Aaron Elkins: A Deceptive Clarity

"Something else? There wasn't anything else on the truck."

"Sure, there was. You."

"Me? Me? "

Abrams and another soldier, seated a few feet in front of us, looked up. I lowered my voice.

"Harry, this is getting to me. Why do you keep saying things like that? Why would anyone want to explode- kill-me?"

"Why would anyone want to kill van Cortlandt?"

"That's a terrific answer."

"Look," he said with weary patience, "you keep telling me he got killed because he found a forgery, right?"

"Probably the El Greco."

"OK, whatever. Well, whoever killed him has to be worried about you finding it, too, since you go around telling everybody in earshot that you're looking for it and you're gonna find it. I mean, it only makes sense."

I sat back and stared at the plane's stark interior, turning over this unpalatable thought.

"You're going to have to start being careful, Chris," Harry said gendy. "I mean really careful. From now on, no more trips out of Berlin without talking to me first. I even want to know when you leave Columbia House."

"I mean it; I'm serious."

"All right, I promise." After a while I said, "Harry, I just realized: Traben has to be involved, doesn't he? That whole ridiculous transportation scheme was his idea."

Harry looked over at me and smiled tiredly.

"No, listen," I said. "Let's assume the El Greco is a forgery. Isn't it possible Traben substituted it after making off with the original-which he could probably sell for thirty or forty thousand dollars-"

"I thought it was worth two million."

"It is, but stolen art's no different from stolen anything. You can't sell it for full value. Anyhow," I went on, growing more excited, "blowing up the truck would be a master stroke-it'd destroy the evidence, and it'd also kill me, the only guy around who'd be likely to know it for a fake. His worries would be over… Harry, are you laughing for any particular reason?"

"I think you've got a first-rate hypothesis there, Chris. Only one small problem."

"Which is?"

"Traben was planning to ride in the truck with you."

"Oh." I slouched moodily down into the uncomfortably upright chair. "The hell with it. I'm going to have a nap. Maybe everything will be clear when I've looked at the painting."

"Yeah," Harry said. "Sure."

Purification of the Temple, purportedly by Domenikos Theotokopoulos, called El Greco; the Greek. Painted about 1598 and certified by Major Harry M. Gucci to contain no explosives or contraband.

At the center stands a red-robed Christ, willowy, ethereal, dispassionately resolute. In his gently upraised hand is a flail, held aloft so languidly that its thongs trail straight down, limp and unthreatening. Nevertheless, there is consternation in the writhing knot of people before him. They fling themselves wildly away to escape the drooping lash, tilting their bodies far to the left, so that everything is disturbingly off balance. The figures are elongated or bizarrely foreshortened, the shifts in perspective violent and unnatural, the colors acid and eerie.

I stood frowning at it and working the kinks out of my back after a long, meticulous examination. I was feeling rather crabby. I wouldn't argue with El Greco's genius, but, speaking for myself, four hours of staring at those twisty, febrile fanatics was about three hours and fifty minutes too much.

"The damn thing's genuine," I grumbled. "I'd bet on it." Fortunately, Harry, who had heard my willingness to bet the other way not many hours before, was off somewhere else.

I didn't have much doubt about my conclusion. The painting was quintessential El Greco: thick pigments, tempered with mastic and then vigorously laid on with rough, hatching strokes, not so very different from the way van Gogh would do it three hundred years later. But anyone else painting in 1590 would certainly have used a more fluid medium and laid it on with a soft brush to get the smooth, unbroken glaze that was standard at the time.

It was even signed in Greek characters, not Roman, which is how El Greco did it until almost the end of his life-a minor detail that many El Greco forgers never bothered to learn, assuming that all they had to do was paint some religious-looking men with long faces and pointy beards and they could get away with it. And a lot of them did, leaving many a red-faced curator in their wake.

No, it was an El Greco, all right, probably worth more than its two-million-dollar appraisal. So what was going on? Between Harry and me, we'd come up with no answers. Where was there for me to go from here? Tiredly, I rubbed the hot, aching area at the nape of my neck.

I was startled by another, gentler touch on the back of my neck, but I recognized it quickly as Anne's. I stood there with my head bowed and my eyes closed, luxuriating in the pleasure of having my shoulders massaged by her soft, firm hands.

"Poor baby," she murmured, "you've been through a lot lately, haven't you?"

Earlier we had managed a quick lunch together, and she had warmed me with her concern over the story of my narrow escape from the bombing (made only a little narrower in the telling, purely in the interest of dramatic narrative). Even now, when I turned to look at her, there was a tiny crease of worry between her eyebrows.

I touched it with my fingertips. "Hey," I said guiltily, "I'm fine. Really."

The crease smoothed. "But from the look on your face, I gather you still haven't found the forgery."

"No, this is an El Greco for sure, and I'm ready to give up. There isn't anything else to look at."

Gadney came in, looking armored and stiff in a tightly buttoned blue suit instead of his usual tweeds. He seemed a little tense, but then he was overseeing the arrangements for the reception, and the usual sorts of things had been going wrong all day.

"So," he said, without much interest, "is it a forgery? No? Well, that's good. I think that's good. I'm not quite certain just what you hope to find. I'm sure it's none of my affair."

When this was not contested, he sniffed. "Mark would like us all to avoid saying anything just yet to Bolzano about what happened yesterday."

"What do you mean?" I asked. "Is Bolzano here?"

"Of course. Oh, didn't Mark mention it to you? It appears he recovered more quickly than anyone expected, and he flew in for the reception after all. Mark's with him now."

"Why shouldn't we say anything?" Anne asked.

"Well, you know how excited he gets. Mark seems to think it might be the last straw; that he might simply explode and call everything off."

He just might've, and I wouldn't have blamed him, but I thought he had a right to know that someone had very nearly vaporized his El Greco. I said as much.

"Yes, true," Gadney said. "Exactly what I told Mark."

"And?"

"Mark pointed out that it would be better to tell him after the reception. That way, he'll be more publicly committed; he'll have had his ego soothed by some important people-General Shea will be here, after all, and Ambassador Wheeler, and Mayor Grumbacher, and so forth-and he should be in a far more positive mood by then. I must say, I think Mark has a point."

"What about Mr. Traben from the Kunstmuseum?" Anne said. "He'll be here. He's sure to-"

Gadney shook his head. "No, Mark's already spoken to him. He thinks it's a good idea to put it off, too."

"I'm sure he does," I said, smiling. "He's probably afraid Bolzano will strangle him when he hears about it."

"Be that as it may," Gadney said by way of closing the discussion, "I have to get back downstairs now. The caviar isn't here yet, if you can believe it, and we may have to do without." The thought brought a steely compression to his lips. "By the way, you might want to know that Lorenzo Bolzano is here along with his father."