The Perfect Fake Read online

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Oh!” She rolled her eyes and smiled. Her forehead seemed unnaturally smooth. “Please call me Rhonda.”

  Tom nodded.

  “I’m worried about my husband. This is strictly between us, okay? He’s not well. I’ll go ahead and tell you—he’s been under the care of a doctor.”

  “He’s not—”

  “No, no, no. He’s perfectly fine, physically, but he has become...I hate to say obsessed, but what other word is there? It’s this map. The Corelli. Yes, I know all about it, Tom. What he wants you to do. Where he’s sending you. How much he said he’d pay for a copy. Old paper, old ink. You have to admit, it’s bizarre.”

  Her eyes were the same shade of blue that Tom used for hand-coloring sea charts, and outlined in black, like India ink. She came nearer, lowering her voice to the level appropriate for a hospital corridor. “Stuart has been so distraught about Royce Herron. They’d been friends for many years. Stuart loaned Royce some maps to put in an exhibit at the map fair. Thieves broke in, and Royce was holding the Corelli map when they shot him. I think that Stuart subconsciously feels a certain amount of guilt. He can’t bring the man back to life, but he can restore the map. That’s only my theory, but if you knew Stuart as I do, I think you’d agree.”

  With no idea where this was headed, Tom said, “Why are you telling me this?”

  “I’m asking you not to go through with it.”

  “You mean, forget about the map?”

  “Stuart has already paid you ten thousand dollars. Let’s see what else we can do.” She squeezed his arm, then crossed the room to a writing desk a couple of hundred years old. From the chair the dog watched her with its glossy black, protuberant eyes. She produced a key from her pocket, inserted it into a lock, and opened a drawer. Tom saw stacks of hundreds. She set them in a neat row on the desk.

  Tom said, “What are you doing, Mrs. Barlowe?”

  “I’m giving you another ten thousand dollars.”

  With a laugh, he said, “Why?”

  “You’re going to leave the Corelli map with me and walk away a happy man. Did you bring it? Is it in your backpack?”

  “Mr. Barlowe doesn’t know what you’re doing, does he?”

  “I’ll take the blame. He won’t be angry at you.” She bent one of the banded stacks and let it ruffle past her thumb. “Easiest money you ever made.”

  “That’s a tempting offer,” Tom admitted.

  “Tax free.”

  “Uh-huh. I don’t know. He really wants the map.”

  “Are you demanding the entire amount? I won’t pay it.”

  “No, I wasn’t suggesting that,” Tom said.

  Above the desk hung an early-seventeenth-century map of Northern Europe in a gold frame. Acanthus leaves, fruit, birds, cherubs, and small animals filled the borders. It must have cost a master engraver months of work with a magnifying glass, etching every hair-thin line onto a polished copperplate—backward.

  “Take the money, Tom. You won’t get a penny more even if you do finish the map.”

  “Why won’t I?”

  Her laugh carried a breath of impatience. “You’re a graphic artist, and I’m sure you’re very good at what you do. I saw the little map you made for your sister’s shop, but Tom, a folio-size Renaissance map isn’t that easy. Do you really believe that you can make a duplicate so convincing that no one, not even an expert, could tell the difference?”

  It was a fancy way of insulting his talent, but Tom had asked himself the same question. He replied, “I guess we’ll find out.”

  “Oh, please. Be honest with yourself. Stuart wants a perfect copy. Perfect. Indistinguishable from the original. That’s what he told you. Isn’t it?”

  “You know . . . this is kind of shabby.”

  She stiffened. “Meaning what?”

  “To go behind a man’s back. I have a problem with that.”

  “Are you moralizing to me, Tom? I’m not the one with the criminal record.”

  He stared at her.

  She grabbed the money in both hands and shoved it into his chest. “Don’t be a fool. Take it.”

  He pushed past her, picked up his backpack, and swung it over his shoulder. The little dog in the chair threw back its head and barked.

  Rhonda Barlowe crossed the room. “Where are you going?”

  “Nassau.”

  She sent him a chilly smile. “Bon voyage.”

  Chapter 12

  Even sitting motionless at the seawall, the boat was fast. Forty feet of gleaming white muscle with a long nose, a swept-back windshield, and a forwardthrusting radar arch. As he came closer, Tom heard the grumble of diesel engines and saw two men on board preparing to cast off. This told him that somebody had called from the house to say the passenger was on his way. The dark-haired man in the stern held on to a piling to keep the boat from drifting; a man on the foredeck loosened the bowline, a pudgy man in khaki pants and a blue knit shirt, a billed cap pulled low over his sunglasses. Tom hadn’t seen him in fifteen years: Laurence Gerard.

  Tom stood on the dock with his hands around the straps of his backpack. “Larry. Sorry I’m late, man. I got into a conversation with your mother.”

  Tossing the line to the seawall, Larry told Tom to get in. Tom went aft and stepped onto the swim platform, then up to a walk-through that took him to the cockpit. The other man was squinting into the sun, but his dark eyes followed Tom as he boarded. Aside from a loud shirt and green pants, the man wore socks with his sandals. That and the wiry salt-and-pepper mustache said he was European, possibly Greek.

  Tom gave him a nod. “How’s it going?”

  No reply.

  Larry swung around the radar arch, jumped down to

  the cockpit, and went to the captain’s seat at the helm. Standing at the wheel he toggled the bow thruster, which swung the front of the boat away from the dock. With a push on the throttles, La Gorce Island quickly fell behind them. Water splashed on the hull as the boat zipped along at about twice the legal no-wake speed.

  “Tom, this is Marek,” Larry said cheerfully. “He’s from Croatia, over here on business. I thought he’d like to come along for the ride.”

  With another nod to Larry’s unlikely companion, Tom shrugged out of his backpack.

  “There’s beer in the cooler there. Liquor’s in the galley. We’ve got meat, cheese, bread, shrimp. What else? Tortellini salad, which I made myself this morning. We’ll make a stop in Bimini for fuel, but we’re not getting off until we reach Nassau. Go ahead and put your bag below.”

  Narrow steps descended to the cabin. Tom looked behind a curtain and saw a sleeping compartment with a double bed, satin-covered pillows, and a flat-screen TV bolted to the polished teak bulkhead. Opposite the compact stove and refrigerator, he opened a narrow door and found a compartment with a pump-toilet, a sink, and a handheld shower spray. He carried his backpack to the V-shape of cushioned seating in the bow. A box of groceries, a small leather duffel, and three big black suitcases were already stacked there. Each of the suitcases was bound with a buckled strap and a lock. No name tags, but Tom didn’t think they were Larry’s. A lot of luggage for a one-day trip.

  By the time he came topside the boat had exited the passage between North Bay Village and Golden Isles. The route would take them up the bay to the channel under Haulover Bridge, then into the Atlantic. With a Guinness from the cooler, Tom sat on the captain’s bench beside Larry rather than in the back with his friend, who so far hadn’t opened his mouth. Sunlight winked off the windows of the waterfront houses on Miami Beach. A fairly stiff wind came from the east. The temperature was around seventy-two, not a cloud to be seen.

  The weather in Easthampton had been like this the last summer with Allison. She had taken him with her for a weekend to the home of another girl from Barnard and introduced him as a friend from Miami. They put him in an attic room usually occupied by one of the younger brothers, who had already left to do his fall semester in B
arcelona.

  There were ten young people in the house that weekend. The girl’s grandfather took them all on his sixtyyear-old teak sailing yacht up Long Island Sound. Tom had caught on fast to the balance between the sails and the wind, and the old man had left him at the wheel for most of the trip. That night they wore sweaters for a cookout on the beach. Everyone got drunk. Allison’s friends talked about a bar on the Vineyard, who couldn’t get into Brown, and wasn’t that party last weekend just gross? Tom rolled joints and kept the fire going, his little contribution to the party. Walking back over the dunes with some firewood, he overheard Allison telling another girl that he was hot, but they weren’t, like, serious or anything. Tom tossed the firewood, went back to the house, packed up, and hitchhiked to the train station. Allison caught up with him as the last train to Grand Central that night was pulling out. She’d left her suitcase behind. She sat beside him; he moved to another seat; she followed. Finally he put his arm around her, and she cried and said she loved him and please, Tom, please forgive me.

  “So what’s up?” Larry asked, as though they’d last seen each other a week ago.

  “Not much.”

  Larry talked about his new boat. The GPS and satellite dish. Larry’s Rolex, which the boat dealer had thrown in to sweeten the offer. Larry’s restaurant, which would be called The Mariner’s Club. Somebody had suggested Chez Gerard, but Larry wanted an unpretentious ambience.

  As they glided north, Tom zoned out and replayed the scene with Larry’s mother. He had just walked away from a sure $10,000 in cash. He had turned down Rhonda Barlowe’s offer not because she’d been wrong but because she’d been a bitch. If she had stuck to her story about wanting to help her husband get past his grief, Tom might have taken the ten grand. Or not. Tom didn’t like being lied to. Stuart Barlowe wasn’t torn up over Judge Herron’s death. This left Tom wondering what Rhonda was really after, and if it mattered. He thought about what to say to Stuart Barlowe. Decided it could wait till he reached Nassau. Or better still, until he got to London and collected more of his fee from Allison.

  Turning to see how far they’d come, Tom saw the man in the back watching him. The wind lifted his hair, showing the gray at his temples and a groove over his ear, like a bullet had creased his skull. His small, dark eyes shifted away as he cupped his hands and lit a cigarette.

  Larry stood up. “Tom, can you take the wheel for a minute? I need to use the head. Keep it between the channel markers. Red triangles on your left.” He paused at the cooler and opened a bottle of Heineken on the way down the steps.

  The man—Marek—came forward to sit with Tom on the bench. For something to say, Tom asked him, “Your first time in Miami?”

  “Yes, but I want to come back. I love the weather. Also the nightclubs.”

  “You’re from Croatia. What city?”

  “Dubrovnik. It’s on the coast, near to Italy. Many islands. I have a boat, not so big as this one. I love to go fishing.”

  “There was a war over there,” Tom remembered.

  “Always a war.” Laughing, Marek aimed his thick forefinger at Tom’s head like a pistol. “We are fighting five hundred years to get Muslims out of our country. For this, America and the United Nations tore us into little countries, and now you are killing Muslims. A funny world, isn’t it?”

  “Hilarious.” Tom said, “You were in the army?”

  “Yugoslav army. It’s kaput. Finished.”

  “What do you do now? In Dubrovnik.”

  Marek paused, his cigarette at his mouth. “I sell equipment and parts for heavy trucks, for construction. And you’re a map dealer.”

  Tom hesitated, then said, “That’s right. I buy and sell antique maps.” He guided the cruiser around a twomasted sailboat named Odd-e-Sea. The names people come up with.

  The wind swirled cigarette ash over the top of the windshield. Marek said, “You’re going to Nassau for map business?”

  Tom looked around. The man had eyes the color of used crankcase oil. “That’s right. For Larry’s stepfather, Stuart Barlowe. He’s a collector.”

  “To buy maps?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Will you see Oscar?”

  “Oscar?”

  Marek waited for some other answer.

  Tom said, “I don’t know any Oscars.”

  “How much is he paying you?”

  Tom said, “Excuse me?”

  “How much? You are working for Oscar or for Larry?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  This might have produced a smile. Tom couldn’t see past the mustache. Marek had turned on the seat to look directly at Tom, and his arm lay across the back. He came closer. “I was in prison, too. In Bosnia. Only for a year and six months, then they let me out. They didn’t have evidence.”

  “Who told you I was in prison?” Tom demanded.

  “I know a lot about you,” Marek said.

  This conversation had taken a turn toward the weird. Tom leaned past him to yell down the steps. “Larry! We’re getting close to the Haulover Bridge. Your turn.”

  When Larry came topside, he wore a Windbreaker. Tom moved to the cockpit. Marek did the same, taking the corner seat in the cockpit. Noticing the whitecaps ahead, Tom sat as far forward as he could get. The ride would be rougher in the back. Tom decided to let Marek find out for himself.

  Haulover Park had a marina on the bay side, a beach on the other. In the old days, before a deep channel had been dredged, the narrow piece of land was a place where a small boat could be hauled over to the ocean. Larry fell in line with another boat under the bridge, but about a hundred yards clear of land, he turned around and yelled, “Hang on, crew!”

  He shoved the throttles forward, and the big engines roared in response. The bow shot up, left the water completely, then slammed down and leveled into a plane at fifty-plus miles an hour. Tom grabbed the handhold on the back of the captain’s bench. He figured two minutes of this rock and roll before Larry was forced to cut the speed.

  Larry’s hat flew off, and his bottle fell out of the holder and spun beer across the deck. Tom’s feet left the floor each time the boat dropped from crest to trough. Thud thud thud. Marek slid off the bench, crawled to the walk-through in the transom, and heaved. Tom hit Larry on the shoulder and pointed. Larry saw the mess and threw the engines into reverse.

  The boat came to a stop, wallowing drunkenly in the waves. Marek staggered below.

  Larry threw his empty bottle overboard and hosed off the deck, cursing. He kicked the hose back into its cabinet. Looking at his watch, he said, “Goddammit!” He ran a hand over his head. “Did you see my hat?”

  “Yeah, it went overboard about a mile back.”

  “Shit!” Larry got back in his seat and found a speed where the boat rocked but didn’t fly off the waves.

  After a while Tom said, “You think he’s okay?”

  “I hope he flushes himself down the goddamn crapper.” Larry folded his sunglasses into a case and pitched them into a compartment under the wheel. The light was fading. “Give me another beer, would you?”

  Holding on to the helm, Tom made his way to the cooler and grabbed two of them. He returned to his seat beside Larry, whose thinning brown hair swirled in the wind. Faint stars appeared in the sky, and stripes of purple lay over the horizon. A sailboat a couple of miles distant vanished behind a container ship heading south.

  “Your friend is a strange dude,” Tom said.

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s he doing in Miami?”

  Larry swallowed some beer. “He’s looking at real estate. He’s interested in buying a couple of units at The Metropolis.”

  “The truck parts business must be pretty good.” When Larry only looked at him, Tom added, “He said he sold truck parts in Croatia.”

  “He’s into a lot of things.” Larry jerked his chin toward the cabin access. “Go tell him there’s some Dramamine in the first aid kit. Look in the nightstand next to the bed.”
r />   Tom went down the steps and saw Marek in the bow with his back turned. He had changed his clothes. Red flowers now, and black pants. Tom was about to speak to him when he noticed his backpack on the table. Marek was sliding the zipper down one side.

  “What are you doing?”

  Bracing himself against the jerky movement of the boat, Marek turned and looked at Tom without embarrassment. His head nearly reached the cabin roof.

  “I said, what are you doing? Why were you opening my bag?” Tom grabbed it off the table and staggered with the weight as the deck tilted.

  Marek shrugged. “I am curious about you.”

  “Keep your hands off.” Leaning against the sink, Tom rode the movement of the boat. “Who are you? Why are you on this boat?”

  “I want to know why you’re going to Nassau.”

  “I told you. Stuart Barlowe is sending me. What is your problem?”

  Marek braced himself on the arm of the seat. In the weak light through the porthole, his skin looked gray. His forehead shone with sweat. He was close to needing another trip to the head. “Tell me the name of the man you will see. The man with the maps.”

  “I’m not telling you a damned thing.” The boat moved, and Marek took another step, possibly to catch his balance, but Tom dropped his backpack and went into a half crouch.

  “Tough guy.” Marek laughed, a flash of small teeth with gaps between. Then his face went white, and he grimaced.

  Tom laughed. “You going to be sick again? Larry won’t like it if you puke on the carpet.”

  The man staggered to the head. Tom heard him dryheaving in there. Then some coughs. Water ran. Tom zipped his backpack closed and shoved it under the table. Marek reappeared. He stood in the narrow doorway mopping his face with a towel, which he threw back inside. His teeth showed under his mustache. “We’ll talk some more in Nassau.”

  “Go take a walk off the back of the boat,” Tom said.