Lifeguard - James Patterson [92]
“Ned,” Sol said, and stepped back, “I want you to meet Dr. Gachet.”
Chapter 115
I BLINKED, fixing my eyes on the sad, hunched man. It was a little different from the likeness I had seen in the book Dave left me. But it was unmistakably the van Gogh. Hidden, all this time, beneath the Gaume.
“The missing Dr. Gachet,” Sol announced proudly. “Van Gogh painted two portraits of Gachet in the last month of his life. This one he gave to his landlord, and it spent the last hundred years in an attic in Auvers. It came to Stratton’s attention.”
“I was right,” I muttered, anger building up in my chest. My brother and my friends had died for this thing. And Sollie had it all along.
“No,” Sol said, shaking his head, “Liz stole the painting, Ned. She found out about the phony heist and came to me. I’ve known her family a long time. She intended to blackmail him. I’m not sure she even knew what was important about it. Only that Dennis treasured it above all else and she wanted to hurt him.”
“Liz . . . ?”
“With Lawson’s help. When the police first responded to the alarm.”
Now I was reeling. I pictured the tall Palm Beach detective who Ellie thought was Stratton’s man. “Lawson? Lawson works for you?”
“Detective Vern Lawson works for the town of Palm Beach, Ned,” Sol said, shrugging. “Let’s just say now and then he keeps me informed.”
I stared at Sollie with a new clarity. Like someone you thought you knew but now saw in a different light.
“Look around you, Ned. You see that Vermeer. The Cloth Weavers. It’s thought to have been missing since the 1700s. Only it wasn’t missing. It was just in private hands. And The Death of Isaac, that Rembrandt. It was referred to only in his letters. No one’s even sure it exists. It sat undetected in a chapel in Antwerp for three hundred years. That’s the ultimate beauty of these treasures. No one even knows they’re here.”
I couldn’t do anything but stare in amazement.
“Now the Michelangelo over there . . .” Sol nodded approvingly, “That was hard to find.”
There was a space on the wall between the Rembrandt and the Vermeer. “Here, help me,” Sol said, and lifted the Gachet. I took it from him and hung it on the wall between two other masterpieces. We both stepped back.
“I know you won’t understand this, son, but for me, this completes the journey of my life.
“I can offer you your old job back, but as a man of some means now, I suspect there’re other things you want to do with your life. Can I give you some advice?”
“Why not?” I said with a shrug.
“If I were you, I would go to the Camille Bay Resort in the Cayman Islands. There’s a check for the first million dollars waiting for you there. As long as this remains our little secret, they’ll be another check every month. Thirty-five thousand dollars for five years wired to the same account. That should last longer than me. Of course, if you have second thoughts and the police happen to find their way down here, we’ll consider our accounts cleared.”
Then the two of us didn’t say anything for a while. We just stared at the missing Gachet. The swirling brushstrokes, the sad, knowing blue eyes. And suddenly I thought I saw something in them, as if the old doctor were smiling at me.
“So, Neddie, whaddya think?” Sol stared at the Gachet, his hands behind his back.
“I don’t know. . . .” I cocked my head. “A little crooked. To the left.”
“My thoughts exactly, kid.” Sol Roth smiled.
Chapter 116
THE FOLLOWING DAY I caught a plane for George Town on Grand Cayman Island. A blue island taxi took me along the beach-lined coast to the Camille Bay Resort.
Just as Sollie said, there was a room reserved in my name. Not exactly a room, but an incredible thatched-roof bungalow down by the beach, shaded by tall, swaying palm trees, with my own little private pool.
I put down my travel bag and stared out at the perfect turquoise sea.
On the desk, my eye came upon two sealed envelopes propped against the phone with my name on them.
The first was a welcome note from A. George McWilliams, the