A Cruise to Die For (An Alix London Mystery) (22 page)

“That’s very clever,” Geoff said, and Alix felt that childish swell of pride that no son or daughter ever got old enough to outgrow.

“Thank you, Geoff. I knew there was something wrong, but it sure took me a while to figure out what it was. Listen, basically, I’m calling because I wanted to ask you a question—the two of you, really—”

“It’s interesting,” Geoff said, his tone suggesting that he was off in his own mind. “I can think of only one man in this world who has both the talent and the skills to make a ‘faultless’ copy of the work of a great master—
and
who has an ego big enough to actually think he can
improve
on it.”

Oh, really
? Alix thought.
That’s funny, I can think of two
.

“Weisskopf,” Tiny declared.

“Exactly.”

“Who’s Weisskopf?” Alix asked.

“He’s—” Tiny began.

“He’s an old friend,” Geoff said. “Well, more or less. Let me get in touch with him and see what I can learn—”

“In
touch
with him?” Alix’s voice shot up a notch. “Geoff, doesn’t your parole prohibit you from consorting with felons?”

“
A
,” Geoff said icily, “I am not
on
parole, and the conditions of my
release
make no such stipulation; if they did, I couldn’t associate with Tiny here, could I?”

“Or Frisby either,” said Tiny. “Or—”

“
B
, Christoph Weisskopf is not a felon. A fine fellow, he may have been arrested, oh, once or twice, but to my knowledge, he has never been convicted. And
C
, I can’t say I care for the sound of that word, ‘consort.’ ”

“Sorry, Dad, I apologize. But what could he tell you anyway? He’s not going to admit he forged it, is he?”

“Oh, he forged it, all right.”

“You bet,” Tiny contributed.

“The thing is, though,” Geoff said, “he’s a bit on the secretive side—”

“Really? A forger? My, what a surprise.”

She heard Geoff sigh. “But, employing my celebrated tact and subtlety, I might be able to dig something out for you. I’ll give you a call and we can proceed from there.”

“Oh, listen, though. Instead of calling, how about e-mailing me? It’d be safer.”

The pregnant pause told her she’d made a mistake, as indeed she had. “Safer? Why would it be
unsafe
to call you? Alix, what have you gotten yourself—”

She resorted to her usual strategy when she got herself in a bind: babbling. “Oh, I don’t mean ‘safe’ as in ‘safe,’ but as in ‘I’m more likely to get it.’ You know how hard it is to get cell service in Europe. And if you’re in a boat in the middle of the ocean, well then—”

Tiny unintentionally came to her rescue. “Alix, you said you had a question for us, no?”

“I do, yes. The thing is, this painting has some pretty good backup. Apparently, it’s got at least two credible letters of authentication—”

That brought bouts of laughter from both of them, deep, genuine guffaws of amusement, and Alix understood why. Boiled down to its essentials, a letter of authentication was an evaluation from an art scholar—or someone reputed to be an art scholar, or someone who claimed to be an art scholar, or someone who someone said was an art scholar—and was based on that person’s judgment as to technique, materials, context, subject matter, style, and skill. Their batting average, as far as getting it right went, was probably somewhere around .500: great if you’re a baseball player, not so great in this business. In other words, they often got it wrong, as the two men on the other end of the line would be only too happy to prove to her, based on their own extensive experience.

“Okay, forget that,” she said, “but what about this—the
Laboratoire Forensique Pour l’Art
has run it through their tests and they say it’s the real thing too. Their seal of approval is stamped right on the back.”

“That’s all very well, but you must remember—” Geoff began.

“I know,” Alix said. “You don’t have to tell me. Forensic tests can definitely spot clear-cut fakes. Wrong paint for the time and so on. Or they can say that something—this Manet, for example—checks out; the pigments were indeed the ones used by Manet and his circle, and the backing and the canvas are from the right time and place, and even that the brush strokes are laid on in the way that Manet laid them on. But what they
can’t
say with certainty is that it was Manet himself who painted it—only that they could find no evidence that it
wasn’t
Manet.”

“Exactly,” Geoff said.

“Yes, but the thing is, they found no such evidence. That means that they determined that the materials and techniques
are
consistent with Manet’s, and that it was painted over a hundred years ago. That’s my problem, Geoff. I
know
it’s a fake, a copy of the real thing, but the lab says it was definitely done in the nineteenth century, with the right materials for the time and place. How can that be?”

“Could have been a student copy,” Tiny suggested. “Or hey, how about an early version that Manet himself made, a study for the final painting?”

“No,” Geoff said. “We’ve established that it’s
more
finished than the final painting. Obviously, you wouldn’t find that in a study. So scratch that. We’re dealing with a later copy here.”

Not so obviously
, thought Alix, to whom this helpful perception hadn’t occurred. Tiny was wrong; the old guy was definitely not losing it.

“Well, then, how do you explain it, Geoff? Assuming I’m right, how could the lab get it so wrong?”

“Well, I need to think about that. This
Laboratoire Forensique Pour l’Art—
their tests are the most exhaustive in the business. Thank goodness they never had a go at anything I did,” he said with a smile in his voice. “They really are very, very good.”

“I know, but I’m very good too,” Alix said in a rare fit of braggadocio, “so I repeat: How did
they
manage to get it wrong?”

Geoff laughed. “My goodness, no one can accuse you of false modesty, can they?”

“Yeah, I wonder who I got that from.”

“Look, dear, the truth is, I just might have an inkling of how it could have happened. It’s a bit outlandish, but if anybody could bring it off, Weisskopf would be the man. Let me look into it for you.”

She had heard people talking—Gaby and Emil—in the courtyard outside and thought she’d better finish. “I have to run now—”

“King Minos must want his throne back,” Geoff said. “Give him my warmest regards. Goodbye, then, child. Lovely to talk to you, as always.”

“Same here. Let’s stay in touch. Thank you, Geoff… and thank you, Tiny.”

“
Prego, mia bambola. Ciao.
”

T
he moment she stepped back out into the Central Court—even before she was entirely through the entryway—she winced with embarrassment, regretting that she hadn’t thought to cough or shuffle her feet to let them know she was coming. Gaby and Emil were sitting side by side on a low stone wall, part of the foundation of a building that was no longer there, and it wasn’t that she actually caught them doing anything that either she or they had to be embarrassed about, but the sudden, startled way they sprang apart at her appearance made it obvious that she’d just barely missed it.

The movement took perhaps half a second and didn’t cover much space, but it left no doubt in Alix’s mind that Gaby Papadakis and Emil Varga were lovers.

Yuck
. With Panos for a husband, she really couldn’t fault Gaby for looking for extracurricular companionship—but
Emil
? Carping, shambling, nit-picking Emil? Alix was disappointed. She would have thought the woman had better prospects than that. And better taste.

“Hi, there,” she said brightly. “Didn’t know anybody was out here.”

“Oh, is that Alix? Hi, there!” Gaby said equally brightly, pretending that she didn’t know Alix was pretending. She was flustered, though. Her hands fluttered at her waist and the neckline of her shirt, checking to see how disarranged she might be.

“Hello, Alix,” Emil said rather boldly. He might not have liked being interrupted, but he didn’t in the least mind Alix’s knowing he and Gaby had something going.

Eyes front, Alix kept moving across the courtyard. “See you later, people. I haven’t checked out the buffet yet and I’m starving.”

Alix was telling the truth when she said she was hungry, and she went straight back to the buffet. She was still thinking about Gaby and Emil and the way they’d leapt apart when they’d become aware of her. Could she have jumped to a false conclusion? Well, of course she could have, but with people, as it was with art, if her intellect and her stomach disagreed, she generally put her money on her stomach. Too, she remembered now that she’d sensed a history between Gaby and Mirko as well. Maybe becoming Mrs. Papadakis hadn’t put her old opera-star lifestyle behind her after all.

Interesting to think about, but right now it was the buffet that was on her mind. Three small, linen-topped picnic tables had been set up in the area. One stewardess stood behind the buffet table to assist, and a second stood by, available to serve those who chose to have their dinners there. Panos and Edward, who must have arrived after the others, had their heads together in conversation at one, and Izzy and Lorenzo were dining at the other. That is, Izzy was dining; Lorenzo, with a knife waving alarmingly around in one hand and a fork in the other, was excitedly declaiming away. Alix heard only a few snatches—“… Even Frege’s propositional functions cannot…,” “… Yes, but only if one considers the performative function of language as separate from…,” “I don’t have to tell you what Wittgenstein would say about that, ah-ha-ha”—but they were more than enough to dissuade her from joining them. The third table was occupied by Mirko, who had unsurprisingly arranged himself so that he was as far from the others as possible and facing away from them. Alix wasn’t about to intrude on his privacy.

It was Ted she was hoping to find, of course, and there he was, near the buffet table, looking as if he were thinking about joining Panos and
Edward for a little undercover legwork, but was perhaps doubtful about seeming too pushy too soon. When he spotted Alix, he smiled and waved her over. He looked pleased to see her, but with Ted in undercover mode, you never knew if it was all part of the act or not.

“Hey, Alix.”

“Oh, hi… Rollie.” She couldn’t believe it; she’d come within a millisecond of calling him “Ted.” She’d practically had to bite her tongue to stop herself. One more indication that maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t quite as ready for this kind of work as she thought she was. Well, she’d make sure that didn’t happen again.

“Alix, what do you say we grab a couple of dinners and find some place where we can sit down and do some catching up?”

“Sure, Rollie.” Smoother that time. “Love to.”

The smiling stewardess behind the buffet table (Did they ever stop smiling?) provided them each with a handsome, over-the-shoulder canvas satchel trimmed with leather and embroidered with a tiny
Artemis
logo in the usual Prussian blue. “If you could bring back whatever is left, it would be appreciated. Or, if you prefer, simply let me know where to find it. The satchels themselves are yours to keep, of course. They’re specially made for us by Balenciaga.”

Alix laughed, and when Ted looked quizzically at her, she shook her head. “Nothing.” The thought that had popped into her mind was
How nice for Mirko, the Homeless Billionaire. Now he won’t have to use a paper bag anymore.

With their satchels they wandered away from the others, with Alix steering them clear of the Central Court.

“Ted—”

“Rollie,” he corrected with a smile of patient endurance.

But Alix was in no mood to be endured. “
Rollie
,” she said crossly, “don’t you think you could have warned me you were coming? I mean, really, if this is the way—”

“Warn you? I tried to call you three times yesterday and Jamie tried twice.”

Oops
. “Oh, those were from you?” she said lamely.

“You might want to try checking your messages every now and then.”