Damn it, Foley. You said you would help.
She hit her e-mail button one last time.
Nothing new.
And there was nothing she could do about it right now except trust Foley to get off his ass while she went to the Fast Draw paint-off and smiled so that her picture could be taken with her equally smiling blackmailers.
Castillo del Cielo
Saturday
The tape securing the recorder to the small of Rand’s back itched like fire ants. The nearly invisible wire that served as a microphone tweaked his chest hair when he moved a certain way.
“Stop scratching. It blows out the microphone.”
Faroe’s voice came from the earphones of the fake iPod that Rand wore. When the Bertones had turned down an offer from The World in One Hour to film the contest as a human interest piece, Faroe had wired Rand for sound and given him a special camera. It had been prepared by St. Kilda technicians and was capable of shooting through the compound lens, as any other camera would.
But this particular camera came equipped with another internal hard drive and lens. The second lens took its images through a pinhole disguised as a USB cable port on the side of the camera and sent the results to a memory stick. The second camera’s field of view was at precisely ninety degrees to the normal lens.
All Rand had to do to take photos from the second lens was to depress a disguised second shutter release and remember to keep his finger away from the USB port.
“Damn wire is plucking me bald,” Rand said under his breath.
“Wait until I pull off the tape-you’ll scream like a girl. You see Bertone yet?”
“No, but his wife is all over the place like a rash.”
“Don’t scratch her either.”
Rand laughed silently. Faroe’s acid comments were the only thing amusing about the Fast Draw. As far as Rand was concerned, the contest was an absurd pursuit for adults who lived in a world overflowing with violence. The fact that the party was paid for by the man who had armed most of the African continent just added to the absurdity.
But at least Rand was used to painting in the field. He was a plein air artist in the original sense of the word. Not every invited artist at the party was. After the invention of good color film, many painters chose to work from photos rather than from field studies. The fact that someone painted excellent landscapes didn’t mean that he or she routinely worked outside of a studio with its good lighting, controlled weather, and endless supplies.
The thirty artists were all painting some aspect of the Bertone estate, all within the same two-hour period. They were surrounded by more than three hundred members of Arizona’s movers and shakers. The women wore “resort” clothes, the kind that cost thousands of dollars and were accessorized by sandals, purses, sunglasses, and jewelry from every country that catered to the world of European fashion. French champagne and Phoenix gossip fueled the party.
Rand scanned the crowds of expensively dressed socialites and wondered how many of them knew the truth of Balzac’s epigram: Behind every great fortune is a crime.
He sketched in a few lines for the pool, the pool house, and the concrete deck that provided the best view of the Phoenix landscape. For a few more moments he assessed the slanting, golden light. Then he decided it was time to quit sketching and start painting. He set aside the pencil and chose tubes of oil from his small worktable, squeezing and mixing colors quickly on his palette.
“See Bertone yet?”
“Shut up, I’m working,” Rand muttered.
“So am I.”
He painted quickly. And he hoped his disgust didn’t show behind his ruthlessly trimmed beard and newly collar-length hair. The sage green shirt Grace had presented him with was exactly the color of his eyes-or so she said. The old jeans and boots he wore were splattered with oils.
Soon the new shirt would be, too.
“Ah, he’s painting at last,” said a woman, her voice carrying clearly above the party’s chatter.
Rand ignored the woman, who was wearing black silk jeans and blouse and massive Native American jewelry.
“I told you so,” another woman said. “Elena assured me that he’s a fine young painter.”
“R. McCree. Never heard of him.”
“You don’t do the Pacific Northwest art scene.”
“Why would I?” the first woman asked. “And why is he painting all alone over here? The others are all over there, with that spectacular view of the valley. Castle of Heaven might be a trite name, but it sure fits the view.”
Rand hoped the women would leave and plague the other artists. Then he shut out the chatter and concentrated on the piece of the estate he’d chosen to paint. Both the spy and the artist in him was pleased with his choice-a vantage point overlooking Castillo del Cielo’s grounds.
“One of those women is really rude,” Faroe said.
“You should know,” Rand muttered.
Painting in a controlled fury of creation, he ignored Faroe and the sweat that dried on his skin almost as soon as it appeared. Phoenix already had one foot into the searing summer that defined its landscape and the lives of its citizens. The pouring afternoon light picked out every line and curve of the land like “star lighting” in an old black-and-white movie.
That kind of light was the artist’s best friend.
And worst enemy.
Because the desert light itself was so different from the cool, diffuse light of the Pacific Northwest, Rand had decided against doing a pure landscape. It would take time to master the subtleties of desert light. He didn’t have time.
So he was counting on the vanity of Elena Bertone, who was one of the three judges. According to St. Kilda’s dossier on her, she’d overseen the details of Castillo del Cielo’s design with an intensity that had driven the architect to drink. Literally. Castillo del Cielo was Elena’s, and she loved it like a child.
So he would paint her baby.
A smart choice, but not an easy one for him. He’d never before painted a subject he didn’t enjoy. Like the party, to him the estate was…wrong. It had been hammered onto a site blasted from rock and cactus. The gem blue of the pools and the diamond glitter of huge water features fought with the sun-ravaged hills and spare shapes of cactus on the unbuildable ridgelines around the estate. The house itself was in the Tuscan style, calling upon a past that simply didn’t exist on this side of the Atlantic.
Wrong.
And very expensive.
“Why didn’t Bertone just take out a billboard advertising his gross worth?” Faroe asked. “And I mean gross.”
“Quit reading my mind.” The words didn’t go beyond Rand’s collar, which was far enough.
“I was eavesdropping on that irritating woman. Wonder if her man of the moment gags her before he screws her.”
“Go away.”
“Find Bertone.”
“Quit chewing on me because Hamm couldn’t get a photo of Bertone,” Rand said. “I’ve taken enough color photos of the estate for twelve coffee-table books.”
“Bertone never goes to the parts of his estate that are monitored by closed-circuit security TVs. He’s one crafty bastard. That’s why we’re paying you an outrageous amount to play with oils and trick cameras.”
“I’d have done it for free,” Rand said, painting fiercely, trying not to remember the twin who had died in his arms, taking too much of Rand with him.