Collar Robber (14 page)

The Third Monday in April

Chapter Thirty-four

Cynthia Jakubek

“Yo! Juice! Over here!”

The heavily tattooed white dude who barked this instruction snapped his fingers above his head in case I couldn't hear him from fourteen feet away. I moved in his direction, taking my time about it. St. Benedict the Moor Open Door Café, third Monday of the month, Cindy on the drink line.

I take attitude like his as part of the deal. Some guests act grateful, with lots of smiles and thank-yous. Some seem grudging: “Yeah, I appreciate this but, frankly, it's the least you could do.” Some deeply resent needing help, and therefore resent you for helping them. And some apparently just plain feel entitled.

Reaching the formica-topped table that looked like something out of June Cleaver's kitchen would have if she'd been on food stamps, I poured thin, orange stuff into a plastic cup in front of an unambiguously phallic snake inked onto the guy's forearm. He had cut the sleeves off a denim shirt at the shoulder, so the snake looked
really
long.

“About goddamn time.”

“Watch your mouth!” This from black lady across the table. “You gettin' a free meal! Be blessed!”

Tattoo boy opened his mouth, but he shut it quick. A glance up told me why. Sister Luanga was making her stately way from the meal service area to the table. Her ebony face glistened under an ample white veil that complemented her royal blue, ankle-length dress. She didn't have a ruler, but she might as well have.

“If you must abuse someone, then abuse me as you think best,” she said in lilting English with a distinctive West African accent. “But please do not take the name of our Lord in vain, for it wounds me to the heart when you do.”

The tattooed guy looked sullenly down, muttering, “Sorry.” Even the snake looked a little sheepish. I distractedly filled a couple of other cups on my way back to the coolers and coffee urn that defined the drink line here. I had my mind on something less noble than giving drink to the thirsty.

Willy's little bombshell about thinking he'd seen Tally in Vienna had provoked a succession of unpleasant thoughts. Willy had a motive to kill the guy in Vienna. Hijacking the bill of sale, though, made sense for him only if it was phony, and I wasn't buying that. I couldn't see how the Vienna murder accomplished anything at all for Tally. He wouldn't want the Museum to lose
Eros Rising
, but he wouldn't stick his own neck out to save the painting, and one thug more or less didn't figure to change that equation much anyway.

But what about my good client Sean? I didn't know about Austria, but he'd sure been in Europe at the right time. And he'd told Willy more than he should have, which might have something to do with Willy appearing in Vienna. Suppose Sean killed the thug with the idea of framing Tally for the murder? Might that make Tally more flexible on the annulment negotiations? On the other hand, wouldn't committing cold-blooded murder just to have a church wedding qualify as the ultimate unclear-on-the-concept move? That leaves out the Abbey factor, though. I'd seen the adoring gaze that Sean laid on Abbey. For all values of y and x, if y is male and x is female and the question is whether y would kill for x, the answer is: don't bet against it.

I shook my head.
Ridiculous.
I saw someone else asking for orange goop and ambled toward her.
Yeah, keep telling yourself that, Cindy. It's ridiculous
.

As I headed back to the drink line I noticed a reed-thin, older white woman in a black habit. Not as full a habit as Sister Luanga's. The veil stopped short of salt and pepper hair at the top of her forehead, and the skirt came only to mid-calf. But I could tell she was a nun. She stood beside Sister Luanga, looking directly at me. Didn't recognize her. As she gestured toward me, Sister Luanga caught my eye and nodded. After setting my pitchers on the counter, I walked over to them.

“Sister Bettina Fouts, St. Scholastica Abbey.” She held out her right hand while I still had a good four feet to cover. “Are you Cynthia Jakubek?”

“Yes, Sister.” I shook her hand. “Happy to meet you.”

Her introduction puzzled me. St. Scholastica Abbey is a Benedictine Convent about sixty miles outside Pittsburgh. “Benedectine” as in the original St. Benedict, not St. Benedict the Moor, who was named after him. The convent had nothing to do with the parish church that ran the Open Door Café.

“I've driven someone over here who's anxious to speak with you.”

“No kidding. Who's that?”

“Her name is Alma von Leuthen.”

HELL-O
. I glanced at my watch.

“Well, I still have about half an hour here. Can Ms. Von Leuthen wait—”

“No worries.” Sister Luanga brushed my left arm reassuringly. “We will cover for you. Run along with Sister Bettina.”

“Rectory?” I asked as we headed upstairs.

“No. Father Larry is letting us use the reconciliation room.”

That floored me at first. Not quite like using the sanctuary of the church for a spelling bee, but close. Then I thought it over for a second. Reconciliation rooms are where priests hear confessions these days. The one at St. Ben's is about the size of a small office. Basically soundproof, but with a window in the upper half of the door so that no one will think any hanky-panky is going on inside. For a meeting like the one coming up, it made a lot of sense.

Not sure what I expected von Leuthen to look like. Cliché from a 1930s movie, maybe: six-inch cigarette holder,
faux
hauteur of faded aristocracy, clothes with old, elegant labels inside and threadbare hems outside. The tall, slender woman Fouts introduced to me didn't bear the slightest resemblance to that image.

If I hadn't known she was in her sixties I would have guessed her age at something south of forty-five. Hints of silver-white here and there made her golden hair somehow more striking rather than less. Her pale blue eyes laughed in a secret-joke kind of way, against a background of wistful resignation:
Yes, the human condition is tragic, but as long as we're all here, let's have a drink
. She wore an ivory silk blouse and a charcoal gray wool skirt that struck me as comfortably
soigné
. Leather dress gloves matching the skirt lay in her lap. Pale, delicate complexion; simple gold earrings, understated but pricey watch, no other jewelry.

She didn't shake my hand when she rose to greet me. She took it and grasped it confidingly while her eyes held mine with a gaze that mutely pled for something I couldn't figure out—maybe that I wouldn't disappoint her. We both sat down as von Leuthen glanced at the nun.

“Would you be so kind as to leave us, Sister?” She spoke English with just enough of an accent to sound charming.

“Certainly.”

Sister Bettina stepped outside. I gently closed the door. Miss von Leuthen and I sat in the only two chairs the room offered.

“So, Ms. Jakubek, you are Willy Szulz's
avocat
.”

“Yes. He and I have worked together on various things for almost a year.”

“I require a favor from him. He is making inquiries about me, trying to track me down. I must ask him to stop this. That kind of attention could cause people to think I have something to do with the dispute over
Eros Rising
. When you are talking about expensive art, wrong impressions can be dangerous.”

“Fatal, in the case of a guy named Ertel in Vienna.”

“Excellent example.”

She leaned forward, smiling. If my reference to a recent homicide jolted her, she didn't show it. Without making any effort that I could see, she drew me in, giving me the feeling that she found me absolutely fascinating—a warm, pleasant feeling that I wanted to go on having. Instant and total empathy. It was as if, for her at that moment, I was the most important human being in the world.

“I have no idea how he thinks you could help him on the painting thing,” I said, “but perhaps if you talked to him you could satisfy him that you can't.”

“Oh, he knows that. He wants to talk to me about a matter that has nothing to do with the painting.”

“Namely?”

“As his lawyer, perhaps you should ask him. All I am asking you to do is to take a message to him: I know what he wants. I do not know whether I can get it for him. If I can, and I decide that I should, I will get in touch with him. In the meantime, I must ask him to stop pushing. His persistence could get me killed.”

As I bathed in the melancholy smile that continued to brighten von Leuthen's luminous face I abruptly realized something.
She's truly beautiful. Not hot or sexy, necessarily—I'm the wrong demographic to poll about that. But stunningly, classically beautiful in a way that defies age and time.

“I must be sounding melodramatic, and I regret that,” she said then. “But I am perfectly serious. Avrim Halkani is a very dangerous man. He won't hesitate to kill. He's done it before.”

“Who is Avrim Halkani?”

“He's the partner of Ertel, the dead
schlager
you just referred to. Was the partner.”

I have zero German, but I could figure out
schlager
from the context: thug or gangster or something like that. Halkani, though, baffled me.

“Halkani sounds Lebanese. I thought Ertel and his partner were Palestinian.”

“Ertel was Palestinian. Halkani is Israeli.”

“Odd couple.” I said that because saying something seemed like an improvement over sitting there with my mouth open.

“I'm no expert, but I've been told that cross-border partnerships aren't unheard of in the Israeli underworld. For someone with no conscience, you can see the advantages. So. Will you take my message to Szulz?”

“I will, but I'm not sure it will do any good.” I had to make a tactical decision. Surprise is generally a good tactic, so I decided to tell the truth. “Look, cards on the table. Whatever Willy wants your help with, I have no idea what it is. But I don't think he's the one behind the skip-trace you're talking about.”

“Skip-trace?”

“Legal slang. It means trying to get contact information for someone who has left town.”

“I see. But someone is behind it.”

“Yes, and I think I know who.” Actually, I was certain I knew who, but why overplay my hand? “It does involve
Eros Rising
, and I'll be happy to tell you all about it. But first I need to know what's going on with Willy and you, because I can't take a chance on undermining my own client.”

She picked up her purse the way women do when they're about to get up and leave in a huff, but then I guess she thought better of it. A little snap colored her tone when her next words came out.

“All right. Very well. I suppose there is no other way.”

Keep your mouth shut
. I bit my tongue and waited in silence. It's one of the most effective interrogation techniques in the world—but hard to do. It worked.

“To begin with, I assume you have been briefed on me.”

“I have.”

“Well, don't believe everything you heard. If I'd slept with all the men those stories claim I have, I wouldn't have had time to piss.”

The casual vulgarity startled me, the way seeing a nun smoking would have. Nothing all that shocking about it, but it just didn't go with the polished manners and continental style. I continued my silence. Why change a hit?

“There's an old European saying: “I've never cheated on my husband—kings don't count.' My variation on that has been, ‘Genius doesn't count.' I have had affairs with men of genius—geniuses of power, mostly.”

“Okay.” I shrugged. No way I'd be lecturing anyone on unchastity.

“So I have committed many sins. But in my entire life, I have only done one thing that I consider truly wicked, one sin that I am still deeply ashamed of.”

“And that is—” I made little circular gestures with the fingers of my right hand to prompt her to continue.

“It was more than twenty-five years ago. I met a boy in Vienna. An American. Early to mid-twenties. I don't know why I went after him. He was no kind of genius. I suppose I was just showing off.”

I thought I saw real remorse in her eyes just before she looked down for a moment at her lap.

“This doesn't sound like the kind of thing where your penance would involve flogging, even before Vatican Two. I'm having trouble finding ‘wicked' in there.”

Her smile this time combined indulgence with condescension. I gathered that my American
naiveté
was showing. Shaking her head, she looked back up at me.

“I'm not a collar robber.”

Huh? Never heard that one before
. I must have looked blank, because she immediately explained.

“He was a seminarian. A collar robber is a woman who causes a candidate for the priesthood to realize that he has not been called to a celibate life, as the Church puts it. He didn't want a fling, an afternoon dalliance now and then for a couple of months. He wanted a passionate affair that would cross oceans and span continents and go on forever. He left the seminary. Such a child. Such a precious little child. Even now, after all these years, thinking about it breaks my heart.”

I let it sit there for close to a minute. Even mediocre lawyers can generally tell when someone is lying. That's easy: they're almost always lying. The hard part is knowing when someone is telling the truth. And on the soul of my sainted mother, I
knew
at that moment that Alma von Leuthen was doing exactly that.

“Well,” I said, “I can't imagine any way Willy could hustle that into enough money to justify a trip to Vienna, but I guess I should ask him about that.”

“You will have to. I simply have no idea. I know what he wants, but I don't know why he wants it.”

“Okay. A deal is a deal. The guy who is trying to track you down is a loss-prevention specialist with Transoxana Insurance Company. I don't have his number with me, but in an hour or so I can email it to you.”