‘Do you know of anyone else who might have talked to him?’
‘Walter, the barkeeper.’
‘We’ve already spoken with Walter.’
‘Two
‘Do you know their names?’
‘No.’
‘Would Walter know their names?’
‘Walter does not even know his own name,’ she said, and laughed.
‘Anyone else?’
‘All right, Sybille. Thanks.’
‘You buy me another gin fuzz, huh?’
‘Yeah,’ I said, and I put a couple of D-marks on the table.
She smiled wetly. ‘Thanks, man.’
MacVeagh was on his feet. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said to me. ‘I can’t stand this goddamn hole any more.’
I nodded and we left Sybille tucking the D-marks into the loose bodice of her dress. Outside, the clean, chill air blowing along the Am Pfuhl was like dry ice in my lungs, and my head throbbed painfully. MacVeagh said nothing, sullenly, as we walked to where I had parked the Volkswagen on the thoroughfare. He had not approved of the way I had handled Sybille, and he thought he had me pegged because of it; I was a slob in his book now, even if I did know how to handle myself. He was even shallower than I had previously thought.
When we got to the car and I had the engine warmed up, I said, ‘I’m ready to call it a night. You want me to drop you back to Larson?’
‘No, it’s too damned early. I’ll get out at the Bayerischer Hof.’
He directed me back there, in clipped sentences, and I put the Volkswagen away in their garage area. On the street in front I said, ‘I’ll let you know if I turn anything on Sands tomorrow-or if there’s anything else you might give me a hand on.’
‘Yeah, you do that,’ MacVeagh said, and he went away without looking at me again.
I watched him go, and then I coughed and spat phlegm into the street and entered the lobby, listening to the blood pound in my ears…
CHAPTER TWELVE
Blumenstrasse was a little cobblestoned street in a semi-residential area a few blocks from the Bayerischer Hof, and number fifteen was a dust-colored building with intricate wood-studding from sidewalk to peaked roof. A rounded arch gave on a short vestibule, and above the arc was a small sign lettered in pale blue: Galerie der Expressionisten.
I parked the Volkswagen across the narrow street and sat looking over there for a time. It was a few minutes past ten, and rain fell in a light, steady drizzle; but the sky to the west was ominous, the color of a dusty school blackboard, pregnant with heavy water. I felt cold and irritable. I still had the cough and the constriction in my chest, but I kept trying to convince myself they were psychosomatic; hadn’t the damned headache dissolved sometime during the night?
I pulled up the collar on my overcoat and got out and crossed the cobblestones. In the vestibule beyond the arch, a wood-and-glass-paned door let me into a small room with a parqueted wood floor, brightly lighted by ceiling fluorescents; a mellifluous bell above the door announced my entry. Directly across from me was another arch, with maroon curtains swept and tied like portieres at each jamb; beyond, there was another room, identical to the one in which I now stood.
The white-painted walls of both were filled with dozens of squares and rectangles and oblongs of various dimensions, some alive in vivid color, some brooding darkly-things imitative of Renoir and Monet and Degas; of German impressionists Kirchner, Beckmann, Nolde; of Surrealists such as Dali and Miro. There were also several new ideas and styles that defied categorizing, and no landscapes or seascapes or conventional portraiture. All of it was oil, and all of it original, and all of it-the good, the bad, and the ugly-done by amateurs or unrecognized professionals.
I was looking at a pyrotechnic study in diverse shades of blue, which had both a name and a meaning I did not understand, when a slender, distinguished-looking little man in a neatly trimmed Vandyke beard came through the curtained arch. He wore a dark suit and a multihued tie that might have been painted by one of the artists represented on the gallery walls; his eyes and his carefully brushed hair were the same slate-gray color.
‘Herr Norbert Ackermann, at your service,’ he said in precise British-accented English. ‘You are an American?’
‘Yes.’ I introduced myself, and then I said, ‘A couple of days ago you received a telephone call from a woman named Elaine Kavanaugh-from San Francisco. She asked you about a man named Roy Sands, and about a portrait of him.’
The smile chameleoned into a slight frown. ‘Yes?’
‘I represent Miss Kavanaugh,’ I told him. ‘I’m investigating the disappearance of her fiance.’
Herr Ackermann’s frown deepened. ‘Surely you cannot think I know anything about this disappearance…’
‘No, of course not. But Sands did have the name of the Galerie der Expressionisten, and the portrait, as I’m sure Miss Kavanaugh mentioned, was stolen from my apartment. We thought there might be a connection somehow.’
‘I do not know anyone named Sands. Nor am I aware of a portrait of the type she described. I made this quite clear to her.’
‘No one is doubting your word, Herr Ackermann,’ I said. ‘But I do have a few additional questions, if you don’t mind.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘Do you have anyone else working for you, someone who might perhaps have seen or spoken with Sands in some capacity during your absence?’
‘I am the sole employee of the Galerie der Expressionisten. In my absence, the front door is locked and no one is admitted.’
‘Well, do you have any idea why Sands would have been carrying the name and address of your place?’
‘Perhaps it was recommended to him by a friend,’ Herr Ackermann said. ‘We are quite well known in this area.’
‘That’s a possibility, I guess.’
‘Your Mr. Sands may have intended to visit the gallery at one time, and did not manage to do so. Or perhaps he did come, and stayed only a short while. There are times when I am busy with other customers.’
‘Also a possibility,’ I said. ‘Tell me, Herr Ackermann, do you handle the work of a large or small number of artists?’
‘A fairly large number, I would say. At various times in the past year, at least fifty promising young German artists have been represented in my gallery.’
‘All impressionists?’
‘If you prefer the broad label, yes.’
‘Do any of them do portraiture?’
‘I should suppose some may have at one point or another in their careers attempted portraiture, yes. Do you think one of my artists made this stolen sketch of Mr. Sands?’
‘It might explain why he had your gallery’s name and address,’ I said.
‘Yes, so it might.’
On the chance that Elaine had not mentioned the portrait’s bold lines, heavy shadows, and somewhat enlarged,
