She took another step. “Poor boy.”
I held out the little minivan in my palm. “Nice touch,” I said. “It, uh, just doesn’t go anywhere.”
“Oh, yes, it does, Ned,” Ellie said, her eyes liquid and wide. She cupped her hands over her heart. “It goes right here.”
“Jesus, Ellie.” I couldn’t hold back any longer. I reached out and put my arms around her. I hugged Ellie as tightly as I could. Her heart was beating like a little bird’s. I bent down and kissed her.
“This isn’t going to play very well with the Bureau,” I said when we came apart.
“Screw the Bureau,” Ellie said. “I quit.”
I kissed her again. I stroked her hair and pressed her head close to my chest. I wanted to tell her about Sol. What I’d seen at the house. His masterpieces. The missing Gachet. It was killing me. If there was anyone on this earth who deserved to know, it was Ellie.
But as Sol said, I was good at taking advice.
“So, what’re we going to do now?” I asked her. “Bank on my master’s degree?”
“Now? Now we’re going to take a walk on the beach, and I hope you’re gonna do something romantic, like ask me if I want to marry you.”
“Do you want to marry me, Ellie?”
“Not here. Out there. And then maybe we’ll talk a bit about how we’re gonna spend the rest of our lives. Straight talk, Ned. No games, not anymore.”
So we took a walk on the beach. And I asked her. And she said yes. And for the longest time we didn’t say another word. We just walked in the surf and watched the setting sun in paradise.
And the thought crept into my head that it might be pretty cool for a guy like me to be married to an ex-special agent of the FBI…
Of course, I was thinking Ellie might be thinking the same thing, about Ned Kelly… the outlaw.
Epilogue
Chapter 118
TWO YEARS LATER…
The ring of the phone caught me just as I was rushing out the door. I had ten-month-old Davey the Handful in my arms and was about to plop him, all twenty-two pounds, into the waiting arms of Beth, our sitter.
Ellie was already at work. She opened up a gallery. In Delray, where we settled in a quaint little bungalow a couple of blocks off the beach. She specializes in nineteenth-century French paintings and sells them in New York and up in Palm Beach. In our living room, over the mantel, we even had an Henri Gaume.
“Ned Kelly,” I answered, cradling the receiver in my neck.
I was late to work. I still took care of pools. Except this time, I bought the company, Tropic Pools, the largest in the area. These days I serviced all the fanciest ones from Boca to Palm Beach.
“Mr. Kelly,” an unfamiliar voice replied, “this is Donna Jordan Cullity. I’m a partner at Rust, Simons and Cullity. We’re a law firm in Palm Beach.”
I mouthed to Beth under my breath that Ellie would be back around 4:30. “Uh-huh,” I said into the phone receiver.
“You’re acquainted with a Mr. Sol Roth?” the lawyer inquired.
“Uh-huh,” I said again.
“Then I’m sorry to inform you that Mr. Roth has died.”
I felt the blood rush to my head, my stomach plunge. I sat down. I knew Sol had been ill, but he was always making light of things. I’d gone to visit him less than a month before. He joked that he and Champ were gearing up to crash a Harley roundup near the Grand Canyon. I felt as shocked and weak-kneed as when my own father had died. “When?”
“About a week ago,” Ms. Cullity said. “He knew he had cancer for a long time. He died peacefully in his sleep. In accordance with his desires, he didn’t want anyone but his family to know.”
“Thank you for letting me know,” I said, this empty feeling crawling inside. I flashed to the image of the two of us standing in his vault, staring at those paintings. God, I was gonna miss Sol.
“Actually, Mr. Kelly,” the lawyer said, “that’s not why I called. We’ve been retained to handle some of Mr. Roth’s wishes, in the matter of his estate. There are some issues that he didn’t want publicized. He said you would understand.”
“You mean the payments he’s been making into a Caymans account?” I could understand why Sol wouldn’t want that to come to light. Now that he was dead, I guessed the balance would be paid in full. “You can handle it any way you like, Ms. Cullity. I’ll always be eternally grateful to Sol.”
“Actually,” Cullity said after a pause, “I think we should meet, Mr. Kelly.”
“Meet?” I leaned back against the wall. “Why?”
“I don’t think you understand, Mr. Kelly. I’m not calling about any payments. It’s a matter of Mr. Roth’s estate. There’s an item he wanted you to have.”
Chapter 119
SPLIT ACES, wasn’t that what I called it a couple of years ago?
No, it’s a helluva lot more than split aces… It’s like hitting the lottery, mate, as Champ would say. It’s like the kick that wins the Super Bowl with no time left. You kick it over and over. The ball sails through. You can’t miss.
What do you do when the most valuable piece of art in the world falls into your hands?
Well, first you stare at it. Maybe a million times. A man in a white cap with his head tilted at a table and a melancholy look.
You stare at it until you know every stab of color, every line of the weary face. Trying to figure out how something so simple could be so magical. Or why it came to you.
Or if you ever wanted that kind of money.
Maybe a hundred million dollars, the lawyer estimated.
Then you tell your wife. You tell her everything. Everything you were sworn not to. Hell, Sollie’s secret was safe now anyway.
And after she yells at you for a while and wants to punch you, you bring her in and watch her see it for the first time. You see something beautiful in your wife’s face amid the astonishment and the awe. “Oh my God, Neddie…” Like watching a blind man discovering color for the first time. The magical caress of her eyes. The reverence. It takes your breath away, too.
And you bring in your ten-month-old baby and you hold him in front of it and say, One day, Davey, you’ll have a helluva story to tell.
You just won’t have a hundred million dollars, guy.
So it always comes back to that question. What do you do with it? After all, it’s stolen, right?
Throw some big Palm Beach bash. Get your face in “The Shiny Sheet.” On the Today show? Make the ARTnews Hall of Fame.
You stare at Gachet’s face. And you see it. In the angle of the cocked head. The wise, melancholy eyes.
Not the eyes of a doctor, sitting there in the hot June sun. But the eyes of the person painting him.
And you wonder: What did he know? Who does this really belong to?
Stratton? Sollie? Liz?
Certainly not me.
No, not me.
I mean, I’m just a lifeguard, right?
Chapter 120
NEXT YEAR…
“Ready…?” Ellie and I took Davey by the hand and led him down to the sea.
The beach was wonderfully quiet and empty that day. The surf was gentle, A couple of vacationers were strolling by, wetting their feet. An old woman wrapped all in white and wearing a wide straw hat, searching for shells. Ellie and I took Davey by the hand and let him jump off the dune to the surf.
“Ready,” my son replied, determined, his mop of blond hair the color of the sun.
“Here. This is how it’s done. ” I rolled up a piece of paper and threaded it into the mouth of the Coors Light beer bottle. Coors was always my brother’s favorite. Then I jammed the cap back on tightly and hammered it with my palm.
I smiled to Ellie. “That oughta hold.”