Wicked Winters: A Collection of Winter Tales

by Lucy Smoke

  “Why didn’t they tell me?” she asked, even to her ears, her voice sounded lost. Tears welled in their grandmother’s eyes, spilling down her cheeks. “No, don’t cry,” Shira begged. “I’m sorry.”

  “My boy. My Ravi. He’s all heart. Like me. He wanted them for me. Even when he was a little boy, he’d tell his grandfather and me he’d find them. I think he wanted to give me a piece of my husband back before I left this world. Even though—” She sniffed. “This artwork was the part of my husband which made him the man I married. These were the paintings that hung in his home as a little boy. This was the lamp his grandmother lit on Hanukkah before the entire family gathered around their country table and feasted. They wanted to do right by me, but I need you to finish what they started. The right way,” she said. “Do you understand?”

  It was as if Yaphet spoke through her. Did she understand?

  Shira nodded, but her heart was breaking. “I understand.”

  That night, Shira sat with Sarah until she fell asleep. Then, when she was certain the old woman wouldn’t hear her, she stood up and placed the again-full envelope against her chest and under her coat. Quietly, she made her way to the lamp, said a quiet prayer, and lit each of the candles. She wasn’t wearing her watch, but she thought it was the sixth night. Six candles, and the shamash.

  The lamp was as beautiful as she imagined it would be. Buttoning her coat with one hand, Shira opened the door with the other.

  Dov and Yaphet sat on the couch. Yaphet’s arms were crossed over his chest, his head resting on the back pillow as he stared at the ceiling. Dov held an open file on his lap, and though his gaze was trained on it, Shira could tell he wasn’t reading.

  “She’s asleep,” Shira whispered, jolting them.

  Both stood and approached her warily. Above the sideboard, near the dining room table was a clock. It was nearly midnight.

  “Would someone bring me home?” she asked. “I need to go home.” Her voice trembled, and she bit her lip before she could give herself away.

  Dov and Yaphet exchanged a glance. “Of course,” Dov said. “Yaphet?”

  “I’ll stay,” he answered. “No problem.”

  Dov dropped the file on the couch. His coat was where he left it on a chair and he flung it across his arm. “Call me if anything changes.”

  “I will,” Yaphet answered, all the while staring at Shira as if he could see through her.

  Together, they went to the door, but before she stepped into the hallway, Shira thought of something and turned around. “Your grandmother wanted me to light the menorah in her room.” she said. “You’ll want to check the candles before you go to sleep.”

  7

  The Seventh Day

  Shira could feel Dov’s gaze on her as the elevator descended to the lobby, but he didn’t speak. For that, she was grateful.

  Her mind whirled, and the last thing she wanted was to say something she’d regret.

  To think that Dov and his brothers were not the men she thought they were, was too much.

  Dov opened the door to his car, waiting for Shira to get in. She slid inside and buckled, but he didn’t shut the door. From the corner of her eye, she saw him squat next to her. “Shira.” His voice was tortured.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked. “You came to the gallery. You saw the lamp and all your paintings. You should have just told me they were yours.”

  “We weren’t sure you didn’t already know,” he whispered. His words hurt more than she thought possible, and she sucked in a pained breath.

  Wrapping her arms around her chest, she nodded sharply.

  “Shira,” he began again.

  “What?” she asked. Her voice was sharp, but it was because she was breaking apart. “What else, Dov? More lies?”

  Abruptly, he stood. As Shira tracked him, he marched around the front of the car, but didn’t get in right away. Through the window, she saw him grip the roof, lean forward and shake his head. “Fuck!” He got in, slamming the door shut hard enough to shake the car. He jammed the key in the ignition, but paused after starting it. “Are you going to tell?” he asked. “I need to know so I can protect my brothers. If you’re going to call the police, I want you to tell them I stole the artwork. I'll take the blame."

  She was wrong, there was something that hurt more than them suspecting her of being complicit with Director Lohse’s plan. It was Dov believing she’d save her own skin by throwing his family under the bus. “Fine.” It was a non-answer. The truth was, she didn’t know what she was going to do.

  Did she blame the guys for what had happened to her? Yes. She blamed them for mugging her, and tricking her into thinking they cared about her.

  But the real criminal were the owners of Lohse and Gottleib House. They were the ones whose decisions had started this mess.

  Her answer apparently satisfied Dov though, because he pulled away from the curb.

  As they drove, she considered what she knew. “Where is it?” she asked. “I know the lamp is at your grandmother’s, where’s the rest?”

  “We didn’t take it all,” Dov answered. “The Beckman, the Pissarro, the lamp. The ones that were in the stories my grandfather told us. The ones we thought our grandmother would want to see.”

  If only they’d told their grandmother their plan. They would have understood that she’d never wanted them to put themselves at risk like that for her.

  “Where are they?” she asked again.

  “Storage locker in Queens,” he finally answered. “Paid for with cash through a series of people who have no connection to us.”

  “So you expected to be caught?” she asked. Headlights illuminated Dov’s face, highlighting the starkness of his features. His skin, usually a golden brown, was sallow, and his eyes were sunken.

  “I knew it was a possibility. But Ravi—but we—thought it was worth it. To give this to our grandmother before she died.”

  If he thought she’d ignore his slip-up, he was mistaken. “It was Ravi’s idea.” It wasn’t a question. This had all the marks of the man she had only started to know. Time and again, Ravi proved he walked around with his heart outside his chest. Of course, he’d be motivated to give his grandmother something he thought she’d want. Of course, he’d move heaven and earth to make it happen.

  The car stopped and Shira glanced out her window in surprise. The trip to her building had passed by so quickly, she hadn’t realized they were close. “Will you come up?” she asked.

  Dov whipped his head around. “Why?”

  “Please,” she asked. Not only did she have more questions, she wasn’t ready to say goodbye yet. For some reason, she didn’t want him to leave as things now stood between them.

  “Okay,” he answered.

  He shut off the engine and got out. Shira led the way into her building, unlocking the door and guiding him toward her apartment. Dov kept his eyes on the floor. Each time she glanced over at him, he stared at it as if he could see through it.

  His shame was palpable. Oh, he knew he’d messed up.

  Like you did earlier. A voice inside her wagged its transparent finger at her. The guys may have barreled into her life for all the wrong reasons, but could she concede that she’d made some mistakes where they were concerned as well?

  While she didn’t regret what she’d done with Pascal, she did regret the hurt she’d caused Ravi. And the hurt it may have done to his relationship with his brother.

  Sarah’s words echoed in her mind, but she pushed them away, stabbing her key into her apartment lock.

  “Do you want some tea?” she asked, as she shut the door behind them and threw the deadbolts.

  “No.” Dov answered. “No, thank you.”

  Shira unbuttoned her coat, letting it drop to the floor. Her apartment felt strange. Like she didn’t belong there anymore.

  The past week she’d kept crazy hours, had insane things happen to her. This apartment belonged to a girl who had changed so completely, so quickl
y, that it didn’t reflect her anymore.

  Dov stood awkwardly, shifting from foot to foot. “Why am I here, Shira?”

  She went to the kitchen and pulled out bottles of water from the fridge. She tossed Dov one, and opened the second, drinking deeply. A trickle of water escaped her lips, and she swooped her sleeve over her mouth. “I want to understand. Can you explain it to me?” she asked.

  Emotions passed over his face, one after the other—surprise, annoyance, acceptance.

  She sat on the couch and patted the seat, waiting. Finally, he collapsed next to her. The bottle of water hung from his fingers and he moved it between his hands, rolling it back and forth. “Where do I start?”

  “How did you learn about the artwork?” she asked.

  “Yaphet,” he answered. “His work gives him access to information related to more—nefarious—groups. Anything related to Nazis or the Holocaust…”

  Shira understood immediately. “Mossad.” Yaphet worked for the Israeli Intelligence Agency. In the past, they’d tracked and assassinated Nazis who’d escaped justice.

  Dov didn’t answer. He didn’t give her any indication she was right, but merely held her gaze.

  “Why didn’t you—” She stopped, and tried again. “Why didn’t you use the resources available to him to get the artwork? Why all this?”

  “It would have taken too long,” he said simply.

  It struck her. Dov and his brothers had no idea about the provenances his grandmother had given her. The woman had held onto the documents that proved the pieces in the gallery belonged to her family. But because she assumed the artwork was lost, she’d never told her grandsons about it.

  By giving Shira the provenances, Sarah had been asking her for more than just keeping her grandsons from being arrested for art theft. She’d given Shira the means to find justice for her husband’s family.

  “I’m sorry,” Shira whispered. She knew what she had to do now.

  “I am, too,” Dov replied. His hand trembled as he reached for her, but his strong fingers grasped hers tightly. “I would have liked to know you better. From the moment I laid eyes on you,” he said. “I was captivated.”

  Shira huffed. “You would have been disappointed soon enough.”

  “Don’t.” He squeezed her hand. “Don’t put yourself down like that. I’m not my brothers. I’m not impulsive like Pascal, or insightful like Yaphet. I don’t wear my heart on my sleeve like Ravi, but I’m telling you the truth. I would have liked to know you, Shira.”

  Shutting her eyes against the pain she knew he’d see if she looked at him, she turned away. “I’d have liked to know you too, Dov.”

  He stood. “Have a nice life, Shira. I’m sorry for everything my brothers and I put you through.” Without another word he left her. The door shut behind him with a final sounding click.

  For a long time, Shira sat there, staring after him. She imagined him driving through the quiet city streets in the early morning hours towards his brothers and grandmother.

  She imagined him hours from now, days from now, and the things that would come to pass. Would she learn of Sarah’s death? Would she be able to pay her respects?

  Tears dripped down her chin and she wiped them away angrily. She had lost something tonight. Not only had she lost the very beginnings of something magical and unnamable with four men, but she’d lost the blinders she’d worn to the world.

  Dov was wrong. She had had a part in this evil. Blindly, she’d trusted Director Lohse. If she’d done what she was supposed to, if she’d examined the initial provenances he’d given her, the ones with the gaps of ownership between the years of nineteen thirty-three and nineteen forty-five, she could have stopped this. Why had she accepted Director Lohse at his word when he’d said he’d given her the wrong files?

  She wasn’t stupid.

  Shira walked to the living room window and stared out over the city. The sky was dark blue, and she couldn’t see the stars, but the snow fluttering to the ground caught the street lights like a star shower.

  Leaning her forehead on the cool glass, Shira shut her eyes and prayed for the strength to do what needed to be done.

  Jeremy Prince, the lawyer friend Ravi had sent to help her, groaned and dropped his head into his hands. “Ravi owes me so big.”

  “I’m sorry.” Shira apologized to the man for the thousandth time in the past hour. He’d come when she’d called, even though it wasn’t yet daylight. Now, he sat across from her and banged his head on the small square kitchen table.

  She’d signed paperwork making him her lawyer, written a check as a retainer, and poured out her story.

  The first thing Jeremy had done was flip the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and bury his face in his arms. Then, as she’d gone on, he’d taken to groaning aloud. “I don’t want to know this. Shit. I don’t want to know this.”

  “So that’s it,” she said. “Can you help?”

  He laughed humorlessly. “I’m going to have to if I’m keeping you and my boys out of jail.”

  “I have everything here that proves what Director Lohse has done,” she said, sliding the provenances toward him. She’d spent hours poring over them before she called Jeremy. She couldn’t authenticate them, but, upon first glance, they seemed solid. “All the police need are the files he initially gave me, the ones that show when the pieces went missing.”

  “This isn’t my area of expertise, Shira,” Jeremy said, glancing up at her bleary eyed. “But I know the people who can help. Fuck!” He pushed back from the table and paced across the room.

  “Do this for me. The right way.” Shira could hear Sarah’s voice like she was standing right next to her.

  “Can we do this?” she asked Jeremy. “This is their legacy. It belongs to them. Do you think we can get it for them?”

  Jeremy pushed the hood back from his head. Crossing his arms, he blew out a breath and stared up at the ceiling. As she watched, he straightened and dropped his hands to his sides. “Yeah.” He nodded. “Yeah. I got this.”

  8

  The Eighth Day

  Jeremy was true to his word, but more hours of being awake than asleep were making it difficult for Shira to understand what was happening.

  Luckily, the FBI agents didn’t seem to need much from her. They’d already been watching Director Lohse and his partner.

  It turned out, Lohse and Gottleib weren’t such super stars in the art world. Unknown to Shira, they’d started their gallery because their reputations were tainted, and no one else would hire them.

  This wasn’t the first auction they’d put together with stolen art. Individually, they’d offered twenty suspected Nazi-confiscated pieces in questionable sales.

  But because of their connections, the former galleries where Gottleib and Lohse were employed had been careful not to make their suspicions widely known. After all, as facilitators of the sales, the galleries’ reputations were on the line as well.

  Quietly, the galleries contacted Interpol, who had in turn, contacted the appropriate investigative units in the cities where the directors lived. For months, these agencies had been watching and waiting.

  And the directors of Shira’s gallery had no idea.

  Shira had no idea.

  Still, the men had panicked when the pieces for their auction, the ones that promised a huge commission that would set them up for life, came with chronological gaps in their provenances.

  There was no need, as Shira thought, for the FBI, or CIA, or Mossad, or MI5, or any other spy agency she could remember, to break into the gallery in the dead of night to pilfer the provenances Director Lohse hadn’t meant for her to see.

  The FBI already had them.

  To Shira’s amazement, it had been the simplest of problems that had proved Lohse and Gottleib’s downfall: shipping.

  The fake provenances were late coming, as were the pieces Lohse wanted included in the auction. If it hadn’t been for the delay in shipping, their auction wouldn’t have
raised an eyebrow.

  Shira had helped a little. Her attempts to authenticate the fake provenances had alerted all the right people in all the right galleries. So while the trap had been set well before Shira came to work at the gallery, it was her thoroughness that had sprung it.

  The door to the conference room where Shira and Jeremy had met with the FBI agents opened, and a man Shira’d never seen before entered.

  “Ms. Rose.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Aaron Galante. I’m a representative from the Israeli government.”

  Shira shot a panicked glance at Jeremy. This was her fear—she’d done her best to keep the Hasmone’s names out of the explanations, but the real provenances had come from their grandmother. And the fact of the matter was, the stolen artwork belonged to their family.

  “I work with Yaphet,” he continued significantly, dropping Shira’s hand.

  “What can you do for us?” Jeremy asked.

  “Well…” Aaron stuck his hands in his pockets and Shira studied him. He wore jeans and a black jacket, the kind college kids wore. He appeared relaxed, nondescript, but he had an air of power that even his Joe Schmoe clothes couldn’t hide. “I’m actually here because of what you can do for me.” He turned his attention to Shira. “I need you to authenticate the provenances. There’s no way I can keep the artwork from being confiscated, but it belongs to the Hasmones. It was stolen from a Jewish family during the Holocaust, and it belongs with its rightful owners. With your help, Shira, we can make sure it’s returned to them.”

  A sigh holding the weight of all her guilt and fear burst out of her. “Yes,” she answered quickly. “I’ll start now. I need a phone and a computer.”

  “Do you know where the artwork is?” Aaron asked her.

  “Some of it is still in the gallery,” she hedged.

  Aaron smiled as if he knew what she was doing. And he probably did. Shira wasn’t made for subterfuge; she didn’t know how to lie.