Circles of Confusion

  Forgetting that she was tied to her chair, Claire tried to get to her feet to help. The telephone cord bit into her wrists and the chair's weight dragged her back down. Karl was bellowing with rage, the sound echoing, hollow and metallic, as he scrabbled at the edges of the wastebasket. The gun fell from his hand, hit the wall and spun away on the floor.

  "Dante, get the gun!" Claire shouted. "Get it!"

  But it was Rudy who made the next move, suddenly coming alive. Still lying prone, he swept his arm out in a blind arc until his hand connected with Dante's ankle. He yanked. Dante's head hit the doorjamb with a horrible hollow thunk, and he went down in a slack tangle. Rudy pulled the apron from his face and got to his feet, his fingertips gingerly exploring his already swelling face.

  A second later, Karl succeeded in pulling the wastebasket from his head and flung it in the corner. Angry at finding his enemy already vanquished, he lifted one of his huge heavy shoes and kicked Dante in the ribs. Then again. Claire could hear bones cracking, but Dante didn't stir.

  Dear God, was he dead? All the anger she had felt earlier drained from her, leaving only a terrible sense of loss.

  "Did I not warn you?" Karl said to Rudy, somewhat irrationally. "Did I not tell you that you had to take care of things before they got out of hand?"

  "The women did not do anything," Rudy said wearily. "It was this guy." He lifted his foot and pulled it back as if he, too, were going to kick Dante, but then dropped it to the floor again. He looked over at Claire. "Who is he, anyway?"

  She decided to keep her answer simple. "My boyfriend." Charlie looked at her and raised one eyebrow, but kept silent.

  "Well, he is not doing you much good now, is he?" Karl said. Claire froze as he reached down to pick up the gun and then aimed it—almost casually—at Dante's sprawled form.

  "You are not in the secret police anymore, Karl." Rudy held out his hand, palm up. His voice was steady. "I do not want to leave a trail of dead bodies behind me."

  Instead of handing over the gun, Karl raised it and took a step backward into the reception area. "Do not do this, Karl. Do not do that," he mimicked in a singsong voice. "I am tired of you telling me what to do." His huge hand hovered over the receptionist's desk. Then in one quick move he picked up the painting and tucked it under his arm.

  "What are you doing?" A note of panic had crept into Rudy's voice. Claire thought of the sorcerer's apprentice, setting into motion what he ultimately couldn't control. "You give that—"

  As he was speaking, the lights went out.

  For a long moment, everything was silent except for the keening of the wind. It was completely dark—no light in the room, no windows glowing in the buildings around them, no spangle of lights on the hills that lay to the west. The moon was far away, a white thumbprint against the inky sky.

  There was the sound of a body running into something—Claire thought it was the receptionist's desk—followed by a grunt of pain or surprise. Rudy, Claire guessed, trying to grab the painting from Karl.

  "Give it to me, Karl. You would have no idea what to do with it."

  Karl's voice sounded stronger, more certain, as if he were gaining courage from his own rebellion. "After five years, I know your buyers as well as you do. And one thing I have learned is that they are not choosy. They will buy from whoever has the goods. Which in this case would be me."

  As Claire's eyes began to adjust to the light provided by the distant moon, she strained to see what was happening. Next to the window a dark smudge moved against the night sky. Karl, she guessed, not talking now, simply concentrating on circumventing Rudy as he made for the door.

  Rudy must have caught sight of him, too, for suddenly there was the rush of feet running, and the sounds of a struggle. "Give it to me, give it to me!" Rudy cried, but Claire didn't know whether he now meant the painting—or the gun.

  When the gun went off, the sound was even louder than the roar of the wind outside. The first shot shattered one of the floor-to- ceiling windows, letting the outside in. The wind was so fierce it was hard to gulp a breath. Glass stalactites glinted in the moonlight. Eyes watering from the wind, Claire watched the two figures reel back and forth amid a swirl of loose papers that had risen up from the receptionist's desk and now whipped through the room. The sound of the wind was nearly deafening, but still, the second shot was even louder.

  The bigger figure—now Claire could just make out Karl's pale face—staggered backward, off-balance, one arm flailing, the other still clutching the dark shape of the painting against his chest. Just below it, a black stain was spreading across his once white shirt. One huge foot stepped back into space. Karl seemed to hover for a moment, his free arm reaching blindly and finding only air. Then he was simply gone.

  Claire tried to scream, but the wind tore the breath from her mouth.

  When Rudy walked slowly from the shattered window to stand in front of them, Claire was sure it was the end. Dawn was just beginning to wash the sky. She could see the silver glint of the gun, now held loosely by his side, but because Rudy had his back to the window, his face was in the shadows. She was never to know what he was thinking at that minute. Was he reluctant to add more dead bodies to his troubles, even though they had just witnessed him commit a murder? Did he think of whatever had existed between his grandfather and Claire's great-aunt? He only stood looking down at her for a long minute. Then he turned on his heel and left.

  Claire looked over at Charlie. She had expected to find her slumped agamst her bonds in exhaustion or residual terror, but instead Charlie's face was intent as her shoulders twisted back and forth. "Try and get behind me. If you can put your foot on this one part of the rope, I think I can get loose."

  In a painful progress of tiny hops and drags that left her fingers numb, Claire was halfway to Charlie when a hand fell on her shoulder. She cried out.

  But it wasn't Rudy having second thoughts. Instead, Dante stood swaying beside her. He looked terrible. One side of his head was matted with blood, and his left hand cradled his ribs.

  "How are you?" Claire asked. For that moment, she was willing to forgive him anything, because he was alive.

  "I'm surviving." He gave them both a smile, and Claire knew he was consciously echoing Charlie's earlier words. "Let me see if I can find something to get you loose." He rummaged through the cabinets and reappeared with a scalpel. Although he had to stop several times to rest, Dante finally sawed Charlie free. When it was her turn, Claire was alarmed to hear his ragged breathing, louder than the dying wind. He finished cutting her loose about the same time that Charlie came back from her own raid on the doctors' supplies, her arms full of bandages and tape. She had him sit down in the chair Claire had just vacated, and then ran her fingers lightly over first his ribs and then his head.

  "Three or four cracked ribs and a good-sized cut on your head. But it's not fractured. You must have a very thick skull."

  "Ask Claire about that." Dante sucked in his breath as Claire put a generous dab of antibiotic cream on his cut.

  They gathered up their things and then descended the darkened stairwell, guided by the flashlight Claire had retrieved from her backpack. When they reached the shelter of the building's entrance, they found Troy, looking out at Karl's body. Now covered by a sheet, it lay in the middle of Broadway Boulevard, bracketed on one side by an ambulance and on the other by a police car. The sirens were silent and both drivers were behind the wheel talking into handheld radios. Otherwise, the street was deserted. Through the litter of thousands of leaves and small branches, the wind—now a brisk breeze—scudded an occasional orange traffic cone or empty box.

  Troy barely glanced at them. "Hello, Claire." His eyes were pulled back to the sheet-covered body. The fact that she had acquired two well-worn companions and bandages around her wrists seemed not to impact him at all.

  "Troy." It took her a minute to remember what he was guilty of. When compared to Rudy and Karl, not very much. Just trying to steal the painting from her
in New York.

  "The painting's destroyed, you know. I went out to try to help this guy and here he is, holding your painting. Most of the middle is just... gone."

  "What were you planning on doing with the Vermeer?"

  He spoke absently, still mesmerized by destruction. "It wasn't a Vermeer, of course. But the beautiful thing about it was that it so easily could have been. All it needed was a signature. And that little detail could have been remedied. Ten minutes' work from John and I could have sold it for three million easy."

  "John? Your chauffeur?"

  An expression that under other circumstances might have been a smile crossed Troy's face. "John works for me, yes. Usually, he just adds or subtracts."

  "What do you mean?"

  "People bring paintings to Avery's that have been in the family for generations, but they still are completely undistinguished. A few years ago, I realized how little it would take to make them salable. It was easy enough to find an artist willing to finally make some money. You see, with just a bit of paint, old women can become young girls, unknown sitters famous generals, landscapes acquire a dog or a horse in the foreground—just the kind of revisions that make a painting worth several thousand instead of several hundred."

  "You'd risk your entire career for a few thousand dollars?"

  "Oh, but if you make three or four thousand every week, yes. Avery's isn't a place for poor people. Their pay scale is predicated on the idea that you're already living off Daddy's trust fund. Every day I see what money can buy. Do you know how hard that is when you don't have any yourself? And then you came in with that clever little pastiche. All it needed was a signature, which would be no trouble for John. There are a lot of gullible collectors out there who would be willing to spend three million or so for a painting by the great Dutch master Vermeer."

  Dante spoke up. "I'll have to remember that next time we have dealings with Avery's."

  Troy tore his gaze from the sheet that covered the remains of the painting. He looked at Dante, who had a bandage looped around his head. "I know you, don't I?"

  Claire wasn't surprised by this. After all, thieves probably ran in the same circles.

  "Dante Bonner."

  "That's right, from the Met. Don't worry, I only work my magic for my private sales. Well-heeled Upper West Side matrons. The Fifis, if you know what I mean."

  Now it was Claire's turn to stare, first at Dante, then at Troy. "He doesn't work at the Met. He's a painter. Only he had the same plan as you did—to steal the painting."

  Dante pushed the hair out of his eyes and gave her his full attention. "What are you talking about?"

  "I saw the photo of you and your wife!" Claire felt Charlie's arm slip around her waist. "And I found this." Claire reached into the neckline of her maternity top and pulled out the note. "You were making notes on who you could get to buy it."

  "I was making notes on whether the Met would buy it, given its lack of provenance." Dante's dark eyes shot sparks. "And more important, if you're talking about the photo—which you must have found snooping through my wallet—that was from my sister's wedding! Did you really think I would make love to you under such false pretenses?"

  "Don't give me that. Don't tell me that some blue-eyed blond is your sister!"

  They had finally caught Troy's attention. He was swiveling his head back and forth as if he were at a tennis match, and Claire found herself wishing he would just go away.

  "Remember—my last name is Bonner. My sister is a throwback to the German part of our family. And the only reason she's blond is that her hair has a little help." Dante shook his head, his jaw set with anger. "I can't believe how little you trusted me. And how stupid you thought I was. Did you really think I wouldn't notice something was wrong last night?"

  A renewed flame of anger blazed up in Claire. "You're the one who lied to me! You said you were a painter."

  "You asked me if I was and I told you the truth. It's just not how I make my living. I didn't want to tell you where I really worked' because I didn't want to scare you off. When you first showed me the painting, I thought you were like that guy from Kansas whose family had a whole trove of stolen art. It might have disappeared again if I scared you off. But after I figured out the truth, I couldn't think of a way to tell you who I was without making you mad." He turned around and started to walk away, then stopped for a second. "Did you really think the only thing that attracted me to you was that damn painting?"

  Chapter 35For the sixth time, Jean Montrose leaned forward to squint at her new VCR, making sure it was set to Record. It was. And after the tap-dancing bottle of toilet cleanser disappeared, there she was, Elizabeth—or Liz, as she had graciously told Jean to call her—with her riveting turquoise eyes. She sat behind a Lucite desk that revealed a pair of slim, tanned thighs draped in the tiniest of skirts. Jean had already pasted the article from this week's TV Guide in her scrapbook, the one that compared Stop the Presses to America's Most Wanted. Like AMW, it mixed interviews with re-creations—only with a focus on starlets, sex scandals and high society, with only the occasional murder thrown in for spice.

  Liz straightened her shoulders and launched into the top story. "Good evening and welcome to the premiere of Stop the Presses. Tonight we bring you the story of a brave young appraiser at Avery's, the world-famous auction house." A photo of Troy Nowell appeared over her left shoulder, looking solemn, jaw set. "When a young woman came to him with an unlikely tale about where she had gotten a beautiful painting, he felt compelled to investigate. And what he found will surprise you. It's a story that's still being unraveled—a story of Nazi loot, secret deals for stolen art, and murder."

  Jean leaned forward, enthralled. She had liked Troy from the moment she had first seen him through her chain lock, on the night of the big windstorm. At first he'd been all mixed up, thinking Jean was Claire's sister. "You're not her mother, surely?" he'd asked in that rich way he had of speaking. Then he explained about how he had met Claire in New York City and fallen head over heels in love. Intent on protecting her from some complicated-sounding but clearly urgent danger, he had followed her back to Oregon. It wasn't long before Jean had taken the chain off the door and invited Troy inside for a cup of coffee. And over a second cup, accompanied by some Ho-Hos she just happened to have, Jean had let slip where Troy might find Claire. She hadn't realized she was sending him in harm's way, but luckily everything had turned out all right.

  She still didn't understand how Claire could have let Troy get away—although once he was interviewed by Liz any battle she might have fought was lost. Their whirlwind engagement was written up in People. Even Claire said Troy and Liz were meant to be together, although she muttered it in a way that made Jean wonder if her daughter really had had a crush on him. At the same time, Liz was shopping the story and her "exclusive access and footage" around to every TV magazine from American Journal to Hard Copy, looking for whoever would give her the best deal. The others had offered her cash, but it was Stop the Presses that had given her what she really wanted—an offer to be one of their on-air hosts.

  Even with the worldwide publicity (Long-Lost Vermeer FoundQ, there was still no clue to who had owned the painting before it found its way to the Army collecting depot. For a while a great- grand niece of Goring's had made noises that the painting should be hers by inheritance, but when no one listened to her, she had faded away. Jean watched as an actress portraying Claire—her daughter!— appeared on the screen, kneeling by a narrow bed as she reached underneath to pull out a dust-covered suitcase. Her wig wasn't quite right—it was too red and too curly—but still, Jean was thrilled. While what followed wasn't exactly the story Claire had told her, it was much more exciting.

  Jean munched her way through a bag of reduced-fat Doritos as the story unfolded, complete with black-and-white footage of windows being shattered on Kristallnacht, sad-eyed Jews being herded onto a train, and a torchlit Hitler speaking to a crowd of thousands. There was color video of Karl's bo
dy covered with a sheet, the camera panning up to show the shattered sixteenth-floor window. And, of course, film of Troy—the real Troy this time, no actor—bringing down the gavel as he made auction history by selling the long-lost Vermeer for a record $27 million.

  Claire had told Jean one tidbit that was glossed over in the TV version—how when she was in the doctor's bathroom, she had replaced the painting with one of the full-size photos Dante had taken. The original—carefully laid between two sheets of acid-free paper—had gone into Claire's backpack, cushioned by an empty binder she had found on a shelf behind the receptionist's desk. Claire had thought her switch might buy her some time when she tried to slip away from Dante, but instead it had worked to fool Rudy. Viewed through the bubble wrap, the photo had looked like the real thing.

  In a bit of poetic license, Stop the Presses had Troy rescuing a tied-up Claire and Dante (Charlie didn't even exist in this version of the story) while simultaneously fighting off Rudy and Karl.

  Jean shed a few tears when the segment ended with shots of Liz and Troy's wedding, a celebrity-studded ceremony that had taken place just a few weeks before. Claire scoffed that the whole thing must be a publicity stunt worked up by their respective agents, but Jean told her that she might think about taking a page from their book.

  Her daughter and Dante Bonner weren't even engaged, although Jean dropped enough hints. Some of the money from the painting could have gone to a truly beautiful wedding, but instead Claire had given most of it to the World Jewish Restitution Organization. Even though she was disappointed that Claire hadn't kept much of the money from the painting, Jean had to admit her daughter hadn't forgotten her family. Susie now had herself a station at Curl Up and Dye, and there was college money set aside for Eric when the time came. And of course there was the very home theater system that Jean was now watching the last few commercials on—a forty-eight- inch Goldstar with separate speakers.