The Icon (17 page)

“He already knew that. To persuade me not to go, to let him go in my place.”

“Beat you with one hand, paid you with the other.”

“What does it matter?”

“You’re very casual for a traitor.”

Stefano’s eye widened, the first sign of real alarm.

“I am no traitor. Did he not deliver the message?”

“You must have known that he intended more than that.”

“How am I to know what he has in mind? He threatened to kill me if I crossed him.”

“He delivered it. Then things went wrong. Mikalis is dead.”

“No.” The tavern keeper’s face collapsed, and tears welled up in his eyes. Did he think that Elias was about to execute him, or was it real grief for the life of the popular priest? Who could say? The captain wanted to strike him, but might knock him senseless, which would not serve his purposes. He stepped in close and put the pistol to Stefano’s throat.

“I should kill you, but I need you to do two things. You must not fail in either.”

Stefano nodded.

“You will go to the German major, Müller,” Elias continued.

“You’ll tell him that the business at the church was a mistake. The deal is still possible. I will bring him what he wants before sundown tomorrow, but he must not shoot anyone. If he does, everything is off. He must be alone when you tell him, and you must reach him before sunrise. Do you understand?”

Stefano paused only a moment, licking his dry lips.

“I will do it.”

Elias stepped away and put the pistol back in his belt.

“If you do, you will save many lives. But you must be swift, and you must convince him. No one can know of this, ever. It is your death if you speak.”

“Of course.”

The tavern owner’s eyes burned with sincerity, but that would pass. Such secrets got out. Someone would see Stefano and Müller together, maybe the communists would get hold of him. It was just the sort of story they wanted to hear, republicans and Germans in bed together. Stefano would say what he must to survive, or even sell the information. He was slippery, an unwise choice, but there was no one else. Kosta was gone. Elias’ other men didn’t know what he was doing, and they would never support it if they did. Every man in the village was compromised. Though who was he to judge, Elias wondered of himself; he, the most compromised man of all? All the good men were dead.

“After you see Müller, go to my father’s widow.” He would not call her his stepmother. “Tell her that her son’s body lies in the northwest corner of the crypt. She may send a man there to find him. Go yourself if she asks.”

Stefano seemed more daunted by this task than the previous one, but nodded his assent.

“Don’t fail me, Stefano. Don’t fail all of us.”

They left by separate doors. Back on the dark streets, Elias made all possible speed toward the north hill. It was low, not heavily wooded, but on this moonless night it was merely a looming shadow, and he could make out no sign of his men. He still did not know what they might have heard, or guessed. Would they welcome his arrival, or stand him against a tree and shoot him? Pressed for time, he rushed up the slope, content for them to discover him. They did. Halfway up, young Panayiotis emerged out of the shadows.

“You’re clumsy tonight, Captain. I almost thought you were a German.”

“Take me to Giorgios.”

Most of the men, twenty-five or so, were among the boulders near the summit, the rangy former infantry sergeant pacing fiercely among them. Giorgios was slightly ridiculous in his scraggly beard and soiled Italian colonel’s uniform—booty from the Albanian campaign—but he was the best leader of men that Elias had.

“Mother of God, it’s good you’re here,” said Giorgios when he saw the captain. “We needed you before. The damn Snake wouldn’t let us attack.”

So they were still blind to the subterfuge, thought Elias, with a strange sadness.

“Slowly.”

“We found the villa where the weapons were stored, right where you said it would be.”

“Yes.”

“Just a few Germans guarding it, one light machine gun. We could have taken it, but when the shooting started at the church, the Snake sent word that we were not to try.”

“Sent word? He wasn’t with you?”

“The Snake? At first, but not then. He said he needed to watch the Germans in the village. He left me in charge. I should have ignored him, we wasted an opportunity.”

“No, Giorgios, you did right. The men are more important than the weapons. Listen to me now, I need your help. Tell me how to find Gregori’s chapel.”

“Gregori’s chapel? Why?”

“Kosta has betrayed me.” He could not bring himself to say

“us.” “He has gone to this chapel to hide. I must seek him there.”

It was still quite dark, but the sky was just beginning to pale in the east. Elias could not read Giorgios’ reaction, except in his silence.

“The devil take him,” Giorgios finally whispered. “Is the icon destroyed?”

“I do not know. Old Mavroudas meant to steal it. The Snake is dealing with him. I must find Kosta now.”

“And Father Mikalis?”

The grief swelled again. When all this was over he would sleep for days, or perhaps forever, depending on how things fell out.

“Giorgios, the chapel. Help me.”

“Down the other side of this hill, the path to the high meadow. Follow it to the end.”

“That’s Mary’s chapel.”

“Past that a kilometer, and up a rocky slope. You will be almost to Vrateni. It is a very desolate place. The chapel commands the ground. Be careful. Better still, take some men.”

“No, I go alone. You must take charge here. Spiro and Leftheris are at the old monastery, the rest at the cave. Move to a safer place, if you can, and await word from me. Follow the Snake’s commands if they seem wise to you, but protect the men. And Giorgios, do not tell him, or anyone, where I have gone.”

The sky was just light enough now to read the confusion and unease on the
andarte
’s face. No one loved the Snake, but Giorgios was experienced enough to know that it was never a good thing to have commanders at odds with each other. Elias, with no words of comfort in his heart, turned away from the young soldier and the brightening eastern sky, and pushed north once more.

H
e had stood right there by the window, face in shadow, as befit his clouded intentions, perhaps. Ana couldn’t say for sure. Outside it rained, and she had not turned on a lamp, so the room was dim—the long, cold dining room that they had not been in together before. Neutral ground. Matthew did not want to venture further into the house.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner,” he’d said. “I couldn’t speak to you until the police did.”

“Did they tell you that?”

“No.”

“You didn’t want them to think you would influence my statement.”

“I didn’t want
you
to think that.”

“OK.”

“There are things you should know.”

“I’m listening.” But he couldn’t seem to shape his thoughts, at least not swiftly enough to suit Ana, and like an idiot she had blundered on in a clipped, angry burst. “I didn’t say anything that should implicate you, if that’s what you came to find out. I told them that I knew your godfather was the buyer, that you had told me. I don’t know why I did that. I don’t even know if it will help you.”

He shook his head, face twisted in frustration or disgust, and she thought she read him in that instant, thought that maybe he was not so far from being the man she felt she knew, despite the things he had kept from her.

“I didn’t want you to do that,” he had finally said. “I don’t care what you tell the police. I came to tell you what I know.”

It had all poured out of him then, his godfather’s subtle guidance, Matthew’s fixation on the work, his willful ignorance of the plot taking shape around him; and the more he spoke the more depressed and disengaged she had become. Questions banged at the door of her mind but could gain no entry. She was stuck on the one fact: he had come into her life to manipulate her. How then could she ever trust him? How could she know if anything that had passed between them was real? She could not, though she might yet try if he would even address the issue. But he would not, and she understood, with a keen sense of self-loathing, that without that question answered, the others—involving the full extent to which she had been played for a fool—were meaningless to her. She would not show it. Let her self-disgust seem like anger. He deserved her anger.

She had made him sit in one of the old, uncomfortable wing chairs, and eventually she began to analyze what he said, letting her thinking turn cold and clinical. Matthew had no doubt that the icon had been the reason for the theft, despite the other paintings taken. She decided to play along, to assume his innocence in anything beyond the initial manipulation.

“Has your godfather been questioned?”

“No. He’s in Greece. He became suddenly ill right after he got there.”

“You sound skeptical.”

“He has been ill with something, but he’s a trickster, that guy.”

“You think he’s behind the theft?”

“I don’t want to, but it’s a possibility.”

“He put down almost a million dollars to steal it from himself?”

“From the church, to which he owed it by the conditions of the sale. You had a blind offer for almost twice that. He used the church to get his price, and to block other bidders. Theoretically, I mean; I hope I’m wrong. There may have been other reasons as well.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about him from the start?”

“He wasn’t involved from the start,” Matthew insisted. “Or he was, but I didn’t…When the museum sent me over, I didn’t know of any connection, except that he knew Wallace. Which you also knew,” he reminded her, pointedly. “Later, he told me the church approached him, made it sound very casual. I should have spoken to you then. He asked me not to. He convinced me that it didn’t change anything whether you knew or not, and knowing would only make you suspicious.”

“And that didn’t make
you
suspicious?”

“There was other stuff, too. I’m not going to lay it on you. I was stupid about the whole thing. I’m sorry, Ana. I truly felt the icon should go back to Greece.”

“What if I had decided to go with a private buyer?”

“Then that would have been that.”

“You wouldn’t have tried to talk me out of it?”

“Not if your mind was made up.”

“Bullshit.”

“What could I have done? I couldn’t make you choose against your will.”

You could have made me do anything you wanted, Ana thought bitterly, but again the anger was directed mostly at herself.

“How can I believe anything you’re telling me now?”

“That’s a fair question. I can’t answer it. You have every right to doubt me.”

So calm and reasonable, even in his guilt.

“Fuck you, Matthew.”

He had stood quite suddenly, as if she had thrown cold water in his lap. She struggled not to stand also, to keep her expression closed and ungiving. He could not stay, not now, yet she desperately did not want him to leave.

“Have you told the police all this?”

“They know the facts; the rest is hypothesis. I held back some of the history.”

“What history?”

He’d hesitated, clearly not wanting to tell this part. “The icon comes from my grandfather’s village. It turns out he and my godfather were involved in some scheme to trade it to the Germans, during the war.”

More secrets. There was no bottom to them, apparently. The grandfather clock’s metronomic click assaulted her thinking. Her great-great-uncle had built it; her grandfather had shipped it here with his other possessions fifty years before. Ana had loved the clock as a child, but at that moment she found herself wanting to toss it onto the street for the junk collectors.

“That would seem to be worth reporting,” she had said coolly.

“The details aren’t very clear.”

“You came here to tell me everything, remember?”

“This isn’t the sort of story you tell without knowing the truth behind it. It’s pretty damning stuff, and everyone involved has a different version.”

“How did my grandfather get the icon?”

“That I really don’t know. But I’m going to try to get some answers, for both of us.”

“How?”

Swaying where he stood, wanting to be gone, he had looked right at her for the first time.

“I’m going to see my godfather.”

“They’re going to let you leave the country while they’re still investigating?”

“I don’t plan on asking permission.”

“Matthew,” she began, rising to her feet, approaching him before she knew it. “You could get into serious trouble. It might look as though you’re running.” Was he? Were her instincts wrong? They had not been very dependable so far, but then why had he come at all?

“He’s more likely to speak to me than to anyone else.”

“He won’t tell you the truth.”

“He might. Or he might give something away.”

“Look, if you’re right, then he had his own man shot. He’s dangerous.”

“I don’t think he planned that.”

“Then he’s not in control of the situation,” she had insisted. Why was he not getting it? “Someone out there is willing to kill for this thing.”

He’d opened his mouth to speak, but there was no easy answer to that ugly fact, and the truth of it settled around them quietly.

“Fotis is family,” he finally mumbled. “Besides, I helped create this mess.”

“Which is a stupid reason to make it worse now. Don’t go.”

She had tried awhile longer to dissuade him, knowing it was useless. For all his seeming rationality, he was actually incredibly stubborn. He left without touching her—sure he had forfeited that right, no doubt. She had given him no encouragement, had maintained her toughness to the end, but she fixed his dark head of hair and slouched, retreating back in her mind. Then she wandered into the dining room and sank into her hard chair, hollowed out. It was more than likely that she had seen him for the last time.

That had been two days earlier, and Ana sat now in the same empty dining room, shadows banished by the strong light through the windows, the warm sun of spring. Matthew would be in Greece. She expected no word, only hoped that he was safe, that he was not playing at some game that would prove too much for him. She had tried to put the matter of the icon out of her mind. After all, she had gotten money, gotten the thing out of her life, which was most of what she wanted. The police would take it from here. It was the Greek church’s business to cry foul, not hers. She had fulfilled her side of the bargain. That oily Father Tomas had stood right there in the hall, watching his men carry the package out to the van. Let him explain what happened next, if they could find him.

And yet…Her intentions had been subverted; where was her anger? For that matter, where was her sense of responsibility? This had been no idle choice. The icon’s provenance was sketchy, as with much of the other work her grandfather acquired just after the war. Her father had seemed embarrassed by it, and her grandfather’s adoration had a covetous, unhealthy quality. Ana might never learn the details, but she had no doubt that the Greeks in that village of Matthew’s ancestors had not parted with it willingly. It belonged back there. She didn’t subscribe to family guilt as a concept, to the responsibility for old wrongs being passed down the generations. Yet she had long suspected that shady transactions lay behind many of the old man’s acquisitions, and she had never raised the matter with him. Now she had the estate, and with it certain obligations. She didn’t intend to make a life’s work of seeking proper restitution for every painting on the walls around her, but the business of the icon had jumped to life on its own and could not now be ignored. There wasn’t a lot she could do, but there were a few troubling details to ponder. One particular matter had bothered her all along, and set her wondering—not for the first time—about connections between these new events and things that had happened in the past. Don’t start something you don’t intend to finish, her dad had always said. Was that an argument for pushing forward, or for stopping now?

Ana strode down the hall to the kitchen. The place to start was Wallace. He knew things he wasn’t sharing. She had always understood this about him, but had hoped her grandfather’s death might cause him to drop his guard, release a few of those dusty family secrets. This hope had been disappointed; his armor remained in place. She’d had it in the back of her mind that testing the market for private bidders on the icon might bring forward someone who knew about its past, and her grandfather’s. Possibly even someone with knowledge of what had happened that week her father went to Caracas. She hadn’t shared these thoughts with Wallace, and he had kept his inquiries very much to himself, steering her dutifully toward the institutions. By then she had become too distracted by Matthew to press the wily lawyer.

She dropped into a chair at the kitchen table and lit a cigarette, her fifth of the morning. She would go through a dozen today. Eight yesterday, six the day before. Like quitting in reverse. She had been smoke-free almost four years. All it took was that first one, an hour after Matthew walked out the door, and she was back where she started. She drummed her fingers on the table. The kitchen now reminded her of Matthew, despite the fact that he had been here only half a dozen times. She exhaled the thought in a blue cloud of smoke. Never mind. The way to feel close to her runaway lover was to pursue the same mystery that he did. The thought stopped her. Was that all she was doing, trying to feel close to Matthew, to make his obsession hers? Were all those ideas about responsibility just flimsy justification? She inhaled the sweet poison, felt her body hum. Did it really matter?

Ana grabbed the telephone and dialed.

“Wallace and Warford.”

“Hi, Millie, is he there?”

“Ana. He’s in the middle of something. Can he call you back?”

“Tell him I’ll wait as long as it takes for him to be free.”

“It’s really better if he calls you.”

“I’ll wait. Please tell him.”

He let her hold for many minutes, as she knew he would, and her agitation grew exponentially over that time. Then that deep, gravelly voice was in her ear.

“My dear, sorry I haven’t been in touch.”

“We have business, Arthur. More paintings to sell.”

“I know, I really do apologize. But look, we need to do this in person. Let me pass you back to Millie and we’ll make a date.”

“I have a question. The private buyer on the icon, the one ready to spend a million five. I want to know who that was.”

He was quiet a few moments. “Why are you still thinking of that?”

“Because it strikes me as strange that anyone would offer that much.”

“Who’s to say if he would have paid in the end? I didn’t find the approach very credible, or I would have pushed you harder to explore it.”

“Yeah, well, look how credible the church deal turned out to be.”

“The church is not responsible for what happened. And you got your money.”

“Anyway, tell me who our spendthrift buyer was.”

He sighed heavily, a disappointed sound, but she was not going to be deflected. He had played that long-suffering father game with her for too long.

“The approach was made via a dealer of rather dubious reputation, whom I would prefer not to name.”

“Why? Did he ask to remain anonymous? A
dealer
? Come on, Arthur, whose lawyer are you?”

“Emil Rosenthal.”

“You’re kidding. That creep?”

“Now you know my reasoning in not pursuing it.”

“But who would work through a guy like Rosenthal?”

“Who knows? Rich eccentrics use all sorts of unsavory middlemen. Someone’s giving Emil business. Anyway, he’s not going to tell you.”

“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.”