The Last Mona Lisa

by Jonathan Santlofer

  I promised.

  86

  That night, I had trouble sleeping. When I did drift off, I had crazy dreams: Smith dying on a Paris street, Jonathan Teivel’s fancy watch melting like a Dalí painting, the Mona Lisa floating upside down. In the morning, I had to remind myself that Smith was alive, and I was pissed I’d done my grieving with booze. I wanted to call Inspector Cabenal and give her hell, but I knew Smith was right, that it would just cause trouble. I thought about Teivel, his barking Wolverine laugh and threats. Smith was right about that too: looking into these guys was dangerous, and I had to stop. Give up the folly and concentrate on myself, my life and career, figure out what I was going to say to the tenure committee and get back to making art.

  I opened my laptop, found Smith’s list of art collectors, and deleted it. Then I crumpled the hard-copy list and tossed it into the trash.

  Next, I dismantled the altarpiece and emptied the file cabinet—maps of the Louvre with Peruggia’s route, my correspondence, the essays and theories about the theft I’d been collecting for over twenty years, all in the trash. The only thing I kept was the mug shot, though I decided I looked a lot less like him since shaving off the mustache and getting a shorter haircut.

  It felt good to throw everything out, a new beginning, not just a new day.

  I unwrapped the paintings I’d left unfinished weeks ago, leaned them against the wall, then arranged my brushes and tubes of paint. I took time organizing the colors in a spectrum around my palette, the way I had back in art school, earth tones next to yellows next to reds next to purples and blues, larger tubes of black and white on either side. I liked doing something orderly after so much of my life had felt out of control.

  I took in the unfinished paintings.

  Strong and colorful, filled with promise and an inner logic that helps lift them above ordinary abstractions, so said the New York Times four years ago, the time of my last exhibition. So what had happened to all that promise?

  I glanced over at the small canvas I’d propped on the window ledge—Peruggia’s still life of fruit arranged on a red cloth, everything outlined in dark blue-black.

  Minutes later, I was hammering nails into the wall, hanging a new blank canvas—I never used an easel—then I squeezed paint onto the palette, filled jars with mineral spirits and medium.

  It was hours before I stopped and stood back to see what I’d been doing.

  The painting—based on a view of my studio window and beyond—had been created with slabs of heavy paint, an abstraction but also a cityscape if you looked long enough. Ugly and beautiful and unlike anything I had ever made, the paint so thick it would take weeks to dry, edges of forms cut into the pigment with the back of my brush or outlined in inky blue-black.

  I stared at the canvas, evaluating it as if someone else had painted it. It was possibly the most honest and compelling artwork I had ever made, an image created entirely of feeling, of being in the moment. For the first time in years, I wanted to keep painting.

  More nails in the wall, another blank canvas. This time, I drew directly with the paint, allowing the brush to do what it wanted, to guide my hand. An hour passed, the painting rough and not fully formed but buzzing with life: a nude without a face. I tried to paint the face in several times, each time wiping it out with a rag, leaving a mess of smudged paint above the breasts and neck, though I knew exactly who I had been trying to capture—a woman I’d been unable to capture in real life. A woman I had abandoned—or had she abandoned me?

  I dumped my brushes in mineral spirits, changed out of my studio clothes, scrubbed the paint from my hands, the whole time with Alex on my mind. A minute later, I was on my cell phone. Spence. Dalton. Brearley. All upscale Manhattan private schools. None of them had ever heard of Alexandra Greene.

  I glanced back at the unfinished nude, and I felt it, that Alex was here, somewhere in the city. I knew it.

  87

  He peers up and down the street, colorless eyes raking over new buildings and old ones, a metal structure identified only as the New Museum, the sidewalk teeming with people in motion. He looks for someone who is standing still, focuses first on a young man checking his cell phone, then a disheveled man on the corner—homeless or just playing the part? He can usually spot a professional, but it is more difficult here in Manhattan, on this odd and diverse street called the Bowery—so many different sorts of people: sophisticates and bums, Americans, Asians and Europeans, some decked out in furs, others in clothes so threadbare they have to be freezing, a damp wind blowing across the city from its two large rivers.

  He checks his tracking device, the red dot hovering, the American at home, just five stories above him. He replays a few moments of their time together in Florence and Paris and considers their odd bond. He knows the American is his connection to the man he is after, the man who has tried to have him killed. He suspects this man wants the American dead too and likely has someone watching him. He scrolls through the American’s calls and texts, not sure if they are important, but he will check them out.

  The handheld device pings: a signal that the American is on the move. A few minutes later, the Russian glances up, and sure enough, there he is, exiting the building. The Russian turns away but keeps an eye on the device, on the red dot moving, then dares a peek over his shoulder and sees the American disappear into the subway.

  In less than a minute, he has picked the front door lock and makes his way up the old metal staircase to the fifth floor.

  The door to the American’s loft is just as easily picked.

  He steps in, surveys the uneven wooden floors and tin ceiling, the spare furnishings, a large wall crammed with books, more on a low wooden coffee table, one right on top about that artist he had seen in the Florence museum and liked, Caravaggio. He thumbs through it, stops on a full-page color reproduction of the Medusa head, and tears it out. Rolls it into a tight tube and slips it into his breast pocket.

  He pads down the hallway into another, even larger room with canvases on the walls, splatters of paint on the floor, the smell of oil and turpentine heavy in the air. He goes up to a painting and touches it. His fingertips come away stained with pigment, the surface of the painting left with slight indentations. He picks up a brush, uses it to whisk his fingerprints away. Wipes the brush handle with a rag, uses the same rag to clean his fingers, turns it inside out, and stuffs it into his back pocket. He stops a moment to admire a painting of a nude without a face, has to stifle the urge to leave the American a note: I like this one—finish it!

  A laptop sits on a long wooden worktable, beside it a stack of bills, a checkbook, several notes he cannot read, the American’s handwriting an indecipherable scrawl. The trash basket beside the table is small, overflowing, and he stoops to pluck out a half-crumpled piece of paper, attracted by the blue globe insignia, and flattens it onto the table. Now he sees it is the INTERPOL logo and a list of typed names. He thinks of the elegant woman in the domed house and how she told him the men were from INTERPOL. Could the American possibly be working for INTERPOL, or did this paper belong to the other one, the man he killed? Either way, names on an INTERPOL list are something he needs to check out. He wedges the paper into his pocket behind the tightly rolled Caravaggio picture. Then, he takes the neat stack of bills, envelopes, and checkbook and moves them from one side of the table to the other. No fun if the prey has no inkling that he is being stalked.

  88

  I started at Dalton. Another fabricated story. This one, that I was writing an article on New York’s “best private schools.” The headmistress was willing to cooperate. I had done my homework too, knew some of their famous alums, Claire Danes, Anderson Cooper, Chevy Chase, names I could drop along with Alexandra Greene’s. “She’s become a well-known art historian,” I said, though the administrator had never heard of her. I showed her the cell phone picture, one I’d taken of Alex asleep in our hotel bed, cropped to a
discreet headshot. The headmistress said she did not recognize her. I made her look again. She said she was absolutely certain, and I believed her. There’d been no telltale tic, no hesitation.

  It was the same at Spence.

  I was close to giving up by the time I got to Brearley, one of Manhattan’s best “white glove” schools for girls.

  “It would have been about a decade ago,” I said to this headmistress, a woman out of central casting, tight bun and matronly figure.

  She said she had been in her position for almost thirty years and did not recall any student named Alexandra Greene, “and I have an excellent memory for all my girls, not that I am at liberty to disclose such information.”

  I showed her the cell phone photo.

  “Oh,” she said. Then, “No. I have no idea who that is.”

  But I’d seen it, the flash of recognition in her eyes, the pause, the change in tone. I wanted to push further but knew it wouldn’t help, the woman already saying goodbye, wishing me luck with the article, and leading me out of her office.

  Back home, I felt it right away, a palpable sense of invasion, the same feeling I’d had in my Florence hotel room, as if the air had been disturbed, along with the same stale odor of tobacco. I went through the large front room, then into the bathroom, swiping the shower curtain aside, half expecting to find a shrieking Norman Bates. In the studio, I peered in between paint racks, on and under my long worktable. Nothing appeared to be missing. Still, something felt off, papers and envelopes on the left side of my laptop that I could have sworn I always kept on the right—or did I?

  I kept looking, but nothing seemed out of place. Had the paranoia I’d felt in the past few weeks become a permanent part of my psyche? Or was it Jonathan Teivel’s barely veiled threat: You feel safe on the Bowery?

  I checked the windows and opened one, all sorts of odors wafting in: booze, garbage, gasoline.

  One more tour through the loft produced nothing, so I shrugged it off as paranoia. What else could it be?

  I finally sat down at my computer and did the Google search I’d intended to do when I’d first come in. I typed Brearley yearbooks, did the math, then typed 2008 and 2009.

  I skimmed the 2008 yearbook, then took my time with the seniors, each girl with her own yearbook page. But no Alex. I did the same for 2009. Again, nothing. I tried 2010, skimmed through alphabetically arranged photos, and stopped at the G’s. No Greene. I was disappointed but kept going, stopped dead at a page of photos. Alexis Verde.

  Less than a minute to get the connection: Alexandra Greene. Alexis Verde.

  Verde: the Italian word for green.

  I went to Facebook, typed in Alexis Verde, and there she was, the small photo unmistakable. But the only way I could see more was to “friend” her, and though I considered it, I knew it was a bad idea.

  A little more digging and the internet white pages produced a listing: Alexis Verde, New York City, age 24–30.

  I thought about investing in the $9.99 Intelius search, but did I really want to find her when she so clearly did not want to be found?

  Alex/Alexis. Who had lied to me about her name and where she had gone to school.

  What else had she lied about? And why?

  89

  Richard Baine Jr. looked to be in his midsixties, about my height with a full head of pure white hair.

  When his assistant had called to say she’d relayed my message and her boss would be happy to see me, I thought: No, I promised Smith I’d give it up. Then I did a quick Google search, found no background on Baine, other than the fact that he’d created one of Wall Street’s most successful investment firms, and I was intrigued.

  So much for promises and resolve.

  Now I stood in his thirty-eighth-floor office, its cool white walls hung with old master prints, a view of the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings and a wide swath of the Hudson River.

  Baine stood behind a marble-topped desk that had nothing on it but a computer, not a single paper, folder, pencil, or pen, everything about the office pristine. The large screen on the opposite wall, rolling market information, was silent.

  “So you’re a self-made man,” I said.

  “What makes you say that?” he asked with an affable smile.

  “There was just so little background on you. It was as if you were born on Wall Street.”

  “Not quite.” Baine laughed, exposing bright-white teeth. “So you’ve done some research.”

  “Doesn’t everyone these days?”

  “Not me,” he said. “I’m from an era when you didn’t know anything about a man until you met him, and I prefer that.”

  I apologized, but Baine waved it off, explained he was semi-retired, “only in the office a day or two a week, mainly to annoy my partners.”

  I studied one of his prints, an intricately detailed study of hands. “Is this a Dürer?”

  “You know your artists.”

  “I teach art history, so…” I shrugged. “You collect old masters?”

  “I used to, but no more. I’ve donated almost everything.”

  “And you’ve lost the desire to acquire more?”

  “At a certain age, one no longer feels the need.” Baine leaned closer to the print. “Beautiful, isn’t it, all that delicate cross-hatching. I’ve had the Dürer print a long time, and a few others—that Rembrandt my secretary said you asked about. A personal favorite I did not want to give up for sentimental reasons, but my serious collecting days are over. I’ve come to think of collecting as a selfish man’s game.” He gave me an earnest look and asked if I collected art.

  I told him I couldn’t afford it, though I occasionally swapped a piece with an artist friend.

  “So you’re an artist.”

  “Well, sort of.”

  “Don’t be modest, young man. I did not get to where I am by being modest.” He patted me on the shoulder. “I love talking art with people who know something about it. I studied business, so I knew nothing about art until I started collecting.”

  “And you don’t miss it?”

  “Not really. I have a few pieces, and they’re enough for me.” He smiled again. “So you’re writing about Rembrandt?”

  “For an academic art journal—um, Apollo. It’s based in London, very small. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of it,” I said and hoped he hadn’t.

  He said no and was surprised I was writing about Rembrandt, that most people didn’t care about him anymore, no matter how synonymous his name was with art.

  “I’m one of the people who still thinks Rembrandt is a great artist.”

  “Then you must have a look at my Rembrandt print. We’ll have a drink, and you can tell me all about the piece you’re writing—” He stopped, apologized, said he’d forgotten he was leaving for London the day after tomorrow.

  I told him that was fine, I could wait until he came back, but he said no.

  “I may be gone several weeks, possibly a month. Come by tomorrow evening, six thirty. I’m all set for my trip and will be home with nothing to do.”

  “I don’t want to impose,” I said.

  “Don’t be silly,” Baine said and handed me a card with his address.

  90

  The American exits the building, and the Russian lags behind, shielded by a crowd of men and women, all so rich-looking he can’t decide if wants to be them or kill them. He knows the American has just seen one of the people on the list he has taken from the loft—he’s cross-checked the telephone number through a white pages app. Has done a Google search too, knows the man is a financial fat cat, just like the other one, Teivel—whom he followed home from his office after the American left the other day, watched him go into a Park Avenue building with several doormen, all of them nodding.

  He knows where Teivel works and lives and now where this Baine guy works. It w
ill not be difficult to find out where Baine lives too.

  He watches the red dot move, allows the American a good head start, then follows him into the subway station and onto the subway, maintaining a safe distance, eyeing him through a dozen straphangers. He closes his eyes. Once again pictures the American’s loft, the large airy studio and canvases slick with paint. A life so unlike his own, though he sometimes has trouble imagining that his own life is real. A young woman beside him, a girl really, kohl-lined eyes, hair streaked purple, a ring through her nose, keeps falling into him each time the train stops and lurches.

  She reminds him of his first job after the war, the young girls he sold to traders, something he could not get away with nowadays with all the do-gooders and international agencies up in arms. What did they know? It was not as if those girls had anything better at home. He has to stop himself from looping a finger through the girl’s nose ring and leading her off the train, making her his slave. He smiles at her, but she stares ahead, her earbuds obviously drowning out all surrounding noise, her look blank, transported no doubt by some idiotic tune, which sounds to him like insects chirping.

  He looks past the girl and through the crowd to make sure the American is still there. He tugs his hat lower on his forehead, pats his breast pocket, feels the tube he made from the picture he ripped out of the book. He pictures the Medusa painting, the slithering snakes and severed neck, all that blood, the look of pure terror. Every job teaches him something. This one, about the artist Caravaggio. Obviously, a kindred spirit.

  91

  For eight dollars, Intelius, the online public-records search engine, had provided the address on East Thirty-Second Street. It was not at all what I’d expected. I had always pictured Alex in a plush Upper East Side apartment with river views and two or three doormen, not in Murray Hill, a neighborhood that drew students and young people looking for reasonable rents.