Painted Ladies

“Your grandfather was Judah Herzberg,” I said. “He died in Auschwitz. Isaac, your father, survived Auschwitz and was liberated by the Russians with his friend Amos Prinz in 1945. He was about fourteen at the time. Amos was about eighteen.”

“He would have pronounced it ‘Ah-mose,’ ” Ariel said.

“They went together to Amsterdam,” I said. “Recovered a painting from a secret room in the now-abandoned Herzberg home, took it to Rotterdam and sold it to an art dealer for much less than it was worth but enough to feed them for a while.”

“So?” Ariel said after a bit.

“The painting was Lady with a Finch,” I said. “It was stolen a little while back, from the Hammond Museum.”

“I read about that,” Ariel said.

“I think you stole it,” I said.

“And of course you have evidence.”

“I think you blew up Ashton Prince,” I said.

“Evidence?”

“I think you tried twice to kill me, and succeeded in killing a guy named Francisco,” I said.

“Evidence?” Ariel said again.

“Ah,” I said. “There’s the rub.”

“It is a big rub,” Ariel said. “Don’t you think?”

“It is,” I said. “But I’m working on it. Did you know that Ashton Prince is the son of Amos Prinz?”

“I know nothing except what I have read in the papers.”

“Do you know—”

I stopped. I was going to ask if he knew Missy Minor, and if he knew Morton Lloyd, and what relationship he had with either. But if he’d tried twice to kill me for investigating, what might he do with a potential witness?

“You had a question?” Ariel said.

He would admit nothing, anyway. Why put them in jeopardy?

“I decided not to ask it,” I said.

“America is a great country,” he said. “We are free to do what we will.”

I had already baited him as much as I needed to. He knew what I knew. If it was as dangerous to him as I thought it was, maybe he’d make a run at me, and I could catch him at it. I took a business card from my shirt pocket. On the back I wrote his grandfather’s death camp number, and handed him the card.

“What is this number?” he said.

“Judah Herzberg’s Auschwitz ID number,” I said. “You probably have it tattooed on your arm.”

“You appear a good investigator,” Ariel said.

“Stalwart, too,” I said.

“No doubt,” Ariel said. “No doubt.”

He must have pressed a button someplace, because a door opened behind him and a big muscular blond guy came in wearing a tight T-shirt and looking scary. He paused beside Ariel’s desk and looked at him. I could see that there were numbers tattooed on his forearm.

“Throw Mr. Spenser out, Kurt,” Ariel said to him. “Not gently.”

50

Kurt studied me for a moment. We were about the same size, but he didn’t seem daunted. I speculated that they were trying to get me to draw my gun so they could shoot me and claim self-defense. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to draw my gun. My frustration content was saturating. I needed to hit somebody, and Kurt looked good for it.

Kurt shuffled toward me with his left foot forward and his hands held loosely up on either side of his head. So he had some idea what he was doing. On the other hand, I did, too, and I’d been doing it longer. He swung his right leg up and across in a martial arts-type kick. I stepped inside it, close to him, so not much of the kick got me, and hit him in the throat with the crotch between the thumb and forefinger of my right hand. The guy who taught me the punch called it “the tiger’s claw.” Kurt grunted and spun away from me, and settled back into his stance. Some people fell down when I hit them that way. I slid toward him with a left jab, which landed well, and a right cross, which landed even better. Kurt bobbed and wove a little and hit me on the chin with the heel of his right hand. It backed me up a couple of steps, and he came after me. I blocked a left and then a right, and feinted a straight left to his face. He brought his right arm across to block it, and I looped a big left hook over the block and nailed him on the right cheekbone. He staggered. That was encouraging. But he didn’t go down.