Scarlet Night (24 page)

“He’s a good talker,” Julie said.

“Yes, I rather thought he must be,” Romano said dryly. “Have him outside his building at ten minutes to five tomorrow morning. Or at a place arranged between the two of you. Michael will pick you up first, then him. I want everyone in this room at five.”

“Five
A.M.
”

“Do you remember what Campbell looks like, Miss Julie?”

“It’s crazy, but I don’t. I think he’s tall, but all I really remember is his ankles. You know, no socks.”

“No conversation with him, not even ‘It’s nice to have met you, Mrs. Hayes’?”

“No.”

“Then he wouldn’t remember you either?”

“I don’t think he’d even remember Jeff.”

“Good. And since your Irish protégé assures us that Rubinoff will be going off in a different direction tomorrow, I suggest that a little bigamy won’t hurt you for a day. Alberto will take his wife along and take for granted that she was invited.”

H
OW WELL DID SHE
know Jeff, when you came right down to it? And she’d been married to him for over four years. Julie glanced across the seat at Alberto, who seemed to be staring at the back of Michael’s head. Michael looked a lot different in the driver’s seat of a rented Oldsmobile. For one thing, you got to see his face in the mirror now and then. Which wasn’t exactly a treat. Squinty eyes and a white scar on his cheek. He looked like a mug shot.

“Julie Scotti,” she said aloud. “It doesn’t sound bad.”

Alberto looked at her and smiled forlornly.

“Hey, didn’t you ever want to be an actor?” He really looked like one, playing a professor—dark suit, white shirt, striped tie. Actually, he looked like a priest.

“Doesn’t everyone at some time?”

“All right,” Julie said. “This is our big audition. We’ll let him do most of the talking. I’ve got a feeling he does talk a lot.”

“Hey, you two,” Michael said, looking at them through the mirror, “get together back there. You’re practically newly-weds. Although from my point of view, as far as the caper goes, it was better the way it was. This Bonnie-and-Clyde stuff, forget it. It don’t work that way. They couldn’t’ve pulled off half the jobs if they stopped to shmooze along the way like that.”

“Where did we get married?” Alberto wanted to know.

“Some place we’ve both been.”

“Take Atlantic City,” Michael said. “Nobody’s going to ask you about Atlantic City.” Then: “Remember, you got to get me in the house. Give me an hour outdoors, then get me in. I don’t want no forget-me-nots. Amateurs forget the little things. The big things they remember.”

“You’re not a little thing, Michael,” Julie said.

“Let him take you out on his yacht. Relax. Enjoy yourselves.” And a few minutes later: “Here we are, Exit Four. Right on time. Don’t give me directions, Mrs. Scotti. I got to know I can do it myself.”

He could have driven the labyrinth. At the intercom box he announced: “Mr. and Mrs. Scotti.”

Giving their host time to set another place at the breakfast table.

The wrought-iron gate opened at the middle. “Jeez,” Michael said. “Just like Sing Sing.”

They drove between two vast lawns sparsely populated by magnificent trees which nobody in the car could identify. Except Michael of the pines: “Them’s all different kinds of Christmas trees.” A huge, wide-spanned tree with coppery leaves and a massive trunk had sent some of its branches back into the ground as though for balance. The house ahead was picture-book Shakespeare, timbers and plaster.

“Or Burgundian,” Alberto said. “I’ve seen such houses in that part of France.”

“Eight entries on the first floor. Want to bet?” Michael said. “Maybe he’s got a nice fat lady cook in the kitchen, and when yous all go out, she’ll take me on a tour of the place.” Michael’s fantasy. “A house like this has got to have a female cook, know what I mean?”

“I agree,” Julie said.

“Ever notice? When the men in this country started doing the cooking, it’s been downhill ever since.”

Julie realized he was chattering now to keep them loose.

As they neared the house, he said, “Here comes the man with all the money.” Campbell was coming around the side of the house to meet them. “He’s walking barefoot. Wouldn’t you think he could afford shoes?”

“Please shut up, Michael,” Julie said.

She did remember Campbell, seeing him. It was over three years ago that they had met, and she was glad that in those days she’d been wearing her hair much shorter and had had a tendency in the kind of company she was with that night to fold up in the deepest chair in the room and let her eyes do the socializing.

Campbell opened the car door on Julie’s side and gave her his hand. “Well, now, it’s just damn nice of you folks to come out this early in the morning.” He gave her a good strong assist out of the car. “Best part of the day, of course.” He was tall and lean, with a small head, a lot of laugh wrinkles, and very keen blue eyes; his hair was cut short and sun-bleached. You could almost smell the obsession with health. Not in a million years could she imagine this man doing business with Rubinoff. The thought hit her: what if he didn’t?

“I’ve seen you before,” he said, smiling and poking a finger in Julie’s direction. “You a movie actress?”

“I used to be a model,” Julie said. One of the few things she had never tried. Lie Number One.

Alberto was coming around the car.

“I always read the ads,” their host said, “especially for department stores. Down home we got Neiman-Marcus. Ever hear of it?”

“Of course.”

Campbell offered his hand to Alberto. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Scotti. When I was a kid they called me Scotty, my ancestors being Scotch. My father made a great issue of that, his father coming over from Scotland and starting the business. Named my brother Andrew—after Andrew Carnegie.”

Michael had gotten out to open the door for Alberto.

Campbell said: “Driver, why don’t you go around through the courtyard and park by the garage? Then you go in the kitchen and introduce yourself to my Nellie. She’ll give you a real down-home breakfast.”

Oh, God, Julie thought. She liked him.

“I should’ve told you all to come informal,” he said, leading the way to the river side of the house. Julie was pretty informal, white slacks and a black-and-white-striped blouse. “You’re going on some place from here, right?”

“We have plenty of time, Mr. Campbell,” Alberto said and took off his tie, folded it, and put it in his pocket.

“Just call me G.T. Everybody does. I hardly know myself what it stands for. I’ll bet when you say L.B.J. these days, you got to stop and think. Let me have your coat, Mr. Scotti.”

“Al or Albert,” Alberto said.

Julie did have to stop and think. Campbell, grinning, turned and poked his finger at her. “Lyndon Baines. Say now, how would the two of you like to have a nice swim before breakfast? Can’t see the pool from here, not supposed to, not from anywhere. I don’t like swimsuits. Just run on down and I’ll be waiting for you when you come up. You’ll see the towels down there.”

“I’d love to,” Julie said, “but Alberto mustn’t. He’s got some infection the doctor says he mustn’t swim with.” She knew Alberto would blush at the thought of the skinny-dip.

“You never know what you’re going to pick up when you travel,” Campbell said. “I got myself the doggonedest set of scabs from a Frog barber a few years ago.”

Oh-oh. “You mean in France?” Julie said.

“Paris, France, yes, ma’am. The land of Louis Pasteur.”

Alberto said, “Why don’t we have a look at your Degas, G.T., while Julie swims? You don’t mind, my dear?”

Julie took off down the path through a garden of rose bushes, more kinds of roses than she knew existed. She had a lot of looking to do while they discussed that Frog painter Degas. A steep drop in the land did indeed shut the house from sight. The pool was Olympic size, the river view and the view from the river blocked out by a dense wall of shrubbery. Julie dropped her clothes at the edge of the pool and slipped into silken warm water. She swam several lengths and would have given a lot to stay in longer.

She dressed and walked down the steps from the pool to the dock. There were carriage lanterns on either side of the walk, which were the lights she and O’Grady had seen reflected in the water. On the opposite shore houses that looked like castles stood adjacent to industrial sprawl. Then in the quiet, a clear ringing of church bells came from across the water. There were small boats moving on the river, and a barge in tow to a tug a tenth its size.

Campbell’s dock went out perhaps a hundred feet. Two dinghies drifted on a pulley arrangement. A cabin cruiser lay at anchor to the south, an unrigged sailboat to the north, and beyond there was a vast spread of green marshes; above that, landside, rose the golden clearing which she and O’Grady had explored Thursday night. The fence came well out into the water. She noted these things because that was what she was there for. Romano wanted the entire picture. It would include a tide table for Sunday. To the south and not very distant the Palisades rose in majestic splendor.

As Julie was starting up the steps, a big Irish setter waddled down to meet her. He nuzzled her hand. She kept the fence in view all the way up. With its two strands of barbed wire tilted toward the park, the only thing likely to climb it was the roses. There were no breaks, no gates except the one she and O’Grady had come to by way of the park.

Approaching the house she saw Michael limping around the terrace from one door to the next, as though he were lost and trying to find his way in. The instant the dog saw him it charged, its ears out like a bat’s wings and the promise of fangs in its bark. Julie whistled and called, “Here, Champ. Here, boy.” The dog reversed itself and trotted back to her. “Champ” was the name of a dog in her childhood.

Michael moved off toward the service wing of the building.

The dog led Julie through the open French doors and trotted across the large sitting room. He disappeared into a room alongside which the stairs went up to the second landing. The Courbet was over the mantel, and across the room, under a light, was a life-size bullfight. The blood streaming down the beast’s neck looked warm. Along the paneled staircase wall were the unmistakable flashy athletes of Leonard Kliegman.

Julie stuck her head through the doorway of a small study. The scene shook her. The two men were examining a folio on the desk, but beyond them a walk-in vault stood wide open.

“Hello,” Julie said.

They straightened as though she had caught them at something obscene. Dirty pictures? Surely not.

“You’re back!” Alberto said.

Campbell made ready to close the folio if she came nearer.

Not for anything would she have taken another step forward. “I wonder if I could use a bathroom, Mr. Campbell?”

“They’re all over the place. Top of the stairs is the closest.” They didn’t even ask if she had enjoyed her swim.

When Julie returned they were waiting for her outside the study door. She glimpsed a floor-to-ceiling painting of a juggler which now camouflaged the vault door.

On the way out to the terrace where the table was set beneath a red-and-white-striped awning, Campbell said, “Your husband tells me you’d enjoy a little run upriver this morning. It’s the best time of day to see the cliffs. We’ll go to Bear Mountain and back. How’s that?”

“Lovely.”

Campbell held a chair for Julie. The honeydew melon was gorgeous. But it wasn’t quite so sweet when Campbell picked up on previous conversation between him and Alberto. He said, “If I ever caught that little Jew clown ripping me off, you better believe I’d be his last rip-off.”

A little pulse beat showed at Alberto’s temple. He said, “You’re wrong, G.T., if you think I’m questioning the work. It would take me much more time than I have today to arrive at a positive opinion.”

“Do you know this dealer, Schoen?”

“Not personally.”

“Careful fellow, aren’t you?”

“It’s the nature of my work.”

“I’m going to be interested in Rubin’s reaction when I tell him about loaning the Degas.”

Alberto shook his head.

Campbell said, “I know, I know. You haven’t said for sure yet that you want it. I just want to try it on him. He’s got a way of drooping his eyelids if something isn’t kosher. Mind you, I trust the man. I
do.
And I’ll tell you why: money. My old man taught me one thing: never trust a man you can’t buy and pay for, and when you can’t afford him any longer, get rid of him, because you ain’t going to be able to trust him any longer. I understand Rubinoff. He’s American. It’s this international operator, Schoen. He’s smart. But maybe he’s too smart.”

Campbell scraped the bottom of his melon. He pushed the plate aside. “It’s not just the Degas I’m talking about.”

Julie avoided looking at Alberto.

A handsome young black woman cleared the table and brought Eggs Benedict from a cart. Campbell brightened up. Julie caught an exchange of looks between him and the girl that was pure lechery.

“I’ve been doing something interesting lately,” Campbell started, on another tack. “It’s a kind of speculation—like drilling for offshore oil. As you can see from my collection, I’m a sports freak—anything to do with athletics…” To Alberto he repeated: “I said anything, Al.”

Alberto laughed obediently. From the throat up. They
had
been looking at dirty pictures! Rare and priceless, no doubt. But why show them to Alberto? Ah, but of course, a friend of Romano, whom Campbell would have checked out immediately after the phone call from him. But why wouldn’t he have checked out Alberto? Simple, Julie. Because he figured Romano owned Alberto the way he owned Rubinoff…And did he?

“I’ve been assigning living painters to do subjects I find interesting. Only they got to paint them the way I want to see them.”

“Ghost painters,” Julie said, and could have bitten her tongue.

Campbell looked at her as though she’d spat up on the tablecloth. “Anything wrong with that?”

Alberto, a husband of infinite patience, said: “My dear, that’s how it was with some of the greatest painters—and musicians—they composed to the specifications of their patrons.” He was a better actor than she was.