Faking It

Chapter 3

TILDA PULLED HER FOOT from under the duffel bag he dropped under the table. “Do I know you?”

“Yep.” He settled into the booth. “You stuck your tongue down my throat about an hour ago. Did I thank you for that?”

She squinted at him through her glasses. At first glance, he was average looking, a mild-mannered, dark-haired, Clark Kent kind of guy with horn-rimmed glasses in a beat-up nothing-colored jacket; the only notable thing about him was Andrew’s “Bitch” baseball cap that he’d swiped from her back at Clea’s.

On second glance, the glint in his eye and the set of his jaw made her twitch.

“Did you want this?” he said and she felt something bump her leg under the table.

When she reached down, she felt paper wrapping and under that, the edge of a painting, and the relief that rolled over her was so intense that she closed her eyes. “Thank you. I forgive you for everything.”

“Everything what?” he said. “Saving your butt?”

“For mugging me in a closet.” One corner of the paper was torn back, and Tilda could see the stars in the checkerboard sky beneath it. Definitely her stars. Thank you, thank you.

“You jumped me,” he was saying. “I was there first. Technically, it was my closet, Vilma.”

“Who’s Vilma?” Tilda said, her interest in his glint diminishing.

“Nobody watches the late movies anymore. I blame cable.”

Oh, good, he was colorful. Tilda smiled at him brightly. “Well, gee, this has been great. Thanks for all your help.” She started to slide out of the booth and he put his foot on the bench, trapping her.

“Hold it,” he said. “You owe me. Who are you and why were you hitting Clea’s closet?”

“No,” Tilda said and pushed at his foot.

“Yes,” he said, keeping his foot where it was.

“If I create a scene,” she began and then stopped as she saw the problem. She was sitting in a booth with a hot painting. She couldn’t afford a scene. Somebody would come up and say, “What is that?” and then she’d have to explain, and anything was better than talking about the Scarlets, anything, even this yahoo and his glint.

“There you go,” he said. “The good news is, I don’t care what you’re up to, I just want information. Who are you and-”

The waitress came by with the coffeepot, and he shrank into his jacket a little more. “Hamburger?” he said to her, and she took out her pad without even looking at him. If anybody asked tomorrow, she wouldn’t remember a thing about him, which was amazing because he really was a piece of work. “Coffee,” he said. The waitress nodded, put her pad back in her apron pocket, topped up Tilda’s cup and left, still not looking at him.

“Now,” he said to Tilda. “Your name.”

Tilda sat back and thought fast. “Call me Vilma. The painting is mine. Mrs. Lewis took it and wouldn’t give it back, so I had to go in and get it.”

“She stole it?” he said. “That doesn’t sound like her.”

“She bought it,” Tilda said, “but she didn’t pay for it.”

“That sounds like her,” he said and Tilda thought, You know her well. Her thoughts of Clea, never warm to begin with, grew colder.

“So who are you?” she said. “And what were you doing there?”

“I’m a consultant for an elite law enforcement agency,” he said, looking at her over the top of his horn-rims. “Call me Bond. James -”

“Funny,” Tilda said.

The waitress brought his coffee, and when she was gone, he said, “So why didn’t you call the police?”

“That would be so unpleasant.” Tilda lifted her chin. “And she could say she had the painting on approval.”

“So you turned to B and E to avoid the unpleasantness.” He nodded. “We’ll come back to that. Who taped the door for you?”

“What?” Tilda said, widening her eyes the way Gwen and Eve always did when they wanted to look innocent.

He snapped his fingers. “Betty Boop.”

“What?” Tilda said again, this time for real.

“That’s who you remind me of. Curly hair, bug eyes, Kewpie-doll mouth. My sister dressed up like her for Halloween once.”

“Fascinating,” Tilda said, her eyebrows snapping together over the “bug eyes” part. “Can I go now?”

“No, Betty, you can’t. When I got to Clea’s, I tried the doors and they were all locked except one at the side. The latch was taped down so it wouldn’t lock. Who did that for you?”

“I have no idea what-”

“Betty, you can stop lying. I just want to know who you know on the inside so I can know him, too.”

The waitress brought his hamburger and slapped the check on the table and then wandered off again.

“I don’t know anybody inside,” Tilda said as he began to work his way through the sandwich at the speed of light. “I went in during the day and taped it.”

He looked at her over the top of his glasses and she stopped. “Here’s some advice,” he said, threat palpable in his tone. “Don’t lie to me. It’s a waste of your time and my patience.”

“Oh, please,” Tilda said, unimpressed.

He nodded and bit into the hamburger again. “That tough stuff never works for me,” he said when he’d swallowed, his voice light again. “Which is odd because I really can be a bastard.”

He smiled at her, and Tilda saw menace in his eyes and felt her throat close up.

“Want to push your luck?” he said.

“No,” Tilda said. “Okay, here’s the truth. Somebody taped it for me but that person does not work inside. I don’t think anybody works there. I think it’s just Mason Phipps and Clea Lewis, and I don’t think there’s any time when the house is empty for sure.”

He sat back and regarded her with something that might have passed for approval. “So you set up a dinner party. Not stupid.”

“Thank you.” Tilda tapped his shoe. “May I go now?”

“No,” he said, not moving his foot. “Clea bought the painting from you. Why?”

“No idea,” Tilda said. “I guess she liked it.”

“Why do you have to have it back?”

“No,” Tilda said. “That will not help you.”

“And yet I feel sure it would.” He pushed his empty plate away, and Tilda blinked her surprise. He must have been starving to inhale a hamburger like that. “Let’s take this from the top.”

“Let’s not.” Tilda sat up straighten “Look, I know you’ve got me, but I have no connection with Clea Lewis, I’ve never even met her, and I’m done telling you things.” She stuck out her chin. “So if that’s not enough, go ahead and turn me in.”

He looked at her sadly. “Betty, I am not the kind of guy who turns people in.” Then he stopped, as if he’d remembered something. “Well, I’m not the kind of guy who turns people like you in.” He picked up his coffee cup and smiled at her.

“Thank you,” Tilda said, ignoring the little leap her pulse gave. “You’re a real prince. Move your foot.”

He sipped his coffee, never taking his eyes off her. “You’re not a thief. You’d starve to death trying to steal for a living, and you clearly haven’t been starving.”

“Hey,” Tilda said.

“That wasn’t an insult. That was an observation made while bouncing you on the carpet.” He moved his foot off the seat and slid out of the booth, taking off Andrew’s baseball cap and dropping it crookedly on her head as he went. “Okay, this conversation is not over.” He reached under the table for the duffel bag. “Stay here, Betty. When I get back, we’re going to start all over again.”

Oh, no we’re not, Tilda thought and watched him go toward the back, his shoulders hunched, unremarkable. She straightened her cap as he turned into the hall where the restrooms were, gave him an extra minute to be sure, and then slid out of the booth and headed for the door, the painting clutched firmly under her arm.

The waitress caught her on the way out. “Wait a minute. Who’s paying for the hamburger?”

“He is,” Tilda said.

“He’s gone,” the waitress said, blocking her way. “Went out the back door.”

“The son of a bitch,” Tilda said, outraged. “He stuck me with the check?”

“That’s a guy for you,” the waitress said. “With the coffee, that’s nine eighty-seven.”

“Jerk.” Tilda dug in her purse for the money, kicking herself. She’d actually had semi-warm thoughts about the bastard, which just went to show how pathetic she was. Well, the good news was, he was out of her life.

And her Scarlet was back. She felt slightly sick at the thought but it was all good, having it back. It really was.

“Thank you,” she told the waitress and headed out the door, grateful for her narrow escape.

ACROSS THE STREET, Davy lounged against the side of a building, hidden in the shadows. Sorry about that, Betty, he thought as he saw the waitress catch her by the door. She looked up and down the street, undoubtedly gunning for him, and he stayed motionless in the shadows, watching her sling her bag over her shoulder and anchor the painting under her arm before starting off, taking long strides and making people turn to watch as she walked by. Clearly not cut out for crime, he thought as he began to follow her.

Four blocks later she cut down a side street and he picked up speed to catch her, only to find himself alone in an alley. Kicking himself for not watching her closer, he went back out into the street and looked around.

There was nothing of interest on the street except for a dingy brick storefront that had dim light filtering through its windows. Davy walked over and looked through the glass. The shop was dark, but at the back was a door with a window in it and people moving around inside. And through the shadows in the front of the store he could see two well-executed but depressed-looking seascapes.

Paintings.

That is not a coincidence, he thought, and stepped back to scan the peeling sign over the storefront. It was hard to read because the gold letters had faded, but after a minute he’d spelled it out: the goodnight gallery.

So Betty the art thief had connections to an art gallery. He caught sight of a smaller sign in the lower corner of the show window and moved closer to read it.

“Furnished Apartment for Rent,” it said. “Inquire within.”

He looked over his shoulder, suddenly cautious, remembering his dad: if things seem too good to be true, get out. Michael Dempsey wasn’t much of a father, but as a survivor, he had no peer.

Davy considered the situation. If some human being wasn’t setting him up for a fall, fate was. He thought about Betty, her pale blue eyes clueless behind those bug glasses, failing miserably at seducing him at Clea’s, stonewalling him with no finesse at all in the diner. The chances that she’d led him here on purpose seemed slim to none.

Fate, on the other hand, could very well be trolling for him. He’d been a pool player long enough to know that if you had to choose between skill and luck, you chose luck; a con man long enough to know that if you had to choose between a great plan and fate on your side, you picked fate. And here he was, up to his ass in skill and plans.

The situation required some thought and he needed some capital, so he went to find a bar with a pool table. Betty could wait.

After all, he knew where to find her.

FIVE MINUTES earlier, Tilda had let herself in the back door of the gallery and then into the office. Gwen was stretched out on the beat-up leather couch, her blonde hair picking up some flame from the bubbler jukebox, which was playing the Cookies’ “Don’t Say Nothin’ Bad About My Baby,” but Spot leaped to his feet from the threadbare carpet and launched himself at Tilda. She caught him as Gwen sat up so fast she almost slid off the leather couch.

“Where have you been? My God, I thought you’d-”

“I know.” Tilda tried to control Spot’s flailing rear end without dropping the painting. “It’s solved. Look!” She held up the paper-wrapped square, and Gwen sank back down onto the cushions.

“Thank God.” Gwen lifted her eyes to the ceiling.

Tilda dropped the painting on the couch and hauled the frantic dog up to her shoulder to comfort him as he began to hyperventilate again. “I know,” she said, patting him like a baby, enjoying his blatant need for her. “I can’t believe it’s all over.”

“It’s not,” Gwen said.

The office door opened again before Tilda could say anything, and Andrew came in, Eve padding behind him in purple pajamas and fuzzy slippers. “We heard you come in,” he said, pulling Tilda into a bear hug and crushing Spot in the process. “We’ve missed you, delinquent.” Tilda leaned against him for a moment, loving his arms around her, and then Spot gave a strangled moan and Andrew let go.

“Now me.” Eve shoved aside her ex-husband to hug her, too, her curls brushing Tilda’s chin. “We missed you so much,” she said, her voice muffled in Tilda’s neck.

“I missed you, too,” Tilda said, patting her back. “You have no idea how much I want to talk to you.”

Eve pulled away. “What’s wrong? If it’s money, we’re okay. Nadine sold an old painting for a thousand dollars!”

“Yeah,” Tilda said. “Not good. It was a Scarlet.”

“So?” Eve’s eyes went to the painting on the couch, the paper torn even more now so that most of the sky was visible. “Is that it? Why is it back?”

“Because it’s a fake,” Tilda said flatly.

“Why?” Eve picked up the painting and began to pick at the tape that bound it. “Because you signed it ‘Scarlet’? So?” She shrugged. “It’s a stage name. Like my ‘Louise.’ Writers do it, don’t they?” She looked at Tilda. “Write under fake names for their privacy? You were just painting in private.”

“We told people Scarlet was Homer’s daughter. They bought her paintings because of Homer.”

“I think her paintings were wonderful.” Eve tugged at the tape. “I think that’s why they bought them, not because of that old poop Homer.”

“Oh, Homer wasn’t that bad,” Gwen said.

Tilda lifted her chin. “It doesn’t matter now. We’re safe.”

“No we aren’t,” Gwen said.

Eve gave up on the tape and began to tear the paper off.

“Mason is looking for the rest of the Scarlets,” Gwen said, and Tilda held the dog tighter as her stomach went south again. “He wants to write about Scarlet. All he can find about her is that one interview your father did, so he wants me to tell him all about her. He wants to talk to her.”

“You don’t remember anything,” Tilda said, as Spot squirmed in her arms. “We’ve got the painting back, so-”

“I don’t think so,” Eve said, looking at the canvas as she dropped the paper on the floor.

“What?” Tilda said, and Eve turned it around so they could see.

“The one Nadine told me about had our building in it.” She pointed to the fat little cows that dotted the landscape. “She didn’t mention cows.”

Tilda looked at the painting and felt her lungs go.

Cows.

Gwen looked at Tilda. “That’s not the painting Nadine sold Clea Lewis. You stole the wrong painting.”

“I knew that guy was trouble,” Tilda said, still staring at the cows as she put Spot on the floor. They weren’t even her cows; they’d been her father’s idea.

“Guy?” Andrew said. “What guy?”

Her father had said, “Scarlet is a country girl. She doesn’t live in our building, for God’s sake, are you trying to blow this whole deal? She paints, I don’t know, cows. Go paint cows.” And Tilda had, fat little cows with gold filigree wings that flitted all over the landscape that Eve was holding up.

The landscape that somebody had bought.

Legally.

She felt for her inhaler in her pocket again. She was using it too much. Her asthma was out of control.

Cows.

“What guy?” Andrew said.

“This yahoo I met in Clea’s closet.” Tilda took the painting from Eve and propped it up against the wall on her father’s old mahogany desk. “He stole it for me.”

“Somebody else knows about this?” Gwen said. “Somebody else stole this?”

“He was already burglarizing the place.” Tilda touched the painting, remembering the fun she’d had painting the fat blocky cows and their impossibly fine wings, the thin strokes of gold paint looking like lace on the checkerboard sky. They’d been difficult, but they’d been such joy.

“Where is he now?” Gwen said. “Is he going to talk?”

“No.” Tilda turned away from the cows. “He’s history. Focus on the real problem.”

“He stole the wrong painting,” Andrew said. “That can’t be good. That’s a felony or something. I’ll ask Jeff.”

“No you won’t,” Tilda said, back in charge again. “This is one of the many things Jeff will not want to know about. Not until I get arrested and I need him to defend me, then we tell him.” She looked at the cows, winging their way home, and resisted them. “This one’s a Scarlet, too.”

Gwen sat back. “I thought so. It’s Mason’s. He said he was collecting them.”

“Then he’s going to be really mad when he finds this one gone,” Andrew said.

“It’s okay, Andrew,” Tilda said. “You got a Get Out of Jail Free card with the divorce. You don’t have to play with the rest of us.”

Eve said, “Andrew?” and he went over and sat down beside her.

“I’m here, honey,” he said, putting his arm around her. “Always will be. Tilda knows that, she’s just being cranky.”

Yeah, Tilda thought. That’s probably why nobody puts an arm around me.

Andrew frowned a little. “I can’t speak for Jeff, though. You know lawyers.”

“Jeff will stick,” Gwen told him. “He loves you. You don’t leave the people you love.” She made it sound like a life sentence.

“Don’t worry,” Tilda said. “I’ll figure something out. I will fix this.” She picked up the painting.

“Maybe you can get that guy in the closet to steal again,” Eve said.

Right, that guy who’d called her Vilma. She turned to her mother. “Gwennie, have you ever heard of Vilma Kaplan? Somebody from the late movie?”

“Sure,” Gwen said. “Vilma Kaplan, Bundle of Lust. It’s from an old Mel Brooks movie.”

Tilda closed her eyes. Oh, good. Along with everything else that she’d screwed up, she’d necked with a comedian. “I am never going to see that guy again,” she said to Eve, and went downstairs to bury the cows with the rest of her past.

LEANING AGAINST the wall in one of the Brewery District’s upscale pubs, Davy punched numbers into his cell phone while the mark he’d been playing pool with gloated over the twenty bucks he’d just won. “I may need help,” he said when his best friend answered.

“Beating up Rabbit?” Simon said, his faint British accent slurring over the line.

“No. Rabbit is no longer the problem.”

“He’s not dead, is he?” Simon said, not sounding as though he cared.

“No, just terminally stupid. He gave all my money to a woman.”

“Fair enough. Didn’t you take it from a woman in the first place?”

“That’s the woman he gave it to.”

“Which explains why he robbed you and not me,” Simon said. “He thought he was righting a wrong. Good old Rabbit. The blockhead. What is it you need? I’m in the middle of something here.”

“Anyone I know?”

“Rebecca.”

“Brunettes,” Davy said. “You need a twelve-step program.”

“Whereas your fetish for blondes is-”

“Just good taste. I convinced Rabbit to give me Clea’s account numbers. Now I need her password, which I can get from her laptop.”

“I know nothing about computers.”

“But you know everything about theft,” Davy said.

There was a long silence, and then Simon said, with barely suppressed envy, “You’re going to steal her computer?”

“No,” Davy said. “I just want some time alone with it. Clea’s staying with her next husband, so I went into his place and looked-”

“What do you mean, you went in?” Simon asked, his accent flattening as his voice went tense. “You went in when there were people there?”

“That’s why I got in,” Davy said patiently. “If there hadn’t been people there, the place would have been locked.”

“This is why amateurs should never turn to crime,” Simon said. “You just confessed to aggravated burglary. Are you on a land line or your cell phone?”

“Cell,” Davy said. “And I didn’t steal anything.” Much.

“You were a burglar the moment you entered uninvited. And the presence of people there made it aggravated. Normally that would put you in real trouble, but since you didn’t attack anyone, a good lawyer could probably get you off with only a couple of years.”

Davy thought about bouncing Betty on the carpet and decided not to share.

“The problem is,” Simon was saying, “you’d have to spend those years in prison, you fool. Tell me you wore gloves.”

“It was a spur-of-the-moment deal.”

“AFIS has your prints. Imagine how thrilled the Bureau will be to know their freelance fraud consultant has turned to second-story work. Tell me where you are and I’ll come consult in person.”

“No. You’re on the wagon. What I need to know-”

“I’m not leaving the wagon,” Simon said. “But I’d rather give advice in person than over a bloody cell phone. Besides, I want to meet Clea. If she managed to seduce both you and Rabbit, she has a wide range. Exactly how good is she?”

“In bed?” Davy conjured up the memory again. “Phenomenal. But then you die.”

“You lived. Where are you staying?”

Davy thought about the apartment for rent sign. Maybe it was time to trust in fate. “Right now, nowhere. Tomorrow, over an art gallery, a couple blocks from Clea. German Village.”

“Why there?”

“Strangely enough, there’s a brunette I need to know better. Looks like Betty Boop.”

“Really.” Simon sounded amused. “Perhaps I can help with that, too.”

“No. You’re bored out of your mind and burglary is the only high that does it for you.”

“Whereas you followed Rabbit to Ohio because you have no interest in crime.”

“I came to get my money back,” Davy said virtuously.

“If you wanted your money, you’d have called the Bureau. You’re there because you want the rush. Completely understandable. I’ll be there tomorrow.”

“No you will not,” Davy said. “Stay there and tell me how to get into this damn house.”

“Does it have an alarm?”

“I don’t think so. No stickers.”

“Break a basement window at the back of the house,”

Simon said. “They’ll find it eventually but by then the crime scene will be so old, it’ll be useless. Wear gloves. And make sure the apartment you rent has two bedrooms.”

“No,” Davy said, but Simon had already hung up.

Davy jammed his phone in his jacket pocket.

“You gonna play this second game or not, son?” his mark called to him from the pool table.

“Oh, yeah, I’m coming,” Davy said, feigning reluctance. “But I gotta win my money back here. How about upping the stakes?”

“You bet,” the guy said, happily clueless, and Davy tried to ignore the surge in his blood. Hustling pool was not illegal. He was still on the straight and narrow. There was no reason for excitement.

“Your break,” the mark said, and Davy felt his pulse leap and picked up his cue.

DEEP IN the cool basement of the Goodnight Gallery, Tilda stopped at the locked door to her father’s old studio, Spot snuffling anxiously at her feet. She looked at her cows again and heard her father say, “Well, it’s not real painting, but the idiots who liked Homer’s work will buy it.”

Somehow the thought of locking her cows in there seemed wrong. Her father had been right, it hadn’t been real painting, but still…

She crossed the hall, Spot close behind, and opened the door to the storeroom that filled the other half of the spotlessly white basement. When she flipped on the light, there were dustsheets everywhere but no dust; Nadine had been thorough and the air cleaner was doing the rest. She pulled on the nearest sheet and uncovered a wing chair painted with undulating snakes that made funky green and purple and blue stripes across the frame and upholstery. Their hot little eyes winked at her and their tongues curled around their little snakey cheeks, and Tilda grinned back, charmed in spite of herself. She went from dustcover to dustcover, peeking under them to find all of her pre-Scarlet work: a table painted with red dogs with floppy ears, a chest of drawers scrolled with chartreuse snails, several mismatched chairs painted with conga lines of yellow and orange butterflies that flirted at her with pale blue eyes. Spot followed her patiently while she looked under the rest of the covers, finding a different animal batting its eyes at her, daring her to laugh, and she told herself it was just a kid’s junk while she smiled.

Then she remembered her father, finding the pieces in the storeroom when she was sixteen. “I spend ten years teaching you to paint,” he’d said. “And this is what you do?”

“Junk,” she said now and covered it up again.

In the back, she found the last piece she’d done, the one Andrew had called the Temptation Bed, its leaf-covered frame now all set up thanks to Nadine and Ethan, with the mattress on it and the quilt Gwen had made to go with it folded at the head. Spot jumped up on the bed and sat down at the foot, shivering a little in the air-conditioning, and Tilda petted him while she considered the work she’d done before she’d become Scarlet Hodge and Matilda Veronica. The headboard was covered with the leafy spreading arms of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and beneath its branches a naked blond Adam grinned at a naked dark Eve, her short curls growing like little question marks around her head. Behind them in the painted bushes, animals prowled, the purple snakes and blue monkeys and orange flamingos from the other pieces of furniture, all winking and grinning at the first human figures Tilda had ever painted that weren’t copied from the Old Masters. Everything was free and wild and wrong, not real painting at all.

I couldn‘t paint like this now, she thought. I know too much. It was like making love: once you learned how much you had to lose, you could never be completely free doing it again.

She sighed and propped the cows up against the headboard under the tree, and thought about the other five Scarlets, out roaming wild with Mason stalking them, and faced what she’d known since Gwennie had dropped her bomb: she wasn’t going to be safe until she had them all back.

“Oh, hell,” she said, and Spot put his nose under her hand and flipped it up, breaking her concentration. “I’ll find a home for you tomorrow,” she told him, patting him, and then she jumped when Eve said from behind her, “We’re not keeping him?”

“You scared the hell out of me,” Tilda said, clutching Spot.

“Sorry.” Eve threaded her way through the dustcovers to sit down at the foot of the bed, her purple pajamas clashing nicely with the leafy green footboard. She was holding a large Hershey’s Almond Bar, Tilda noticed with interest. “Nadine’s really set on keeping him.” She broke the end of the bar off, tearing the paper, and tossed the rest of it to Tilda. “She named him Steve.”

Tilda put the dog down on the bed and picked up the bar. “Steve?” She looked down at the beady-eyed, needle-nosed little dog staring avidly at the chocolate in her hands.

“He’s not hungry,” Eve said. “Nadine got him designer dog food and four kinds of biscuits.”

“Yes, but Steve?”

“Nadine and Ethan and Burton were watching Fargo again, and she decided he looks like Steve Buscemi.”

Tilda broke a chunk off the bar and squinted at the dog. “Not much.” She bit into the chocolate, felt the waxy sweetness rush her mouth, and twenty years fell away, and she and Eve were back in bed, whispering over torn brown wrappers with silver letters. The bars had definitely been bigger. And she definitely felt better. “Who the hell is Burton?”

“Nadine’s latest. Very pretty. No sense of humor. Has a band. She’s singing.”

“He won’t last if he doesn’t laugh.” Tilda sat down at the head of the bed, and the dog moved up beside her.

“I hope he doesn’t. He’s a pill.” Eve made kissing noises at the dog. “C’mere, Steve.” The dog crawled slowly across the bed to her, and she stretched out and propped her head up on one hand, scratching the dog behind the ears with the other.

“So,” Eve said, looking innocent. “Tell me everything, Bundle of Lust.”