Aaron Elkins: A Deceptive Clarity

It was after 1:00 a.m. when I got back to Columbia House, where I found a note from Anne asking me to call her whatever the time. When I did, she sleepily asked me to give her ten minutes to change and then to come over for something to drink and to tell her everything.

I asked for an additional ten minutes so that I could shower and change, too. I even managed a fast shave, but the cozy fantasies I'd begun to hatch didn't last any longer than it took me to walk the hundred feet of curving corridor between our suites. She had put on jeans, a blousy denim shirt, and tennis shoes, and not-of course not-the silky shift I'd been dreaming her into, and in which she would have looked smashing. And the drinks were tea, coffee, or hot chocolate.

As a matter of fact, hot chocolate sounded great after those long, grubby hours at police headquarters, and she looked smashing just the way she was. Which is not a bad way to look at things when nobody's given you a choice anyway.

"OK, first of all," she said, "what was the point of it all? Bolzano had that micropattern drilled in a real Vermeer, and a fake provenance made up, and all the rest of it. Why, exactly?"

"Because he couldn't afford to let anyone know he had his old painting back," I said, stirring the contents of the cocoa packet into the hot milk and contentedly sniffing the friendly aroma.

"But why? Had he collected some insurance on it that he didn't want to give back?" She shook her head. "No, that doesn't make sense. Why would anyone that rich need to go around killing people over insurance money?"

"It wasn't insurance money; it was self-preservation. They'd have put him away for the rest of his life if word had gotten out that he had his old Vermeer back."

"For the rest of his life? Are you serious?"

"He got it back on his own, you see, from an ex-Nazi in Potsdam, and he broke a lot of East German, West German, and Italian laws to do it. And apparently there was another murder at that time, too, aside from a few waggeries like smuggling and bribery. They would have had enough to lock him up for a hundred years."

She shivered. "What a horrible little man. Chris, what was going on in Peter's mind? Why did he tell you Bolzano didn't know anything about it?"

"Well, consider: Here's Bolzano, fiendishly proud of his collection and loving Vermeer above all other painters. Does it seem likely he'd pretend a beautiful, fantastically rare Vermeer was just a second-rate copy and stick it away with a bunch of old fakes that he obviously didn't give a damn about? There have been plenty of cases where collectors pretended their fakes were originals, but this is the first one I ever heard of the other way around."

I took a swallow of the chocolate. "I'd have said the same thing Peter did: Of all the people in the world, he'd be the last one likely to know."

"But what did Peter think was going on? After all, he knew the picture was supposed to be a copy of a real one that'd been looted. If this was the real one, then where did he think… I mean… I'm confused."

"I don't think Peter had that quite figured out, either. But he knew what he knew."

"And it killed him." She was holding her cup in both hands before her face. "And it almost killed you," she said quietly into it.

"You call that almost getting killed? Broken nose, bullet crease, bomb that missed by a whole thirty feet? Nah, those are just the usual curatorial contingencies. 'Other duties as required.'

"She laughed, but not very enthusiastically. "You know, I can understand, why Bolzano tried to get rid of you; you're a Vermeer expert-"

"Who's been staring at a Vermeer for two weeks," I muttered, "without knowing it."

"But why Peter? Wasn't his field nineteenth-century art? How did he know Peter had found out?"

"Oh, he called him that night-from Frankfurt."

"I thought you told me he didn't call him."

"I told you Bolzano told me he didn't call him. But he did. Peter beat around the bush, I guess, but Bolzano was able to figure out that he was onto it." I shrugged. "He had him murdered the same night, before he could come back and talk to me or anyone else connected with the show. And then he staged the break-in in the basement."

"The break-in in the basement," Anne said, putting down her cup and leaning forward. "That part I think I understand. He was stealing his own Vermeer before you got a good look at it."

"Exactly."

"But he couldn't take just the Vermeer, because that would have seemed suspicious-since it wasn't even supposed to be real."

"Right."

"So those men were going to take everything?"

"No, because then he'd have to keep them all in hiding from then on. No, they were just going to steal the Vermeer, plus a few of the copies, and one or two originals to make it look good."

"Pretty devious."

'To say the least. And then when the theft didn't come off, he tried to use it anyway as an excuse to pull out of the show. He used Earl's ridiculous Schliemann-Grundung the same way."

"Vile, clever man." She uncoiled her long legs and stood up. "Are you hungry? Have you had anything to eat?" "I'm starved."

She went to the waist-high refrigerator, crouched, and peered inside. "Blueberry yogurt, apples, sliced ham, bread. What sounds good? There are a couple of botties of beer too."

"How about a ham sandwich?"

"Coming up."

She stood at the refrigerator, her back to me, making up the sandwich on a plate. The living room was a duplicate of mine, but she had the knack of making even a hotel room look homey and personal. Some of the chairs had been rearranged; a couple of family pictures were on the desk along with her portable typewriter; and magazines, newspapers, and working files lay in healthy disarray, of which my friend Louis would have vigorously approved. No anal-retentive, Anne.

I stretched out my legs and leaned back, hands clasped behind my neck. I was comfortable and relaxed, and happy to be there, right there in her personal space, as Louis might have put it. It was lovely to have her making a sandwich for me.

"And a beer too," I called masterfully.

"Righto. Want a glass?"

"No thanks." A glass? I was ready to drink it in my undershirt and suspenders (if I'd had an undershirt or suspenders) and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.

"Chris," she said over her shoulder, "what in the world ever possessed Bolzano to put that painting in the show in the first place? If he'd just left it in Florence, none of this would have happened."

"He didn't put it in the show; Lorenzo did, while Bolzano was in the hospital. He wanted desperately to get it out, but of course I summoned all my charms to pressure him into leaving the copies in. So I guess he figured it'd be safer to kill me than to keep making waves."

"All right, then, why was he so ready to let you investigate the pictures? Wasn't he worried?"

"No, what harm could it do? It just focused my attention in the wrong direction: on the originals instead of the copies. He figured I'd never waste my time studying fakes- which I didn't-and it would give him more time to do something about me before I accidentally stumbled onto the Vermeer. Which is what I did, with Lorenzo's help, of all people's. How'd Lorenzo take things, by the way?"

"He stayed around biting his fingernails with the rest of us until Harry called Colonel Robey to let us know what was happening. Then he seemed to pull himself together-I think he realizes he's the head of the family now. He said The Plundered Past is going to continue, by the way, whatever else happens."

"That's great. I think Lorenzo's going to be all right."

She brought the sandwich and set it down on the coffee table along with a bottle of Beck's. "No mustard or butter or anything. I suppose I could smear it with blueberry yogurt."