Feint of Art: (23 page)

“Annie. Please.” He reached a large hand out, and I grabbed it. His touch was as warm and comforting as ever.

“But Pete—”

“Annie. No sorrows. Please. We are friends, yes?”

“Yes, yes. Good friends.”

“Good friends,” he echoed, with a smile. “So, no more.”

I smiled, a bit unsteadily, trying to get my emotions under control. “What happened?” I asked him.

“They hit me with a sheet of beautiful glass. Cobalt blue. Can you believe? Thank God she was not the handmade.”

Pete was well known for pinching a penny, but I thought being grateful for being coshed on the head by the cheap glass instead of the expensive stuff was taking thriftiness too far.

“I can’t believe you’re worried about cost at a time like this,” I told him.

Pete’s heavy eyebrows arched. “The machine-made, she is thinner than the handmade. With the thicker glass, I might have had deeper cuts and bleeded more.”

Oh.

“Can I call your mother or anything?” I offered.

Pete’s extended family lived in Hayward, just south of Oakland. I’d never met them, but I knew from Pete’s stories that they were a boisterous, loving bunch.

He winced. “Please, Annie, no. My mama, she worry. She would make me go home with her. This would be bad. The doctors say I will be fine soon. So no mama. I will tell her when I am stronger.”

The sight of big, tough Pete shrinking from a confrontation with his mother made me smile. We chatted and

I told him the rest of the story, downplaying the more dangerous aspects so as not to upset him. Then for the heck of it I asked, “Have you ever heard of a Colin Brooks?”

“He was watching for you yesterday.”

I sat up straight. “What? Where? What did you tell him?”

“He was at your studio when I went to make coffee. I told him to watch for you at your apartment.”

“Did you tell him where my apartment was, Pete?” I said, trying to keep the outrage at Michael’s effrontery out of my voice.

“He said he knew. He is Egyptologist at the Brock. He told me he is dating your friend . . . Nancy? No . . . Naomi!”

“An Egyptologist? An
Egyptologist
?”

Pete’s bloodshot eyes widened. “What is wrong?”

Immediately, I felt contrite.
Get a grip, Annie,
I scolded myself.
This man is in the hospital because of you.

“I’m just surprised, that’s all,” I told him. “You go back to sleep and get well
soon
, okay? Maybe there’s a nurse around here you could marry. I just saw one who seems awfully nice. Probably just waiting for a chance to talk with you alone.” I gave him a kiss and headed out the door.

Since I had, once again, neglected to recharge my cell phone battery, I stopped at the bank of pay phones in the lobby, dug through my leather fanny pack, and finally unearthed two slightly fuzzy quarters. As I dialed the Brock Museum I felt assaulted by the hospital’s medicinal sounds and smells and broadsided by what I’d learned about Colin Brooks.

“Naomi Chadwick Gregorian.”

I wondered if she practiced sounding so snooty or whether it came naturally. I suspected it was a bit of both.

“Naomi,” I said. “It’s Annie.”

There was a pause. When she spoke again, the cheery tone rang false. “Annie, how nice to hear from you. What can I do for you?”

“I need information. Do you know someone named Colin Brooks?” No use beating around the bush. It had been my experience that social amenities were wasted on Nancy Fancy Pants.

“Of course. He’s the new Egyptologist here at the Brock.”

As if I didn’t know what the “here” referred to. Naomi loved reminding me that she worked at “the Brock”—and I didn’t.

“Really? Do you know him well?”

“Actually . . . I’ve been seeing Colin socially. Annie, he’s sooo cute!”

“So, where did this Brooks fellow come from? You’ve never mentioned him,” I said, keeping my tone light. As if Naomi and I had ever traded girlish secrets. Even when we were girls we never traded girlish secrets.

Naomi giggled. I gagged.

“Edward Brock—do you know him? Dull Dick and Fabulous Phoebe’s son? Well, he’s started to take a real interest in the museum, and old lady Brock couldn’t be more pleased. So anyway, Edward started studying Egyptology, and he met Colin on a buying trip last fall. And since the Brock didn’t have much representation in the Egyptian field, Edward convinced his grandmother to hire Colin.”

“So Edward has the museum board’s ear, does he?”

“I’ll say. He’s next in line to the Throne of Power.”

During my ill-fated internship at the Brock, I’d taken to calling Agnes Brock’s antique burgundy-and-brass-studded leather desk chair, which had been her husband’s and his father’s before him, the Throne of Power, and the name had stuck. Agnes revered the Throne with a love that was surely unholy, and one of Housekeeping’s jobs was to wipe it down with saddle soap and oil the springs once a week. The year I was there, Carlos Jimenez had finally succeeded in convincing the museum to hire his son, Juan, as a housekeeper trainee. On his first day on the job Juan had been so eager to please the Brocks and his father that he’d polished the marble foyer within an inch of its life, but, unfortunately, he forgot to bathe the Throne. The next day Agnes called Juan into her office and fired him on the spot. Carlos had been devastated.

That night I had snuck into the Throne Room and slid a whoopee cushion behind Agnes’s lumbar pillow. As a result, the next morning, when Agnes sat down to meet with the mayor, the Throne of Power emitted a very loud and extremely vulgar noise. We’d heard the repercussions all the way down in the basement, and Carlos had smiled for a week.

“Edward’s got the big corner office,” Naomi continued, “the mahogany-lined one with the great windows, remember? God, what I wouldn’t give to have an office like that. I had to smile when Mrs. Brock took away access to the vault from everyone but herself—including her family. I thought Edward would have an apoplectic fit when she announced it. Anyway, if they want to keep the Throne in the family, who else is there?”

“Hmm. Listen, Naomi. Funny thing. It’s just such a coincidence. I have a few things I need to discuss with an Egyptologist. Is this Colin guy around today? Where’s his office?”

“He’s out of town.” Naomi sounded suspicious. “At a conference in New York.”

Did she think I would make a play for her lying, cheating, conniving fake of a boyfriend? Better check those airline ticket stubs, Naomi, I thought, and got off the phone before I said something I might have to apologize for one day.

Egyptologist, my ass. Not a bad cover, though. Not even the other curators would have asked detailed questions. Everybody in the business thought ancient Egyptian art was fascinating, but nobody except the specialists knew squat about it, and certainly nobody at the Brock, which had a very small Egyptian collection and, up until now, no specialist curator. The position would give Michael access to just about everything at the museum. Except the vault. He was too new to have been given access to that. Agnes Brock was a mean old cuss, but she wasn’t stupid.

So Edward Brock had recommended hiring the X-man, had he? Kind of made a person pause and think. Given the facts that Harlan was missing, and Anton was missing, and I had no idea where to find Michael, maybe I should see if I could track down the one person who might have a clue as to what was going on: the estimable Mr. Edward Brock.

I searched my fanny pack for more quarters, but only came up with a bunch of pennies and a couple of nickels. Damn that cell phone. When somebody finally designed a model that recharged itself, I would be the first in line. I checked the clock at the nurses’ station. It was a little before eleven. I had to get back to my studio and do some damage control.

First, though, I wanted to see if I could find out anything else about Edward. What I needed was someone who was in the City’s art gossip loop. I pointed the truck toward the Mission District, a part of San Francisco that used to be labeled “affordable,” which meant it was crime-ridden, drug-ridden, and the only place that would rent to poor immigrants. On the other hand, it was full of the sense of community that develops when thousands of people from Latin America live, work, and raise their children in the same area. Along Valencia, bands played loudly until all hours, tacos were served twenty-four hours a day, and funky used-book stores stayed open until midnight. As in so much of the City, the Mission’s affordability had dissolved in the past few years as more and more yuppies and dot-com well-to-dos had moved in.

It was still a lively area, though, edgy, artsy, and young. I squeezed into a hard-won parking space and walked over to a small doorway sandwiched between a sushi bar and a Laundromat. I rang the bell before using the low-tech way to gain entry to the apartment building’s quirky front door without a key: by holding the ring in the back, pulling it forward, and pushing the door in at the same time.

I started climbing the cramped staircase and spotted Bryan Boissevain coming down, a buff, handsome black man dressed as if heading off to the beach, in a tight T-shirt and cutoff jeans. My dear friend Bryan worked as a freelance architect in the top-floor apartment he shared with his partner, Ron. The two were big boosters of the City’s culture, and Bryan was a huge gossip. If there were dirt on anyone at the Brock, he would know about it.

“Annie!” he exclaimed. “To what do I owe this pleasure? And what in the world happened to your face, girl?”

“You should see the other guy,” I said with a smile. Visiting Bryan was always a mood-booster. He flung an arm around my shoulder and escorted me up to his place, talking the whole time.

Bryan and Ron had a wonderful apartment that they had stripped to the bare bones and painstakingly redone, salvaging most of the original intricate molding that rimmed the twelve-foot-high ceilings. Colored light beamed in through a large stained-glass window on one wall of their living room. Bryan started showing me their latest project, a full-scale arboretum on the rooftop deck, but I interrupted to say I was in a huge hurry and then got to the point.

“Edward Brock?” he exclaimed when I had finished. “Oh, my God,
yes
, baby doll. I can’t believe you haven’t heard. I mean, even you must hear
something
once in a while, no?” Bryan seated me on a Lucite barstool at the granite kitchen counter and started opening cupboards and taking out glasses.

“I’ve been kind of busy recently, Bryan,” I apologized. Somehow, when I was with Bryan, I felt completely out of touch, yet also totally at home.

“Oh, honey,” he said as he began to fix me a glass of fresh lemonade, over my halfhearted objections. The scent of lemon oil filled the sunny kitchen as he enthusiastically squeezed the fruit halves by hand. “Let me tell you. He’s got the taste for blow, in a big way,” he said as he set a frosty glass in front of me, leaning on his elbows over the counter.

“Cocaine?” I said, sipping the sweet, tangy drink. “So you’re saying he’s hooked?”

“Oh, yes, baby doll. A big-time clubber, too, although he’s a little old for it, in my book. Straight people should stop clubbing when they turn thirty.”

“Is this from the book of rules for straight people as written by a gay guy?” I teased him.

“You bet your booty it is,” Bryan asserted. “The problem with straight people is that they don’t pay enough attention to things like etiquette.”

“I take your point,” I replied dryly. “So, do you know if Edward has any steady girlfriends?”

“There’s that Q girl.”

I practically spit my lemonade out through my nose. “Q?”

“Quiana Nash. Goes by Q. A bit of a skank, in my book.
Great
eyes, though.”

“Tall, blond, skinny?”

“Like every other model out there.”

“I thought Quiana was seeing someone else.”

“Who isn’t she with? Supposedly she’s been living with some other fellow from the Brock—you never see him out in the scene, though. And there are others, believe you me.”

I mulled that one over. “So, what would you think if I told you Edward Brock had developed a sudden interest in Egyptology?”

Bryan let out a snort. “That boy is interested in fast cars, fast women, and easy drugs. End of story. If he went to Egypt, you better believe it was to score something illegal. Don’t tell me you’re interested in him, Annie. I know you’re hard up, but you can do
so
much better.”

“I am not hard up.”
As if celibacy were something to be ashamed of,
I thought grumpily.
Or maybe it was only celibacy by choice that was admirable.
“I’ll have you know I spent the night with a
very
attractive man last Saturday.”

“He was gay, right?”

“Not every attractive man in this city is gay, Bryan. Most of them, but not all.”

“Did you do the wild thing? C’mon, girl, dish!” The look on my face must have dished me out because he continued, “Oh, no, honey, that’s even worse. You mean you spent the night with a cute guy and you didn’t get any? And he wasn’t gay? What am I going to do with you?”

“What about Harlan Coombs?” I asked in a blatant bid to change the subject. “Ever heard of him?”

“You mean that art dealer fellow? The one that disappeared? There were rumors that he was doin’ the horizontal tango with a sixty-something femme fatale on the Brock’s board of directors.”

“Please tell me you’re not talking about Agnes Brock,” I said, feeling a bit queasy.

“No, the other one. Camilla Culpepper.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“Camilla was a bit of swinger in her salad days. And she still has
quite
the eye for the young men.”

“But isn’t she married . . . ?”

Bryan sighed. “Oh, baby doll, wake up and smell the twenty-first century.”

I glanced at the kitchen clock, which was inching toward noon. “I’ve got to go, Bryan. Thanks for the lemonade, and the information,” I said.