1 - Artscape: Ike Schwartz Mystery 1 (18 page)

Chapter Twenty-six

Angelo was sprawled across the small couch, asleep, when Harry entered the room. Harry shook his arm and started as Angelo recoiled. The gun seemed to appear in his hand as if by magic. It was leveled at Harry’s stomach.

“Easy. It’s me, Grafton.”

Angelo relaxed, then looked anxious.

“I was asleep. You going to tell the
Patrone
?”

“Hell no, why would I do that? You are babysitting. They’re handcuffed, what could happen?”

“He would be very angry with me, Grafton. Please, you will not tell.”

“I won’t tell, Angelo, if, of course, you don’t tell him when you catch me asleep either?” Harry attempted a smile. He got a blank stare in return.

“We understand each other, and also something else—you don’t worry about afterward. I take care of that, right?”

And with that cryptic remark hanging over him, Angelo let himself out the door. Harry scratched his head. Afterward? What afterward?

He looked at the two kids. The boy slept curled in the fetal position. The girl was awake and staring at him.

“Hi,” he said. “How are you doing?”

“I’m okay. Thanks again for the clothes. They fit pretty well. I’m not that big on top or that small on the bottom, but they’ll do fine. A little loose here, a little tight there.”

They sat in silence. After a minute or two, Harry spoke.

“Where are you from, Jennifer?”

“Are you sure you want to know, Harry? Are you sure you want to get that close to someone you may have to shoot later?”

“No one’s going to shoot anyone, Jennifer, I promise. In two or three days, this will all be over and done with.”

“I can identify you. I know your name, what you look like, everything—the others, too. You can’t let me go.”

“It will work out, you’ll see. You will just have to forget for a while and then it will be over. See, the other one, Donati, is untouchable, you know. He will have an ironclad alibi for the whole time. They all will. And so while you’re trying to convince the police you’re right, Donati will stalk you, or your family. He can do that. And he will tell you he can, and so you will forget. Jennifer, you will forget me, him, Angelo, Red, all of us. You must.”

“Is that how it works, Harry? Is he—are you so sure of him that you can risk letting me go? Really?”

“That’s how it works, really.” Harry wished he believed it himself and hoped she would. She looked dubious.

“I don’t know.”

“Jennifer, listen to me. The boss of this operation is a contractor with the Mafia. He can do what he says he can do. Look, if it were otherwise, wouldn’t he have killed you both before now?”

“Yes, I guess so. You believe it’s going to be all right?”

“No doubt about it.”

She relaxed.

“Where am I from? All over. My folks are divorced. Daddy lives in Philadelphia with his trophy wife. He makes lots of money by investing other people’s and collecting fees. Summers in Rehoboth Beach, side trips to New York, Europe, that sort of thing.

“Momma tried working for a living, but found she could get more money by marrying it. She’s on her fourth now. Counting Daddy’s settlement and her inheritance from the late number three, she’s worth about six million dollars.”

“Poor little rich girl.”

“Don’t patronize me, Harry. You asked. That is what they are. What I am is something else.”

“I’m sorry. What are you?”

“I’m…me. I am my own person. When I graduate, I have a job in Chicago with the Art Institute and I got it all by myself. My parents do not even know about it yet. I am going to Chicago and have a career. I want to write, be a curator, and someday maybe collect fine art. Like the paintings you guys stole.”

Her determined look and confidence, the strength of her voice, convinced Harry that if she got the chance, if he could get her out of this mess somehow, she would do all those things, and more, much more.

“I believe you, Jennifer. You’re the kind that can make things happen.”

“And what about you, Harry? You can’t make things happen? You’re one of life’s losers, reduced to crime to meet your needs? I don’t believe it.”

“Well, you may be the only one who doesn’t.”

“Harry, if what you said is true—they will let me go, if I shut up—I won’t hurt you, you need to know that.”

Harry nodded. He supposed it was true enough. Hoped so.

“So tell me. How’d you get caught up in this, Harry?”

He thought a moment and decided it did not make much difference one way or another if she knew. But he wanted her to know for his own reasons. He wanted this girl’s friendship, goodwill, whatever. He wanted one person in the world to think well of him. He had had precious little of that in the past.

“I am here because I had no other choice. It is true what I told you about Donati’s long arm. He can get me through my children. I had a choice. The good way, the way I chose, he offered me enough money to be able to get my kids back, lawyers, that sort of thing. The bad way, he hurts them.

“I was out of work with no prospects. I owed a lot of money. Things were closing in on me and I took this path because it promised release, one way or the other. If the plan works, I’ll have enough money to buy my way out of my troubles. If it fails, I’m dead. I haven’t the courage to kill myself so I’ll let someone else do it for me.”

“Are you always so hard on yourself? I don’t believe for a minute you mean that. I think in the back of your mind, you are already working out how you are going to get out.”

Harry grinned at that. She had it right, but getting her out, too, had so far stymied him.

“You said you have children. Where’s their mother?”

“She died two weeks ago.” It seems like two years, two decades, he thought. “It took a long time for her to do it, but she died.”

“And you loved her very much?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. It wasn’t much of a marriage in the end—too many disappointments. She was impossible to please. I didn’t have the kind of job she could feel proud of, not in business like her friends’ husbands, like her father. And even though I made good money—people like me are expensive—there was never enough. The house, well, too small, or mildewed, or in the wrong neighborhood, or…something. She wanted Jaguars, not Chevrolets; country clubs, and I couldn’t please her. I tried, but it just never worked. And she began to resent her lot in life; to feel cheated, I guess. She quit college to marry me—her great sacrifice—her hopes for a career in the United Nations or the Foreign Service went out the window when the babies came. The role of housewife and mother didn’t suit her. Anyway, the anger and resentment built, and ate away at the marriage.”

“Why didn’t you just get divorced, be done with it?”

“We, I, come from a group that doesn’t believe in that. We believe marriage, good or bad, easy or hard, rewarding or awful, is forever. It’s like an Army chow line—you eat what they put on your tray or you go hungry. It never occurred to me to change lines.”

“So you endured it and began to hate her back?”

“Hate her? Maybe I did. But in my own way, I was devoted to her. I tried to reason with her, help her see what her anger did to me, but I failed—a catch twenty-two. When you are reduced to believing you are a failure, when your self-esteem goes, it’s not possible to convince someone of anything. You are beaten before you start. And so the hatred becomes two-sided. You’re right. I did grow to resent her as she resented me.”

“So what did you do? I know that sounds silly, but you were employed, making money. Others must have seen your worth. Wasn’t that enough?”

“No. That helps you do your job and I guess counterbalances some of the crushing weight of what is going on at home, but no, not enough. I didn’t do anything. My circle of friends got smaller each year as she edited out the ones she didn’t like, who failed to meet her standards. I didn’t know anyone well enough to confide in. Even if I did, I wouldn’t, because by then she’d pretty well convinced me that the problems were mine. I thought about having an affair or leaving—all kinds of things.”

“But you didn’t…have an affair, I mean.”

“No. There were offers, you know, I could have. But that would have made things worse. I was not very good at lying and if she found out.…Well, there is no joy going into an affair when you know the outcome. Some days I wished she would die, you know. I prayed for that sometimes, that she’d die, without pain, of course, heart attack, plane crash, and then I’d feel guilty as hell, and wish I were dead. I thought about suicide, how I would do it—what I would write in the note. Planning or wishing for your own death is a guilt-free preoccupation. And then she developed breast cancer, a late diagnosis, and she began to die for real.”

“And you felt guilty, felt like you were responsible, like you’d wished it on her?”

“Something like that. My drinking went over the top. I lost my job. Then her parents snatched my girls one morning when I was so hung over I couldn’t get up to stop them. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a look of contempt like the one on her father’s face when they broke into the apartment, took Karen and Julie, and all I could do was throw up. On my knees in the can, throwing up my guts, too weak, too helpless to stop them from taking my children. I guess that was the bottom. That was a month ago. My wife died two weeks later, and Donati offered me a chance to put my life together. Money to pay medical bills, lawyers, rent—serious money.”

“What you did in the robbery, the alarm business, you did that before?”

“Yes, only legally. But when you drink, you become unreliable. Well, they couldn’t risk it, and then I had a disagreement with the new administration about whether I would carry a gun and broaden my, um, area of responsibility. Anyway, I was let go.”

They sat in silence. Harry felt tired, but at the same time better. Just talking about it helped ease the hurt, see himself better. He wished he had met a Jennifer two years, five years before. He looked at her. She sat cross-legged, lost in thought. She looked like someone who was about to buy a house, weighing the advantages and disadvantages of location, taxes, school districts, transportation, and mortgage payments. Then, without warning, she began to shake. Harry got up and went to her, uncertain what he should do.

“Hey,” he said, “you okay?”

Her eyes filled with tears and she fought back the sobs that wracked her.

“I’m scared, Harry. I don’t want to die.”

“No one’s going to die.”

“We are. We all are.”

Harry reached for her without thinking, cradled her in his arms. Her free arm circled his neck and she buried her face in the angle of his neck and shoulder and gave way to the tears. Harry stroked her hair and back. He murmured reassurances he really did not feel, and without realizing it, kissed her hair and forehead. After a few minutes, her sobbing slowed, stopped, and ended in hiccups.

“I can’t face it, you know?”

“It’s going to be okay, kid.”

“Harry, if I get out of this alive—no, let me finish—I want to.…”

She dissolved into tears again, this time not so body wracking. Through them, she murmured, “I’ll never see you again, will I?”

“We’ll see each other, sure,” Harry said and hoped it was so.

“But how will I find you?”

“You won’t. I’ll find you. Art Institute, Chicago. Remember?”

Chapter Twenty-seven

Ike and Dillon watched Ruth and the two men leave.

“She’s quite a woman, don’t you think?” Dillon said.

“Yes, sir, she is that.”

“Kenny able to play in this league? God, he looks like a teenager. Am I getting old or is everyone else getting younger?”

Ike smiled. He was beginning to think the same thing. “He’ll be okay. I’m a little surprised they didn’t send someone with a little more experience. You’d think with the press and everything, the Bureau would send an agent with a little more pizzazz.”

“It’s the new guy. I told the President he should hire a lawman, but he’s got a bug in his ear about MBAs from the Ivy League. Anyway the Bureau is in turmoil and that’s why we got the schoolboy, I guess.”

Ike wasn’t so sure.

“Now, Sheriff.” Dillon’s voice turned serious, the curmudgeon gone. “I think maybe you’re the one I need to talk to. I do not believe for a minute that you are what you pretend to be. I have dealt with small-town cops in practically every state in the nation and half the countries in the world. I do not know what you are, and I do not want to know, but you sure as hell aren’t a cop. So, you heard all this talk about ransom and operations and so on. What do you think I should do?”

Ike stared at Dillon. He knew a little about him. Who didn’t? He appeared on the cover of
Time
, hobnobbed with Presidents and royalty. But beyond those surface things, Ike did not know very much. Money had a way of distorting people. He guessed this man, a second-generation industrial baron, could be as tough as he needed to be. Dillon could handle just about anything he or anyone else might dish out to him.

“Mr. Dillon, I will not tell you what to do. You are far too smart to need that from me, and I am not dumb enough to try. I will tell you what I think, what I believe, and if I can, I will try to project odds. You will do the deciding.”

Dillon lit another cigarette.

“Okay, Sheriff. You do that. What do you think?”

“Well, first, there is the ransom—to pay or not to pay. Whether you pay will depend on how much you value one of two things: the money and the paintings. If you value the money, you won’t pay, unless you think there’s a chance of recovering the diamonds or at least most of them. If, however, you value the paintings, you will pay, but only if you’re sure they will be returned to you. If they are already destroyed or will be irrespective of payment, you will not pay.”

“The government and the state police think I should pay.”

“Yes, I gather they do. Unless you agree to do it, they don’t have much to work with. Remember, this was a professional operation using very sophisticated talent. You know the security system in the bunker. I’m guessing they sailed through that in less than an hour. They will be hard to find, maybe impossible, they’re that good.”

Dillon nibbled at the corner of a pastry, made a face, and dropped it into the trash basket behind him.

“You talk like you know them.”

“I guess I do, in a way. I worked with people like them…ah, in the past. They are good, Mr. Dillon, very good. If you pay the ransom, Scarlett and Kenny hope they can set up an intercept and catch one or two and through them, get the rest. If you don’t pay, they have nothing to do.”

“If the bad guys are as good as you say, that might be tough, too?”

“Bad odds, Mr. Dillon. The days of leaving a suitcase full of money somewhere in a hollow tree are over. These people are prepared to get away clean. Fifty million dollars buys a lot of equipment. They will ask for the exchange in a wide-open place they can watch, like a state park or a beach. The diamonds will be deposited in the open and left. They will wait until they’re sure no one can get to them, then come in fast with a helicopter, pick them up, fly nap of the earth to a second point, change to another transport and keep doing that until they’re clean and clear. They will have alternative contacts on every exchange and all the FBI or state police in Virginia will not be able to cover all the possibilities. I think it’s safe to say that if you pay the ransom you can kiss fifty million dollars goodbye.”

“You don’t have much faith in your colleagues, do you? What’s your name, anyway?”

“Ike.”

“Ike, short for Isaac? Father’s name Abraham? You’d call a son Jacob, no doubt.”

“Not a chance. Bill—he is going to be named Bill. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be Jewish in this part of the country, with a name like Ike?”

“Ike the kike?”

“You got it.”

“How’d you like to be named Millhouse like the geek in
The Simpsons
, or Nixon? Millhouse Armand Dillon. I grew up believing that a natural part of living involved a fistfight on the playground every day. You can’t even come up with a decent nickname with Millhouse. At least you had Ike. I solved it by using my initials, M.A.D. Called myself Mad Dog. I got good enough at fighting by then to make it stick, and I was known as Mad Dog, Mad, or just plain Crazy until I made my first million. Count your blessings, Ike. Jacob is a nice name; a kid could do all right in this world as a Jake. Now, about the FBI, the state police—you don’t think they can cut it?”

“Don’t get me wrong, Mr. Dillon. They’re good enough, better than that, but it’s just that the deck is stacked against them.”

“So you think the money’s gone?”

“Yes.”

“And if I value it over the paintings, then I shouldn’t pay the ransom.”

“No.”

“I’ll tell you, Ike, I don’t care about the money one way or another, so tell me about the paintings. Do you think these professional thieves of yours will keep their end of the bargain if I pay?”

“Well, that’s complicated. I believe we have two parties involved here: the people who stole the paintings and the people who contracted the first group to do it for them. I told you the first are pros, but I do not know about the second. Terrorists are impossible to predict. They lash out at anything or anybody. They’re suicide bombers. They’ll kill their grandmothers to make a point.”

Dillon pulled out another cigarette and the box of matches. He stared at them for a moment, and then replaced both.

“Then you’re saying I may or may not get my pictures back if I pay?”

“Yes, but not exactly. Let’s take some hypothetical cases. One, you pay, the group holding the pictures gets your money. When they’re away, they tell you where to pick up the stuff, or they notify their employers. If the latter, then you are dependent on their sense of fair play to tell you. Since they do not have such a sense, you have a fifty-fifty chance of getting your paintings back.

“Two, you don’t pay, the first group pulls out. They have been paid part of their fee up front. My guess is that they will pack up and go.”

“They won’t burn the paintings?”

“They’re thieves, Mr. Dillon, not vandals. What would be the point? No, they won’t touch the paintings, but they may tell their employers where they are and you can bet they will burn them. And call the papers and television stations to watch them do it.”

“The terrorists don’t have them now?”

“I don’t think so. Those truckloads of paintings are the only asset in the game. The thieves need them to get their payday. If you refuse to pay, the pictures are converted from an asset to a liability.”

Dillon stared at the ceiling, turning Ike’s words over.

“The hard part of an operation this big is keeping track of all the players. Where are the paintings now, Ike? Who has them?”

“I suspect they’re close by, in a truck stop somewhere on I-81, a warehouse in Roanoke or Harrisonburg, maybe in an abandoned barn.”

“If I don’t pay and the terrorists don’t destroy them, I’ll get them back?”

“Oh sure, sooner or later, they’ll turn up…next week, next year…eventually.”

“Are you sure about all this?”

“I think so, but as I said, this is only my take, my best guess.”

“Ike, you’re not the bearer of the most cheerful news I’ve ever heard. Let me see if I’ve been following you—if I pay, there’s at best a fifty-fifty chance I’ll get the pictures, and no chance of recovering the money. If I don’t pay, there’s only a twenty-eighty chance I’ll get the pictures, but I keep the money. In both cases, we aren’t going to catch any of these people at all.”

“I didn’t say that, Mr. Dillon. I said paying or not paying will not catch them. If we get them, it will be because we did our homework and got lucky, but it will also be independent of the payment of the ransom.”

“Finding the pictures is also an independent event?”

“Yes, sir.”

Dillon stood and stretched. He walked to the window lost in thought. His back was to Ike. The chimes struck the hour, and when the last peal had finished resonating in the courtyard, he spoke as though addressing someone outside.

“Funny thing about art. My father bought fifty, sixty percent of that stuff in Paris in the Thirties. He was a very young man with a little money with no talent for painting. But he knew people who had it, and when they couldn’t pay back the small loans he made them, they gave him a picture or two. He came home to the family business with a carload of impressionists. I have an undeserved reputation as a collector of classics. I am offered stuff all the time, Klees, Pollacks, Turners, at bargain rates. I doubt there is more than ten million tied up in the whole lot. It’s appraised at half a billion now. It would take me a decade to sell them if I wanted to. But either way, the price is a paper one, it’s not real.”

Dillon was silent for a few moments, then, turning to Ike, said, “If you had fifty million dollars lying around loose, would you buy my collection, all of it? Any of it?”

“Nope.”

“Neither would I. What would you do with fifty million dollars, Ike?”

“Mr. Dillon, there are a lot of underfed, underclothed, and undereducated children in this world. If I had that kind of money, I’d spend it on them, the kids who’ll someday paint new pictures, dream new dreams. I’d spend it on the future.”

“Thank you, Ike. I knew you weren’t a cop. Now, let’s get those two hotshots back in here. I’ve made a decision.”