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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781497643093 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Open Road Integrated Media, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 07/08/2014 |
| Pages: | 312 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.20(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.80(d) |
About the Author
Mr. Elkins won the 1988 Edgar Award for best mystery of the year for Old Bones, the fourth book in the Gideon Oliver Series. He and his cowriter and wife, Charlotte, also won an Agatha Award, and he has also won a Nero Wolfe Award. Mr. Elkins lives on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula with Charlotte.
Read an Excerpt
Boston, Massachusetts, the Present
So far, so good. Boston two, Seattle one. But with the Mariners due up in the ninth with the meat of their order -- Rodriguez,Griffey and Martinez -- I was beginning to feel that late-inning sense of impending doom so familiar to Red Sox true believers.
When the telephone chirped, it was almost a relief. The phone was in the kitchen, the TV was in the living room. If I got up to answer it, at least I wouldn't have to see the actual bloodshed. On the other hand, who was there that I wanted to talk to? It was a toss-up, your classic case of avoidance-avoidance conflict, but when Rodriguez promptly smashed a screaming double down the leftfield line, it tipped the balance. I put down the carton of leftover take-out lo mein I'd been making an early dinner of, hauled myself up from the sofa, and lumped off in my socks to get the phone.
"Hello?"
"Ben, is that you? Benjamin Revere?"
"Simeon?"
"Yes, that's right, Simeon," He sounded pleased at having his voice recognized. If he'd had any idea of the pathetic size of my social circle he wouldn't have been so flattered. Besides, how many of them had Russian accents?
Simeon Pawlovsky and I had known each other almost two years. Now in his late seventies, he had left Russia in the sixties, and for the past three decades he had owned a pawnshop on Washington Street, in the grittiest part of Boston's South End. I had first run into him while working on a case for the police department.
I'm an art historian by training, an honest-to-God, certifiable expert, and as such I do some consulting, not only for private individuals but once in a while for the policeor for the Customs Department. In this particular case, the hunt for a stolen Courbet had led back after many a twist to Simeon's shop. Simeon had been extremely helpful; with his assistance the painting had gotten back to its rightful owner and some of the bad guys had been put away, even if not for very long. The old man had gotten a bang out of it, and since then, whenever a piece of "suspicious" art came into his shop, he had called me. The calls had rarely panned out into anything, but we had become friends of a sort, and occasionally, if I happened to be in the neighborhood -- his shop was only a five-minute drive from the Museum of Fine Arts -- I dropped in to sit on a stool behind the counter with him and pass the time. Sometimes, if it was a nice day, he'd lock up the store and put up one of those little clock signs showing when he'd be back, and we'd walk around the block. He'd have his face tilted up the whole time, as if he couldn't get enough sun.
"What am I hearing, baseball?" he asked now. "On a day like this you're sitting in the dark watching a baseball game?"
"I'm not in the dark, Simeon."
"Baseball at four o'clock on a Monday afternoon," he said in quiet dismay.
If he only knew, I thought. I'd watched a ball game Sunday afternoon, too. And Saturday. No, that was wrong; on Saturday it had been golf, a thought that momentarily gave me pause. Baseball was one thing, but does a normal human being watch golf for three and a half hours straight? If I didn't get my act together, pretty soon I was going to wind up spending my afternoons in front of beach volleyball or ice dancing. It could happen.
"Well, you're in your store, aren't you?" I said lamely. "Is that so much better?"
"Yes, but I have to be here. I have a business to run. Tell me, what's your excuse?"
Well, yes, there was the rub.
I sighed. "Simeon, what can I do for you?"
"Ben, I took in a painting yesterday. You think you could have a look at it?"
"What is it?"
"I--Well, I wouldn't want to say. I think it's valuable. I'm ninety percent sure it's stolen."
"But what is it? I mean, Impressionist, Modern --"
"It could be seventeenth century, could be early eighteenth," he said "Spanish would be my guess." Then, too excited to keep still, "Ben, it's a wonderful picture, it should be in a museum. I have it in front of me right now. I think -- well, if you want to know, think it could be by Velazquez. That's my opinion, for what it's worth."
For what it was worth. The last time it had been a "Giorgione" that turned out to be a murky landscape grimy and shellac-encrusted enough to be centuries old, but wasn't.
"Uh-huh," I said. "And what makes you think that?"
"For one thing, there's a label on the back that says so."
"A label? There's no signature?"
"No, just a label on the back."
"Simeon, anyone can stick a labeI --"
"Benjamin, for God's sake, give me a little credit, I wasn't born yesterday. I'm telling you, it's a real work of art. In my opinion --"
"And someone walked into your shop and pawned it, just like that."
"Yes, just like that. What do you think, they make appointments ahead of time to come here? A Russian he was, not in this country very long --"
How much did you give him for it?"
"He wanted a thousand dollars," I laughed. "He took a thousand dollars for a genuine Velazquez?"
"He took a hundred dollars. I'm a businessman. I don't run this place for the entertainment value. Besides, I didn't like his looks. The minute he came in, I knew something wasn't right."
"What's it a picture of, Simeon?"
He took his time. "A man," he said at last.
"A man. Well, that's helpful."
"Dressed in black."
"A man dressed in black. That certainly narrows it down --"
"Listen, Ben, instead of wisecracks, why not just look at it? How about tomorrow, can you come over?"
I hesitated, interested but doubtful. There were only a hundred or so authenticated Velazquez paintings still around, mostly in the world's museums, but at least twice that many were known to have been painted by him and then lost at one point or another over the last 350 years. Every now and then one of them really did turn up, although a pawnshop was a pretty unlikely place for it, and Simeon wasn't the art connoisseur he liked to imagine he was. Still, I couldn't call myself much of an art historian if dreams of finding and authenticating one of them weren't already dancing in my head.
"Yes, okay, sure, I'll come over," I said. "I'll try to get there on the early side."
"Fine, I'll be here all day."
In the living room the announcer was recapping what I'd missed: "...so the Red Sox certainly have their work cut out for them in their half of the ninth. With explosive two-run homers by Griffey and Buhner and a five-run Mariner lead. .."
In other words, the usual. I turned off the TV, picked up what was left of the lo mein; and went into the study to see what I had on VeIazquez.