The Gilded Seal (10 page)
carry the revolver that she had glimpsed strapped to his right
ankle as he’d made his way downstairs?
These were hardly the actions of a man who supposedly
had no enemies. But then again, as the existence of two iden-
tical Gauguins had shown, in this world, appearances could
sometimes be deceptive.
ALAMEDA, SEVILLE
19th April— 5:15 p.m.
The wooden gate creaked open, ripping the police notice
forbidding entry in half and revealing a small courtyard.
Tom stepped in warily, the walls of the two-story building
rising on all sides to frame a small slab of sky overhead, gray
and sullen.
The ground was littered with broken tiles and shattered
terracotta bricks. The dog turd on the large pile of sand to his
left had been stepped in, the crumbling imprint of a ridged
sole still visible. A pile of wind- blown rubbish had drifted
into the far corner where Tom thought he could make out the
fluorescent glow of a discarded condom. He shook his head
angrily. Rafael had deserved better than this. Much better.
“This way.”
Marco Gillez shouldered past him and strode into the mid-
dle of the courtyard. Tom paused to secure the gate behind
them before following, fluttering his T-shirt against his body
to cool himself. It was warm for this time of year, even for
Spain.
Gillez was wearing an outfit that looked as if it had been
lifted from a bad fifties musical—blue flannel trousers worn
with a pastel green jacket and cream shoes that were in need
6 2 j a m e s
t w i n i n g
of a polish. He had a long, pale face and small muddy brown
eyes that were separated by a large nose that narrowed to an
almost impossibly sharp edge along its ridge, casting a shadow
across one half of his face like the arm of a sundial. His gin-
ger hair and goatee had been dyed black, the resulting color a
dark mahogany that changed hue depending on the light.
“There—”
He pointed with a dramatic flourish at an open doorway;
his fingernails were gnawed right back, the cuticles sore and
bleeding. Tom looked up and saw two holes on either side of
the door frame, dark rivulets of dried blood running from
beneath them to the ground. White chalk marks had been
drawn around the outline of the bloodstains, forming a large,
looping line like an untightened noose.
“Cause of death:
asfi xia
,” Gillez continued as he consulted
a file produced from a small brown leather satchel, his voice
colored by a heavy Spanish accent. “The weight of the body
suspended on the two nails made it impossible to breathe. It
only took a few minutes.” He ran his hand over his goatee as
he spoke, smoothing it against his skin as if he was stroking
a cat.
“That’s why the Romans used to nail people’s feet too,”
Tom added in a dispassionate tone. “So they could push them-
selves up and catch their breath. It prolonged the ordeal.”
“So it could have been worse?” A flicker of interest in
Gillez’s voice. “He was lucky?”
“He was crucified, Marco,” Tom snapped. “Nailed to a
doorway in a yard full of dog shit and used rubbers. You
call that lucky?”
He turned away and stared angrily at the open doorway.
The small part of him that had voiced a faint voice of hope
that Rafael could not be dead, that this must all be some ter-
rible mistake, was suddenly tellingly muted. This was where
Rafael’s life had ebbed away, retreating a little further out of
reach with every agonized breath. He almost wished he’d
taken Dominique’s advice and stayed away.
There was a long silence. Gillez, his jaw clicking as he
exercised it slowly from side to side, appeared to be waiting
for Tom to say something.
t h e g i l d e d s e a l
6 3
“Would you like to see the photos?” he asked eventually,
thrusting the file hopefully toward Tom.
“No.” Tom turned away in distaste, a brief mental image
forming of Gillez as a child, pulling the legs off a crab and
watching it struggle at the bottom of his bucket. “Just tell me
what it says.”
Gillez gave a disappointed shrug and turned the page.
“Rafael Quintavalle. White male. Age fifty-six. Found dead
on the
Domingo de Resurrección
— Easter Sunday.
Homicidio.
The coroner estimated he’d been here two to three days. He
was identified by his stepdaughter.”
“Eva?” Tom asked in surprise. “She’s here?”
“You know her?”
“Used to.” Tom nodded with a sigh.
“She’s a wild one,” Gillez said with a whistle. “It says here
the FBI arrested her for diamond smuggling.”
“That was a long time ago. What else does it say about
Rafael?”
“He was last seen at the Macarena procession on
Jueves
Santo
—Holy Thursday. At least two people claim they saw
him going for
confesión
in the Basilica de la Macarena just
before the procession set out.”
“Confession?” Tom gave an incredulous frown. “Are you
sure?”
“That’s what it says.” Again Gillez thrust the fi le toward
him.
“What does it say about his apartment? Did the police fi nd
anything there?”
“It had already been searched by the time they arrived.
They were too late.”
“I was too late,” Tom murmured to himself.
“You knew him well?” Gillez, fanning himself with one of
the photographs, sounded intrigued.
“Rafael and I did a couple of jobs once,” Tom confi rmed.
“In the early days. I don’t know why, but we clicked. We’ve
been friends ever since.”
He paused, thinking back to when he’d left the CIA, or
rather when they’d decided that he’d become a dangerous li-
ability that needed silencing. Rafael had been there for him
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when he’d gone on the run, had helped set him up in the busi-
ness, introduced him to the right people, Archie among them.
He thought back to their friendship and the good times they’d
shared. All that was gone now.
“Rafael was old school, a real character. He taught me a lot
about the way the game was played. He taught me a lot about
myself. I trusted him. He trusted me. In our business, that
doesn’t happen very often.”
“They say he was a good forger.”
“One of the best,” Tom agreed. “He’s got two in the Getty
and three more in the Prado. And they’re just the ones he told
me about.”
“But he’d retired?” Gillez sounded uncertain.
“That’s what he told me.” Tom shrugged. “But retired peo-
ple don’t get crucifi ed.”
Gillez nodded at this, as if he’d come to the same conclu-
sion. Tom locked eyes with him.
“What is it?”
“
Aquí
.”
Gillez stepped toward the small well and pointed at the
stone step leading up to it. More white chalk marks had been
drawn on the floor and the stone.
“We think he set fire to something before they killed him.
A small notebook or something like that. Then he cut him-
self.” His eyes shone excitedly, his razor-edged nose quiver-
ing as if he’d picked up a scent. “The index finger of his right
hand was covered in blood.”
“He wrote something, didn’t he?” Tom guessed breath-
lessly. “Show me.”
LEXINGTON AVENUE, UPPER EAST SIDE, NEW YORK
19th April— 11:25 p.m.
The thing is, Special Agent Browne . . . I’m awful busy.”
If Jennifer had heard those words once since leaving
Razi that morning, she’d heard them ten times.
Each visit she’d made had played out the same way: an
expectant smile from the gallery own er that had wilted the
moment they realized she was not a potential client. Then a
slow, deliberate nodding of the head to feign interest in her
questions, their eyes glazing over all the while. Shortly there-
after came hesitation, and a sudden distracted interest in a
painting that needed straightening or a chest requiring a
polish—anything to play for time. Finally, an excuse along
the lines of the one that had just been given.
“Mr. Wilson, this won’t take long.”
With a weary sigh, Wilson took his spectacles off, folded
them carefully and placed them on the desk in front of him.
His pinched features and fussy, slightly arch movements sug-
gested to Jennifer the type of person who insisted on cata-
loguing their CDs not only by year of recording, but also by
conductor.
“Very well.”
“Do you know Reuben Razi?”
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“Is that who this is about?”
“You do know him then?”
“I know
of
him. He’s a buyer. In this business that gets you
known.” He gestured at the paintings carefully arranged
around the walls of his gallery, as if to indicate that he too
was well known in the art world. “But I’ve never met him. He
isn’t really involved in the art scene here in Manhattan.”
“He’s a competitor of yours.”
“Competitor is such a vulgar word,” Wilson said, his top
lip lifting off his square teeth as he wrinkled his nose. “We’re
partners, really; partners in a shared cultural enterprise. We’re
not like those sharks on Wall Street. We don’t take lumps out
of each other anytime someone swims too close. Our busi-
ness is a bit more civilized than that.”
Jennifer bit her tongue, wanting to pick Wilson up on al-
most every point he’d just made, but knowing she’d only
make things more difficult than they already were. Besides,
she wasn’t sure whether she was annoyed because she dis-
agreed with him, or because of his pompous, self- satisfi ed
manner.
“But it
is
a business. At the end of the day, surely you’re all
in it to make money?”
“We’re in it for the art,” he corrected her tartly. “The
money is just a happy coincidence.”
Judging from his immaculate handmade suit and glitter-
ing Cartier wristwatch, it was a coincidence that Jennifer
sensed Wilson was taking full advantage of.
“Would you say Mr. Razi is a well- respected member of
the Manhattan art community?” she probed.
“Of course.” Wilson nodded, perhaps just a little too em-
phatically, she thought.
“You’ve never heard of him falling out with anyone?”
“Not as far as I know,” he said, with a firm shake of his
head. “In fact, I heard he can be . . . quite charming.” Wilson
bared his teeth with what she assumed was an attempt to
look charming himself. She stifled a smile.
“Did you hear about a fight that he was involved in a few
months ago?”
“I don’t listen to gossip,” Wilson sniffed disdainfully.
t h e g i l d e d s e a l
6 7
“It was picked up by the press. A man had his arm broken.
An attorney here in Manhattan, by the name of Herbie Ham-
mon. Have you any idea what they were fi ghting about?”
“I don’t follow the news either,” said Wilson with a
perfunctory shake of the head. “All doom and gloom and
celebrity tittle- tattle. I suggest you go and ask Mr. Hammon
yourself.”
“I have an appointment to see him later today,” she said
with a thin smile, noting a rolled-up copy of that day’s
New
York Times
peeking out from his trash can. “It’s strange—not
a single dealer I have spoken to today seems to have heard of
that fight, or have an opinion as to what it was about.”
“It must have been a private matter.” Wilson perched his
spectacles back on his nose and peered at her impatiently.
“Personally, I find people’s lack of willingness to speculate
on the causes commendable rather than strange.”
This was going nowhere. Jennifer decided on a change of
approach.
“Have you ever been a victim of fraud here, Mr. Wilson?”
“Fraud?” The question seemed to take him by surprise and
his watery gray eyes blinked repeatedly.
“Artistic fraud. Has anyone ever tried to sell you a forg-
ery? Have you perhaps bought one without realizing what it
was at the time?”
“What sort of a question is that?” Wilson asked haughtily,
stepping out from behind his desk and drawing himself up to
his full five feet six—still a few inches shorter than Jennifer.
“What do you mean?”
“I take it you haven’t been working in the art world long?”
“Less than a year,” she admitted icily. His condescending
tone was beginning to rile her, although she comforted her-
self with the thought that he was probably like this with ev-
eryone. Part of her couldn’t help wondering, however, if he
would speak to a man in the same way. Probably not.
“It shows.” He took up a position close to the door as he
spoke, Jennifer taking this as a rather unsubtle attempt to
bring their conversation to an end. “A bit more experience
would have taught you to tread more carefully when using
f-words.”
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“F-words?”