“Collectors comprise less than one percent of art theft. A focused hit is rare.” He paused. Angled his fingers toward hers. “A Modigliani—say one of the several he painted of Jeanne Hébuterne, his last lover—would go for seven or eight figures.”
Dombasle’s cell phone vibrated on the table. He glanced at the number.
“Museums shy away, since the authentication process would eat up a good portion of their funds. Modigliani is one of the world’s most forged artists. Not worth the connoisseur’s effort, to be blunt. Your Yuri Volodya might have had a fake.”
Luebet hadn’t thought so.
“Sounds like you’re chasing smoke.”
Little did he know. She hadn’t learned much from this conversation. Frustrated, she fingered the cardboard drink coaster.
“My office investigates robbery claims,” Dombasle said. “Where’s the robbery? There was no report made.”
“To investigate, you need a dead man to make a claim?”
“Why do I think you want my help, yet aren’t telling me the real story?”
Time to give him something. Figure out how to work an exchange. Use him.
She brushed back guilt. Less than twelve hours remained and so far she’d come up clueless. If he was smart—and there was no doubt on that score—he’d use her too.
“Say an old man found a forgotten Modigliani in his father’s cellar,” Aimée said, glancing around for listeners. Only at a far table, a woman talking into her phone, a bulldog at her feet. “He’s unsophisticated and runs his mouth. He contacts a renowned art dealer—you might know him, his name is Luebet—for an appraisal. But before the appointment, the painting’s stolen. The old man, Yuri, is found tortured and dead the next morning. Later, Luebet ‘falls’ on the Métro tracks. I can’t prove any of this except they are both dead.”
“Then it’s the Brigade Criminelle’s territory. Not mine.”
Didn’t the forces work together? Collaborate? “People don’t murder for fakes, do they?”
“You’d be surprised.” Dombasle shrugged. She noticed the gold flecks in his dark-brown eyes.
“Then time for show-and-tell. I show and you tell, d’accord?”
“Depends on if you’ll accompany me to a reception tonight. A vernissage.”
Was he flirting with her?
“An art opening, that’s your tell? Would I find it interesting?”
“You might learn something.”
“Meaning?”
“A respected world authority on Modigliani will attend,” he said.
“That’s all?” she said, disappointed.
“Then you’re afraid this supposed Modigliani will crumble under an expert’s scrutiny?”
Smart-ass, she almost said.
Instead she placed the Polaroid over the Stella Artois cardboard coaster.
Dombasle pulled out an eyepiece like a jeweler’s loop. Adjusted the magnification and added a small lens. Like an optician.
He read out loud. “ ‘For Piotr, a keepsake of your friend Vladimir. Modigliani.’ ”
“Still think it’s fake?”
“Where did you get this?” He leaned forward and covered her hand with his.
Aimée grinned. “With your hair poking out like that and your eyepiece, you remind me of a mad scientist.” She pointed to the Polaroid. “You know one of those men, don’t you?”
He nodded. “Luebet.” He stared closer. “Taken when?”
She took a guess. “Sunday.”
“How are you involved?”
She had her story—a version of the truth—ready. She showed him the message written on Luebet’s envelope.
“So Luebet wanted the Modigliani,” he said, glancing at his insistent vibrating phone. “He’d contacted some person or persons to steal the painting for him before he performed a professional appraisal.”
Her thoughts, too. Brought it back to the theory that there were two teams on the playing field. But the ball had already been stolen.
“But a respected art dealer.…”
“Seen it before. No surprise. He’d contact someone who’s ripped him off before—a thief who knows his métier—say ‘Let bygones be bygones, I’ve got a job for you.’ ” He lifted the photo to look at the painting again. “Any idea who stole it?”
“Would I be meeting with you if I did?”
Dombasle’s phone rang again, and he excused himself to answer the call outside. She counted on him, as a member of the art squad charged with recovering stolen national art treasures, to investigate. She knew Michel’s team kept more irons in the fire than she could imagine. Contacts, information, a network she hoped to access. Right now, with no leads, she didn’t see another option.
Doubt gnawed her insides, raw and festering. It would never be completely gone until she located the painting. And she didn’t have much time. The painting was the only key to her mother.
And to finding out if her mother had tortured Yuri.
She tried to keep those thoughts at bay and had almost drained her Perroquet by the time Dombasle slid back onto the rattan café chair.
“I’ve got a proposition,” he said.
She saw excitement in his gold-flecked eyes. Whoever had contacted him on the phone had changed his mind.
“Twenty minutes ago, an antiquaire at the flea market showed my colleague the same photo,” he said.
“So you believe me now?” she said.
“We propose to stage a buy. Use you as the client. Interested?”
“Moi?” She sat back, her leather leggings rubbing on the rattan chair rungs. “You trust this antiquaire?”
“They’re all crooks at Marché Sainte-Ouen, but this one’s my informer,” Dombasle said, downing his drink.
“He gives you a little info and you look the other way?”
“Works for both of us.”
She’d heard of the pipeline, how antique dealers moved stolen paintings, furniture, and jewelry for thieves in a hurry. Wished she’d thought of it herself.
“But fencing a Modigliani in the flea market? Sounds unprofessional.”
“Two years ago, I nailed a Velázquez there by the frites stand,” Dombasle said. “Still in the eighteenth-century frame. Idiots, thank God. They didn’t know what they had. Didn’t much care either, after the quick cash.”
Aimée’s mind clicked over everything she knew. What about Oleg’s buyer?