Powell numbly shook the resident’s hand. “Can you tell me what happened?”
The resident peered into the next room, his smooth face unruffled by the sight. “Toxic epidermal necrolysis, also known as Lyell’s syndrome. The worst case I’ve ever seen. We’ve tried everything we can, but at this point, all we can do is treat the pain. Chances of survival are very low. I remember a case—”
“Toxic epidermal necrolysis,” Wolfe said. “What does that mean? His skin is dying?”
The resident blinked at the interruption. “The upper layer of skin, the epidermis, has sloughed off across ninety percent of his body. It’s being rejected, like a transplanted organ. That’s why we have him under ultraviolet light, which slows down immune system response. We’re also treating him with ciclosporin, but at this point, it doesn’t seem to be making any difference.”
“But how did it happen?” Powell asked. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kostava turn away, as if he had heard this all before.
“It’s very mysterious,” the resident said. “Our first theory was that it was an allergic reaction to medication. The immune system tries to force the drug out of the body by depositing it in the skin, which kills the tissue. We found traces of fluoroquinolone, a synthetic antibiotic, in his bloodstream, but not in sufficient quantities to cause a reaction this severe.”
“So he was poisoned,” Wolfe said. “There’s no way that this could be an accident.”
“Forensics isn’t really my field, so I can’t say. But severe reactions can be caused by interactions between multiple compounds. So far, if there is a second component, we haven’t found it yet.”
Powell turned back to the glass. The oligarch’s eyes were open, but he did not seem aware of his surroundings. He was breathing, but his mind was gone. Powell had seen it before. “Is there any prospect of recovery?”
“There’s always a chance of a miracle, but honestly—” The resident shook his head. “Even in the best of circumstances, the mortality rate is close to fifty percent, and this is no routine case. His airway is too badly damaged.”
“Then I need to question him now,” Powell said. “Before he dies, I need to find out how he was exposed.”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible,” the resident said. “Even if he were awake, he’s been suffering from acute paranoia and dementia. His skin loss and suppressed immune system leave him vulnerable to infection. It might be permissible with the right protective gear, but it would take a while to get the equipment together—”
“Do it, then,” Wolfe said. “In the meantime, we need access to his clinical history.”
“It’s in my office,” the resident said. “If you’ll come with me, we can take a look.”
“Fine. I’ll need copies, too.” Wolfe looked at Powell. “Can you get a statement from Kostava?”
Her eyes flashed a covert message, one that he decoded easily. “Yes, I can do that.”
“Good. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Wolfe followed the resident down the hallway and disappeared around the corner. Kostava was nowhere in sight. Powell stood there for a few seconds, waiting until he could no longer hear the squeak of rubber sandals against tile. Then he got to work.
Across the hall, there was an empty examination room. He ducked inside, scanning the rows of medical supplies on the shelves, and finally took a surgical mask and a pair of nitrate gloves. He tied the mask around his face and donned the gloves as he went back to the room where Archvadze was dying.
He opened the door. As he approached, Archvadze’s eyes widened. At the center of each pupil, Powell saw, there was a bright star of dementia, a fevered spark that he knew all too well.
Powell thought that the oligarch recognized him, but just to be sure, he took out his badge and held it up. Archvadze studied it, then lifted his head in an imitation of a nod, saying, “Powell.” His enunciation had grown soft, like that of a man who had gone days without water. “From London.”
“That’s right,” Powell said. He pulled up a chair and sat down. From the bed, a faintly sweet odor of antiseptic was underlined by something darker, the smell of the body glistening and exposed. Embarrassed by the proximity of death, he took out his notebook. “I’m here to learn who did this to you.”
Archvadze said something inaudible. When Powell leaned closer, the oligarch licked his lips, his tongue emerging from his mouth like a worm in dead soil. “Cell phone. The Chekists—”
Powell felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. “What about your cell phone?”
“Chekists put something on my phone,” Archvadze said, breathing heavily. “I figured it out. That’s why I threw it away. Don’t know what else they’ve touched. Or who else is working for them. I should have known. I thought I had power, but all I had was money. Money is nothing. Money is shit. I smell it in me, this corruption, and I have no doubt. It’s oozing out of me—”
“Why did the Chekists want to kill you?” Powell asked, raising his voice. Listening to the drone of the machines by the bedside, he knew that he was almost out of time. “What did you find out?”
“The trophy commission.” For a second, the oligarch’s eyes seemed to fill with light and lucidity. “The painting. You found it?”
“No,” Powell said. “It’s still missing. We’ll find it, I promise, and get it back to you.”
“Look closely,” Archvadze managed to say. “Not the front. The back. That’s where the truth lies. On the other side—”
He began to cough. A second later, Powell heard an alarm go off. When he looked at the monitor next to the bed, he saw the line weakening and flattening. Archvadze’s lungs were failing.
Powell bent down, eye to eye with the dying man, and whispered, “Who killed you? Tell me. Give me a name—”
Archvadze stared at him, eyes bulging. “Camera,” the oligarch hissed. “Camera.”
The oligarch’s eyes rolled back in his head. Powell heard the door bang open like a gunshot as the resident ran into the room, shouting for him to stand aside, a nurse and technician a few steps behind. Powell fell back, the oligarch’s last words echoing in his brain. He looked down at his notes. In the ultraviolet light, the paper of his notebook was glowing.
50
The old man walked along the Avenue of the Americas, his hatred for the city deepening with every step. Back home, each face he passed granted him the proper deference, but here, as he gazed up at the towers of steel and glass, he could sense their mute dismissal of the life he had carved out for himself.
When he arrived at the gallery, he rang the bell, keeping his face turned away from the street. A second later, the door opened, revealing an elegant figure standing just inside. The two men regarded each other for a long moment. Sharkovsky did not look away from the other man’s eyes.
At last, Lermontov stepped aside. “Be quick. You’ve kept me waiting long enough.”
As Sharkovsky entered the gallery, he kept on his sunglasses, which he wore in place of an eye patch. His right eye ached all the time now, as if a grain of sand were embedded in the optic nerve, and the constant irritation had begun to affect his judgment. If he had been able to think more clearly in recent days, he reflected, he might have avoided some of the mistakes that had turned him into an exile.
He followed the gallerist into the back office. When he closed his left eye and looked around the room, he saw only a vague blur of color. On the far edges of his field of vision, he could still sense movement and light, but the laser had burned out his fovea, making it impossible to see anything in detail. The room smelled faintly of soap, as if the floor had been recently washed.
Lermontov took a seat behind his desk. “Do you wish to make your confession?”
Sharkovsky lowered himself into the nearest chair. From most other men, the question would have made him laugh, but Lermontov was in a category all of his own. “You know what happened. My men were arrested. My club was raided. There must have been an informer—”
“O
r your phone was tapped. Did that never occur to you? What about the guns?”
“All gone. We were storing them in the basement until we could figure out the timing of the exchange. I will repay the loss to you.”
“The money isn’t important. I can make up the shortfall. What matters more is trust. It makes us wonder how useful you really are.” Lermontov paused. “Did you ever say my name over the phone?”
“Never on the phone,” Sharkovsky said. “All over encrypted email, like you wanted.”
As he spoke, he studied the gallery owner. There had been a time when he had seen Lermontov as little more than a revenue stream, a means of channeling art, which arrived in Brighton Beach along the same routes as guns and stolen merchandise, to collectors throughout the city. It had not taken him long, however, to figure out where the money went. Ever since, he had been unable to stifle a secret shudder, a protective tightening of his insides, whenever he saw this man.
“I have one piece of good news,” Lermontov said. “Anzor Archvadze is dead.”
Sharkovsky felt a faint sense of satisfaction. “The Scythian knew his business.”
“But there are complications. Natalia Onegina has been arrested, along with Kostava. If the police listen to what they have to say, sooner or later, they will become interested in this painting. We need to tie up the loose ends. One is the Scythian. You’ve repeatedly failed to take care of him.”
Sharkovsky tried to sound dismissive. “He doesn’t know your name. He knows nothing of our arrangement. It’s only a matter of time before he makes a mistake. When he does, the painting will be ours.”
“That isn’t good enough. We need to tighten the screws. Do you have the gun?”
Sharkovsky drew the revolver from his belt. After Ilya had lost it, he had retrieved it from under the boards. “Here it is.”
“Good.” Rising from his desk, Lermontov headed for the door. “Come with me.”
They went down the hall, past a row of canvases in wooden racks. There were drying streaks of water on the floor. Going to a closed door at the end of the corridor, Lermontov opened it, then switched on the lights.
Sharkovsky looked over the gallerist’s shoulder. Beyond the door lay a restroom with a toilet and sink. Lying on the floor was a young man’s body. He had been shot once in the back, with the slug emerging cleanly through an exit wound in his chest, and his eyes, at the level of the tile, were halfway open. Sharkovsky had never seen him before, but knew at once who it was.
At his side, Lermontov had donned a pair of gray leather gloves. “Give me the gun.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Sharkovsky handed him the revolver. Lermontov took it, checked the cylinder, then aimed it carefully at the body. When he fired, there was a wet thump, and the bullet lodged in the dead man’s shoulder, caught by the hard blade of the scapula.
Lermontov handed the gun back, then went over to the sink, on which a wallet, keys, and cell phone had been placed. He gave them to Sharkovsky. “The boy’s address is in his wallet. Go to his house and destroy all his notes. Don’t overthink it. Burn his papers and get his computer. Then I need you to take care of the girl. The same gun. You follow me?”
Sharkovsky nodded, understanding at once. Once the bodies had been found, ballistics would link them to the gun that killed Misha. Since both victims had witnessed the heist at the mansion, the police would assume that Ilya was simply cleaning house. “How do I find her?”
“I’ll figure out when she’s going to be home. She’s been calling the boy all morning. Keep his phone in case she tries him again. If necessary, we can text her to set up a meeting. But don’t use it to call me. Get a disposable phone, then contact me once you have the number.”
Sharkovsky pocketed the cell phone and the remaining items. “And after that?”
“I can get you to London. What happens next isn’t my concern. But you still need to prove that you deserve my protection.” Lermontov looked down at the body. “Now get out of my sight. I have work to do.”
Turning aside, Sharkovsky wanted to say something that would cause the gallerist to remember him, but in the end, he remained silent. He left by the front door, which locked automatically. Although nothing of his former life remained, he was comforted by the fact that he had a destination, a future, a chance to use his hands. It was almost enough to make him feel young again.
As he headed for where he had parked, he did not see the car at the curb halfway up the block, or the man watching him through the windshield. Ilya was about to follow on foot when he saw Sharkovsky enter the parking garage. Straightening up in his seat, he kept an eye on the ramp. He had been parked there for the past two hours. The car had been rented at the airport, using the identity documents and credit card that he had recovered from the binding of the Sefer Yetzirah.
He had known that Sharkovsky would appear sooner or later. The night before, when he had examined the computer at the club, the message from the gallery had stood out at once. Sharkovsky would need a paymaster. While pondering the purpose of the heist, and the larger system of which it was a part, Ilya had concluded that the paymaster could only be a member of the art world.
The pickup truck appeared at the ramp. As it rolled down to the curb, Ilya started his own engine. When the truck was half a block away, he pulled out into the street. He could see the back of Sharkovsky’s head through the window as they turned onto Park Avenue, heading south. They were going downtown.
51
Maddy lay on the floor of the study, looking up at the ceiling, a scrap of paper clutched in one hand. A few days earlier, Ethan had hung a snow shovel from a cord next to the overhead light. Now it drifted in a slow circle, blade downward, the only whisper of movement in the otherwise deserted apartment. Maddy watched it. The shovel cast an expanding and contracting shadow across her face as it turned in the air. She watched it some more.
As the shovel described its perfect circle, it seemed to her that there was something obscene in its continued motion. She rose, back stiff, and took the shovel down. Looking for a place to put it, she finally leaned it against the inside of the closet. It was not the only readymade in the room. An antique bottle rack with five tiers of hooks stood at attention near the door.
A pack of cigarettes was lying on the windowsill. After cracking the window, she slid out a cigarette and lit it, using a coffee cup by the laptop as an ashtray. A crime scene photo of the Black Dahlia murder had been posted above the desk. Maddy stared at it. In the hour since she had entered the apartment, she had gone through everything, searching for whatever Ethan had meant her to see, but so far, she had found nothing resembling an answer.
What she had found, instead, were chess problems. Ethan had made copies of all Duchamp’s writings on chess, including his one published book on the game, which Maddy now leafed through again. It described an extraordinarily rare endgame situation, never encountered in regular play, in which only the white and black kings remained on the board, along with a pawn or two. With the rest of the men eliminated, it came down to a duel between two pieces, the last ones standing. And the best possible outcome for black, it seemed, was a draw.
She put the book down. It wasn’t hard to see why Ethan had become fixated on chess. The title Étant Donnés, or Given, came from the language of geometric proofs. Given a diagram and a set of assumptions, you made a series of deductions until you had proven a theorem. A chess problem was not so different. It was a diagram of a game in progress, paused before a decisive moment. The challenge was to figure out what came next. And Duchamp’s last message, as embodied in the installation, seemed to depend on the same process of reasoning.
And that was the trouble. If Étant Donnés was a chess problem, as Ethan’s notes implied, then her task was to figure out what the next move should be. But this brought her up against an insurmountable obstacle. She didn’t know anything about chess. She barely knew how to move the pieces.
As Maddy looked around the room, she found hersel
f wondering if Duchamp would really have played by the rules. His entire career had been devoted to undermining convention, so perhaps the answer lay outside the game itself. You could knock the pieces from the board with a sweep of the hand, or unplug the chess computer, or shoot your opponent in the heart. Like severing the Gordian Knot. Or like Solomon, ready to cut the baby in half—
She sat upright in her chair. For a moment, she felt as if the world had tilted sideways. Before her was the crime scene photo that Ethan had posted above his desk. It showed the murder victim, Elizabeth Short, lying dead in a field, cut in half at the waist. Maddy stared at the picture, concentrating on the insight that was hovering just out of reach, and finally managed to grasp it.
Duchamp, she saw, had left the tableau incomplete. He had known it would evoke the Black Dahlia murder, but had not taken his reconstruction to its logical conclusion. Elizabeth Short’s body had been cut in half, but the body in the installation was whole. That was the next move. The scene had been paused before its climax. And to complete it, the body had to be cut in two.
She remembered the readymade that Duchamp had constructed with Walter Arensberg. A ball of twine had been sandwiched between two pieces of metal, but beforehand, Arensberg had inserted an object inside the ball without telling Duchamp what it was. To see what was inside, you had to cut it in half, like the Gordian Knot. And if Duchamp had done something similar with the installation, it wasn’t hard to guess what kind of information it might contain.
As she looked at the Black Dahlia, the picture seemed to dissolve before her eyes, and then the world went away. When her vision cleared, she found that she was seated at Ethan’s laptop, on which she had opened two windows. One displayed the hours for the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The other was a bus schedule. If she left soon, she could be there an hour before it closed. Étant Donnés had an alcove of its own, and it was usually deserted, so she would have it all to herself—
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