The Sandler Inquiry Part 47

"It's not just my father. It's Arthur Sandler's connection to William Ward Daniels."

"Lawyer and client" he answered.

She was shaking her head before he was finished.

"More than that" she insisted, eyes flas.h.i.+ng.

"Much more."

"How can you be so certain?"

"Very easily. My aunt dies, bringing the family to an apparent end.

Her death means a will, a search for heirs. That means that the family's dirty laundry will have to be public. Old files opened, examined. What files burn? Yours. Your father's, more specifically."

She motioned at the air with both hands, palms open.

"Something was in those files. More than a will. Maybe the key to where my father is. Or who he is. Or maybe there's some indication that I exist " "But it's twenty years after the fact" he said, perplexed.

"Who'd care now?"

"My father," she offered quickly.

"How do you even know he's alive?"

"Maybe this proves it'" she said.

"You know as well as I do that the scarf around your neck was no accident. Maybe you know something," she pressed adamantly.

"Maybe something crucial which might not seem so important to you, but which-" He was shaking his head, every bit as insistent as she.

"Nothing" he said.

"I know absolutely nothing about the Sandlers. Only what you tell me.

And what's public record."

She fell silent, looking down at her plate in thought.

"Whom did you go see?" she asked.

"When you were away?"

He weighed the question and knew it was one he didn't yet want to answer.

"No one important" he said.

"Zenger again?"

"No one important" he said. Only people who insisted she was an imposter. No way he was delving into that yet. Someone in a well tailored female form existed. He knew because she'd just saved his life. When she'd come through in a moment like that, how much else could he hold against her?

"All right, don't tell me" she said sourly and with evident disappointment.

"But someone you've seen has betrayed you. Someone thinks you know too much already."

"Me?" he posed.

"Why not you?"

"They wanted to kill you first," she said. And she smiled with gloriously sweet sarcasm, letting her point rest.

"True," he admitted.

A waitress cleared the table and brought coffee. He was silent as he tried to put events in order and find the pattern. He glanced at her and felt helpless. There was no pattern.

d.a.m.n her, he thought, she was perfectly calm. She was asking better questions than he, and for that matter was running a d.a.m.ned fine interrogation. Maybe she should have gone to law school in his place, he thought. He'd learn how to paint.

He sipped the coffee. Its warmth soothed his throat slightly. He broke the silence, seeking to change the drift of the conversation at the same time.

"You know quite a bit aboutart" he said.

"Very little, actually."

"What about forgeries?"

Her coffee cup hesitated between the saucer and her mouth, then returned to the saucer untouched by her lips.

"Forgeries?" she asked, as if seeking a further elaboration of the word.

He nodded, his turn to be calm.

"Art forgeries?" she asked. He nodded again.

"I know they exist" she said.

"Usually a counterfeit is made of a painting that actually exists. Then a transfer is made, gulling people into believing that the bogus one is the original She frowned.

"Why?" Her voice was suspicious.

"Think that could be done with people?" he asked, leaning back slightly. d.a.m.n it, he had to cough slightly.

"Counterfeit people?" she asked.

He nodded as they considered it.

"An imposter for the original? Is that the question?" She was pensive and his impression was that she was not acting. But he couldn't be certain.

"I suppose it could be done," she said.