Cooking for Picasso (40 page)

“Picasso?” said Pierre, the dealer, who had the face of a cherub. Carefully but doubtfully he examined the painting. Then he called out to his assistant. “André! Come take a look at this, will you?”

His assistant was finishing up with another client, and presently he joined them. “Look here, and tell me what you see,” Pierre commanded. Ondine stood by, holding her breath. What was wrong?

André peered at the painting. “Hmm,” he said thoughtfully.

“Who painted it?” Pierre demanded.

André frowned. “I don't know,” he admitted. “It hasn't been signed by the painter.”

Ondine had never noticed this. But now that she was looking closely, she saw that Picasso had not put a date on it, either, as he often did in those distinctive Roman numerals.

“Well, who do you
think
painted it?” Pierre persisted. André shrugged, and named a few artists that Ondine had never heard of. “You left out Picasso,” Pierre said.

André shook his head. “No, not at all,” he said firmly.

“Thank you, André,” Pierre said. André nodded and went into the back room.

“You see?” Pierre said in a low voice. “It's just as I thought. It's beautiful but it's not what people think of as a Picasso. Who told you it was his work? I'd be careful about making such a claim!”

“I was his model!” Ondine exclaimed indignantly. “I cooked for him and he made it as a gift.”

Pierre looked from Ondine to the painting, considering this possibility. “Did he give you a letter or a receipt of some sort?” he asked hopefully. Ondine shook her head. He shrugged. “Without his signature, I can't really sell it. Picasso surely knows that.”

Ondine gasped. Had Picasso outfoxed her somehow? Were the gods punishing her for taking it? “But—there must be
someone
who'd like to buy it!” she protested.

Pierre warned, “People will question its authenticity, just as I did. So you'd better go back and ask him to sign it. But I warn you,” he added in a low voice, “Picasso can be very touchy. I heard of a woman who asked him to sign an older work, and he said he wouldn't put today's signature on a painting he'd done twenty years ago. Another time with another request, he signed it, all right—he painted his name all over it so many times that he effectively defaced it and ruined it!”

Ondine declared, “He wouldn't do such a thing to
this
painting.” But her heart was hammering with guilt now. Heaven knew what Picasso would do with a thief like Ondine, especially if she were audacious enough to ask him to sign it.

“Picasso might even say this painting was never ‘finished',” Pierre went on. “Or, he could say it was an inferior work, not up to his usual standards and
that
was why he didn't sign it, because he intended to destroy it. He's a powerful man, and nobody in the art world wants to displease the great Picasso. If he should ‘disown' your picture in this way, well…” Pierre's voice trailed off.

“What then?” Ondine asked in dread.

“The painting would surely lose its market value,” Pierre said formally. “I'm so sorry, Madame.”

“
P
ICASSO!”
G
IL EXCLAIMED AS WE
drove along the highway to Monaco in the white minivan from the
mas,
since we couldn't very well take a painting on a motorcycle, and I'd already returned my rental car. “
That's
who your grandmother cooked for?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, reaching into my bag and pulling out Grandma Ondine's notebook. I opened it up to the flyleaf and showed him. “See?
P
for Picasso. Every single recipe in this book was for him.”

“Incredible,” Gil said, stunned. “No wonder she kept that notebook all her life.”

“Mom said Picasso gave Grandma one of his paintings as a gift. So I'm telling you, she must have kept
that
all her life, too,” I insisted. “I don't believe she sold it. She just didn't want my father to find it, because it would be worth a lot of money. I think she went to great pains to hide it.”

Gil absorbed this in awe. “And you really think you've tracked it down?”

“Right,” I said, showing him the photo of Grandma Ondine in front of the blue cupboard.

But I was glad that the heavy, unpredictable traffic distracted Gil, because I didn't want to tell him that it was a fortune-teller who gave me the “hot tip” that put me on this trail.

When we reached the bustling city of Monte Carlo, Gil drove right past the casino, past the fancy Hôtel de Paris, past the pricey, blingy shops and the deceptively plain-looking buildings that housed some of the world's most expensive apartments. Toward the outskirts of town he steered past a heliport, and beyond that, a very large, unassuming structure that looked like a gigantic warehouse. When he pulled into the parking lot behind it, I glanced up at him questioningly.

“What's this?” I asked. “A private airplane hangar?”

“Hardly,” he said. “You are looking at one of the most exclusive storage facilities in the world. Inside those walls are priceless everythings: artwork—antique furniture—rare jewels—prized Persian carpets—multimillion-dollar vintage wine collections—ancient sculptures—elephant ivory—and God knows what else.”

“Are you serious?” I said. “In a garage?”

“This ‘garage' is a state-of-the-art fortress,” Gil said as he shut off the motor. “Every vault is climate-controlled and big enough to hold whatever you fancy. Yet each vault can, if necessary, be put on a giant freight elevator and moved down to the showroom level, where there are special meeting rooms for you to privately exhibit whatever items you wish to sell to the select buyers you invite here. Or, you can just come here on your own, sit there in your box and stare at your haul,” he added as we got out and approached the building.

“Looks pretty drab and nondescript,” I observed.

“Discretion, my dear,” Gil said with a knowing look. “So nobody knows the extraordinary value of what's inside. A collector can quietly show up and pack his treasures quickly to move them to, say, a similar vault in Switzerland, South Africa or Dubai.”

I finally caught on. “Sounds like some of the clientele got their collectibles in questionable ways? Looting an archeological site, taking artwork the Nazis stole—or buying it off the back of a truck?”

“Quiet, the guards will hear you,” Gil warned. “Act as though you belong here. Just leave this to me, okay?”

As we approached the front doors they automatically opened, and as soon as we stepped into a foyer they instantly closed behind us with an aggressive whoosh. Three burly security guards stood at the ready. Gil signed in at the reception desk, where a fourth man kept watch. The foyer was as cool as a wine cellar, but it had the scent of money the way banks do. It was all steel, chrome and glass.

Across from the reception desk were two elevators. One door was very narrow. The other was very wide. Gil chose the narrow one and we stepped in.

“Tight squeeze,” I commented. “What was wrong with the bigger elevator?”

“Freight elevator,” Gil said out of the side of his mouth.

“How come you didn't have to tell them where you're going?” I asked.

“They have my information on their computer. They know,” Gil said, still
sotto voce
.

“Hey, there aren't any buttons for the floor numbers in here,” I said, feeling slightly panicked.

“Front desk. Remote control,” Gil said shortly.

Silently I counted the floors as we rose past them. One, two, three, four. Then, rather eerily, the elevator stopped of its own accord and opened onto another reception area with low lighting. This was more glamorous than downstairs. It looked like the lobby of a very posh auction house, with plush red leather chairs, golden glass-topped tables, and expensive carpeting.

“This way, please.” A woman in a severe black pantsuit, with her pale brown hair pulled back into a tightly braided ponytail, appeared out of nowhere and seemed to know exactly where to lead us. She walked ramrod-straight with both hands held rigidly behind her at the small of her back, and with her elbows out, military-style. I suppressed a mad desire to giggle.

We followed her noiselessly down the carpeted corridor. More security guards floated past us, wearing visible guns in leather holsters. I waggled my eyebrows at Gil. Occasionally other collectors and their clients wafted down the corridor, so light-footed and silent as they vanished beyond the doors of their own vaults that they seemed more like ghosts who'd melted right into the walls.

Our escort stopped suddenly in front of a door marked with three brass numbers. Just then the walkie-talkie in her jacket coughed the way police radios do, and she stepped away to murmur into it.

Gil moved up to our vault's entrance where, instead of a doorknob, there was a keypad on which to enter a security code. He punched in some numbers. The keypad's light flashed red in response.

“Shit,” Gil whispered. “Rick must have changed the code, dammit.”

I noticed that our ponytailed guide was now standing with two security guards who'd wandered over to her. The three of them were conferring in hushed tones. Were they discussing us? Had someone downstairs alerted them?

Desperately I turned to Gil and hissed, “Well, you'd better figure out what the
new
code is, before Brunhilde over there has us arrested.”

“It was the last four digits of his phone—the one he keeps in his car,” Gil said, trying again in case he'd punched it in wrong. The light flashed red once more. I thought of the day Rick gave me a ride in his fancy car.

“His phone,” I repeated. “The one with the diamond and emerald horseshoe on it?”

“Haven't seen that model,” Gil said. “Maybe he upgraded when his racehorse won the Derby. He was ecstatic and he still won't stop talking about it.”

“What was the name of the horse?” I suggested.

“Fancy-Dancer,” Gil said. “Too many letters for this code box.”

“What was the date that he won the Derby?” I prodded.

Gil looked skyward, trying to remember. I nudged him to hurry as one of the guards approached us. Gil drew in his breath and punched new numbers.

The keypad absorbed this information thoughtfully.

Then, just as Brunhilde moved toward us, the keypad's little light turned green.

A second later, the door to the vault quietly slid open on its tracks.

“
W
OW.
R
ICK'S GOT A LOT
of stuff stashed away in here,” I whispered to Gil, feeling worried.

“But all we're looking for is a blue cupboard, right?” Gil replied as we searched for Grandma's furniture that he'd sent here from the
mas
. I followed him past Rick's enormous, mysterious crates marked
Africa Safari
and
Ming, China
and
Grand Hotel auction, Sweden
. There were also polo mallets and antique horse saddles, and a hand-carved ivory chess set sealed in a glass box.

“Here!” Gil said triumphantly, pointing to a more modest cluster of brightly painted, Provençal furniture: a red rocking chair, a yellow chest of drawers, a blue-and-white dining table surrounded by a set of six white dining chairs with bright blue tufted cushions.

“This is definitely the stuff that came from the
mas
when I bought it,” he said positively. “Rick and I just threw 'em into the van and he carted it off here. I remember this box of pots and pans.”

I wandered behind the yellow chest of drawers. “Look!” I exclaimed, having landed face-to-face with the blue cupboard. “It's identical to the one in the photo of Grandma,” I said, getting excited now.

“Okay, great. Check it out. Better hurry,” Gil warned.

I studied the cupboard carefully. I knocked on its door with the funny wooden knob before I opened it up. Then I checked out the interior with its four shelves, and searched for hidden drawers or compartments. I tapped its walls to see if a painting could have been sealed up in there, or sequestered in a false bottom. Nothing. No sign even that it had ever belonged to Grandmother Ondine. It was just a nice, country-style oak cupboard painted a bright blue.

“It's empty,” Gil said, feeling it necessary to state the obvious. “You sure it isn't in some other piece of furniture?”

I was sure of nothing now, except that if I could ever get my hands on Madame Sylvie again I'd cheerfully wring her neck for giving me false hope with this fool's errand.

“I guess we'd better check them all,” I said, feeling gloomy now.

Gil obligingly helped me ransack the other furnishings that had been trucked over here from the
mas
. We had to work quickly, but it was soon obvious that there was absolutely no Picasso hidden in their midst. I dusted off my hands, unable to look Gil in the eye after having completely misled him with false hopes. But he was busy sorting through boxes of copper pots and pans and other cookware that he'd gotten with the
mas
. He now put all the things he thought he could use in one box.

“At least we're not leaving here totally empty-handed,” he said wryly.

We retraced our steps, yet when we reached the door of the vault, I noticed for the first time that it didn't have a handle on the inside.

“How do we get out of this cracker box?” I asked. But as I moved closer to the door, its automatic sensors responded, and it obligingly, eerily slid open. We glided down the carpeted hallway just like all the other visitors, never uttering a word even when we rode down in the freight elevator to the lobby. I held my breath as the guard stopped Gil, but the box from the
mas
was bar-coded under his name, so Gil signed out his pots and pans and we sailed on. He hoisted the box into the van and climbed into the driver's seat, looking singularly unimpressed by this whole episode.

“Go ahead and say it—you think I'm a crazy fool,” I said morosely.

“No, you're just desperate to help your mum,” Gil said resignedly, as if now, out in the stark reality of daylight, he was adjusting his expectations. “Let's face it—maybe your Gran cooked for Picasso, but it just doesn't look like she ever got one of his paintings.”

“I absolutely believe she had it,” I insisted. “I still
feel
that she did.”

“Well, then how come you can't
feel
wherever the hell it is?” Gil asked a bit testily. I thought of Madame Sylvie again, and decided that Gil was right; relying on intuition at this point seemed just plain delusional.

For the rest of the trip home he remained moodily silent, staring straight ahead as he drove, lost in his own thoughts and no doubt returning to the stark fact that he was going to have to swallow Rick's deal or surrender his restaurant to the loan shark.

When we entered the
mas
we found Maurice looking frantic, telling Gil he had a ton of messages. I slipped upstairs to my room and threw my handbag on the chair.

“Well, Grandma,” I said aloud, “looks like my goose is cooked.”

I knew I should stop talking to my dead grandmother. And I knew I should stop obsessing about that Picasso. And yet…and yet…

“Damn it, I
know
that was Mom's striped pitcher in the still life,” I muttered. “I
know
that was Grandma's long curly hair in those other two paintings. And I
know
she cooked those fabulous meals for him. So why would she bother to tell Mom that she owned a Picasso if she'd already sold it or given it away or lost it? Come on, Grandma.
Where
did you put it?”

And then my mind landed on a terrible thought; one that had been lurking in the shadows all along, but which I had resolutely pushed away until now.

Dad had been staying at Grandma Ondine's house when she died, I realized with a chill. What if it was Dad who found the painting, after all?