Читать книгу A Perfect Cover - Maureen Tan - Страница 11

A week later I checked into the room that Uncle Tinh had reserved for me at the Intercontinental New Orleans. The luxury high-rise hotel was conveniently located in the Central Business District and offered impeccable service along with the anonymity of almost five hundred guest rooms.

My flight was an early one so, as we’d agreed, once I’d settled into my room, I joined Uncle Tinh at the Old Coffee Pot. His restaurant—Tinh’s City Vu—was a dinner place, so the Old Coffee Pot was our long-time favorite for a quiet, relaxed breakfast.

Uncle Tinh was already sitting at one of the little tables in the restaurant’s tree-shaded courtyard when I arrived. Before he realized I was there, I stood for a moment watching him sip his coffee and, once again, I found it impossible to believe that this man could be a criminal. I walked over to stand beside the sun-dappled table.

“Hello, Uncle Tinh,” I said.

He smiled broadly as he stood and hugged me enthusiastically. Then he held me briefly at arm’s length, his dark eyes sparkling as he asked about my flight. I looked back at the man who was the bridge between my two worlds, my only connection to my birthplace and its culture.

Although he was almost sixty, Uncle Tinh looked much the same as he had the day I met him. He had a round, unlined face, a body kept strong through the practice of martial arts and was tall for a Vietnamese man—almost five foot eight inches. His head was shaved clean and his hands, as always, were beautifully manicured. He wore a white dress shirt that was unbuttoned at the collar, a pair of gray trousers and his trademark leather sandals. His favorite Rolex watch—a bit battered from hard use—rode on his right wrist, accommodating his left-handedness.

“You look lovely as ever, chère,” he said as we settled into our chairs. “Fit, certainly. But maybe a little too thin.”

I laughed. No matter how much I weighed, Uncle Tinh complained that I looked too thin. In the past month, I had, in fact, regained all the weight I’d lost in Mexico. Which put me at my usual one hundred and five pounds. And I was sure that the bulky blue cotton sweater and jeans that I wore made me look several pounds heavier.

“One of your desserts will remedy that, I’m sure,” I said.

“Ah, that reminds me. Since your last visit, I have created a new dessert. It will be a favorite, I think. But you are my most honest critic. So I wait for your approval before adding it to the menu.”

I had never yet disapproved of one of Uncle Tinh’s desserts.

“I will sample it at the first opportunity,” I said.

Uncle Tinh waited until I’d taken my first bite of the callas—crispy Creole rice cakes smothered in hot maple syrup—before telling me that he’d arranged for me to attend an evening gala in the Garden District. It was being given by the Beauprix family.

“Anthony Beauprix is the son of an old acquaintance of mine. He is a policeman and a friend of the Vietnamese community here in New Orleans.”

Uncle Tinh, it seemed, had already decided to contact me when Beauprix had come to him for help. Beauprix had told Uncle Tinh that without someone inside the Vietnamese community, his investigation was hopelessly stalled. That was when Uncle Tinh had told Beauprix about me. Uncle Tinh laughed as he related that part of their conversation. Or, more correctly, he laughed in reaction to my expression.

“No offense, sir,” Beauprix had said to him. “but I was hoping you could recommend someone who lives or works in Little Vietnam. Someone who’d be willing to pass relevant information on to me. The last thing I need is some gal from up north coming down here and playing cop. I don’t doubt she’s good at her job—she sounds like a fine little actress. But this is police business, always best handled by the police.”

I didn’t know Beauprix and hadn’t worked with the New Orleans P.D., but the attitude was all too familiar. And I knew from experience that my size would make it even easier for him to underestimate me.

“For this,” I asked Uncle Tinh pointedly, “I’ve disrupted my life?”

“Patience, chère,” he replied. His accent, like his restaurant’s food, mixed the French of upper-class Vietnam with the Creole accents of New Orleans. “If I had the means to aid the Vietnamese community without involving you or the police, I would. Certainly, many in Little Vietnam would prefer it that way. But I have only wealth and the guilt of one who did not suffer as many of my countrymen did. This situation requires the intervention of outsiders. Anthony Beauprix is doing his best. But whether he likes it or not—whether he knows it yet or not—he needs you. That means convincing him to accept your help. I have already laid the groundwork. So now I will tell you how it can be done….”

I spent the rest of the day shopping and, by midafternoon, put a dent in the expense money that Uncle Tinh had given me. I was pleased with the purchases I carried back to my room in an assortment of boxes and bags. I now had a suitable dress, appropriate undergarments and matching shoes to wear to the gala. I shed my clothes in the dressing room—a luxury I’d longed for in my small D.C. apartment—and took a long soak in the deep marble tub.

I submerged myself so only my face was above water and considered my future. Unlike Uncle Duran, I was not independently wealthy. Thanks to Uncle Tinh, my stay in New Orleans would cost me nothing and I had enough savings to coast for a while. But eventually I would have to support myself.

If Uncle Duran’s evidence was nothing more than malicious speculation—and I felt that it likely was—I would seek a new job among organizations that already appreciated my diverse and, by most standards, peculiar skills. Past assignments had given me contacts within an alphabet soup of government agencies specializing in national security: CIA, FBI, ATF, DSS, INS. One of them would probably hire me. But the appeal of my job with Uncle Duran had been the commitment to the immigrant community that he and I shared.

As I made circles in the bubbles with my toes, questions about my future ran through my mind. Would I ever again be able to work for Uncle Duran? Did I even want to? Would he blackball me, making finding another job in Washington impossible? What impact would conflict with Uncle Duran have on my parents?

So many questions. No answers.

My mind flashed to the poster that hung in my adoptive mother’s office, and I smiled. Her favorite movie was Gone With the Wind.

“I won’t think about that now,” I said out loud in my best Scarlett O’Hara imitation. “I’ll think about it tomorrow.”

I splashed enthusiastically just for the hell of it, spent a moment blowing bubbles with my head beneath the water and my hair splayed out around me, then practiced my New Orleans accent by reciting Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham out loud until the words echoed off the bathroom’s glossy white-tiled walls.

Out of the tub, I thought about slipping into one of the cushy terry-cloth bathrobes supplied by the hotel, realized that one-size-fits-all wasn’t created with me in mind and, instead, wrapped myself in a thick, white bath towel. Then I sat on the upholstered bench in front of the lighted vanity, carefully applied my makeup, fixed my hair and slipped on my new clothes. I was a vision in basic black.

“Ah, the belle of the ball,” I said as I turned slowly in front of the room’s full-length mirror. Then I laughed and added, “Not!”

Unlike Scarlett, I wasn’t dressed in dusty velvet drapes. But I doubted that Beauprix would fully appreciate my wardrobe choice. At least, not tonight. I took the elevator downstairs and was pleased to note that few eyes turned in my direction as I made my way through the lobby.

I could have taken a cab, but this was New Orleans and I loved the romance, if not the Spartan nineteenth-century amenities, of the city’s arch-roofed streetcars. The St. Charles line ran past the front of the Intercontinental, at the No. 3 stop. I got on, carrying the exact change required, dropped my five quarters into the box and felt like Cinderella going to the ball.

Unfortunately, my teal-green coach was crowded with tourists and commuters, and all the reversible wooden seats were occupied. So I stood toward the back, congratulated myself on selecting new shoes that were actually comfortable, and enjoyed the New Orleans scenery sliding past at nine miles an hour.

About twenty minutes later, I stepped down from the coach at stop No. 19 and walked for two blocks. The umbrella I’d taken as a defense against the light drizzle was almost unnecessary—live oaks formed living canopies along the residential blocks above Louisiana Avenue. The house I was looking for was on Prytania and Seventh, just a block below the free-standing vaults and above-ground crypts of the City of Lafayette Cemetery.

The Beauprix home was a double-galleried Victorian gem with a first-floor living area that even the bodies and voices of several hundred guests didn’t fill completely. Inside, the huge open spaces of the first floor were a swirl of color and texture, of light and sound. Everywhere, tall crystal vases spotlighted by tiny, intense lights overflowed with pink and violet varieties of roses, lilacs, irises and gladiolas floating in clouds of baby’s breath.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t at the moment fully appreciate the beautiful decor, the sounds of celebration or the smell of fresh flowers. Because within a few minutes of my arrival through the back kitchen door of the lovely house, I had ended up standing at a stainless-steel counter, surrounded by the bustle and din of food preparation and reeking of fish and onions.

I wrinkled my nose and tried not to breathe too deeply as I finished dusting a large silver tray of pale-pink appetizers with a sprinkle of red caviar and finely chopped chives. Grateful that the smell was not necessary to my disguise, I wandered across the kitchen to the sink, carefully washed my hands, then rubbed them dry on the front of my bibbed apron. Beneath the black apron was a black rayon uniform that hung limply below my knees. Beneath that, there was enough padding to make me look forty pounds heavier and distinctly barrel-shaped. Once my hands were dry, I briefly tucked my right hand into an apron pocket, assuring myself that the tiny electronic device I’d hidden there was still safe. It was one of a handful of specialized items I’d collected over the years and brought with me to New Orleans.

“Olivia!” the caterer said loudly. “Take that tray out to the dining room, please.”

I counted to ten slowly before looking up, deliberately slack-jawed and blank-eyed, from my contemplation of the heavy support hose and the sturdy black shoes I wore. For the gala, carefully applied makeup had changed my complexion from golden to dusky and I had braided my hair in deliberately thick, uneven corn rows. The wax forms that thickened my cheeks and made my upper lip protrude also distorted my voice.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said slowly.

Ignoring the direction of the woman’s pointing finger, I picked up the silver tray nearest the sink. It was littered with a few limp pieces of parsley, a half-nibbled radish and a few abandoned olives.

The caterer—a tall, middle-aged black woman whose presence seemed to calm the chaos of the busy kitchen—was destined to be a saint. She spent only a moment rolling her eyes heavenward before stepping in front of me, taking the tray from my hands and returning it to the counter.

“This one, honey.” She gave me a filled tray, then corrected my hands so that they held it level. “Now be careful, Olivia. Don’t spill.”

“No, ma’am.”

I offered her a smile enhanced by a gold-capped front tooth, then walked to the dining room down a short hallway lined with glass-fronted shelves stacked with fine china and polished silver.

I slipped behind the long buffet table and carefully set the tray down at the far end of the table, in an open space beside a huge arrangement of irises. The thick petals looked like velvet and were a shade of purple so deep it was almost black. I tucked myself behind the arrangement with my back into a corner.

Slowly, with an air of intense concentration, I began lifting each stem, turning it slightly and settling it back into the vase, as if to make sure that each flower was shown off as beautifully as possible. Except that the flowers I was arranging were at the back of the vase. Either the caterer didn’t notice or she’d given up on keeping the most dim-witted of her employees busy. And I wondered what favor Uncle Tinh had called in to saddle her with such a useless worker.

From behind my curtain of flowers, I peered out at the party through my thick-lensed glasses, genuinely enraptured by the graceful patterns that formed and reformed as guests sought out acquaintances and made new contacts. Laughter mixed with the murmur of voices and the rustle of the leathery leaves of the magnolia trees that overhung the open gallery windows. A live, six-piece band wove it all together with a soft, bluesy melody.

This was New Orleans at its best. For a moment I regretted mightily that Lacie Reed wasn’t making an appearance as herself at the party that Anthony Beauprix had thrown for his father’s eightieth birthday. Briefly, I considered how I could capture the evening in pen-and-ink washed with the faintest suggestion of colors. Then I sighed and considered what Uncle Tinh had told me about my host, Anthony Beauprix.

Besides being a cop who desperately needed my help but was too chauvinistic and anticivilian to accept it, Beauprix was wealthy beyond most people’s wildest dreams. That, Uncle Tinh had told me during breakfast. The Beauprix family was old money, their fortune tied to a history of sailing ships, bootleg rum, smuggled guns and an uncanny ability to end up on the winning side of any war, no matter which side they’d started on. In New Orleans, that knack earned them as much respect as their money did.

Perhaps inspired by a public hanging or two—the citizens of New Orleans also having no problem executing those they respected—the Beauprix family gradually shifted their attention to more legitimate enterprises such as shipping and oil. Which was what made Anthony stand out among the current generation. A maverick, Uncle Tinh said. A beloved black sheep. Unlike his younger brother and sister who’d earned M.B.A.s at Tulane or his engineer and lawyer cousins, Beauprix was a detective in the New Orleans Police Department. A job, Uncle Tinh noted, more suited to the morals and attitudes of the founding members of the Beauprix clan. Certainly in his attitude toward women and his unlikely friendship with Tinh Vu, he was a throwback.

Then Uncle Tinh had shown me a black-and-white print of a photo of Anthony Beauprix that the Times-Picayune had on file. It was a candid shot taken as he’d accepted the police department’s award for valor. The caption taped to the back of the photo mentioned a hostage situation and no one dying. Thanks to Beauprix. From the grainy photo, I could tell that he was taller and slimmer than the mayor, dark-haired, and had his eyes, nose, mouth and chin in approximately the right places.

More guests arrived and the area around the table became crowded, blocking my view of the room. The caterer, who still looked unharried, swept past me, switched out a nearly-empty tray of white-chocolate-dipped strawberries for a full one and disappeared back into the kitchen.

In a halfhearted attempt to keep Uncle Tinh in her good graces, I spent a few minutes brushing crumbs from the linen tablecloth before busying myself with the irises again. I had just finished stuffing a particularly gooey stem back into the vase when a nearby male voice said “the flowers” with the slight rise in tone that usually implies a question.

I lifted my head and slid my eyes in the direction of the voice.

Standing on the other side of the vase, staring in through the flowers, was a man in a tuxedo. He was perhaps six feet tall with olive skin, well-cut dark hair and hazel eyes. He was smiling with a mouthful of perfect teeth.

My first thought was that this was Anthony Beauprix. My second was to wonder who he was smiling at. My third thought was that there was only one possible candidate.

I looked quickly at my feet.

“Do you like the flowers?” Beauprix repeated.

I nodded.

“And strawberries,” I muttered thickly and for no particular reason, except that I’d always believed that distinct characteristics and a personality quirk or two were essential to creating a believable persona.

“What’s your name?”

“Olivia,” I said, wondering why he could possibly want to know my name. Impossible to think that he had seen through my disguise. Perhaps he was planning to complain to the caterer about her useless staff.

I was wrong.

“You’re doing a fine job, Olivia.”

He flashed me another smile, put the plate he was carrying down on the table, picked up several dipped strawberries from the tray and added them to the bounty on the plate. Then he frowned and looked back at me.

“If you wouldn’t mind, would you fetch me a paring knife from the kitchen?” he said.

I nodded, went on the errand and returned fairly promptly.

I watched him slice each of the strawberries on the plate into quarters, wondering at the task.

“Thank you, Olivia,” he said.

I nodded, carefully not making eye contact, and didn’t look up until he’d picked up the plate and turned away from the table. Then I lifted my head and watched him, admiring the fit of his formal wear as he moved across the crowded room, pausing to speak with one guest, then another. He had the muscular build and awareness of body and space that brought to mind a dancer. Or a street fighter. I’d met a lot of cops in the past couple of years, so there was no doubt in my mind: plainclothes had never looked so good. Though it probably helped to have a millionaire’s wardrobe and a personal tailor.

As the crowd parted to let Beauprix pass, I saw that an elderly man—Beauprix’s father, I guessed—had joined the party. He was sitting in a wheelchair in the center of the room, surrounded by a knot of people whose coloring and bone structure marked them as family. Beauprix joined them, leaning down to place the plateful of food carefully on his father’s lap. As the elder Beauprix smiled up at his son, I noticed that the right side of his face remained stiff and expressionless. When he picked up his food, he used his left hand awkwardly and chewed each small piece slowly and methodically.

I kept a close watch on the family group, remaining behind the serving table, but periodically shifting my position so that I could see them through the crowd. My job was easy. They stayed together in the same spot, chatting and laughing as their guests moved forward to greet the elderly gentleman. Periodically, Anthony would lean in close to his father and murmur something that made the old man smile.

After I’d been watching them for about ten minutes, I saw Beauprix nod and smile at his brother and sister. He signaled to the white-suited waiters to provide everyone with a full glass of champagne. While the waiters did their work, he chatted amicably with his family. Then he knelt, put his arm around his father’s shoulders and lifted his champagne glass with the other.

“To a good man, our dear friend, and my lifelong hero. Charles Beauprix.”

Anthony Beauprix wasn’t a handsome man by any conventional definition. But I doubted there was a woman in the room who wasn’t aware of him, who didn’t feel her pulse quicken as he walked past, who couldn’t imagine his hands and lips on her body. Certainly, I wasn’t immune to such thoughts. Nor was I oblivious to the effect that Beauprix was having on my libido. But I had more pressing things to think about. Such as where I was going to set a small, very dramatic fire.

A large cake, lavishly decorated with fresh and spun-sugar flowers, had been baked to celebrate Charles Beauprix’s eightieth birthday. It was several layers tall, rested on a silver-plated wheeled serving cart, and looked like it might serve a hundred people.

Beside the cart was a linen-clad stationary table that supported several large silver trays holding more dessert—dozens of uniform petit fours arranged in soldier-straight rows. Each tiny cake was covered in a smooth layer of marzipan, decorated with a single sugar rose and a pair of fresh violet blossoms, and topped by a small candle.

Toward the end of the evening, the catering staff began the task of lighting all the candles on the cake and the petit fours. Then most of the lights on the first floor were switched off and the large cake was wheeled to the center of the living room, where the Beauprix family was gathered. I stayed behind, lingering near the table that held the petit fours.

The crowd sang “Happy Birthday,” the elder Beauprix worked on blowing out the candles on his cake, Anthony Beauprix stood with his hand on his father’s shoulder and I surreptitiously dripped globs of gel fuel between rows of petit fours. As the last bits of whistling, cheering and applause faded, I tipped a lit candle into the silver tray and quickly stepped away from the table. A heartbeat or two later, there was a satisfying roar.

Someone shouted, “Fire!”

While everyone’s attention was focused on the flaming pastries, I made my way around the perimeter of the crowded room. Before the overhead lights came on, I was racing up a sweeping staircase whose grandeur reminded me of my adoptive mom’s favorite movie. Just call me Scarlett, I thought as I reached the hallway.

“His room has paintings of ships hung on the walls,” Uncle Tinh had told me. “Anthony once told me about his collection. Appropriate, don’t you think, for the descendant of a pirate?”

The second door on the left opened into the room I was looking for. Downstairs, I could hear shouting and the sounds of a fire extinguisher being discharged. That noise was muffled as I pulled Anthony Beauprix’s bedroom door shut behind me.

Time was short, so I gave the room only a sweeping glance. His queen-size bed was covered with soft bedding in shades of cream and tan, the dresser and desk were polished mahogany and the desk chair and love seat were covered with a nubby brown fabric. Tall bookcases were built in against one wall. Opposite, ceiling-to-floor guillotine windows flanked by sheer curtains in a surprising shade of tangerine let in the night air from a second-floor gallery. Paintings of tall ships and battles at sea hung on the walls, and a scale model of the U.S.S. Constitution graced the fireplace mantle.

Neat and comfortable, I thought as I crossed the room to Beauprix’s bed and knelt on the pillows. Hanging above the headboard was a gilt-framed oil painting of the Constitution defeating the British frigate Guerriére in 1812. I admired the artist’s use of blue, ochre and crimson as I swung the painting aside, revealing a vintage wall safe. The safe’s location and Beauprix’s habit of keeping his “piece” locked in the safe when company was in the house was information Uncle Tinh had provided. Information obtained from the Beauprix housekeeper’s adult daughter, whose husband liked to play the ponies. In exchange for the information, Uncle Tinh had arranged for a gambling debt to be canceled.

From my apron pocket I pulled out the electronic device. It was the size of a quarter and attached by thin wires to a pair of ear buds. I put the tiny black pads in my ears, placed the device against the safe, turned the dial slowly and listened. Right. Click. Left. Click. Right again. Click. A quick tug at the safe’s handle and the job was done.

I ignored everything else inside and went for Beauprix’s gun, a Colt .45 semiautomatic compact officer’s model. Uncle Tinh had suggested that it was exactly the item needed to get Beauprix’s attention. After returning the bullets to the safe, I tucked the unloaded gun securely between my belly and the corset-like padding I wore. Before closing the safe, I left a handwritten note inside. An invitation, of sorts. Then I went out the gallery window, shinnied down a vine-wrapped drainpipe and ran around the house to the kitchen door.

The kitchen was bustling with clean-up activity. The caterer, apparently unruffled by a mere fire, was calmly giving directions to her staff. As her back was to the kitchen door, I slouched in through the doorway. My apron was wet and soiled from my encounter with the drainpipe, so I picked up the nearest littered serving tray from the counter and tipped it toward me, adding a smear of discarded party food to my apron. Then I began scraping the remainders of crackers smeared with paté and thin brown bread topped with a pink-flecked spread into the garbage.

The caterer turned, saw me working hard, and nodded.

“Good, Olivia. Very good.”

I couldn’t help but smile.

The phone call I was expecting came near midnight. There was no warmth or humor in the deep male voice on the other end.

“City morgue,” Anthony Beauprix said. “Six a.m.”

Then he disconnected.