by Neil Olson
“You find it hard to believe because you’re obsessed, so you think everyone else must be. It’s a bit egocentric, if you’ll forgive my saying so.” Her words carried more edge than she intended. Must be careful. “I truly don’t care about the icon. I’m only here because I hoped to learn some things about my grandfather. I guess I should have been clearer about that.”
“Then we have both been disappointed,” the old man said, empathetically. “And sadly, I now lack any incentive to speak to you on that subject. Though I could not have told you much in any case. So I must apologize once more for taking you out of your way.”
She was being dismissed. Just like that. As she had been her whole life, whenever she pressed too hard, whenever the questions got sticky. These men. Her father, her grandfather, Wallace, her miserable ex, Paul. Even Matthew. Push them at all and they clammed up, shut down, sent her packing, their precious mysteries preserved.
“I think you’re being a little unfair,” she said, trying to control her anger.
“Oh?” He seemed amused.
“I’ve tried to be straight with you. And you’ve really told me nothing useful. I don’t have the information you want, but I feel that if we shared ideas, we could help each other.”
“So, I am egocentric and unfair.” He was ignoring her overture. “Is there anything else?”
“OK. You’re dishonest.”
“And a liar also.”
“Don’t put words in my mouth.”
“And how do you believe that I have been dishonest with you?”
“You tease me with these hints about my grandfather, then tell me that you know nothing. And you left an awful lot out of that story you told.”
“Is that being dishonest? In my business we call that being careful. And you have been careful today also, though you are being rather careless now.”
“When were you in Greece to see the icon?”
“What does it matter?”
“Maybe it was during the war? And maybe you were there without an invitation? And maybe you had more in mind than looking?”
He no longer appeared to be amused, and she knew she had gone too far, knew it even as she was saying it. She was terrible at games. Quick to catch on, but impatient.
“Someone has been telling you stories,” the old man said slowly, studying Ana.
“No. Just some thinking on my own.” Too much thinking was a bad thing, she had heard. Too much talking about what you thought was worse. “Why don’t you set me straight?”
“Tell me what you’ve been told, and I will fill in the details.”
“I haven’t been told anything. That’s the problem, do you see? I’ll just keep getting things wrong until someone tells me the truth. Meantime, God knows what I’ll come up with.”
She had struck a nerve. He felt threatened by her. This was risky, and she must be careful not to overplay her hand. In the end, she was holding no cards.
“You think I was some wartime profiteer, yes? Because I did business with your grandfather.” He lowered his voice as the bearded man wandered closer, but his whisper was harsh, unpleasant. “Doing business with a thief does not make you one. We were very different men, I assure you.”
“Are you calling my grandfather a thief?”
“I have told you that my sins are heavy, but at least I know what they are. I was forthright in my actions, and I believed certain things, right or wrong. Your grandfather believed in nothing, had no scruples, played every angle. All from his fat, easy perch of neutrality.”
“Hang on now.” It was one thing to have your own suspicions, another to have a stranger attack what was yours. “I didn’t come here to listen to you insult my family.”
“Did you not?” He was clearly warming to his subject. His round, wrinkled face was flushed pink. “You came to learn about your grandpa, no? It’s what you have been begging me to speak of. What did you expect to hear? Does my opinion of him surprise you?”
Jan had appeared in the far door, shadowing the bearded man about thirty feet behind.
“I know he was involved in some shady deals,” Ana responded. “And he felt bad about those. But he truly believed he was saving works that would have vanished otherwise.”
“Child, you have no idea. The museums would not take work from him, and they will not take it from you, because they know it is tainted. Your legacy is dirty money. You sleep among pilfered treasures. I am sorry if I am the first to tell you this, but somehow I doubt that.”
Ana was too shaken to think clearly. She had broken his shell but had not found what she wanted inside. The bearded man wandered out the near door, and Jan doubled back to the far one. When she glanced at del Carros again, his face was placid once more.
“You know,” he said, in a very different tone, warm, surprised, “I now begin to think that I am the foolish one, and that you are a clever girl.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I think you do. You are too wise a woman not to know about your grandfather. You have deliberately provoked me, and I have reacted. And now, perhaps, you think that you have learned something. The question remains, why?”
“I haven’t learned anything, except that you hate my grandfather.”
“Is it for yourself or someone else? Come now, speak to me, do not be afraid. We are exchanging information, that is all, and it is clear that we have both been holding back.”
Two middle-aged women entered the chapel at the far end, gabbling happily, but their presence only slightly alleviated Ana’s rising panic. Do not be afraid. There were no more frightening words he could have spoken to her.
“I think I have to leave.”
He reached over and touched her arm.
“We should both leave. We require more privacy, I think. I intend to reward your cleverness with answers, but I will require some in return.”
“I really have to be someplace soon.”
He took gentle hold of her forearm.
“Ms. Kessler. I may have to insist.”
She bolted. His grip was just tightening as she slipped it, stood quickly, rattling the old chairs, and raced out through the near stone arch. Instinctively, she turned left, toward the front of the church. There was no danger that del Carros would catch her, but she remembered Jan’s coiled energy and watchfulness. Nothing could happen here, surely, with all these other people around, yet it was hard to be certain and she walked as quickly as she could without running. Down the steps into the open space of the crossing, past the roped-off section before the choir, and toward the central aisle of the nave. Halfway there, the bearded man appeared before her suddenly.
“Ms. Kessler,” he said, “wait.”
She reversed and immediately noted the side exit, simultaneously seeing Jan bouncing down the steps from the direction of the chapel. They nearly had her boxed. Ana ran now, pure adrenaline guiding her toward the daylight beyond the exit.
A steel staircase led down into the front end of a dirty, empty cul-de-sac between the cathedral and the sacristy. She turned right at the bottom and scampered toward the narrow parking strip that led out to the avenue. There was no one in the security guard’s box, damn it, just a square young man in a suit jacket standing in the middle of the lane, smoking a cigarette and looking hard at her. How many of them were there? This was ridiculous, what was going on, why the hell had she come here at all? And alone.
Again, she wheeled and went the other way. Five Asian tourists stared in wonder at one of the dazzling blue-and-green peacocks that roamed the grounds. Cameras whirred; a little girl shrieked with pleasure. Ana saw no safety among them and pushed on. To her right, steps and a broad path dropped away to a lower lane that led back to the avenue, but it was roundabout and she would be visible the whole way. She risked a look back and immediately felt like a fool. The square young man was embracing a woman and walking off arm in arm with her. Panic had sent her the wrong way. Jan emerged from around the corner of the sacristy a moment later
, smiling and waving, like a friend asking her to wait up. Ana paused in confusion. She was jumpy as hell, had been since she arrived. Had she gotten it all wrong? Would Jan apologize now for the old man’s impertinence? Had she misread the whole situation? Too flustered to reason, she simply stood there as he drew closer.
The bearded man appeared behind Jan, and he did not smile or wave but bore down on them with a fierce energy. Released from her daze, Ana turned and moved off again, to the end of the lane: enclosed gardens on the left and right, the stone Cathedral School before her, and between the school and gardens a narrow path that seemed as if it must run out to Morningside Drive in either direction. She turned left instinctively, down the passage between walls.
Clearing the corner of the building, she saw her mistake. The greensward between the school and the rear of the cathedral was closed off from the street by a high chain-link fence; she would never get over it. There was no time to reverse. Like a child, she looked for a place to hide among the dense bushes. No, that wouldn’t do. Letting herself be trapped in an empty corner of the grounds would be exactly what they wanted. Meeting them in the open was her best chance. She raced back up the path.
Jan leaned casually against the stone wall of the north garden, smoking. He stood away from the wall as she approached, but made no move toward her.
“Ms. Kessler, you will exhaust both of us. I think there has been a misunderstanding.”
There was room to get past him, but she somehow knew he would be fast. An old woman’s hat bobbed in the garden. The Asian family had gone.
“Whose misunderstanding? Your boss threatened me.” She could not keep a slight quaver out of her voice.
“Threatened you?” Jan seemed amused by the idea. “With what, death by boredom? He only wants to talk.”
“Yes, by force if necessary. He’s got some wrong idea that he wants me to confirm. And he wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
“He has become quite a difficult fellow, it’s true. Stubborn, and his manners are appalling. We have discussed this, he and I. I’m sorry if he frightened you. I really don’t mean to make light of it, but he is just a harmless old man. Please come back and speak to him. I’m sure that he feels terrible.”
He had moved closer to her, without seeming to move at all, and she began to make a slow half-circle around him.
“I’m not going anywhere with him.”
“Of course not. We simply don’t want to part on bad terms.”
They walked parallel now, back the way they had come. Ana let herself relax a little.
“I’m going down to the street. If he wants to come out to the sidewalk and say good-bye, that’s fine.”
“The sidewalk will do. I’ll bring him by in the car and you can speak through the window.”
Jan was interrupted by a large figure lumbering out of the garden and colliding with him. The bearded man. Words were spoken, quickly, softly. The two did a little dance, and Jan swung his arm to fend the other off. There was a heavy clatter and the large man sank to his knees.
Ana took a step or two back, grasping at comprehension. There had been some swift, violent exchange right in front of her, too fast to see. The bearded man gripped his left forearm with his right hand, dark blood staining the sleeve of his jacket and welling up between his fingers. On the pavement before him lay a large black pistol, a little closer to him than it was to the still-standing Jan. Neither man moved for a few seconds.
“Ms. Kessler,” said the man on his knees, never taking his eyes off the Dutchman. “Please step away.”
Ana’s legs felt as heavy as lead. She tried to take in what was happening. Jan’s expression remained placid, but she could see his eyes gauging the distance to the weapon, the man, her. She also saw several inches of steel blade protruding from his right hand, held close against his leg.
“You will note,” Jan countered, “that this man assaulted me. I merely protected myself.”
“Ana,” said the bearded man, urgently, “Matthew asked me to watch you. Do as I say. Step well away from us.”
She stepped back several yards. She had the impression that the man on the ground, though pained by his wound, was not distracted by it. That he had sunk to his knees only to get closer to his fallen weapon. Now it was a standoff. Neither could reach the gun without exposing himself to a blow by the other, yet neither could withdraw and give up the gun to his opponent. Ana looked around for some figure of authority to break this up.
Then Jan was backing off, not down the lane but up the garden path, his free hand held close to his chest, as if ready to reach inside his jacket, but not doing so. The other man shifted closer to the pistol, even stretched his hand out, but made an equal show of doing no more.
“Ms. Kessler,” Jan said. “I’m sorry to see our business concluded this way. Please keep an open mind. And be careful of this man, he is clearly dangerous. In fact, I will wait a bit if you would like to leave now unhindered.”
How nice of both of them to worry so much about her.
“I think you better go, Jan. Before something worse happens.”
“Very well.” He smiled at her. “Do take care.”
He did not go right, into the garden, but continued up the path and through an archway in the brick wall that Ana had not even realized was there. Vanished, God knew where.
The bearded one was on his feet with the gun instantly, staring long at the archway, then all around them, ignoring Ana.
“You’re bleeding pretty badly,” she said.
He glanced at his soaked sleeve and nodded.
“Stupid. I didn’t know he would be so quick.”
“Were you trying to kill him?”
“No. That would have been easy, he was completely focused on you. I was trying to take him, but he was too fast. Lucky he didn’t kill me. I’m Benny, by the way. Sorry about this.”
He still barely looked at her. She realized that she should fear him, but did not, whether from instinct or from emotional exhaustion, she couldn’t say.
“Did Matthew really send you?”
“No, his grandfather, but on Matthew’s behalf. I guess the boy loves you or something.”
Ana felt dizzy, then nauseated. The shock hitting her, no doubt. She wanted to sit down on the pavement and cry.
“We should go,” Benny advised. “We can get a cab at a Hundred-tenth.”
“Where are we going?”
“To a hospital, first. Then someplace where we can keep you safe. You’ve stirred up some unfortunate interest.”
20
T he platform was emptier than he would have liked. Matthew made it a point not to take the subway late at night, but getting a cab near Grand Central had become impossible, and his feet naturally guided him down the long staircase and through the turnstile. A smattering of people were on the upper level, coming up from the trains or heading west down the wide passage to the Times Square shuttle. He descended to the uptown platform, to find almost no one there. Just a very large homeless man in a filthy red bandanna, muttering to himself. Anxious and sleep-deprived, Matthew wandered north along the dirty concrete.
You must cure yourself.
He had let everything go for days now but the all-consuming chase. Thoughts of his father and Ana had broken through, but not sufficiently to distract him. He had not checked his answering machine until getting back from Greece, and he was stung to find two messages from his mother, angry that he had not called. There was one from Ana also. She was doing some research; they could compare notes when he returned. There was no warmth in her words—she was all business—but he took comfort in the fact that she had called at all. He went straight to his parents’ house, before even going to his apartment, and tried her from there this morning, but there was no answer.
Despite his mother’s protests to the contrary, his father looked stronger. He had more color and energy, and felt good enough to give Matthew hell about vanishing. The visit had been tense, but they both felt better
by the end of it. Needing to be at work the next day, without fail, Matthew had taken the train back into the city after dinner. His body clock, which had barely adjusted to Greek time, had not yet reset for New York, and exhaustion, combined with travel and emotional stress, had kicked him into a strange, nearly surreal state. His eyes drooped, but his heart hammered. A certain color, or the shape of a face, would leap out at him from the blurry details of a crowd. He needed sleep badly.
A bunch of kids with an angry boom box shuffled down the steps, posing and cursing in their droopy jeans and baseball caps, displaying all the artificial, late-night animation of intoxicated young men. Matthew moved away from them. From far down the tunnel came the sound of the number six train.
You must cure yourself.
He almost felt he had. Those haunting eyes, that layered mystery, had been left somewhere behind, in some dream life he’d briefly passed through. The icon was not in Greece, he knew, yet he felt he had left it back there. It was part of that culture; its beauty and otherness had no place in this city without history. Past and present fused in Salonika. The past was crushed by New York, even the personal past, his own past. It was lost, left somewhere on a baggage carousel. It had never happened to him. Such magic did not exist.
His mind whirling, he sat down on a wooden bench to still himself. These were fatigue thoughts, delusional riffs from a traumatized brain. He could not get his hands around them. He was trying to free himself from an emotional condition by force of will, and in this delicate and overreceptive state of mind he almost believed he had succeeded. But it was white noise, sound and fury, meaningless. It would all be clearer in the morning.
He glanced up, and a huge figure loomed over him.
“Jesus knows your sins. You can’t lie to him.”
Matthew flinched, knocking his bruised spine against the bench. Mad, bloodshot eyes stared through him and body stink stunned his senses. The mutterer had become a shouter.
“I’m sure you’re right.”
“Your Father knows when you’re lying. He sees into your heart.”
