Which was, apparently, more than enough small talk. Even before ordering, Bruce had pulled out a file from his briefcase. He dressed as men did who didn’t think much about clothes, wearing a pair of black jeans and a light blue dress shirt with the folds visible from where it had been boxed after laundering; Cam guessed that, when needed, Bruce simply added a blue blazer to dress things up. “Like I said last night,” Bruce began, “I think the best way to deal with Gus is to figure out the mystery behind the Just Judges painting. He wants to get his hands on it, and he’s going after you as a way of putting pressure on me.” He laid out a glossy image. “This is the central panel from the Ghent Altarpiece, called the Adoration of the Lamb. To understand the Just Judges, we need to understand this, since the judges are riding in to view the ceremony being held here.”
“We’ve seen this,” Amanda said.
“Good. The imagery is pretty simple. The bleeding lamb in the center represents Jesus being sacrificed.” With a bandaged hand, he held up a book, Hubert and Jan van Eyck, by Elisabeth Dhanens. “This is the definitive work on van Eyck. She says the scene depicts All Saints’ Day. In fact, the full title of the panel is actually the Adoration of the Lamb by All Saints.”
“Wait,” Cam said. “Isn’t All Saints’ Day the same holiday as Halloween, or All Hallows’ Eve? One is on October 31 and the other November 1, but it’s the same thing, I think.”
Bruce nodded. “Yes. And it actually is the same day. That’s because All Saints’ Day, unlike every other Christian holiday, traditionally begins at sunset. So it begins as Halloween, the night before. Which is an important clue.” He pointed to the sun in the top middle of the painting, low to the horizon. “While most experts think this is a dawn scene, I think it is dusk, when the holiday is beginning.”
“Why is that important?”
“I’m getting there.” Bruce laid out two more high-resolution images. “Okay, back to the Just Judges panel. It’s the same landscape as the Adoration of the Lamb panel. These are blow-ups of the upper part of the painting, the landscape in the background. The black-and-white one on top is from a photograph taken of the original painting in the early 1900s, before it was stolen. The color one is from the replacement copy painted in the 1940s.”
“Why are you working from an old photograph if you have the original?” Cam asked.
Bruce looked him in the eye. “I don’t think it would be smart to be walking around with an image of a stolen masterpiece on my phone.”
“Fair enough.”
Bruce turned back to the images. “Let’s focus on the towers and spires in the background. Some experts think the towers depict the skyline of Jerusalem. But I don’t agree. Or, at least, I think there is a secondary meaning.”
“Go ahead,” Amanda said.
Bruce pointed at the images with the back end of a pen. “What’s interesting is that the towers in the background of the reproduction are different from the original.”
“Is that intentional?” Amanda asked.
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Shelby replied. “But we think so.” She smiled. “I’ve renamed the painting the Ghent Alterpiece, spelled with an ‘e,’ because the painting has been altered.”
Amanda and Cam both chuckled politely. Bruce showed a rare smile as he rolled his eyes. “You guys can see why I need your help.”
Amanda came to Shelby’s defense. “I think it’s quite witty. Who says lawyers don’t have a good sense of humor?”
Shelby grinned. “My clients, every time they get my firm’s bill.” She paused. “Anyway, take a look at these pictures and notice the tower changes.” She winked. “Or, as I call them, altarations.” She handed the images to Amanda.
After allowing Amanda and Cam a few seconds to examine them, Bruce again pointed at the images, clearing his throat in an effort to reset the conversation back to a serious tone. “The differences are subtle. Again, the original is on the left, the reproduction on the right. The cluster of buildings on the left side of the landscape is unchanged. But the tower on the right side has seven parapets in the original yet only six in the reproduction—you can see the seventh on the far right, in the background. And the middle tower has only five spires in the original but six in the reproduction—the middle spire in the front of the tower is missing. Here, you can see the differences better on these blowups.” He handed across four more pictures, with the extra spire and extra parapet marked with arrows.
Cam studied the images. “That’s pretty subtle.”
Amanda concurred. “What makes you think it’s significant?”
Bruce waited to respond while the waiter took their order. “I’ve studied every millimeter of the reproduction. Other than the face of one of the men on horseback, which was changed intentionally so that nobody would ever mistake the copy for the original, the two versions match exactly. The painter who did the reproduction, a guy named van der Veken, was meticulous. In fact, he earned his living making forgeries of famous art. I don’t think he would have made these changes accidentally.”
Cam leaned forward. “So why would he then? Why make a change that nobody would notice?”
Shelby answered. “If we work from the assumption that the painting is some kind of encoded map, then the changes could have been made to keep people off the trail. Perhaps the spires and parapets are some kind of numerical code—change them, and the code is undecipherable. That’s why Bruce is so focused on the dawn versus dusk question. If this is some kind of a map, we need to know which direction we are looking. The sun is setting, so the landscape would be on the western horizon.”
“My theory,” said Bruce, “is that this all goes back to Adolph Hitler. Van der Veken began his reproduction in 1939; the Nazis invaded Belgium in 1940. Remember, the original was stolen in 1934, some think under orders from Hitler, though Hitler never actually got his hands on it. It may have been that van der Veken, or whoever he was taking orders from, was worried Hitler would steal the reproduction like he tried to do with the original. So he made a subtle change to keep the Nazis from discovering whatever secret the painting hid.”
Cam considered this. Was that why the Mossad was involved? Did all this tie back somehow to Hitler? “And you think the original, the version here in the photograph, is the true map.”
Bruce sipped his orange juice. “It could be. I don’t know. That’s why I need you guys.” He gestured to the images, then slid them back into the folder and handed the folder to Cam as the waiter brought their food. “These copies are for you. My mind doesn’t work this way, all these symbols and allegories,” he said once the waiter had left.
Shelby stepped in. “What you guys found at Saint Bavo’s in just one day was amazing.” She shook her head. “All those Templar connections. Like you said, their fingerprints are all over that cathedral, and this painting in particular. You know how the Templars think, how they encode things in art and architecture. If anyone can decipher this, it’s the two of you.”
Cam poked at his food. He had gone for an extra-long run this morning as a way to vent his frustration over the heckler fiasco, but his stomach was still in knots. “Okay. We’ll take a look.” He put down his fork. “But we’ve never talked about one thing: What happens if we find, you know, it?” He didn’t want to use the words Holy Grail out loud in public.
Bruce blinked twice. “Honestly, I don’t know. I suppose that depends on what it really is.”
Cam wiped his mouth. “The reason I ask is, this could get messy. I mean, three of us are lawyers.” It was like the old joke: With three attorneys in a room, there were sure to be four opinions. “We should have some kind of agreement—”
Bruce cut him off. “I’ll make this easy. There are four of us. We each own a quarter.” He rested his eyes on Cam. “And you, Cam, get final say in case of any disagreements. Shelby vouches for you, and that’s good enough for me. I trust you to do the right thing. I’ll send you an email later confirming.”
“Fi
ne with me,” Shelby said. “Whatever we find, whatever it is. Sell it, study it, donate it to a museum, whatever. You decide.” She smiled and leaned in. “Just as long as the Holy Grail doesn’t end up stashed away in some government warehouse like in Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
Shelby and Bruce lingered over breakfast after Cam and Amanda left. “I like Amanda. We had a nice chat in the ladies’ room. She’s good for Cam.” Shelby put her hand over Bruce’s. “But it sucks that Cam got caught in the Gus net,” Shelby said.
Bruce nodded. “And you also. I’m going to handle it,” he said as he paid the bill.
“How?”
He angled his head. “Do you really want to know?”
She bit her lip. “Actually, no. But be careful.”
“First things first. I need to head to New York today.” He had driven his twelve-year-old Toyota Corolla to Concord for the breakfast. “I’ll drop you off at your office and then head back out.”
She knew better than to ask for details about his meeting. “Don’t bother, I can take the train in. You might as well get on the road.”
He took her hand. Almost thirty years they had been together, and he still had that gnawing, cold fear that someday—tired of his self-serving moral code and his anti-social behavior and his germophobia and his overall quirkiness—she would leave him. For someone, well, normal. No doubt a therapist, were Bruce willing to see one, would trace this insecurity back to his mother abandoning him at a young age. He shook the introspection away. “I have an idea. Cut out of work a little early and take the shuttle down tonight. I’ll pick you up at LaGuardia and we can see a show and grab dinner. Then I’ll drive back late.”
“That seems like a lot just for a show.”
But he could tell she liked the idea. And what was he going to spend his money on if not on Shelby? “Not really. It’s an easy flight. And this way I don’t have to do the drive back alone.”
She grinned. “Can we listen to show tunes the whole way home?”
“Do I have to sing?”
She nodded. “Yup.”
In his entire adult life, only Shelby had ever heard him sing. And ‘sing’ was probably not even the right word—a mumbling hum was more like it. But it made her happy. “Okay. But only because it will keep me awake during the drive.”
He dropped her at the commuter rail station. But before heading toward New York, he took a detour to Malden, a working-class suburb north of Boston. He pulled into a car wash along the Fellsway and, as instructed, entered the far right bay with his windshield wipers on. The track slid his car deeper into the bay, but before the water began to spray, the bay’s front and rear garage doors closed, echoing, sealing Bruce within. A hulking man in a dark suit pushed through a side door and approached. Bruce held his breath. This could go one of two ways; if it went wrong, there’d be nobody to pick up Shelby at LaGuardia tonight.
The sedan’s passenger door opened, and Bruce recognized the pock-marked face of Marco Salvatore. The man had aged since Bruce last saw him, but he still exuded a bull-like vigor. He dropped into the passenger seat with a heavy sigh, overflowing the space. “You wanted to see me.”
“Remember the marble bust of the king of Italy?”
His dark eyes narrowed. Bruce noticed flecks of dandruff on his shoulders. “The one stolen from my house? My wife and kids were home that day.”
Bruce nodded. “I know who took it.”
“You do, huh? And how is that?”
“Because it was me. Along with another guy.”
Salvatore breathed through his mouth. “You’re fucking crazy for telling me that. I could have you killed right here, right now, your blood and guts and brain matter washed clean down the drains.”
“I know.” Actually, Bruce doubted it would go that way. Salvatore, despite his appearance, was too savvy for that. He might take Bruce out, and violently so, but it would be done discretely so it couldn’t be tracked back to him. “But I figure you would want both guys. Me and my partner. So I’m going to give you him first, then hope it scores me some points with you later.”
Salvatore studied him. Even by organized crime standards it was, Bruce guessed, a unique proposal. “I’m listening.”
“My partner was a guy named Gus Cavanaugh.” Bruce handed him a slip of paper. “He’s just out of jail, living at this rooming house in Allston. Five-five, maybe 140 pounds. Glasses, red hair, usually wears one of those newsboy caps. He’ll try to blame me.”
“Just like you’re blaming him.”
Bruce nodded. “But I’m here, and he’s not. Like I said, I figure I’ll have to answer to you later myself.”
Salvatore pivoted in his seat, reached over and took Bruce’s chin in a meaty paw. He squeezed, forcing Bruce’s lips into a fish-face. “I’m not sure what kind of game you’re playing.”
Bruce forced the words out through the vice-like grip. “Same game everyone is playing. Survival.”
The phone call came in on Cam’s cell while Amanda drove home from breakfast. Cam knew that Astarte’s coach didn’t have much of a choice, that she was taking direction from above, probably the program coordinator. Cam was only surprised it took so long—the newspaper article had been out for over three hours now.
“I understand. I’ll stay away until this gets resolved.”
“Hopefully quickly. We love having Astarte on the team, and you and Amanda have been great also. But you know how the optics look on this.” She paused. “Even though, from what I saw, the guy was a complete jerk.”
Cam hung up. “Guess you’ll be driving Astarte to softball from now on.”
Her hands tightened on the wheel of her Subaru. “Let’s focus on what we can control.”
Cam had already emailed a friend who did criminal defense work. Shelby was a great attorney, but the entanglements between Bruce and Gus seemed potentially messy to Cam. He preferred an attorney who had no personal stake in any of this. “Okay. What do you think of the landscape alterations on the painting? Are they a clue?”
“Perhaps.” She chewed her lip. “But I’m not certain of it. Something’s not adding up. You know that old expression: Clues are generally questions, not answers.”
“I guess I’m more bullish on it than you are,” he said. “To me, it’s exactly like something the Templars would do.”
“Okay then. You should run with it. I’m going to follow up on the Order of Golden Fleece stuff. My instincts tell me it’s important.”
An hour after his meeting with the mob boss, his jaw still sore, Bruce approached the Connecticut border. He was still alive, which meant the meeting had been a success, and his heart had finally returned to a regular beat. He had wracked his brain, but reached the inescapable conclusion that this was his only possible play. He couldn’t leave Gus alive. But if he killed Gus, then Gus’ letter would be released to Salvatore and Salvatore would kill Bruce. This was the only way to neutralize both threats simultaneously—eliminate Gus and placate Salvatore. Assuming it worked.
Betraying Gus sucked. For a time in Bruce’s childhood, a lonely time, Gus had been Bruce’s only friend. Raised by an inattentive father and an indifferent stepmother, Bruce had learned at an early age that the one way to get his father’s attention was to succeed in games and sports. “Did you win?” his dad would ask. Not whether Bruce played well or had fun. Only if he won. So Bruce—tall and savvy and athletic—had learned to win. At all costs. He’d cheat, he’d bully, he’d throw temper tantrums when he lost. Eventually, when he became a teenager and realized his father was more concerned with basking in the reflection of his son’s glory than he was in his son, Bruce gave up sports entirely. Everything except diving, which his father didn’t consider a real sport. Diving, in turn, was soon taken from him; he was kicked off the team when a bunch of the country club kids, jealous of his success, told the coach he had pissed in the pool. It had been a lie. Though they had been right to suspect Bruce had snuck into the locker room the next day and pissed in their Gato
rade.
Even having given up sports, his competitive fires still burned. Whatever the game—Monopoly or ping pong or darts—Bruce would do whatever it took to win. He brought loaded dice to shoot craps during recess in middle school; he stashed an extra $500 of Monopoly money in his pocket to pad his cash during games. One by one his friends got fed up with the cheating and poor sportsmanship. Only Gus stuck around. Later Bruce realized it was because Gus didn’t care about winning games; he cared about winning life. He sensed that Bruce, once he harnessed his passion and emotions, was destined to do great things. And Gus wanted to go along for the ride. The friendship had worked for a while. In Bruce’s mind, winning in life meant earning money—it was the way a capitalistic society kept score. So Bruce played the game of wealth acquisition with the same ruthlessness he had attacked the games of his youth. It didn’t matter how he won, only that he did. And then, in his mid-twenties, Bruce grew up. He stopped caring what his father thought. He remained obsessed with winning—to this day, accrual of wealth was how he defined success in life. But he was no longer willing to go to jail for it. Gus, having become addicted to the cash and fearing his cancer would return, yearned for the big score, the quick fix.
And here they were, Gus forcing Bruce back into the game. Forcing him to take risks he didn’t want to take. Exhaling, Bruce rubbed his face and refocused. Enough of Gus and his past.
Shifting to the right lane, he phoned Norman Plansky on an old flip phone he used when on the road. It was getting more and more difficult to stay off the grid—he refused to get an Easy Pass, but even so there were cameras at all the toll plazas. Luckily, he knew how to make his way to New York mostly on the back roads. He had enough problems in his life without the government, or his enemies, being able to track his movements. “I have to be in the City for a meeting later today. But I could swing by your way and pick up those artifacts if you want. Save you time and money on shipping. Can you meet me out on Route 87 someplace?”
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