A Dangerous Talent (An Alix London Mystery) (20 page)

She’d been sitting at Chris’s bedside for two hours now, chatting with her when Chris wasn’t dozing, and simply thinking when she was. There was certainly no shortage of things to think about. She’d wondered for a while if today’s bizarre chase meant that she’d been wrong about Liz’s having being responsible for the casita explosion. Because, with Liz having been dead for a couple of days, that would mean that someone
else
had tried to kill her this morning. And, surely, it was stretching credulity to imagine that two different people had been trying to murder her, wasn’t it? But no, that startled “What are
you
doing here?” remained in her mind, as convincing as ever; the casita had been Liz’s doing, all right—or at the very least she’d been party to it.

So who was behind this latest attempt? Not the two dimwits in the trucks, that was for sure. But aside from the now-departed Liz, who else was there? Well, whoever had killed Liz (presumably the big, bearded guy running from Liz’s office) was a good bet, but what reason would he have for wanting to kill
her
? It had to do with the painting, she was as sure of that as ever, but what was the
why
? To stop her from deducing and revealing that it was a fake? That was the most obvious thing that came to mind, yes, but where was the rationale for murder? Whoever was trying to unload it could simply pack the thing up whenever the police released it, hold it for a few years, and take it elsewhere—Idaho, Montana, Georgia—someplace far out of the art mainstream, where it could be sold without raising any eyebrows. Inconvenient, yes, but not as inconvenient or risky as murder. Or he could have—

Almost without realizing it, she had gotten up and wandered over to the window, where she stood absently gazing down on the parking lot from the second floor, and now she became aware that she was looking at a medium-sized U-Haul truck that had just pulled into the lot and disgorged two men. She did a double take and looked harder.

“Chris, are you awake?” she asked over her shoulder.

“Awake?” came the drowsy answer. “Mm, I’m not sure, I have to think about it. Why?”

“Because if I were you, what I’d think about is putting on a little lipstick.”

“Lipstick? Why?”

“Because you’re getting company.”

“Company?” She giggled—very un-Chris-like. “I keep repeating you, did you notice? Sorry, I’m still kind of dopey from whatever they gave me. Anyway, what kind of company am I getting?”

“Well, I’m looking at a couple of men who just got out of a U-Haul truck—”

“A—” She stopped herself.

“A U-Haul truck and are heading this way. And one of them is either your pilot or his twin brother.”

“My…do you mean, my…you mean CRAIG? Craig is HERE?” Abruptly, the dopiness was gone. She sat bolt-upright. “Where’s my mirror?” she asked desperately. “Where’s my comb, where’s my lipstick, where’s—Alix, I don’t know what they did with my things. Quick, give me yours, this is an emergency!”

“I wish I could, but my bag is probably twenty miles downstream by now.” It reminded her she’d better get on the phone as soon as she could and do something about her driver’s license, ATM card, and all the rest. Aside from everything else, what a hassle all that would be. While she spoke, she went to the closet of the private room, and there was Chris’s bag on the shelf. “Here we go,” she said, tossing it onto the bed.

Chris groped inside, seized a small mirror, and stared at herself, shocked. “Oh my God,
two
black eyes? I look like a raccoon! And look at my nose! It’s all, all—”

“Well, you can’t do anything about the black eyes, but the nose isn’t really that bad—”

“Not that
bad
? It looks like a, like a…rutabaga!”

“Mm, more like a turnip, I’d say,” Alix couldn’t help saying. “Because of the purple.”

“
Alix!
” Chris wailed.

“Look, Chris, really, it isn’t all that awful. If you neaten up your hair a little, put on some lipstick…”

Chris was already dabbing on the lipstick. “Oh, and this horrible gown they put me in!
Nobody
could look good in this. Can’t you keep him out of here?”

“Chris, if he was concerned enough about you to come all the way here, I doubt if there’s much I can do about keeping him out of the room.”

“My God, these eyes,” Chris groaned. She looked plaintively at Alix. “That’ll go away, won’t it?”

“I’m sure it will, but I doubt if it’ll be before Craig gets here.”

“This is no laughing matter,” Chris said, laughing in spite of herself. “Oh, what am I doing, it’s hopeless.” She threw down the mirror and fell back against the pillow. “All I can say is, I hope he likes raccoons. Crank up the bed for me, will you? And if you wouldn’t mind giving us some time alone…”

“You bet. I’ll leave now,” Alix said, having used the remote control to raise the head of the bed so that Chris was sitting up. “And try to look on the bright side.”

“And that is?”

“If he’s still interested after he sees you today, you’ll know he’s serious.”

“Oh, thanks, that’s reassuring. Wait, you said two of them, didn’t you? Who’s the other one?”

“Never saw him before,” Alix said. “Bye, now.”

But even before the door closed behind her, she realized she
had
seen him before. He’d looked vaguely familiar, as if he reminded her of an actor or of someone she’d once known. But now it clicked; it was de Beauvais, Mr. Flimflam himself. It hadn’t registered before, probably because she was looking down on him from a new angle, and because the sight of him was so unexpected. What was he doing here at the hospital? And how did he know Craig? And why did he keep showing up every time she turned around—Liz’s gallery, the police station, here…

The two men came hurrying down the corridor, Craig a little in front. Seeing Alix standing outside the closed door alarmed him. “Is she all right? Has something gone wrong?”

“No, she’s banged up a little, but I’m sure she’ll be all right.”

“Um—is it okay if I just go in?” he asked.

“Sure. I saw you from the window, so she knows you’re coming. She’s looking forward to seeing you.” She considered telling him about the raccoon eyes (even the emergency-room doctor had called them that) but then decided it was better to let things play out on their own.

He reached for the doorknob, then suddenly turned and surprised her with a bear hug. She hadn’t realized how tall he was: six-three, at least; a good fit for Chris. The thought made her smile; she was doing something she hated when others did it for her: matchmaking.

“They tell me you saved her life,” he breathed into her ear. “Thank you.”

“All I did—” But he was already in the room. She heard him say, “Hello, Chris, I hope I’m not—” before the door closed and she was left alone with de Beauvais, who stood a couple of yards away, smiling his smooth, superior, just-look-how-sexy-I-am smile at her.

“Did you want something?” she asked coldly.

“Yes. First, I want to say I’m glad you’re all right. I understand you put on quite a performance on the road this morning.”

“Thank you.” She waited for the rest.

“And second, I have something to confess.”

“I already know what it is. You’re a phony.”

He looked levelly at her, giving nothing away. “Now why exactly would you think something like that?”

“That overdone Boston Brahmin shtick,” she said, which was a lie. It was overdone, all right, but still she’d bought it, right up until the moment she’d overheard him through Mendoza’s open door, speaking naturally. “Give me a break. No one’s talked like that since—” Since Paynton Whipple-Pruitt, she might have said. “Since I don’t know when.”

He looked at her a moment longer—sternly, she thought, but then, almost like movie magic, his face transformed itself, relaxing into a grin. A pretty engaging grin, she had to admit, open and direct, with not even a tinge of fakery. His whole body seemed to stand more squarely, and when he smiled, the skin at the corners of those remarkable blue eyes crinkled appealingly. He was a charming bastard, damn him, and it made her uneasy. Whatever his game was, she had no interest in getting interested in him. She already had a charming, ethically challenged old bastard in her life, and the last thing she needed was a charming, ethically challenged young one.

“Ah, but you have to remember, in undercover work it’s not veracity we’re after,” he said, “it’s verisimilitude. The idea is to act the way other people
think
you’re supposed to act.”

He’d dropped the phony accent, but she was so surprised by what he’d said that she’d barely noticed. Undercover work? She stared at him. It was all she could do to keep her jaw from dropping. “You’re going to tell me you’re some kind of
detective
?”

Silently, he took a leather card case from his hip pocket, opened it, and held it up to her eyes, not snapping it closed after a second they way they do on TV, but leaving it up there for her to read. In the lower compartment was an eagle-topped gold shield that might have been authentic, or might just as likely have been the kind of thing you used to be able to get for two cereal box tops and a buck—“junior secret agent.” But the one in the top compartment struck her as the real thing: an ID card with “Department of Investigation FBI Special Agent” printed on it in bold blue letters, along with an imprint of the agency’s seal and a small, clear picture of de Beauvais—except that the signature beneath it said “Theodore Ellesworth.”

Her reaction, which surprised her as much as it must have surprised him, was to burst out laughing. Whether it was from the tension of the last few days or the intrinsic absurdity of it all, she didn’t know, but she had trouble stopping. It had been months, maybe years, since she’d laughed like that. Beauvais—or rather Ellesworth—quietly watched her.

When she’d wiped her eyes and could speak again, she looked at him. “You have to be kidding me. FBI? ‘Theodore Ellesworth’?”

He closed the case and slipped it back into his pocket. “That’s my name, I’m sorry to say. And I really am with the Bureau. Honest.” Smiling, he held up three fingers in the Boy Scout oath sign.

Her attitude toward him was muddled at this point, to put it mildly, but her instincts told her he was telling the truth. “Okay, I believe you. So what is all this about? Tell me why FBI Special Agent Theodore Ellesworth is standing in a hospital corridor in Española, New Mexico, talking to me, instead of doing all sorts of really important FBI things.”

“Look, this’ll take a little explaining. There’s a coffee shop downstairs. Do you suppose we might go and have a cup?”

Alix held back, but only for a second. “Okay, Mr. Ellesworth, lead on.”

“That’s Ted,” he said, starting down the corridor.

The Española Hospital coffee shop was like any other hospital coffee shop: the aura of anxiety and gloom emanating from its patrons canceled out any efforts at brightness and cheer in its décor. The absence of windows (it was in the basement) didn’t help either. The only table with people in good spirits was one that had some nurses at it. The others held people, singly or in pairs, who sat brooding and uncommunicative. Ted and Alix found a table along the wall, well away from the others.

“Let’s see,” Ted said, settling down with his coffee, “where do I start?”

“How about with what Roland de Beauvais, bent art dealer extraordinaire, was doing in Santa Fe in the first place?”

“Fair enough. I’m on assignment on a string of scams that’ve been going on for some time: forgeries sold as originals to foreign buyers, mostly in Asia. We have five definite so far, and another four we’re pretty sure about. And Blue Coyote Gallery has been the main conduit for them, so we knew Liz was right in the middle of it, either innocently or not so innocently.”

“Have you decided which?”

“Yes, the latter. She was in it up to her eyeballs.”

“Huh,” Alix mused, “I wonder why.”

“Wonder why what?”

“Why she’d get involved with something like that. I mean, considering that she was already rolling in money—”