The Icon Thief (40 page)

“Sharkovsky, you mean? He’s in federal custody. You don’t need to worry about him. The man who saved your life incapacitated him before he escaped. He returned the painting, too. We’re not sure why. As far as we can tell, it’s undamaged. Unlike the installation.”

The memory of the man at the installation reminded her of why she had broken into it in the first place. “You need to listen to me,” Maddy said, trying to express her thoughts in a manner that would not seem insane. “I’m not safe here. They’re going to come after me. The Rosicrucians—”

“They don’t exist,” Powell said gently. “At least not in the way you believed. There was a conspiracy, yes, but nothing occult was involved, only secrecy and greed. Lermontov and Reynard were trafficking in stolen art. When Ethan found out, Lermontov killed him. I’m sorry.”

Maddy looked down at the rumpled bedsheet. When she searched herself for anger or shock, she found that she had been hollowed out, leaving only an armature behind. “Tell me what happened.”

As she lay back, feeling the pillow press against the nape of her neck, Powell told her what he knew. When he was done, Maddy stared up at the acoustic tiles of the ceiling. “What about Reynard?”

“He cut a deal,” Powell said. “Immunity in exchange for his testimony. We’re keeping him in protective custody until we figure out what to do with him. Lermontov is missing. We don’t know if he’ll come after you, but you need to be careful. And if I were you, I’d start looking for another job.”

Maddy managed to smile at this, but then, to her astonishment, the room around her dissolved, and she began to cry. When she turned back to Powell, she saw that he was holding out a tissue. Accepting it, she blew her nose. “Tell me about the oligarch. What was he really doing?”

“I suppose you deserve an explanation.” Powell picked up his book again, toying with the dust jacket. “Archvadze spent much of his life trying to undermine Russian policy in Georgia. Lately, he’d stepped up his activities in response to the unrest in South Ossetia. A year ago, he learned that state intelligence, with the help of the mob, was financing its activities with stolen art, and resolved to turn this knowledge into a weapon. After determining that the art was moving through one particular gallery, he began using intermediaries to buy paintings from Lermontov. He accumulated an impressive array of evidence, but what he needed was tangible proof.”

Drying her eyes, Maddy remembered the bad paintings on the oligarch’s walls, and realized that they had been deliberate distractions. “And he thought that this painting was the proof he needed?”

“He made sure of it. One of his contacts told him that a particularly valuable work from the Rosenberg collection would be smuggled out soon. Normally, all traces of the painting’s source and provenance would have been erased, but his contact arranged for the marks to be covered up instead. Archvadze planned to let Lermontov take delivery, then buy it on the other end, giving him an airtight case. But he made a mistake. He arranged to meet the courier in Budapest to verify that the marks were still there, but someone tipped off the mob first. The courier was killed and the painting vanished, until it reappeared at auction.”

All at once, Maddy understood. “Lermontov told Reynard to bid on the painting.”

“That’s right. That night, he was watching from the skybox. Afterward, Reynard was going to give the painting to Lermontov, who would erase the provenance marks and return it to the fund. Reynard wasn’t aware of the painting’s true significance, at least not then. Archvadze, of course, knew exactly what it was, so he sent Kostava, his assistant, to bid on his behalf. What he didn’t know was that the mob had once crossed paths with the very man he sent to the auction. And as soon as the bidder’s face appeared in the press, the
mafiya
knew where the painting was.”

“But if they knew this already, why did Reynard ask me to track down the buyer?”

“He wasn’t told the buyer’s name until afterward.
Once he found out who it was, he couldn’t cancel the assignment without arousing suspicion. Later, when he found out that you had been at the party, he was afraid that you were there to tip off Archvadze. That’s why you were put under surveillance.”

“What about Lermontov? Why did he spin that story about the Rosicrucians?”

“He took a professional interest in secret societies. The secret of the Rosicrucians is that there
is
no secret. Power lies in the act of secrecy itself. In a sense, then, every intelligence agent is a Rosicrucian. Lermontov was a student of history, and he had thought deeply about his predecessors. When you came to him, he used the Rosicrucians to put you on the wrong track, knowing that it would only take you in circles. In the end, though, your paranoia led you to the truth. This was his fault as well. Did you touch anything at the mansion?”

The question took her by surprise. “A cell phone. We looked at the list of contacts.”

“You both touched it?” Powell seemed satisfied by this. “I thought as much. You see, Archvadze was killed by a binary poison. One of the substances was sprayed on the target directly. The other was brushed on his phone.”

Maddy remembered how Ethan had plucked the phone out of her hand. “What did it do to us?”

“From what I understand, paranoia is a known side effect of certain drugs that can cause toxic epidermal necrolysis. When you were exposed to half the weapon, you didn’t develop the disease, but you did suffer psychological consequences. Paranoia, fixation, obsessive behavior. And because you were better at processing information than any sane person has a right to be, the
paranoia that fed your delusions also allowed you to discover something real.”

Maddy weighed this in silence. If she had resisted the temptation to look at the phone, she thought, Ethan might still be alive. “But I broke into the installation. I smashed the glass and tore it apart. I destroyed a masterpiece because I thought something was inside. Don’t tell me that this wasn’t insane—”

“Christ, I almost forgot to tell you.” Powell withdrew a plastic bag from his pocket. “There was something there after all. The paramedics found it in the gurney. It looks like it was clutched in your fist.”

He gave her the bag, which contained something tan and conical. She unsealed it and tipped it over the palm of her hand, allowing the small but heavy object to fall out. It was a chess pawn.

“You must have found it inside the dummy,” Powell said. “As far as I know, the museum doesn’t know about it yet. According to the book I’ve been reading, though, it looks like part of a chess set that Duchamp made for himself when he was living in Buenos Aires.”

Maddy listened, but did not look away from the pawn. “So what does it mean?”

“Damned if I know. Duchamp was interested in chess, wasn’t he? Well, I don’t know much about chess, but I do know that a pawn that makes it all the way across the board becomes a queen.”

Powell glanced at his watch. “I should probably give my father a call. And I’ll let the doctor know you’re awake. Be careful with that pawn. Who knows? It might even be worth something.”

Maddy did not reply. As Powell left the room, she
kept her eyes on the pawn, which lay curled up in her hand like a chrysalis.

A sentence entered her mind without warning. Duchamp, in his will, had requested that no funeral be held after his death. He had been cremated, his ashes buried alongside those of his brothers, and his epitaph, which he had written himself, had been inscribed on a flat headstone. As she remembered it now, Maddy closed her hand over the pawn and squeezed it tightly:

D
’AILLEURS, C’EST TOUJOURS LES AUTRES QUI MEURENT
.

B
ESIDES, IT’S ALWAYS THE OTHER ONES WHO DIE
.

E
PILOGUE

T
he murdered man lay dead in his bath, the water tinged with blood, the abrupt gash of a knife visible below his collarbone. On the floor lay the knife itself, next to his dangling hand, in which a quill pen was grasped. His other hand clutched a letter, a bloody thumbprint staining the page.

“You know the story?” Lermontov asked. “He was in the bath, reading the note from Corday, when she stabbed him with the kitchen knife. He died at once, slumping over as you see him here, pen in one hand, letter in the other. But look. There is a bloody fingerprint on the page, but the hand with the letter is clean. So where did the fingerprint come from?”

Vasylenko studied the painting, which was on loan from the Royal Museum in Brussels. “When he raises his hand to defend himself, he gets blood on the note. Then, as he dies, his grip changes.”

“But if that were true, wouldn’t the note be spattered with blood? And wouldn’t his fingers be bloody? No. The truth is altogether different. The prints belong to Charlotte Corday. She stabbed Marat, then put the letter in his hand, so that everyone else would see it.”

They regarded the painting for another moment, waiting for the onlookers to disperse. Once they were alone, Vasylenko spoke in a low voice, his eyes still on the canvas. “It will be a few days. A week at most.”

“You’ve told me that before,” Lermontov said. “I’ve been waiting for a long time.”

“I know. It has been a difficult year. But final preparations are under way. We’ll be in touch with you soon.” Detaching himself from the crowd, Vasylenko turned and disappeared into an adjoining gallery. Lermontov lingered for a minute longer, then left the museum as well.

His car was parked a block away. On the backseat, a newspaper had been turned to an article about a Sotheby’s auction that had generated less than half of its presale estimate. As his driver pulled into the street, Lermontov glanced at the headline. It had been a good time to get out of the art game. He almost felt sorry for Reynard, who had thought himself so clever by cutting his little deal, when he would have been better off liquidating the fund then and there.

Tossing the paper aside, he looked out the window. With each passing day, London felt more like Reykjavik. Vasylenko’s face, which seemed to grow more careworn whenever Lermontov saw it, told the whole dismal story. Russia, for its part, was having problems of its own, which had delayed his return. In the meantime, he had been obliged to occupy himself as best as he could.

They arrived at his rented home, an elegant deconversion
in Fulham. The car pulled up to the curb, dropping off its solitary passenger, then drove around to the coach house at the rear. Lermontov mounted the steps, his head lowered against the damp, passing between the alabaster lions. Then he paused.

On the door of the house, at the level of his eyes, had been painted a single red cross.

He turned around at once. A row of gray houses stood across the road, their windows vacant and dead. He stood there for a long moment, warily scanning the deserted street, then unlocked the door and went inside.

Entering the foyer, he closed the door quietly. In the darkness, he could make out the outlines of the sitting room, which was nearly bare. On his arrival, he had not anticipated how long he would be stranded here, so he had not bothered to furnish the house in the style to which he was accustomed.

Pulling aside a leather curtain, he passed into the drawing room, going immediately to an unusual frame that was hanging from one of the walls. It was a double frame with a sliding panel, now closed, made of burnished pine. Inserting his fingers into a hidden recess, he drew the panel open.

Before he could properly regard the canvas on the other side, something made him turn sharply around. A man was seated in the shadows at the far end of the room, a gun in one gloved hand.

“Hello, Lermontov,” Ilya said softly. He held up the revolver. “You recognize it?”

Lermontov said nothing. There was a pistol in the drawer of his desk. Before he could move, however, Ilya switched on the lamp beside him, revealing the end table next to the
armchair. On the table, in the opalescent circle cast by the lamp, lay the pistol, wrapped in a white handkerchief.

Lowering his hands to his sides, Lermontov took in the Scythian. He was thinner than in his most recent photos, his face pale and tense. The hand that held the gun was steady, however, and when Lermontov searched for signs of weakness, he saw none. “How did you find me?”

Ilya gestured toward the painting on the wall. “
The Origin of the World
. It was the only painting that you took with you, and we both know that it has always been displayed behind a panel or screen. When I heard that a double frame of the proper dimensions had been commissioned from the House of Heydenryk, it wasn’t hard to determine where you were.”

Lermontov almost smiled at this. “Affectations can be dangerous. And Vasylenko?”

“They’re raiding his club now. He’ll be tried and convicted, as he should be.” Ilya’s tone was detached, as if he were describing an event that had nothing to do with either of them. “Such a man doesn’t deserve a
vor
’s death. That’s why I’m content to leave him to the police.”

Ilya leveled his gun at Lermontov. “But your case is different. Relations with Russia are delicate these days. A trial would be an embarrassment for all concerned, so it’s likely that a deal will be made. You’re still a useful man to the Chekists. There’s plenty of art in their coffers that could finance their activities, given your expertise. The cycle of murder will continue. And that’s something I can’t allow.”

There was a long pause. Lermontov saw that the man in the shadows showed no sign of wavering. At last, he
sighed. “I see. You’re right, of course. There’s no other way.” He indicated the room around them. “Here?”

In response, Ilya only stood. Lermontov turned to face the wall, then lowered himself slowly to his knees, his eye on the painting. His pulse was steady. Behind him, he heard footsteps as Ilya came closer.

“The double frame,” Lermontov said abruptly. “That wasn’t your own idea, was it?”