Montaro Caine A Novel - By Sidney Poitier Page 0,52

been wisely spent.” At one point in his life, Gabler’s circumstances had been as modest as Cordiss’s own, she reminded herself, and there was no reason to think that she couldn’t get as far as he had gotten.

“Good afternoon, Miss Krinkle.”

Cordiss stopped admiring the artwork and turned to see a broad-faced, well-dressed man moving aggressively toward her. “I’m Jerome Voekle, an associate of Mr. Gabler’s.” They shook hands. “Would you please follow me?”

As Cordiss followed Voekle through the formal, reserved beauty of the sprawling apartment, she felt ready; she had done her homework. She knew that in the highly competitive world of rare-art collecting, Roland Gabler was a star, a Grand Marshal in the inner circle referred to as The Ten. He was a longtime survivor of this game in which the coolest head, the steadiest hand, and the strongest nerves nearly always prevailed. And yet he had begun his professional life working in a hardware store.

But Gabler’s presence was so strong that it seemed to vacuum up Cordiss’s attention the moment she laid eyes on him. Jerome Voekle stepped to one side of the door as they entered. “Miss Krinkle, sir,” he told his employer flatly, cueing Cordiss across the room toward Gabler, who stood on the far side of his study, between the fireplace and an oblong seventeenth-century oak table. He was taller and bulkier than she had imagined he would be, with the broad, high chest of a weightlifter. His thick gray hair was conservatively trimmed, and his piercing green eyes were set deep in a lined but still handsome face.

Cordiss was fully aware that Gabler’s green eyes had already locked on to her and were scanning her attire, her stride, her posture, and, above all, her face as if he were examining a rare object that he wasn’t yet sure he would purchase. She assumed he was a good reader of faces. And she was not unmindful of the cold eyes of Jerome Voekle on her back. In her brain, she heard Victor’s voice coaching her: Stay within yourself, don’t move too fast. Show your strength. And always hang on to your cool. Make him think you piss ice water.

“Miss Krinkle?”

“Mr. Gabler.”

They pumped hands. “Welcome,” he said, motioning for her to be seated.

“Thank you.” She sat herself at the desk directly across from him.

In her six years of working at the Mozelle Women’s Health Center, Cordiss had learned to pinpoint apprehension, fear, joy, relief, anxiety, or exhilaration in the eyes of the patients who passed her on their way into and out of Dr. Mozelle’s office. But Roland Gabler’s eyes told her nothing at all.

Hold his gaze no matter what, Victor’s voice coached her.

Gabler drew a chair close to the desk and sat, crossing his legs while his eyes continued to bore into her. She stared back as if this were a contest, then decided that she should let him win the first round. “What a beautiful apartment,” she offered.

“I’m glad you like it,” Gabler responded, then fell back into silence. He seemed to be waiting for her to explain why she was there.

“You’ve seen the photographs of the object?” Cordiss asked.

“Yes, I have,” responded Gabler.

“And the documents as well?”

“Yes. So, let’s get right to it. Questions will come later.”

Jerome Voekle laid before Gabler the photographs and papers Cordiss had sent him earlier. Voekle also placed on the table instruments of the trade for examining small items—magnifiers, light-scopes, jewelers’ loupes, and the like. Then Voekle maneuvered a chair into a position that allowed him to sit at his employer’s left elbow. Both men’s eyes fixed on Cordiss as she withdrew from her shoulder bag a clear plastic pill container, unscrewed its top, and tilted the container to a careful angle. The coin slid gently onto the tabletop. Cordiss glanced up at the two men, hoping for a reaction; even the slightest flutter could tell her something. But their faces remained unchanged.

Voekle carefully clamped the coin between the arms of a jeweler’s caliper and raised it to Roland Gabler’s eye level, while Gabler wedged a loupe in place around his eye. Taking the caliper from his assistant’s hand, Gabler examined the coin for a long time, referring occasionally to the photographs and documents on the desk. The Xerox copy that Cordiss had made of Montaro Caine’s twenty-six-year-old report to Dr. Chasman commanded more of his attention than did Dr. Mozelle’s notes on the coin’s history. Gradually, Gabler’s concentration deepened until he appeared to be submerged in a