“Sorry?”
“What, exactly? Will you explain it to me? Where the hell did this money come from? How does this fix a fucking thing?”
“Well, actually, you should not be so quick to jump to—”
“I don’t care about the money!” I was half-screaming. “I care about the painting! Where’s the painting?”
“If you would just wait a second and not fly off the—”
“What’s this money for? Where’s it from? From what source, exactly? Bill Gates? Santa Claus? The Tooth Fairy?”
“Please. You are like your dad with the drama.”
“Where is it? What’d you do with it? It’s gone, isn’t it? Traded? Sold?”
“No, of course I—hey—” scraping his chair back hastily—“Jesus, Potter, calm down. Of course I didn’t sell it. Why would I do any such?”
“I don’t know! How should I know? What was all this for? What was the point of any of this? Why did I even come here with you? Why’d you have to drag me into it? You thought you’d bring me over here to help you kill people? Is that it?”
“I’ve never killed anybody in my life,” said Boris haughtily.
“Oh, God. Did you just say that? Am I supposed to laugh? Did I really just hear you say you never—”
“That was self defense. You know it. I do not go around hurting people for the fun of it but I will protect myself if I have to. And you,” he said, talking imperiously over me, “with Martin, apart from the fact I would not be here now and most likely you neither—”
“Will you do me a favor? If you won’t shut up? Will you maybe go over there and stand for a minute? Because I really don’t want to see you or look at you now.”
“—with Martin the police, if they knew, they would give you a medal and so would many others, innocent, not now living, thanks to him. Martin was—”
“Or, actually, you could leave. That’s probably better.”
“Martin was a devil. Not all human. Not all his fault. He was born that way. No feelings, you know? I have known Martin to do much worse things to people than shooting them. Not to
us,
” he said, hastily, waving his hand, as if this were the point of all misunderstanding. “Us, he would have shot out of courtesy, and none of his other badness and evil. But—was Martin a good man? A proper human being? No. He was not. Frits was no flower, either. So—this remorse and pain of yours—you must view it in a different light. You must view it as heroism in service of higher good. You cannot always take such a dark perspective of life all the time, you know, it is very bad for you.”
“Can I ask you just one thing?”
“Anything.”
“Where’s the painting?”
“Look—” Boris sighed, and looked away. “This was the best I could do. I know how much you wanted it. I did not think you would be quite so upset not to have it.”
“Can you just tell me where it is?”
“Potter—” hand on heart—“I’m sorry you are so angry. I was not expecting this. But you said you weren’t going to keep it anyway. You were going to give it back. Isn’t that what you said?” he added when I kept on staring at him.
“How the hell is this the right thing?”
“Well, I’ll tell you! If you would shut up and let me talk! Instead of
ranting back and forth and frothing at mouth and spoiling our Christmas!”
“What are you talking about?”
“Idiot.” Rapping his temple with his knuckles. “Where do you think this money came from?”
“How the fuck should I know?”
“This is the reward money!”
“Reward?”
“Yes! For safe return of!”
It took a moment. I was standing. I had to sit down.
“Are you angry?” said Boris carefully.
Voices in the hallway. Dull winter light glinting off the brass lampshade.
“I thought you would be pleased. No?”
But I had not recovered sufficiently to speak. All I could do was stare, in dumbfoundment.
At my expression, Boris shook the hair out of his face and laughed. “You gave me the idea yourself. I don’t think you knew how great it was! Genius! I wish had thought of it myself. ‘Call the art cops, call the art cops.’ Well—crazy! So I thought at the time. You’re a bit nuts on this subject to be perfectly honest. Only then—” he shrugged—“unfortunate events took course, as you only too well know, and after we parted on the bridge I spoke to Cherry, what to do, what to do, wringing our hands a bit, and we did a little nosing around, and—” lifting his glass to me—“well in fact, a genius idea! Why should I doubt you? Ever? You are the brains of all this from the start! While I am in Alaska—walking five miles to petrol station to steal a Nestlé bar—well, look at you. Mastermind! Why should I ever doubt you? Because—I look into it, and—” throwing up his arms—“you were right. Who would have thought? Over million dollars for your picture out there in reward money! Not even picture! Information leading to recovery of picture! No questions asked! Cash, free and clear—!”
Outside, snow was flying against the window. Next door, someone was coughing hard, or laughing hard, I couldn’t tell which.
“Back and forth, back and forth, all these years. A game for suckers. Inconvenient, dangerous. And—question I am asking myself now—why did I even bother? with all this legal money straight-up for the claiming?
Because—you were right—straight business thing for them. No questions asked whatever. All they cared about was getting the picture back.” Boris lit a cigarette and dropped the match with a hiss in his water glass. “I did not see it myself, I wish I had—did not think a good idea to stick around if you get me. German SWAT team! Vests, guns. Drop everything! Lie down! Great commotion and crowd in the street! Ah, I would have loved to see the look on Sascha’s face!”
“You phoned the cops?”
“Well not me personally! My boy Dima—Dima is furious at the Germans because of the shooting in his garage. Completely unnecessary, and a big headache for him. See—” restlessly, he crossed his legs, blew out a big cloud of smoke—“I had an idea where they had the picture. There’s an apartment in Frankfurt. Used to belong to an old girlfriend of Sascha’s. People keep stuff there. But no way in hell could I get in, even with half a dozen guys. Keys, alarms, cameras, passcode. Only problem—” yawning, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand—“well, two problems. First one is that police need probable cause to search the apartment. You can not just call with name of thief, anonymous citizen being helpful if you know what I mean. And second problem—I could not remember the exact address of the place. Very very secretive—I have only been there once—late at night, and not in best of condition. Knew roughly the neighborhood… used to be squats, now is very nice… had Gyuri drive me up the streets and down, up the streets and down. Took for fucking ever. Finally—? I had it pinned to a row of houses but was not one hundred percent sure which. So I got out and walked it. Scared as I was, to be on that street—afraid to be seen—I got out of the car and walked it. With my own two feet. Eyes closed halfway. Hypnotized myself a bit, you know, trying to remember number of steps? Trying to feel it in my body? Anyway—I am getting ahead of myself. Dima—?” he was picking assiduously through the breads on the tablecloth—“Dima’s cousin’s sister in law, ex-sister in law actually, married a Dutchman, and they have a son named Anton—twenty-one maybe, twenty-two, squeaky clean, surname van den Brink—Anton is Dutch citizen and has grown up speaking Dutch so this is helpful for us too if you get me. Anton—” nibbling on a roll: making a face, spitting a rye seed between his teeth—“Anton works in a bar where many rich people go, off P. C. Hooftstraat, fancy Amsterdam—Gucci Street, Cartier street. Good kid. Speaks English,
Dutch, only two words maybe of Russian. Anyway Dima had Anton phone the police and report that he had seen two Germans, one of which answers to precise description of Sascha—granny glasses, ‘Little House on the Prairie’ shirt, tribal tattoo on his hand which Anton is able to draw exactly, from photograph we supplied—anyway, Anton telephoned the art police and told them he had seen these Germans drunk as gods in his bar, arguing, and they are so angry and upset they had left behind—what? A folder! Well of course it is a doctored folder. We were going to do a phone, a doctored phone, but none of us were nerd enough to be sure we did it totally untraceable. So—I printed out some photos… photo I showed you, plus some others that I happened to have on my phone… finch along with relatively recent issue of newspaper to date it, you know. Two years old newspaper but—no matter. Anton just happened to find this folder, see, under a chair, with some other documents from the Miami thing, you know, to connect to prior sighting. Frankfurt address conveniently inserted, as well as Sascha’s name. All this is Myriam’s idea, she deserves the credit, you should buy Myriam big drink when you get back home. FedExed some things from America—very very convincing. It has Sascha’s name, it has—”
“Sascha’s in jail?”
“Indeed he is.” Boris cackled. “We get the ransom, museum gets the painting, cops get to close the case, insurance company gets its money back, public is edified, everyone wins.”
“Ransom?”
“Well, reward, ransom, whatever you want to call it.”
“Who paid this money out?”
“I don’t know.” Boris made an irritated gesture. “Museum, government, private citizen. Does it matter?”
“It matters to me.”
“Well it shouldn’t. You should shut up and be grateful. Because,” he said, lifting his chin, speaking over me, “you know what, Theo? Know what? Guess! Guess how lucky we were! Not only do they have your bird in there, but—who would have guessed it? Many other stolen pictures!”
“What?”
“Two dozens, or more! Missing for many years, some of them! And—not all of them are as lovely or beautiful as yours, in fact most of them are not. This is my own personal opinion. But there are big rewards out on
four or five of them all the same—bigger than for yours. And even some of the not-so-famous ones—dead duck, boring picture of fat-faced man you don’t know—even these have smaller rewards—fifty thousand, hundred thousand here and there. Who would think? ‘Information leading to recovery of.’ It adds up. And I hope,” he said, with some austerity, “that maybe you can forgive me for that?”
“What?”
“Because—they are saying, ‘one of great art recoveries of history.’ And this is the part I hoped would please you—maybe not, who knows, but I hoped. Museum masterworks, returned to public ownership! Stewardship of cultural treasure! Great joy! All the angels are singing! But it would never have happened, if not for you.”
I sat in silent amazement.
“Of course,” Boris added, nodding at the bag open on the bed, “this is not all of it. Nice Christmas present in it for Myriam and Cherry and Gyuri. And I gave Anton and Dima a thirty per cent cut right off the top. Fifteen per cent each. Anton did all the work really, so in my opinion he should have got twenty and Dima ten. But this is a lot of money for Anton so he is happy.”
“Other paintings they recovered. Not just mine.”
“Yes, did you not just hear me say—?”
“What other paintings?”
“Oh, some very celebrated and famous ones! Missing for years!”
“Such as—?”
Boris made an irritated sound. “Oh, I do not know the names, you know not to ask me that. Few modern things—very important and expensive, everyone very excited although I will be frank, I do not understand why the big deal on some of them. Why does it cost so much, a thing like from kindergarten class? ‘Ugly Blob.’ ‘Black Stick with Tangles.’ But then too—multiple works of historic greatness. One was a Rembrandt.”
“Not a seascape?”
“No—people in a dark room. Little bit boring. Nice van Gogh, though, of a sea shore. And then… oh, I don’t know… usual thing, Mary, Jesus, many angels. Some sculptures even. And Asian artworks too. They looked to me worth nothing but I guess they were a lot.” Boris stabbed out his cigarette vigorously. “Which reminds me. He got away.”
“Who?”
“Sascha’s China boy.” He had gone to the minibar, returned with corkscrew and two glasses. “He was not at apartment when the cops came, lucky for him. And—if he is smart, which he is—he will not be coming back.” Holding up crossed fingers. “He will find some other rich man to live off of. That is what he does. Good work if you can get it. Anyway—” biting his lip as he pulled out the cork, pop!—“I wish I had thought of it myself, years ago! One big easy check! Legal Tender! Instead of this Follow the Bouncing Ball, so many years. Back and forth—” wagging the corkscrew, tick, tock—“back and forth. Nervewracking! All this time, all this headache, and all this easy, government money right under my nose! I will tell you—” crossing over, pouring me out a noisy glug of red—“in some ways, Horst is probably just as glad it fell out like this as you. He likes to make a dollar same as anyone but he also has guilt, same ideas of public good, cultural patrimony, blah blah blah.”
“I don’t understand how Horst fits into this.”
“No, nor do I, and we will never know,” said Boris firmly. “It’s all very careful and polite. And, yes yes—” impatiently, taking a quick sneaky gulp of his wine—“and yes, I am angry at Horst, a bit, maybe I don’t trust him so much as formerly, maybe in fact I don’t trust him so much at all. But—Horst is saying he wouldn’t have sent Martin if he knew it was us. And maybe he’s telling the truth. ‘Never, Boris—I would never.’ Who can know? To be quite honest—just between us—I think he may be saying it only to save face. Because once it fell to pieces with Martin and Frits, what else could he do? Except gracefully back away? Claim no knowledge? I do not know this for a fact, mind you,” he said. “This is just my theory. Horst has his own story.”
“Which is—?”
“Horst is saying—” Boris sighed—“Horst says he didn’t know that Sascha took the picture, not until we snatched it ourselves and Sascha phoned from clear blue sky asking Horst’s help to get it back. Pure coincidence that Martin was in town—here from LA for the holidays. For druggies, Amsterdam is fairly popular Christmas spot. And yes, that part—” he rubbed his eye—“well, I am pretty sure Horst is telling the truth. That call from Sascha
was
a surprise. Throwing himself on Horst’s mercy. No time to talk. Had to act quick. How was Horst to know it was us? Sascha wasn’t even in Amsterdam—he was hearing it all at second hand, from
Chinky, whose German is not that great—Horst was hearing it at third. It all lines up if you look at it the right way. That said—” he shrugged.