by Noah Charney
To the right of his desk, a glass-topped table displayed his family Bible, a rare sixteenth-century printed book, handpainted, the words in Gothicized stretched letters, curdled from black to brown with age. On the edge of his desk, an Art Deco sculpture in the shape of a tiny naked bronze woman held aloft the serpentine neck and colored-glass shade of a Tiffany lamp. A small Hokusai colored woodblock print of a Japanese girl, seated indoors at tea as a rainstorm flashed outside, hung on the wall to the left of the desk. Above, a crystalline chandelier spread an oceanic light over the dusky chamber, and on Harkness’s harvest locks and well-cut shoulders.
His land stretched out as far as he could see, until the hill slipped down from its crest, at the tree line, by the clearing where he had played as a child. He thought about the abomination that had crossed his mind too often and led to such sleeplessness. He could not lose this, his ancestral home, his history, his childhood, his generations past, his identity, the reason for his lordship, the evidence of what puissance he possessed, the fruit of the labor of his grandfathers nine times over, his self. It had come dangerously close. But now, all would be well.
He arched angular fingers like buttresses over the bridge of his nose. A thorn still clawed at him, but that was an aesthetic grievance, one he could only afford the luxury to suffer if his primary concerns were sorted. But the foretaste of catastrophe, that he feared was prescience, ingrained a metallic sourness into his mood. Could he not be satisfied that his home and his position were safe? The missing piece bothered him less for want of what he had been promised but did not have. Rather, it was the sense that his puzzle-perfect plan lacked its final piece. A tower was as yet unbuilt, designed but undelivered, which left his fortress penetrable. A rook was missing.
Lord Harkness’s fingers combed through his hair, like bleached flax. Rotating his chair away from the nightfall window, he tugged at his ironed-crisp, cuff-linked shirtsleeves, as his eyes fixed on the wall across from his desk. On it hung a frameless painting. It was white on white.
“Still upset, Malcolm?”
An elegant, whitening blond-haired woman walked into the study, wearing only an emerald green slip, a strap of which had crept down from her shoulder. She lithed behind the desk and climbed onto his lap, straddling his legs. She ran her hands along the collar of his pale gray suit jacket.
“I’m sorry, Elizabeth,” he said in his gently tumbled accent. “I’m just a bit distracted still, because of…”
“Forget about him.” She pulled him to her lips by his collar, and sunk her mouth to his. “Aren’t I more distracting?”
He kissed back, only briefly, and with eyes open. His sight wandered to the white-on-white painting across from him, and then fell down to the floor below it, where a blank canvas, covered only in gesso, leaned against the wall.
“You’re supposed to kiss back, remember?” She lifted his face away from the canvases, and toward hers, with her soft hands.
“I don’t like being tricked.” His warm eyes were always liquid and looked at the brink of tears, even in emotionless moments.
“We don’t know if we were tricked.”
“It’s either tricked or double-crossed. I pre-prefer the former, because the latter could mean…you know what he could…”
“But we’d bring him down with us, if he did. All that he can do now is keep us from the Caravaggio. Everything else has gone perfectly.”
“But, I…”
She pressed her finger to his lips, and then ran it along them. “Think about how well we’ve done, Malcolm. You mustn’t fixate on the one thing we haven’t, when we have so much. The Caravaggio was merely a dream, a greed, which we weren’t meant to have. But you were meant to save your home, and that’s done.”
“I suppose that I’m just…I’m just scared of him. Look what he’s done…he’s so…”
“Yes. Look what he’s done for us. He actualized the plan that you came up with. You put your family heirloom, that original Malevich White on White,” she gestured to the painting on the wall, “up for sale at Christie’s. I bought it from you for my museum. You pocketed £6.3 million that the museum paid, and cleared all your debts, and saved this wonderful house, your family estate. Then, as you’d planned, he stole your painting back from my museum for you. And look, now it’s hanging in your study, as it had before, plus you’ve all the money from having sold it. Your brilliant plan worked perfectly. Don’t forget who is manipulating whom. You are in control. Now I don’t want you to obsess about the pipe dream of ours that was, frankly, greedy.”
“Your acting was brilliant throughout, Elizabeth. No one suspected a thing.”
“It didn’t require much acting, as I never knew the intricacies of the plan, what would happen next. So I could react organically.”
“Don’t discount your per-performance. Covering our relationship was the key subterfuge, and you were…magnificent.”
“So why are you still distracted, Malcolm, about this one missing piece?”
“I commissioned him to steal the Caravaggio pa-painting for me. Not only do I not have it, I’ve no idea where it is.” Lord Harkness leaned back in his chair, and rested his hands on Elizabeth’s widespread hips, as her bare legs draped over his. “As far as we know, it’s just disappeared.”
Elizabeth slowly unbuttoned Harkness’s blue and white bespoke Turnbull & Asser dress shirt, slightly worn at the back of the collar. “You think he’s sold it to someone else, out from under you? Is that it?”
Harkness stayed her hand. “It makes sense, doesn’t it? He had such a foolproof pa-plan. Arranging the ransom for my pa-painting that he’d stolen from your museum, then returning a fake Malevich White on White with a fake Caravaggio beneath it, and paying an expert to authenticate it as the original, closing the case.”
Elizabeth leaned back on his lap. “Did you ever learn how he stole it from the museum? I mean, we both know what the police discovered, but…I knew he was a forger, but I didn’t know that he was a thief, as well.”
“I didn’t know that he was a thief, either. He’s renowned only for masterminding the scheme, and for his forgeries. Maybe he used someone else to actually break into the museum. Or pe-perhaps he’s that much of an athlete, as well. It still amazes me how many of his pa-paintings are hanging in the world’s museums, in place of the stolen originals. The Louvre, the Hermitage, the Met, the Uffizi, the Getty is full of them…And nobody knows. Maybe he’s too damn smart.”
“Look at me, Malcolm. Don’t undercut your contribution to the success of this scheme. It was your idea to volunteer to pay the ransom on behalf of the museum. You’re a hero now because of it. And all you had to do was to pay yourself the £6.3 million, which you demanded and paid. While he suggested paying an expert to authenticate the fake Caravaggio, it was your clever idea to use Simon Barrow. With his scandal dragging behind him, he was the perfect man for the job.”
Harkness sighed, and glided his fingers over her thighs. “It was elegant. No one questions Barrow’s identification, the museum hands the apparently recovered Caravaggio back to the church from which it was stolen, and the case is closed. The church thinks it has its pa-painting back, the police don’t understand, but the case is closed nonetheless, and no one is looking for the Caravaggio that should be on our…our…bloody wall. But where is it now? He’s pa-paved the perfect path for him to take my money up front, then sell the original stolen Caravaggio to someone else, and make even more.”
“And what are we going to do to stop him?” Elizabeth stroked Harkness’s hair. “If we try to expose him, he’ll expose us. If you hire some friends of yours to threaten it out of him, he’ll expose us. If your friends kill him, then we’re no better off, still no Caravaggio. But don’t forget that he cannot expose us, without bringing himself down, too. There are only two kings on the board. That’s the delicate balance that makes this business relationship function. There’s nothing he can do now to harm us, other than depriving us of the Caravaggio. You have
your house, you have no debts, and you have your Malevich. We’re safe.”
“I just don’t like it…there’s something…he’s got such a flawless track record, a reputation for pro-professional honesty. Unless we did something to offend…or if he thinks we double-crossed him…”
“Do you think that it’s because we stole that painting from Robert Grayson?” Elizabeth asked.
“That’s the only thing I could imagine. But he had pro-promised that the Caravaggio would be underneath the lot 34 painting, which my associates bought for me. And there’s nothing but white gesso beneath it.” Harkness looked across the room at the remnants of lot 27, leaning against the wall, just a canvas covered in white gesso. Harkness continued. “I don’t like it when I don’t understand something. When you made the fake pro-provenance that allowed lot 27 to be sold through Christie’s, he had also asked you to pre-prepare fake provenance for lot 34 for some other deal he was working, on the side. I was suspicious, so I told my men to buy lot 34, too, at the auction. Is that reason enough to…It was only when we saw that the Caravaggio was not underneath lot 27, as he’d said it would be, that I had lot 34 stolen from that American, Grayson. But what really bothers me is that there was a fake Caravaggio beneath lot 34. That means that he thought that I might try to take it, even though he’d told me not to.”
“Maybe he was punishing you for not trusting him, for dishonesty,” Elizabeth offered.
“Punishing me for dishonesty? But he’s a thief!”
“It doesn’t matter now. Perhaps there’s some code that you failed to follow. Perhaps the only reason for lot 34 was as an ethics test, built into the theft plan.”
“Elizabeth, do you suggest that we’re dealing with a violently moral art thief? I…”
She kissed him on his forehead. “Shh. Everything will be okay.” Elizabeth leaned in, and whispered into his ear. “As far as I’m concerned, Gabriel Coffin can go fuck himself.”
On a bright cool cloudless morning, the doorbell rang to Robert Grayson’s apartment. Grayson, about to pour skim milk into his muesli cereal, walked to the door, still in slippers and his matching blue bathrobe. A sagging detective appeared outside the wide-swung door.
“Morning, Mr. Grayson. I have something that belongs to you.”
Grayson looked down and saw a thin rectangle of brown paper tied up with string, leaning against the detective’s short brown pants leg. He looked back up the leg and met the vacant, wet, red-eyed stare of the detective.
“Inspector Wickenden. I appreciate your bringing it, especially coming down in person like this. I’d invite you in, but…”
“No need. I can see I’ve gotten you out of bed. My apologies. I tend to form personal attachments to my cases, Mr. Grayson, and so I seek to have what I believe is referred to as ‘closure.’ This is why I am hand-delivering the goods. I regret to say that, although the victim of this crime, the Roman church of Santa-something, is pleased with the outcome of this now closed case, I am not. Beginning a crossword puzzle, falling asleep, and waking to find it completed is not my idea of satisfaction. But it seems that the powers-that-be are content with miracles, and needn’t concern themselves with the how they came about. Then again, we are dealing with a church. It’s their full-time job to be content with miracles, and never ask how. A phrase about a mouth and a gift horse comes to mind, but I can’t recall how it goes. In any event, I am confronted with an unsolved case, and it will no doubt form a permanent canker reminiscent of gangrene run rampant through my psyche, or at least so says my therapist. For what it’s worth, enjoy your painting, and have a nice day.”
Wickenden presented the wrapped painting to Grayson, nodded, and took his leave.
Grayson, package in hand, closed his front door and walked back into his apartment.
“Gen, it’s here,” he shouted.
From out of his bedroom, yawning and stretching sleepily, walked Geneviève Delacloche, wearing only Grayson’s old oversize navy-blue T-shirt with the words RED SOX printed on it in red.
“Already,” she yawned, “that was efficient. In France, it would be months before the police sort out all the paperwork.”
“It’s all thanks to that very strange detective,” said Grayson, as he laid the package down on his dining table. “He’s like a slowly deflating balloon.”
“Good analogy.” Delacloche kissed him deeply on the lips. Then Grayson pulled off the white hard string, followed by the brown paper. When it was removed, they looked down at it for a long while.
“Well,” Delacloche began. “It certainly isn’t an anonymous Suprematist painting.”
Grayson smiled. “That’s a good thing. That painting I bought was absolutely hideous. But you know that. Nice work. Can’t say that I’m much of a Caravaggio fan, but this is very well done. You sure could have fooled me, if you’d told me this was real.”
“I know. Seems a shame, doesn’t it?”
“A bit. But only a bit. Are you ready?”
Delacloche winked. “I’ve waited so long to get back my family treasure, you’d better believe I’m ready.”
“You’ve been very patient. And now you look like you’re about to receive your lost childhood teddy bear.”
“That’s what it feels like. If only Papa were alive to see this returned…”
Grayson put his arm around her and kissed her forehead softly. “I’m sure he’s looking down at you right now and smiling.”
Delacloche lifted the canvas from the table and, cradling it in her arms, walked over to the living room. There was a small wooden easel set up in the middle of the room, on which she carefully placed the painting. Grayson retrieved a dark green fishing tackle box from his bedroom. He placed it on the table, next to Delacloche. She opened it and began to sort through the myriad of plastic white-labeled bottles, brushes, and implements inside. She took up a small tuft of cotton, which she dipped into one of the bottles. Grayson looked on, as Delacloche dabbed the soaked cotton onto the fake Caravaggio painting. The apothecary smell floated through the room. Beneath her touch, the paint melted away.
Something white shone beneath.
“Come in, Robert! I’ve just finished!” Delacloche called out from the living room. Grayson came from out the bedroom, showered and dressed.
“That was fast, babe. You are amazing.” He paused and took a short breath, as he stood at the threshold of the living room. The fake Caravaggio had vanished, traceless. In its place, on the easel, was a White on White by Kasimir Malevich.
“It’s just as beautiful as I remembered it.” He sighed softly. “You don’t think your Malevich Society will miss it, do you?”
“Not now that I have verified the replacement that was, shall we say, discovered by Inspector Bizot in the Galerie Sallenave last week.” Delacloche smiled. “And poor old Monsieur Sallenave never knew a thing about it.”
“He’s not that poor, but he is old.” Grayson smiled. “Convalescing in his château while we sorted out the police from his Paris apartment. Case closed. Just like clockwork. And the police believed every word you said. That’s the funny thing about experts. Everyone believes what they say. No one considers that they…that you…might have an ulterior motive. I have to admit that I thought we were in trouble when this one was stolen from here as soon as it arrived. Not part of our plan. But it seems he’d anticipated that, as well. Amazing.”
Delacloche turned back to the painting and shook her head. “I don’t see any damage, whatsoever. It’s just perfect.”
Grayson pulled out his mobile phone and dialed.
“It’s Grayson. We’ve got it. Perfect condition, everything just as you promised. Even delivered to us by the police, like you said. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t been…right. Well, I don’t know how you do it. You are well worth your price. We can’t thank you enough.”
“The pleasure is all mine,” replied the voice of Gabriel Coffin.
Harry Wickenden lumbered through the electric white sunny day. The
air was warm but crisp. Not a cloud broke the celestial blue, sky like the Venetian Lagoon, and the scintillant sun, a knife in the water, just beneath the surface waves. It struck Wickenden like a taunting slap, and his eyes squinted in feeble defense. Perhaps I should buy sunglasses, he thought. Ah, what’s the point?
He longed for the gauzy embrace of rain clouds, rain which did not mock him with false joy, the irrational exuberance of uncut blades of sunlight. Perhaps he should buy an umbrella and wade through the bright like a parasoled Victorian lady. But then people would mock him, as if nature’s derision were not scorn enough. He wanted to be noticed, surely. Not more, but at all. But not at the cost of dignity.
Did not his profession, his phenomenal success rate, warrant adulation? But he was tucked away in the department, thought under-cultured and undercharismatic for promotion and profile. His colleagues did not care for his despondent company, which made him suffer more, which perpetuated their distance, and his disdain: his uraeus, the snake biting its own tail, the self-perpetuating, unbroken circle. He was admired, perhaps, but not loved nor sought. He’d all too often walk past the Red Lion pub, with its perfume of ale and laughter floating out into the evening into his path, but he was never invited in.
And for how long? Harry could not remember when he had not felt this quiet, infinite weight, this daylight devil, this endless shadow upon him. Surely it had not always been this way. But ever since his little son…His bus pulled up to the curb, and he climbed inside. He brushed past the bus attendant, up the quick-curled stairs, along the upper deck, and to the front.
His seat was taken. There was a fat old woman with her groceries piled beside her, wearing a fur-collared overcoat in the heat of the sunlit bus front. Harry sat in the row immediately behind her.
The bus lurched forward. Harry sat sideways, one leg bent onto the seat. He felt his jaw extend forward, and his lower lip lift over and up, but he tried to hold back. What did he have? If work failed, what was left? His thoughts fed fuel to the speeding train of his quivering eyes, his temples beaten by the sunlight streaming in through the huge glass window at the front of the bus, a refracted barrage of white on white, an avalanche of absolute emptiness. The sun was blunted only by the shadow of the abundant old woman seated in the row in front of him. He leaned farther into her shadow.