The Dangerous Boxed Set

by Lisa Marie Rice

  Strangely out of sorts, he looked again at the spreadsheets on his lap. They tracked a 10-million-dollar contract to supply weapons to a Tajikistani warlord, the first of what Drake hoped would be several deals with the self-styled “general.” There was newfound oil in the general’s fiefdom, a goddamned lake of it right underneath the barren, hard-packed earth, and the general was in the mood to buy whatever was necessary to hold on to the power and the oil. When this deal went through smoothly, as it certainly would, Drake knew there would be many more down the line.

  Years ago, if nothing else, the thought would have given him satisfaction. Now, he felt nothing at all. It was a business deal. He would put in the work; it would net him more money. Nothing he hadn’t done thousands and thousands of times before.

  He stared at the printouts until they blurred, trying to drum up interest in the deal. It wasn’t there, which was alarming. What was even more alarming was the dull void in his chest as he reflected on his indifference. Not being able to care about not being able to care was frightening. Would have been frightening, if he could work up the energy to be frightened.

  Restless, he glanced to his right. This section of Lexington was full of bookshops and art galleries, the shop windows more pleasing, less crass than the boutiques with their stupid, outlandish clothes a block uptown.

  And that was when he saw them.

  Paintings. A wall of them, together with a few watercolors and ink drawings. All heartbreakingly beautiful, all clearly by the same fine hand. A hand even he recognized was extraordinary.

  Though the car windows were smoked, the gallery was well lit and each work of art had its own wall-mounted spotlight, so Drake got a good look at them all, stalled there in a mid-Manhattan traffic jam. And anyway, his eyesight was sniper grade.

  He did something he’d never done before. He buzzed down his window. The driver’s mouth fell open. Drake flicked his gaze to the rearview mirror. The driver’s mouth snapped shut and his face assumed an impassive expression.

  The car instantly filled with the smell of exhaust fumes and the loud cacophony of a Manhattan traffic jam.

  Drake ignored it completely. The important thing was he had a better view of the paintings now.

  The first painting he saw took his breath away. A simple image—a woman alone at sunset on a long, empty beach. The rendering of the sea, the colors of the sunset, the grainy beach—all those details were technically perfect. But what came off the surface of the painting like steam off an iron was the loneliness of the woman. It could have been the portrait of the last human on earth.

  The Mercedes lurched forward a foot then stopped. He barely noticed.

  The paintings were like little miracles on a wall. A glowing still life of wildflowers in a can and an open paperback on a table, as if someone had just come in from the garden. A pensive man reflecting himself in a shop window. Delicate female hands holding a book. The artwork was realistic, delicate, stunning. It pulled you in to the world of the picture and didn’t let you go.

  Drake had no way to judge the artwork in technical terms; all he knew was that each work was brilliant, perfect, and called to him in some way he’d never felt before.

  The car rolled forward ten feet, bringing another section of the wall into view.

  The last painting on the wall jolted him.

  It was the left profile of a man rendered in earth tones. The man’s face was hard, strong-jawed, unsmiling. His dark hair was cut so short the skull beneath was visible, which was exactly as Drake wore it in the field, particularly in Afghanistan. Far from even the faintest hope of running water, he shaved his head and his body hair, the only way to avoid lice. The face of the man didn’t exactly look like him, but the portrait had the look of him—features harsh, grim, unyielding.

  Running from the forehead over the high cheekbone and down to the jaw, brushing perilously close to the left eye, was a ragged white scar, like a lightning bolt etched in flesh.

  Reflexively, Drake lifted a hand to his face, remembering.

  He’d been a street rat on the streets of Odessa, sleeping in a doorway in the dead of winter. Some warmth seeped through the cracks in the door, allowing him to sleep without fear of freezing to death in the subzero temperatures.

  Emaciated, dressed in rags, he was perfect prey for the sailors just ashore from months working brutal shifts at sea, reeling drunk through the streets. Sailors who hadn’t had sex in months and didn’t much care who they fucked—boy or girl—as long as whoever it was held still long enough. Most of the sailors didn’t even care whether who they fucked stayed still because they were tied down or dead.

  Drake came awake in a rush as the fetid breath of two Russian sailors washed over his face. One of the sailors held a knife to Drake’s throat while the other dropped his pants, already hauling out a long, thin, beet-red cock.

  Drake was a born street fighter and fought best when he was close to the ground. He was born with the ability and had honed it by observation and practice. He scissored his legs, bringing the man with the knife toppling to the ground, then hurled himself at the knees of the second man, hobbled by his pants. The man fell heavily to the ground, his head hitting the broken pavement with a sickening crack.

  Drake turned to the first man, who’d scrambled to his feet and was holding the knife in front of him like an expert, edge down. The chances of surviving a knife fight barehanded were ludicrously low. Drake knew he had to even the odds fast, do something unexpected.

  He flung himself forward, into the knife. The blade sliced the side of his face open, but the surprise move loosened the sailor’s grip. Drake wrenched the knife out of his hand and jabbed it into the man’s eye, to the hilt.

  The sailor dropped like a stone.

  Drake stood over him, panting, his blood dripping over the man’s face, then pulled the knife out of his attacker’s skull and wiped it down on the man’s tattered jacket.

  He took both men’s knives. One was a nozh razvedchika, a scout’s knife. The other was a Finnish Pukka, rare in those parts and very valuable. He bartered both along the Odessa waterfront for two guns, a Skorpion and an AK–47—including clips and shooting lessons—sold cheaply because they were stolen.

  He was on his way.

  Later, as soon as he could afford it, he had plastic surgery on the long, jagged white scar on the left side of his face. He was known for being able to blend into almost any environment, for turning himself invisible, but a very visible scar was like a flag, something no one forgot. It had to go.

  The surgeon was good, one of the best. There was nothing visible left of his scar. Besides himself, only the surgeon could remember the shape of the long-gone scar. But there it was, in a painting in a gallery in Manhattan, half a world away and two decades later. However crazy it sounded, the scar in the painting was the same scar the surgeon had eliminated, all those years ago.

  Traffic suddenly cleared and the Mercedes rolled smoothly forward. Drake punched the button in the center console that allowed him to communicate with the driver.

  “Sir?” Mischa sounded startled over the intercom. Drake rarely spoke while they were traveling.

  “Turn right at the next intersection and let me off after two blocks.”

  “Sir?” This time the driver’s voice sounded confused. Drake never left the car en route. He got into one of his many vehicles in his building’s garage and got out at his destination. The driver caught himself. Drake never had to repeat himself with his men. “Yessir,” the driver replied.

  Once out of the limousine, Drake continued walking in the direction of the car until it disappeared into the traffic, then ducked into a nearby department store. Ten minutes later, satisfied that he wasn’t being followed, he doubled back to the art gallery, having ditched his eight-hundred-dollar Boss jacket, Brioni pants, Armani cashmere sweater and scarf and having bought a cheap parka, long-sleeved cotton tee, jeans, watch cap and sunglasses. He was as certain as he could be that no one was tailing
him and that he was unrecognizable.

  The art gallery was warm after the chill of the street. Drake stopped just inside the door, taking in the scent of tea brewing and that mixture of expensive perfumes and men’s cologne typical of Manhattan haunts, mixed with the more down-to-earth smells of resin and solvents.

  At the sound of the bell over the door, a man came out from a back room, smiling, holding a porcelain mug. Steam rose in white fingers from the mug.

  “Hello and welcome.” The man transferred the mug from his right hand to his left and offered his hand. “My name is Harold Feinstein. Welcome to the Feinstein Gallery.”

  The smile seemed genuine, not a salesman’s smile. Drake had seen too many of those from people who knew who he was and knew what resources he could command. Everything that could possibly be sold—including humans—had been offered to him, with a smile.

  But the man holding his hand out couldn’t know who he was, and wasn’t presuming he was rich. Not dressed the way he was.

  Drake took the proffered hand gingerly, not remembering the last time he’d clasped another man’s hand. He touched other people rarely, not even during sex. Usually, he employed his hands to keep his torso up and away from the woman.

  Harold Feinstein’s hand was soft, well-manicured, but the grip was surprisingly strong.

  “Have a look around,” he urged. “No need to buy. Art enriches us all, whether we own it or not.”

  Without seeming to study him, Feinstein had taken in the cheap clothes and pegged him as a window-shopper, but wasn’t bothered by it. Unusual in a man of commerce.

  Drake’s eyes traversed the wall and Harold Feinstein turned amiably.

  “Take my latest discovery,” he said, waving his free hand. “Grace Larsen. Remarkable eye for detail, amazing technical expertise, perfect brush strokes. Command of chiaroscuro in the etchings. Quite remarkable.”

  The artist was a woman? Drake focused on the paintings. Man, woman, whoever the artist was, the work was extraordinary. And now that he was here, he could see that a side wall, invisible from the street, was covered with etchings and watercolors.

  He stopped in front of an oil, a portrait of an old woman. She was stooped, graying, hair pulled back in a bun, face weatherbeaten from the sun, large hands gnarled from physical labor, dressed in a cheap cotton print dress. She looked as if she were just about to step down from the painting, drop to her knees and start scrubbing the floor.

  Yet she was beautiful, because the artist saw her as beautiful. A specific woman, the very epitome of a female workhorse, the kind that held the world together with her labor. Drake had seen that woman in the thousands, toiling in fields around the world, sweeping the streets of Moscow.

  All the sorrow and strength of the human race was right there, in her sloping shoulders and tired eyes.

  Amazing.

  The door behind him chimed as someone entered the gallery.

  Feinstein straightened, his smile broadened. “And here’s the artist herself.” He looked at Drake, dressed in his poor clothes. “Take your time and enjoy the paintings,” he said gently.

  Drake smelled her before he saw her. A fresh smell, like spring and sunshine, not a perfume. Completely out of place in the fumes of midtown Manhattan. His first thought was, No woman can live up to that smell.

  “Hello, Harold,” he heard a woman’s voice say behind him. “I brought some india-ink drawings. I thought you might like to look at them. And I finished the waterfront. Stayed up all night to do it.” The voice was soft, utterly female, with a smile in it.

  His second thought was, No woman can live up to that voice. The voice was soft, melodic, seeming to hit him like a note on a tuning fork, reverberating through him so strongly he actually had to concentrate on the words.

  Drake turned—and stared.

  His entire body froze. He found himself completely incapable of moving for a heartbeat—two—until he managed to shake himself from his paralysis by sheer force of will.

  Something—some atavistic survival instinct dwelling deep in his DNA—made him turn away so she wouldn’t see him full face, but he had excellent peripheral vision and he watched intently as the woman—Grace—opened a big portfolio carrier and started laying out heavy sheets of paper, setting them out precisely on a huge glass table. Then she brought out what looked like a spool of 10-inch-wide paper from her purse.

  Goddamn. The woman was…exquisite. More than beautiful. Beautiful was nothing nowadays. Beauty—the crassest kind possible—could be easily bought. Americans could afford the best of everything. Girls grew up with good nutrition, good dentists, good plastic surgeons, good hairdressers, good dermatologists. It seemed that all of them had good teeth, healthy hair, clear skin. All of that was nothing.

  She wasn’t very tall, but had long lines to her. Long legs, long neck, long, supple fingers. She moved easily and well, more with the light grace of a dancer than the strength of an athlete. Her shoulder-length hair looked as if it had just been washed, but not by a hairdresser. Washed and left to dry in the air. There was no perfection to it, except for its glossiness and the color—an amalgam of copper-bronze and light brown. She moved into a ceiling spotlight and her hair came alive, a sunburst of shiny colors.

  She was smiling at Feinstein but there was a melancholy air there, a sadness, as if she’d seen into the heart of the world many times and found it cold and black.

  Drake recognized that look. He saw it in the mirror every morning.

  She was unadorned—no makeup, no jewelry, no fancy clothes. But that was as it should be, because she was almost extravagantly beautiful. Any jewelry would simply distract the eye from the porcelain skin; green-blue eyes; high, perfect cheekbones; full, serious mouth.

  Cool air, a bell ringing. Three people walked into the gallery, two men and a woman. They were immediately drawn to the artwork up on the walls, planting themselves in front of the paintings making hmmm sounds.

  They made wonderful cover.

  Circling slowly, making no noise whatsoever, Drake drifted until he was in the direct line of sight of what Grace was showing the gallery owner, flipping through the papers.

  Miracles. That’s what she was showing the owner. Goddamned fucking miracles, each and every one.

  Drawings of just about everything under the sun. The woman seemed to draw everything that came into her line of sight, and then, as if the world weren’t enough for her imagination, there were some fantasies, like the carefully rendered dragon on a hilltop, as finely drawn as any Chinese classic.

  Two small boys in Central Park. A cop on horseback, back erect, eyes straight ahead, ready for anything. A hot-dog vendor looking to the side with a slight smile on his face. Overblown roses in a crystal vase, a petal caught just as it fell…one by one she laid them out for Feinstein, who examined them carefully, his face giving nothing away, though if Drake owned the gallery, he’d have been hopping with joy just before pulling out the checkbook.

  That wasn’t the way business was done, no one knew that better than Drake. You play it cool and always underbid. Never show your hand. Never let emotions interfere with a business transaction. But this art was way outside any rules governing commerce.

  It was magic.

  But there was more to come.

  She gave one end of the big spool to Feinstein, then started walking backward, unrolling it, smiling as Feinstein’s eyes widened.

  Neither of them was paying him any attention, so Drake let himself take a good look, forgetting to breathe for a second.

  They were unspooling the Manhattan coastline, rendered in architectural detail in black ink. On and on and on the spool unrolled, each stroke of each building precise, perfect. He recognized every inch of the work and could even see his own building. Just the last floor was visible, the penthouse, where he lived. Rendered in perfect detail. He’d never seen anything like it.

  Had she spent months on a boat, at anchor, drawing? What was remarkable was the fineness of the strokes
, without one mistake.

  She stopped unrolling the spool and held it by the end. It was at least twelve feet in length, each detail perfect.

  The three newcomers gathered along the strip, oohing and aahing, walking slowly along it, eyes glued to the miniature coastline, pointing out familiar buildings.

  Feinstein pulled the strip more tightly so they could see better and Drake nearly had a heart attack. Fuck, a little more pressure, the paper would rip, and something irreplaceably precious would be lost.

  Drake barely stopped himself from attacking the gallery owner. He had to consciously freeze his muscles and hope Feinstein understood enough to pull with only enough power to pick up the slack and not rip the strip apart.

  Otherwise Drake would rip him apart.

  Whoa. Where had that thought come from? The man was portly, elderly, with the soft mottled hands of the old. An art gallery owner, for Christ’s sake. Drake didn’t attack civilians and he certainly wouldn’t attack an elderly gentleman, particularly not one who’d been instinctively kind and was this remarkable artist’s friend.

  But still. For a second there, when he thought that miracle strip of paper was going to be ruined, he could feel his hands closing around the man’s neck, dewlap and all. He wouldn’t have lasted a second. Drake had known how to snap a man’s neck since he was ten and he’d only gotten better with the years.

  The trio was shuffling along the strip, pointing out landmarks, excitement in their voices.

  “Franco,” the woman drawled, her red-painted lips pursing at the final O, “this would look just divine in your studio, wouldn’t it? All along the yellow wall.”

  “Si, cara.” Franco shook his head admiringly. “I’d frame it simply, not to distract from the clean lines. A giorno.”

  No! Mine! Drake clamped his lips together tightly or he’d have shouted the words.

  They reverberated in his chest, rolling around like huge granite stones, pinging off his rib cage.