The Icon Thief (32 page)

Lermontov studied the list. His face did not change. “And why would I do that?”

“To protect them,” Ethan said. “If their real names were known, they’d be exposing themselves to the same
risks as Archvadze. But there’s something else going on. One of your clients isn’t what he seems.”

Ethan saw a flicker of doubt pass across Lermontov’s eyes. If a name had occurred to him, however, the gallerist did his best to hide it. “I’m still not sure what you expect me to say.”

“Let me help you, then. The man I’m looking for is probably Russian. He’s wealthy, but the source of his income is unclear, and his tastes are selective and eccentric. At various points, he would have expressed interest in Duchamp and the Dadaists, especially those associated with Monte Verità. And he’s very interested in
Étant Donnés
.” Ethan looked across the desk at Lermontov. “I think you already know the man I have in mind. If you want to help Maddy, you’ll tell me.”

Lermontov put the list down. He seemed suddenly more frail than before. “What does Maddy think of all this?”

“She trusts you,” Ethan said. “She doesn’t believe that you would mislead her, even if you had a good reason for doing so. And she doesn’t need to know that the name came from you. If he appears anywhere else in the public record, I can say that I found him on my own.”

Lermontov was silent for a moment. Then, looking away, he said, “I do care about Maddy. You may have trouble understanding why. I thought that my silence would protect her, but—” He turned back to Ethan. “Perhaps I was wrong. Because I think I know the man you want.”

Ethan saw that a great effort lay behind each of the gallerist’s words. “Who is he?”

“A client. One with whom I have recently discussed
the sale of a certain painting.” Lermontov glanced uneasily at the velvet curtain. “See for yourself. It will be easier to explain if I show you.”

Ethan rose from his chair. As he went to the curtain, he found that his exhilaration had been touched with a strange sense of pity. For all his reassurances, he knew that it would be impossible to protect Lermontov entirely, so it was with a feeling of unexpected regret that he drew the curtain aside.

For a moment he looked, confused, at what had been revealed. There was no painting. The wall behind the curtain was blank.

Behind him, there was a short, sharp detonation, like the burst of a single firecracker. A handful of red pigment struck the wall at the level of his heart. Ethan regarded it with surprise, as if it were a hasty work of abstract expressionism. Then, looking down, he saw the ragged hole in his own chest.

He turned. Lermontov stood by the desk, a gun in his hand. Ethan tried to take a step forward, warmth gushing from between his fingers, then found that he was going to fall. Before he could hit the floor, Lermontov caught him in his arms, which were very strong, and lowered him to the ground.

Lermontov’s voice was soothing and calm. “Gently, now. Let yourself go. It will only be a moment like any other—”

Ethan stared up at Lermontov. The moments of his life, which had once seemed infinite, had dwindled to fewer than ten. He tried to speak around the blood in his throat, but no words came. He felt the countdown
continue, three seconds left, now two, and before he was ready, it was over.

Silence in the gallery. Lermontov waited until he was sure that Ethan was dead. Then he got to his feet.

There was blood on his hands. He shook out his pocket square and wiped them off.

Looking down at the body, he considered what to do next. One phone call would be enough to sink it into the river. Then he reflected that it might be possible to put it to better use.

He looked at the wall where the blood had splashed. At the height of the boy’s chest, near the center of the starburst, the bullet, which had passed cleanly through the body, had left a perfect hole.

Reaching out, he put his hand over the mark, thinking. Then he drew the curtain shut.

W
hen Maddy went to see Reynard later that morning, the fund manager was on the telephone, looking out his window at the city. “Yes, I understand,” he said into the receiver. “I’m well aware of the situation—”

He motioned for her to come in. As Maddy sat down, she saw that Reynard seemed tired and drawn. For a moment, she thought about leaving, but forced herself to remain where she was.

She had made up her mind last night, after speaking to Tanya, who had informed her that she was leaving the project. “My manager saw my notes,” Tanya had said over the phone. “When I told her what they were, she said it was a bad idea to get involved with your fund.”

“But that’s ridiculous,” Maddy had said. “I know we’ve been having problems—”

“I’m sorry, but that’s how it has to be. It could cost me my job.” Tanya had paused. “You see, Archvadze is a client of ours.”

“A client?” Maddy had tried to get her head around this. “What do you mean?”

But her friend had hung up without saying goodbye. The more Maddy thought about this conversation, the
more convinced she became that she and Ethan could no longer push forward on their own, which had given her the resolve that she needed to open up to Reynard now.

A moment later, Reynard hung up the phone, a strange expression on his face. Maddy thought that he looked like a man who was contemplating his own ruin. “Is everything all right?”

Reynard stirred, as if awakening from a private reverie. “Another investor pulling out. The two pension guys from last week, remember? They say that they can’t invest as long as our legal issues remain unresolved.”

Maddy sensed that there was something he was holding back, but didn’t know how to ask about this. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. We all knew there would be days like this.” He turned to her at last. “In any case, we’ll manage. What is it?”

“We need to talk,” Maddy said. “Ethan and I have been working on something of our own. We thought we’d hold off on telling you until we were ready, but I don’t think we can wait any longer.”

Reynard gave her a guarded nod, as if he had been expecting this. “I knew that you were working on your own project, but I didn’t know what it was. What is it? Some kind of trading model?”

“Not exactly.” Speaking slowly at first, then gradually picking up speed, Maddy described what they had uncovered, beginning with the hint to look into the Rosicrucians, although she did not mention Lermontov by name. Reynard listened patiently, breaking in with the occasional question. As she finished her account, Maddy said, “Even if some of the details are wrong, the overall picture is clear. And I still believe we can use it to track down the stolen painting.”

Reynard seemed to consider this for a moment. “But how much of it can you prove?”

“I don’t know. But I’ve noticed strange things in my own life. For one thing, I’m being followed.” She told him about the man she had seen on the street, along with what Powell had said. “It frightens me. If we’re right about this, these men would do anything to keep their existence a secret.”

Reynard frowned. “If you think that someone is following you, you need to go to the police. Not Powell. He isn’t interested in protecting you. I wish you’d told me about this earlier—”

“But there’s something else. You know that before I joined the fund, I worked for Alexey Lermontov, who helped me get an interview here. He’s the one who put us onto the Rosicrucians in the first place, but we’ve also been looking at his trade history, and we’ve found something unusual.”

She related what Ethan had found in the database. “At first, I didn’t want to believe it, but then I looked at the data myself. A few days ago, Lermontov showed me a painting that he claimed to have bought in Berlin. When I checked the transaction in our records, though, the seller’s name didn’t appear anywhere else. And it isn’t the only one. There’s no record of these collectors. They don’t exist.”

As he listened, Reynard seemed to grow increasingly disturbed. Rising from his chair, he went to the window. After a pause, he said, “Older records are inherently unreliable. Private sales, in particular, may go unrecorded for years. We looked into all this when we first put the database together—”

“But you wouldn’t have been looking for systematic
fraud, at least not on this scale. It’s so vast that it’s invisible. And this could just be the beginning. Our database and trading models could be fundamentally flawed.”

Reynard glanced at the clock. Forty minutes had passed since Maddy had entered his office. “Look, I’ve got a conference call soon, so I can’t give this the attention that it deserves. But I want to propose an alternative explanation for what you’ve found. If nothing else, if there’s a simpler theory that fits all the facts, it deserves our consideration, too. Do you agree?”

Maddy nodded, although part of her resisted the possibility of another interpretation. “Go ahead.”

Reynard sat down. “First of all, I know something about the history of art. There’s no evidence that Lenin met any of the Dadaists. He lived near the Cabaret Voltaire, yes, but no one knows if they ever crossed paths.”

“Tzara said that he played chess with Lenin,” Maddy said. “After the war, he—”

“—would have had good reason to make that claim,” Reynard interrupted. “You see the problem? Artists love to seem colorful. Tzara could say that he’d played chess with Lenin because there was no way to prove otherwise. Crowley is another example. He was a fabulist. A mythmaker. And even if he really was an intelligence agent, it doesn’t prove anything. Men involved with the occult are often drawn to spycraft. They love codes and secret handshakes.”

“But what about John Quinn?” Maddy asked. “He was an intelligence paymaster who gave money to both Duchamp and Crowley.”

“Maybe he was just what he appeared to be, a patron of the arts who cultivated interesting friends. So far, you’ve shown that there are connections between artists,
occultists, and spies, but that isn’t surprising. They’re all forms of nonconformism, so they tend to draw from a common pool of dreamers.”

Maddy felt her convictions melting away. “So you think I’m paranoid. Is that it?”

“No,” Reynard said. “But I think you’ve fallen victim to a common mistake. You’re looking for patterns in a chaotic system. At worst, it leads to the cranks who see a Jewish or Bolshevik conspiracy behind every global crisis. Or analysts who try to explain every market movement in terms of oil prices or interest rates. I’ve been a trader for most of my life, and I can tell you that the market moves for reasons of its own. The same is true for history.”

“But what about the man who was following me?” Maddy asked. “Or the burglary?”

“Based on what you’ve told me, there’s no evidence that anyone but Ethan broke into your house. And the fact that someone is following you doesn’t mean that the Rosicrucians are involved. Someone stole a painting, and you saw the thief’s face. That’s enough of a connection. Have you tried to tell the police?”

Maddy shook her head. “I haven’t told anyone about this yet, except for Powell, and he doesn’t know about the larger pattern we’ve uncovered. I don’t think he’d believe me, anyway—”

“Tell you what,” Reynard said. “It’s the weekend. Go home. You need to deal with this stalker, which is the one thing we know is true. As for the rest—” He paused. “I’ll look into Lermontov. But we need to be careful. If we go public too soon, the press will destroy us. We’re staking our reputation on this. I can’t take that risk until I know exactly what it is that we’re saying.”

Maddy managed to nod. “I understand. I know I haven’t been making much sense.”

“It’s all right.” Reynard walked her to the office door, laying a hand on her shoulder. “If you see Ethan, tell him that after all is said and done, I still want him here. And that goes for you, too.”

“Thank you,” Maddy said weakly. Excusing herself, she fled down the hallway. She had been sure that Reynard would believe her argument at once, but instead, he had made her see how fragile it really was. For a moment, she felt that fragility take hold, threatening to break her completely, but when she reached more deeply into herself, she was able to find a reassuring core of coldness.

The real question was what to do next. For all her anger at Ethan, she still wanted to talk to him, but whenever she tried his phone, there was no answer. Powell might listen, but the story she had to tell him sounded absurd, even to her own ears. And then, perhaps, there was Lermontov—

Maddy entered her office and sank down into her chair. She was staring blankly at her desk, wondering what to do now, when she saw that a folded piece of paper had been left on her keyboard.

She picked it up. After her arrival that morning, she had gone directly to Reynard, so she had not seen this note before.

Feeling warm and cold at the same time, her stomach lifting inside of her, Maddy unfolded the page. Inside, there was a key, not hers, and a handwritten message. It was from Ethan.

Philadelphia
, it said. And below that, in smaller letters:
In case I never see you again.

“L
isten to me,” the caller on the other end of the line said, his voice rough and accented. “We need to meet.”

Powell, his desk buried in a snowdrift of arrest reports from last night’s raid, wedged the receiver of the phone between his shoulder and ear as he accepted a fresh file from a passing secretary. “Who is this?”

“We met at the mansion a week ago,” the caller said. “My name is Zakaria Kostava.”

Powell sat up in his chair. He signaled to Wolfe, who was seated nearby, going over a mass of legal documents and initialing the corner of each page. “I was hoping that you’d call me sooner—”

“I know. Things have not been easy.” Archvadze’s assistant paused. “I read about Natalia in the paper.”

“Yes, it’s unfortunate,” Powell said, careful not to say too much. He did not know if Kostava suspected that Natalia had implicated him as an accessory to her sister’s death. “We’re still trying to get the full story.”

“I can give you some of the information you need,” Kostava said. “I have nothing to hide. But I want to
make sure that Natalia will be treated well. Can you come to meet me today?”