The next day I sat with Gilles de la Houssay one more time.
It was just the two of us, which was Donna’s suggestion. We met outdoors, at a small cafe in Antibes overlooking the sea. He entertained me with more stories about Blackie, about their time together at the end of the war, and about the years since. Then he asked if there was anything else I wanted to know.
“Well, there is the obvious.”
“Ah yes, of course.”
“I still don’t understand why you believe I have the painting.”
He pursed his lips in that way that people do when they have to tell you something they may not want to say. “For some time the Monet was here. Then we all thought it best that it be elsewhere. Frederique Durand had become my friend and I was not pleased to deceive him. If it had ever been discovered here, Frederique would have been compromised. Not to mention what it would have done to me. It was your father who made the arrangement. I never saw the Monet again.”
“When was that?”
“Oh my friend, it was years ago.”
“You actually sent him the painting?”
“I did. It was complicated, but it was done. I was pleased to bid it farewell.”
“And you believe my father knew where it was when he died? Or that Benny knew?”
“Your father, most definitely. Benny said he does not know, and I believe him.”
I nodded my understanding. “I need to tell you something about Benny. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything before, but I don’t have any details.” Then I related my discussion with Selma. “I’m afraid someone went to see him after I did. Since I can’t get through to him on the phone, I’m not sure what to do.”
Gilles reached across the table and patted my hand. “I know,” he told me. “I spoke with Benny last night when I got home. He is fine.”
Benny did have visitors, Gilles said. Two men stopped by his place the day after I left Las Vegas, asking the same questions I was asked by those two thugs who came to my apartment. Since Benny knew the group that sent them, there was no rough stuff. As Benny described it to Gilles, they showed him the professional courtesy to which he was due. “He and his visitors, how do you say, spoke the same language. Benny convinced them it was all nonsense, and sent them on their way, but after they were gone, his angina acted up. When his wife got back, she took him to the hospital. He is home already, and doing fine.”
“I feel a lot better knowing that,” I told him.
Monsieur de la Houssay took a sip of his espresso and I looked beyond him, at the blue green sea, the large boats that swayed gently on the tide, all of it a painting itself. In a few hours I would be gone from here, and it would all seem a strange dream.
“Your father was the only one of us who knew where the painting was,” he said, returning to the subject at hand. “I also know he did not sell it. He did not enjoy any, how would you say, economic benefit from it.”
I thought about what little Blackie left my mother when he died. “That seems pretty clear.”
“He would have told Benny and me if he sold it. It would have been a matter of honor. Which means you are the only one who could have it. If not,” he shrugged, “it is lost to us forever.”
“Honestly, I don’t think there’s any way I have it. Unless I’m missing something.”
He shrugged again. “It is no matter now. I have met you, and so the circle of friendship is complete, eh?” He smiled.
“I appreciate that, I truly do. But I’m still confused. Why would my father have written the letter? It’s not as if he knew he was going to have a car accident and die. Why did he write it when he did?”
Gilles blinked.
I stared at him, recalling what Gerry Egidio had said in his pastry shop a few days ago when I mentioned my father’s death. I felt myself go cold again, the same way I did that morning.
“My father has been dead for several years now,” I said, speaking very slowly. “I’ve never asked much about how it happened. But I think I always knew it wasn’t an accident. I know it now, from that look in your eyes, and I know it because it’s the same look I saw in the eyes of another of my father’s friends, just a couple of days ago.”
The old man’s expression turned sad. “Benny?” he asked.
“No, someone else.” I sighed. “I realize my father made choices about his life. They were his to make. But I’m his son, and I think this is something I’m entitled to know, don’t you?”
Gilles nodded his head slowly.
“All I’m asking for is the truth. I think it’s time.”
“Ah yes. But what is the truth?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I believe you do.”
“Yes,” he conceded. “I do.”
And then he told me.
It had to do with my father past-posting in his bookmaking operation. I always assumed he found a way to pay the money back, and that was that.
It was not.
Monsieur de la Houssay did not know, until it was too late, that my father was in serious trouble. He learned afterward, as I did, that Blackie went to his brother for help, and that Uncle Vincent turned him down. He took a deep breath. “You are right, of course, there never was a car accident.”
His words sent another chill through me, the warm sun offering no help as I shuddered at the memory of Blackie lying in the hospital near death as I spoke to him, hoping he could hear me.
“Your father bargained for as much time as he could, trying to find a way to pay them back. He was too proud to ask Benny for help. Or me. We never knew of this problem.” Gilles gazed out at the Mediterranean, remembering. “Not even when he called and asked if I knew of a safe way to sell the painting. As I have explained, I told him I could not be involved, and Benny wanted no part of it. It was just a few months before his death. All he said was that it was time to move it. To sell it, you understand?”
I nodded.
“He never told me why it was the right time, and I did not ask. But it takes a great deal of, how you say, arranging to make such a transaction. This was not something you can take to a, uh, maison de prêt, a, uh, pawn shop.”
I nodded again.
“The people to whom this money was owed, he would never tell these men about the Monet or give it to them. He owned it with Benny and me, you see?”
“I do,” I said.
“I have no way of knowing if he tried to sell the painting. I only know that he did not sell it. There was simply not enough time. I learned what I know from Benny, after, uh, you understand.”
I nodded.
His shoulders slumped as he said, “They killed him before he could make the sale.”
Killed him. The words, finally spoken aloud by my father’s friend.
“Killed him?” I could hear my voice shake and so, obviously, did he.
Gilles regarded me with his moist hazel eyes. “I am so sorry to be the one to cause you this sorrow. Benny warned me that you might ask these questions. We agreed it is only fair that you know.”
“It’s all right,” I assured him, making an effort to steady myself. “I needed to know.”
“Yes,” he said as he took out his Gauloises. I picked up the matches on the table and struck one. He reached for my hand and held it as I lighted his cigarette. “Merci,” he said, then paused to take a long drag. “Benny knows many people in your father’s world. He learned afterward that three men located your father in a bar in the Bronx. Without any warning they beat him, the details are not important. They left him there to die. Your father survived for a few days, then passed on. Benny tried to find out who was responsible, but never discovered who they were.”
“My family was told it was a car accident.” I felt my face go hot and red and tasted the anger as it rose up in my throat. “A car accident.”
“Yes. You and your sisters were told this.”
“And my mother?”
“I am sorry I never had the privilege to meet your mother. She is a strong woman, from what I am told by Benny. She never asked any questions. Whatever she knew from your father’s last days, or suspected from what others told her, she kept the faith in order to protect her children. Especially you. I believe you should do the same for her.”
I pressed my lips together and blinked several times. Then I nodded slowly.
“There is nothing to be gained by trying to do anything about this now. As you say, Blackie made choices in his life. He made a mistake and paid the ultimate price. We must all respect that.”
I leaned back in my chair, realizing that I had been sitting forward with every muscle in my body stretched taut. “That’s why Benny wants nothing to do with the Monet. My father guessed that if he couldn’t get it sold, then Benny—”
I didn’t need to finish the thought. Gilles simply nodded. “Like me, Benny wanted to put it behind him.”
We sat in silence for a few moments as he smoked his cigarette. “What now?” I asked.
“I wish I knew. Perhaps you follow the advice Benny gave, which is to let it be. Perhaps you find the painting and create great wealth or great difficulty for yourself.” His eyes narrowed. “Perhaps you do what your mother has feared all these years.”
“With all his contacts, Benny couldn’t find out anything six years ago. What could I do now?” I considered that for a few moments. “My father’s death was the saddest event in my life. And I admit, right now it feels as if he’s died all over again.”
“Ah, oui. He paid the price for the mistakes he made. I don’t believe he would want you to compound the error, do you?”
“I suppose not.”
“No,” Gilles agreed with obvious relief.
I gritted my teeth and said, “Even so, I sure would be pleased to find those three gorillas and whack them around with a baseball bat.”
“A natural reaction,” he replied calmly. “But an impossible quest. Benny told me that the man who was your father’s boss has also passed on. Who is left to account for any of this? No one.”
I took a deep breath and spent some more time looking out at the sea.
“So,” Gilles interrupted my meditation, “I must now ask you. What do you do next?”
Still gazing out at the water, I said, “I guess I get on a plane and go back to my real life.”
“Bon.”
“And as to the Monet, you think my father may have tried to sell it. Which means there may be others who knew about it.”
“I doubt it. If there were, you would have heard from someone in all these years.”
“True.” Frank certainly knew nothing about a painting. Likewise the two goons who came to my apartment and the men who visited Benny. “I guess you’re right” I said, “but there is one more thing I should tell you.” I felt a little foolish for not mentioning it up to now, but I described the painting of a landscape my father had given me years ago.
Gilles was intrigued, even if my description of the painting didn’t sound familiar to him. I assured him it was no Monet.
Then he said he had a thought and asked to see my father’s letter one more time.
***
I WENT TO THE PHONE IN THE LOBBY of my hotel in Antibes and, after going through two operators and three disconnects, I listened to Benny’s phone ringing in Las Vegas. It was pretty early there, and he didn’t sound too thrilled to hear from me at that hour, but I was glad to find he was back home, and at least Selma didn’t answer.
The first thing I told him was how sorry I felt about getting him mixed up in something he obviously wasn’t keen about being mixed up in all over again.
“Forget it, kid. Hey, if I don’t know how to take care of myself by now, what the hell.” He told me he was feeling fine, that Selma overreacted when he started huffing and puffing just because he was so damn angry at those punks showing up.
I told him about the visit I had, and about someone going through my apartment.
“I don’t like to hear that, but I think they’ll go away now, since they talked to me and after what happened in Monaco.”
I said I hoped he was right. Then I asked if he wanted to know what his old friend Gilles had told me, but Benny still wasn’t having any of that conversation over the phone. “How is he?” he asked.
I told him how terrific it was to meet Gilles, that he was a great guy, but that he really wasn’t doing all that well.
“Sorry to hear that. I really am.”
“Yeah,” I said. Then I asked about Donna.
He told me that she was the daughter of a friend. Yes, he had gotten her a job in the hotel. Yes, she was a fine young woman who’d done him a tremendous favor by keeping an eye on me in New York. No, he never asked her to go with me to France. “She ain’t some broad from an escort service, kid, she’s a nice girl who did me a favor. What’d you think?”
I didn’t answer.
“I get it.” I heard him let out a full breath. “Well, you may have been a chump about her, but it’s understandable, with all this going on.”
“I hope she understands,” I said.
“We’ll see, you may need to give it some time. She’s a good lady, I can tell you that.”
I thanked him. Then I said, “I know about Blackie, too.”
I didn’t need to say more, he knew what I meant. He said, “I’m sorry, kid.”
“You don’t need to be. You’ve been a good friend to me all these years, I just never knew how good.”
I heard Selma start yelling in the background, demanding to know who was on the phone. Benny told her to shut up.
“I guess maybe you should go,” I told him.
Benny said, “Don’t worry about Selma. She just worries, is all.”
I told him that wasn’t a bad thing.
“You’re right,” Benny agreed, then changed the subject, saying something about how he’d like to see Gilles again, how he’d been meaning to grab a flight over there, just to pay a visit. But I knew Benny. I knew he never would.
***
BACK IN THE HOTEL ROOM, Donna had her bag packed and was ready to take the train to Paris.
“How was Gilles?” she asked.
“Tired,” I told her. “And I think a little sad to see us go.”
“Me too.”
She was standing in front of the open window, the blues and greens of the sky and sea providing her a worthy background.
“Before we leave, I’ve got something to say. About you. About how spectacular you’ve been through all this.”
She laughed her melodic laugh. “A few hours ago you were worried I was a call girl, or some kind of gun moll working for your cousin.”
“I’m not saying any of that is true, but you did tell me you understood why I had doubts about you.”
“Oh, I understood all right, but to be thinking the things you were thinking about me.” She shook her head. “Just hideous.”
“Gun moll?” I asked, the look on my face getting her to laugh again.
“That’s exactly what you believed.”
“If I did, then you are the most beautiful gun moll of all time.”
“How far do you think you’re going to get with a line like that?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted, “but what if I add something like, Donna I’ve fallen in love with you?”
I stepped forward and took her in my arms and she reached up and held me to her.