Chasing Cezanne (9 page)

But sleep for Camilla was some way off. She was drowsily aware of the conversation coming to an end, and then felt the soft, insistent touch of Holtz's hands on her body, turning her toward him. She looked down at the top of his head; somehow he was still short, even when horizontal.
The hands persisted. Camilla gave in to the inevitable and sighed, moving her injured toe as far as possible from the risk of collision with Holtz's scrabbling feet.

Andre looked back through the rear window of the cab as the striped barrier swung down to guard Cooper Cay against invasion by the common herd. It was a perfect, shining morning, the flowers vivid against tropical green, the groundskeepers sweeping and clipping so that residents might be spared the horrors of seeing a fallen leaf or a dead bloom. He slumped down in the seat, nursing his disappointment, feeling as though he had spent the last twenty-four hours wasting his time.

Denoyer could hardly have been more charming or, for most of the evening, more relaxed. Far from reacting to the photographs with the astonished concern that Andre had expected, he appeared to have been more interested in the state of his garden than in the Cézanne. There had been only one revealing moment, and that only a sudden, puzzled frown when he'd seen the van, but recovery had been almost instantaneous. The plumber was an old
copain
of Claude's, he said, who often ran errands. The Cézanne was occasionally lent to a friend's gallery in Cannes. That must explain it, Denoyer had said, although he would certainly have a word with Claude about the casual method of transportation. And that had been that. Denoyer had been effusive in his gratitude for Andre's
concern and had insisted on paying for his stay at the clubhouse. But the evening—indeed, the whole trip—had been an anticlimax.

There was some small consolation that afternoon when he reached New York to find that the thaw had continued and the sidewalk outside his building was no longer an ice rink. As he climbed the stairs to his apartment, he decided that he needed cheering up and, with thoughts of Lucy and dinner in mind, unlocked his door and made for the phone. He was halfway across the room before he stopped short and took in the chaos spread around him.

Every one of the cartons had been opened and upended. Books, pictures, clothes, souvenirs from trips, were strewn in muddled heaps across the floor and against the wall, as though flung by violent, angry hands. Andre walked over to his worktable, the harsh crackle of broken glass under his feet. The filing cabinets where he kept all his transparencies, organized by year and country, were open and empty. Next to them, the equipment storage closet had been stripped of everything except a collapsible tripod and an old plate camera he had been meaning to have restored. His other cameras, his lenses, his filters, his lighting gear, and the custom-made bags to carry them in were all gone. He went through to the galley kitchen, opened the fridge, and saw, without great surprise, that they had taken every roll of film. Welcome back to New York, home of the thorough thief.

In his bedroom, he found drawers sagging open, closets bare, clothes tossed everywhere, the mattress pulled
from the bed. He felt stunned, numb. The outrage, the sense of being violated, would come later. Picking his way through the debris of his possessions, he perched on the stool at his worktable and began to make the calls that had to be made.

The police: polite, but weary. This was one of several hundred criminal incidents that had taken place in the city since the weekend, and on a list headed by homicides, rapes, overdoses, and the start of the hunting season in the subway, petty larceny ranked low. If Andre would like to bring the details into the precinct house, the burglary would be officially recorded. And there, barring an extraordinarily lucky break, the file would gather dust. Andre was advised to change his locks.

The insurance company: instantly defensive, with the professional skepticism and the barrage of fine-print questions that provide such comfort in times of crisis and misfortune. Were all doors and windows locked? Was the alarm system set? Did Andre possess all the required paperwork—receipts, dates of purchase, serial numbers, estimated replacement costs? No action could be taken without this crucial information. Meanwhile, he was advised to change his locks. As Andre hung up, he remembered the company's advertising slogan, delivered at the end of every commercial by a voice dripping with saccharine sincerity: something about a friend in need.

Lucy: and finally some sympathy. She told him she would be there as soon as she had closed up the office.

She stood in the living room surveying the wreckage,
her face tight with dismay and anger. She was wearing the beret he had bought her in Nice. It was the best thing he had seen all day, and it made him smile.

“It suits you, Lulu. I think I'll get you a bike and a string of onions to go with it.”

She took it off and shook her hair. “If you're going to be all manly and brave, I'm not going to take you out to dinner. Lord God, what a mess.”

They started in the bedroom, Lucy quick and deft as she folded clothes, hung them up, or consigned them to the laundry basket. After seeing Andre's labored efforts with a sweater, she sent him off to the living room, hoping his domestic education had at least included lessons on how to operate a broom. Without thinking, he picked out a Marley CD and put it on, and it wasn't until he turned away from the stereo that something struck him as very odd: There shouldn't have been a stereo. Why hadn't it gone with everything else? And then, as he started to sweep up the shards of broken glass, he went over what had been taken; or, rather, what hadn't: not the stereo, not the TV, not the shortwave bedside radio, not the mobile phone, not even the half-dozen silver Art Nouveau photograph frames that were now lying on the floor beneath the shelf where they normally stood. It didn't make sense, unless the burglars were planning to set up as professional photographers. But if all they wanted was equipment, why take his transparencies? Why take his stock of film from the fridge? Why tear the place apart? What were they looking for?

Two hours later, although a semblance of order had returned to the apartment, Lucy showed no signs of slowing down; nor of hunger or thirst, both of which were starting to distract Andre from his household duties. He stopped her as she came across the room balancing a stack of books that reached up to her chin.

“Enough, Lulu, enough.” He took the books from her and put them down. “You said something about dinner, or are you having too much fun to stop?”

Lucy put her hands on her hips and eased her back. “Well, it'll do for tonight. Do you have a maid service?”

“What?”

“No, I thought not. I'll get someone over tomorrow. The place could do with a good scrub. So could the windows. Have those windows ever been cleaned? And Andre? Yogurt doesn't last forever, even in a fridge. When it starts to glow in the dark, you get rid of it, OK?”

Andre suddenly had the feeling—a strange but pleasant feeling—that part of his personal life was coming under new management. He helped Lucy on with her coat. She picked up her beret and looked around the room. “You don't have any mirrors here, do you?” She tucked her hair in the beret, tilting it steeply over one eye, and caught him smiling at her. “This isn't how they wear them in France?”

“No. But they should.”

Lucy took him to what she called her local, a small, warm, noisy restaurant on Duane Street. Mount Gay rum, Red Stripe beer, a Jamaican chef with an Italian wife.
Both sides of the marriage were represented on the short menu.

Lucy sipped her rum. “I'm sorry about what happened.”

“There's something about it I don't understand.” Andre leaned forward, looking into his glass while he spoke. “They weren't interested in stuff they could sell on the street in five minutes. Just cameras—cameras and my shot files. My work. That's all they wanted. And they were pros. Didn't have to break the door down, knew how to cut off the alarm.” He looked up. “Pros, Lulu. But why me? I mean, photographs of houses, furniture, pictures—it's not as if there's anything they could sell to the
Enquirer
. The only nudes are in the paintings.”

The chef's wife squeezed her ample body through the tables to take their orders, kissing the tips of her fingers when Lucy ordered the jerk chicken and nodding with approval at Andre's choice of seafood risotto. “I choose the wine for you, eh? A nice Jamaican Orvieto.” She cackled, and waddled off to the kitchen.

Lucy grinned. “Don't look so disapproving and French. Angelica knows best. Now go back a bit, tell me about your trip.”

Andre went through it, trying his best to keep the account factual, watching Lucy's face for reactions. She had that most attractive quality in a listener, complete and serious attention, and he barely noticed the arrival of Angelica with the food and wine. They sat back to give her space to put down the plates.

“
Basta,
” said Angelica. “Enough romance. Eat.”

For the first few minutes they ate in silence. Lucy paused to take some wine. “You're right,” she said. “It doesn't make sense, unless someone just wanted to make a mess of your work.” She shook her head. “Do you know anyone who has a grudge against you? You know, in business?”

“Not that I can think of. But why would they want my old transparencies? There's nothing they could sell. And why would they take the whole place apart?”

“Looking for something, maybe. I don't know … something you'd hidden.”

Angelica loomed over them. “How is everything?” She picked up the wine bottle and filled their glasses. “Your first time here?” she said to Andre.

He smiled at her and nodded. “Very good.”

“
Bene
. Make sure she eats. She's too thin.” Angelica moved away from the table, massaging her stomach with a chubby hand.

They ate and talked, avoiding any more theories about the burglary, slipping gradually from business gossip into an exchange of likes and dislikes, hopes and ambitions, the small revelations of two people feeling their way toward knowing each other. The restaurant was almost empty by the time they finished coffee, and when they went out on the street there was a damp chill in the air. Lucy shivered, tucking a hand under Andre's arm as they walked to the corner of Duane and West Broadway. He waved down a cab, and for the first time that evening there was a tentative, slightly awkward moment.

Lucy opened the cab door. “Promise me you won't do any housework when you get home.”

“Thanks for everything, Lulu. Dinner was lovely. Almost worth getting robbed.”

She stood on tiptoe and kissed the end of his nose. “Change your locks, OK?” And then she was gone.

He stood watching the cab's back lights blend into a hundred others, feeling surprisingly happy for a newly burgled man.

FLURRY reigned at the Madison Avenue offices of
DQ
, which were even more overwrought than usual as the latest issue was being put to bed. Camilla's plans had been turned upside down—completely
bouleversés
, as she said—by the unsolicited submission of an article on decorative bidets of the famous, accompanied by some simply ravishing pictures taken by a promising young Parisian photographer. Rarely had hygienic porcelain looked so rich, so sculptural, so much a part of today's well-dressed bathroom—and the end of winter was such a perfect time for readers to be reviewing their sanitary requirements. At the editorial conference, it was generally agreed that this was groundbreaking material, possibly even a first in magazine history. Also, as Camilla was quick to point out, there was the added cachet provided by the celebrated owners of the bidets. They were nowhere to be seen in the photographs, for obvious reasons. Nevertheless, they had granted permission for their names to be used. It was too good to pass up.

But the issue was already full, and one of the scheduled
features would have to be dropped. Camilla stalked back and forth in the conference room beside the long table on which the dummy page spreads were laid out. She was shadowed, as always, by her junior secretary, notepad poised, and watched by the art director, the fabrics editor, the furniture editor, the accessories editor, and a flock of young assistant editors, looking like a row of solemn black-clad pixies.

Camilla came to a stop, nibbling her lower lip. She couldn't bring herself to defer the piece on the Duchess of Pignolata-Strufoli's medieval folly in Umbria, or the other major feature, which was the elaborate conversion by a dear little Swiss billionaire of a nunnery in the Dordogne. The social repercussions of a postponement might be awkward and could easily jeopardize the summer invitations that had been extended to her. Finally, she came to a decision. In the manner of a fairy exercising the vanishing powers of her wand, she tapped three of the dummy spreads with her Montblanc pen. “I hate to see these go,” she said, “but icons are
completely
timeless, and bidets are somehow such a spring thing. We'll have the icons in the summer.”