Secret Combinations (20 page)

In a flash, Ali dropped the art evaluator. He also pulled out a knife from his waistband and advanced on Kenyon.

The agent stood up and stepped back. “Whoa! I'm not going to hurt anyone!”

Ali lunged forward, his knife held high.

The agent spun to his left and kicked Ali hard in the knee. The big man screamed and bent forward in pain. Kenyon cracked him on the chin with his elbow. Ali went down in a heap. He kicked the knife from Ali's hand, then went to deWolfe's aid.

The art evaluator was crumpled against the base of the wall, grasping his throat.

“Can you breath?” asked Kenyon.

“Barely,” deWolfe gurgled, as he pushed himself into a sitting position.

By this time Garbajian, the back of his shirt fully out of his trousers, was on his feet. “Hazzim!” he shouted. “Come here!”

Hazzim appeared at the door carrying a Czech-made submachine gun. He flipped the safety and pointed it directly at Kenyon, then looked at his master.

“Get out of my house, at once!” demanded Garbajian.

Kenyon gripped deWolfe by the shoulder and turned him toward the foyer. “Come on, Hadrian, we got what we wanted.” The men retreated to the elevator, the snout of Hazzim's weapon following them until the door closed.

As soon as they were descending, Kenyon turned to deWolfe. “What happened?” asked the agent.

DeWolfe coughed, clearing his throat. “The guard was not about to leave you alone, so I had to improvise.”

“What did you do?”

DeWolfe smiled slyly. “I dropped an ice cube down Garbajian's back.”

Kenyon grinned. “I guess that would make me scream, too.”

Both men laughed until they reached the bottom.

The Anne Boleyn pub was
located on King's Road, about half a mile north of Garbajian's apartment. Outside the pub, a small, deserted patio opened onto a side street that ran off the busy main street.

DeWolfe and Kenyon sat at a table on the patio, quietly nursing their drinks. The agent pulled out the microchip and showed the cartoon figure of Mickey Mouse to the evaluator. “It's definitely a genuine Maggote,” said Kenyon.

“
Ach
,” replied deWolfe, shaking his head. “I was certain that it would be a forgery.”

Kenyon sipped at his pint of beer. It was warmer than he usually liked, but it had a full, nutty flavor he enjoyed. He looked at deWolfe. “So, what to do now?”

DeWolfe stared at Kenyon closely, his snifter of cognac forgotten. “This escapade is not really about forgery, is it?

Kenyon glanced away from deWolfe. “No, it's not.”

DeWolfe kept his gaze focused on the agent. “I am waiting for an explanation.”

“I'm sorry,” said Kenyon. “I can't tell you everything.”

DeWolfe turned his attention to the street. “I have gone along willingly and have not asked too many questions because I trust you.” He placed his snifter down on the table and crossed his arms. “Now it is time to trust me. Otherwise, I must leave.”

Kenyon thought about Gonelli's advice to keep his mouth shut, but he needed deWolfe's help. He took a deep breath. “I know you may not believe this, but Lydia was murdered.”

DeWolfe stared openmouthed at Kenyon. “She died in a car accident,” he finally blurted out. “The police said so.”

“Yeah, well, I know different.”

DeWolfe picked his glass up and took a gulp of his cognac. That seemed to help his nerves. “How do you know differently?”

“Somebody blinded her and forced her car off the road. The police didn't spot it at first, but I have proof.”

“Why on
earth
would anyone want to kill Lydia?”

“I don't know.” Kenyon twirled the beer in his glass. “All I can think of is it has something to do with these forgeries.”

DeWolfe leaned back in his chair. “
Mein Gott
, I had no idea.” He took another drink of his cognac. “I have not been completely truthful with you.”

“What?” asked Kenyon.

DeWolfe stared down at the patio tiles beneath his feet. “When Lydia called me in about the forgery last year, she had her suspicions about someone. We just couldn't prove it.”

“Who was it?” asked Kenyon.

“That young man who works for her: Bruno Ricci.”

•  •  •

It was almost
midnight by the time they arrived at the Kenyon Gallery in Mayfair, and the evening sky hung black and cloudless. The streets were deserted and deWolfe had no problem parking his Volvo sedan directly in front of the gallery.

Kenyon pulled out his keys and unlocked the front door. He punched the code into the keypad that deactivated the alarm, and the two men entered the gallery.

Light from the street filtered into the main display room. The shadow cast by a small Degas bronze extended its way across the floor like a long crooked finger. Kenyon fumbled against the left wall until he found a dimmer switch, then turned up a series of halogen display lamps just enough for them to see their way around. The agent didn't want to attract the attention of a roving bobby; no point in having to explain what they were doing there at this late hour.

“Ricci's office is over here,” said Kenyon. The two men moved to the back of the display room and stepped behind a jutting wall that hid them from view from the street. Ricci's office door was open and they went inside and turned on the light.

The gallery manager's office was about the same size as Lydia's, but without the skylight. The room was decorated in modern Scandinavian chrome and leather chairs, and the desk was made of frosted glass and rough-cast aluminum. A still life of animal intestines on a hubcap hung from one wall.

The wall shelf was crammed with art books and catalogues. DeWolfe began to examine the books, lifting each one out and fluttering the pages to see if anything had been tucked inside.

Kenyon sat in the chair behind Ricci's desk. The side drawer was empty except for a carved wooden box about the size of a hardcover book. Kenyon lifted the box out and placed it on the top of the desk.

The carving featured a naked Asian man and woman entwined in a convoluted sex position, an illustration from the Kama Sutra. Kenyon lifted the lid and peered inside; it contained nothing but a small mirror, a safety razor blade, and a rolled up bank note.

Kenyon removed the mirror and held it to the light. He could see traces of white powder on the surface. He licked the end of the bill; the acrid taste of cocaine emanated from the end of his tongue.

DeWolfe turned from the bookshelf. “Nothing here,” he announced.

Kenyon held up the mirror and rolled note. “It seems Ricci has a taste for coke.”

“Vile habit,” deWolfe said, wrinkling his nose.

“Yeah, and expensive, too.” Kenyon continued his search, checking for a false bottom in the desk, poking around in the chairs, but finding nothing. He finally nodded to deWolfe, and the two men retreated to Lydia's office.

Kenyon sat down in Lydia's chair, facing deWolfe across her desk. He rubbed his forehead. “You were telling me how tough it is to fake a modern artist, right?

“
Ja
.”

“So how come Ricci chose Maggote?”

“I was referring to a live artist,” said deWolfe. “If the artist is recently deceased, you can arrange a scam that is known as the ‘Greedy Buyer.'”

“How does the scam work?”

“When an artist dies, he normally leaves behind a large supply of unsold pictures,” began deWolfe.

Kenyon interrupted. “Like that stuff of Maggote's in storage?”

DeWolfe nodded. “Exactly. It isn't in the interest of the estate to flood the market all at once, because that will lower the value of all the rest. On the other hand, if you do not release any at all, people lose interest, and the market value also drops.”

DeWolfe leaned back in his seat, pursing his fingers together. “Generally, an astute executor announces that they are only going to sell half a dozen or so a year, in order to keep the price increasing.”

Kenyon began to catch on. “I take it some collectors start to get too eager?”

“Indeed, they do,” replied deWolfe. “Hence the name, the Greedy Buyer.”

“Let me guess the rest,” Kenyon offered. “A forger with an inside to the dead artist's gallery approaches a collector and says, ‘I'll give you a break and sell you one outside of this year's quota, but you have to keep it quiet.'”

DeWolfe nodded. “Essentially, yes. The forger uses the cover of the gallery to fake the authenticity, and the buyer hides it so that no one will know he got the inside break.”

“It sounds almost foolproof.”

“It is. The forger generally has a much greater knowledge of the techniques used by the artist, and can fool any amateur investigation of authenticity that a buyer might muster.”

“Unless, of course, the buyer knows more than the forger.” Kenyon flipped open one of the buyer's files. There was a personal number listed in the address. He picked up the phone.

“Who are you calling at this late hour?” asked deWolfe.

Kenyon looked up as he dialed. “An unsatisfied customer.”

The phone rang once. “Yeah?”

Kenyon recognized the bookie's voice. “Mr. Lump, it's Jack Kenyon.”

“Well, well, if it ain't my favorite little Fed in the whole wide world. I got to tell you, lad, I ain't larfed so hard since me dear, fat ol' mum got stuck in the loo.” Lump's voice lost its levity. “What do you want?”

“I want to apologize,” said Kenyon. “I was wrong to threaten your clients. It was an abuse of my official powers.”

There was a brief silence on the other end. Kenyon had no doubt it was the first time anyone in law enforcement had ever said he was sorry to Lump.

“Apologies accepted,” said the bookie. “Now, why did you really call?”

“I have some unfinished business I want to attend to at this end.”

“What's that?” asked the bookie.

“Did Lydia personally handle this transaction?”

Lump covered the phone; Kenyon could hear a muffled conversation with someone else in the room before the bookie came back on. “No. It was some bloke at the gallery. The little pimp, Ricci.”

“That's what I thought. Thanks.”

Kenyon hung up the phone and went to the steel filing cabinet. He unlocked the top drawer and lifted out several files. “Give me a hand with this stuff,” he asked.

DeWolfe spread several of the files out on the surface of the desk, including the one for Maggote. “What are we looking for?”

“Lump says Ricci sold him the fake Maggote, but I doubt if the word of a bookie is going to stand up in court. We need some solid evidence. There has to be a paper trail.”

DeWolfe thought for a moment. “The only way that Ricci could have pulled this off was by operating under the legitimate guise of the gallery. Let's start with the sales receipts.”

Kenyon dug through the file cabinet until he found the sales ledger. It was a small, hardcover book bound in black leather. “I would have thought she'd need something bigger,” Kenyon mused aloud.

“Not when you're only doing sixty sales a year,” said deWolfe.

Kenyon opened the book up. Each sales slip was divided into three parts; blue, yellow, and pink. The front half was filled with pink slips, all filled out.

Kenyon examined the pink slips. The first was for the beginning of January of that year; the final one was filled out just one week before her death. The smallest purchase was for fifty thousand pounds, the largest for two million pounds. “I see what you mean,” he said. “She must have made ten million pounds in three dozen sales.”

DeWolfe took the book from Kenyon's hands and placed it under the desk lamp. He quickly examined each of the slips, then flipped through the rest of the book, examining each of the unused receipts. Finally, he straightened up and beckoned Kenyon over. “I suspected this.”

“What?”

“There is no slip for the painting sold to Lump.”

“Then how could he scam Lump? Did he use a fake receipt as well?”

“Not necessary.” DeWolfe flipped to another pink slip. “See this one?”

Kenyon bent over and looked. “It just says, ‘voided.'”

“Exactly.” DeWolfe cocked an eyebrow, waiting for Kenyon to get it.

It didn't take long. “Oh, right. Ricci pulled the blue and yellow parts off, then wrote ‘void' on the pink. He gives the blue one to Lump, throws away the yellow, and leaves the third so that Lydia won't notice one is missing.” Kenyon flipped through the book. “He must have done the same with the sale of
Techno 69
.”

Kenyon reached the end of the book; the sale to
TEQ
was marked in on the final receipt. He stared at it for a moment, then leaned back in the chair, puzzled.

“What is wrong?” asked deWolfe.

The agent turned the book around, so that the evaluator could see. “It's filled out by Lydia. It's got her signature on it.”

DeWolfe stared at the receipt. “How can this be?”

Kenyon rubbed his face in his hands. “I don't know.”

“Perhaps Ricci forged her signature?”

Kenyon shook his head. “Why bother? The voided receipt scam was working. No, that's Lydia's signature, all right.” The awful feeling that Lydia was involved in the forgery scheme began to fill his heart.

DeWolfe stared at the wall, thinking. “I wonder if the receptionist knows anything?”

“You mean, Zoë?”

“
Ja
. Perhaps she saw or heard something. Perhaps we should meet back here tomorrow and ask her?”

Kenyon was about to reply, when the phone rang. He snatched it from the cradle. “Yes?”

“Mister Yack?”

The voice was almost whispering, but Kenyon immediately recognized his housekeeper. “Señora Santucci? Are you all right? What is it?”