Unknown - The Genius

I heard Ruby say, “A paternity kit.”

“It’s a paternity kit,” Nat said. “Did you impregnate the Queens District Attorney?”

“Not yet. Messenger it over here, would you.”

“Si, senor.” Then, to Ruby: “You know, you sound awfully well acquainted with this paternity thing. Are you in a family way again?

“Bite me,” she called.

I smiled. “Listen, I’m worried about the two of you. Whoever did this to me is out there and I don’t want anything happening to you.”

“We’re fiiine.”

“It would make me more comfortable if you didn’t hang around the gallery. Close down for a couple of weeks and take a vacation. Paid.”

“But we just opened. Alyson will go ballistic. And I wouldn’t blame her.”

“Keep your eyes open, then. Please. Do that for me.”

“We’re fine, Ethan. Ruby knows kung fu. Tell him.”

“Ki-yai!”

I LEFT A MESSAGE FOR SAMANTHA and she called back within the hour, her tone all business.

“Did you get the kit?”

“Yes. Thank you. I’ll do it today.”

“Good. I need you to think, Ethan: was there anything else that might possibly have a trace of Cracke’s DNA on it?”

“There might be,” I said. While watching the nurse change my dressing in the hospital, I’d noticed that the color of the bloodied gauze looked eerily like that of the five-pointed star at the center of the Cherubs, a theory that appeared to me more and more brilliant as they continued to feed me drugs. In the sober light of day, it seemed not quite as brilliant, but given our shortage of viable leads, I didn’t see how it hurt to consider the possibility.

“Even if it’s blood,” she said, “it might not be his blood.”

“That’s true.”

“But it can’t hurt. Let’s give it a whirl.”

“Well, hang on. Here’s the tough part. I don’t have the drawing anymore.”

“Why not?”

“I sold it.”

“You’re joking.”

I told her about Hollister.

“Are there any other drawings like that one?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. We can go through all of them but it’ll take a while. First let me see what I can do about that one.”

I had no doubt that Hollister liked me enough to invite me back to his house. But he’d have to like me a lot more than that to allow me to start cutting samples out of his artwork. Which left me one option: if I really wanted that piece, I’d have to buy it back.

I hate to buy back art. Some dealers guarantee that if an item’s market drops, they will repurchase it at sale price, allowing the buyer to walk away even. I won’t. I think it infantilizes the client; part of the point of collecting is to hone one’s own aesthetic sensibilities, and that happens only when one takes a personal stake in the matter.

And, understandably, I balked at forking over a large amount of money only to discover that the bloodstain was not a bloodstain, or not one that could give us any information. My hesitation turned out to be moot; when I called Hollister the next morning, his secretary told me he was unavailable.

Monday and Tuesday I lounged around Marilyn’s house, Isaac tailing me, like I’d swapped shadows with a sumo wrestler. When I went to get my missing incisors replaced, he lobbied for gold rather than porcelain: “All the big dogs got gold.”

On Wednesday the NYPD sent two men over to the house. These were not the same two I’d met in the hospital—at least as far as I could remember, which wasn’t very far—but detectives from the major case squad who specialized in art theft. Immediately, I flagged them as rather an odd couple. Phil Trueg was all belly; his garish Jerry Garcia print tie stood out like an abdominal Mohawk. He had a strong Brooklyn accent and a tendency to laugh at his own jokes, which came fast and furious. His partner, on the other hand, was ten years younger, taut and tan and reserved, his outfit likewise muted, khaki bleeding into itself. His name was Andrade, although Trueg told me to call him Benny, an instruction that I decided to disregard.

Andrade and Trueg believed that the attacker’s primary motivation had been to get the drawings rather than to injure me, and in support of this theory, they pointed to the fact that my wallet hadn’t been taken. Nor, said

Trueg, had I been beaten up “any more than necessary.” (I replied that I didn’t think any beating was necessary at all.) The thief was almost certainly an insider, connected to the art world or working for someone who was; otherwise, it was hard to understand how he would know of me or how he could hope to resell the drawings. The detectives asked me a long series of questions. I evaded the ones about my clientele; I didn’t want the police pestering people who were obviously innocent and who would take strong umbrage at having their privacy invaded. I showed them the threatening letters I’d received from Victor Cracke and described at length my attempts to find him, my meetings with McGrath, my visit to the precinct.

Andrade squinted at the letters. “Are you sure these came from him?”

“They look like his handwriting.”

“What does he want you to stop?” Trueg asked.

“I have no idea. I assume he was unhappy about the show. But in that case I can’t understand why he would still be angry; the show came down almost a month ago.”

“He might want his drawings back,” said Andrade.

I didn’t know what to say to that.

“Anybody else you can think of might have a grievance with you?”

The best name I could come up with—and I gave it to them reluctantly— was Kristjana Hallbjornsdottir.

“Spell that, please.”

The plan was to wait and see where the art popped up. Since I was presumed to have in my possession all but a few of the drawings, any that came onto the market would by definition be stolen. This strategy was far from foolproof. There might have been other Crackes out there that I didn’t know about, or the thief might never sell. But without eyewitnesses, we had few other options. And since I could not confirm my attacker’s identity, a conviction would be difficult, if not impossible, without a tangible link—to wit, the drawings—between the crime and the perpetrator.

They left me in a state of utter exhaustion.

For the first few days of my convalescence, Marilyn played the role of overbearing mother. She called to check on me every half-hour, often cutting short my naps. She sent her assistants over with books that I couldn’t concentrate on. At night she brought in dinner or else made me something, chicken, hamburgers—anything with protein—and forced me to eat, saying that I had lost too much weight and that I was beginning to look like Iggy Pop. I think she was trying to buoy my spirits, but the relentless stream of mockery began to grate on me. Her fear of losing me came in just shy of her fear of appearing corny, and so whenever she considered herself verging on sentimentality, she would pull back and make some unreasonable demand of me, resulting in conditions that were both doting and ruthless, as when she brought me in a sushi platter but ordered me out of bed to eat it.

“You have to move,” she said.

“I’m not an invalid, Marilyn.”

“Your legs are going to atrophy.”

“I’m tired.”

“That’s the first sign. You need to get up and walk around.”

I told her that she would have made a terrible doctor.

“Thank God I’m a bitchy art dealer.”

Improbably, she also tried to insist on having sex. I told her I had a headache.

“You don’t expect me to fall for that, do you?”

“I have a head injury.”

“All you have to do is lie there,” she said. “Like you usually do.”

“Marilyn.” I had to physically pry her from my neck. “Stop.”