The Double (13 page)
“How can I help you?” said the man, now walking around the desk. He was trim and wore a nice chalk-stripe suit with flat-front pants, a jacket of narrow lapels, and a powder-blue shirt open at the neck. His eyeglasses had black frames and light-blue stems. The glasses barely clung to his small, pinched nose. His hair was thinning, cut short, and what there was of it was combed forward.
“I’m hoping you can,” said Lucas, and he extended his hand. “My name is Bob.”
“Charles Lumley.”
They shook hands. Lucas thought, Soft.
“I have a painting,” said Lucas. “It was willed to me from my grandparents. I think it might be valuable, but honestly, I don’t know anything about art.”
“Who is the artist? Do you know?”
“A woman named Emily Meyers. From what I read, she has quite a reputation up in Maine.”
“Emily Meyers, yes,” said Lumley, nodding his head. “I know of her. Lived in Deer Isle, painted scenes of local life up there, fishermen, houses, nets and traps, landscapes, and the like. Mostly worked in oil but there were some watercolors, I believe.”
“This one’s sorta like, you know, a scene of boats dry-docked in the winter. Like a wintry painting…”
“Do you have a photograph of it?”
“No, sorry. I guess I wasn’t prepared to come see you today. I mean, I was in the neighborhood, and I remembered your shop was here. A lady I met told me about it, said you had worked with her before.”
“What lady?”
“Her name was Grace Kinkaid.”
Lumley’s mouth twitched up into a smile. “Grace is lovely.”
“I’m hoping to maybe sell the painting. I like it and all, but I move around a lot. Doesn’t make sense for me to keep it at this point in my life. Trouble is, I have no idea how to go about making the sale.”
“Well, I
could
help you,” said Lumley. “What I’d need from you first are good clear photos of the front and back of the painting, size specs, and any interesting facts you can dig up regarding the personal relationship between your grandparents and the artist, if there was any such relationship. Gallery owners call this provenance. Of course, I’d have to see the painting myself, inspect it for authenticity.”
“Okay…”
“Then I would appraise it for you, based on my experience and research. If you decided to go forward and attempt to make a sale, we would come to an agreement on a commission, and I’d get to work. I’d determine which geographic area was most relevant to the artist, and then I’d e-mail my network of galleries and collectors in that area with a brief description of the painting, along with photos.”
“That’d be there in the Northeast, I guess,” said Lucas, giving it his aw-shucks best. “Maine and all.”
“New York to Maine, yes. Many well-off New Yorkers summer up in the Penobscot Bay area. They like to acquire the local art.”
“This has been real helpful,” said Lucas. “I’m completely in the dark when it comes to all this.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” said Lumley cheerfully. “Hold on one second. Let me check on something before you go.”
Lumley sat back down at his desk, pulled his laptop toward him, used his keyboard and mouse to search and scroll. Lucas watched his face go from eagerness to disappointment.
“I checked on some recent sales of Ms. Meyers’s work. She is a talented artist.
Was
…She died in 2003—ninety-nine years old. But I have to tell you, in relative terms, her paintings are not very valuable.”
“How not very?” said Lucas.
“Recent sales of her landscape oils have gone for between a thousand and fifteen hundred dollars.”
“That’s real money to me.”
“But not to me, unfortunately. To be honest with you, it wouldn’t be worth my time to represent you. However, I think I’ve given you enough information today to get you started on your own.”
“You have. I appreciate it, too.”
Lucas reached across the desk and once again shook Lumley’s hand.
“I’ll have to thank Grace for the referral,” said Lumley. “Even though it didn’t work out.”
“Yeah, Grace seems like cool people.”
“Where did you say you met her?”
“Didn’t say. It was at Cashion’s. I was at the bar and we struck up a conversation. She was with a blond-haired guy. I remember him because he seemed a little jealous that she was talking to me. Anyway, I heard her talking about a painting she owned, how she’d just gotten it appraised. I asked her who she’d worked with. That’s how I got your name.”
Lucas detected the flicker in Lumley’s eyes. “I see.”
“So long,” said Lucas. “Thanks again.”
“I didn’t get your last name, Bob,” said Lumley, to Lucas’s back, but Lucas kept going and went out the door.
He walked down to the corner at R and approached a bicycle messenger who was wearing a knit hat over his dreads. Lucas had caught him in a rare moment of rest. He asked the guy to ride his bike by Lumley’s shop, take a look inside, and tell him what Lumley was doing. He told him there’d be something in it for him when he returned.
The bike messenger did a quick recon and wheeled back to Lucas.
“He’s on the phone.”
“Cell or landline?” said Lucas, checking the messenger for verisimilitude.
“Landline.”
“Thanks, brother.” Lucas gave him a ten and the messenger sped off.
Grace Kinkaid said that she had never discussed her painting with Billy Hunter. This meant that he had gotten the information about its value from someone else. The logical conduit would have been Charles Lumley. Lumley, most likely, had an arrangement with Hunter. Lumley would identify the paintings first, contact Hunter, and Hunter would move in on his prey. If Lumley was in business with Hunter, he would now phone him and tell him that a young guy had just dropped his description in the shop. He’d tell him that the guy had claimed they’d met in Cashion’s, and Hunter would know that they hadn’t met, that it was a bullshit story, and that the young guy was not a bumpkin trying to sell a painting, but some sort of private heat hired by Grace Kinkaid.
Lucas wanted Hunter, or whatever his name was, to know that someone was looking for him. He wanted to draw him out. Either him or, if he came to ground first, Grant Summers.
Lucas knew this was reckless, but he felt he had no other way to get to them and complete the job. He had decided to be aggressive. He was tired of fucking around.
Back in his apartment, he phoned Grace Kinkaid and warned her that he’d probably exposed her in some way. She seemed unconcerned. She’d had the locks changed on her condo and always parked her car in the building’s indoor garage. She felt that Billy Hunter would never reappear in her life. Grace thanked Lucas for the courtesy call and wished him luck in retrieving the painting.
All she’s been through, thought Lucas, and she’s still got a spine.
He checked his laptop and saw nothing from Summers. He then called Charlotte, not expecting her to pick up, and left a message telling her that he missed her.
He tried to get some reading done, but he couldn’t focus. He didn’t want to smoke any weed or drink alcohol, because he wasn’t ready to relax. Lucas got back on the laptop and wrote Summers another message.
All right, Mr. Summers. As you know, you own the exact Mini I am looking for because of the year, color, features, etc. It’s for my wife, and there can be no substitute. In other words, as much as I hate to admit it, you are dealing from a position of strength. So I am prepared to up my offer, but this will be my final offer. I will pay you $12,000 for the car, cash, provided it is in mint condition as described in your original ad, subject to my inspection
before
we make the deal. I realize it is difficult for you to leave base, so perhaps you can send someone down to the Washington area with the car as your representative. They or you should bring a clear title and two sets of keys so we can complete the deal on-site. Please give me the courtesy of a reply.
Sincerely,
Rick Bell
Lucas hit Send.
Lucas had dinner alone at the bar of Cava Mezze, a Greek spot on Capitol Hill. When he returned to his apartment he saw that he’d received a message from Grant Summers.
You have wore me down, Mr. Bell. I will find a way to deliver the car. Please give me a day so I can figure this out. Once I get off base I will contact you and tell you where we can meet. Please bring cash, as promised. I will have car, along with title and keys. What is your contact number?
Lucas typed him the phone number to one of his disposables and asked,
What’s yours?
Summers did not reply. It was not surprising and also unimportant. Lucas was about to get close to the one called Serge. Which would put Billy Hunter in his field of fire, too.
“You think it’s wise?” said Billy King.
“I think it’s money,” said Serge Bacalov.
They were in the living room of their rented house near Jug Bay. Louis Smalls was on the couch, stoned, earbuds in, listening to something heavy and loud.
“You’re gonna do what?” said King.
“
We
are going to rob him,” said Bacalov.
“You gonna hit him on the head, too? You know you almost killed that old man.”
“Almost is horseshoes and hand grenades.”
“You got lucky.”
“And I got your goods.”
“Serge, you nearly always miss my point,” said King. “I don’t like sloppy. If there’s a reason to kill, you do it all the way. That way they can’t talk. I’m not about to go to prison ’cause you
almost
killed someone. I like my freedom.”
“Do you like twelve thousand dollars?”
“Life’s easier with money.”
“Only if you can trade it. Cash is better than gold coins you cannot spend. Or paintings.”
“I’m going to see the man tomorrow about the gold.”
Bacalov smiled thinly. King would meet his middleman at a waterfront location. He’d then spend the night jackhammering some marina whore he’d meet in a bar.
“I’ll come back with cash,” said King.
“And with the smell of fish on you, no doubt,” said Bacalov.
“What’s it to you?” said King. He got up from his chair, tipped his bottle of Heineken to his lips, and finished it. Bacalov looked at King’s drinking arm, the ripple in his massive forearms, thickly covered in blond hair like fur covers an animal. King was a beast. He should have had hooves for feet. It would complete his look.
“This will be easy,” said Bacalov. “No worries. Louis will drive, you will back me up. I only need to pick the spot.”
“So you’re just gonna take his money.”
“I will strong-arm him,” said Bacalov. “It will be piece of cake.”
King had gotten a call from Lumley about a man who had come into the art dealer’s shop and described him as sitting at the bar of Cashion’s with Grace Kinkaid. The man had said there’d been a conversation. But there had been no such man or conversation there that night. It bothered King that someone was looking for him. Bothered him and excited him at the same time. But there was no reason to tell Bacalov about this man yet.
“What’s this guy’s name?” said King.
“He calls himself Rick Bell.”
“How do you contact him?”
“By e-mail. My untrackable account. And I have a phone number for him if I need it.”
“You ever stop to think this guy is baiting you?” said King.
“You think he is FBI, or something? They don’t bother with these little potatoes.”
“I don’t know who he is. Neither do you. I’m saying, be careful.”
“He wants car. For his wife. Can you imagine overpaying for present, for a woman you can have in bed anytime you want? He talks like
he
is the woman.”
King had not wanted to double up with Bacalov on Grace Kinkaid. It seemed excessive, a bold move for bold’s sake. And Bacalov had not even pulled his end off. King wondered, was the man in Lumley’s shop after both of them? Lumley had described him as medium height, strong build, with short black hair. King could at least get a look at him when Bacalov tried to take him for the twelve.
“He is pussy,” said Bacalov.
“Maybe.”
“You come with me, eh?”
King said, “Yes.”
T
he next day, Lucas met Marquis Rollins and Bobby Waldron at the bar of the American Legion, Cissel Saxon Post 41, on Sligo Avenue in Silver Spring. After he was buzzed through the security entrance, he slid onto a stool between Marquis and Waldron at the double-sided stick.
There were several solitary drinkers today and sets of two and three as well. The place was sparsely decorated in the manner of a school auditorium, and not well lit, but the draw wasn’t the decor or the ambience. It was a second home to many veterans in the area and some who visited from out of state. People liked to drink with others who shared their experiences, and they liked to be with their own kind. Plus, the beer was cold and very cheap.
“What’d you do to that hand, lover?” said Marquis, nodding at Lucas’s bandage.
“I fell down in some broken glass,” said Lucas.
“Sure you didn’t put your paw where it didn’t belong?” said Waldron.
“There was a woman,” said Lucas.
“Always is, with you,” said Marquis.
The bartender put a Budweiser in front of Lucas. Here at the Legion he drank from brown bottles. He tapped his with Marquis’s and Waldron’s.
“Success,” said Lucas.
“Hear, hear,” said Marquis, looking smart in his matching outfit, a billowing print shirt and pants. His New Balance sneakers somewhat reduced the sartorial effect of his getup, but not entirely. Sneaks were the only kind of shoe he could comfortably wear on the end of his prosthetic leg.
“I’m for it,” said Waldron, wearing a T-shirt with cutoff sleeves, the better to show off his guns and tiger-stripe tats. The “dots” on his forearm, small bits of shrapnel permanently embedded under his skin, were augmented with tiny dots inked in as well. “When I can get it.”
“Still doing security work, Bobby?” said Lucas.
“The boss man’s got me holding down an Urban Outfitters,” said Waldron.
“It does have
urban
in the name,” said Marquis. “So that means it must be dangerous.”
