogh. I should have thought of that myself.”

“Great,” Nancy said eagerly. “Now, I just have to get some solid evidence tying that painting to Ken and Connor, and we're halfway there.”

After promising to keep Midori posted, Nancy made a call to Mick.

“How nice to hear your voice,” he said softly. “What can I do for you? A stock transfer? A candlelit dinner for two?”

“The dinner sounds nice,” she replied, meaning it. “But first I have a little assignment for you. I have to warn you, though—it's a little tricky.”

“The trickier, the better,” Mick replied.

“And it might be dangerous,” Nancy added. “Things have been really heating up since I saw you last night.” She told him about the
shuriken
incident.

Mick was dismayed. “Are you okay, Nancy? If anything happened to you—”

“I'm fine,” Nancy told him gently. “Not a scratch on me.”

“I'm glad to hear it,” Mick said huskily. He cleared his throat. “Okay—so what's my assignment?”

“Well, first, you're going to have to practice
speaking Japanese with a British accent,” Nancy began.

• • •

An hour later, at noon, Nancy, George, and Mick met at a bus shelter across the street from Nobu Auctioneers. George had been standing at that spot since eleven. Nancy had gone back to the
ryokan
and changed into a tailored silk suit.

“How did it go?” Nancy asked Mick.

“I followed your instructions to the letter,” Mick said with a grin. “I phoned the accountant at Nobu and told him I was Connor Drake, calling on behalf of Mr. Nakamura. I told the chap—his name was Mr. Soseki, incidentally—that my absentminded new secretary accidentally lost the paperwork from last Wednesday's purchase and that I was most anxious to have it replaced right away.”

“And you asked him if it would be okay to have your secretary come by and pick it up?” Nancy said.

“Of course,” Mick replied. “He said that he would leave the duplicate documents with the receptionist.”

“Nice going, Mick,” Nancy said excitedly. “Now we know for sure that Ken and Connor bought that van Gogh.” She turned to George. “What about the receptionist with the purple glasses? Has she left for lunch yet?”

“I saw her leave the building fifteen minutes ago with two other women,” George said. “I
think this is your chance, Nan. You'd better get in there and get the papers before she gets back and blows your act sky-high.”

Nancy nodded and started across the street. “Wish me luck, guys.”

“Be careful,” George called out.

Nancy stepped into the Nobu building and approached the semicircular reception desk. A young man was sitting there, leafing through an art magazine.

He raised his eyes to Nancy. “May I help you?”

“I'm Connor Drake's secretary, from Nakamura Incorporated,” Nancy replied smoothly. “I'm here to pick up some papers for him from Mr. Soseki.”

The young guy nodded. “Just one second, please.” He picked up the phone, punched in a four-digit number, and spoke a few rapid Japanese phrases into it.

Nancy felt a twinge of fear. “Is there a problem?” she asked him after he'd hung up. “I was told that the papers would be waiting for me right here.”

“Just one second, please,” the young guy repeated.

Nancy glanced around. There was a group of elegantly dressed women standing at the elevator bank. Then the elevator doors opened, and two men came out. One of them was a gray-haired man in a brown suit. The other was a security guard.

The gray-haired man had an angry expression on his face. Oh, no, Nancy thought. Mr. Soseki must have spoken to the real Connor Drake and found out that the request for duplicate paperwork was totally bogus.

The gray-haired man was approaching her fast, the security guard at his heels. “You there!” he called out.

T
HE GRAY-HAIRED MAN
stopped beside her. “You're from Mr. Drake's office?”

Nancy stared at him and forced herself to smile. “Well—” she began.

Not waiting for her reply, the man reached into his jacket and pulled out a manila envelope. “This was supposed to be waiting up here for you,” he said tightly. “But my assistant went off to lunch without taking care of it. I'm terribly sorry. I'll be sure to speak to her when she returns.” He added, “By the way, I am Mr. Soseki.”

“Oh,” Nancy said, relieved. “I'm, um, Ms. Marvin.”

The security guard strode right past Nancy and Mr. Soseki and leaned over the reception desk.
“You can tell the second-shift guy when he comes in that I couldn't wait around for him any longer,” Nancy heard him say to the receptionist in Japanese.

So the guard hadn't been interested in her at all! Nancy thought. She felt an irresistible urge to chuckle, but she stifled it and said, “Well, thank you, Mr. Soseki. You can be sure that Mr. Drake won't forget this.”

“My pleasure,” Mr. Soseki replied, bowing.

Nancy tucked the manila envelope into her purse and headed for the door. She spotted the other receptionist, the one with the lavender-tinted glasses, walking toward the building with two other women.

In one quick motion Nancy reached into her purse, found her sunglasses, and slipped them on. Then she started across the street as casually as possible. The receptionist didn't seem to notice her.

George and Mick were the only ones at the bus shelter. “Success?” George asked Nancy.

“So far, so good,” Nancy replied. She got the manila envelope out of her purse and pulled out its contents—a complicated-looking two-page form, all in Japanese.

Nancy turned to Mick. “Can you translate this?” she asked him. “It would take me too long.”

Mick studied the form quickly. “It's the bill of sale for the van Gogh landscape,” he explained.
“The buyer is listed as Nakamura Incorporated. The seller isn't named. The price is”—he paused and whistled—“the equivalent of fifteen million U.S. dollars.”

“Wow,” George said.

“The buyer is Nakamura Incorporated?” Nancy repeated. “Not Ken or Connor?”

“Right,” Mick said.

“That's strange,” Nancy remarked. “Mick, is it possible for Ken or Connor to use Nakamura funds without getting authorization?”

“I wouldn't really know about that,” Mick replied, shrugging. He read over the bill of sale again. “You know, there's something about this painting that rings a bell. I think I read an article about it in the paper, maybe two or three weeks ago.” He sighed. “I wish I could remember what it was.”

“That sounds promising,” Nancy said eagerly. “I'd like to go to the library and track the article down.”

Mick glanced at his watch. “I wish I could help you, but I'd better get back to work. I've got reports to do.”

“Poor Mick,” Nancy murmured. “Listen, you've already helped us plenty. I'll call you soon with a progress report.”

After saying goodbye, Nancy and George headed for the library. They got a pile of English-language newspapers from the librarian and settled down at a long wooden table.

“If we strike out with these, we can try the Japanese-language papers later, with Mick's help,” Nancy said to George.

“Good idea,” George said, picking up one of the papers. “We're just looking for any mention of the van Gogh, right?”

“Right,” Nancy replied.

“Here's something,” George said after a while. She pointed out a small article to Nancy. “Some politician named Watanabe bought the very same painting just two weeks ago.”

Nancy scanned the article. “It says that Watanabe bought it at a private sale conducted by Nobu Auctioneers Limited for—” She paused, mentally converting the yen amount into dollars. “The equivalent of ten million! But that doesn't make sense. How could the painting have gone up in value by five million dollars in just two weeks?”

“And it's weird that Watanabe wanted to get rid of it so quickly,” George piped up. “I mean, two weeks is barely enough time to figure out where to hang it.”

“It's strange, too, that this Watanabe wasn't named on the bill of sale I got from Mr. Soseki,” Nancy added. She read the newspaper article one more time. “What do Ken and Connor have to do with all of this, anyway? And what do they think Midori knows that's got them so afraid?”

“Too many unanswered questions,” George grumbled.

Nancy stood up. “You're right about that, George. Let's head back to the
ryokan
and go over every piece of this case again. We're going to figure out what Ken and Connor are up to if it takes us all day and night.”

• • •

Nancy and George were sitting cross-legged on the floor of their room when the phone rang.

Nancy went over to the dresser and picked it up. “Hello?”

“Nancy?” It was Mick. “I have to see you and George right away.”

The urgency in his voice startled Nancy. “Where are you?” she asked him. She glanced at her watch and noted that it was after six o'clock.

“I'm at the office,” Mick replied tersely. “But I don't want you to come here. There's a little diner around the corner from me called Happiness Cup.”

“We're on our way,” Nancy said. Then she added, “Are you all right?”

“I'm fine,” Mick said. “Just get there as soon as you can, okay?”

Half an hour later Nancy and George were sitting across from Mick in a red vinyl booth. After the waitress had brought them some water and taken their orders, Mick leaned across the table and said, “Connor Drake is dead.”

Nancy gasped. “What!”

“Just before I phoned you, Gil came into the interns' office and told me. Now everybody at
Nakamura is talking about it,” Mick went on. “Apparently Connor was going too fast on some road outside the city. He lost control of the wheel and went over an embankment.”

“How horrible!” George cried out.

Mick glanced around quickly, then said in a low voice, “How
unbelievable
is more like it. Connor was a car buff. He collected vintage cars.”

“What does that have to do with it?” George asked him, puzzled.

“The accident happened in his favorite car, this big old American convertible,” Mick explained. “The thing is, he was so careful about not getting one scratch on it that he never drove it over thirty miles an hour. I know this because he took me and Gil for a ride in it once.”

Nancy's eyes widened. “Are you suggesting that Connor's death wasn't an accident?”

Mick nodded. “Besides, what was Connor doing on a road outside Tokyo in the middle of a workday?”

Nancy tried to digest this startling information. She rested her chin on her hands. “Who could have wanted Connor dead? And how does his death fit into the case?”

Mick took a sip of water. “Any ideas?”

“Well, we do have a new angle,” Nancy replied, and told him about the article she and George had found in the library. “So now we know that Ken and Connor are connected to this politician,
Watanabe, through the van Gogh. But we still don't know what the connection is.”

The waitress appeared at their table with three bowls of noodles. “Enjoy,” she said.

The three of them fell into a thoughtful silence as they started eating their food.

Some shadowy memory was hovering at the edge of Nancy's mind—something having to do with the case. She frowned, trying to remember.

“Gil,” she said suddenly.

Mick and George looked up from their noodles. “What?” they said in unison.

Nancy leaned forward eagerly. “George, before the Bon Matsuri festival, you told me Gil liked talking about things like—”

“Superconductors,” George finished for her, rolling her eyes. “And the role of the Japanese art market in illegal political contributions.” She smiled wryly at Mick. “Your friend's a real smart guy.”