A Beautiful Crime

by Christopher Bollen

  They walked east through the serpentine streets toward the tip of Dorsoduro. Nick flowed along happily in the human current, battered lightly by shoulders and shopping bags. Soon they were passing the entrance of the Peggy Guggenheim along an algae-green canal—“Great museum if you get a chance, Nick,” West said casually, “the director’s a friend.” The second surprise took them down a tight, winding corridor with an altar to Mary recessed into the wall. They emerged onto a dock in the tangerine sunlight of the Grand Canal. Eva hurried onto a large, unadorned canoe, while West dropped coins in the boat attendant’s hand. Nick stepped carefully onto the black, flat-bottomed vessel and took a seat next to Eva on one of the wood benches.

  “A gondola?” he asked, trying to mask his excitement. He knew gondola rides were considered embarrassingly touristy, but that hadn’t stifled his hopes of taking one during his stay.

  “Traghetto,” Battista corrected as he took a seat on the opposite bench.

  “These little boats are the last deals in town,” West said, joining his assistant. “One euro per person. In ten years they’ll either be extinct or cost twenty euros for a ride. This one will get us to San Marco in a jiffy.”

  The traghetto cast out. The rower stood at the bow, his oar stirring the stained-glass waves. All of Venice rocked and swayed as they drifted into the iconic waterway. It was Nick’s first Venetian boat ride, if he didn’t count the disaster of the shared motoscafo on his arrival—and he didn’t. He jostled around to absorb as much of the scene as he could, ignoring the rap music escaping from the rower’s earphones. It was only Battista’s gaze, taking note of the too-excitable midwesterner, that goaded him into playing it cool. Battista’s backpack rested between his legs with the black cardboard tube leaning against his inner thigh. The backpack’s front pocket was decorated with a metal pin of the maroon-and-gold Venetian flag. The words RESIDENTE RESISTENTE were inscribed in a diagonal slash across it. Nick had to sound out each syllable in his head in order to guess at the translation: “Resistant Resident.” He looked up at Battista, his resistant Venetian crush, and tried smiling at him. After a few unrequited seconds, he gave up.

  Eva must have clocked Nick’s attempt at flirtation because she grinned deviously and asked, “Nick, do you have a boyfriend?”

  “Yes,” Nick replied automatically, before realizing the danger of the topic. “I mean, I did until recently, in New York. We broke up.”

  Eva turned to Battista to ask the same question. “What about—” But he glared back at her to shut down that line of inquiry. No doubt he didn’t want to discuss his love life in front of his boss.

  “The gondoliers have grown accustomed to making a fortune!” West said loudly as if over a nonexistent boat engine. “They’ve gotten too comfortable with the tourist money, and that means they won’t be allies when it comes to implementing measures to protect Venice. Eva, did I tell you that Francisco took his entire family to the Seychelles last Christmas? How on earth are we going to convince gondoliers like Francisco to return to a sensible yearly income?”

  Nick let the conversation drift on without him. The sloshy wake of a passing barge transformed their boat into a bucking bull. After the waves settled, Nick’s eyes returned to the palazzi, one the color of a waterlogged tea bag, the next of peach sherbet. Nick didn’t want the traghetti to go extinct in ten years. They seemed necessary to the world’s fragile cultural ecosystem, and thus it was essential to save them, the way northern white rhinos in Kenya needed to be saved. Nick suddenly felt so grateful to have made it to Venice before the last of its magic died.

  He tapped West’s knee. “I’m glad you’re working to save this city,” he said. “I’m just now realizing how important your projects are.”

  “It’s the same as your work with silver,” West replied. “Making sure the gifts of history find the proper hands. We pass on the enchantments, one to the next, and hope that no one drops them.”

  The boat gently slipped into its dock, and they climbed out with an overzealous round of Grazie!! to the oarsman. The third surprise of the day involved crossing Piazza San Marco, where crowds rushed and shoved, marveled and threw tantrums and posed for pictures, in that giant tourist playpen. Piano music tinkled from outdoor caffès. Nick managed to keep with his group thanks to Battista’s poster tube, which served as a dependable mast over the visitor fray. They reached the water’s edge on the other side of the square. Seagulls flew on scalpel wings, and signs advertised express boat rides to Lido Beach. They headed toward the Palazzo Ducale, its facade a brick pixilation of white and pink diamonds. This next surprise required the retrieval of plastic VIP lanyards at the admission desk.

  Eva grew fidgety as they ascended the palace’s courtyard staircase. She tucked wisps of hair behind her ears, straightened her yellow cardigan, and adjusted the rolled silk scarf tied sailor-like around her neck. Finally she blurted to Nick, “We’re doing a tour of the conservation room! And do you know who arranged it? Vittorio!” When that name failed to induce a spark of recognition, she whispered, “The head of the Venetian nonprofit I’m dying to work for! Which means he might be here, which means I finally get to meet him. Be honest.” She stopped him on the stairs. “Do I look employable?”

  Nervous hives enflamed her chin, further reddened by persistent scratching. Nick assured her that he’d hire her on the spot but was relieved that his words couldn’t be put to the test. There was no sign of the elusive Vittorio in the stuffy back rooms of the conservation wing. Instead, the star figure was a solitary sixteenth-century warrior, pitch-black from centuries of gypsum and soot, which a blue-vested conservator was cleaning with a tiny laser pen. They huddled around the statue and watched, while Battista filmed the operation on his phone. The conservator removed a millimeter of crusted black residue on the warrior’s upper thigh as if erasing an unsightly college tattoo. Underneath lay the white scar tissue of Carrara marble. Eva machine-gunned dozens of questions at the conservator. Nick found himself envious of her interest. He had yet to find a calling of his own. Silver hadn’t been the answer. He kept waiting for something to reach out and lift him by his armpits and announce, I’m your passion. In the meantime, he had Clay.

  West did his best to console Eva on the way out. “Vittorio must have had a last-minute meeting,” he said. “Don’t be disappointed.”

  “Yeah,” she replied somberly. “I just feel like I’ll never get a chance here. It will be back to France to clean medieval tapestries.” Eva excused herself to look for a restroom. She seemed to need a minute alone.

  “It is time?” Battista asked as he touched his wrist.

  “Yes,” West said. “Go on. I don’t want you late for the appointment.” He nodded toward the cardboard tube. “And don’t forget to bring the plans back with you.”

  Battista tightened his shoulder straps and, without a goodbye, disappeared down the marble hall. West shook his head in annoyance. “I could strangle Vittorio for not showing up today. Now he’s avoiding Eva and me, because he knows I’m expecting him to find her a position.”

  “I’m sure once he meets her . . .”

  West balked. “It’s not so easy. Young conservators are a dime a dozen in Venice. Even with the strings I can pull!” Nick suspected that last detail was the most infuriating part for West. It must be galling to learn there were still people in the world who couldn’t be bribed or cajoled. He had clearly promised his niece a job that he couldn’t deliver. It hadn’t been a good week for West’s sense of entitlement. Over the phone last night, Clay had recounted his lie about owning all of Il Dormitorio and how wonderfully pissed off West looked at the news that his former assistant had become his neighbor.

  “Ridiculous! It’s too difficult to get anything to work here,” West muttered half to himself. “If I didn’t love Venice so much, I might actually enjoy watching it sink.”

  Eva caught up with them at the entrance, her face dripping from the water she’d splashed on it. “Time for a drink?” she asked mo
rosely. “I know I could use one.”

  “We can’t,” West said as he pointed at Nick. “I need this one’s judgment sharp for our next surprise.” He gave Nick a smile. “Are you ready for it?”

  Nick furrowed his forehead in a show of bewilderment, although he already knew the surprise that was coming. He’d been anticipating it since his late-night phone call with Clay and had been rehearsing his part all morning. Still, as he accompanied West and Eva along Strada Nuova toward their house in Cannaregio, he grew increasingly anxious. As West kept busy trying to lift his niece’s spirits—even resorting to the avuncular tactic of offering to buy her a gelato—Nick frantically recited antiquarian facts in his head.

  Nick barely remembered crossing the last two bridges. Before he knew it, the three of them were standing in the garden of Palazzo Contarini. As West unlocked the iron door, he teased Nick with a warning: “Right this way, last surprise ahead.” Then they were stomping up the dark staircase.

  Karine was sitting in the far corner of the living room on one of the chocolate divans. She wore black sunglasses and was reading a science magazine. She must have taken to the corner to escape the sharp daylight knifing through the windows. Her foot stroked the brass brain doorstop that had also migrated into the corner. “Hello gang,” she said to them. “Why, Nick, what a lovely jacket!”

  Before Nick could thank her for what was essentially a compliment on her own husband’s taste, West interrupted. “We’re going into my office,” he told her. “Why don’t you join us? Full warning: the results of what we find in there might set us back a bit. Don’t worry, your husband’s been investing wisely. We’ll make it back soon enough.”

  Nick was relieved when Karine shook her head. Eva was already one attentive witness too many, if her interrogation of the conservator at the Doge’s Palace had been any indication.

  “I’ll leave the past to you,” Karine said resolutely as she raised her magazine as if to squash a mosquito. “I’m investing in the future today.”

  “Suit yourself,” West grumbled. He clomped down his hall of photographs and disappeared behind the velvet curtain. Eva and Nick followed. Near the end of the hall, Eva stopped so abruptly that Nick knocked into her. She was pointing at the picture of her uncle with Freddy and Clay.

  “That’s the one,” Eva said, tapping her fingertip on Freddy’s face. “The silver belonged to his family.” Then she hovered her finger over Clay’s glum face. “And this is the kid they belong to now.” It was a struggle to resist telling Eva that this “kid” was a few years older than she was, spoke better Italian than she did, and had managed to land a first job in Venice without her uncle’s help.

  Eva leaned in to study the snapshot more carefully. Nick feigned curiosity and leaned in with her to examine the photo for a second time. Neither Freddy nor Clay looked especially thrilled to be stuck next to West. Freddy’s ridiculous rock-musician getup made it impossible to determine the season (the wardrobe of rock stars knows no season), so Nick studied his boyfriend for a clue. Wrinkled pink shirt with no jacket. White jeans. But when his eyes reached Clay’s shoes, he let out a slight gasp. His boyfriend wore a pair of black loafers, unexceptional but for the camera-flash-reflecting copper coin that had been wedged in the right shoe’s slot. Should Eva drop her eyes right now toward the floor, she’d find a pair of loafers worn by an impartial silver appraiser with a copper coin wedged in the right shoe.

  “Do you find him attractive?” Eva asked. “He’s Uncle Richard’s neighbor now. He inherited the van der Haar fortune. Can you imagine getting all of that at such a young age? I wonder if he did kill for it.”

  “Uncle Richard is waiting for us,” Nick said brusquely. Eva squinted over at him with a look of confusion. Surely the coin was too small of a detail to notice. Surely it could be chalked up to coincidence or a fashion trend or a secret, blinking indicator among young gay men the world over. Or could it? Nick’s hairline was stinging with sweat.

  “Do you see what he has on?” Eva exclaimed. “Are those eagle feathers on his sleeves?” She ran her finger down Freddy’s arms. “What a fucking nutjob he must have been, right? And then to leave your whole fortune—”

  Nick slipped past Eva and made a grab for the curtain. He blindly battled through the scrolls of tan velvet and resurfaced in West’s office. The recessed ceiling lights were turned to full, invasive-surgery wattage. The light felt accusatory, although West must have cranked it up for Nick’s benefit. Nick considered quickly plucking the coin from his shoe, but Eva was already right behind him.

  “Well, what do you think?” West asked with self-congratulations as he gestured toward the mahogany cupboard. Five silver antiques stood on the shelf. Karine’s evicted china was stacked clumsily on nearby book piles. Nick stepped forward and opened his mouth in a simulation of disbelief.

  “You did it!” he thundered. “How did you manage to get them so quickly? These are the van der Haar pieces? From next door?”

  West grinned as he crossed his arms. “Are you surprised? You wouldn’t believe the rings I had to jump through to get them. Juggling, high-wire walking—the whole show just to convince that kid to let me borrow them for a night. But here they are! I couldn’t let you leave Venice without taking a look.”

  Nick danced forward another few steps, as if so spiritually bonded with silver that he was irresistibly drawn to the element whenever it appeared in a room. At a distance of three feet, Ari would have been able to recognize the flaws that flagged them as phonies. Nick gave himself until the distance of two feet before he rendered his initial verdict. “Holy crap, they’re amazing!” He spun around, his fingers balled as if holding himself back from touching rare treasures. “Do you mind if I inspect them?”

  “Mind?” West hooted. “I’m not letting you out of this room until you do! That’s why I brought you here. I need to know if they’re legit. I don’t trust that kid next door. I swear he’d cheat his own mother. But if they truly are authentic, I need you to tell me how much they’re worth.” West pinched his niece’s forearm. “Thanks to Nick, we’re going to get the deal of a lifetime. I’m going to lowball the hell out of my new neighbor with a cash offer. We’re practically stealing them!”

  Eva glanced skeptically at her uncle. Nick liked Eva. He thought of her as a friend. He wished she would suffer a debilitating headache and leave the room.

  “Nick can determine all of that in one assessment?” she asked with her eyebrows drawn tight.

  Nick stared at her as he picked up the tankard. It was the very piece that Ari had used to show Nick the unmistakable signs of a forgery. He smiled widely at Eva as she stood in front of a mural depicting a scene of rape and pillaging. “Of course I can,” he said sweetly. “How do you think I make my living?”

  It was all in the handling.

  Ari Halfon had taught Nick the importance of a confident grip when examining antiques in front of clients. There was a bit of theater required in the role of expert. After all, an appraisal was, by definition, only an expert opinion; thus Ari knew the value in playing up that muscly adjective in order to protect its wimpy noun. “Don’t look scared to pick up a vessel,” he’d instructed. “It’s not a rabid skunk.”

  To Nick’s relief, for most of the appraisal, West and Eva watched from a respectful distance on the other side of the room, as if he were a country vet called in to deliver a breeching calf. They must have assumed that a considerable deal of silence and elbow room was required for concentration, and Nick took full advantage: tapping, sighing thoughtfully, flipping a vessel to check its base, running his fingers over chasings and engravings, examining a punch under direct light with an eyebrow cocked, followed by a subtle nod of reassurance. He poured his entire fourteen months’ apprenticeship at Wickston into his performance, channeling the movements, expressions, and delicate eye-and-hand choreography of Ari Halfon.

  The imitation came at a price. It wasn’t guilt. Nick had already made his peace with using the Wickston name for
their scheme. West had no intention of reselling these pieces on the market; Ari never visited Venice, so it was unlikely that they’d ever cross paths. More to the point, Nick wasn’t providing any official Wickston documentation for this consultation. All he was doing was dispensing unfriendly advice. No, the hurt came in acting like Ari, in copying his small, precise gestures: the clearing of his throat when he picked up a new vessel, his gentle returning of it to its shelf, the hooking of a finger around his shirt collar while lost in thought. Those were the sure reminders of the man Nick loved and missed. Love couldn’t have fixed them—if it had, Nick would still be in New York. The only thing that could have saved them was Nick’s ability to shrink into the mold of the man Ari wanted.

  After Nick finished his preliminary appraisal, he resurfaced in front of his audience with a protracted “Wow.”

  “Wow good?” West inquired. “They’re legit?”

  “I’ll say!” Nick replied, rapping his knuckles on the desk. “They’re definitely legitimate as far as I’m concerned. Beautiful specimens. They must have been with the van der Haars for centuries. It’s amazing they weren’t lost or divided up among twenty different branches of heirs.”

  “How can you tell they were in the family for centuries?” Eva asked.

  West pinched her elbow to hush her. “Sweetheart, they weren’t the kind of family to buy used. They were van der Haars.”

  Nick smiled and continued. “I’m not saying these pieces are the next Paul Revere ‘Sons of Liberty’ Bowl. They’re not going to break box-office attendance records in a museum, although they are museum grade.” Nick thought it best to underplay their historic significance. Nothing reeked of a con more than heralding a cataclysmic discovery. “But I can tell you they possess the hallmarks of some of the finest silversmiths of eighteenth-century New York. It’s a shame I don’t have my tools here, but I can walk you through some of the features appreciable to the naked eye.”