Collection (10 page)

Lucien was glad to have some space from Jane. She was equal parts surprising and frustrating. He was glad she was playing the game as he outlined it, because he had a feeling that she was usually quite hard to control. The room was starting to warm even further from the shower, so he decided to peek outside to see if Gerald was close at hand. If nobody was around, he may even wander a bit to ascertain the strength of security. When he opened the door, Portia was standing there holding a dress.

“I hear you didn't have time to pack for your trip. Raleigh told me to surrender my summer dress to your friend because he doesn't keep women's clothing in his house. I'm pleased to help, but you'll have to repay me…somehow.” She locked eyes with Lucien and handed over the dress.

Lucien took the dress, letting his fingers stroke her hand for the barest of moments. “Well, I am very appreciative of your kindness. My name is Lucky. I hear you're the authenticator for my little painting.”

“Yes, yours and another. I guess we'll see who the winner is by the end of the night. I do hope it's you. Raleigh has paid me well to figure out his little problem.”

“It wasn't a problem until the other painting showed up. I don't sell fakes, Portia. I don't need to. Your computer will tell you the same thing in a few hours.”

Portia smiled with pride.

“Yes, it will. I'm the best there is, you know. I've worked on the Vermeer program for several years, since I was at university. It's perfect and beautiful, infallible.” Portia stepped closer to Lucien and gently stroked the side of his cheek, “And it can spot a fake from a mile away.”

Lucien reached up and gently returned Portia's hand to her side.

“Let's hope it does.” She turned and left with a seductive backward glance. He closed the door and walked over to the bed. The dress was getting wrinkled in his hands, so he laid it out on the bed for Jane. He wasn't sure if Portia had an underlying motive besides greed. He hoped not. As long as she played fair, he was confident of the outcome. If she didn't, he didn't like the idea of making a scene and destroying the persona of “Lucky” after spending years legitimizing his character. Well, as legitimate as a smuggler could be.

People trusted Lucky, and if he had to fight his way out of here, Lucky would have problems. Nobody was going to deal with him if he got into trouble with Raleigh. Harris knew people, and he could put a damper on his sales if he blacklisted Lucky. Gerald knocked on the door moments later and gruffly handed over clothes for him before storming away uttering something about bad roads delaying the other seller. Lucien hoped they arrived soon, he just wanted to get it over with. The clothes Gerald dropped off were similar to the ones Lucien had on. They were a little worn, but they would fit.

The shower finally stopped and Jane stepped out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around herself. A second towel was twisted around her hair, and Lucien could see the moisture from the shower on her skin. She carried her clothes over to the bed and looked at him. Several drops ran down her neck and trickled between her breasts. Lucien remembered the dress and pointed abruptly at the bed. “Portia donated that. I need to shower before they come back.” He brushed past her, and quickly closed the bathroom door. Lucien decided a cold shower would feel best; it was unbearably hot in the little room.

Jane was able to breath once Lucien was in the bathroom. She felt awkward wrapped up in only a towel with him so close. She almost swooned when he touched her arm to slip by behind her to get to the shower. This was no way to establish distance between
herself and a strangely attractive felon. She had fallen prey to the bad-boy fantasy. Great.

To keep her mind off of who was now naked on the other side of a showy gold-trimmed door, Jane looked at the dress on the bed. It was long, flowing, and a size too small. She shrugged and decided that something was better than nothing. She picked it up to get a better look. It was designer, or course. Jane had a feeling Portia didn't shop the clearance rack. The floral silk was subdued, but the neckline was not. The halter meant that wearing her bra would look very tacky. Going without wasn't the best option, but she wasn't going to die with her bra straps showing.

She waited until she was sure Lucien was in the shower, dropped the towel, and quickly wriggled into the dress. After a moment of terror, she got the side zipper up all the way. She tied the halter straps behind her head and looked in the mirror. Thankfully the dress was lined and put together in such a way as to support her bust, though there was a bit too much of it on display for Jane's taste.

She sat in a chair by the barred window and waited for Lucien. She slipped the towel off her hair and wrapped it into a misshapen bun since she had nothing to brush it with and she truly didn't even want to try to style it. It was already dark, but the moon was bright and full. There were more stars than Jane was used to seeing from the apartment she shared with Sadie in Branley. Sadie probably thought Jane had gone home with her mystery man. She wasn't scheduled to work at the bar that evening, so nobody would realize Jane was gone until her Saturday shift.

The only other person who would check in on her was her sister, Caroline, in Wisconsin. They spoke a few times a week to catch up and discuss their mother, who lived with Caroline and her family. Jane was torn between wishing her sister would try to call her and raise the alarm, and praying that she didn't because she didn't want her to worry. There wasn't anything they could do at this point. They certainly wouldn't head straight to Cuba if they realized she was missing.

Lucien came out of the bathroom fully dressed, and eager to see the competing seller and his painting. He looked at Jane and wondered if she could be more distracting. It would be difficult to
imagine. It would also be difficult for her to keep a low profile when she looked like
that.
He reigned in his annoyance. It wasn't her fault that the dress was so provocative. Portia had come to Cuba prepared for flirtation and intimidation. Jane had come as a kidnapped, handcuffed, innocent bystander.

“Well, let's see if Gerald is back.” He concentrated on getting to the other side of the room without staring at her chest.

“Back from where? Where did he go?” Lucien recognized Jane's angry face. He was getting used to seeing it.

“He hasn't been watching the door as well as he should. Portia came by with your dress, and he wasn't around. Then he came back long enough to give me my clothes and left.”

Jane screamed at the lowest volume she could muster. “Why didn't you say anything? We could have tried to get away!”

“And go where, Jane? It's dark out. We don't have any idea where we are. We'd end up stumbling through the jungle and they'd catch us. Gerald would shoot us, if we're lucky, and then throw us into the ocean.” Lucien held back the information that he could easily have slipped away, but without her and her cleavage.

“Shouldn't we try? You can't predict what's going to happen, that might have been our only chance.”

“Look, I know you don't like this situation. This is what I was talking about. You need to calm down and let me handle Raleigh. I know him and you don't. He likes to push people around, not bury them.”

“I don't get it. Why aren't you fighting back? I mean, you're a big guy. You seem kinda smart. You say you can get me home, but you don't seem like you could get yourself home. Are you deluded or something? Is that why you think you're right all the time?” Lucien sat on the bed and tried to will the air from the window to blow over him.

“I am not a hero, Jane. I am not a knight in shining armor. This is how the world is. It's not just, the good guy doesn't always win, and the bad guys often have more bullets. I could go bashing heads out there, but then people would die for no reason. I value life too much to waste it on some adolescent naive notion of adventure and revenge. We will get out of here, but not when the music swells and we slow motion leap to a helicopter. Get over it.”

Gerald opened the door without knocking.

“Will you two shut up? Jesus, I can hear you all the way down the hall. Come on, the other guy is here and we're all set up. Raleigh just needs the rest of his audience.”

Jane and Lucien glared at each other for an instant before vacating the room and putting their argument to rest for the moment. They returned to the large entry room to find the other easel occupied by an identical painting. Somebody had been watching too many game shows because they had labeled Lucien's with a small placard that said “Lucky”, and the other one had a placard labeled “Sam”. Sam appeared to be the huge man sitting uncomfortably on the pink leather couch opposite the two easels. Portia was there adjusting a complicated camera directed at the “Sam” painting. There was a large laptop on a card table next to the camera. It was already displaying a digital photo of the “Lucky” painting. Portia was swearing quietly in Italian.

“I need more light. It's darker than when I took the other photo, I need to be able to see the brushstrokes better. I'll be right back.” She walked past Gerald, Lucien, and Jane towards the guest rooms. She looked at Jane and her display of cleavage with a raised eyebrow, “I always thought that was an elegant dress. I guess you can have too much of a good thing.”

Jane tried to speak civilly back to her. “Thank you for lending it to me. I'll try not to get it dirty.”

Portia smiled. “I think it already is, dear.” Her high heels clicked loudly on the marble floor as she stalked to her room to get the aforementioned lights.

“Don't mind her, Jane. She was under the impression that she would be the only fashionable woman at this little show.” Raleigh emerged from another room and gave her a thorough and favorable once over. “How wrong she was.” Jane crossed her arms over her chest.

“Please have a seat. We'll be starting in a moment.” He motioned towards the pink couch and the man, whom Jane assumed to be “Sam.”

Lucien approached the man first, holding out his hand in greeting. “Hello, I'm Lucky. You must be Sam.”

The large man didn't move, but wiped the sweat off his forehead with a yellowing handkerchief. “I don't give a crap who you are. It's
too hot to care. Let's just get this over with.” He was middle aged and needed a shave for all of his chins. Dressed for the weather, he wore swim trunks and an old black polo shirt that couldn't conceal an array of uniquely shaped sweat stains. Jane abandoned any hope she had that this new seller might be someone who could raise the alarm. He was just as crooked as the rest of them.

Lucien put his hand down, but stayed in apparent good humor.

“That's fine with me.” He took a seat on the couch and patted the seat cushion next to him, away from the friendly, sweaty Sam. Jane sat down as indicated, very glad that she didn't have to sit so close to the strange man. They waited patiently for Portia to return while Sam panted in the heat. He started to wheeze, and Jane looked over to find him fanning himself with his much abused hanky.

Finally, Portia came back with a light on a tripod and managed to set it up quickly and surprisingly professionally. For some reason Jane thought Portia wouldn't be willing to get her hands dirty, but she was proving to be more than competent at her job. Jane wondered what would happen when the computer compared the two fakes. If it started sparking and burst into flames, she was running for Portia's aforementioned breezy veranda and then the jungle.

“That's better, much better.” Portia took her position behind the camera and took a few shots that were immediately displayed on the laptop next to Lucien's painting. Portia walked over to the laptop and selected two images, one of each version. She positioned them side by side on the screen and started to manipulate the images in preparation for her computer analysis. She removed the color from the image, and then the computer began selecting areas of brush strokes. Highlighted areas flashed around the images in what looked like a random fashion.

Raleigh spoke up from where he had been observing her actions. “How long until you know?”

Portia turned her head in his direction but didn't look away from the screen. “Less than an hour. Maybe more if I have to dig deeper. Even with the naked eye, you can tell that they're very similar. I'll go through the surface variables, and then the finer characteristics if necessary.”

Lucien wasn't worried. He himself had tried numerous programs similar to Portia's. None of them had been able to discern that their
counterfeit paintings were anything other than genuine. The average crook didn't have what Lucien had: original materials and generations of knowledge. There wasn't a painting in the world that they couldn't duplicate. Through the years they had stockpiled everything they would need. He had canvases, paints, chemicals, mediums, raw metals and other exotic materials from distinctive locations and eras. His people were experts in every major style, with specialties in the distinctive techniques of particular artists.

Given the original painting, they could produce an exact copy quickly and without flaw. Some paintings or sculptures took longer than others if a particular patina had to be encouraged or an aged effect had to be added, but usually no more than a year was needed for anything. Once the copy was made, the original would go into storage in one of the many vaults they had around the world. There, the paintings would remain secure until needed again. The copies would go on to museums, private collectors, auctions, or the black market. Lucien would get a significant amount of money for their efforts, and they would keep the original painting without anyone ever knowing it had been replaced.

Other forgeries were completely original. This is where his people shined. Once one of his copyists knew a particular artist, she could create a painting in that style with the materials specific to that artist. They were so good because they loved their work and venerated the artist. Forgery to them was a form of tribute, not a criminal act. How better to demonstrate how much they cared than to learn every particular nuance of an artist's work? They loved them enough to give their art new life by another hand.