Vigil

by Robert Masello

  “Your wife’s upstairs with a client,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  As Carter walked through the main gallery, he noticed several new paintings hanging in ornate frames on the walls; the most remarkable was a portrait of a Dutch burgher in a rich fur-collared cloak.

  “That burgher, I’ll have you know, was once thought to be by Rembrandt.”

  Before turning around, Carter knew who was talking—Richard Raleigh, né Ricky Radnitz—who’d lost, along with his name, his Long Island accent; he now sounded like he’d grown up in the Mayfair district of London.

  “Morning,” Carter said. “I was in the neighborhood, and I thought I’d surprise Beth.”

  “If you ask me,” Raleigh said, putting his arm through Carter’s and drawing him back toward the painting, “it should still be attributed to Rembrandt. Look at the brushwork—closely—look at the details of costume. What student of his was ever that good?”

  Carter, of course, didn’t know of any, and he really didn’t care; all he wanted to do was get upstairs, fetch Beth, and see if she had time for lunch in Central Park—which he thought would be the perfect setting to tell her about Russo’s imminent arrival.

  “It does look awfully good to me,” Carter said, “but I’m more used to judging bones than paintings.”

  “That’s right. You specialize in even older things than I do,” Raleigh said, with a thin smile. He was a small man, dapper, and Beth had let slip to Carter that the gray in his temples was actually brushed in there by his hairdresser; Raleigh thought it made him look more distinguished and trustworthy.

  “The doorman mentioned that Beth is upstairs?” Carter said, discreetly disengaging his arm.

  “You know what the difference is between an unchallenged attribution and a ‘school of ’?”

  “Not offhand.”

  “Millions, my boy, millions. An oil like this? You’re talking fifteen, twenty million dollars’ difference.”

  “Interesting,” Carter said, still trying to move toward the stairs.

  “Beth is with a new client,” Raleigh cautioned. “I’ll have to ask you not to disturb her, if she’s still consulting with him.”

  So that was it; Carter had had the distinct impression that Raleigh was trying to delay him, and now he knew why. Beth was Raleigh’s star representative, the feather in his cap; Raleigh did a brilliant job of assessing the market and cosseting his wealthy customers, but it was Beth who provided the true expertise and the in-depth knowledge of the works, their creators, and their provenance.

  “I’ll just pretend to be a customer.”

  “No one would believe you,” Raleigh said over his shoulder as he moved swiftly toward the door where some rich young society type was wafting in. “Mrs. Metzger!” he crooned. “I’m so glad you were able to stop by!”

  Hanging onto the brass banister, Carter went up the wide, red-carpeted staircase, past a mezzanine area where the offices were tucked away, and then around the landing to a second set of stairs that led to the upper gallery. He could hear Beth’s voice before he saw her, and she was saying something about draftsmanship.

  At the entryway to the gallery, he stopped, still concealed in the shadows of the stairwell. Beth had her back to him, and her client stood beside her. She was wearing her usual office attire—a slim black pantsuit with a white silk blouse, a black ribbon tying her hair in a short ponytail behind. She called it her tuxedo, and said she wore it for the same reason men did—to blend into the background. The guy beside her wouldn’t have blended in anywhere; he was tall and solid, with short, bristly blond hair, and wore a long trench coat made of some shiny, seemingly metallic fabric.

  As Beth pointed out certain things about the drawings that were spread out before them on the oblong table, Carter couldn’t help but notice that the man spent much more time studying Beth than he did the artworks. Carter couldn’t blame him . . . but that didn’t mean he liked it any better. Maybe this was part of the reason Raleigh had arranged for Beth to deal with this particular customer, and in the relative privacy of the upper gallery. Maybe he was counting on a little sexual chemistry to clinch a deal for the gallery today.

  “The great virtue of drawings,” Beth was saying, “especially when they’re studies and sketches, is that you can see the artist’s hand moving freely, quickly, improvising, trying things out.”

  The man reached toward her face, and brushed what Carter assumed was a strand of hair away from her cheek.

  Beth stopped, looking momentarily flustered.

  “Your hair was keeping me from seeing your eyes,” the man said.

  “Um, thanks. But maybe we should just focus on the drawings.”

  Carter took that as his cue—he certainly didn’t need to wait for another—and, clearing his throat noisily, entered the gallery. “Hope I’m not interrupting a negotiation,” he declared.

  “What a surprise,” Beth said, relief filling her voice.

  Carter put an arm around her and kissed her on the cheek, then turned to the customer with his hand extended. “Carter Cox, Beth’s husband.”

  “Bradley Hoyt,” the man said, shaking Carter’s hand.

  “Mr. Hoyt is starting a collection of Old Master drawings,” Beth explained.

  “And Beth’s making sure I buy only the right stuff.”

  “You couldn’t ask for a better advisor,” Carter said, giving her shoulders a squeeze. “But why Old Masters?” Carter said, his eyes now taking in, at closer range, the peculiar gray-green sheen of the trench coat.

  “All my friends are buying big stuff, new stuff, but the prices are going sky-high now. I mean, I can certainly afford to play that game too, but I don’t like to buy things where the upside’s already been exploited. I like to buy stuff where the profit potential is still there.”

  “And that holds true,” Carter said, glancing at the drawings on the table, “for these?”

  “So Beth tells me,” the man said, with a big smile that revealed perfect, white, Chiclet-sized teeth. “It’s a classy kind of investment, too.”

  Carter suddenly realized what the coat was made of. “Is that some sort of lizard skin?”

  “Close. It’s crocodile.”

  “The whole thing?” Carter had seen crocodile belts, wristwatch bands, wallets. But a trench coat that fell nearly to a man’s ankles?

  “Yep. Sumatran croc.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Carter said.

  “At what they cost, you probably never will.” His eyes flicked over to Beth, presumably to see if this further token of his wealth had properly registered.

  But Beth was oblivious; she spent most of every working day with people who had more money than they knew what to do with, and the effect, Carter knew, had long since worn off.

  “So, what do you do?” Bradley asked Carter.

  “I teach.”

  “High school?”

  “No. Grammar school.”

  Beth looked puzzled.

  “What grade?” Bradley asked.

  “First. I think the kids have got so much more upside potential at that age.”

  Now she’d figured it out, and she wasn’t crazy about it. “Mr. Hoyt,” she said, butting in, “I think we’ve pretty much covered everything the gallery has in its collection right now. Perhaps you should think things over”—she handed him a glossy catalog from the table—“and come back again when you’ve narrowed your choices.”

  Hoyt took the catalog, rolled it up, and slipped it into the side pocket of his coat.

  “It was nice to meet you,” Carter said.

  “Yeah, you too,” Bradley replied.

  “I’ll just put these things away now,” Beth said. “Thank you for coming in, Mr. Hoyt.”

  Finally getting the message, Hoyt turned and left, his heels clicking across the parquet floor. He had on boots, Carter noticed, as he headed down the stairs. Probably fashioned from some other rare and endangered species.

  Beth gath
ered the drawings together and slipped them back into the proper portfolios. When she was sure they were alone, she turned to Carter and said, “First grade?”

  “Disinformation, to fool the enemy.”

  “He’s the enemy?”

  “Could be. I saw the way he was looking at you.”

  “Oh, please,” she said, smiling. “If that kind of thing bothers you, you’ll be handing out disinformation all day.”

  He laughed, and put his arms around her.

  “You do know that they’ve got video cameras all over this room?” she said.

  “What do I care?” he said, kissing her. When he let it linger too long, Beth got embarrassed and pushed him away.

  “I care,” she said. “I’ve got to face these people every day.”

  “Then let’s go to lunch. My treat.”

  “Rumpelmayer’s?”

  “Central Park, the lake. It’s beautiful outside.”

  On the way to the park, they stopped at a deli and picked up sandwiches and drinks. But their favorite bench overlooking the little lake on Central Park South was already taken; so were all the other benches, in fact. “I guess I wasn’t the only one with this idea,” Carter said.

  They found a place to sit on a big flat rock, just off the pathway, and spread out their lunch there. While Carter twisted the top off Beth’s bottle of Snapple, she said, “So you never did tell me—what were you doing uptown today?”

  “Seeing you for lunch.” He handed her the open bottle.

  “Really?” Beth said, smiling but skeptical. She took a sip from the bottle, then carefully placed it on the rock. “So, walking all the way to the park to have this little picnic . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “This was all just a spontaneous display of your affection?”

  “Absolutely.”

  She took a bite of her sandwich, chewed it slowly, put the sandwich back down on the wrapper, and said, “Okay, I can’t stand the suspense anymore. How bad is it?”

  “What?

  “The problem you’re about to tell me about.”

  Carter feigned indignation. “A guy can’t surprise his wife with a romantic lunch on a beautiful autumn day?”

  “Not when it’s a guy who thinks he’s crossing the Rubicon when he goes above Fourteenth Street. You don’t make that trip unless it’s for a darn good reason.”

  Why, Carter thought, did he ever think he could sneak one past her? But no point in dragging it out now. “I did have one piece of good news to share with you,” he confessed. “Remember that package I had from Joe Russo?”

  “Of course. You told me all about his big discovery.”

  “Well, in a few days he’ll be able to tell you all about it himself. He’s coming to New York.”

  “That’s great. I’d love to meet him.” Acting as if the danger had passed, she picked up her sandwich again and took a big bite.

  Carter plunged ahead. “That should be no problem,” he said. “In fact, he needs a place to stay while he’s here.”

  Her jaw stopped moving midchew.

  “And I told him it’d be okay to crash at our place.”

  She swallowed. “Where? In case you haven’t noticed, we don’t have a guest room.”

  “He’s not particular. The sofa in the living room will do.”

  “That sofa’s not even comfortable to sit on.”

  “He’s slept on worse. In Sicily, we slept on rocks and scorpions.”

  Beth blew out a sigh, and Carter knew she was already giving in to the idea. “How long will it be for? A week or two?”

  “I don’t really know,” Carter said. “Maybe more. Depends on how long it takes us to finish our work.”

  “What work?”

  “Didn’t I mention that? He’s bringing the fossil to New York with him. We’re going to work on it, here, together.”

  “He’s bringing that massive fossil you told me about—”

  “Over three thousand pounds!”

  “—all the way to Manhattan? Just so you can work on it together, like old times?”

  “That’s exactly what he said. Almost.”

  Carter knew he was asking a lot—Beth liked her privacy, especially lately, while they worked on the baby issue—but he also knew she’d never do anything to stand in the way of his work. One of the thousand and one reasons he loved her so.

  “Anything else I should know?” she finally said.

  “Well, he’s built on kind of a grand scale. He smokes like a chimney—but I’ll tell him not to in the apartment—and he never has any money.”

  “I like him already.”

  Carter laughed and threw an arm around her shoulders. “And weren’t you the one who said you wanted to hear the patter of little feet around the apartment?”

  “Little feet,” she replied. “The operative word was little. ”

  “Oh,” Carter said, “sorry. How about if I tell him to tiptoe?”

  NINE

  All day long he had encountered nothing but resistance, interference, and meddling. Why, Ezra wondered, couldn’t they just leave him alone, stay out of his way and let him do the work that he, and he alone, had been destined to do?

  It had started at Dr. Neumann’s office where, the moment he sat down, he noticed the telltale letterhead of Dr. Herschel Stern, his psychiatrist in Jerusalem, on a batch of papers in her lap. So, she’d been in touch with him, after all. He knew what was coming even before she mentioned the words Jerusalem syndrome.

  “I’m sure you’ve heard of it,” she said. “In fact, I believe Dr. Stern discussed it with you?”

  “He might have.”

  She pressed on. “It’s an affliction that befalls certain people—evangelicals, religious laypeople, scholars like yourself—who come to the Holy Land and become overwhelmed by it. They are so absorbed, so moved, so changed by the experience that they become, to some extent, delusional. In the most extreme cases, they become convinced that they are, for instance, the Messiah.”

  “Yes, I’m aware of the syndrome,” Ezra replied, “and no, I am not suffering from it. Trust me, I know I am not the Messiah, Moses, or the Angel of Death.”

  “I’m only mentioning it as a preface,” Dr. Neumann replied. “There are other kinds of disturbances”—she uttered that last word, Ezra noted, with the same caution with which she’d used delusional a moment ago—“that can also crop up there. It’s very fertile ground, very potent, and Dr. Stern has written me and told me a little bit about your work in Israel. I must say, it’s no wonder you began to feel a certain strain.”

  “Did the good doctor also inform you of the difficulties I got into? With the authorities?” Ezra had no particular desire to go into it himself, but he felt he might as well find out exactly how much she knew.

  Dr. Neumann paused, as if she wasn’t sure how much of her hand she should show yet.

  “The Dome of the Rock?” Ezra prompted her.

  “Yes,” she finally admitted.

  Ah, so he’d told her that, too.

  The Dome of the Rock, the holy Muslim shrine, erected above the ruins of the Second Temple. That was the key. Ezra had read the scrolls, and he knew what they were saying. No one else ever had, no one else had ever put it all together. He knew that if he could burrow, unobstructed, into the foundations below the dome, he could find there the most holy relic in all the universe. In fact, he’d almost succeeded. He’d found the subterranean tunnel; he’d seen the clay tablet sealing the aperture; and he had heard, in the chamber within, the sound of all the winds in the world.

  The rumbling groan of a living, breathing God.

  The sound of Creation itself.

  But it was then, before he could get any closer, that the Israeli security agents had grabbed hold of his ankles and dragged him out.

  It was a sound that still sometimes filled his ears.

  “I’m concerned that your work here, the work you’re doing in New York, is tied to the work you were pursuing there. Some of
the things you said at the time of your arrest”—and here she’d stopped to put on her reading glasses and refer to her notes—“are powerful, and troubling. ‘I’ve communed with angels.’ ‘Creation can be unlocked. ’ ‘I can show you the face of God.’” She took off her glasses and looked at him. “You’re a very intelligent man, Ezra, so I need hardly point out to you the nature of these comments—the self-aggrandizement, the epochal content and context, the messianic fervor. What do we do with those thoughts and those emotions? And even more to the point, do you still feel them?”

  How was he supposed to answer that? On the one hand, he could lie, and keep Dr. Neumann where he wanted her—acting as his psychiatric parole officer, guaranteeing any authorities who asked after him that his delusional episodes were under control and that he, Ezra, was no longer a threat to anyone, and certainly not to the sovereign state of Israel. Or, on the other hand, he could tell the truth—he could tell her what the stolen scroll was gradually revealing to him—and risk being committed to some institution where the only rolled-up paper he’d ever see again would be the toilet tissue.

  It wasn’t a tough call.

  “The change of scene has done me good,” he said. “Here, in my old rooms, in New York City, I feel a lot more relaxed. I don’t feel any of that mania I experienced in the Middle East.”

  She gave him a fishy look. He hadn’t sold her.

  “And the voices? Of angels?”

  “I never claimed that it was angels who actually talked to me. Even at my worst, I never said that.”

  But she wouldn’t let him duck the question. “Whatever you believed the voices were, do you still hear them? You have to tell me, Ezra, if you are still experiencing auditory hallucinations. Otherwise, it’s very hard for me to help you.”

  That, he thought, was worth a laugh. The very idea that Dr. Neumann could offer him any help at all, apart from keeping his prescriptions filled, was a joke.