Frame Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 5) (32 page)

“Yes, but…”

“This is my mother.”

Silence.

Then the ring of guards opened, and the three of them were led to a small stone bench, which faced two metal chairs.

They sat, now some distance from the parade of prisoners being loaded before them.

“What are you doing here, Nina? Michael? How did you get here?”

Nina found that she could not speak, and so Michael was the one who held forth.

“You have to know, Carol. Nina came here because she wanted to.”

“But how…”

“I found out what was going on. I still have a few contacts. One of them told me that you’d been taken out of Bay St. Lucy. I went to Nina’s place and explained everything we’d done. The way the paintings had been smuggled. Everything.”

“But…”

“I told Nina I had a plan for getting you out of here.”

“What plan?”

“I still have several paintings hidden away. I want to talk to Lorca Reklaw. If he’ll let you go, I’ll tell him where the paintings are.”

“But don’t you think he’ll kill you after he gets them?”

“It doesn’t really matter. I don’t want to live my life in hiding.”

“But…but Nina, what are you doing here?”

“Nina refused to stay in Bay St. Lucy, knowing that you were being held here.”

“Oh, Nina. Nina, my second mother…”

“We’ll get you out of this, Carol. We’ll talk to this man Red Claw. We’ll get you out, I promise.”

“Nina, what makes you think he’s going to let you leave Eggenburg?”

“He has to.”

“Why? Why does he have to?”

“Because if he doesn’t, he’ll have Moon Rivard to deal with.”

“Oh, Nina! Nina, I’m so sorry I got you into this!”

“It’s all right.”

“No. No, I’m an idiot! I thought it would all be all right. That I could do everything I planned to do

Carol was crying now.

Nina was crying, too.

No one could speak.

And as they watched, Beckmeier was led from the building.

He wore all white, as though he were on safari.

His hair was unkempt and wild, as were his eyes.

“Let me go, you swine! I’ll have you shot!”

He was able, of course, to have no one shot, being a prisoner himself, in the center of a group of armed men, each of whom seemed a foot taller than he himself was.

“You thieves! You all should have been killed in the war! We should have burned all of you!”

And then, as she watched the scene unfold in front of her, Nina finally realized what the things that had appeared like oil drums being rolled into the building really were.

They were gasoline drums.

Beckmeier would be forced to look on, as his palace, Eggenburg, was burned to the ground.

And farther on, beyond the line of ‘operatives,’ or smugglers, this line of people who would have become instantly wealthy for doing no more than take part, comfortably, in a private and illegal re-distribution of the world’s art treasures, continued to be herded into the dark, featureless trucks that were to transport them.

But transport them where?

Carol looked at the same scene and whispered, as much to herself as to Nina and Michael:

“That’s what it must have been like.”

Nina found that she could, in fact, speak, though hardly above a raspy whisper:

“What, Carol? What must have been like?”

Carol’s gaze seemed to contain no fear at all, but only visualization of something that was not really there, that had happened half a century ago:

“The razing of the ghettos. Poland. France. Everywhere. All the buildings burned. Probably at midnight, just like now. The people who’d lived there, who’d been happy there, forced to look on. Then the flames. Women screaming while their possessions, their treasures, burned up in front of their eyes.”

“Carol…”

“And then the thing that had to follow, of course. Follow as the night the day. The ultimate solution. All of the people, uncertain what was going to happen to them—herded into great trucks, like cattle, to be gassed to death. Gassed to death by the millions. By the tens of millions.”

Then she was silent.

All of them continued to watch.

The last of the people had now disappeared into the last of the trucks.

“Nina. Michael.”

“Oh, Carol, maybe you could…maybe if we could…”

And Carol smiled:

“You’re the bravest two people in the world. The very bravest. I’ll never forget you. Whatever happens, throughout all of time, all of eternity…I’ll never forget you. Either of you.”

“Carol…”

“And Michael, it’s all forgiven. Just one thing. Just one thing, I can never forgive you for.”

Michael stepped toward her; she embraced him.

He asked:

“What?”

“What you said about my breasts.”

Insanely, they were laughing then. He asked:

“What breasts?”

And they continued to laugh.

The hatched-faced man stepped close to them and said:

“All right. But now is time.”

Carol nodded:

“Good. Just, just one more thing: listen, the two of you. They will put you both in the same car, I know.”

“But,” said Nina, “can’t you…”

Carol shook her head:

“No. That’s not possible. I know that. It’s not possible. We part now. But know this: it will be all right.
You
will be all right. Just remember, Nina, what I told you a long time ago. At least it seems a long time ago now, looking back. Just remember, it’s the same thing in life as it is in paintings. Always look below what you see on the surface. Look at the painting underneath, at the
real
painting. Don’t believe, ever, what seems to be true. Look at what is really true. Now good bye, and know how much I will always love both of you!”

And with that, she was gone.

Somehow, she simply disappeared into the crowd of soldiers.

Nina and Michael allowed themselves to be led toward the last of the trucks.

They walked carefully up a wooden ramp that led into the back of it, where two other of Nina’s ‘customers’ were holding hands and sobbing.

Nina looked around.

She could see flames starting to pour out of the upper windows of the palace.

Then a tarp was thrown over the back of the transport, and the truck pulled away.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO: DREAMING IN THE ERZHERZOG JOHANN

She was aware of several things simultaneously as she and Michael huddled together in the back corner of the truck. There was the warmth of his small hand in hers, and the somehow supportive sound of his breathing, which seemed to mask the sobs of the three groups of people also riding with them.

But there was also a memory of Carol’s face, and the sound of her voice:

“Know this: it will be all right.
You
will be all right.”

And:

“Always remember: look beneath the surface of the painting.”

What was she talking about?

All right. She, Nina Bannister, had been made a complete fool of. Had been vain enough to believe that her own silly paintings could be worth money, and had been for weeks on end unaware that those same paintings had masked invaluable art treasures: Rembrandts, Van Goghs, Monets…

But there was something else.

There was another painting that was deceiving her.

Think, Nina
.

Think
.

What is the painting you’re looking at, have been looking at, have been for all this time misperceiving…

…and what is the real painting underneath?

For had not Carol been trying to tell her only minutes ago what Jane Austen had been telling her for a lifetime?

‘A mind lively and at ease can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.’

Her mind had been lively for these past months.

But it had also been at ease.

It had been quite satisfied to see nothing at all.

And it had seen nothing that did not conform to her preconceived notions.

Where was the real painting, Nina?

And how could it be uncovered?

Thinking these things, listening to gentle sobbing, feeling the warmth of Michael’s hand, being aware of a popping in her ears as the truck rolled upward into mountainous terrain, and feeling absolutely confident that Carol had been right, and that there was nothing to fear…

she drifted off to sleep.

She awoke some hours later.

All of the people in the back of the truck were asleep.

Sunlight was filtering through the cracks between the tarp and the truck’s frame.

She looked at the watch: seven fifty-five.

They’d all slept through the night.

And, as she became aware of these things, the tarp was pulled back.

Light came flooding in, and they all awakened at the same time.

“What…”

Michael stirred, rubbed his eyes, leaned forward, and peered over her.

There were eight other people doing the same thing: rubbing eyes, stretching…

Two men were standing outside the truck, peering in at them, and smiling.

They were workmen, dressed in the dark blue uniform of city sanitation people.

“Heraus! Heraus mit euch!”

“Michael?”

He shook his head:

“They’re telling us to get out of the truck.”

“But…”

“It’s ok. They’re not soldiers. They’ve got brooms, not guns.”

Nina rose, feeling as though her joints had rusted. She followed Michael over the floor of the truck, waited for the other people to disembark, and somehow got down onto the pavement, which was moist with patches of now-melting snow.

She looked around.

They were back in Graz.

The truck was parked squarely on what she remembered to be Hauptplatz.

The main square.

She looked at Michael.

He was peering around the same as she was.

Some of the other people who’d ridden with them—and who clearly had not been harmed and so were hugging each other and laughing—were asking questions of the workers, and were getting only shrugs and grins.

“These workers,” Michael said, quietly, “don’t know anything. They say they found the truck parked here. It was here at sunup, they think. They have no idea where it came from.”

“So we…”

“Let’s go into the hotel. We go to my room. Perhaps there, we make some sense of this whole thing.”

They crossed the square.

The hotel looked just as it had yesterday, when the limousine which met her plane at The Graz Airport dropped her off there.

She looked at the city waking up around her, sparkling in the sun.

All that had happened since…it was like a dream.

She found herself repeating the lines:

If we shadows have offended

Think but this—and all is mended—

That you have but slumbered here,

While these visions did appear.

And this weak and idle theme

No more yielding, but a dream.

They walked into the hotel.

Michael went to the desk to get the room key.

“Hola! Ms. Bannister?”

This from a tall blond woman who’d apparently been seated in the hotel’s coffee shop.

“Ms. Bannister?”

The woman approached, with a large manila envelope clutched in her hands.

“Are you Ms. Nina Bannister?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Gertrude Henninger.”

The woman reminded Nina, surprisingly, of Margot Gavin. True, she wore an impeccably tailored business suit and not a Kandinsky abstract, and, true, her hair was straw blonde and not silver, and, true, it was well combed and not wildly displaced.

But she was at least as tall as Margot.

That was something, in itself.

“I must tell you, our office in Vienna has received a phone call only a little over an hour ago.”

Office in Vienna.

Interpol?

What actually
was
Interpol, anyway?

Whatever was going on, this woman had to represent the police in some way.

They were being arrested.

That was not so bad.

At least they were alive.

At least the Red Claw had let them live.

Or so it seemed.

The woman continued:

“Yes. The call came directly to our director, at her home. It was quite urgent.”

“I’m sorry…I don’t…”

“A great deal of money was involved…was transferred to us…but we were told you’d be arriving at this hotel shortly before eight o’clock. And that the trip should be planned by then. And the itinerary given to you.”

“The itinerary?”

“Yes. And that’s what I’ve brought here, to give to you.”

The international smuggling police were giving her an itinerary?

How many prisons was she going to?

“I’m sorry. I still don’t understand. Your office…”

“Yes. We are the largest in Austria. We have representatives in all major Austrian cities. I have the honor to be the president of our branch here in Graz. Here. Please accept my card. It’s written in English.”

She took the business card and read it:

Gertrude Henninger

Sales Representative

International Travel Bureau

“You’re a travel agent?”

Gertrude Henninger beamed:

“Yes! And we hope the trip we have laid out for you will be satisfactory!”

“The trip?”

“We’ve booked you for four days in Vienna. Then three in Salzburg. Two more in Innsbruck. And finally you come back here to Graz. The hotels are the best available. There are also opera performances. We had little time to prepare of course, but…”

“I can’t afford all of this.”

“Oh, it has all been prepaid!”

“By..”

A shake of the head.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know that. My director merely said that I was to tell you, it was a gift.”

“A gift.”

“Yes. You have a great admirer. But…I see that your young man friend is waiting for you.”

And Michael Gellert was, in fact, standing at the base of the stairway, room key in hand.

“Our office is on the Sackstrasse. After you have breakfasted, you might perhaps come by? We can talk more of the details!”

“Yes. Yes, of course.”

And the woman turned and left.

Michael was waiting for her.

“Who was that?”

“A travel agent.”

“A what?”

“A travel agent.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“None of this makes sense. It’s more and more like we dreamed it. I don’t know what else to think. The castle last night, all those flames coming out of it, those terrified people being led out and herded into cattle carriers; Beckmeier, shouting and railing, the guards, the machine guns—and before that the tavern, and the charnel house, and the tunnel leading down to the lake…”

“…all of these things happened, Nina.”

“They couldn’t have. Look around us. Look at the people coming and going, doing business as usual. It’s as though it was all just a part of our imagination. No more yielding, but a dream.”

But the guns
, she thought, as they climbed the stairs,
had been no dream.

Nor had the paintings.

Where were the paintings now?

And where was Carol?

She walked up the stairs, a step behind Michael, looking down into the vine-enshrouded atrium below, as she did so, letting her palm—which was already becoming sweaty—run along the grillwork stair rail, and seeing her own door grow larger as she approached it.