Stuart Woods - Quick & Dirty

“They won’t find anything at Farina’s place,” Steele said. “He’s far too smart to have it there. Do you have any other ideas?”

“Not yet, but you have motivated me very well, Arthur.”

“It occurs to me that I have not agreed to pay your fee if the NYPD finds the picture.”

“The head of the art squad is in my employ as a consultant, Arthur, and it’s too soon in the game for you to start trying to get out of our agreement.”

“I won’t do that,” Steele replied.

“Arthur, why don’t you take a few days off and put this whole thing out of your mind? You’ll feel better.”

“No, I won’t. Keep in touch.” Steele hung up.

Stone had been feeling guilty about working for Arthur Steele and, possibly, against the interests of a woman he liked. He picked up the phone and invited Morgan to lunch.

They sat in the dining room at The Club, perusing the menu.

“What is this place?” Morgan asked. “I thought I knew every restaurant on the Upper East Side.”

“It’s a club,” Stone said, “but it doesn’t have a name.”

“Wait a minute,” she said, “do the members just call it The Club?”

“Yes.”

“Mark tried for years to get into this place, but he didn’t know the right people. How is it you know the right people?”

“A friend proposed me — Dino, too. In fact, Dino was a member before I was, and he had never mentioned it to me.”

“I’m impressed,” she said.

“Thank you.”

“With Dino.”

They ordered, then Stone took a deep breath. “Tell me,” he said, “which would you rather have — the van Gogh or sixty million dollars?”

“The van Gogh,” she said, without hesitation. “It was my favorite thing in my marriage.”

“That’s good.”

“Why?”

“Because your insurance company is trying very hard to find the painting, and if they find it they won’t have to pay you. You must understand that the Steele Group are my clients. I shouldn’t have told you this, and you can’t tell anybody I did.”

“Is that what all these search warrants are about?” she asked. “They’re searching the East Hampton house, as well.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I hope they find it, because I certainly couldn’t.”

“You’ve been looking for it?”

“Yes, indeed. I’ve been over the apartment and the house from stem to stern. I’m obsessing about it, I think.”

“I’m glad to hear that. I would not like to have thought that you were concealing the painting from the authorities.”

“If I were, that would lend credence to the suspicions of the police, wouldn’t it? And that would make me complicit in Mark’s murder.”

“I don’t think it’s possible that you had anything to do with his death.”

“You’d be surprised at how many people think it is, including some I thought were my friends.”

“You seem to be handling that very well.”

“What other choice do I have? I can’t prove that I didn’t kill my husband.”

“As long as nobody can prove you did, you’ll be all right.”

“Not as long as anyone still suspects me. I’ll have to live with it the rest of my life.”

Stone didn’t have an answer to that. Their lunch came and they relaxed and enjoyed it, and he felt much better now that he had told her about Arthur’s hunt for the picture. Of course, he hadn’t told her that he would profit if it was found. He’d save that for another time.

The following day Art Masi came to see Stone. He took a seat. “I’m at my wit’s end,” he said. “We found nothing in the East Hampton house, and I couldn’t persuade the judge that I had grounds to search Angelo Farina’s place. What do you want me to do next?”

“Well,” Stone said, “you could work on the assumption that Morgan Tillman has always told the truth about her husband’s death and try to solve the crime.”

“I’m an art specialist,” Art replied, “not a homicide detective.”

“It’s in your interest to become one,” Stone said.

“Believe me, I understand that.”

“Art, what do you know about Pio Farina?”

“Angelo’s son? Not much. He’s an abstract painter, and he has a girlfriend who’s a sculptor — Ann Kusch.”

“Is he any good?”

“Yes, he is.”

“Does he make a living at it?”

“I think he does all right. He and the girl live in East Hampton village, but not on the beach. They have a show opening tomorrow night at the Wilder Gallery, on Madison Avenue, in the Seventies.” Art thought for a minute. “Are you thinking he could be the burglar?”

“He’s young and fit enough to be a cat burglar. I have nothing more than that to go on.”

“That’s not evidence.”

“There’s a computer over there,” Stone said, pointing. “Why don’t you run a check on him?”

Masi went to the computer and logged into the NYPD website, then entered his password to be admitted to a deeper level. He sat and stared at the screen.

Stone could see a photograph of a much younger Pio Farina over Masi’s shoulder. “What’s his sheet say?”

“He was arrested on suspicion of three burglaries in the Hamptons when he was nineteen.”

“Was he convicted?”

“He wasn’t charged — lack of evidence. After that, there were no more burglaries.”

“Well,” Stone said, “that’s a start.”

The following morning, Stone got an invitation to a gallery opening featuring the works of Pio Farina and Ann Kusch. He called Morgan.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Good morning. I got an invitation to an opening for Pio Farina and Ann Kusch.”

“So did I.”

“Would you like to go? We can have dinner afterward.”

“Love to. What would you like to do after dinner?”

Stone laughed.

“So would I,” she said. “The opening starts at six. Pick me up at six-thirty.”

“Certainly.”

By the time they arrived the gallery was full of people drinking cheap wine, talking to each other, and ignoring the art.

“Would you like a drink?” Stone asked Morgan.

“Of that stuff? No thanks.”

“Then let’s look at the work. Maybe we’ll start a trend.”

Pio’s abstracts covered the walls, and Ann’s sculptures were scattered about the gallery on pedestals. Stone was only mildly interested in abstract painting, and not on this occasion. The sculptures, however, interested him.

They were small bronzes, and of tools: here, an ax, embedded in a tree trunk; there, a hammer, driving a nail; and over there, a sledgehammer, smashing a rock. “What do you think of the sledgehammer?” he asked Morgan.

“I’ve had enough of sledgehammers,” she said. “I finally got my car back, and I’m afraid to take it out of the garage.”

Stone wasn’t attracted to the sledgehammer, either. He flagged down a gallery worker and bought the ax.

“A good choice,” the young woman said. “It will be available at the end of the show, next week.”

“Please send it,” Stone said, handing her a credit card and his business card.

“Certainly,” she replied.

They went over to where Pio and Ann stood and greeted them.

“Are you enjoying the work?” Ann asked.

“I am. I just bought your ax.”

“A good choice.”

“That’s also what the gallery worker told me, so it must be true.”

They moved on so that others could meet the artists, then Stone looked up and saw Art Masi walk into the gallery.

“Do you know that man?” he asked Morgan.

“He was in my apartment right after Mark’s death,” she replied.

“He was probably there more recently than that,” Stone said.

“Executing a search warrant?”