Take Me for a Ride (24 page)

He held up a hand, wordlessly asking her to shut up.

“Okay, but let me just say one more thing.”

“Do I have a choice?” he muttered.

“Women love your bad-boy attitude and that callous edge of yours—”

“Callous edge,” he repeated, nodding. “That’s me.”

“But they can also smell the guilt on you. And that’s how you reel them in and make them truly desperate to own you: that faint chance that your conscience might let them into your heart.”

“My conscience,” he said, nodding again. “You know what? You are one scary girl. In fact, I think you’re a witch.”

But unbelievably, she wasn’t done. She had to summarize. “It’s kind of like putting a Scooby Snack inside one of those rubber toys and watching a dog go crazy trying to get it out.”

“Not another word!” McDougal snapped, before tossing back the contents of his glass. “Thank you for the unsolicited psychological analysis, but I have to tell you something, Natalie. When we met that evening in Reif’s—”

The phone rang, the volume so loud that he jumped and almost dropped the glass to the floor.

Natalie leaned over and plucked the receiver from the cradle of the phone on the nightstand. “Hello?” Her mouth dropped open. “
Nonnie?
Nonnie, where
are
you?”

Avy and Liam were gratified to find that Oleg Litsky lived on the ground floor of his building in Moscow. The fewer the stairs, the fewer the complications.

Not only had Avy put her panties back on, but she’d encased her legs in black stockings and high-heeled boots, which did absolutely nothing to keep her warm but at least didn’t look as ridiculous as bare Miami legs in a cold Moscow March.

She’d also donned a dark wig, dark brown contact lenses, and pancake makeup that made her look fifteen years older. She’d affixed a faux mole to her neck that drew attention away from her face, and she deliberately hunched so that her posture was that of an older woman.

Liam wore a dapper mustache and goatee along with spectacles and a three-piece suit. He’d darkened his teeth several shades and adopted a worried, academic look.

“You look like Sigmund Freud as his mother admits to him that she has penis envy,” Avy said.

“Thank you, love. You’re too kind.”

The apartment building was located a few blocks from the Tretyakov Gallery, in the Zamoskvoreche district. The Tretyakov, founded in 1856, housed the largest collection of Russian art in the world.

They’d had a taxi drop them right in front of the gallery itself, and they walked the rest of the way. Liam chuckled as they took in the facade of the gallery. “That frieze, my darling? Designed by Viktor Vasnetsov. Notice anything familiar?”

Avy glanced over at it. St. George and the dragon fought their legendary battle right in the center of the bas relief, and once again, the dragon was having a very bad day. “That poor reptile never wins, does he?”

“How do you know he’s a reptile? Reptiles don’t have wings. They don’t breathe fire, either.”

“Liam, I’m not going to argue with you over the biological classification of a mythical creature,” Avy said, unable to help laughing.

“Oh, very well. Speaking of breathing fire, did you hear that a drunken electrician actually fell asleep on the premises of the Tretyakov recently? With a lit cigarette in his mouth, no less. He ignited the bloody place. Fortunately, none of the art was damaged . . .”

Avy shook her head. “Vodka for breakfast?”

“It’s entirely possible.” Liam ruminated for a moment. “You know, it’s quite odd, if you think about it: Give an Englishman a potato and he boils it. Give a Russian a potato, and he ingeniously turns it into vodka.”

“You should write an anthropological study,” Avy suggested, tongue in cheek.

“I believe I shall,” he mused. “After all, I’ll need something to do in my retirement.”

The sky was gray and moody today, sulking behind the clouds, and a light snowfall covered the ground. Despite the fact that she was wearing impossibly high heels, Avy easily outpaced Liam’s casual British amble. She kept having to stop and wait impatiently for him to catch up. He merely smiled that sin-grin of his, the flash of wicked teeth that let her know that he was amused at her expense.

“In a hurry, my love?” he asked. “Nervous, perhaps?”

“I’m never nervous,” she retorted. “You should know that by now. I’m simply freezing my Florida ass off.”

“No, no, my darling. Your lovely tropical arse is still in place, I assure you, and very comely, too.”

They had arrived at Litsky’s building. “You have the men and the ambulance waiting?” she asked.

“Of course.”

“You have the syringe?”

“We’re all set, my darling. Really, you must trust me.”

“I’m sorry, Liam, if I still have a difficult time trusting a career thief. And I’ve never repossessed a
person
before!”

“Person, painting—it’s very much the same.”

“No, Liam, it isn’t. Paintings don’t kick, scream, or attempt escape. Paintings don’t have to be fed, or use facilities. Paintings can’t prosecute the people who snatch them.”

He heaved a long-suffering sigh. “Yes, dear.”

She shot him a dirty look, and he returned her gaze blandly. Then they strolled up the steps and pressed an intercom button along with Litsky’s code. He buzzed them in.

Litsky had the demeanor and posture of a general, a weathered gray face like cracked tarmac, and the clear blue eyes of a choirboy. “Welcome,” he said with a businesslike smile.

He ushered them into his study, which was lined with leather-bound volumes in German and Russian. His built-in shelves were polished mahogany, as was his desk. A fire burned in a stone fireplace, and a fully stocked bar took up the far corner. Paintings in gilt frames filled various spaces on the walls, but Avy saw nothing that jumped out at her from the Art Loss Register.

“Mr. Litsky, I’m Vera Rockwell of ARTemis, Inc. And this is my associate Trenton Smathers.”

Trenton Smathers was among Liam’s many aliases, one of the four who had schizophrenically asked Avy’s father for her hand in marriage. She shuddered at the memory—her father hadn’t found it funny at all.

“Very pleased to make your acquaintance, Ms. Rockwell, Mr. Smathers. Please sit down. Whiskey? Vodka? Cognac?” Litsky offered. His accent was continental but with a definite edge of German.

“No, thank you,” said Avy.

“Don’t mind if I do,” said Liam. “Just a snifter of cognac, if you please.”

“But of course, Mr. Smathers.” Litsky poured and handed him the drink in a very fine Bavarian crystal glass. He poured himself a potent two fingers of Scotch and joined them. He sat in one of two comfortable-looking wing chairs on either side of the fireplace, while Liam and Avy positioned themselves on a sofa that faced the hearth.

On a side table were several framed photographs, and one in particular caught Liam’s eye. Two lovely little fair-haired girls, aged maybe four and six, played dolls on a deep green lawn. They wore white cotton eyelet dresses and had Litsky’s wide, angelic eyes.

“Your granddaughters?” Liam asked.

“Yes.” Their host stared at the picture fondly; then his mouth tightened and he averted his gaze.

“They’re beautiful. Just precious,” said Avy.

“Thank you. And I thank you for meeting with me,” Litsky said formally. He raised his glass to them with slightly unsteady fingers and drank deeply.

“It’s our pleasure,” Avy said, with a professionally warm smile. “What can we do for you, sir?”

“As you no doubt have been informed, I am trying to locate some property which was stolen from me recently, taken from my safe in this very room.”

They nodded, adopting expressions of sympathy.

“Some of the items will be untraceable, I fear—cash and some diamond jewelry of no particularly unique design. But there are two items that I must find. One is a Cézanne painting that I purchased in the 1950s and which, frankly, represents my most valuable asset.”

“You have the bill of sale, the provenance, and a certificate of authenticity?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Forgive me, but may I see them?” Avy asked. He would expect no less.

Litsky nodded and got out of the wing chair. He went to his desk and produced a manila file folder from a drawer, which he handed to her.

Inside was a bill of sale from a reputable Parisian dealer, still in business, and a detailed history of who had owned the piece before Litsky bought it. Avy closed the file as if satisfied and carefully did not look at Liam. She was sure that he had recognized, as she had, that there was no watermark on any of the papers. The dealer in question never released anything with her signature on it unless it was printed on her special, marked paper.

“All right. I believe we can help you with this. What about the other item?”

Litsky looked at the picture of his granddaughters again and raised his glass to his lips, all but draining it. “Yes. The other item is a very unusual necklace. Unfortunately, I do not have a bill of sale or a detailed provenance for the piece, since it was given to me years ago as thanks for a service I rendered during World War Two.”

“Oh?” Avy asked.

“Yes.” Litsky cleared his throat. “I, ah, helped a family across the border from Russia to Romania. They were Jewish, and fleeing Hitler’s forces.”

“That was very brave of you, sir. You put yourself at risk by giving them aid.”

The old man’s face took on a peculiar expression. He waved a dismissive hand and got to his feet again, heading straight for the bar. He poured himself another Scotch and stood gazing down into the amber liquid. Then he remembered his manners and looked at Liam. “Would you like another cognac?”

“Oh, well. I shouldn’t, but I will. Here, let me bring you the glass.” Gracefully, Liam rose and made his way to the bar, where he set down his snifter. Then in one fluid motion, his hand went into his pocket, came out with the syringe, and plunged it into Litsky’s unsuspecting neck. The man opened his mouth to yell, but the drug immediately immobilized him. He made a single croak before his eyes rolled back into his head.

Liam neatly caught the cognac decanter just as it slipped from the old man’s grasp. He set it down and then lowered the Nazi’s limp form to the oriental rug. Litsky’s eyes, before closing, had held shock, belated realization, and impotent fury.

“Oh, dear, oh, dear, the poor fellow’s had a stroke,” proclaimed Liam. “How shocking. How unfortunate. Nick that file folder and then run out of the building looking distraught, will you, love, while I ring for an ambulance?”

Avy stuffed the file into her soft-sided briefcase.

Liam hit a button on his phone. “It’s a go,” he murmured. Then he banked the fire in anticipation of their departure.

Within minutes, an official-looking white van with red stripes and a blue light on top screeched up to the main door of the apartment building, and two uniformed men emerged from the back with medical supplies and a stretcher.

Avy played the shocked, concerned visitor to the hilt, babbling and dabbing away tears with a tissue.

The men came inside, exchanged glances with Liam, and then examined Litsky for the benefit of a nosy neighbor who’d followed them in.

“We must get him to the emergency room right away,” one of the “medical team” said while another translated the Russian. “Come on—let’s load him up.”

They promptly transferred Litsky from the floor to the stretcher, swaddled him in white sheets and blankets, and dropped an oxygen mask over his face.

“You should call his son,” the neighbor suggested.

“I’ll take care of that,” Avy reassured him, once she understood. Then she shepherded him out in the wake of the medics and closed the door of the apartment.

The men loaded Litsky, and she and Liam climbed in after them. They started for the airport, relieved that everything had gone so smoothly.

Avy let the air out of her lungs and relaxed. Then one of the medics aimed an unpleasant smile at them. “You want to go airport, you pay double. If no, we drive you to police, eh?”

Natalie went weak with relief at the sound of her grandmother’s voice, even if at present she was scolding her.

“Natalya, what are you doing, coming after me to Moscow? Who is this man you are with?”

And they both said simultaneously, “You are in danger!”

“Who is the man
you
are with?” Natalie countered. “How could you have just taken off like that, without a word to anyone? Do you know how worried I’ve been?” Then she added, “How do you know that I’m here? And how do you know about Eric?”

“Pictures!” Nonnie said. “Kissing a red-haired man in the street!”

“How did you get pictures?”

“You have much explaining to do, young lady.”

“
I
have much explaining to do? Listen, Nonnie, because of that necklace you took, I’ve been fired, I’m in trouble with the law, my boss is dead, and the Russian Mafiya has trashed my apartment, almost kidnapped me, and tried to kill me just this morning.”

“I am sorry for your trouble, but St. George will protect you,” Nonnie said placidly.

Natalie choked. “That offers me so much comfort. You have no idea.”

“Do not disrespect me with your sarcasm or St. George with your lack of faith. Eh?”

“Nonnie, please understand, a man almost choked Eric to death this morning!”

“This Eric, he is alive, yes?”

“Yes, but—”

“He was sent to you by St. George,” her grandmother said decisively.

“No, Nonnie. I’m sorry, but that’s just not true,” Natalie said, exasperated. “The ugly reality is that I picked up Eric in a bar.”

“You what?”

“And I don’t think saints usually frequent bars—”

“No? Natalya, I tell you, I am constantly in amazement that you, at twenty-nine years old, understand all of the mystical workings of God, the saints, the universe. Your brilliance outshines the very stars in the sky . . .”