The Icon Thief (18 page)

“It was insured from the moment it left the auction house.” Archvadze made a gesture of impatience. “Please, this isn’t about the money. I can afford the loss. But this painting is irreplaceable.”

“Yes, I can imagine.” As Powell looked at his notepad, his eye was caught by something that he had written earlier that evening. “What about the witnesses who saw the thief? Did you know them?”

“I believe that we met the girl briefly,” Archvadze said. “I had never seen her before tonight. As for the
other one, I don’t think that I met him at all. Natalia, do you remember him?”

Natalia, who had been following the conversation, shook her head. “No. But I do remember the girl. She struck me as too clever by half. I don’t know what she was doing here.”

Kostava spoke for the first time, his accent considerably thicker than that of his employer. “She was on the list. A guest of another invitee. The other one called us himself. He said that he was working for a major art investor. We checked his story and said yes.” By the end of this uncharacteristically long speech, his voice was shaking. “Were they a part of this?”

“We aren’t sure,” Powell said. “But we know that the getaway vehicle was disguised as a waste removal truck. How did it get inside?”

Kostava launched into a rambling explanation, from which Powell gathered that he had not hired the truck, but had allowed it onto the grounds on the assumption that the caterer had requested it. By the time he realized that no one had approved the pickup, the truck was already gone.

As the assistant finished his account, Archvadze broke in. “If you don’t mind, I would prefer to answer the rest of your questions another time. If you require further assistance, you can get in touch with my lawyer.” He wrote a name and number on the back of an ivory business card. “Please—”

Archvadze gave Wolfe his card, then led the others into a far corner. Powell let them go, then entered the study, where technicians were dusting every surface for prints. As he examined the hole in the closet door,
something else occurred to him. “According to the girl’s statement, the thief was holding a package that was exactly the size of the missing painting. No bag, nothing else in his hands.”

“That’s right,” Wolfe said, coming up to his side. “Nothing except the revolver.”

“Which means that he left some tools behind.” Powell turned away, his eyes passing across the desk, the chair, the shelves. Donning gloves, he looked inside the wastebasket, sifting through the wads of paper.

Finally, he went up to the bookcases. He checked behind each of the volumes, pulling them away from the shelf five or six at a time. Then, going around to one side, he saw a gap of several inches between the shelf and the wall. Reaching inside, he felt his fingers close around a leather strap.

He pulled the parcel out from behind the shelf. As the others gathered around, he set the bag on the desk and opened it. Inside, as he had expected, lay a portable drill with a saw blade, along with the rest of the thief’s tools, which he set on the desktop one by one. As he poked a finger through the hole in the bottom of the bag, it struck him that the thief had brought nothing except what he intended to use.

Powell noticed the police chief standing nearby. “The witnesses. Are they still here?”

“For now.” The police chief picked up the drill, hefting it in his hands. “We’re keeping them apart until we decide what to do with them. Technically, they’re guilty of criminal trespass. If you want to talk to them—”

“I do,” Powell said. Turning aside from the desk, he consulted his notes, reviewing what the witnesses had
said. There were aspects of their accounts that didn’t make sense, and if he was going to figure out what had happened here, he would need to sort through their stories while he still could. He closed his notepad and turned back to the others. “All right. I’ll talk to the girl first.”

W
hen the door of the guest room opened, Maddy had been waiting for over an hour. Instead of the intimidating figure that she had been dreading, however, the man who appeared was unassuming, even tweedy, with a pair of blinking blue eyes. His air of harmlessness was only increased by the badge that he gave her for inspection, along with a worn business card that read
A
LAN
P
OWELL
.

Maddy glanced up from the badge. “It looks like you’re one of the Thundercats.”

Powell smiled. As he sat down, she caught a whiff of acrid smoke. “No, just a copper from London. I know you’ve already given a statement, but I’d like to clarify a few points.” He looked at his notes. “When you saw the thief emerge from the study, he was carrying nothing but a package?”

“That’s right,” Maddy said. She expected him to ask what she and Ethan had been doing in the bedroom, but instead, he asked her to tell him about the man she had seen. As she replied, describing the thief in the same terms that she had used with the police, her apprehension began to slip away.

“You also say that you saw a photographer take a picture
of Archvadze,” Powell said. “You’re sure that this was the same man?”

“Fairly sure,” Maddy said. “I didn’t get a good look at the photographer, but he was wearing a brown suit and black plastic glasses.”

Powell noted this down. “Did the man in the bedroom have any tattoos?”

The specificity of the question made her wonder if the agent had someone particular in mind. “Not that I noticed.”

“All right.” Powell closed his notebook with the air of a man who was winding down a conversation. “I’ve been told that you live in the city. You must have spent almost three hours on the train to get here.”

“I thought it would be worth it. A friend put me on the guest list. It’s important for me to attend as many of these events as I can.”

“Because of your job, I take it. According to your statement, you work for an art fund, along with the other witness. Did your firm take an interest in the painting that was stolen tonight?”

There was no point in denying this, since her presence at the auction had been widely reported. “Yes, we bid on the painting. But—”

“But you weren’t willing to pay eleven million for it. What was your final bid?”

“Seven million,” Maddy said. “We felt that the winner significantly overpaid.”

“Yes, it seems that way, doesn’t it? Especially now that the painting is gone.” Powell pointed toward her purse. “I notice that you have a camera. Can I take a look at the pictures?”

Maddy saw that her camera was visible through the purse’s open mouth. “Don’t you need a warrant for that?”

“Under most circumstances, you’d be right,” Powell said. He lowered his eyes, as if studying a flaw in the tabletop. “American law is not my strong suit. However, I believe that in a search incident to arrest, an arresting officer may search the arrestee, as well as any containers in his or her possession. According to the courts, these containers may include digital devices.”

It took Maddy a second to understand. “You’re threatening to arrest me? For what?”

“Criminal trespass. Even if you were invited to this party, the scope of permission did not extend to private rooms in the house. If we decide to place you under arrest, we can take a look at your camera. Of course, if you choose to cooperate, we may not be inclined to go so far.”

After a tense pause, Maddy reached into her purse and pulled out the camera. “Here.”

Taking it, Powell switched it on and went through the photos on the preview screen. “You were taking pictures of the art on the walls. You must have been interested in Archvadze’s collection.”

“I’m interested in anyone who buys art,” Maddy said. “Nothing wrong with that.”

“Not at all.” Powell set the camera down. “Did you know that Archvadze had bought this painting?”

Maddy felt the beginnings of a headache gathering behind her eyes. “Yes, I did.”

“But that fact was never made public. I hear that the buyer’s identity was something of a mystery. So how did you know?”

“We narrowed it down,” Maddy said, realizing that there was no point in holding anything back. “There aren’t that many oligarchs who could have bid on the painting. When we looked at photos of the bidder at the auction, and saw the symbol of the Georgian Air Force on his cufflinks, the rest was easy.”

“So you came here to see the rest of his collection. That’s why you took the photos?”

“Yes. An undiscovered collection is always of interest. But the fund had nothing to do with this. No one knew that we were here. I didn’t even know that Ethan was at the party until I saw him here tonight.”

“In other words, the two of you decided, independently, to come out to Southampton, without telling anyone else what you were doing.” Powell paused. “You can see why this interests me. Archvadze’s purchase of this painting was a closely guarded secret. Only a few members of his inner circle were aware that it was here. Your firm seems to be the only other player in the market, besides the auction house, that knew he was the owner. Did you tell anyone?”

Maddy decided to sidestep the question. “We had no incentive to do so. Once we had the name, we were better off keeping it to ourselves.”

“I can see why,” Powell said. “If you know a collector’s name and purchase history, you can establish a position in works that he might be interested in buying. I’ll assume, then, that you might have had an interest in acquiring other works by Duchamp. Correct me if I’m wrong, but such pieces would be worth considerably more if this painting was stolen. Is that right?”

“Maybe,” Maddy said defensively. “But it’s only been
a week since the auction. We haven’t had time to build up a meaningful position. If we were trying to influence prices with a theft, we would have waited.”

“You know what? I believe you.” Powell rose from his chair and headed for the door, where he paused. “There’s one other thing I want to make clear. I expect it might be useful, for someone in your position, to know something that nobody else in the art world knows yet. There might even be an advantage in withholding information from the police. But if I find that you’ve been less than honest with me, I promise that you won’t have the chance to profit from it.”

Powell left the room. Once he was gone, Maddy realized that the back of her dress was soaked through with sweat. Sliding her camera back into her purse, she felt an unexpected mixture of anger and shame.

She waited there, alone, for another twenty minutes. Then, finally, the door opened. It was Ethan. He seemed tired, but when he looked at her, his eyes retained something of their old brightness.

“Come on,” Ethan said. “Powell says that we can leave. I’ll give you a ride back.”

Outside, the sounds of the party still floated across the garden. Ethan went around to the rear of the house, where two parking attendants were sharing a cigarette. He handed a ticket to the nearest valet, who reappeared a moment later behind the wheel of his car, a white Honda Fit. “I can drop you off,” Ethan said, sliding into the driver’s seat. “Where are you staying?”

Opening the passenger’s side door, Maddy was about to reply when she saw a figure in a linen suit wandering
helplessly among the remaining guests. It was Griffin. Before she could slip out of sight, he noticed her, mouth falling open with surprise, and began to shuffle in her direction. “Maddy?”

She ducked into the car without a word. Closing the door, she gave Ethan the address of the share house, watching through the windshield as Griffin halted and stared. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

They drove off. Maddy looked over her shoulder as Griffin’s soft shape dwindled in the car’s taillights, then turned back around in her seat. As they went through the main entrance, leaving the endless hedge behind, she felt as if she had contrived a miraculous escape. Then she heard herself say something that she had not intended to speak aloud: “I don’t want to go back to the share house.”

Ethan guided the car onto Gin Lane. He did not look in her direction. “Why not?”

“Because it’s depressing.” Maddy tried to catch his eye. “You’re staying in town?”

“Not exactly. I found a room half an hour from here. If you want to stay with me—”

“I do. Otherwise, I’ll end up on the floor of a closet. I can’t handle that right now.”

As they passed along a row of streetlamps, Ethan’s face alternated between light and shadow. When he spoke again, his tone was neutral. “Okay. We’ll swing by the house to pick up your stuff.”

They drove in silence until they reached the share house. Although the driveway was still packed with cars, the windows were dark. Maddy slid out, saying that she would only be a moment, and ascended the front steps.
Going upstairs, she got her things, doing her best to ignore the muffled sound of intercourse in a nearby room, and was back in less than a minute.

For the rest of the ride, they said nothing. They drove for half an hour, midnight edging toward early morning, until they reached the inn, a sandstone cube north of the Montauk Highway.

Upstairs, the room had a bed, a sofa, and a desk with a laptop. Ethan’s suitcase was on the coverlet, his street clothes laid across the arms of a chair. “I can take the couch, if you want to give me your sleeping bag. You can have the bathroom first. Sorry I can’t be a better host—”

“That’s all right,” Maddy said. She went into the bathroom and closed the door. In the mirror, which gave back three walls of unforgiving whiteness, she saw a girl in an overpriced dress, now sweaty and rumpled. When she tried to recall what the point had been, she found that she couldn’t remember.

She changed into pajamas, brushed her teeth, and scrubbed the makeup from her face. When she emerged from the bathroom, her dress over one arm, she saw that Ethan had unrolled her mummy bag and was lying on the couch, half inside the cocoon, his shirt and tie removed.

Without reflecting too much on what she was doing, Maddy draped her dress over the back of the chair, went over to the couch, and straddled Ethan’s body, placing both hands on his chest. His eyes met hers, as if he were seeing her for the first time, and he smiled. The nylon of the sleeping bag was slippery between her thighs as she leaned down, her hair falling into his face, and kissed him.