Full Circle (4 page)

“Right. Powers Associates is an investment firm—real estate, stocks, venture capital, whatever makes money. Justin Powers is the head man. Which makes him DuBois’s number-one gofer. A couple of years ago, Justin Powers recruited Betty Giles to go down to Los Angeles and work for his company. Betty majored in art history at Berkeley, and she was Chevron Oil’s art curator, based in San Francisco.”

Paula frowned. “Chevron has an art curator?”

He nodded. “They’re constantly acquiring art for their executive offices and public areas. Paintings, sculpture, everything. It’s a huge program. They donate art, too, and they sponsor art scholarships. Betty administered millions of dollars in acquisitions. She also made money for Chevron, buying and selling. In fact, she more than earned her keep.”

“And that’s what she did for Powers Associates?”

“That’s what she did for Raymond DuBois. That’s where this all starts—with Raymond DuBois’s collection of art, which is worth millions. Tens of millions. Hundreds of millions, for all I know. DuBois is an obsessive collector. He’s got no wife, no children, no relatives that he trusts. And his health is failing. Several years ago he had a stroke, and he’s confined to a wheelchair. Art is his whole life. Art and money. He’s apparently got a great eye, because when he buys and sells art he always turns a handsome profit. He’s not married, as I said, and apparently he became very attached to Betty, a daughter substitute. He treated her very well—paid her a damn good salary and gave her a percentage of all the money they made selling art. If she made a profit, she took a percentage. If there was a loss, which almost never happened, DuBois swallowed it. Plus, she got to travel all over the world, acquiring art.”

“So she had a great life.”

Bernhardt shrugged as the waiter arrived with salads and French bread. When Bernhardt asked for a third round of red and white, almost always their limit, the waiter informed them that they should have ordered two small carafes.

“So what went wrong?” Paula asked. “Did she do business on the side, put some money in her pocket?”

“About a year ago, DuBois told Betty he had something important to show her. He revved up his electric wheelchair and took her to a door at the end of a windowless hallway in a little-used wing of his house, which is in the hills above Hollywood. There was a door at the end of the hallway, and a control panel beside the door. DuBois punched out a code and the door slid open. They were in a smaller hallway, facing a second door. He punched out another code. The first door closed behind them and the second door slid open. It turned out to be a thick steel door, like a goddam bank vault, and—”

“Don’t tell me.” Dark eyes dancing, her whole body came alive. “A room full of rare paintings.”

Teasing her, Bernhardt ate some salad, ate some French bread. Then: “You’re half right. Care to try for the second half? I’ll give you a hint. The room was only about twelve feet square. But there was a Van Gogh and a Braque and a Reubens, just to name a—”

“Stolen,” she breathed. “Stolen art treasures, sure as hell.”

“The Van Gogh alone is worth twenty-five million.”

“Jesus …” Her eyes searched his face; she was trying to guess the rest of it. “He was trusting her with his whole life.”

“That’s it exactly.”

“Why’d he do it? Tell her, I mean.”

“He’s in his late seventies, and his heart is shot. He’s had a stroke, and he’s confined to a wheelchair, so he can’t take care of the paintings. There’re dehumidifiers, for instance, to be serviced. Plus, he wanted someone to know about the paintings if he died. He showed her the combinations that operated the doors, had her memorize them. Then he told her what he wanted done with the stuff. All this was done verbally, nothing written down.”

“What
did
he want done with the paintings?”

“He wants them all returned to the original owners, which are mostly museums. In his will he gave her the house, so she’d always have access to the paintings. It’d take time, you see, to dispose of the stuff. Time and money. Lots of money, because she’d need security. Lots of security. He said he’d leave her a million dollars. Cash.”

“My God.” As the complexities began to multiply in her mind, she spoke in a soft, awed voice. “The responsibility—the danger.”

He nodded. “Exactly. Danger for him, danger for her.”

“How the hell would you go about contacting a museum and telling them you wanted to return a twenty-five-million-dollar Van Gogh?”

“Good question.” Bernhardt finished his salad, began wiping up the dressing with a chunk of French bread.

“So why the sudden urgency? The FBI—what’s that all about?”

“There’s a man named Ned Frazer whose specialty is fencing stolen art. Apparently he’d done business with DuBois in the past, before DuBois had his stroke. So then, about a year ago, Frazer went to DuBois with something DuBois couldn’t pass up. It was a stolen Renoir, one that DuBois was tracking. It was apparently the dream of a lifetime for him. Except that, now, he was in a wheelchair. So he needed someone he could trust to get the painting hung in the secret gallery. He also needed someone to carry the money, make the payoff, actually take possession of the painting.”

“Betty.”

He nodded. “Betty.”

“But—what—was she afraid of the deal, afraid of receiving stolen property?”

“That was part of it—at first, anyhow.”

“Well? What’s the rest of it?” She finished her own salad, began sopping up the dressing with the last of the French bread. Bernhardt raised the empty basket over his head, was rewarded with a curt nod from the waiter.

“Apparently,” Bernhardt said, “Betty is one of those women who doesn’t think she’s attractive to men. Low self-esteem, that’s the current buzzword. Result: she was always getting involved with no-good men, one after the other. Maybe she subconsciously craved the way they mistreated her. Apparently her father was a drunk and a bully and a wife beater. Then he left them, after messing with both their heads, permanently.”

“So what’s the bottom line?”

“Betty started working for DuBois, making damn good money, about two years ago. About six months ago—and about six months after she knew about the stolen art—a guy with slicked-down hair and bench-press muscles and a good tan and no visible means of support moved in with her. It was a classic story. She met him at a bar one Friday night, and they went to her place afterwards. He stayed all night—and the next night, too. And the weekend. After a week, he moved in with two suitcases and a guitar he couldn’t play and a set of weights.”

“Nick Ames.”

“Right.”

“And she told Ames about DuBois—about the stolen art.”

Ruefully Bernhardt nodded. “It was pillow talk. She didn’t mean to tell him; it just came out a bit at a time. She probably felt like she had to tell someone, especially when Ned Frazer showed up. And there was no one else. She certainly couldn’t tell her mother.”

“Loneliness …” Paula sighed. “The heartbreak of loneliness.” She smiled at him, discounting the soap-opera cliché.

“Exactly.”

“So what happened? Shall I guess?”

“Sure. Guess.”

“Nick Ames,” she said promptly. “He decided to try a little blackmail.”

Impressed, with his mouth full of wine, Bernhardt nodded vigorously. Saying finally, “That’s a pretty good guess.”

“It was obvious,” she answered, “given the way you structured the story.”

“Oh, God—I’m obvious. Is that it?”

“Only to me, love.” Her smile was mischievously sweet.

“Hmmm.”

“So what happened?” As she spoke, their dinners unceremoniously arrived, along with a basket that contained only two hunks of bread. Bernhardt sprinkled Parmesan cheese on his fettucini and white clam sauce, began to eat. “How’s the scampi?”

“Perfect.” She savored a forkful, then said, “DuBois had Ames killed, to shut him up.”

“I’m sure of it. I’m also sure that Justin Powers set the whole thing up. He hired Dancer to find Betty, and then he hired the hit man.”

“Powers had Ames killed in Santa Rosa, and he tried to have Betty killed in Borrego Springs?” she said, checking.

“Yes. Except that at the eleventh hour DuBois claims he tried to stop the guy from killing Betty. He claims he sent Powers to Borrego Springs to stop it. But Powers was too late. And, in fact, there’s evidence to support the allegation.”

“Why’d DuBois change his mind?”

“Sentiment. I already told you, Betty is the daughter DuBois never had. When it came right down to it, he couldn’t bear to have her killed.” Once more Bernhardt raised the empty bread basket. “Jesus, next they’ll be charging extra for bread.”

“So DuBois got Betty out of town. Paid her, probably, to disappear.”

“This,” Bernhardt said, “is the part I’m not sure I should be telling you.”

“Why’s that?” She asked the question easily, conversationally. Then, with a teasing smile, eyeing him over a forkful of scampi, she said, “Shall I take another guess?”

“Go ahead.”

“You’re the middleman, the go-between. You know where Betty is, but DuBois doesn’t.”

His silence was eloquent.

“You’re involved.”

Once more, no reply was necessary. Yes, he’d gotten involved.

“I didn’t have a choice. Christ, Betty was petrified. For all she knew—or I knew—there was another hit man on the way to finish the job, finish both of us, maybe. I figured I had to see DuBois to save my own skin. And I’m still convinced it was the right decision.” Once again he waved the empty basket. This time, the waiter narrowly avoided eye contact.

“
Dammit
.” Bernhardt shifted the basket to his left hand, waving it as he ate the fettucini with his right hand.

“You’re making a spectacle of yourself.” But she was smiling, enjoying the contest.

“Without sopping up, fettucini loses its meaning. You don’t come from New York.”

“New York?” Teasing him, she repeated, “
New York?
Am I missing something?”

“In New York it’s either you or the waiter. Unless you don’t tip. Then it’s the Italian leg-breakers. Or a safe, mashing you on the sidewalk.”

“A
safe?
”

Finally, resigned, the waiter gritted his teeth, minimally inclined his head in a long-suffering nod, snatched a basket of bread from the serving counter, placed it with elaborate ceremony on their table. Without thanks, Bernhardt sopped up the last of the fettucini’s sauce.

“
Alan. Tell
me. What
happened,
for God’s sake? You talked to DuBois. How’d you manage it?” Now Paula, too, was sopping up her scampi sauce. But it was a pro forma gesture, merely keeping the faith while she urged him to continue: “
Tell
me.”

“Betty had his private number. I called him from a pay phone. He knew who I was. Immediately.”

“Ah.” Avidly she nodded. “Sure, he knew your name. Of course.”

“Are you up for dessert?”

Vehemently she shook her head. “You
know
I don’t want dessert. Alan—come
on. Tell
me.”

“As soon as I identified myself, he told me to come to his house. Of course, I didn’t do it. We finally settled on the promenade outside the Huntington Library.” As the waiter cleared their table in haughty silence Bernhardt ordered two espresso decafs. Wordlessly the waiter accepted the order and turned away.

“We talked an hour and a half,” he said. “And, God, it was incredible the way the conversation went. I mean, there I was, essentially a Jewish kid from New York with a college diploma and a widowed mother who taught modern dance in our loft and marched for whatever left-wing cause was in the news. And there he was—Raymond DuBois, who could probably buy out the Rockefellers in the morning and the Du Ponts in the afternoon.”

“Maybe he could buy out the Rockefellers, but you could ruin him. And he knew it. That’s why he agreed to meet you. My God, Alan. How could you
keep
this from me?”

“When I finish, you’ll understand.” He spoke quietly now. Reflectively. Meaningfully.

Picking up on his mood, watching him closely, she made no reply, but waited instead for him to go on.

“DuBois came with three people, a driver and two men in blue suits with shoulder holsters under the suits. The driver stayed in the car, but he was parked so he could see us. The two bodyguards stayed about twenty feet away. DuBois was in his wheelchair. I sat on a marble bench. The first thing he did was ask about Betty. I said that, considering she’d almost been murdered, she was all right. Then, immediately, he asked whether Betty had told me about his ‘room,’ as he called it.”

“What’d you say?”

“Betty and I had talked about it. I told him that, yes, I knew about the room. ‘Then it’s possible,’ he said, ‘that only the three of us know.’ His eyes are rheumy, that’s the old expression—you know, white at the edges, and watery, a sick old man’s eyes. But, Jesus, when he said it, said that only the three of us might know, those eyes bored in like they were lasers, going right through me. And suddenly I thought, my God, what was I
doing
there, risking my life for a woman I’d first seen only a couple of days before.”

“Good question. I’ve wondered myself.” Her expression was inscrutable, her voice remote. Was Paula jealous?

“I felt an obligation to find her and tell her she could be in danger,” he explained. “That’s how it started. Then I killed a man. Meaning that, God, I was involved even before Betty told me about the paintings.”

“And so there you were at the Huntington, chitchatting with one of the richest men in the world. Whose fate, literally, is in your hands.”

He sugared his espresso as he said, “Here, talking about it over dinner, it sounds like it could never have happened—like it’s a fantasy. But, boy, it was real then. Believe me.

“Did he threaten you?”

“At first he wanted to know about me—
all
about me. Everything, beginning with my parents, even my grandparents. In a half hour, he had my whole story. And, God, it was a surreal experience. There we were, in that beautiful setting, me on the marble bench, him strapped in his space-age wheelchair so he wouldn’t fall out, the two of us talking politely on a sunny afternoon, with people strolling past and the two bodyguards in matching three-piece suits and dark glasses, utterly impassive. I felt like I was in some kind of a—a trance, just sitting there meekly answering questions and feeling like those eyes were rearranging my brain.”