Now a man dressed in a leather car coat and city shoes came out of the cabin and went forward, slipping on the wet fiberglass, and he went down sprawling when the boat slammed the dock for the sixth time. Crosetti figured this clown show would take a while, so he used the bathroom, pulled on his boots, made a short cell phone call, and descended to the kitchen. Mishkin was there, drinking coffee.
“They’re here,” said Crosetti, pouring himself a cup. “Pop-Tarts?”
“Yes, my daughter corrupted me when she was small. Have a couple.”
“Thank you,” said Crosetti, putting a pair into the toaster. “Have they managed to dock yet?”
The kitchen window was on the wrong side of the house, but by moving close to it one could just make out the foot of the dock. Mishkin peered past the chintz café curtains and said, “Just about. They’ve secured the pointy end and now they’re trying to maneuver the stern into place.”
“I guess they’re probably better gangsters than they are pilots.”
“Oh, yes. There were some fairly mediocre gangsters sent for me in New York, although not by Shvanov. I bet he’s brought his first team on this venture. So…still think it’s a movie?”
“No, I’m starting to get scared, since you ask.”
“You could leave. No one expects you to be here.”
“There’s Rolly, though.”
“True. Any final advice from the movies?”
“Yeah,” said Crosetti, “whatever your plan is, it’ll have a flaw.”
“Because…?”
“You can’t think of everything, one; and two, you need a reversal in the last six minutes to keep the tension up.”
“Well, at least we won’t have a fistfight in the abandoned factory. Let me go greet our guests.”
Mishkin walked out of the kitchen and Crosetti went to the window. As he did so, he heard the engine of the boat cut off and observed that they now had it tied up and people were getting off: the tall man in the leather coat, who had gone out on the deck, then a medium-size man in a camel hair overcoat and a fur hat (the Boss), then a linebacker-size fellow, also coated in black leather, leading two children, a boy and a girl, then a woman in a white parka, with the hood up over her head, then a man wearing a Burberry and a tweed cap, with the lower part of his face swathed in a striped woolen muffler, and finally another black-leather guy, only this one’s coat came down to his shins. Crosetti went into the living room. Mishkin was poking the huge fire he’d just started and it was ablaze, filling the room with the scent of burning resin. The fatal envelope still sat on the table, but the laptop was gone.
The front door slammed open and two of the thugs tromped in-the big one and the long-coated one, who had a pale ill-formed face like the monster Pillsbury Doughboy from Ghostbusters. Then came the man Crosetti knew must be the famous Shvanov. He said something in Russian to his boys and they immediately grabbed Mishkin, beat him to the ground, and started stomping him. As this proceeded, the rest of the boat party entered, pushed along by the Deckhand. Crosetti noticed a number of things at once. First, Mishkin was taking the beating without resistance, although in London Crosetti had watched him toss a big guy through the air like a Frisbee. Next, the children: Imogen very angry, started to go to her father’s aid, and would have, had the Deckhand not grabbed her; there was something wrong with Niko, his head held at an unnatural downward angle, and his hands moving in meaningless little patterns. He seemed to be humming or talking to himself and he smelled of vomit, traces of which smeared the front of his parka. Finally, the woman. She had pushed back her hood on entering the room, revealing neck-length dark hair, not too clean, and her face, upon which was a look of horror at what was being done to Mishkin. The man in the Burberry was also staring at the beating, but not with horror-morbid fascination maybe, or even satisfaction.
This all in a quite short time, which seemed longer, an interval, Crosetti knew, that would be drawn out for well over a minute on the screen. The woman shouted at Shvanov to stop it and Shvanov shouted back at her, but he told his men to stop. They dragged Mishkin to his feet, holding him by his arms. He blinked, he wiped at the blood and saliva issuing from his mouth, he said to his children, “I’m sorry, kids, this wasn’t supposed to happen. Did they hurt you?”
The girl said, “Not really. But Niko was sick on the boat and he’s acting weird.”
Shvanov strode forward and slapped Mishkin hard on the face.
“This is entirely your fault, Mishkin,” he said. “I try to act in a civilized manner to obtain property that is rightfully mine, and what do I get? Respect? No, I have to chase you here, which is a colossal inconvenience, and you require me to also kidnap children. This is unconscionable. Osip Shvanov does not kidnap children, as I have told you before, but you don’t listen. And now we have come to this. So, now, at last, hand me over my property, namely one manuscript of William Shakespeare.”
But Mishkin was staring at the woman. He said, “Hello, Miranda. Why did you change your hair? And your eyes.”
The woman was silent. Shvanov slapped Mishkin on the face again, spraying blood in a wide pattern against the wall above the fireplace. “No, don’t look at her, look at me, you stupid pig lawyer! Where is my property?”
“It’s in the envelope on that table,” said Crosetti.
Everyone in the room turned and stared at him.
“Who is this man?” Shvanov demanded.
“This is Albert Crosetti,” said Mishkin, “the man who found the original Bracegirdle manuscript and sold it to Professor Bulstrode. Or so he claims.”
Shvanov went to the table and removed the contents of the envelope. He gestured to the man in the Burberry, who hurried to his side.
Mishkin said, “While we’re making introductions, Crosetti, that is Professor Mickey Haas, the world’s foremost Shakespeare expert. Or so he claims.”
Haas took the stack of papers from Shvanov, sat at the table, stuck reading glasses on his face, and began to peruse the first sheet. Crosetti could see that his hands were shaking. For almost half an hour, the only sounds in the room were the crackling of the flames, the muttering of the boy, and the rustle of the stiff old paper.
“So? What do you say, Professor?” said Shvanov.
“It’s astounding! Obviously, there are technical tests to go through, but I’ve seen a lot of seventeenth-century manuscripts, and as far as I can see this is genuine. The paper is right, the ink is right, the handwriting is…well, we don’t actually have any examples of Shakespeare’s hand aside from some signatures and of course there’s the so-called Hand D from the partial manuscript of the Thomas More play, but there certainly, I mean most probably-”
“Bottom line, Professor, is it a salable property?”
Haas replied in an odd strained voice, speaking with unnatural precision, “I think, yes, the language, the style, my God, yes, I believe that subject to various tests as I’ve mentioned, that this is a manuscript of an unknown play by William Shakespeare.”
Shvanov clapped Haas on the back hard enough to loosen his glasses. “Good! Excellent!” he crowed, and all the thugs smiled.
Then Mishkin said, “Osip, what did you expect him to say? The thing is a fraud. He set the whole thing up with the forger, Leonard Pascoe. I have proof.”
Haas leaped up from his chair and snarled at Mishkin, “You son of a bitch! What the hell do you know about it? This is real! And if you think you can-”
Shvanov poked Haas hard in the arm and he stopped talking. Then Shvanov stepped closer to Mishkin until he was staring up into the bigger man’s face. “What kind of proof?”
“I’ll show you. Make them let go of me.”
A nod and Mishkin was released. He went to a magazine rack by the fireside couch and took out a FedEx envelope, from which he removed some papers and a compact disk. He said, “First the documentary evidence. This”-handing a sheet to Shvanov-“is a copy of the original Bracegirdle manuscript. This is a sheet on which Leonard Pascoe
forged Bracegirdle’s hand. Even a novice such as yourself, Osip, can see that they are identical. Your pal over there found a seventeenth-century letter from a dying man and interpolated a sheet or two in a forged hand and then concocted the whole cipher business out of whole cloth and then arranged for this so-called play to be found in just the place called for in the ciphers.”
“That’s insane!” shouted Haas. “Pascoe’s in prison.”
“A country club,” said Mishkin, “which we visited, as the people Osip had following us have no doubt informed him. Osip, didn’t you wonder why we stopped by there?”
Crosetti saw Shvanov exchange a quick glance with the Deckhand.
“We stopped by for this,” said Mishkin. He held up the compact disk. “Leonard Pascoe is quite proud of his trade, and this was his biggest coup. He’ll have a nice little nest egg waiting for him when he gets out, courtesy of Mickey, or I should say courtesy of Osip Shvanov, because the money he used was the money he got from you, or part of it. It was a perfect fix for him. How much is he into you for by the way?”
“Osip, this is crazy! How could I-?”
“Shut up, Haas! Play this disk, please, Mishkin, and I very much hope that this is not some foolish trick.”
Mishkin turned on the sound system and inserted the CD into the player. The voice of Leonard Pascoe filled the room and they all listened in silence as he explained how to use a phony letter and a phony cipher and various agents to pull off a massive con. When it was over, Mishkin said, “The bird in this case is, of course, the mysterious Carolyn Rolly, who was perfectly positioned to carry it off-well connected to Shvanov, desperate to get out from under him, needing money to rescue her children and leave the country. She supposedly discovered the doctored manuscript in an old book, inveigled our friend Crosetti into fronting it, because we need an innocent mark, don’t we? And she has, throughout this adventure, been somehow always in the right position to advance the plot, although there’s a little variation on Pascoe’s original plan. Carolyn doesn’t have to steal the money because she’s already been paid, and the main purpose of the plot is in any case to get rid of Osip Shvanov. So, now you have the manuscript, and the people from Israel who are ready to buy it are in New York right now. You’ll sell it to them, get your ten million dollars-on the strength of the excellent Professor Haas’s recommendation-whose debt is thereby canceled, and everyone is happy, until your buyers try to present it in public for the big score, and suddenly it turns out that the play is not quite what we have come to expect from the Bard, is in fact the work of a lesser literary figure, Mickey Haas for example, a pastiche. Because you’re a fucking illiterate, Osip, and a foreigner, and therefore a perfect mark, as our friend Pascoe just told us. Shakespeare can’t be forged, but you’d never be able to tell that. And what do you suppose will happen to you when your buyers find out they’ve been had?”
Crosetti saw that Shvanov had gone white around the lips and that a vein in his temple was pulsing. He said, “How do you know the price is ten million?”
“Because my father told me. He’s the syndicate’s man in New York, and his principals are going to be very, very unhappy with you.”
“You have told him this?”
“Of course. And now I’m telling you, which is why I arranged for everyone involved to be here so we could get it all thrashed out. Oh, except for Carolyn Rolly. She seems to be in the wind just now, but I’m sure you can put your hands on her.”
Crosetti observed a puzzled expression appear on Shvanov’s face. He pointed to the woman in the white parka. “What do you mean? That is Carolyn Rolly.”
“Oh, Carolyn,” said Crosetti, half to himself. No one seemed to hear him. Everyone was looking at Mishkin, who had staggered as from a blow. His face had taken on a crushed look that the beating had not been able to put there. Shvanov saw it and it appeared to delight him.
“Yes, I can put my hands on her as you say, Jake,” he said and put his arm around Rolly’s shoulder. “And should I believe him, Carolyn? That you have conspired to cheat me with this professor? Osip, who took you in off the streets, gave you where to live, and showed you what is to be with a man.” In falsetto: “Oh, fuck me more in the ass, darling, it is so good.”
He took her jaw between his thumb and fingers and twisted. “Heh? Have you done this to me, you whore? Yes, maybe: it is something you would do, if maybe you don’t like your children anymore, or you forget I know where they live in Pennsylvania? But who knows what a whore will do?”
He walked to the table where Haas was standing, gaping at him, a rabbit to the cobra, and picked up the packet of manuscript. He evened the edges and weighed them in his hand. “But you, Professor, you are not a whore. We have a business relationship, we are dealing with each other for all this time, I have confidence in you, man-to-man, how could you do this? I am very disappointed.”
“He’s lying,” said Haas, speaking rapidly, stuttering over the words. From where he stood, Crosetti could see the man’s knees actually trembling. “He made all that up to…confuse you. He’s very clever, he thinks he can get away with anything, the great Jake Mishkin, but he’s lying here, this is a genuine play, the greatest manuscript discovery of all time. I’m the fucking expert, Osip, for Christ’s sake, and anyway how could I have ‘conspired’ as you say with this woman, I never set eyes on her before in my life, and going to Pascoe and arranging all this…it’s ridiculous…you can’t believe. These pages in your hand, and the ciphers, and everything, they’re precious, precious, I never dreamed I would ever have my hands on something like this…”
Mishkin said, “He did know Carolyn Rolly. She was a student at Columbia. Bulstrode introduced them. Ask Crosetti.”
Crosetti cleared his throat, which felt like it was full of white library paste, and said, “Well, yeah. She definitely knew Bulstrode. And Bulstrode knew Haas.”
“You see, Professor?” said Shvanov. “It will not add up. And so I think he is right, I think this is all a cheat, and this paper is garbage.” With that, he took two quick steps and tossed the stack of pages into the fireplace.
Haas uttered a cry that seemed to come up from his descending colon, a brute scream of desperate loss, and immediately dashed across the room and threw himself into the heart of the fire. He grabbed handfuls of paper off the coals, pinching out any fire that had bit into them with his bare hands and tossing the pages back into the room, like a dog tossing earth out of a hole. Some of the pages, Crosetti saw, had caught in the updraft and had been plastered against the back of the deep fireplace, but Haas heaved his whole body across the blazing logs and pulled them free. As he did this he never stopped screaming, nor did he stop when he pulled himself out of the fire, ablaze all down the front of his clothes, his scarf a necklace of fire. He trotted in little circles slapping at the flames, his face a hideous black-red mask, his glasses warped and partially melted.
Mishkin now snatched up the flaming professor as if he had been a hollow man and made for the door, carrying him on his shoulder. The Deckhand tried to stop him and was stiff-armed out of the way, falling on a side table with a crash. Once outside, Mishkin dived into a hollow where the snow was relatively deep and used handfuls of it to douse the flames and after these had hissed out, used more snow to cool the red and tortured flesh showing through the charred clothing and on the face.
Crosetti observed this through the open door and watched as the Deckhand got up and tromped over to the kneeling Mishkin and kicked him hard in the ribs. He would have continued to kick had Shvanov not called him off.
“You know this gives me an idea,” said Shvanov. With a start, Crosetti realized that the gangster was addressing him. He immediately understood that the man was going to give him an explanation, because this is what movie gangsters always do for their victims, and he wondered if gangsters behaved so in earlier times. Probably yes, he thought, because you saw that in Shakespeare, the self-justifying villain, the delight in describing the prospect of death to th
e helpless victim. But did Shakespeare invent that, like screenwriters invented the quick-draw gunfight? Probably. He invented most of what passes for human behavior. Crosetti made himself concentrate on what Shvanov was saying.
“…so don’t you agree? Everyone will sacrifice for something, but not that kind of sacrifice, not the body, not even for money. For children maybe.” Here he looked coldly at the two Mishkin kids. “Or as we have just seen, for this manuscript. So, of course it is real.”
“You took a risk,” said Crosetti.
“Yes, but a man such as myself must take risks, it is entrepreneurial spirit. Now I have payoff.” He looked over to where his two men were gathering the sheets of scorched paper. “And I don’t think that some little burnt places will reduce the value too much if any. It gives a look of more authenticity, I believe, for so old a piece. But, as I say, this burning gives an idea. The professor Haas invites his good friend Mishkin to his cabin with his two children, and also his friend Crosetti with his girlfriend Carolyn, and they go out in the Haas speedboat on this beautiful lake, even though it is cold, because it is so beautiful in the snow and there is a tragic explosion, a gasoline leak, or whatever, and they are all burned and sunk in the water.”
“I don’t understand. I didn’t have anything to do with this scam and neither did Carolyn.”
The Book of Air and Shadows Page 49