The Icon (29 page)

Matthew fell asleep minutes after they finished, still making up for lost time. Ana waited a little while, watching his chest rise and fall, stroking his arm, and breathing in his scent. Her friend Edith insisted that you could forget about good looks, intelligence, and all the rest; attraction was about scent. Ana wondered if it wasn’t true. Then she crawled from the bed to her travel bag, digging out a box of Marlboros and a lighter. Sitting in the window seat, she pulled up the sash several inches, lit a cigarette, blew smoke into the breezy air and tried to set her mind in order.

What she really needed was a day or two alone, away from everyone, including Matthew, to think all this through. They had promised each other to let the icon go, yet details had nagged at her for days. The name in the diary, del Carros’ hints, his fear of her knowledge, which made him say more then he should. Eight years earlier, during another terrible illness of her grandfather’s, he had raged semiconsciously about being responsible for her father’s death. This was not a new thing, and she had tried to calm him, but he had been inconsolable. It was supposed to be me, he had insisted over and over. As if the death had not been random, but that someone was meant to die. She had chalked it up to guilt and the delusions of fever, but like these later details, it had stayed with her.

What to do about it? She could try to set up another meeting with del Carros, but that would be madness, and he would surely never go for it. She could leave it alone and hope that he would be caught, that the truth would come out some other way. Was she prepared for whatever the truth might be? Would it be better if he just vanished again, if it all remained a mystery?

“What are you doing?” Matthew spoke from the bed. His voice was more alert than she would have expected.

“Oh, just making myself crazy.”

“You’re supposed to leave that to me.”

“I was crazy long before I met you, sweetheart.”

“Why don’t you come back over here?”

Why not, indeed? Yet she sat there several moments longer, finishing the cigarette, wondering now about Matthew and herself, and if whatever was between them could survive beyond the elevated emotions of the current crisis. Would they still care for each other when all the excitement was over, when dull, hum-drum daily life returned? When the icon was well and truly put to rest? Was she really so eager to know? Better to enjoy it while it lasted. She stubbed the butt out on the exterior sill, closed the window, then rose and went to him.

T
he hospital in Queens was not as impressive as the one in Manhattan. Older, dingier, even less well organized, if that was possible. Andreas rode up to the eighth floor in an elevator that vibrated alarmingly underfoot. The tired Jamaican nurse beside him took no notice of it.

His thinking had become confused once more. Morrison’s news echoed in his mind, testing his will. It was easy to tell himself that nothing had changed, that this visit was simply a last convulsion, a necessary act for purging his conscience and satisfying his curiosity. Easy to tell himself, but hard to believe. The important thing was not to involve Benny and Matthew any further. That much he was determined upon.

The gray-green corridor was suffused with the universal smell of institutional sickness. Stale air, urine, cleaning fluid; the memory-scent of a hundred visits to men now dead. Andreas found the room easily enough. There had been a police guard for the first few days, he’d heard, but since the patient had become well enough to question, that had been dispensed with. It was his information they had been protecting, not this life. Nicholas looked up at him as he entered, face thin and pale, dark eyes wide with concern. Andreas understood that the wounded man might still not know what exactly had happened, and that his visit could hardly be welcome.

“Peace, Nicky,” he said in Russian, taking a chair by the bed. The other man shifted under the white sheets, but the IV in his left arm limited his motion. Thick bandaging on his chest was visible beneath the flimsy blue hospital gown. Someone had placed a vase of yellow tulips on the rolling table beside him. A screen pulled halfway across the room separated his bed from the one by the window, where another patient watched a game show on television. Nicholas nodded, but spoke no reply.

“I’m here on my own.” Andreas reverted to English. “I wanted to see how you were doing.”

“I’m alive.” His voice barely above a whisper.

“Yes. My grandson had a hand in that.” Nicholas looked at him blankly. “Matthew. He went to see his godfather that morning, and he found you instead, bleeding on the floor. He held a towel against your wound until the ambulance arrived. Has no one told you?”

“The police asked questions. They didn’t tell me much.”

“No one has visited? No one from Fotis’ operation has checked up on you?”

“Phillip, you know, who runs the restaurant. He’s the only one.”

“Did he bring the flowers?”

“No.” Nicholas smiled just a little. “My girlfriend.”

“Good. I’m happy you are not alone.”

“She’s working now. She’ll come by soon.”

“I won’t stay long.”

Nicholas cleared his throat and shifted again, obviously still in some pain.

“I didn’t know that about Matthew, what he did. I’m grateful.”

“He’s in trouble. Matthew is, with the police. They think he might have had something to do with the robbery.”

“Has he been arrested?”

“No. They have nothing to hold him on. With Fotis gone, though, they may become frustrated and decide that someone else must take the fall.”

“I don’t understand. They’ve already arrested Anton and Karov. My girlfriend told me. Why are they looking for anyone else?”

“Come now, Nicky, we both know there was more to it than that. And the police know it also. Fotis put Karov up to it. They were all in it together, Anton, Karov, Dragoumis. Everyone but you. You were left to take the bullet.”

Nicholas made a sour face and grabbed a fistful of sheet with his right hand.

“Everyone, eh? Why not your grandson, too? Why not you?”

Andreas nodded diplomatically.

“I don’t blame you for suspecting me. You know very well that Fotis and I are at odds. Maybe you think I have some plan. But surely you know better than to suspect Matthew.”

“I don’t know anything. How can I know anything lying here?”

“Do you know who shot you?”

“They were wearing masks. I couldn’t tell.”

“Bravosou!”
Andreas laughed derisively. “They try to kill you, and you are still keeping their secrets. That is what you were trained to do, yes? Keep secrets. You’re a good soldier, Nicky. They will say that about you when you’re dead. He was a good soldier, a useful tool. He kept the secrets.”

“Go to hell.”

“At least you’ll have the woman to mourn you.”

“What is any of it to you, anyway?”

“I told you. The boy.”

“Yes, well, your boy was with Dragoumis all the damn time, talking about that icon. So maybe the police are right. Maybe I should tell them so.”

Andreas leaned forward and made his voice quiet. “Fotis used the boy. As he used you, as he has used me a dozen times. It is what he does. You know this. The time is long passed for defending him, you must look to yourself. They have all betrayed you. You are the only friend you have left, unless you choose to trust me, even a little.”

“You think I’m a fool? I
am
looking out for myself. I don’t care about protecting them, I want to stay alive, that’s all.”

“But your silence is no protection. You did nothing wrong, and they tried to kill you anyway. Now they are on the run. Dragoumis is in hiding. Karov is in custody, and his operation is shut down.”

“Someone will replace him. You don’t know how it works in my neighborhood. If I testify against any of them I won’t be forgiven.”

“I wonder if you are right. Karov has plea-bargained, there is no testimony necessary. And I don’t think anyone would blame you about Anton, after he shot you. But let that go. I’m not asking you to testify against anyone.”

“What, then?”

“Very simple. I want to know what Fotis was up to before you put him on the airplane that morning. Anything you can tell me. You see, not a dangerous question.”

“Talking to you at all may be dangerous.”

“Well, it’s too late to protect against that. It was you who drove him to the airport, yes?”

Nicholas considered him carefully.

“Yes. I drove him everywhere. Anton is a terrible driver.”

“Early in the morning.”

“Before early. It was a seven-thirty flight, we left at four. I’ve told the police this.”

“I’m not with the police, Nicky. Why so early? It’s twenty minutes to Kennedy at that hour.”

“He likes to be early for things.”

“Did he have a lot of luggage? Anything bulky?”

“No, just a small bag and a suitcase.”

Andreas paused, looked carefully at the younger man’s face. Circle back.

“Why so early?”

“I told you.”

“You went somewhere else first. You made another stop before the airport.”

The Russian grew more agitated. Because he could not lie with ease, Nicholas could only choose between withholding information or speaking truth, and he clearly did not like his choices.

“We went into the city first. Into Manhattan.”

“Why did you go there?”

“He has a few apartments. People stay sometimes, or he does business there with people who won’t come to Queens. We stopped by one of those. He needed to drop off something.”

“What?”

“A painting he sold. A big abstract. I helped him wrap it the night before. He was leaving it in the apartment for the buyer to pick up.”

“How big?”

“I don’t know. Big enough to break my back getting it up those stairs. Maybe four or five feet square.”

“And you were with him the whole time? In the apartment?”

“No, he had to make some calls or something, I don’t remember. I went back to the car.”

“I see. Now tell me, where is this apartment?”

As the old man had anticipated, this was the question Nicholas balked at. He did not outright refuse to answer but simply stayed quiet a long time, glancing at the door. Andreas knew that the moment the nurse arrived, or the girlfriend, that would be the end of the conversation.

“Nicky. Matthew wants the icon returned to Greece, to the church. That is all he has been working for. All I want is to help him. He has done you a kindness. These others have left you to die, you owe them nothing. Your silence benefits you nothing. You could be of great help to us. You could do a service to the church. Which will you choose?”

“Damn you,” whispered the wounded man. “You talk like Dragoumis. I don’t believe either of you. For the boy, for Matthew, I will tell you. Twenty-eighth Street, near Third Avenue. The gray building one in from the northwest corner. I don’t remember the number. The third floor, in back.”

“Thank you.”

“Please leave now, Mr. Spyridis. I don’t want you here when the girl comes.”

“Of course. Did you tell the police about the apartment?”

“No.”

“I wonder why not?”

“I don’t know. Something in my head said don’t talk about it.”

“I am grateful, Nicky, and I will keep your trust. Be well, my boy.”

“We should not even be here. We should have left the country yesterday.”

Van Meer’s voice carried the calm, lazy tone he always affected, as if nothing really mattered to him, but the fact that he had repeated the thought twice in the last twenty-four hours underscored his disapproval. Del Carros had no real fear of Jan’s backing out, yet some attempt to mollify him must be made, to ease the younger man’s professional conscience. Jan thought of himself as someone who did things by the book, but del Carros knew him better. The Dutchman throve on chaos, ever since his violent youth in Amsterdam. The professional polish had come later, and it was a thin coat.

“There is no immediate danger.”

“You cannot know that,” Jan insisted, scanning the street through the windshield. “You don’t know their resources. And there is the police to consider as well.”

“They will be looking for del Carros. They will not find me under that name.”

“It was unwise meeting the woman.”

“We’ve discussed that.”

He would be damned if he would take a scolding from Van Meer, but he had also come to feel that the business with the woman had been handled poorly. She knew some things, yes, but not where the icon was, so what the hell did the rest matter? He kept making mistakes with that family, letting his rage at the dead old man who had robbed him cloud his thinking. He had done the same thing with the son, Richard, the girl’s father, when he had come to Caracas in his father’s place. The banker had a good eye and saw right through the scheme: he knew that the icon they offered him was a fake, that the one on his father’s wall was, in fact, genuine. Del Carros had not really intended to fool anyone in the end, wanting only to get the elder Kessler in his clutches. His son replacing him spoiled that, and the conditions set on the meeting made hostage-taking impossible.

In frustration, del Carros had done the same thing then that he had done all these years later with the daughter. Taunt the banker, insult his father, drop hints about the work, failing to either anger him or draw him out; giving him, instead, the knowledge to piece together things that he should never know. After the meeting, del Carros panicked and called in a large favor. At the time it had felt necessary—the banker knew too much—but del Carros could not lie to himself now as he did then. He had, at that moment, temporarily lost hope of getting the icon, and the action was intended solely to punish the elder Kessler. An act of pure cruelty. Bad enough to have wasted life and energy that way. To repeat the same mistakes with the girl two decades later was unforgivable.

“We’ve discussed it twice,” he said again. “She requested the meeting. I could not rule out her knowing something useful.”

“Spear is the key,” Jan insisted. “He is the one who is close to Dragoumis.”

“So where is he?”

“Did you expect me to get on the train and follow them? The woman knows my face, and there is no escape off a train. That’s why I followed this one instead.” He nodded his head at the hotel down the block.

“And you are certain he did not spot you? He is good, you know.”

“If he’s that good, then I can’t be certain. But I do not think he did.”

“And he went out this morning?”

“Yes, for a few hours.”

“Why didn’t you follow him?”

“I was waiting for you to arrive, as agreed.”

“But he is in there now?”

“Unless there is a way into the alley from the kitchen.”

“There may be.”

Jan showed him the most condescending smile possible.

“You would have me be everywhere at once? Perhaps you should overcome your cheapness and hire more men. Or otherwise trust to reason. He has used the main entrance every time. You worry too much about the wrong things.”

With great difficulty, del Carros held his tongue. It was completely unacceptable that he should be spoken to like this, but Jan ignored the niceties of the employer-employee relationship. And the old man could not rule out that his own anxiety was getting the better of him.

“Let’s hope you are correct. He is the last thread we have to follow.”

Paranoia was a common condition for anyone who had been in the game too long, and Andreas was not immune. The man who stepped out of the double-parked vehicle fifty yards behind the spot where Andreas left the taxi may have been nobody. However, paranoia could also save a man’s life, and so the old Greek passed by the doorway he’d meant to enter, and continued around the corner to Third Avenue.

An odd neighborhood. Indian restaurants, cheap diners, at least one obvious welfare hotel. Neither a good nor a bad part of town, but a passing-through kind of place—a good neighborhood to hide in. Andreas crossed the avenue suddenly and glanced behind as he looked south for traffic. The man from the car had also turned north on Third, but he continued on his way without looking back.

Andreas went down Twenty-ninth Street to Second Avenue as the light grew lower and paler, wasting time, but wanting to be certain. The fact that he was more vulnerable than usual—no Benny and no gun—fed his suspicion. The best thing would be to return to his hotel, but time seemed precious, and he had come all the way down here. He didn’t want to be defeated by irrational fear.
Find it,
Alekos had commanded him,
get it out of Matthew’s life.
Turning on Twenty-seventh Street, he headed back to Third, walked the block north, and crossed Twenty-eighth to the gray building he’d passed earlier. The double-parked car was gone. Andreas had still not made up his mind on a course of action when a man emerged from the building in question: squat, heavily whiskered, and sucking hard on a cigarette. When he tossed the butt aside and began shoving the plastic trash barrels into line, Andreas took it as a sign, and knew he had his man.