Full Circle (27 page)

—but leaving him the helpless hostage to his one mistake from which there was no salvation: the sin of pride, of arrogance.

When it became necessary, without a second thought, he’d often operated beyond the law, above the law. Three times he’d ordered assassinations, one of them a minister of trade. Therefore, almost on a whim, knowing full well that it had been stolen, he’d acquired
Seascape at Trouville.
He’d been sixty years old. Experience had immunized him to most temptations. But, from the very beginning, contemplating
Seascape at Trouville,
he’d been aware of the age-old lure of forbidden pleasures. Alone with
Seascape At Trouville,
he somehow felt himself in touch with the essence of himself. Finally he’d found a possession that fully engaged him, confirmed his own true power, his own transcendent mastery. And, with each surreptitious acquisition of stolen art, the fatal attraction had taken a stronger hold on whatever wayward tendril of his psyche had somehow escaped the domination of his rigid self-discipline. In his seventh decade, he’d been hooked. The concealed chamber was the logical result of the fixation—and ultimately his undoing. The concealed chamber, the symbol of his addiction, had—

In the doorway a small, trim, dark-haired woman materialized, and behind her Alan Bernhardt. With an effort DuBois nodded, at the same time willing the unparalyzed half of his face to lift in a smile of welcome.

“Come, sit beside me,” he said. Then, lifting his right arm in a gesture to Bernhardt: “You may wait in Grace’s office.”

Bernhardt nodded, smiled, turned away. DuBois watched the woman as she came toward him across the deck. Ready for work, she was dressed in blue jeans, a light poplin jacket, white running shoes, and a plaid madras blouse under the jacket. Her dark eyes moved calmly, perceptively; her stride was confident and controlled, her manner composed. Her smile was cordial, neither too sympathetic to his plight nor too aloof, uncaring.

He raised his arm again, gesturing her to a deck chair as he maneuvered his motorized chair to face her.

“Miss Brett.”

“Mr. DuBois.” Like her manner, the modulation of her voice suggested both intelligence and a certain gravity, an inherent reserve.

“You know about the concealed room, and the paintings.”

She answered without hesitation: “Yes, sir, I do.”

“Mr. Bernhardt trusts you, then.”

“Yes, sir, he does.”

“You’re—what—in your middle thirties?”

Her smile widened; amusement warmed the depths of her dark eyes. “I’m thirty-four.”

“You and Alan—you’re in love.”

“Yes, sir.” She spoke gravely, without smiling, sans coquetry.

“You’re a fortunate woman, I think. And Alan is a very fortunate man.”

“Thank you.” She inclined her head, a measured acknowledgment.

“You and Alan—you both went to college.”

This time she’d been caught by surprise. Her quick, spontaneous rejoinder was quizzical: “Yes, we did.”

“I did not graduate from high school. My parents were poor, and my mother was always frail. When I was sixteen, I went to work. I carried messages on Wall Street.”

“I know that.”

For a long moment he regarded her in silence. Then: “In a very real sense, I’m trusting you and Alan with everything of my life that matters. You understand that, I think.”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

“If things go wrong tomorrow, I would be ruined. Not ruined financially. Money has nothing to do with this. But ruined spiritually. Do you understand that?”

“It’s your place in history—your good name.”

“My good name, yes …” As he said it, he experienced a sudden sag of fatigue. His reserves were ebbing, running low. He must keep in reserve the strength to take them to the paintings, let them into the concealed chamber—

—and let the final act begin. “The Divestment” was the phrase he’d chosen. Himself divested from himself, signifying that at last, death must be all that remained.

Following behind the frail old man in his high-tech wheelchair, Bernhardt touched Paula’s shoulder, signaling that they should fall back until DuBois had punched the four numbers that opened the sliding steel door. As she slowed her steps she moved close, whispering, “I’m getting butterflies again.”

He smiled, said nothing.

Fifteen feet down the narrow, unadorned corridor, DuBois was maneuvering the mechanized chair so that he could reach the control panel with his good right hand.

“My God,” Paula breathed, “look at him, that poor old man.”

Amused, Bernhardt whispered, “Poor?”

With a soft whir, the door slid open to reveal the short, windowless second corridor. DuBois touched a button, propelled his chair into the second corridor.

“Come on.” Bernhardt stepped forward, followed closely by Paula. Once inside the second corridor, the first door slid closed behind them. As Bernhardt watched DuBois maneuver to reach the second control panel, he felt Paula’s fingers tighten on his forearm. Whenever they went to a scary movie, she would always grasp him like this. For all her measured intelligence, Paula was deeply impressionable.

The second door slid open. As if he were alone, DuBois repositioned his chair, moved slowly into the gallery. The only sound was the quiet whir of the mechanized wheelchair. With Paula following a hesitant half-step behind, moving as if he were part of a solemn ritual, Bernhardt entered the gallery. He felt Paula close behind him. For a moment the three of them remained motionless, transfixed.

“My God,” Paula whispered. “Oh, my God.”

“That’s it.” Bernhardt laid the hammer aside, checked the time. Almost noon. For more than four hours, he’d been out of touch with Tate and Graham.

Paula drew the back of her hand across her forehead, stevedore style. Then she pointed to the three ceramic pieces, still uncrated. “What about those?”

“When I went upstairs with DuBois and put him into bed, he said he wanted to keep the ceramic pieces.”

They were in the fifth-level workshop. Paula was standing beside a band saw, one hand resting on the saw’s cast-iron table. She was visibly tired. Her face was smudged, and her hair was in casual, finger-combed disarray. It had been five hours, at least, since they’d had an Egg McMuffin and coffee.

“Are the ceramics stolen?” Paula asked.

Bernhardt shrugged. “Probably. But they aren’t nearly as valuable as the paintings. Plus, they aren’t part of the deal. Graham’s just interested in the paintings.”

“But if DuBois is afraid of the grand jury …”

Impatiently he shook his head. “I don’t know what he’s thinking. And it’s not our concern once we get our money.

“God…” Once more she pushed back a lock of her dark hair, stroked her forehead again. “God, San Francisco suddenly sounds great.”

“I know.”

“I
S IT YOUR UNDERSTANDING
,” Bernhardt asked, “that between now and tomorrow, whenever the exchange takes place, you’re to take orders from me? Are those your instructions from Mr. DuBois?”

“Yes, sir, they are.” As always, James spoke slowly, in measured cadence. “Anything you want, I’m to do.”

“Without checking with Mr. DuBois?”

“That’s correct, sir.” James carefully guided their car into the Saturday afternoon traffic flow. In less than ten minutes they would arrive at the Prado. Sitting beside the driver, Bernhardt produced a notebook and pen. “Give me your phone,” he ordered. When the other man had recited the numbers, Bernhardt said, “I’ve got to make a few calls after you drop us at the hotel, then I’ll call you this afternoon or evening, with instructions. Will you be home?”

As if he were surprised, James glanced at Bernhardt. The possibility that the trusted bodyguard would not be on constant call was plainly unprecedented.

“Yes, sir, I’ll be home. Or if I’m out doing errands, the call goes to my pager.”

“Ah.” Impressed, Bernhardt nodded. “Good.”

“Will you need to be picked up at the Prado tomorrow?”

“No. We have two cars—a van and a sedan.”

They drove for a time in silence. Then Bernhardt asked, “How old is Mr. DuBois?”

“He’s seventy-eight. Almost seventy-nine.”

“Do you feel sorry for him?”

Puzzled, James frowned thoughtfully before he said, “Mr. DuBois is not someone to feel sorry for. He’s too—too—” His voice faded to silence as he struggled vainly to complete the thought. Then, with obvious relief, he drove the car to the inside lane, signaled for the turn into the Prado’s entrance. Paula was following them in the van. When James was out of sight, Bernhardt would get into the van, and they would drive to the house they’d rented.

Paula used her key to open the front door. Instantly, squirming with delight, barking wildly, the two shepherds were whirling frantically around her, jumping so high that their paws reached shoulder height, yet never quite touching her. Finally, with Bernhardt on the porch and Tate looming in the open door, she broke off. Speaking authoritatively, in an unnaturally deep voice: “Okay! That’s all.”

Whereupon the dogs checked to make sure she meant what she said, then began sniffing Bernhardt, wagging their tails. He knelt, scratching each of them with both hands until he heard Tate say, “Now that we’re all reunited at—what—one o’clock in the afternoon of the day before we all get rich, maybe you guys might be interested in a little late-breaking news.”

Bernhardt gave each dog a final pat, straightened, followed Tate and Paula into the living room. Close on Paula’s heels, the two dogs followed.

“So?” Bernhardt sat on one end of the brown plastic sleeper sofa. Paula took the other end as the two dogs settled themselves at her feet.

“First of all,” Tate said, “I’ll warn you that your phone bill’ll probably be a record breaker. Also, I intend to put in a six-dollar chit for Gatorade. That’s because I was getting dehydrated, baking in that gas station phone booth.”

“Why didn’t you find a booth in the shade?”

“Because,” Tate shot back, “when I made the first call to Consolidated at approximately ten minutes after eight, the ocean fog was still in. It was quite pleasant in the booth. So I made the mistake of giving one of the people at Consolidated the number of the goddam booth, to call me back. So I was stuck. Oh, how I was stuck. Especially was I stuck when people kept showing up to use the phone, and I had to pretend I was talking, to hang on to the phone. That’s including three wiseass teenage punks who made some pretty nasty remarks concerning my racial heritage. So, after I decked the biggest one, which is always the best strategy, and they dispersed, I decided it’d be a good idea to give the station manager a couple of twenties. Which was fine, except that he went off duty at ten o’clock. Which’ll explain why there’s eighty dollars on the chit for bribes. Plus the Gatorade.”

“Jesus, C.B., never mind about teenagers. What about Consolidated? What about Graham?”

Seated in a plastic armchair that matched the couch, Tate flung a muscular leg over the arm as he said, “You want the play-by-play, or would you rather cut right to my opinion?”

“How about a condensed play-by-play? In New York it’s already four-thirty.”

“Yeah, well, moving on from my adventures in the phone booth, I started out with Graham’s business card, as you’d imagine. And I got ‘This is Mr. Graham’s office,’ from a lady sounded like she just graduated from Vassar. I identified myself, said I worked for you, and said I’d lost contact with Graham, but that I knew he was in Los Angeles, and could she give me a local number. Well, the first thing she did, naturally, was put me on hold for about ten minutes. Then a guy named Forster came on the line. He obviously was a Yale man, maybe even Harvard. Anyhow, he started pumping me. What was I doing with Graham? When was the last time I’d seen him? When did I expect to see him again?”

“In other words,” Paula said, “you guys were pumping each other.”

Tate nodded his shaven bullet head. “Exactly.”

“So?” Bernhardt urged.

“So the more I talked to Forster, the more obvious it became that he had absolutely no idea where to find Graham. It also became obvious that they badly want to find him.”

“All this,” Paula said, “during the exact time Graham was supposedly in contact with
them
, getting the money wired into his account out here.”

“Except,” Bernhardt said, “that Graham has always operated pretty autonomously. He reports directly to the head man at Consolidated. And Forster doesn’t sound like the head man.”

“No argument,” Tate answered. “But then another guy came on the line, and he sounded like he could’ve been the head man, or very close to it. His name was Blair. So he and I danced each other around for a while—that’s after they’d had me on hold for another twenty minutes—and finally Blair says he’s going to level with me. He says that, a couple of weeks ago, Graham announced that he had a big deal simmering, and that he’d be going undercover for a while, all that hush-hush shit. So Blair says fine, good luck. That was two weeks ago, like I said. So then, a week later, Graham’s confidential secretary drops out of sight. Without telling anyone, apparently. She just didn’t show up at her desk one morning. Her name is Helen Grant.”

“The first time I talked to Graham,” Bernhardt said, “he told me about his glamorous secretary, implied she was his mistress. But I didn’t take it seriously.”

For a long, thoughtful moment no one spoke. Finally Bernhardt asked, “So how’d you leave it with Blair?”

“He gave me the number of his private line,” Tate said. “He told me to tell you to keep in touch. He implied that maybe we could do each other some good. Moneywise.”

“Did you mention the paintings?”

“Not in so many words. But it was one of those, you know, peekaboo conversations. Like, we each knew what we were talking about, but neither one of us wanted to put words to it, say it out loud.”

“Hmmm.”

Another moment of silence settled upon them as, reflectively, Paula scratched Duke’s ears. The dog whined appreciatively as Duchess whined in protest. Then, suddenly, Bernhardt stood up, spoke urgently to Tate: “Give me Blair’s private number. Maybe I can still catch him at the office.”