by Neil Olson
“And you have no idea who it was?”
“Of course not.”
“Too bad.”
“You’re not thinking of speaking to him, I hope.”
“No,” she lied. “No, I don’t see what purpose it would serve, and he’s so slimy. I was really just curious.”
“Best to let all that go. Let me give you to Millie now, and I’ll see you very soon.”
“Good. We have a lot to talk about.”
14
F or a long time after he woke, Fotis thought he might be dying, and the idea was not entirely unwelcome. Hot sweat was cooling on his wracked limbs, despite the heavy blankets, and he was having difficulty breathing. Water in the lungs. Sitting up would help, but he could not command his muscles. His mind was full of a thick muzziness, unable to hold a complex thought, and he imagined sinking deeper and deeper into this state, until there was no more awareness, no more pain, until he was released from the prison of his traitorous body. Then he remembered the dream.
It had not possessed the detail and time-suspended horror of earlier versions, but it had been a worthy echo. Those same shapeless, denuded hills, stretching to the horizon beneath a leaden sky. The same endless road twisting through them, his feet upon that road, walking but making no progress. Shuffling forms to his right and left, once human, he knew, all moving in the same direction. Someone waited for him; he knew that also. Someone or something that meant him harm waited for him, black arms outstretched, like vulture’s wings, and the fact that he would never reach that fiend, but would be forever approaching it, did nothing to lessen the terror of its waiting. He had awakened then, but from the earlier visions he remembered that the hills turned to valleys, the valleys to tundra, impossibly flat and endless. Then he would pass the dark hill and empty crosses on his right, pass under the stone arch that marked the final stretch, pass into the tunnel, knowing he was near the end of the road, feeling it with every fiber of his being, yet knowing simultaneously that there was no end, that he would walk forever. This was what awaited him. This was the purgatory into which he was willingly sinking.
Fear coursed through him like cold liquid and he opened his eyes again. The ceiling seemed far above, his peripheral vision was gone. He tried to shout but heard only a weak gurgle. Gathering all his breath and strength he tried again, producing a long, weak moan, like a man crying out in his sleep, then fell silent, airless, lightless, awaiting the long descent.
Suddenly he felt strong hands upon his shoulders, felt himself pulled violently upright, saw the walls and the long slash of white light between the drawn curtains, wheeling about in his vision. His lungs convulsed. He heard a wheezing noise, then the agony of air rushing into his chest. In another moment sharp coughs shook his body, and a bitter, metallic taste was in his mouth.
At length, he slumped against whoever held him, spitting phlegmy gobs into a handkerchief held below his face. Disgusted with himself, with life. Pulling free, he swayed uncertainly as pillows were stacked behind him, then allowed himself to be pressed back, three-quarters propped up. Exhausted. Ready for sleep once more, but terrified by the prospect. At least he could breathe.
“Can I bring you anything?”
Fotis looked at the man. Not Nicholas. Nicholas was fighting for his life in a hospital in New York. This man was Taki, Fotis’ nephew, who would do anything for him. Fotis was in Greece, at the big house he had built outside of Salonika. New York was 5,000 miles away, the theft had gone wrong, and he had no reliable source of information. A desperate plan. A mad chance he was taking, but all his reasons came back to him with that dream. God had a purpose for everything.
“A glass of water.”
He sipped slowly. The water went down like mercury at first, heavy and unquenching, but eventually his throat felt somewhat soothed. His nephew stood attentively by his side. There was no love in the face of the ex-soldier and failed house-alarm salesman, but Taki was loyal, and eager for employment. And his black market connections were useful.
“Will you eat some breakfast?”
The idea sickened him, but some attempt was necessary.
“Coffee, and some bread.”
“Your godson is downstairs.”
“Matthew?” The old man was momentarily at a loss.
“Matthew is here?” And yet, why was he surprised? It was only the timing that had caught him out. He had known there was a fair chance that the boy would come. “How long has he been here?”
“An hour. I tried to send him away, but he won’t go. I didn’t want to throw him out.”
Of course you did, thought Fotis. Taki was Matthew’s mother’s first cousin, but the two men hardly knew each other. Taki had nothing against Matthew, but he would not like the boy claiming special status. He had been fending people off all week—friends, business associates, insurance investigators—and was clearly enjoying the role of gatekeeper.
“No, you did right. I will see him.”
“After you eat.”
“No,” said Fotis, thoughts shaping themselves instantly.
“Send him up with the food.”
Taki seemed shocked. Fotis never met the world without being washed, dressed, and fed, but Matthew was a special case. His anger would need subduing, and the proper presentation was required. These considerations came to the old man unbidden, the product of sixty years of deception. The quick shift from the mortal terror of minutes before to these familiar tricks provided a superficial balm for his mind; and yet, deeper down, it oppressed him. He no longer knew what it was like not to plan every encounter in advance. He no longer had an honest relationship with any man. His instinct had become a thing apart from him, a trained animal, sometimes deadly, and only barely under his control. That the intrigues he engineered this time were at the service of his soul brought him some measure of peace. If the Holy Mother could heal him, all must be forgiven.
What would the boy know? The New York police were focused on Anton and his Russian connections, but they would be expanding their investigation. Fotis had worked hard on Father Tomas’ credibility, having him secure the actual endorsement of the Greek church, paying him in small installments for his collaboration. And now the fool had vanished with half a million dollars of church funds, rendering all his recent actions suspicious. Of course, Fotis had known Tomas was a thief, but not that he was under investigation by his superiors and would choose this moment to go underground. Maybe it was best; maybe questioning would have broken him.
The out-of-work actor who had been checking in around Manhattan as Peter Miller knew nothing, not even the name of the man who had hired him. Fotis’ file on Müller was thin. The man had ceased to be of interest as soon as it became clear that he’d sold the icon to Kessler. When Fotis had learned Andreas was coming to New York, however, he’d needed a ploy to distract him from the gambit being played with Matthew and the church. Something strong enough to skew the thinking of his keen-minded protégé. Only Müller would do, but the clues must be subtle, hard to find, or he would sense the ruse. By now Andreas had surely figured out the charade, but would he have shared it with his grandson?
“Kalimera,” Matthew said without warmth, looking for a place to put the breakfast tray. Fotis nodded at the large footrest before him. Taki had wrapped him in his old blue robe and helped him to the chair by the bed before disappearing downstairs again.
“Bless you, my boy,” he responded in English. “I don’t know if I can eat, but Taki will have me try.” Fotis took a drink of the bitter coffee before speaking again. “You’ve come a long way just to see me. Did you think I would die without consulting you?”
“I’m sorry to find you so unwell.”
Surprised was more like it. No one was more surprised than Fotis himself when a feigned illness became a real one, but that was God again, still teaching him lessons after eighty-nine years. The pain in the bones he’d come to expect, but this fatigue and congestion were something new. He’d started to feel it right afte
r Matthew and Alex left that day—a week ago, less? He had not expected Alex to know the icon; that had been the first shock. Perhaps Andreas had broken the pledge and said something, even years before. Who could say how much Alex knew or what he might say to Matthew? The fear of that, plus the news that this del Carros was speaking to the Russians, had been sufficient for Fotis to move up his plans a few days. And then, the figure. Even now he could not think of it without terror, like something from his dream, a strange, ghostly presence there in the doorway just as Alekos’ hand touched the icon. For a moment he had thought it was that boy, Kosta. Then nothing, no one. The first signs of a fever, clearly, this present sickness, which would carry him off if he was not careful, or strong. At his age, life or death could be simple choices. Give in to the darkness, or fight it.
“Not so unwell. A slight cold, I think.” The boy should have expected to find him ill, yet had not, which meant that he had worked things out. “Maybe something I picked up on the flight. Maybe just the emotions from this peculiar Holy Week.”
“You look terrible; you shouldn’t be up.”
“I was told my godson must see me instantly.” He smiled, but edged the words.
“I could have sat by the bed.”
“That is not how I meet guests, or family. Anyway, you are here, and you are troubled.”
“The icon is gone. Nicholas is in the hospital with a bullet in his back. The police think I’m keeping things from them. Nobody has been able to speak to you. It’s a troubling situation, don’t you think?”
“Indeed. How is your girl?”
“She’s not my girl.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Theio, I want to know what the hell is going on.”
“We would all like to know that. You think I have some special information?”
“You don’t seem very upset about any of this.”
“That is the sickness. I have only strength for the tasks I must perform, an old man’s wisdom. I grieve for the icon’s loss, and I have prayed every morning and evening for Nikos. There is nothing else I can do until I am well enough to return.”
“Anton has vanished.”
“The police told me.”
“You’ve spoken to them.”
“I accepted a telephone call. You see, I am trying to help.”
“It doesn’t look good, his disappearing like that.”
“I agree.”
“You think he was involved in the theft?”
“I fear we must assume it.” Fotis sighed, expressing the effort this was costing him. “Of course, he might have other reasons. Some of these Russians have only a tenuous legal status in America.”
“Anton’s an illegal?”
“I do not say it is so, only that it might be. Yet in such a case, I would still expect him to contact me, which he has failed to do.”
“He always struck me as very loyal,” Matthew prodded, his steady gaze fixed on the old man’s face. “And not very inventive.”
“Ah, there is more to that one than meets the eye. He hides it well. But if he was involved, I doubt that it was his idea.”
“Agreed. Whose, then?”
Fotis shrugged and reached for the heavy slab of bread.
“That’s it,” Matthew shot back. “A shrug? You have no theories?”
“What would you have me say?”
“You expect me to believe that you have no idea at all—”
“Spit it out, you pup.” The old man dropped the bread, working himself up to a good, regal rage. “I won’t be interrogated like this in my own home. You think I don’t know about interrogations? I’ve conducted hundreds. You think I’m behind this.”
There was a small flinch, far less than Fotis had anticipated.
“I do not say it is so,” the boy mocked him quietly, “only that it might be.”
Bravo. This was trouble, but Fotis could not help admiring the young man’s cool. He was growing. He might prove good at this business, after all. The old man tacked again.
“Andreas.”
“What about him?”
“Forgive me, it’s only that I’m tired. I did not hear him speaking through you at first.”
“You know, it’s funny.” Matthew picked the bread up off the footrest and put it back on the tray. “Whenever one of you gets into a tight spot, you always invoke the other. As if you’re each other’s evil twin. Nothing’s ever your fault, nothing’s ever his fault. It’s always the other guy.”
“Perhaps we’ve forgotten which of us is which.”
“You’ve certainly forgotten which of you did what. Eat that bread, I don’t want Taki angry with me.”
The old man bent to obey, glad of the excuse to stay silent.
“These are my own questions,” Matthew continued. “My grandfather has fed me a lot of stories, but no more than you. Maybe you both believe your own versions, I can’t say. Right now, I don’t trust either one of you.”
Good, Fotis thought. He would accept even odds. The bread was soft and pleasant on his tongue. He placed it back on the dish, swallowing carefully.
“I do not know where Anton is, or what he is doing.” That was more or less true. “With him missing, and with Nicholas in the hospital, I have no resources of the kind I can trust. I will have to see to it myself when I am more fully recovered.”
“It doesn’t sound like you could trust the resources you had. You’re so damn careful, how could you hire a man so capable of betraying you?”
“Better to ask, how could I not? Men who will always be loyal are men who will never think for themselves. They are useful only up to a point.” He took another sip of the cooling coffee.
“Now, men who will expand upon your instructions, take risks, trust their own judgment, these are the truly useful men. And they are also, always, men of ambition, who will one day look out for themselves. This is natural.”
“So how can you control them?”
“Limit their opportunities for mischief. Have other, less inventive men watch over them. Dismiss them, eventually. I was not careful enough with Anton. Too slow.”
“You expected trouble.”
“In time, my boy, I expect trouble from every man.”
“Which kind of man is my Papou?”
“Andreas. The best. The best and the most rare, both loyal and ruthless, and more clever than the devil. Of course, even he proved untrustworthy in the end.”
“Why did you tell me he was called the Snake?”
Fotis put his lips to the cup again, but there were only the muddy grounds remaining. No sense in denial, the boy knew too much. It only remained to learn just how much.
“That was unkind. Perhaps I was trying to punish him for giving that name to me.”
“Maybe you didn’t want to admit that it was your idea to trade the icon to the Germans.”
“My idea? No, it was Müller’s. A German officer. They were all thieves by the end, worse than the Italians. Müller’s particular obsession was religious art, and he had somehow learned about the icon. Maybe he knew about it all along. The Nazis had a great fascination with the mystical, as I’m sure you know.”
“Go on,” Matthew said, impatient.
“I confess we had an open channel of communication with the Germans, even as we fought them. Müller approached me, suggested a trade. I was appalled, but we needed weapons, so I shared the idea with Andreas, my most trusted man. He convinced me we should do it. He came up with the plan. Can you imagine me burning a church, paidemou?”
Matthew said nothing, uncertainty clouding his expression. Fotis pressed on.
“No, it required an atheist to execute such a design. His brother died in that fire.”
“That’s not the same thing as his killing him.”
“He let him run into a burning building, maybe even encouraged him. You know, they were only half brothers, they never liked each other.”
“He grieves for that brother.”
“Th
e priest may have been collaborating with the Germans, and your grandfather was not a forgiving man. Not a man for half-measures, either.”
“It doesn’t wash, Fotis.”
“I grow weary. Perhaps we can end the interrogation for today and let the prisoner rest.”
“All your restitching now can’t make truth out of the story you told me in New York,” the boy insisted, real anger in his voice now. “It was an ugly story, and ten times uglier a lie.”
“Not a lie, an exaggeration. A manipulation, I confess, but rooted in truth. You must see it. How could it have been my plan, to burn a church, to sell an object of such holy love and beauty to the enemy? That is not me. You do see it, I know that you do. The icon belonged back in Greece. You had the ability to influence that decision, but you needed a push. I gave it to you. In the process I oversimplified. I did wrong, but not the kind of wrong you accuse me of.”
He sat back, exhausted by the volley of words. The boy was not convinced, he could see, but perhaps he had reintroduced some doubt.
“And I suppose,” Matthew said slowly, “that the scheme with Father Tomas wasn’t your idea either.”
“Tomas is…a complicated fellow. But he has, in fact, represented the Greek church many times. I had no reason to doubt him.”
“He didn’t cough up nine hundred grand. That was your money.”
“The church was to refund me.”
“And you accepted that?”
“It’s common practice. Their bureaucracy moves slowly; it requires committed souls to force the issue. Tomas clearly over-stepped his authority, but the church would have made good on most of the cost. The rest would be my gift to them. It was a risk, but I was comfortable with it.”
The words rolled smoothly off his tongue, bits of truth spread out to cover the lies. In fact, the Snake had half convinced himself, before it all fell out, that he did mean to give the icon to the church. Eventually, when he had derived whatever good from it there was to get. He’d had the fake theft in the back of his mind even then, but it was not until Nicholas—loyal boy—had told him about this collector del Carros that Fotis realized he must move. Del Carros was planning some action with Nicholas and Anton’s former boss, a Russian named Karov. Anton and maybe Nicholas, too, were still in Karov’s pocket, and if del Carros had enough money, the Russians would betray him. Fotis used their greed against them. He paid them to steal the icon from him before they did it anyway for the South American, adding a hidden twist or two of his own. Dangerous, but it had worked, all except the wound to poor Nicholas, whom Fotis had not quite trusted enough to let in on the plan. Anton and the others Karov supplied were supposed to be out of the house well before Nicholas returned from dropping Fotis at the airport, but they must have been slow, and the dear, stupid boy had obviously tried to stop them.
