The Icon

by Neil Olson

  “Yes. My grandson had a hand in that.” Nicholas looked at him blankly. “Matthew. He went to see his godfather that morning, and he found you instead, bleeding on the floor. He held a towel against your wound until the ambulance arrived. Has no one told you?”

  “The police asked questions. They didn’t tell me much.”

  “No one has visited? No one from Fotis’ operation has checked up on you?”

  “Phillip, you know, who runs the restaurant. He’s the only one.”

  “Did he bring the flowers?”

  “No.” Nicholas smiled just a little. “My girlfriend.”

  “Good. I’m happy you are not alone.”

  “She’s working now. She’ll come by soon.”

  “I won’t stay long.”

  Nicholas cleared his throat and shifted again, obviously still in some pain.

  “I didn’t know that about Matthew, what he did. I’m grateful.”

  “He’s in trouble. Matthew is, with the police. They think he might have had something to do with the robbery.”

  “Has he been arrested?”

  “No. They have nothing to hold him on. With Fotis gone, though, they may become frustrated and decide that someone else must take the fall.”

  “I don’t understand. They’ve already arrested Anton and Karov. My girlfriend told me. Why are they looking for anyone else?”

  “Come now, Nicky, we both know there was more to it than that. And the police know it also. Fotis put Karov up to it. They were all in it together, Anton, Karov, Dragoumis. Everyone but you. You were left to take the bullet.”

  Nicholas made a sour face and grabbed a fistful of sheet with his right hand.

  “Everyone, eh? Why not your grandson, too? Why not you?”

  Andreas nodded diplomatically.

  “I don’t blame you for suspecting me. You know very well that Fotis and I are at odds. Maybe you think I have some plan. But surely you know better than to suspect Matthew.”

  “I don’t know anything. How can I know anything lying here?”

  “Do you know who shot you?”

  “They were wearing masks. I couldn’t tell.”

  “Bravosou!” Andreas laughed derisively. “They try to kill you, and you are still keeping their secrets. That is what you were trained to do, yes? Keep secrets. You’re a good soldier, Nicky. They will say that about you when you’re dead. He was a good soldier, a useful tool. He kept the secrets.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “At least you’ll have the woman to mourn you.”

  “What is any of it to you, anyway?”

  “I told you. The boy.”

  “Yes, well, your boy was with Dragoumis all the damn time, talking about that icon. So maybe the police are right. Maybe I should tell them so.”

  Andreas leaned forward and made his voice quiet. “Fotis used the boy. As he used you, as he has used me a dozen times. It is what he does. You know this. The time is long passed for defending him, you must look to yourself. They have all betrayed you. You are the only friend you have left, unless you choose to trust me, even a little.”

  “You think I’m a fool? I am looking out for myself. I don’t care about protecting them, I want to stay alive, that’s all.”

  “But your silence is no protection. You did nothing wrong, and they tried to kill you anyway. Now they are on the run. Dragoumis is in hiding. Karov is in custody, and his operation is shut down.”

  “Someone will replace him. You don’t know how it works in my neighborhood. If I testify against any of them I won’t be forgiven.”

  “I wonder if you are right. Karov has plea-bargained, there is no testimony necessary. And I don’t think anyone would blame you about Anton, after he shot you. But let that go. I’m not asking you to testify against anyone.”

  “What, then?”

  “Very simple. I want to know what Fotis was up to before you put him on the airplane that morning. Anything you can tell me. You see, not a dangerous question.”

  “Talking to you at all may be dangerous.”

  “Well, it’s too late to protect against that. It was you who drove him to the airport, yes?”

  Nicholas considered him carefully.

  “Yes. I drove him everywhere. Anton is a terrible driver.”

  “Early in the morning.”

  “Before early. It was a seven-thirty flight, we left at four. I’ve told the police this.”

  “I’m not with the police, Nicky. Why so early? It’s twenty minutes to Kennedy at that hour.”

  “He likes to be early for things.”

  “Did he have a lot of luggage? Anything bulky?”

  “No, just a small bag and a suitcase.”

  Andreas paused, looked carefully at the younger man’s face. Circle back.

  “Why so early?”

  “I told you.”

  “You went somewhere else first. You made another stop before the airport.”

  The Russian grew more agitated. Because he could not lie with ease, Nicholas could only choose between withholding information or speaking truth, and he clearly did not like his choices.

  “We went into the city first. Into Manhattan.”

  “Why did you go there?”

  “He has a few apartments. People stay sometimes, or he does business there with people who won’t come to Queens. We stopped by one of those. He needed to drop off something.”

  “What?”

  “A painting he sold. A big abstract. I helped him wrap it the night before. He was leaving it in the apartment for the buyer to pick up.”

  “How big?”

  “I don’t know. Big enough to break my back getting it up those stairs. Maybe four or five feet square.”

  “And you were with him the whole time? In the apartment?”

  “No, he had to make some calls or something, I don’t remember. I went back to the car.”

  “I see. Now tell me, where is this apartment?”

  As the old man had anticipated, this was the question Nicholas balked at. He did not outright refuse to answer but simply stayed quiet a long time, glancing at the door. Andreas knew that the moment the nurse arrived, or the girlfriend, that would be the end of the conversation.

  “Nicky. Matthew wants the icon returned to Greece, to the church. That is all he has been working for. All I want is to help him. He has done you a kindness. These others have left you to die, you owe them nothing. Your silence benefits you nothing. You could be of great help to us. You could do a service to the church. Which will you choose?”

  “Damn you,” whispered the wounded man. “You talk like Dragoumis. I don’t believe either of you. For the boy, for Matthew, I will tell you. Twenty-eighth Street, near Third Avenue. The gray building one in from the northwest corner. I don’t remember the number. The third floor, in back.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Please leave now, Mr. Spyridis. I don’t want you here when the girl comes.”

  “Of course. Did you tell the police about the apartment?”

  “No.”

  “I wonder why not?”

  “I don’t know. Something in my head said don’t talk about it.”

  “I am grateful, Nicky, and I will keep your trust. Be well, my boy.”

  “We should not even be here. We should have left the country yesterday.”

  Van Meer’s voice carried the calm, lazy tone he always affected, as if nothing really mattered to him, but the fact that he had repeated the thought twice in the last twenty-four hours underscored his disapproval. Del Carros had no real fear of Jan’s backing out, yet some attempt to mollify him must be made, to ease the younger man’s professional conscience. Jan thought of himself as someone who did things by the book, but del Carros knew him better. The Dutchman throve on chaos, ever since his violent youth in Amsterdam. The professional polish had come later, and it was a thin coat.

  “There is no immediate danger.”

  “You cannot know that,” Jan insisted, scann
ing the street through the windshield. “You don’t know their resources. And there is the police to consider as well.”

  “They will be looking for del Carros. They will not find me under that name.”

  “It was unwise meeting the woman.”

  “We’ve discussed that.”

  He would be damned if he would take a scolding from Van Meer, but he had also come to feel that the business with the woman had been handled poorly. She knew some things, yes, but not where the icon was, so what the hell did the rest matter? He kept making mistakes with that family, letting his rage at the dead old man who had robbed him cloud his thinking. He had done the same thing with the son, Richard, the girl’s father, when he had come to Caracas in his father’s place. The banker had a good eye and saw right through the scheme: he knew that the icon they offered him was a fake, that the one on his father’s wall was, in fact, genuine. Del Carros had not really intended to fool anyone in the end, wanting only to get the elder Kessler in his clutches. His son replacing him spoiled that, and the conditions set on the meeting made hostage-taking impossible.

  In frustration, del Carros had done the same thing then that he had done all these years later with the daughter. Taunt the banker, insult his father, drop hints about the work, failing to either anger him or draw him out; giving him, instead, the knowledge to piece together things that he should never know. After the meeting, del Carros panicked and called in a large favor. At the time it had felt necessary—the banker knew too much—but del Carros could not lie to himself now as he did then. He had, at that moment, temporarily lost hope of getting the icon, and the action was intended solely to punish the elder Kessler. An act of pure cruelty. Bad enough to have wasted life and energy that way. To repeat the same mistakes with the girl two decades later was unforgivable.

  “We’ve discussed it twice,” he said again. “She requested the meeting. I could not rule out her knowing something useful.”

  “Spear is the key,” Jan insisted. “He is the one who is close to Dragoumis.”

  “So where is he?”

  “Did you expect me to get on the train and follow them? The woman knows my face, and there is no escape off a train. That’s why I followed this one instead.” He nodded his head at the hotel down the block.

  “And you are certain he did not spot you? He is good, you know.”

  “If he’s that good, then I can’t be certain. But I do not think he did.”

  “And he went out this morning?”

  “Yes, for a few hours.”

  “Why didn’t you follow him?”

  “I was waiting for you to arrive, as agreed.”

  “But he is in there now?”

  “Unless there is a way into the alley from the kitchen.”

  “There may be.”

  Jan showed him the most condescending smile possible.

  “You would have me be everywhere at once? Perhaps you should overcome your cheapness and hire more men. Or otherwise trust to reason. He has used the main entrance every time. You worry too much about the wrong things.”

  With great difficulty, del Carros held his tongue. It was completely unacceptable that he should be spoken to like this, but Jan ignored the niceties of the employer-employee relationship. And the old man could not rule out that his own anxiety was getting the better of him.

  “Let’s hope you are correct. He is the last thread we have to follow.”

  Paranoia was a common condition for anyone who had been in the game too long, and Andreas was not immune. The man who stepped out of the double-parked vehicle fifty yards behind the spot where Andreas left the taxi may have been nobody. However, paranoia could also save a man’s life, and so the old Greek passed by the doorway he’d meant to enter, and continued around the corner to Third Avenue.

  An odd neighborhood. Indian restaurants, cheap diners, at least one obvious welfare hotel. Neither a good nor a bad part of town, but a passing-through kind of place—a good neighborhood to hide in. Andreas crossed the avenue suddenly and glanced behind as he looked south for traffic. The man from the car had also turned north on Third, but he continued on his way without looking back.

  Andreas went down Twenty-ninth Street to Second Avenue as the light grew lower and paler, wasting time, but wanting to be certain. The fact that he was more vulnerable than usual—no Benny and no gun—fed his suspicion. The best thing would be to return to his hotel, but time seemed precious, and he had come all the way down here. He didn’t want to be defeated by irrational fear. Find it, Alekos had commanded him, get it out of Matthew’s life. Turning on Twenty-seventh Street, he headed back to Third, walked the block north, and crossed Twenty-eighth to the gray building he’d passed earlier. The double-parked car was gone. Andreas had still not made up his mind on a course of action when a man emerged from the building in question: squat, heavily whiskered, and sucking hard on a cigarette. When he tossed the butt aside and began shoving the plastic trash barrels into line, Andreas took it as a sign, and knew he had his man.

  “Excuse me, sir.”

  “What?” The unappealing fellow was immediately suspicious.

  “I need to look at an apartment here.”

  “No apartments. Everything is rented.”

  “I understand. I need to look at one of the rented apartments. As part of an investigation.”

  The man pulled himself up straight, but this accomplished little.

  “Yeah? And who the hell are you?”

  Andreas realized that a police officer would have shown a badge at once. Still, the man seemed movable, if he could find the lever.

  “The third floor, apartment in the rear. The one who rents it is a countryman of mine.” Andreas reached into his coat for his old Foreign Service ID. It was an impressive item, small as a passport with gold-embossed leather and an official stamp next to his ten-year-old photograph. He gave the surly superindendent several moments to scrutinize it, trusting that the man could not read Greek. “Fotis Dragoumis. He is being investigated by my government.”

  “What do I care? We’re not in your country. Here you need a warrant, from a judge.”

  “We are obtaining one. It is a slow process in this city. I would rather move more swiftly. It is very important.”

  “To you. Not to me.” The man pursed his fat lips, then lit another cigarette. “Come back when you have a warrant.” He blew smoke in Andreas’ direction and turned to his work.

  “I may lose an opportunity by waiting. You may lose an opportunity also.”

  “For what?”

  “For profit.”

  The words had an immediate effect, and the super shuffled his barrels distractedly.

  “What profit?”

  “Do you want to discuss this out here?”

  They retreated into the vestibule, though the bulky super would not open the inside door. Andreas was acutely aware of his exposed back facing the big glass pane of the outer door as he slipped his wallet from his coat. He slid out five twenty-dollar bills, then hesitated.

  “You do have keys?”

  The man shrugged.

  “Yes? No?” Andreas’ voice became sharp.

  “I’m not supposed to, but these damn absentee tenants. You have to check a leak, you have to be able to get in, you know?”

  “I know.” Andreas handed over the money. The super stared at the tiled floor for too long. The old man slid five more twenties out.

  “You’re not taking anything,” the stocky fellow insisted.

  “You’re just looking, right?”

  “That is correct.” If he found anything worth taking, he would worry about it then.

  The apartment was small. Only two rooms, the second a bedroom with a chipped bureau and a narrow bed that clearly got no use. The larger room had a good-sized painting on each wall, a landscape and three abstracts. A large, narrow cardboard packing case leaned against the small sofa, one end open and bubble wrap spilling out. It cost Andreas another fifty dollars to persuade the super
to wait in the corridor. Then he went immediately to the open container. Inside was a green-and-blue abstract painting, as big as the box and still wrapped. Reaching his arm in as far as it would go, Andreas felt around behind the canvas, where the frame would have provided more than sufficient depth to hide a smallish, flat object. Nothing. Yet a great deal of the bubble wrap seemed to have been pulled out. Had the Snake retrieved the icon in the last day or so? Had he trusted it to be safe for a week before that, sitting in a packing crate in the middle of the room? Knowing, as he must, that the super was not trustworthy? It did not seem like Fotis.

  Andreas turned a tight circle in the middle of the room, surveying walls, floor, ceiling in the dying light from the narrow, dust-streaked windows. What else? He explored the small closet containing nothing but wire hangers, testing its walls and floors for hidden panels. He slid painfully to his knees to search beneath the sofa, pulled up the cushions, opened all the cabinets in the tiny kitchenette, feeling more foolish by the moment. The super would expel him in a few minutes. Something was amiss here, something was slightly off, and it would come to him if he had enough time. Chair, coffee table, sofa, closet, paintings.

  Paintings. The landscape did not go with the abstracts. That was nothing, Fotis collected both. It was smaller than the other paintings. Smaller, but with a large, deep frame that raised it a few inches from the wall. He stepped onto the sofa, balancing carefully on a spongy cushion, and lifted the painting from its hanger. Then stepped down and flipped it. He had been so certain of success that the empty space in the frame confused him. It was precisely the right size. He could even detect spots where the inside wooden frame had been rubbed against something. It had been here. Or something had been, and what else but the icon?

  Andreas rehung the landscape. Tiredness took him and he sat down. He almost felt he could sleep; just put his head back on the striped cushions and fade into oblivion. Another one of Fotis’ abandoned items. Once more, too slow. He would never catch the Snake.

  The super spoke to someone in the corridor, and Andreas struggled to his feet again. Quickly, he lifted each of the other canvases a few inches from its perch, just far enough to see that there was nothing behind it, then moved toward the door. It occurred to him at the last moment that he should have defied the super’s instructions and turned the locks.