Madonna of the Apes (2 page)

Chapter Three

“Alarm hell!” Fred said, making a grab that took Franklin by the belt. He held, fishing for a light switch. The older man hovered at loose ends on the landing. “Come in. Close the door,” Fred ordered. “We don’t need company.”

“There’s been some misapprehension,” the older man demurred.

“We’ve been invited and then some,” Fred said. He gave a jerk to Franklin’s belt. “Somebody plays me for a sucker, plays you for a sucker—you don’t know this guy? Right? That’s on the up-and-up? Let’s find out why.”

“I have no wish, no interest, no desire,” he began, but the place itself drew the older man inside, past whatever was left of his scruples. The light of the entrance hall allowed them to see a large room, almost without furniture, that gleamed with suppressed fire.

“The drunk’s an act, Franklin,” Fred said. “Drop it or I’ll drop you.” He slid his grip around to the back of Franklin’s belt and held it tight enough to keep his captive from slipping his hold by unbuckling it. “His plan was to lure you in for a start, following his ass. That’s your business. I don’t care. It’s a honey trap. Sprung too soon, because he didn’t figure on the extra Samaritan. Close the door. There’ll be a light switch next to it. Let’s see who else is here.”

“Remarkable,” the older man said, peering around the dark room as he entered. When the entrance door closed with a click, Franklin said, “I’m alone.”

The principal furnishing of the room was a lush oriental rug that covered almost the entire floor, hardwood, but it had been painted white. The carpet’s colors—magenta, rose madder and viridian—burned in a dusky glow that leaped to flame when the older man located the switch, illuminating the room from wall sconces. Franklin flipped like a landed trout, hanging from Fred’s right fist, while Fred and his fellow Samaritan stared at the walls, where paintings hung in profusion, a wilderness of styles and kinds and colors. For furniture the room held no more than a small gilded table bearing glasses and filled decanters, a carved and painted wooden chest, and a low bookcase filled, it appeared, with art books. The elder Samaritan revolved slowly in the center of the room, gaping frankly, and stroking a necktie on which paisleys, in modest riot, had been deeply shamed by the carpet’s regimented orgy. It was too much information, much too fast.

“Nobody else here? We’ll see. Meanwhile, let’s get the scoop on our host,” Fred said. He reached into the man’s jacket pocket and, taking from it a leather wallet, flipped it open. But he could learn nothing from it without losing his grip on Franklin’s belt. “I’m Fred,” Fred told his fellow Samaritan. “What do I call you?”

“Reed. What do you mean, honey trap? What’s a honey trap?” He raised a hand to stroke the reddening welt on his cheek, where he’d been hit.

“Oh, come on,” Fred said. He lifted the belt enough to set his man swinging, then dropped him to the carpet. “Stay there,” he said, and had the freedom of both hands. He said after a minute’s study, “Our host carries a Georgia driver’s license. Atlanta. Three credit cards in the name of Franklin Tilley. He’s a Georgia boy. A Georgia peach. A peach with a sting in its tail. Who’s in the back room, Franklin?”

The younger man had landed on his face on the carpet. He lay in a sullen crouch. “Twelve hundred dollars,” Fred continued. “In cash. Another ten thousand in blank traveler’s checks, in this other pocket.”

Reed, continuing to revolve slowly, like a top in its last vertical play, observed, “Fred, there is more going on here than meets the eye. No matter. There is always more going on than meets the eye. Mr. Tilley, a question. As long as I am here. Albeit in grotesquely anomalous circumstances. The unsigned watercolor over your head. Tell me about it.”

“Jeekers!” Fred said. “What is this? Business as usual?” He nudged their prostrate captive with his foot. “Sit up, Franklin. Make yourself at home. What the hell. Answer the man’s question. I hold the wallet while we get acquainted.” He put it into his back pocket.

Franklin sat and assembled the ingratiating smile used by the prep school’s star athlete when he is discovered next to the headmaster’s wife, in the headmaster’s bed. “I’m alone here,” he whined. “You’ve got me wrong. Let’s fix this. Let me offer you gentlemen a drink,” he said. “If it’s my fault, I apologize. You’ve wrecked my suit, but that’s fair. Rough trade, Fred. I love it.” He tried a lopsided grin pregnant with innuendo, though it aborted quickly against Fred’s impassive gaze. “It’s—not a game exactly, more a sales technique. If I appear to be slightly incapacitated…”

“What do you sell?” Fred demanded. “Besides the obvious.”

“Nothing for me,” Reed said. “Maybe a small brandy. If you don’t mind, Fred? While we explore.”

“He drinks first,” Fred said. His nod allowed Tilley to get up, step out of his shoes, and walk across the carpet to the table. He poured from a decanter into a snifter, breathed in, drank a half-ounce, smiled and spread his arms to illustrate the innocence of the brew.

“Okay?” he asked Fred. Fred nodded. Tilley poured for Reed and looked inquisitively toward Fred. Fred shook his head.

Reed, following his host’s example, took his shoes off and sat cross-legged with his back against the wall, in a position from which he could watch the watercolor he had asked about, a faint and very tentative study that looked like a preparatory essay for one of Cézanne’s
Bathers.

Franklin, at the bar, poured amber into a snifter from a different decanter. Turning to catch Fred’s eye, he explained, holding up the decanter, “This one’s the 1812. Why waste my personal beverage on someone who might not understand it? Fred, I do ask my guests to remove their shoes.”

Fred said, “Your guests. That leaves me out.”

Franklin pouted and turned to Reed, twirling the liquid in his snifter while crossing to stand next to the watercolor, just one of thirty some paintings in the room, “You have an excellent eye. Unfortunately, you ask about the one thing in the room I am not in a position to sell. A client—
another client, perhaps I should say?
—has first refusal.”

“Reed,” Fred said, “you buy anything from this joker, you are on your own. I’m going to look around. Five minutes, then I’m on my way. You want to stay, that’s up to you.” He patted his back pocket, reminding their host that he carried the man’s identity as well as a good deal of his money, and left the two men talking.

The bedroom was empty of additional players, and nondescript, but at least the man owned a bed—a queen-sized double with a spread bearing an Aztec motif. Lie there, my dear, and we’ll cut out your heart. A writing table held reasonable papers, including bills addressed to Franklin Tilley here, at Fourteen Pekham Street. The closet held enough clothes to prove that Franklin was here for longer than overnight, but didn’t live here. Nobody lived here. The scene was temporary: stage set for Act One, scene two. Next to the bed the top bureau drawer held a set of car keys, complete with a plastic penguin. And a serviceable Lublin .38, loaded.

Fred, passing the entrance to the main room, saw that Reed was now on his feet. The two men, like old friends, were examining the objects displayed on the walls.

“It’s your funeral,” Fred grumbled, shrugging. He held the gun where Franklin could see it and told him, “This goes into the toilet,” moving toward the bathroom.

Franklin’s petulant voice followed him down the hall. “Honest to God, Fred. That’s not necessary.”

Chapter Four

“Mostly Italian but some French,” Tilley was explaining when Fred entered the room again. Reed, having apparently toured the room, was standing again in its geographical center, balancing the snifter but paying no attention to its contents. “So, as I say, the little Cézanne I have to reserve for the time being, ” Franklin went on. “But this
Diana
from the School of Fontainebleau is worth a detour, no? The Greuze portrait is said to be of the Duke of—I forget—It’s written down. I don’t guarantee that’s a Mantegna. It might be. We’re waiting on the expertise. It’s good, and it’s fifteenth century.”

The paintings around the room, too much to take in quickly, especially under the circumstances, projected an aura of authenticity more convincing than Franklin himself could manage. Even the Cézanne
Bathers,
which might be either fake or a thin effort on the great painter’s part, sat uneasily on the wall, as if impatient of its cage. The picture Franklin described as a possible Mantegna represented Mary Magdalene. No artist in that time or place could exhibit that much nudity without either classical or religious cover. The woman, sitting in a desert landscape, was nude from the waist up, and contemplating a skull that lay in the dirt. The frame was excessive. Many of the frames were excessive, while a few pieces were not framed at all.

“Interesting collection overall,” Reed said.

“I came into some money,” Franklin confided. He shrugged. “I like nice things. The Mantegna. What
may
be a Mantegna…”

Reed walked over to the
Mary Magdalene
and took a slow and concentrated look. The work was on a wooden panel, two feet high by two wide. “I wouldn’t have said Mantegna,” he said, bringing his nose to within three inches of the painting’s surface. “Since we’re here, I might as well ask your price. It
is
for sale?”

“Three million,” Franklin said smoothly.

“Indeed.”

“Because it may be by Mantegna,” Franklin said. “Why take the risk? I sell for less and it turns out to be Mantegna, I’m a fool. We’re looking into it. Getting the expertise. Meanwhile, I like nice things. You yourself, being a collector—I see it in the way you study my walls, Reed—I’m dying to know what little treasures you might be prepared to de-accession, yourself. I’m always open to a trade.”

Reed, disregarding this opening, continued to walk along the walls, studying other objects. He paused in front of a deep blue-green painting depicting a boar hunt and said, “Let’s have a look at the back.”

“Of the Mantegna?”

“Of course.” Reed nodded.

The painting in its ornate gilded frame was heavy. Franklin struggled as he lifted it off the wall and put it on the floor, turning it so that its back faced into the room. The back was dark wood, well braced with a cradled trelliswork of wooden supports, and showing traces of old paper labels and splotches of crimson sealing wax. Reed fished into the breast pocket of his suit and drew out a magnifying glass through which he examined the back before he turned the painting around and began a minute raking examination of its face.

“I’m without protection now,” Franklin complained to Fred in a hoarse whisper. “Honest to God, you didn’t have to do that.”

Reed held his hand up to command silence, and continued his survey. “I need daylight,” he said. “Your price is ridiculous and exploratory, even if this were Mantegna. I shall return tomorrow afternoon with my conservator. I wish to consider the collection in the daylight, at my leisure. You will not need the firearm, I assure you. I am harmless.” He stroked the livid welt on the side of his face. “No, tomorrow won’t do. Tuesday is bad. Wednesday? Shall we say three o’clock?”

Franklin went through the motions of reflecting on his busy schedule before he agreed to the appointment. “Wednesday is good,” he said. “By then I should have my prize to show you.”

“Your prize,” Reed said. “That is?”

Franklin shook his head, put a finger to his lips and grinned. “The keystone of my collection,” he said. “I can’t say more. Though I can tell you…”

“Yes?” Reed prompted.

“Actually, in fact, I can’t say anything,” Franklin said.

“I’ll leave you then,” Reed announced, moving toward the door, Fred following.

“My wallet,” Franklin Tilley protested.

“Downstairs,” Fred said.

“Then, when we get to know each other better, you will introduce me to your own collection,” Franklin wheedled. “Treasures I can only imagine. You have a delicious eye.”

“I shall look forward,” Reed said. He sat on the painted box next to the door in order to put his shoes on again. The size of a child’s toy chest, its sides were decorated with rather primitive flat angels, gilded arches, and lilies, and its top painted to pass for marble, on which a wreath of laurel leaves was resting. Reed’s backside, in turn, now rested on the wreath of laurels.

“This box,” Reed said. He smacked his palm next to his right buttock. “It might do for my silver.”

“It’s painted inside also,” Franklin started.

“I saw that. It doesn’t matter,” Reed said. “I can line it. Have to line it anyway, to hold silver.”

“It’s old. I don’t know how old,” Franklin said. “I don’t know what it is.”

“In any case, it will hold my silver,” Reed said. “It seems solid enough. I’ve been looking for something this size. Though, as you say, it is rather gaudy.”

“I’ll give you a price on Wednesday,” Franklin said.

Reed stood and dusted his hands together. “Never mind. I’m looking at one tomorrow. I’m going…”

“Eight thousand dollars,” Franklin tried.

“Six thousand would be exorbitant,” Reed said. “But I’m willing to pay for the convenience. If you’ll take six thousand, we can accomplish the transaction now.”

“Cash,” Franklin said.

Reed hesitated. “Cash is a different story. Five thousand I can manage.”

Franklin’s hesitation was palpable, almost entertaining. “It’s highway robbery. But I need cash for another purchase. You’ll have the chest picked up?”

“We take it now,” Fred broke in.

Reed looked up at him with surprise. “As Fred observes, the weather is clement. Better that we complete the transaction now. I’ll take it with me. If I may, I shall adjourn and avail myself of the requisite funds. Your washroom?”

Franklin jerked his head sideways toward the hallway, in the direction of the bathroom Fred had just come from, where the gun stared mutely out of the toilet bowl. “Money belt,” Franklin told Fred, once Reed was out of sight. “You didn’t have to do that. That’s how they carry their cash, these Brahmins. Boston Brahmins. Maybe you’ll come back too, some time.” Fred shrugged, looking at the objects on the man’s walls. It was a bewildering collection. It made no sense. Reed reappeared, his hand crackling with a wad of greenbacks. He handed them to Franklin and made an effort to raise the chest by the metal handles on its ends.

“Franklin and I will get it down the stairs,” Fred said. “That keeps Franklin out of trouble while we exit the love nest. Take an end, Franklin. I go in front.” He led the procession to the street, Franklin taking his end of the chest obediently, Reed in the rear. When he handed the wallet back he gave Franklin Tilley a final, careful look. The man was sallow and thin, but sufficiently robust not to worry his mother. He could well be the thirty-five years of age the Tilley license showed. His hair was dark and curly, too long for most white-collar professions that did not imply an artistic orientation.

“Wednesday, then, three o’clock,” Franklin confirmed. “Be prepared to have your eyes knocked out. In case I get the other thing in time. When may I return the visit? I must see…Sorry about the misunderstanding before. No hard feelings. And you’ll bring your conservator? Wednesday afternoon. I’ve been looking for a conservator. Maybe…” He pocketed the wallet as he turned into the house, leaving the two men on the sidewalk next to Reed’s painted chest.