Shooting Gallery (19 page)

 

“Stop asking questions,”
a sinister voice growled when I answered my cell phone. I let my mother into my apartment and lingered on the landing, prepared to deal harshly with a certain Bosnian friend of mine who adored sophomoric jokes.

“Pete, is that you?” I demanded. “Stop fooling around.”

There was a pause.

“It's not Pete,”
the voice said, and I thought I detected a slight Spanish accent.

“Then who is it?” My heart started to pound as I realized this might be an actual threat. That sort of thing rarely happened to faux finishers.

“What is this about?” I was scared but also a little angry. “Have the guts to identify yourself.”

“You know what this is about,”
the voice replied.
“And little girls shouldn't be so rude.”

A bully
and
a sexist. Could it be Pascal? “If I knew what you were talking about, I wouldn't ask.”

“Fuck off,”
the voice whispered fiercely, and the line went dead.

Now, that sounded like Pascal, but I was sure it was not his voice. Besides, he was not the only jerk in the world who swore like a sailor. My cell phone indicated the telephone number was “not available” and when I hit “return call,” nothing happened. Could it have been Carlos? Threatening phone calls seemed out of character for him, but then again so did stealing. How well did I know the man, after all?

I heard my mother bustling about the apartment as she packed for her trip and prepared for bed. I enjoyed her company, but this time I would be glad to see Mom head home.

Speaking of which—promises to one's mother be damned, Professor Harold Kincaid needed to know what was going on. What if Asco were not as safe as I'd been assuming? What if the mystery caller had intended to threaten her but called me because her cell phone's battery was dead?

I dialed my father but disconnected before it rang. Was I prepared to provoke a crisis in my parents' forty-year marriage? From what little Mom had told me, her affair with Seamus McGraw, or whatever it was, had been over years ago. So what was I going to say? “Hi, Dad—it's Annie. Listen, I think you should know that Mom was up to something with some sculptor guy who's now dead. No, I don't know anything more. No, I don't know why she hasn't told you. No, I guess I don't know anything really. Good talkin' to you!”

That would not be helpful.

I knew one thing, though: My mother had impeccable table manners. She would not have spat her tea across the table tonight unless the name Francine Maggio meant something to her. And I was going to find out what that was.

Taking a chance that it was not too late for a social call, I reached into my wallet and found the number Bryan had given me earlier. A cultured voice answered, and Francine Maggio suggested I come for tea tomorrow at four o'clock. I felt a bit skittish going alone—for all I knew the jilted lover of a suicidal sculptor was wanted in three states for feeding strychnine-laced scones to nosy strangers—and asked if I could bring Bryan along.

When I finally entered the apartment I found my mother tucked into her futon bed with a steaming mug of herb tea and a thick paperback book.

“Everything all right, dear?” she called out.

“Yeah, sure, Mom. I was just chatting with Bryan.”

“That Bryan's such a nice man,” she said. “So steady and reliable.”

“He's a peach all right. Can I get you anything?”

“No, thank you. I'm just going to curl up with my tea and Maeve Binchy, and get some sleep. I've got a long trip ahead of me tomorrow.”

Asco was a college town in the heart of California's great Central Valley, three hours away and straight up I-5, a freeway so flat it might have been engineered by a kindergartner. A native Californian would not think twice about making the drive. But Beverly LeFleur Kincaid had grown up in Paris, where an automobile was a luxury. She had gotten her driver's license in her midthirties and had never become comfortable behind the wheel.

“I'll say good night, then,” I said, kissing her soft cheek.

“Good night, darling,” she replied, hugging me tightly. “And, Annie—please trust that I know what I'm doing. Stay away from Robert Pascal.”

I gave her a noncommittal smile, walked down the short hall to my bedroom, changed into an oversized football jersey, and flipped on my secondhand thirteen-inch TV. I had extended the reach of the rabbit ears antenna with bits of twisted aluminum foil but still received only two and a half channels, none of which was showing anything remotely interesting tonight. At last I popped in an old Hitchcock movie and drifted off to sleep.

 

Twelve hours later I staggered down the hall to find that my mother had departed. She left a note near my coffee mug thanking me for my hospitality and urging me yet again to reconsider joining the family for Thanksgiving. She had also cleaned out the refrigerator and scrubbed the kitchen until it sparkled.

I brewed coffee, heated up last night's Vietnamese food, sat at my kitchen table, and munched as I mulled over yesterday's phone messages. Was the fair Evangeline somehow connected to last night's threatening phone call? How was I supposed to call her when she hadn't left a number? Just for the heck of it I dialed Pascal's studio.

No answer.

I took another bite of fragrant rice. Evangeline's message had sounded urgent. As much as I disliked the idea, I would have to swing by Pascal's studio one last time and hope she answered the door.

Also on today's itinerary was a trip to Marble World, a marble and granite warehouse south of San Francisco in Burlingame. Reluctant as I was to make time for actual work-related activities, I was a week late ordering stone for a Beaux Arts home remodel that had evolved into the Monster that Ate Pacific Heights. The general contractor had left several increasingly frantic messages on my business phone and I hated to hear a grown man cry.

I rinsed my dish and trudged down the hall to dress. As I pulled on my trusty overalls, I felt something hard in one of the pockets. It was the chunk of marble I had swiped from Pascal's studio. Creamy white and beige, with a few streaks and splotches, it looked like a million other pieces of marble. Turning it over, I stroked its rough, cool surface. Why would Pascal make a copy of
Head and Torso
? And if he had, was it any business of mine?

The weather today matched my mood—dreary and overcast, with a decidedly autumnal chill. San Francisco was always colder than Oakland, flanked as it was by the Pacific on one side and the Bay on the other, so I grabbed my navy blue wool pea coat as I ran out the door, stopped for a tank of some of the priciest gas in the nation, fought my way across the crowded Bay Bridge, and headed south on the Bayshore Freeway. Ten minutes later San Francisco International Airport appeared on the left, and shortly thereafter I pulled off the freeway and headed toward a group of cinderblock buildings huddled on the edge of the Bay.

Marble World was a vast and undistinguished warehouse, a discreet sign on the front door the only indication that it imported stone rather than medical supplies or rubber flip-flops from Thailand.

I was climbing out of the truck when I spotted a contractor I knew emerging from the freight entrance. Josh Reynolds had been assigned to my volunteer crew last winter for Community Builders, a local do-good organization that fixed up the houses of elderly and disabled homeowners. Josh lived with a big brown dog named Mac in a house he had built himself in the woodsy Berkeley hills. With his longish sandy blond hair, tie-dyed T-shirt, and gold stud earring, he was an unrepentant hippie with the ripped physique of a construction worker, and even on a hot day, dripping with sweat, he always smelled delicious.

Distracted by this vision of masculine pulchritude, I tripped on the curb and nearly sprawled on the blacktop. Strong, tanned hands grabbed me by the upper arms to steady me.

“Hey there, boss lady,” Josh said, concern written across his handsome face. “You okay?”

“Fine, thanks. Do I know how to make an entrance, or what?”

“I was thinking about you the other day,” he said with a smile.

“Really?” Josh had been thinking about
me
?

“I was having lunch at the Chambers café. Did you do the mural there, the Tuscan vineyard scene with the dancing harlequins?”

“Sure did,” I said, flattered that he recognized my work.

“Your style is distinctive,” Josh said, and nodded toward the warehouse. “I was helping a client pick out some slate for a patio. How 'bout you?”

“I'm looking for stone for a Beaux Arts palace in the City,” I replied, my senses acutely aware of how close we were standing. Josh's straightforward sweetness had always been alluring, especially when compared to such complicated men as Michael and Frank. And then, too, there was that gorgeous body.

“I like the Beaux Arts style,” he said with a lazy smile. “Gloria's got some new blue granite from Brazil. Check it out; it's gorgeous.”

“I sure will! I
love
the blues!” I realized I was babbling. “I mean, it sounds good.”

Josh leaned against the nose of his dusty truck and crossed tanned arms over a broad, muscular chest. In his well-worn jeans and leather work boots, Josh looked like an ad for the kind of cigarettes only the manliest of manly men smoked before coughing to death from lung cancer.

“So, how've you been?” he asked. “The last time we talked you'd had a bit of an adventure. Something involving the Brock Museum?”

“Yeah, well, usually my life's not that exciting,” I said, dodging the question. My name had made the papers in connection with the Caravaggio fiasco, increasing my fame, or my infamy, more than I cared to think about.

“Guess you artists lead pretty interesting lives, huh?”

“Well, you know how it is.” I shrugged.
You have no idea
, I thought.

“Get out much these days?”

“Out? You mean . . . Oh, um, no. Not really.” Did he just ask what I think he just asked?

“Me neither.”

“No? I thought you were with Misty? Cindy? Glinda?”

Last spring Josh had brought his girlfriend to the Community Builders project. A curvy, petulant blonde, she'd looked delectable in her teeny T-shirt and form-fitting overalls. Since she had no skills, other than the obvious, I sent her to work in the garden, where she lasted all of ten minutes before flopping down in the shade of a tree and nursing a wee blister.

We didn't exactly hit it off.

“‘Glinda'?” Josh asked. “Wasn't she a witch in
The Wizard of Oz
?”

Oops. Now he was going to think I was a rhymes-with-witch. Which I probably was, though not on purpose. Which could be worse. Maybe it was just as well there was no romance in my foreseeable future, I sighed. I probably should not be allowed to reproduce.

“Yeah, but Glinda was the
good
witch.”

“That's right. Anyway, we broke up last summer.”

“Oh? I'm, uh, sorry.” Not hardly.

“It was time. Past time, in fact.” Josh watched the sail-boats skimming across the whitecaps on the bay before turning his beautiful blue gaze on me. “Annie, I was wondering . . . Would you like to have dinner sometime? Maybe catch a movie?”

I was suddenly, deeply, and profoundly grateful that I had taken the time to comb my hair this morning. “That would be
great
.”

“How about this week? I'm working in a soup kitchen Thanksgiving morning and going to my sister's house in Concord for dinner. But I'll be home after that. Or, if you don't have plans for Thanksgiving, you'd be welcome to join us.”

Have Thanksgiving dinner with a hunky contractor instead of with my mysterious mother, my absentminded father, my clueless ex-fiancé and his plastic new wife? All my decisions should be this hard.

“We're pretty informal,” Josh assured me. “They tease me about being a vegetarian and I tease them about watching football, and we all eat too much and play with the dogs and the kids. Not too exciting, I guess.”

“Sounds like it's just my speed, actually,” I said, delighted. “Can I bring anything?”

“Nope, we've got it covered. Why don't I swing by your place around three thirty? That should get us there in plenty of time. Let me just get your info.”

He scribbled my home address and phone numbers on the back of one of my business cards. Josh had my “info.” Had I been thirteen I would have giggled.

“Okeydoke,” I said, and winced. Maybe I
was
thirteen.

“Stay out of trouble, now,” Josh said with a wink and climbed into his truck.

I shot him a look. What did he mean by that?
Calm down, Annie
, I scolded myself as I waved good-bye.
It's just an expression.

Sure, it was easy for Josh to say stay out of trouble, I groused as I entered the warehouse.
He
probably never had to protect multimillion-dollar Picassos from sexy art thieves, or hold out-of-control stakeouts in the hallways of recalcitrant sculptors, or help his grandfather the art forger evade Interpol.

The receptionist smiled and waved me towards Gloria Cabrera's office. Although Gloria looked scarcely thirty, with a plump physique and bountiful dark hair, she had celebrated turning what she called “the big four oh” last summer with a barbeque for her biggest clients and a few hangers-on like me. Gloria knew stone the way Ben & Jerry knew ice cream, and if the shiny new Mercedes convertible in her parking spot were any indication, the stone business was booming.