A Dangerous Talent (An Alix London Mystery) (6 page)

He slipped on the sunglasses again and stepped out into the street, into the shade of the veranda that ran the length of the block. There he leaned his back against the restaurant’s adobe wall and flipped open the cell phone. He pressed the speed-dial button. The telephone dutifully whirred out the number and rang it: 202-324-3447.

202 was the area code for Washington DC.

322-3447 was the number for 935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW. The J. Edgar Hoover Building.

Headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

His name was not Roland de Beauvais, he was not of French ancestry, and he was not a dealer in art. He was originally from Boston; that much was true, and that was about all that was true. His name was Ted Ellesworth, and he was a member of a small, elite unit of the FBI formally designated as the Art Crime Team, but generally known as the Art Squad, which consisted of thirteen special agents, three trial attorneys, and one operations specialist. Ted was a special agent, one of only two who specialized in undercover work. The person whose call he was returning was the invaluable Jamie Wozniak, the unit’s operations specialist, who provided “investigative support,” an all-purpose term that didn’t come close to describing the computer skills, information-ferreting abilities, and cut-through-the-bureaucracy savvy that she brought to the squad.

He looked up and down the street. No one within earshot. Good. He was more than ready to ditch the laid-on Boston baked bean accent for a while. “Jamie, hi, what’s up?”

“So how’s it going?” she asked in response. “Connected with the subject yet?”

“Just about. Unless I’m mistaken, Ms. Coane is in the process of establishing contact with me, even as we speak. I’d be surprised if I don’t hear from her tomorrow. Maybe even this afternoon.”

“Gee, what took you so long? You’ve been there over a day.”

“Must be the altitude. I’m dragging a little.”

“Seriously, it’s going smoothly?”

“Going perfectly.”

Indeed, it was. Liz Coane was the focus of an investigation into a scam entailing the sale of extremely expensive art forgeries to Asian and Middle Eastern buyers. Since the Blue Coyote Gallery was the main conduit for the paintings, Liz was necessarily right at the heart of it. What was not known for certain, however, was whether she herself was criminally involved, or merely a dupe in the chain between forger and buyer. Ted suspected it was the former, and one of the things he was here in Santa Fe for, in the person of the elegant, slimy Roland de Beauvais, was to find out for sure, one way or another.

In this kind of operation, it was essential that the “subject” think she had made contact with him of her own volition. His first day in the city, he had stopped in at several galleries—not the Blue Coyote—to let word percolate through the art community that there was a new man in town, a player with money to spend and, not to put too fine a point on it, a man not overburdened with ethical concerns. On information from Jamie (how did she find out about these things?), he had arranged a lunch with Doris at
the
place to see and be seen on a Friday afternoon if you were anybody who was anybody in the Santa Fe art crowd. And it had worked beautifully. Liz Coane had obviously heard about him—the art world grapevine almost matched the speed of the prison grapevine—and he had barely reached his seat before he saw her checking him out.

“Tell me, though,” he said, “why were you calling? Anything new?”

“Oh, yes indeedy,” she said enthusiastically. “You remember Geoffrey London, don’t you?”

“How could I forget? He was what started me in this very bizarre line of work. But that was before your time.”

It was nine years ago, in fact. He had been an agent for less than a year then, operating out of the New York office, specializing in corporate fraud and white-collar crime. The Washington-based art squad had requested the help of an agent who was familiar with the New York art gallery scene. Ted was the closest thing they had, inasmuch as he had some considerable knowledge of art. His father had established Ellesworth Fine Art and Antiques on Boston’s Newbury Street in 1962 and had owned it until 2004. Ted had worked there for three years while attending Boston University. These qualifications had been more than enough for the art squad, and they had snapped him up for a temporary undercover assignment. He’d had a relatively minor role in the London affair, but he’d loved the fascinating world it opened to him. When he’d learned of a vacancy on the squad two years later, he’d applied. And there he’d been ever since. Married to the job, as his mother sometimes grumbled about her handsome son’s failure to find a permanent mate (or to look very hard for one).

“Okay, well, did you know he’s been out of prison for a while now?”

“Nope.”

“And that he has a daughter?”

“Nope.”

“And that the daughter has been away studying ‘restoration’ in Europe with some of the best?”

“Ah, following in Daddy’s footsteps, you think? Preparing for a life of crime?”

“The thought has crossed my mind,” Jamie said. “And did you know that said daughter is on her way—by private jet, I might add—to Santa Fe?”

“Jamie,” he said patiently, “if I didn’t know there was a daughter in the first place, how could I know where she’s heading?”

“What an old grouch you are. I’m just trying to enhance the narrative tension here, add a little spice to your life.”

“Well, you’ve succeeded. I’m very tense.”

“Excellent. Now, would you like to know the reason she is speeding to Santa Fe at this very moment?”

“I would, but could
you
kind of speed it up a little? I need to be getting back.”

“Oh, all right. The reason she is speeding to Santa Fe at this very moment is that she is now an ‘art consultant’—don’t ask me what that means—and she is headed there to, quote-unquote, ‘authenticate’ a supposed Georgia O’Keeffe painting that has seemingly materialized out of nowhere—no provenance, no record, no—”

“Well, that’s interesting, I guess, but I don’t think—”

“Not as interesting as which gallery is involved with this. Care to hazard a guess?”

“Ah-ha. The Blue Coyote?”

“Bingo.”

“Now you
have g
otten my interest,” he said. “Who will she be working for? Liz Coane herself? Or is it a potential buyer that’s brought her on?”

“That I don’t know. There is a potential buyer, but I don’t know who it is.”

“You don’t
know
? Jamie, I’m shocked.”

“What can I say? I’m not perfect—yet. Don’t worry about it, I’ll find out, but at this point I would assume it’s the buyer she’s working for. Why would Ms. Coane want to pay to bring somebody out from Seattle, let alone in a private jet? Santa Fe has got to be crawling with art experts.”

“Yes, but is it crawling with
bent
art experts?” Ted mused. “Is it possible that Liz has got a little something prearranged with her? You have to wonder: aside from the cost of bringing someone from Seattle, why would anyone in their right mind—dealer or buyer—go out of their way to hire Geoffrey London’s daughter, of all people, unless there was something fishy going on?”

“Good question. Beats me. This is getting pretty deep.”

“What’s the daughter’s name, Jamie? I assume she doesn’t use London anymore.”

“But she does. Her name’s Alix London.”

“Alix London,” Ted echoed. “I’ll make a note. And you see what else you can dig up.”

The day couldn’t have started off better. Chris had her driver swing by Alix’s condo so that the two of them could ride out to Boeing Field together, where Chris’s gleaming, white private jet—well, her one-sixteenth fractional share Gulfstream 200—was waiting for them. For whatever reason, the two of them were feeling lighthearted and chatty, and the result was an uproarious, hilarious drive to the airport. The interior of the plane brought a soft “Wow” from Alix: all gleaming, polished mahogany and buttery black leather. But the minute they seated themselves everything changed. The pilot, Craig Something, came from the cockpit to introduce himself and welcome them aboard. Alix liked him on sight. He was tall, clean-cut, and sandy-haired, with a crisp, neat mustache to match, and soft brown eyes. If she wasn’t mistaken, those eyes widened in surprise when he saw Chris and then almost immediately lit up—but Chris’s reaction was as different as different could be. One look at him and she turned to stone.

“Oh no,” she muttered, probably to herself, but it was obvious that Craig heard her and saw her rigid reaction. The bashful, appealingly eager smile he’d come in with froze in place, and in a monotone, looking mostly at the ceiling, he rattled off boilerplate information about emergency exits, life jackets, seat belts, restroom, and the coffee, snacks, and drinks that were there for them in the storage cabinet.

“What in the world was that about?” Alix asked as he returned to the cockpit. “Isn’t he a good pilot?”

“He’s a jerk,” Chris muttered. “An idiot, a chump, a total nitwit.”

“Oh, well, that’s reassuring,” Alix said. “For a minute there, I was worried about flying with him.”

But Chris, so sociable and voluble until then, was no longer in the mood for joking. She quickly made it clear that she didn’t welcome the opportunity to talk about whatever was bothering her, and for the duration of the flight she was about as communicative as an oyster.

Thus, the flight that Alix had been looking forward to—a leisurely, comfortable three hours to continue to get to know Chris better—was a total dud, both boring and tense. Interminable. When the wheels finally touched down on the tarmac at Santa Fe’s little municipal airport, she breathed a sigh of relief, but things failed to improve even then.

Waiting for them in the terminal was a flushed, slack-faced Liz Coane (was she tipsy? It was barely two p.m.), who grandly announced that she had canceled the car and driver that Chris had arranged and was personally driving them to their hotel. And when Liz set eyes on the pilot, she yelped with surprise, threw her arms around him, and kissed him wetly on (and in) the mouth. The flabbergasted Craig reacted about the way he would have if he’d been tongued by a warthog: with an instinctive, grimacing recoil that arched him backward. Alix had the impression it was all he could do to keep from wiping the back of his hand across his lips.

But Liz was oblivious. “And you’re going to need a ride into town, too, Craig.” She looked fondly from Chris to Craig and back again and grinned happily. Yes, she’d had one or two, all right, Alix thought. “Imagine that, the three of us back together again, here in Santa Fe. This’ll be great. The good old days all over again.”

“Which good old days are those?” Craig said coldly. “And if that was a lift you were offering me, thanks but no thanks. I’ve got to take care of the plane and get the paperwork in.” He turned his back on her and headed for the terminal.

Chris was more polite, but only marginally. “It wasn’t necessary for you to meet us. The car I hired would have been perfectly satisfactory.”

“Gee, doesn’t anyone love me anymore?” Liz asked. “I thought I was doing everybody a favor.”

“Well, it’s not that we don’t appreciate it, Liz,” Chris said, defrosting just a little. “It was a nice thought.” She sighed. “Okay, thanks, where are you parked?”

Alix almost spoke up. The idea of being driven by the not-strictly-sober Liz was not a happy one, but the atmosphere being what it was, she let it go. Anyway, Liz had made it from town to the airport; chances were good she could make it safely back again.

Liz’s reaction to their less-than-joyous greeting had been delayed, but by the time they got to her car she had clearly come to the conclusion that her feelings had been hurt. The result was a drive, mercifully only twenty minutes long, that was as bad as the flight: Liz concentrated glumly on her driving and Chris stared fixedly out the window.

Alix simply sat quietly in the back seat, as far away as she could manage to get from the toxic stew of whatever history was behind the uncomfortable Chris-Craig-Liz relationships. Whatever had happened between them, whatever problems they had, she wasn’t about to let herself be drawn in. She was there to do a job, for which she was being well paid, and that was exactly what she would do, and all she would do. If what had seemed until this morning to be a budding new friendship panned out, that would be wonderful. If not, that was okay too. She had more than enough baggage of her own without volunteering to deal with other people’s.

Only at the end of the drive was there a slight thaw, when Liz reasonably affably said she was looking forward to seeing them at her gallery that evening for an interesting opening. It was the American debut of a brilliant young Polish artist, Gregor Gorzynski, who was going to stand the art world on its ear. “My protégé.”

“Sure, that’d be nice,” Chris said, warming yet a little more.

“Alix?” Liz asked.

“Absolutely, I’m looking forward to it. Will we be able to see the O’Keeffe then, or don’t you have it at the gallery?”

“No, I’ve got it at the gallery, all right. I got it out of the vault for you this morning. Look, why don’t you stop by before the reception—four thirty, say? I’ll have it out for you in my office and you can feast your eyes. I’ll put out some champagne too—the good stuff, not the crap I’ll have out for the opening.” She smiled at Chris. “We can toast old times.”

That brought back the chill. “Liz, I think we’d better go in and register now.”

Liz shrugged and grinned. “See you later, guys.”

“I just hope she doesn’t kill anybody on the way back,” Chris said to Alix as they headed for reception. “She’s a few sheets to the wind.”

“I thought so too. Was she a boozer back in the old days?”

“If she was, she sure knew how to hide it better,” Chris said, and then, a little more charitably: “I don’t think she’s very happy.”

The Hacienda Encantada, although in the heart of Santa Fe, only a few blocks from the plaza, had eight lush, beautifully planted acres to itself, with lodgings both in the main building—a two-story, Hollywood-inspired “Indian Pueblo”—and in individual adobe casitas laid out along the curving paths that meandered through the grounds. Alix’s spirits lifted. The place was beautiful, and so was what little she’d seen so far of Santa Fe, although the high desert air was chillier than she’d expected.

“It’s nice to have you with us again, Ms. LeMay,” said the smiling young woman behind the desk (Caitlin, according to her brass nameplate). “Let’s see,” she said, clicking away at her keyboard and checking the computer screen. “We have you in the Desert Canyon Suite here in the main building. Ms. London, we have you in the Roadrunner Casita, one of our nicest.”

“But didn’t I reserve adjoining suites?” Chris asked.

“Um…no…” Caitlin said doubtfully. “It says here—”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” Alix said. “A casita will be fine.” Better than fine. The air was still pulsating with…something, and she was only too glad for the chance to get away on her own for a while. And Chris looked as if she could use a little decompression time herself.

“Well, all right,” Chris said. “I guess it doesn’t matter.” She looked at her watch. “Two fifteen. Canyon Drive is less than ten minutes from here. Shall we meet here in the lobby at four fifteen? We can walk, if you’re up to it.”

“Absolutely. I could stand to stretch my legs.” But on second thought, two hours of solitary decompression might be more than was good for either of them. “Wait, what do you say we meet at three instead? The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum should be right around the corner—”

“It is,” said Caitlin. “Well, a couple of blocks.”

“Great. What do you say we spend a little time there before we go look at your painting, Chris?”

“I’d like that, yes.”

Caitlin plinked the bell on the desk, and in about two seconds a couple of bellmen materialized, one of them loading Chris’s bags (she’d brought three) onto a cart, and the other, younger one taking Alix’s single soft-sided suitcase outside and stowing it into the back of a pink golf cart with a fringed awning to match.

“Climb in, I’ll drive you there. Easy to get lost if you haven’t been here before.”

He was a chubby, friendly, rosy-cheeked kid (Tommy, his nameplate said) who looked as if he’d be more at home riding a tractor on a farm in Indiana than a gussied-up golf cart in Santa Fe. Clearly, he enjoyed zipping around in the cart, but as soon as he noticed that she was shivering, he let up on the accelerator.

“It’s the elevation. Everybody thinks we’re, you know, warm, like Phoenix, but we’re not. We’re seven thousand feet here,” he said with pride. “It can get a lot colder than this. Where are you from?”

“Me?” Not such an easy question, she thought, and took the simplest way out. “Seattle.” As good an answer as any.

“They get a lot of rain there,” Tommy said sagely.

“That they do,” she agreed.

At the casita he hopped out. “I’m gonna get the fireplace going. Get you toasty in no time.”

She followed him into the room, immediately liking the place: curving adobe walls, exposed viga-wood ceiling beams, an arched, kiva-type propane fireplace, Southwestern furnishings…Midway across the red tile floor, she stopped, her brow wrinkling. “Wait. Do you smell something?”

Kneeling at the fireplace, poised to turn the switch to light the gas, he lifted his pug nose and sniffed. “Like something died?”

“Like rotten eggs,” she declared. “Let’s get out of here. That smells like a propane leak. We need to go back to reception.”

“Naw,” he said, “can’t be that.” His hand was still extended toward the switch. “Propane don’t have any smell. I know because—”

“Tommy, stop! Don’t light that damn thing!” she yelled. “Let’s go!”

He blinked and retracted his hand. “Yes ma’am. Um…you don’t want me to put your bag in the room?”

Her answer was a vigorous, two-handed tug at his collar that jerked him to his feet. “Let’s
go
! Now!”

Back in the cart on their return to reception, calmer now and wondering if she’d overreacted, she said, “I’m sure it’s nothing, Tommy. It’s just, while you’re right, propane doesn’t have any smell—that’s exactly why they add an odorant to it, so you can tell when there’s a leak. When I lived in Italy, they used these awful little propane tanks they called
bombalas
, which was a good name for them, because if you weren’t careful—”

A millisecond before she heard the tremendous explosion, she felt a sudden blast of heat on the back of her neck. Before she could make sense of it, the sound came, a huge detonation—no, a rapid series of detonations, like a string of Chinese firecrackers, only deeper, bigger, immensely more powerful.

Stunned, Tommy stomped on the brake and they both spun around. They were in time to see the pieces—she recognized fragments of the wooden ceiling beams—on their way back down. The casita itself was a mass of sooty flames that spouted like geysers, windows broken out, door tumbling to the grass ten yards away, the roof, as far as they could tell, completely gone.

“Holy mackerel,” Tommy said wanly. “If you didn’t…if you hadn’t…we coulda been…we woulda been…”

“Yes, killed,” she said grimly. “Dead.”

He nodded dumbly, staring at the flaming, steaming, hissing ruin. “As a frigging doornail,” he said wonderingly.

Cognac in the middle of the afternoon was hardly an everyday event, but then neither was coming that close to being as dead as a frigging doornail. It was with deep pleasure that Alix took her second long swallow and felt the welcome heat of it slide soothingly down to her stomach.

“Nice to be alive,” she said.