The Da Vinci Deception (2 page)

“She taught me how to make a brush from a handful of bristles. I began to paint, but all I was able to do was copy her paintings. I remember how she would encourage me, always saying I could be a great artist someday.”

Stiehl stopped. Dormant memories were stirring.

“Then what? School? Art lessons?” Connolly asked.

“Mother died from some damned thing. We never learned what it really was. She came home from school on a Wednesday and went to bed. On Friday they took her to the hospital and on Sunday”—his voice trailed off—“she died.”

“How old were you?”

“Thirteen. I remember wishing I was a Jew. I had Jewish friends who had bar mitzvahs and I wished I could, too. Then I'd have money for my aunt. Lutherans don't have bar mitzvahs, so I got a job after school and on weekends. My aunt kept coming up with money from somewhere and with what I made we managed. She encouraged me to take lessons.”

“Did you?”

“I tried. In high school first. Then a year at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Then my aunt went into a nursing home and I was alone. I didn't know what to do, so I enlisted in the army. I got into the Signal Corps, where I learned I could copy maps that looked better than the originals.” He said it as if he had wished he had gone on to another subject.

“From then on it was a course in sketching or learning about watercolor, then oils. I guess I taught myself, too. I liked going to the museums with a pad and pens. I'd go where the art students didn't go. I liked the Dutch and the Italian painters, and I liked paintings with intricate detail. Strands of hair, stitching in the clothes. It was a challenge and I copied them exactly.”

He turned and faced the warden. “The rest you must know about.”

“Pretty much,” Connolly acknowledged. “I'm aware that while you've been in prison you have worked very conscientiously on your painting skills.”

“It passes the time.”

“And when you are free to take up a new career, you'll steer clear of municipal securities. The financial community doesn't need any more of your near-perfect copies.”

“No more securities,” Stiehl echoed.

“Or hundred-dollar bills?”

“No comment.”

“Too many men go back out to the same thing that brought them here in the first place. I don't suggest you try that.” The warden joined Stiehl by the window. “The treasury boys have long memories.”

“I'll be careful.”

Connolly extended his hand. “Good luck, Curtis. I don't want to see you in this place ever again.” He smiled.

They shook hands and Stiehl returned to his cell.

“C'mon, move it! Get your ass in gear!”

Barking the command was Bull Harvey. None of the guards could win a popularity contest but Harvey, at least, possessed a semblance of humanity.

“Hold your water!” Stiehl yelled back. “I'm writing farewell notes to the cockroaches.”

Stiehl emerged from his cell holding a thick package of papers and sketches in one hand and a cardboard suitcase in the other. In it he had packed brushes, pens, and a few personal items.

Harvey led the way, muttering a stream of obscenities.

In the administration office Stiehl signed a half-dozen papers including a receipt for $387.37. Among his personal belongings was the wallet his wife Jean had given him for his thirty-eighth birthday. In it he found an expired driver's license, an out-of-date calendar, scraps of paper with long-forgotten notes, and a photo of Jean and his daughter Stephanie, who was ten when he began passing counterfeit municipal securities. He might be with Jean and Stephanie now if the original certificates he'd copied hadn't contained an error and been recalled. Unfortunately, he made precise duplicates—error and all. Jean divorced him two years after he was sentenced. She was now remarried, living somewhere near Princeton. At the right time he would locate Stephanie.

Also in his folder was the envelope with the wax seal. He withdrew the five hundred-dollar bills and carefully placed them in the wallet.

“Okay, Harvey. This is it!”

They were a seedy duo. Bull Harvey's rumpled uniform was pulled tightly over his fat front and his short trousers revealed socks rolled down to the tops of scuffed, thick-soled shoes. Stiehl had been issued a striped, cotton shirt, chinos, and a well-worn raincoat.

They were waved through the east gate. Harvey extended a limp hand, his eyes unable to meet Stiehl's. “No hard feelin's for all the bullshit I threw at you. All the swearin' and pushin'. It's my job. I try to do it decentlike.”

“No hard feelings. Thanks for bringing me out.”

Harvey flashed a broad smile. “Look, Stiehl, the weirdos are behind you and all the nuts are right on down that driveway. Walk to the end, turn left, and go about a mile to the first traffic light. That's Route 1. Most of the buses are marked Port Authority.”

Stiehl picked up his miserable belongings and strode briskly away from the high walls surrounding the prison that had been his home and
private hell for so long. He glanced back and saw the bright sun reflected off the golden dome atop the rotunda of the prison. A strange sight, he mused. A gold dome belonged over a merry-go-round in Atlantic City.

The sun had curved up to the highest point it would reach on a cloudless, cold March day. He stepped up his pace as he approached the noisy traffic on Route 1. Within minutes a New Jersey Transit bus pulled to the curb. He stepped aboard, took a seat, and rejoined the world.

On arrival at the Intercontinental Hotel he was handed the letter he had been told would be waiting for him. He did not read it until he was lying on the king-size bed in the pale-blue-and-rose-papered suite reserved in his name.

The letter was in an envelope with the same bold red wax with the initials “JK” in large, flowing script. He propped himself on the huge pillows and opened the envelope.

T
he elevator doors opened like a theater curtain, slowly revealing Curtis Stiehl's eagerly anticipated new world. Directly ahead was a bronze plaque: JONAS R. KALEM & COMPANY, and beneath: NEW YORK LONDON PARIS. He turned left off the elevator and walked into a paneled gallery displaying an exquisite collection of paintings. A voice emanating from concealed speakers welcomed him. Mr. Kalem, the voice said assuringly, would soon join him. He walked anxiously about the gallery, noting the paintings, in styles ranging from Romantic to Postmodern. He stopped, facing a wall on which were a small primitive portrait, a George Stubbs horse, a Manet, and a Childe Hassam. His attention was on the Manet when an opening suddenly appeared in the wall and a man of enormous proportions emerged from the dark void.

Jonas Kalem stood six feet four inches tall and weighed not an ounce under three hundred pounds. He wore a dark blue vested suit accented with a fine gray stripe and punctuated with a maroon tie. He was smiling, all but his eyes, which peered through thick, trifocal glasses. His hair was too black for his sixty years. His voice was deep and resonant.

“Welcome, Curtis. My congratulations upon your release from that great unpleasantness.” He entered the gallery, his hand extended in greeting. “I am delighted you accepted my invitation to discuss our mutual interests.”

Stiehl, still showing his surprise, shook hands gamely.

Jonas led the way through the opened panels to a conventional office with rows of desks and files all surrounded by clicking printers and phones with their blinking lights and electronic chimes. Fax machines spewed out incoming messages and drawings from clients. They paused at a room jammed with video recorders, closed-circuit television screens, and elaborate audio transcribers and players. Five screens displayed each wall of the gallery and the elevator; several smaller screens showed workers
in other departments, none apparently concerned that the cameras were trained on them.

“Our security and communications center,” Jonas said. “Damned expensive but it's paying off. The insurance people like it and collectors don't mind loaning us their precious paintings.”

They moved through a narrow corridor, the spirited music of Offenbach filling the air. They approached three massive double doors spaced thirty feet apart. Jonas opened the first set of doors and they entered a cavernous room. The room was forty feet wide and nearly seventy-five feet long. Leaded windows reached from the floor to a twenty-two-foot ceiling created by breaking through to the floor directly above. The room was divided into three parts: the first, where they stood, was a library; the second was designed as a conference space and contained a variety of tables and chairs; and the third was an office setting with high-backed chairs and leather sofas surrounding a desk Stiehl estimated at eight feet in length.

The library held more than five thousand volumes, many first editions. Aside from standard reference works and encyclopedias, the entire library was devoted to art and art history.

A balcony ran along the interior walls ten feet over the floor. More paintings filled spaces where there were no bookshelves or windows. Some belonged to Jonas, some were on loan, still others were the works of artists Jonas represented and for whom he secured commissions. Suspended from the ceiling over the conference area was a brass and porcelain chandelier with a spread of over twenty feet.

“I apologize for this ostentation, but I spend too much time here to feel confined. I'm a big person and need space.” Jonas guided his guest to a chair near his desk. He offered a box of Monte Cruz. Stiehl declined, his eyes continuing to inventory the grand room Jonas called his office.

“If I speak bluntly, forgive me,” Jonas said quietly. “I obviously know something about you, including, of course, the reason you spent nearly four years in prison. I feel badly we did not meet before you decided to compete with the American Bank Note Company.”

Stiehl shifted uneasily in his chair. He felt intimidated. “How would that have changed matters?”

“In many ways, I am sure. First you should know what we're all about.” Jonas lit his cigar.

“We provide a complete range of art services to the communications
industry, including the advertising agencies here in the east as well as throughout Europe. But I grew weary of the tasteless art directors that crowd those businesses and looked for new opportunities. Art has been my love since I was a child, and because I have an eye for fine art, I decided to put my knowledge to more profitable use. I added a number of promising artists to our staff and found them commissions for serious work. Their murals and paintings are displayed throughout this country and abroad. I'll show you the scope of our work.”

Jonas touched the controls of an electronic switcher and a television screen rose from a nearby credenza. Images appeared and Jonas described the client, the assignment, the art, and the artist.

“Very impressive, every one,” Stiehl said. “I wish I had half the talent of any of your artists.”

“Your abilities surpass all that you have seen.”

“I've never painted an original painting that was worth a damn, or a dime.”

“What you can do so exquisitely is worth infinitely more. But you require direction.” He paused and twirled the cigar between two fingers then took several puffs and blew the smoke toward the ceiling. Then he added, “My direction.”

Jonas touched another button and on the screen appeared the photograph of a municipal bond certificate issued by the city of Paterson, New Jersey. “Recognize that, Curtis?”

“Of course, but what in hell does that have to do with your direction?” Stiehl's irritation clearly showed.

“And what of these, Curtis?” In clear focus was a fifty-dollar bill. Then a hundred-dollar bill flashed onto the screen. Two of the hundred-dollar bills Stiehl had received in the envelope sealed with red wax were identical to the one on the screen.

“Very clever, Mr. Kalem. Where did you find those notes?”

“I can't divulge all my secrets. Suffice to say I have gone to considerable lengths to learn all I can about you. And most especially about your true potential.”

Stiehl was confused. Jonas was slapping one cheek with an old indictment and caressing the other with his praise.