Edwin of the Iron Shoes Page 11

  “From Italy to Salem Street. I wonder if Joan knew she had a masterpiece in her shop.” I stopped, aware of the answer to my question. Joan Albritton, a smuggler?

  “What a setup!” Paula exclaimed. “A collector could arrange to pick up paintings on Salem Street, and no one would suspect their value. Who would look for real works of art there?”

  An ideal setup indeed. How, I wondered, had Joan smuggled them in the first place? “My God,” I said softly. I had thought of how Joan had purchased most of her stock.

  “Paula,” I began, putting it together slowly, “if a painting like this were to come in with a regular shipment of pictures—fake antiques manufactured only last month—would either Italian or American Customs catch it?”

  She shook her head. “Not if it was from an established manufacturer. They can’t inspect every shipment that goes out. And especially coming into the U.S. they wouldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Have you ever seen a ship unload at the docks? A Customs official is there, but usually he doesn’t even open the containers. The Customs Bureau has highly trained art experts on its staff, but their job is to recognize fake artworks rather than the real thing.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Fine art—paintings, sculpture, things of obvious merit—is permitted to enter the country duty-free. Promotes culture and so forth. A lot of importers try to pass stuff off as fine art to avoid the duty, and the experts are kept busy detecting fraud. They don’t have time to examine every shipment of dutiable merchandise, which your fake antiques would be.”

  “Then, if the Bellini came from a reputable firm to a known dealer here, if there were periodic shipments from that firm to that dealer, it would probably slip by Customs?’’

  “I’m sure of it.”

  I leaned against the car, my mind pushing the facts into place. Joan Albritton and Oliver van Osten: smugglers?

  Maybe that was why van Osten looked prosperous. And why Joan had left such a substantial estate.

  “Sharon, this painting should not be dragged around this way,” Paula was saying. “It’s very old and easily damaged by temperature, by just about anything. Why don’t I take it into the museum?”

  “No,” I said. “No, I think I’d better take it to the police. It’ll be safe there.” I removed it from her hands and got out my car blanket. Even with the Bellini wrapped inside, it would still look like a standard issue U.S. Navy blanket. I stowed it and the other paintings away. Paula watched me as if I were locking a baby in the trunk.

  “Could you find me that article on the thefts?” I asked her.

  “Sure. I’ll look for it as soon as I get home.”

  “I’d really appreciate that.”

  “No trouble. I’d like a few paintings left in the churches if I ever visit Italy again.”

  I grinned at her and got in the car. “Thanks for your help. I’ll call you.” As I drove off, I could see Paula standing in the road, waving at me and the Bellini.

  The next step, I thought, was to look at van Osten’s catalogues to see if he imported paintings from any Italian firms. That meant I should pay his office a visit—but after business hours. In the meantime, I’d track down Charlie Cornish and demand the truth about his peculiar behavior.

  19

  Tracking down Charlie proved to be a problem. Junk Emporium was still locked up tight, so I went down the block to Dan Efron’s shop. Dan was busy extolling the merits of an old gas stove to a customer, so I had to wait. The stove looked even more decrepit than the one in my apartment, but Dandy made it sound like a real find.

  When the customer had paid for the stove and hauled it to a waiting van, Dan turned to me, a foolish grin on his face.

  “How’s Austin getting along, Dan?” I asked, remembering I had left the little shopkeeper in his possession the night before.

  The grin faded. “Oh, not so good. I got him home all right, and his missus made sure he had a couple of stiff drinks, but she says he’s really down in the dumps today.

  Has to see the insurance people, and you can bet they’ll try to screw him out of every cent they can.”

  I sighed. “Poor Austin. Have you seen Charlie around by any chance?”

  Dan looked even gloomier. “That’s another one of us who’s not in great shape.”

  “I saw his shop was closed up.”

  “Yeah, first time I can remember it being. I’m afraid Charlie’s hitting the bottle pretty hard.”

  “You mean he’s in there drinking?”

  Dan shook his head. “Nope. He stopped by about an hour ago, wanted to know if I’d go down to the Lucky Lounge for a few beers. I would’ve, but I couldn’t leave the store.”

  I asked, “Where’s the Lucky Lounge?”

  “Over on McAllister Street. But you wouldn’t want to go there.”

  “Why not?”

  Dan looked embarrassed. “Well, the kind of women they get in there, they’re not what I’d call your class.”

  “Don’t worry, Dan. If anybody offers me money, I won’t get offended.”

  “Aw, they’re not all whores.” He scratched his head in confusion. “Some of them’re just old drunks.”

  I left Dan in front of his shop, his grin back in place, and walked over to McAllister Street. The Lucky Lounge was a standard working-class bar; its neon sign advertised hours from six A.M., the earliest city ordinance permitted drinks to be served. I pushed open the door and entered a gloomy room.

  A bar with cracked leather stools ran along the left side, and small booths lined the wall on the right. A jukebox was playing a country song about “the most beautiful girl in the world.” In the far booth, Charlie sat hunched over a shell of light beer.

  “Can I help you, ma’am?” A voice spoke from behind the bar. I gestured toward Charlie and kept going.

  When I got to the booth, Charlie looked up. Although his eyes were red, I could tell he hadn’t been drinking heavily. He just looked like a lonely old man nursing a single beer.

  “Are you going to ask me to join you?” I tried to make my voice stern, but it was difficult. I’d developed a certain affection for Charlie Cornish despite the trouble he’d caused me.

  He gestured at the side of the booth opposite him. “Can’t see why you’d want to, but go ahead. I’ll even buy you a beer.”

  I sat down, and he signaled to a tired-looking waitress, who leaned against the bar, resting her feet. She brought another glass of beer and set it in front of me, giving me a curious glance. Charlie and I didn’t look like a particularly well-suited couple.

  “I guess you want some sort of explanation,” Charlie said, “about why I never asked the Association to hire you, I mean.”

  “I had thought of asking for one, yeah.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of. You ask too damn many questions.” He tried to smile at me, but it didn’t come off.

  The jukebox stopped playing, and Charlie picked a couple of quarters out of the change on the table and went to make more selections. I waited. I had plenty of time to hear what he had to tell me.

  He came back and sat down heavily. The same song played over again.

  “‘… woke up this morning, realized what I’d done. I stood alone in the cold gray dawn, knew I’d lost my morning sun.’” Charlie sang along, slightly off-key. “‘Heeeey, did you happen to see the most beautiful girl in the world?’”

  I started to smile. Joan Albritton had been neither beautiful nor a girl. Then I stopped, aware of the tendency when one is still young to assume that all life and passion stop with the onset of gray hair. To Charlie, Joan had perhaps been exactly what the song said. His world would forever be diminished now.

  “So go ahead and ask me why I didn’t do it,” he said suddenly, in mid-song.

  I shook my head. “I think I know. You were afraid I’d find out too much.”

  He looked at me keenly. “Too much about what?”

  “About your past, maybe. About wh
at really happened that night when you went over to Joan’s shop.” The last was a shot in the dark, based on his recent guilt-stricken behavior.

  It hit home. His face crumpled, and he dug his fingers into his palms. “You think you know so much, you tell me.”

  “I know how your wife and child died. How they indicted you for it. Did Joan know?”

  “She knew. It never made any difference to her … at least, I never thought it did until Monday night. I thought she understood.”

  “Understood what? Did you really kill them?”

  He shrugged, hopeless pain on his face. “I always thought I did. I can half-remember dropping a cigarette into the pile of cleaning rags that started the fire. But then, I was never sure whether I did it that day or any one of a hundred other days, or if the cigarette was even lit. It’s always been hazy, but God knows I could have done it. I loved my wife, but she didn’t love me, and the kid wasn’t even mine.”

  It made me hurt, his living a life filled with guilt for something he wasn’t even sure he’d done. “Did Joan throw it up to you on Monday night?”

  He nodded. “I went to see her. I wanted to try to talk her out of selling to Ben Harmon.”

  “Then you knew about her agreement with him before he came to see you the other night?”

  “Not really, but I kind of suspected it. The way he’d been hanging around her, I knew he was after her property. He had her fooled, so I tried to shock her back to her senses.”

  “How?”

  “By telling her Harmon was responsible for the arsons and vandalisms.”

  “Was he?”

  Charlie gestured wearily. “I think so. I saw one of his henchmen, that little skinny one they call Frankie, around right before a couple of the fires. Harmon can get that little creep to do any kind of dirty work.”

  Silently I agreed. “So you told Joan that?”

  “Right. She blew up at me, told me I was trying to smear Harmon out of jealousy for their friendship. She reminded me of how I’d been indicted for arson. Said I should look to myself first.”

  I sucked in my breath.

  “Then,” Charlie went on, “I did the thing I’m so ashamed of. I hit her, slapped her really hard.”

  I remembered the mention of a bruise in the medical examiner’s report.

  “It was horrible, Sharon. She just stood there, her hand to her face for a few minutes, and then she took the little chain off her neck and unlocked that cabinet. She got my locket out—the silver locket I bought her twenty years ago when I told her about my past and she said that it didn’t matter, that she loved me anyway.”

  He fumbled at the neck of his fatigues and brought it out, an old-fashioned silver filigree heart. “She gave it back to me and said—I’ll never forget her face when she said it—she said, ‘You’re nothing to me now. You’re nothing.’”

  His voice broke, and he leaned his head on his fist. I reached across and took his other hand, unlocking the clenched fingers and smoothing them out on the table.

  “When I went back,” his muffled voice said, “when I went back to ask her to forgive me, she was dead.”

  I didn’t say anything, just sat there, my hand on his. It must have been five minutes before he raised his head.

  “So now you know. I was afraid you might find out I’d been over there and fought with her. That police lieutenant had already been snooping around—I think he knows about me—and I was scared. So scared for my own stupid hide that I put it before finding Joanie’s killer.”

  I cleared my throat, finding it hard to speak. “Okay. Okay, Charlie. But you’re not doing that any more, and I think I’m getting closer to him.”

  A little interest flickered in his dull eyes. “Really?”

  I hesitated. I didn’t want to further burden him with the knowledge that his dead love, in all likelihood, had been a crook. Finally I said, “I want to ask you one more question, and then I’ll go.”

  “All right.”

  “Was there ever a time in the last few years when Joan needed money, more money than she could get out of the shop?”

  He looked puzzled. “Not that I know … oh, wait a minute. Of course. The kid.”

  “Her grandson?”

  “Right. Christopher. He was a hell of a talented musician and had already been accepted at Juilliard when he was only a junior in high school—some sort of early-decision plan for gifted kids. Joanie worried that she wouldn’t be able to send him. She didn’t want to see his talent go to waste like hers did when she married her no-good bum of a husband and dropped out of art school.”

  “What did she do about it?”

  “Do?” He gave me a blank look. “Not much, as I recall. She stopped worrying, cut down on expenses, and put money away. And the kid got the part-time job with the rock group.”

  “When was this, Charlie? Think hard.”

  He frowned. “As near as I remember, it was the fall of Chris’s junior year. That would be a year ago last fall. Chris was supposed to leave for New York this past August, if he got off on the drug charge.”

  That meant a year and a half ago Joan had been ripe for a money-making scheme. The intrigue of belonging to a smuggling ring might have even excited her.

  I stood up, setting my untouched beer in front of Charlie.

  “Where are you going now?” he asked.

  “Downtown, for a while. I’ll be in touch with you. I’ll let you know as soon as I find the killer.” I started to go, then added, “And, Charlie, if that Lieutenant Marcus comes around, tell him exactly what you told me. He’s a reasonable man; he’ll believe you.” I hurried out of the bar.

  What I’d said was true: Marcus, when he wasn’t putting on a big, fiery, official policeman show, could be very reasonable indeed. That didn’t apply to what I was planning, however. If Marcus knew I was about to break into Oliver van Osten’s office, the cop show would be staged with full pyrotechnics.

  20

  Having worked in security myself, I knew getting past a guard was largely a matter of observing his routines and finding a weak spot. I stationed myself at the trolley stop in front of the old building on Market Street where van Osten had his office and watched the man in uniform.

  It was close to seven in the evening, but a large number of people were going into the building. The guard asked each his or her name and checked it off on a list. At seven sharp, about twenty people showed up at once, and a line formed. I crossed the sidewalk and attached myself to the end.

  “Organizational behavior,” a woman in front of me was saying to the man with her, “is the worst course this school offers. I’m taking it because it’s required for the degree.”

  “I’m taking it,” the man said, “to get out of the house one night a week.”

  It explained the crowd. Golden Gate University, a downtown institution specializing in business and law, held many of its night classes in space donated by local companies. Some firm in van Osten’s building must have an organizational behavior class meeting in its conference room; the list the security guard consulted was probably the student roster. I hoped someone had cut class tonight.

  As I neared the guard, I watched him check off the people in front of me. He didn’t ask for identification, but I could tell he wasn’t familiar with their faces because he barely looked up. A little Sony TV stood on the desk, the volume down. The guard probably was anxious to get back to his program.

  When my turn came, I scanned the printed list, then pointed to a name that wasn’t checked. It was short and easy to read upside down.

  “That’s it,” I said. “Milne.”

  The guard grunted and marked it off. I followed the others to the elevator, and we rode to the twelfth floor. There, I started off the other way from my companions, making vague noises about the ladies’ room.

  The woman who was taking the course because it was required called to me, “You’ll have to go down a flight. They only have one on every other floor.”

 
“Thanks.” I went through the exit door, where I wanted to go anyway.

  Van Osten’s card said his office was number 602. I went down to the sixth floor. It was quiet, and no lights shone through the pebbled-glass doors. I went along to the right office. I could break the glass to get in, but I hoped I wouldn’t have to. From my bag, I took the set of passkeys I’d acquired over the years. The lock yielded on the eighth try.

  Inside I paused, listening to the silence, then took out my pencil flash and shone it around a standard reception room with standard office furniture. The walls were an uninteresting beige, and the desk and side chair were that yellow oak I remembered from grade school. No attempt had been made at decoration save a vase of red carnations on the desk, which only made the room more wretched by comparison. I guessed van Osten didn’t care to spend money on his office, since he was out much of the time calling on his customers. I moved past the desk and through a connecting door. All was quiet there, too.

  Three other doors opened off the small hallway where I stood. The first revealed only a supply closet. The next led into a showroom with samples of antiques scattered about. A bookcase held several shelves of bound notebooks, probably the manufacturers’ catalogues.

  I shone my light on them, bypassing those with English, French, or German names, until I came to one on the second shelf labeled GIANNINI & BANDUCCI, INC. Taking it to a nearby table, I leafed through it, looking at the illustrations. Giannini & Banducci manufactured a great many paintings.

  I turned the pages faster until I came to an illustration of a doleful-eyed Madonna and child. To my unschooled eyes, it was not very different from the Bellini in the trunk of my car. The accompanying description read:

  “Fifty assorted religious paintings in the Florentine style. Order No. BX1731.”

  The number caught my notice. I rummaged through my bag for the notebook where I’d copied the information from Joan’s ledger that morning. BX1731 was the shipment that should have arrived last Monday; maybe it had arrived after all. If so, where were the other forty-nine paintings?