Chapter 33
Chapter
Thirty-Three
AXEL
Jo walks beside me as we approach the building, her gloved fingers brushing mine as if by accident, but it is no accident. The contact is light. Intentional. We’re already slipping into character.
“You look like you’re about to buy the building,” she murmurs.
“I’m trying to look like a man who doesn’t enjoy being kept waiting.”
“You’re not going to be kept waiting.”
“I might be.”
She gives me that look, the one that says she enjoys sparring with me far too much.
We reach the building’s entrance, and we pause, and Jo reaches up to adjust my tie.
The intimacy of it is practiced, something we discussed earlier, figuring we might be on CCTV at the entrance and starting our charade straight away, and yet it feels natural.
Her fingers linger at my collarbone a fraction longer than necessary.
“Remember,” she says softly, her lips almost grazing my jaw. “We’re married.”
I don’t miss a beat. “For how long?”
“I don’t think that will come up.”
“Humor me.”
She considers. “Five years.”
“Happy?”
She tilts her head, studying me as if she’s weighing the truth. “Obnoxiously so.”
I smile slowly. “Good.”
We’ve chosen our names carefully.
I’m Daniel Laurent, an American financier with discreet European interests, and she’s my wife, Elena Laurent, a London-born and educated art consultant with expensive taste and questionable ethics.
We’re a couple with a lot of corrupt money that needs laundering and spending. A couple hunting for something special.
“Ready, Elena?” I ask.
“I was born ready, Daniel,” Jo replies.
I open the door and gesture for her to go in first. I stay a step behind her. There is no quaint bell above the door to chime as we enter. Instead, there is a surveillance camera watching us with an unblinking red light.
The interior of the gallery is understated but meticulous.
Parquet floors polished to a mirror sheen, cream walls, quality lighting, the air faintly scented with beeswax.
The pieces on display are impressive and carefully curated.
There’s a minor Chagall, an early Dubuffet sketch, a modest Modigliani drawing that is real enough but not extraordinary.
This isn’t where the real inventory lives, but to anyone wandering in off the streets, it would certainly look legit, and no one would suspect this was a front for an undoubtedly successful high-end black-market art trader.
Behind a sleek walnut desk stands a man who looks like he was carved from patience and calculation.
He is Henri Delacroix, the dealer who moved the stolen Gainsborough.
He is in his mid-fifties with thick, immaculately brushed back silver hair.
He has a narrow fox-like face, his skin sallow but smooth.
He is wearing a charcoal suit, perfectly tailored, of course, paired with a silk pocket square in muted sapphire.
He wears neither a tie pin nor a flashy watch, but his cufflinks are clearly expensive.
On the surface, there is nothing about him to suggest he is anything but the owner of a small but successful art gallery.
But beneath the surface is where it all happens, and beneath the surface, Henri Delacroix is anything but legitimate.
His eyes are the most telling thing about him.
They are a very pale brown, and they are sly and watchful.
I know he has clocked every detail about Jo and me as we came into the gallery.
His expression tells me he is unimpressed.
He doesn’t smile, not even when we approach the desk. He assesses us coldly instead.
“Bonsoir,” he says smoothly. His English, when it comes, is flawless but faintly accented. “How may I assist you?”
“Monsieur Delacroix, I am Daniel Laurent. I spoke to your assistant on the telephone on Friday and confirmed an appointment for today,” I say.
“Yes, I was expecting you. Welcome,” he says, his expression one of the least welcoming I have seen on the face of someone who wants to make a sale.
Until he knows for sure we are interested in something …
let’s say different … he probably doesn’t want to make a sale.
That’s why the pieces he has are so overpriced.
Replacing them when they are just a front for his real business is enough of a hassle that if a rich tourist who doesn’t know any better buys one of them, it makes it worth his while to allow it.
Jo glides forward next, her expression haughty, her bearing proud and careless. Even I could believe she’s some rich brat with a penchant for criminal pursuits.
“We were told you might be able to help us with something … specific.”
A slight pause. The air shifts. She has his interest now. Delacroix studies her, not lasciviously, not crudely, but intellectually. He is likely measuring whether he thinks she has enough money to make a discussion of this kind worth his time.
“And who told you such a thing, Madame?”
I answer before she can. Calm. Controlled. “Mr. Rousseau in Geneva.”
I have never personally met Mr. Rousseau in Geneva, but the name lands. Not recognition, but possibility. Delacroix’s expression changes by half a degree. “You are not tourists.”
“No,” I reply.
“And you are not collectors of casual means.”
“No.”
He raises one perfectly shaped eyebrow. “Law enforcement, perhaps?”
Jo lets out a quiet laugh. “Do we look like law enforcement?”
His eyes flick between us. “No, but one can never be too careful in my line of work.”
“We’re not,” I assure him. “We prefer discretion,” I add smoothly.
“As do we all.”
The studied silence stretches for a second longer, then he gestures towards the walls of the gallery. “Do you admire modernist works?”
Jo moves toward a framed drawing on the wall, tilting her head thoughtfully.
“We’re interested in a particular Gainsborough.”
There it is. He doesn’t react. That, in itself, is a reaction.
“Many people are interested in Gainsborough.”
“This one is … unavailable,” I say.
“Ahhh… unavailable,” he echoes.
“It’s a piece from his blue period,” Jo continues smoothly. “Wooded landscape with cattle and a peasant resting. Somber palette.”
Her voice is casual. Informed, but not overeager. He watches her more closely now. “You have excellent taste, Madame.”
“I’m aware. Now, are you going to drop this charade, or has Monsieur Rousseau informed us incorrectly about your credentials?”
He folds his hands in front of him. “Perhaps you would care to join me in my office.”
Jo gives a barely perceptible nod. We wait while he goes and flicks the lock on the front door and turns the open sign to read closed.
Wordless, we follow Delacroix through an unmarked door and down a short, bare hallway.
He reaches what looks like a dead end, but he reaches up and pushes on the wall and a very well concealed door disguised as wall paneling swings open.
Delacroix goes inside and we follow him.
The door closes automatically behind us.
The room is sound proofed, the proofing given away by the complete lack of any echo when the door closes.
The room is dimly lit from above with no windows.
In the center is a single antique desk with a computer chair behind it and two leather chairs opposite it.
On one wall, a sideboard with crystal decanters and glasses sits.
He has judged us worthy, it seems. This is where truths bend, and real multi-million-dollar deals are done.
He walks around the desk and takes his seat, gesturing at Jo and me to sit down in the other two. We do, and I lean back in the chair, crossing one leg over the other, showing relaxed dominance.
“You have the painting we seek.”
It isn’t a question, although, as a statement, I know it is wrong. I have to play this just right. For a long moment, he says nothing.
“I believe I had it at one time. A year or so ago,” he replies evenly. “A piece matching that description passed briefly through my possession.”
Jo’s pulse jumps. I see it in the faint shift of her throat, but I am confident Delacroix won’t notice it.
“And?” she asks lightly.
“It is no longer available.”
“It has been sold?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“To whom?”
A faint smile curves his lips.
“I do not share client identities.”
“Of course not,” I say. “But I believe if you made an exception this time, the buyer would be pleased because we are willing to make a very generous offer for the right piece.”
“The client is a collector not a dealer. They won’t sell.”
He waits to see what I will do with that. I’m not going to go further down this path because, truthfully, I don’t care who bought it from Delacroix. I care who sold it to him. I just don’t want to make that obvious.
“Where did you get it?” I ask, keeping my voice measured, casual.
There it is. The question that matters.
His eyes cool. “Provenance in certain circles is … fluid.”
“Fluid is not the same as not existing.”
He doesn’t answer. Jo leans forward slightly, putting her elbows on the desk. “We understand discretion, Monsieur Delacroix. We understand completely. But the painting did not surface through … traditional channels.”
His gaze sharpens. “And how would you know that?”
She smiles faintly. “Because if it had, we would have acquired it already.”
A flicker of appreciation passes across his face. He enjoys competence.
“It came to me through a private intermediary,” he says carefully.
“Name?”
“No.”
“Nationality?”
“No.”
“Gender?”
A pause.
“No.”
I let the silence stretch deliberately. Then I reach into my coat and place a slim leather folder on the desk. Inside is an offer worth six figures in exchange for the information. I don’t need to explain it to Delacroix. He knows how these things work. Immediate transfer. For information only.
Delacroix looks at the folder, but he doesn’t open it at first. He simply looks at it. Then he looks back at me.
“You believe money compels everything, Monsieur Laurent?”
“It compels most things.”