The Last Mona Lisa

by Jonathan Santlofer

“We don’t have time to waste.”

  “There’s someone I need to see,” I said, “in Florence. You can go with me if you don’t trust me.”

  “We have to stay in Paris, go to the Louvre. We could be here for a while.”

  “This won’t take long,” I said. “I can fly to Florence and be back the next morning. I’m asking for twenty-four hours, that’s all.”

  Smith asked who I was seeing, and I said a friend and that it had nothing to do with any of this.

  “The blond?”

  “So you were watching me—us—in Florence.”

  “Yes. And no doubt the other man was too. Possibly others.”

  “I need to see her,” I said. “You going to make me beg?”

  “You’re not going to run, are you?”

  I promised him I wouldn’t.

  He hesitated a moment, seemed to be mulling it over.

  I told him he could trust me, and I meant it.

  “Okay,” he finally said. “You have one day.”

  He watched me over my shoulder as I made the reservations online.

  “You understand,” he said, “I will come after you. INTERPOL will come after you, if you’re not back tomorrow.”

  65

  Smith paced. He hadn’t been able to get back to sleep or relax since Perrone had left for the airport at dawn. Had it been a mistake to let him go, to follow his heart of all things? Jesus, he was getting soft. But he needed to trust the guy, and if Perrone failed to return, he would go after him.

  He drummed his nails along the bottom of his laptop, felt like he was on the edge of a cliff about to jump. But he’d already jumped. The question was, would he fly or fall? A deep breath. Too late to worry about falling. Go back a hero or don’t go back at all. And not to Bahrain!

  In the bathroom, he washed his face, looked in the mirror, saw himself on the pitted concrete court of the Baruch housing project, smallest kid on the ad hoc basketball team, though he knew what to do when he got the ball: head down and move toward the goal. Like now.

  A minute to sign into his INTERPOL email, several messages in regard to pending art investigations, nothing new or conclusive, none that needed his immediate attention. He sat back, lit a cigarette, took a drag that burned his throat, and squashed the cigarette out. One thing Perrone was right about—he smoked too much.

  Enough. He closed the laptop, needed to go out, get some fresh air, see some life.

  The streets around the hotel were bustling, the rue du Faubourg-Montmartre twisty and crooked. For a man who’d spent half his life in France, Smith hardly knew Paris, and he felt like a rube. He guessed he’d feel the same way if went back to Manhattan’s Lower East Side where he’d grown up. From what he heard, the neighborhood was gentrified now, boutiques and hip restaurants, nothing like he’d ever known. He pictured his mom in their cramped kitchen, heating up dinner, a bowl of Campbell’s soup, and worrying, always worrying, about bills, about her boy. Get out of here and do better. Her mantra.

  He passed half a dozen cheap hotels and even more snack bars, then a handful of costume shops, one with a garish neon clown over the entrance, red nose blinking. Was that what he was, a clown, a fool for giving up his secure job? Get out of here and do better. What he had done and was doing again, only this time, it was getting out of a secure job for a fantasy of glory. What would his mom think about that? A decade now since her premature death, too late to ask and probably for the best.

  The flashing sign of the Restaurant Chartier reminded him that he was hungry. He checked the menu, then made his way past the entrance into a back courtyard where he was shown to a table by a bored-looking waiter. He took his time eating an uninspired terrine de campagne smeared onto crusty or possibly stale bread, washed it down with an acidic white wine, the whole time thinking about what he was doing—the risks, the stakes, the possible rewards of success, the humiliation if he failed. The waiter stood over him while he drank his coffee, impatient to have the bill paid and the table filled with the next customer.

  For a while, Smith meandered along the boulevard, worrying about Perrone. Had he really put his trust in a former alcoholic and juvenile delinquent? The guy may have grown up, but did anyone ever really change? He wondered if Perrone was telling him the whole truth and doubted it. Of course he was not telling the whole truth either.

  66

  I’d managed three, maybe four hours of sleep, then caught a flight from Paris to Florence. Now I waited in the café where Alex and I had had our first coffee, rehearsing what I’d say when she walked in, cheeks pink from the cold.

  “Your eye—” she said. “What happened?”

  “Just a clumsy accident.”

  “But you’re okay?” She gave me a strange look, then pecked my cheek and unbuttoned her coat. Her cream-colored sweater made her skin appear ivory. I told her she looked beautiful, and she told me I looked terrible.

  “I thought you were staying in Paris for a few days.”

  “I am,” I said. “I mean, I was. My friend got called away, but I’m going back.”

  “Oh. When?”

  “Soon. But I wanted to see you first.” I reached for her hand.

  “Your knuckles!”

  “Part of the same clumsiness. It’s embarrassing. I tripped over a sidewalk grating.”

  “Seriously?”

  “I swear I’d had nothing to drink.”

  “I never thought that for a minute. How’s your friend? In better shape than you, I hope.”

  “He’s”—Étienne Chaudron’s battered face flared in his mind—“fine.”

  She asked if he was an old art-school friend, and I couldn’t remember what I’d said before, except that he was French. I fought the urge to tell her what was really going on, wanted to tell the truth so she would understand, but knew I couldn’t. We were both quiet a moment, light through the café blinds painting us with stripes, like prisoners.

  “Something is wrong,” Alex said. “I can see it. Are you sure you aren’t hurt?”

  I told her I was fine, asked what she’d been up to, anything to delay what I had to say.

  She thought a minute, then said she had finished reading the plague book and was reading The Decameron, in Italian. I told her I was impressed, surprised too. “I didn’t think you spoke Italian.”

  “Oh, I can’t speak it, not really. But I can read a little—and it’s a way to learn.” She touched my hand again, said it looked like I had punched someone.

  “Oh, sure,” I said, forced a laugh, then took a deep breath. It was time. I had to tell her. Couldn’t put it off any longer. “Listen, I’m going to be busy for a while and—”

  “Busy?”

  “I mean away.”

  “Which is it, busy or away?” Her expression shifted from concern to wary.

  “Both,” I said, just as the waitress delivered our coffees. We both waited for her to leave. “I wanted to let you know so you wouldn’t think there something was wrong if I wasn’t able to get in touch with you.”

  “Why? Are you going into hiding? You’re not some sort of spy, are you?”

  “Obviously, it’s nothing like that.”

  “Wait…” Alex sat back, sliding her hand out of mine. “Are you breaking up with me? Not that we’re really—”

  “No. Of course not.” You don’t understand. I’m trying to keep you safe! “I’m just going back to Paris for a while—to see my friend—and do some business.”

  She asked what sort of business, and when I said it was too soon to say, she accused me of being mysterious again, her tone gone cold. So I told her we were thinking of opening a gallery together, could almost taste the lie, acidic and bitter. I hated pushing her away when all I wanted was to hold her close.

  “When,” she asked, “and where?”

  I compounded the lie, said my friend
had a place in the south, so probably there where it would be cheaper. “I’ll be going back and forth for a while. That’s why—”

  “Oh,” she said. “I see.”

  No, she didn’t see. How could she? I sounded suspicious even to myself. “I’ll be back at some point.”

  “Some point?”

  I wanted to explain it, to tell her everything, but knowing could put her in danger. I watched her fold into herself, retreating, pulling away. I wanted to shout, No, you don’t understand—I think I love you! Instead I said, “I don’t want to lose you,” quietly, though I meant it.

  A montage of emotions played across her face—resentment, sadness, and something else I couldn’t read.

  “Fine,” she said with calculated indifference. “We hardly know each other. What happened between us just…happened.”

  “I’m not sorry it happened.”

  “No, I suppose you’re not,” she said, “now that you’re leaving.” Angry now, followed by another look I couldn’t read, something roiling beneath the placid surface, but then she sighed and it sounded almost like relief. Relief? That I was going away, leaving her? “Something is obviously going on that you won’t tell me,” she said, “and that’s fine. When you’re ready, if you’re ready, call me”—she stood, buttoning her coat—“or don’t.”

  I got hold of her arm, fumbled for the right words. “I’ll call you when I get back.”

  “You mean at some point?” She tugged free, and I saw it again, anger traded for a kind of acceptance. But why? And which emotion was real?

  She stared at me a moment longer as if deciding whether or not to say something, then turned and without another word headed out the door.

  67

  Alex refilled her wineglass and took a sip, the taste bitter, or was it all the lies she had told that had left the bad taste in her mouth? She looked around her “charming” apartment but hated it, hated everything about being here, but most of all hated herself. She dumped the wine in the sink, disgusted with everything she had done, thought about the conversation with Luke: busy…away…opening an art gallery with my friend.

  She was pretty sure he was lying, knew when she was being dumped. And she deserved it, didn’t she?

  I don’t want to lose you.

  Was that a lie too?

  The expression on his face when he’d said it had looked authentic, earnest and pained and something else she couldn’t read. But how could she expect the truth from him when everything she had said had been a lie?

  No, not everything. Not in bed with his lips on hers. That hadn’t been a lie. Not part of the plan either. She pictured him naked, beside her, on top of her, below her, his hands on her body, squeezed her eyes shut trying not to see him, because maybe that was all this was to him, sex, and now that he’d gotten it, he was moving on.

  She wandered out to her balcony, took in the view, ochre and rose-colored buildings, terra-cotta rooftops, a slice of the Duomo. Like a storybook, she thought, make-believe, like the romance between them.

  She gripped the terrace handrail, stared down at the small courtyard below, leaned so far over she felt dizzy. Whipped her head back and caught her breath. For a brief moment, she had considered letting go, pictured her body careening to the ground, but she could never do that, the idea of leaving her mother alone unthinkable.

  Still dizzy, she lay down on the sofa, stared up at the ceiling, then closed her eyes and pictured Luke, his arm around her while she had told him about her mother.

  That was real, wasn’t it? One of the few times she’d been honest.

  The phone’s ring startled her, the number lighting up her cell phone.

  “Yes,” she snapped.

  “What sort of greeting is that?”

  “The best I can do.”

  “Oh, we’re in a mood, aren’t we?”

  “Not we.”

  “Have you seen him?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “He broke up with me.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That he was going away.”

  “Where?”

  “Back to Paris or…somewhere. He wasn’t clear.”

  “Either he’s lying, or you are.”

  “I’m not.”

  A pause. “You have to see him again.”

  “I told you, he doesn’t want to see me.”

  “But you must.”

  “It’s over. I’m through.”

  “No,” he said, calm but determined. “It is not over. You are obligated, remember?”

  Alex sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. “But he doesn’t want me.”

  “Oh, darling, that can’t possibly be true. He’s playing hard to get, that’s all. Find a way.”

  “How?”

  “Use your feminine intuition.”

  “I hate you,” she said.

  “That isn’t very nice, and you know it’s not true.”

  Alex thought it was the only true thing she’d said in weeks. She stared at the phone, thought about her obligations, what she had promised and why. Then thought about Luke and how she would get him back—with more lies? More seduction? The idea of it, of continuing to lie to this man she thought she might love, made her feel empty and sick.

  68

  I still had my room at the Palazzo Splendour and headed over there, replaying our conversation the entire way, thinking of a dozen things I should have said but didn’t, couldn’t. The guy at the front desk was surprised to see me and told me what I already knew, that a man from INTERPOL had searched my room. He seemed excited, interested in me for the first time. I told him it was a misunderstanding, that I would clean out the rest of my stuff, but asked to spend the night.

  It was clear that Smith had been through my room, dresser drawers open, newspaper articles I’d brought from home missing, though the mug shot was still wedged into the mirror’s frame. Tired but restless, I went next door to the café where I’d first met Smith. I took a seat at the bar, the place crowded and smoky.

  The bartender recognized me with a nod and a smile, asked if I wanted my usual Pellegrino. I told him no, ordered a scotch neat. Lifted it to my lips, smelled the musky aroma. Put it down. I wanted it bad. I eyed the glass for another full minute, lifted it again, a dozen images playing in my mind: stumbling drunk along the Kill Van Kull, fights where I’d been too numb to feel the pain, blackouts.

  I tilted the glass, the taste of warm liquor on my lips, my mind doing flip-flops… Yes—No—Yes—No! Then I thought about Alex and the way I’d held her in my arms while she had bad dreams and how she’d told me about her mother, and I’d told her about my drinking, and she didn’t seem to care. I thought about my teaching job, now on the line, how hard it had been to work my way up and how I might lose it. I thought about past relationships with really good women who I’d left or had walked out on me because of my drinking, thought about my last big drunk and crawling out of that dumpster.

  I put the glass down. Asked the bartender to take it away, ordered a panini, even though I wasn’t hungry. Knew I was not past the danger, so I ate the panini quickly and got the hell out of there.

  Outside, I found a cab. I didn’t know St. James Church or where Via Bernardo Rucelli was, but the driver did.

  The room was in the church basement. They were always in a basement, this one with a blackboard and wooden chairs with half desks attached, the kind you have in elementary school. It turned out the room was used for Sunday school, though the meeting could have been anywhere: New York, Boise, Florence. Every AA meeting felt the same, the only difference being that this one was in Italian. About a dozen people, old and young. I sat, my heart beating fast as one after another gave testimony, thinking what I could say, shoul
d say—how close I’d come to drinking—but I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. It was like watching some bad Hollywood movie: guy at a bar having a second, third, and fourth drink, staggering along the street going nowhere, waking up disoriented, hung over and hating himself—and the star of the movie was me. I shivered. Listened to a woman say how she’d been demoted year after year until she was finally fired from her job for good, another talking about her broken marriage and crying, familiar stories.

  I gripped the seat of my chair like my life depended on it because I wanted to bolt, to get the hell out of that church, to find a bar and have a drink. I locked eyes with a woman who nodded at me and smiled sweetly, as if to say You can do it, you’ll be okay. I wasn’t so sure, but the brief human exchange helped bring me back to the moment, the room, the reasons I was here. Next up, a guy, reed thin with sunken cheeks, looked fifty though he said he was thirty-eight, only a year older than me. He talked about two decades of drinking and drug addiction and how he’d been clean now for two years and everyone applauded, and I did too, clapped so hard my hands hurt.

  After that, a man read from the Big Book, which at one time I’d known by heart though I was clearly in need of a refresher, even in Italian. After the meeting, there was coffee, and I talked to a sexy Italian woman in her fifties, divorced twice she said. I told her I’d never taken the plunge, and she told me not to, then invited me home. Another time, I would have said yes, but not anymore. I was clearly committed to a woman I had just pushed away, possibly forever.

  69

  I brushed past Smith and collapsed into the one comfy chair in his hotel room.

  “Hello to you too,” he said.

  “Don’t start. I’ve been back and forth to Paris in less than twenty-four hours and hardly slept.”

  “It’s an hour flight,” he said, “and it was your choice, not mine.”

  “An hour and forty minutes,” I said, yesterday’s conversation with Alex still playing in my mind like an old record stuck on repeat. “Let’s get to work.”