Authors: M.J. Rose
Driving past the monumental, seventeen-foot-tall sculpture by Noguchi that stood like a sentry on Fifth Avenue and Eightieth Street, Lucian pulled into the underground parking garage abutting the Metropolitan. Locking the doors, he walked through the dark, cavernous space to the museum entrance—an ironically unceremonious access to the structure that was the largest and most comprehensive art museum in the western hemisphere.
The brass-framed glass doors opened into the entryway to the children’s museum. The only artwork here was an eight-foot-long, four-foot-wide and three-foot-tall reproduction of the Parthenon. Lucian looked at the kids crowded around it, ogling the colorful statues on the frieze and peering in through the columns to the elaborate miniature of Athena. He could still remember coming here on school trips and always looking at that magical model.
For Lucian, the Met wasn’t just filled with artwork; it was a treasure trove of memories. He’d taken his first painting classes here when he was only six. He had come with his parents every Christmas for the tree lighting and to see the Neapolitan
Baroque crèche, a fantastic diorama perfect in every detail down to sparkling streams, goats and barking dogs. He’d taught himself anatomy in high school by sketching the Met’s great classical sculptures and had ultimately been admitted to The Cooper Union with a portfolio of those drawings. And he’d brought Solange here the first time they’d gone out together. Walking through the galleries that day, they’d each passed a test they hadn’t known they were taking. Their zeal for art was the first thread woven into the fabric of their passion for each other.
While she’d looked at paintings, he’d stolen looks at her lovely face—perfect, he’d thought, except for the strange, pale crescent-moon-shaped mark above her right eyebrow that she covered with bangs. She had been self-conscious about the scar and made up different stories about how she’d gotten it. From a vicious babysitter with a knife when she was five. From a French poodle that had leaped up and taken a bite out of her when she was still a baby. From an incident with a hammer when she was trying to hang her first painting at school. From the devil, signaling she’d sold him her soul so she could paint better.
He’d never found out the truth.
One afternoon she’d taken him to see her favorite painting, Martin Johnson Heade’s
Approaching Thunderstorm.
It was a foreboding landscape with blackening clouds over an even darker body of water and a lone boy on the shore staring out into the tense sky. “All I want to do,” Solange had said fiercely, “is to be able to paint with this much authority and purity. That’s what every artist I respect does—synthesizes a moment or emotion down to its essence. No frivolity.”
Lucian didn’t often dwell on his memories of her—it had happened a long time ago—but Hawkes had asked him if he’d ever lost anyone he loved, and now he was here, where they’d spent so much time together.
Solange still stood out from the other women he’d known. How could she not? Their relationship had been cut short, never having the time to sour or turn. Their year together was like a living thing trapped in amber, protected for eternity by its method of destruction.
Walking up the simple, unadorned marble staircase from the downstairs level to the first floor, he remembered that, after seeing the Heade that day, they’d gone back to his dorm room. It was their first time, and after she’d undressed, she stood in front of him naked. Before he could reach for her, she asked him to draw her. As his hand streaked across the page he forgot how much he wanted her and became consumed with creating his version of the lithe body standing before him. She’d laughed with delight at his skill in orchestrating the charcoal’s movement. The sketch wound up being more assured and alive than anything he’d ever done.
It was a lesson that caused him to look at every piece of art differently from then on. What made something matter on paper or canvas was the intensity of the rage or obsession, the ardor or the excitement of its creator. The urgency to take the moment in, process it and give it back to the world transformed by a singular vision—that was what elevated effort into art.
On his way to meeting Olshling, Lucian walked by centuries-old naked warriors and athletes, immortalized in gleaming marble. Each was a living history of the artists and the models and the journeys of the pieces themselves. Even if their stories had been lost, like his with Solange would be when he was no longer alive to recount it, anyone moved by this art was being touched by the lives of the people who had created it, posed for it, bought it, sold it and treasured it—and even those who had stolen it.
Tyler Weil, Nicolas Olshling and a half-dozen other museum personnel blocked Lucian’s view, but whatever they were looking at had drained all the energy out of the room. He felt as if he’d walked in on a wake.
“Agent Glass, thanks for coming.” Olshling came over to greet him and left enough of a gap for Lucian to see a riot of colors—bright lemon, sharp green, cool blue. He stepped closer and stared down at the serrated streamers and threads of canvas. He was doing his job, listening to Olshling explain, while examining a brutally vandalized painting.
“It’s a Matisse.”
Lucian glanced up. The speaker was a woman in her seventies who had her arms crossed across her chest and was regarding him with hostility. Usually people’s reactions to him didn’t matter, but this woman was making him uneasy. He turned back to the painting.
Yes, even in ruins, the artist’s hand, palette and brushstrokes weren’t just recognizable—they were unmistakable.
“The painting has quite a history,” Tyler Weil said. “It’s entitled
View of St. Tropez,
and it’s been in the FBI’s national stolen art file for about twenty years.”
Lucian had seen this painting only in photographs. Finally looking at it, staring at it, despite everything it symbolized for him, he didn’t react. All he could think of was that the photographs he’d seen had not done the painting justice, even in this damaged state.
Then, suddenly, bile rose in his throat and his stomach spasmed. Lucian didn’t exhibit any outward sign of his inner turmoil. What was that Einstein quote William Hawkes had told him?
Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.
But Lucian didn’t believe in God, either.
Everyone in this room might be aware that this painting had disappeared twenty years ago, but Lucian was the only one who knew the day and the hour. He knew it almost to the minute, because this was the masterpiece that had been stolen by an unknown assailant who had tricked his way inside a well-protected framing gallery, brutally stabbed two teenagers and fled the scene. Solange had died that day because she’d still been at the store waiting for Lucian while he’d been in his studio, playing so hard at being an artist he’d forgotten what time it was.
Robert Keyes made sure the oversize black umbrella shielded his daughter as they walked west on Eighty-Third Street. Last night Veronica’s nightmare had been vicious. He’d heard her wrenching screams and run into her room, finding her thrashing in her bed, twisted up in the sheets, fighting off an invisible evil she couldn’t name. Her hair was plastered to her forehead and tears wet her flushed cheeks. Except for telling him that everything was dark in the dream, she couldn’t recall who or what was scaring her. The night terror didn’t seem to be bothering her now though, as the seven-year-old continued telling him about her class trip to the Metropolitan Museum earlier that day.
“And then Mr. Weil’s phone rang, and then he talked to someone, and then he got really quiet for a loooong time and then he had to leave,” she complained. “Right when we were looking at the rocodial.”
Robert stopped worrying to try to figure out the word. “Crocodile?”
“Uh-huh.”
As they approached the Phoenix Foundation with its turret,
stained-glass windows and fancy ironwork railing, Robert spied dozens of gargoyles.
“Look, Veronica.” He pointed.
“Monster spouts!” she shouted out, and then laughed.
Robert smiled. Veronica renamed everything using more descriptive terms: their dog was a “furry four-legger” and grilled-cheese sandwiches—her favorites—were “melted cheese toasts.” Only the nightmares didn’t have names.
Once Frances buzzed the father and daughter inside, Veronica started hopping from black marble square to black marble square up and down the hall, avoiding the whites in some game of her own devising.
“You’re early,” Frances said after she greeted them.
“I picked Veronica up at school and planned on walking here, but the rain was too heavy. Is it a problem?”
“No.” Frances indicated the seating area set up with its child-size seats, a plastic castle and several toy chests overflowing with games, books and puzzles. “There’s lots for Veronica to do. I just wanted you to know that Dr. Samuels is out but he’ll be back in time for your appointment.”
Deep inside Central Park, just west of the Dairy on West Sixty-Fifth Street, Malachai Samuels sat at a stone table inside the otherwise empty Chess and Checkers House. He’d set up the ivory and black pieces over a half hour ago. Since then he’d been playing both sides and checking his watch every few minutes, like any man annoyed that his partner was late—which was exactly how he wanted it to look, even though no one else was there or anywhere near enough to watch.
Malachai had his office swept for bugs every week, but he knew there could be directional mikes aimed at the foundation, and he preferred to have certain conversations out of
doors. Frances believed he was at a physical therapy appointment.
A clean-cut man in his mid-thirties wearing chinos, loafers and a blue button-down shirt walked inside the gaming house.
Malachai swept the chess pieces into a wooden box and stood up as Reed Winston approached.
“I’m sorry I’m late.” Reed smiled sheepishly.
“So am I, since I have to leave. But I played a good game without you,” Malachai said, continuing the charade.
Winston followed his employer outside. The rain was just letting up, and neither of them needed to open an umbrella. Once they were out of earshot of the Chess House, Malachai asked if Winston had any news.
“There hasn’t been any activity in Vienna. No one at the society has made any attempt to reach out to any art experts, archaeologists or historians.”
“What about linguists?”
Winston shook his head. “Everyone is still pretty shaken up over Alderman’s death. They haven’t appointed a new director yet, and no one seems focused on the missing list.”
“What about the Austrian police?”
“They haven’t made any headway.” He grinned.
Malachai thought his spy’s smile was unseemly but refrained from mentioning it. They’d reached a fork in the path, and the logical way to proceed was to turn right onto the main path and head for Central Park West. Instead, Malachai took a left and Winston followed him into the shadows under a stone arch.
Malachai knew that habits made you easier to track, so he tried to change his often. And he knew it was better to hire a half-dozen men who knew nothing about each other’s jobs than to have one with enough information to piece it all together, but he’d made an exception with Winston. Knowing every
thing allowed the ex-Interpol agent to monitor all aspects of the investigation. If there were connections, he’d be able to recognize them. Malachai couldn’t play it as safe as he wished he could. Even if the Memory Tools catalogued on the list had survived, they could be hidden from view or in plain sight, buried in a ruin, on display in a museum, sitting in an antique store or in someone’s grandmother’s curio cabinet. His search could take years, but his father might not have that long. And Malachai wanted to know about his own past lives. If what he guessed was true, he wanted to shove it in the old man’s face.
“I’m going to be hiring a librarian to go through the archived correspondence at the foundation,” Malachai said, “to see if we can find any information about the whereabouts of the missing tools. We have documents that go back to the mid-1800s, when we were financing digs all over the Middle East and the Mediterranean. I came across information in those papers about the tools we found in Rome. Maybe there’s more information about these others.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“Make sure the candidates are clean.”
Avoiding a puddle, Malachai checked his watch. “I need to get back to the foundation. One more thing. Have you found out anything else about the Agent Glass who was hurt in the robbery? Is he working on this case now that he’s back in New York?”
“I’m not sure.”
Malachai stopped, forcing Winston to stop also. “What do you mean?”
“He’s been trained in all the surveillance techniques I’ve been trained in. I can’t track him as if he were an ordinary citizen.”
“I need to know what he knows and what he’s doing about finding out what he doesn’t know.” Malachai spoke in a level voice, as if he were requesting lemon, not cream, with his tea.
Two elderly, white-haired women walked by. Were they in disguise and really there to watch him? Was the man walking the gray French poodle? Or the woman pushing a baby carriage? Paranoia was annoying, but, perversely, it made him feel safe.
“I’m doing my best to get better information for you.”
“I’m going to need better than your best.”
Charlie Danzinger lifted a thin sheet of gold leaf with a sable brush and applied the fourteen-karat foil to a band girding the sculpture’s ankle. Sweeping away the extra, he stepped back and inspected his work, pleased at how the precious metal transformed an ordinary sandal strap into something magisterial.
Made of what appeared to be wood, with ivory hands, feet and face, the eight-foot Greek god was more than impressive—he was commanding. The few people allowed to visit the restorer’s studio in the Metropolitan’s south wing and see this secret project had been awed by its size and majesty. But no one was as interested in Hypnos as the venerated curator Marie Grimshaw, who was sitting on a stool in the corner, watching Danzinger work.
She had come twice a day every day for the past five months, spending fifteen or twenty minutes at a time. Usually she arrived at around ten-thirty in the morning and then between three and four in the afternoon, always bringing coffee for both of them. She’d asked him that first day how he took it and had smiled when he said black with one sugar. “That will be easy to remember,” she’d said. “That’s how I take it.”
Marie had never given Danzinger a reason why she visited so often. Clearly, she was fascinated by the sculpture he was working on, but he sensed she didn’t know why. He didn’t ask; it wasn’t his business. Besides, he liked having her company, especially when she regaled him with tales about the museum. He was shy and found it difficult to get to know people. He’d been working at the Met for more than eighteen years but had few friends among his colleagues. So when Marie had sought him out, Danzinger had been flattered. And still was.
He applied more gold to the left sandal. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the curator cross and then re-cross her legs. She’d never been this agitated before, and she’d missed her morning visit. Rising off her stool, she walked past a bank of steel cabinets over to the shelves filled with the tools of his trade: stains and paints, brushes and pens, files and rasps, etching plates, rolls of canvas and trays of wood, glass and stone fragments.
“Charlie, do you know a lot about mythology?”
“I’m a restorer, not a historian,” he joked.
“They called your Hypnos the conqueror of the gods because he could put all of the others to sleep. Thanatos, the god of death, was his brother. Nyx, the goddess of night, was his mother and Morpheus, the god of dreams, was his father. Some family, wasn’t it? Hypnos lived in the land of eternal darkness, just a short distance beyond the gates of the rising sun in a land called Erebus. Plutarch said his job was to lull and rest men’s souls…” She didn’t quite put an end to the sentence, and the sound of her last word—
souls
—hung in the air.
Not sure what to make of her soliloquy, he remained quiet.
“Do you believe we have souls?” she finally asked.
He cleared his throat. “Yes.” He thought about what he’d said, and then amended it. “Yes, I guess I do.”
“You seem surprised by your answer.”
“I’m a lapsed Catholic and didn’t think I believed in much anymore.” He bit his bottom lip as he concentrated on applying a new sheet of gold leaf. Then brushing out a small wrinkle, he continued. “Working on all these valuable objects, I’ve come to believe that something of every artist’s soul is in their work, and that’s what I’m really preserving and restoring.” He looked up from Hypnos to Marie, whose eyes had filled with tears. She was the strongest woman he knew, as much of a treasure at the Met as one of the pieces of artwork. He never would have guessed he’d see her cry.
“What’s wrong?” He spoke softly, wanting her to confide in him if she needed to but still a little in awe of her. “Is there something I can do?”
“An important painting that was bequeathed to the museum years ago was delivered to us this morning.”
“That’s wonderful, isn’t it?”
“It’s been completely destroyed.”
“How?”
“Someone slashed it with a knife.” She whispered the last few words as if they were too terrible to say out loud.
Danzinger recoiled. “Beyond restoration?”
“Someone in your department will have to tell us.”
“What’s your opinion?”
A tear escaped and slid down her cheek, but she didn’t seem to notice. “Even if we can put it back together again, it won’t ever be the same.”
“Why would anyone do that?”
“To prove he could.” Her voice quivered with anger. “The monster who did it said he has four more paintings of equal value, each donated to us, but all stolen before we could take possession. It’s blackmail. He says he’ll destroy one each week that we delay giving him what he wants.”
“What does he want?”
Before she had a chance to tell him, the studio door opened. Tyler Weil walked into the room accompanied by another man Danzinger didn’t recognize.
A visit from the director was unusual enough, but then Weil introduced Special Agent Lucian Glass.
The restorer hoped his hand wasn’t sweating when he reached out to shake the agent’s.
“Mr. Danzinger, can you show Agent Glass what you’re working on and explain a bit about how it’s progressing?”
“Sure,” he said confidently. Talking about his work was one thing he knew he could do.
They clustered in the center of the studio where, dominating the space, were two colossal sculptures, both eight feet tall, identical in shape and subject matter, but not condition. The one on the right was the statue of the ancient Greek god Hypnos that Danzinger had been working on. Young and handsome, with sensitive eyes, sensuous lips and a finely wrought nose, his bone structure was elegant and the expression on his face was both sultry and serene…as if he was slipping into a dream himself.
This polychromatic god was seated, leaning on his arm, in a languid pose. His eyes were obsidian orbs partially veneered with more ivory and inlaid with moss-green chalcedony to give them a lifelike appearance.
The throne he was seated on was a hollow armature made from the same insect- and rot-resistant wood. His tunic was gilded and well decorated. In his left hand he held a silver horn of what legend said was sleep-inducing opium; in his right he held a bronze branch dripping water, symbolized by a drop of lapis lazuli, from the river of forgetfulness, Lethe.
In the back of the sculpture was a three-foot-wide and four-foot-high wooden panel that opened like a door, exposing the
sculpture’s hollow guts and structural skeleton. One afternoon Danzinger had come back from a meeting to find Marie standing inside Hypnos, her hands outstretched, her fingertips running up and down the inside skin of the god, staring up into his hollowed body as if she were in a trance. Danzinger had called out to her three times before she responded, and then she seemed nonplussed, as if she’d woken to find she’d been sleepwalking. During the past six months, he’d been inside of the structure a few times himself but hadn’t noticed anything worthy of her intense interest.
Beside this piece sat a second version of the same god, identical in size and shape but not in condition. This Hypnos was not nearly as glorious. He was the original, two thousand years older and looking his age. Ancient and worn, he was seriously damaged and discolored. One of his silver wings was missing, as were both of his hands. His right foot was gone; his left had only two toes. His tunic was stripped of its gold. One of his eyes was intact, the other was dead black, with both the green pupil and the white sclera missing. The body of the sculpture was badly damaged. What there was of surface space was a mass of scars.
Compared to the almost completed copy, which the museum was going to put on display to show museumgoers what the sculpture had looked like when it was first created, the original was unimposing.
Over the next ten minutes the restorer described the process of making casts of the original, filling the molds with a wood composite he chased with tools so it appeared carved, or with a polymer that resembled the original’s ivory. He detailed the stages of painting the sculpture, gilding it and ornamenting it with stones.
The agent took notes and made sketches—Danzinger noticed—in a small Moleskine notebook, the kind used by artists.
“Is the gold on the original thin sheets or leaf?” Glass asked.
“Leaf,” Danzinger answered confidently.
“What about the silver?”
“Very thin sheets.”
“The stones? What are they? What are they worth?”
“Most are semiprecious, but there are some emeralds, rubies and amethysts. Mostly you’re looking at lapis lazuli, amber, garnets, carnelians, banded agates, sardonyx, chalcedony and rock crystal. None of them of exceptional quality.”
The FBI agent turned to the director. “What’s the value of the sculpture?”
“It’s the most complete chryselephantine sculpture to have survived… I think it would go for five to six million.”
“Compared to a painting by Matisse or Monet or Van Gogh—it’s really small change, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Marie answered before the director could. “The paintings are worth so much more.”
“Which brings us back to the question none of us can help you with, Agent Glass,” Weil said. “Why would anyone want to exchange paintings worth over a hundred and fifty million dollars for our Hypnos?”