Murder Below Montparnasse - By Cara Black Page 0,66

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?

“Has your antiquaire sparked any interest?”

“My colleague intimated as much,” he said. “First I need to check the painting against our database of stolen art.”

She doubted he’d find it.

“Modigliani’s daughter inherited nothing,” he said. “Not a single painting.”

Aimée shook her head. So unfair, when her father’s work fetched millions today.

“A sad, broken woman.” He paused. “I met her once before she died. You’d never have known she’d run a Maquis network during the war.”

“Part of the Resistance?”

“In the South. Then a long affair and children with a married man who kept a double life. In the end, too much of the bottle, forgotten by her last lover. Her body was found days after she died. Tragic. Like her father.”

But what about the Serb? All kinds of questions rose in Aimée’s mind; the blood smeared on Yuri’s wall, his Levi’s jacket button—all evidence of a fight. Who was this phantom thief who supposedly stole the painting first and somehow murdered the Serb in Yuri’s house? The Serb’s “brother”? But then why would he pursue Saj? To tie up loose ends? Or, less likely, a flunky of Luebet’s? But that didn’t make sense, according to what Luebet wrote on the envelope.

Dombasle’s buy complicated things.

“I’m confused,” she said, “too many threads. You haven’t told me the plan.”

He explained over another round of Perroquets. “We’re organizing a buy. Setting the wheels in motion. All the more reason for you to attend the reception tonight. I’ll know more details. The drop schedule.”

She’d bartered her info for what … a Modigliani expert? That was it? And now she was a pawn in a buy? “This could work?”

“If the thief’s desperate, and thieves usually are, it works nine times out of ten. A hot piece for quick cash, that’s what they want.” He paused. “Worried?”

“I’m guessing you involved la Crim and the art cops at BRB.”

“You know I can’t say.”

“But you’re asking me to stick my neck out, wanting to use me as a patsy?”

Had word of her involvement in Morbier’s sting gotten around the préfecture? She couldn’t fathom Morbier compromising his case or talking when he’d promised “no leaks.” But she still wanted to kick him.

Dombasle looked down at his drink. “Let’s just say all law enforcement involved would appreciate your assistance. That do it for you?”

All frothing at the mouth, too.

She needed to think how to use this to her advantage. No matter what happened with the painting, she needed to make sure Saj was safe, and learn the truth about her mother. But showing Dombasle the Polaroid had at least gotten her on the inside of the formal investigation, or some layer of it. Like