Treasure of Saint-Lazare (16 page)

Lindy had arranged for him to meet Woody Matthews at Hemingway’s, an upstairs restaurant and watering hole trying to trade on Papa’s name. Lindy told him Woody could be found there from opening time until mid-afternoon unless he was working on a story for her or an investigation for Al Sommers or some of the other business types he knew in town.

“I have a minority partner in this newspaper,” Lindy had told him. “I don’t like it, but I needed the money to stay in business through the last recession, and w
e’ve performed pretty well for him. He’s a money guy with almost no interest in newspapering, and he’s happy to let us go on publishing our society pictures. I shut down the editorial page a few years ago when he wanted to go on a crusade to do away with the public school system and replace it entirely with private schools. He and Sommers are buddies, by the way. Woody thinks they’re his friends, but they’re not.”

A parking place stood vacant across the street and Eddie pulled in. He took the stairs two at a time, bypassing the elevator. The bartender, a twenty-something with a mullet and two earrings in each ear, waved toward the back when he asked for Woody. “Same time, same place,” he said laconically.

He could just make out a man waving at him with a beer glass from the back of the dark, wood-paneled cavern. Woody looked about sixty, or maybe fifty-five and in terrible shape. His potato nose showed the unmistakable mark of too much of the grain. His face was weathered to mahogany and his thin brown hair flew in every direction. He seemed to be about forty pounds overweight. His short-sleeved white polyester shirt was yellow at the collar and armpits. A skinny black tie hung loosely around the open collar.

Woody waved him into the seat opposite. “Lindy said you’d be here, had some things you wanted to check up on. Don’t know what I can tell you but finding things out is what I do for a living.” He grinned. Two teeth were missing, the rest were dingy and yellow.

“I’m here because of Roy Castor. His death is what started me off, but I’m more interested in things that went on before, all the way back to the war.”

“Yeah. I heard he was there, worked on finding the Nazis’ loot. Some of my friends think it was a waste of time, but you already know that since you talked to the colonel.” Woody straightened visibly when he mentioned Sommers.

“He was pretty clear about what he believed, but that’s not really where I’m headed. I’m interested in anything you might have heard about Roy and whether he might have had any knowledge of this treasure after he came to Sarasota.”

“In other words, did he steal the painting, or whatever it is you’re looking for?”

“Or did he have a good idea where it might be. Either way I’d like to know.”

Woody sat back to think a minute. It was clear to Eddie he hadn’t thought of Roy as a possible art thief. He held out an empty bottle as the waiter passed. “Another just like this one,” he said, then turned to Eddie and asked, “What’d you like?”

“Bud,” Eddie responded.

Woody went back to considering Eddie’s question. “I’ve never heard anybody say Roy stole anything. He seemed like a straight arrow. There was always talk he might be gay, but that’s pretty common in Sarasota, so nobody much cares. I did hear a few years back that he might know more than he let on about the missing painting you’re chasing.”

“What did that sound like?”

“Hard to say. I heard it from a friend of a friend, and his English isn’t any too good. He just said he had it on good authority that Roy and somebody he’d worked with during the war were too close not to have known what happened, and that he’d like the chance to talk seriously to both of them about it. I think he said Al was going to give him that chance.

“I didn’t think anything much of it, but it was the last time he talked about it. The next time I saw him I asked and he told me to shut up and forget what he’d said. Nobody’s mentioned it to me until today.”

Eddie asked, “Do you happen to remember about when that conversation took place?”

“Let’s see… I ran into him at some kind of political celebration, I think just after Bush was inaugurated. So it would have been early in 2001, maybe February.”

Eddie felt his hair stand up. Early 2001, just the time his father had died.

“Do you think this friend would talk to me? I’d make it worth his while.”

“Probably not, because his boss really put a cork into him and his friend. They live together in Naples, as far as I can tell on money his friend inherited from his father, God knows where that came from. But you can try. He’s a Russian — an American Russian, but still a Russian — named Dmitri. He and Sonny Perry met when both of them were in prison together, and now they work for the colonel.”

He tried not to show his suspicion about Dmitri. “Are you ready for lunch? Lindy told me you’d be able to tell me what’s good here.”

“Hamburger and fries for me. I don’t like fish much even as long as I’ve lived here.” Eddie waved down the waiter and ordered two hamburgers and two more beers.  

Woody looked at him cautiously, out of the corner of his eye. “Lindy told me you’re not just fishing, that you already know some stuff and you are looking for more about Al Sommers. That right?”

Eddie tried to phrase his reply carefully. “I don’t know much about Al Sommers personally, and it looks like he’s too old to be much of a player in anything — and I don’t really know what anything consists of. I also know you’re close to him, so I don’t want to get a turf war started because I have nothing against him. I’ll be back in Paris in a couple of days and it would be unfair for me to leave you dealing with fallout from my questions.”

Woody thought about that a minute, then said, “Al and I used to be friends. When he ran his bank I did some investigations for him and he paid me for them. But he hasn’t sent any work my way for more than six months, so I think he’s a former client. I sell a few stories to Lindy and other small papers in the area and I have a little Army pension, but I need to find other ways to  make a little money. So what I’m saying is I’ll help you if I can, and it wouldn’t be good for either of us if the word got back to Sommers. So if you won’t tell, I won’t.”

“Fair enough. A couple of people say you’re good at your job and your information checks out. You know I’ll have to check it.”

“I understand that.”

“Then what can you tell me about Al Sommers’s relationship with Roy Castor?”

“I don’t think they was ever friends. They were in the military together, but Sommers was a hotshot pilot with medals and Roy was a grunt. Sommers tried to use Roy to raise money for his bank, but Roy wouldn’t touch that. Roy and Sommers were on opposite sides of the political divide, but that wasn’t Roy’s problem. He could just smell a rat.  We have a lot of extreme right-wingers in this town, but Sommers is really rabid — and I say that as somebody who’s basically on the same side he is —  and Roy was a live-and-let-live type.”

Eddie replied, “That wouldn’t have led to Roy’s death, would it?”

“Not by itself, but combined with money, who knows? I don’t know Al’s financial condition now, but last year it was pretty bad. He got on the wrong side of the stock market, and he lent some money to Sonny and Dmitri to start a restaurant in Naples, which promptly flopped.”

“Did he have anything more than what he took out of the bank?”

“Well, he had to pay some of that to the family of a man who went bankrupt when the bank failed and then killed himself. But he had other resources — his own and what I’d call ‘family’ resources.”

The hamburgers arrived and Woody stopped until the waiter had left.

“What I’m about to tell you could get me killed. It could get you killed. But I think you should know it because I think it got Roy Castor killed.”

Eddie waited.

“There was always a rumor around that Al looted a bunch of stuff at the end of World War II, when he was working in Munich with Roy.”

“And with my father,” Eddie interjected.

“Yes. Well, that was true. He did steal a few pieces and mail them home — the post office was the looter’s best friend at that time. In fact, some of them are still stored in an old fallout shelter behind his house. From the outside it looks like it hasn’t been used in years, but the real entrance is in the garage. I’ve been in it, and I’ve seen it. There must be a dozen pieces of silver and gold that look like they came from old churches.

“But, and here’s the important part, it’s Sonny who owns most of the treasure. His father was a big-time looter and moved all of it here from Midland when Al sold the business. He stored it in the fallout shelter, too, but when his father died Sonny moved it to the big new house he and Dmitri bought in Naples. They even built in a secure room just for the loot and some guns. It has six-inch reinforced concrete walls and one of those doors like you see in banks, with a combination lock.

“They’ve been selling it piece by piece through Dmitri’s connections, some pretty shady types in Europe, maybe the Russian mafia. Dmitri’s not a real full-blooded gangster but he’s a dangerous man all the same, and has a reputation of being good with a knife. He was in prison for trying to burn down a federal judge’s house when he met Sonny, and the two of them fell in love at first sight.”

Woody paused and Eddie exhaled. “That’s a hell of a story. You ever think about writing a book?”

“I’d live maybe a week. No thanks. But I’ve had it with Sommers and I never did like his two buddies.”

“So you think this whole thing is about money?”

“Not entirely, but they’re running through theirs fast, and they got a lead from Sonny’s father that Roy learned something from one of the top Nazis just before he was hanged. Dmitri’s fence contacts got him in touch with somebody in Europe that verified some of the things they’d heard here. I think he’s one of the people they sold Sonny’s stuff to, and he’d like to buy more.”

“What do you know about him?”

“Very little. He’s German, a real tough guy, like the SS types you see in the movies. Not the effeminate ones. Dmitri thinks he’s fronting for some Arabs because he’s never interested in any of the altarpieces or angel paintings or things the Arabs’ religion doesn’t allow. He just wants valuable hard goods, like gold cups. And he never buys until the man behind him gives his OK. Nothing on spec.”

“Then why the interest in the painting?”

“Oh, he’d sell that somewhere else. And there’s some sort of family connection to it. His father was once involved with it when the Nazis had it, or something like that. He thinks there’s lots more there than the painting. A bunch of Nazi gold.”

“Did you ever hear this man’s name?”

“Sure I did. I even met him once a half-dozen years ago. He’s a mean-looking bastard. The strangest thing is his ear. He was born with only half of his right ear. It’s like somebody cut part of it off, except that his father’s was the same.”

Eddie pressed. “What was the name?”

“Erich. It was Erich.”

“You said it wasn’t entirely about money. What else is there?”

“They’re a threesie. Al wears the dress. I’m not sure how Sonny and Dmitri divide up the rest of the work, and I don’t want to know.”

The table had been cleared. Eddie paid the check. During Woody’s tale he had finished a cup of coffee and Woody had drunk another beer, his fifth, very quickly. Eddie decided to wrap things up before Woody changed his mind.

“Woody, you’ve been really helpful to me. Can I call on you again if any questions come up? And what can I pay you?”

“Sure. Call me any time, I’ll give you my card. My usual fee is $50 an hour and we’ve been here three hours, so that’s $150. Is that OK?”

“It’s more than fair.” Eddie reached into his pocket for his wallet, peeled off three $50 bills and laid them on the table. “And I’d like to give you a retainer for future work. Would another $200 be OK?” He showed four more fifties.

Woody looked hungrily at the money. “You bet. Sommers never paid me more than $100 for anything. You call me any time.” He was relaxed and friendly.

Abruptly, Eddie leaned over the table, put his face close to Woody’s and said, “If I hear so much as a rumor that you’ve passed this conversation on to anyone else, I’ll come back and take that money out of your ass, and Sommers or Dmitri will be right behind me, if they don’t get to you first. Do we understand each other very clearly?”

Woody sat back in the seat, shaken. “Yes. Yes, Sir. I understand. You don’t have anything to worry about there.”

As Eddie crossed the street to his car he looked carefull
y for followers. It seemed clear, so he started the drive back across the bridge into Sarasota proper, dialing Jen on the way.

“How are you coming with the house?” he asked her.

“Crappy. I’m here now with a contractor. Can you come?”

“Sure. I was on my way but didn’t know where you were.”

“Come see this mess and then we’ll go and pick one of those light Burgundies you mentioned. Maybe we’ll get a case. I feel like drinking a lot of it tonight.”

“OK. Remember I have an early flight tomorrow. I’m going to Washington to see an old Army buddy who may be able to help. I’ll be back tomorrow night.”

He parked in front of a neighbor’s house because Jen’s was surrounded by cars. He spotted the fire chief’s SUV and another that bore the seal of the State Fire Marshal on its front doors. Two pickups appeared to belong to contractors, judging from the ladders sticking out of their beds.

Smoke-stained carpet had been piled roughly on the lawn. He walked past it into the living room and found the stench of smoke overwhelming, so he hurried further, past the guest room and Roy’s study, where there was no apparent fire damage, to the kitchen, which was a charred shell. A large black stain on the tile floor marked where the gasoline had been thrown. The cabinet doors had burned or were askew on their hinges, and the contents behind them were cinders. The ceiling was black. The heat must have been intense.

“Eddie!” Jen saw him from the back porch and ran into the kitchen to throw her arms around his neck. “This is horrible.”