of the greatest small paintings of all time, wouldn’t you agree? What was it”—he paused, mockingly—“what was it that the collector said—you know, the art critic, the Frenchman, who rediscovered it? Found it buried in some nobleman’s store room back in the 1890s, and from then on made ‘desperate efforts’ ”—inserting quotations with his fingers—“to acquire it. ‘Don’t forget, I must have this little goldfinch at any price.’ But of course that’s not the quote I mean. I mean the famous one. Surely you must know it yourself. After all this time, you must be very familiar with the painting and its history.”
I put down my napkin. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” There was nothing I could do but hold my ground and keep saying it. Deny, deny, deny, as my dad—in his one big movie turn as the mob lawyer—had advised his client in the scene right before he got shot.
But they saw me.
Musta been somebody else.
There are three eyewitnesses.
Don’t care. They’re all mistaken. “It wasn’t me.”
They’ll be bringing up people to testify against me all day long.
Fine then. Let them.
Someone had pulled a window blind, throwing our table into tiger-striped shadow. Reeve, eyeing me smugly, speared a bright orange prawn and ate it.
“I mean, I’ve been trying to think,” he said. “Maybe you can help me. What other painting of its size would be anywhere near its class? Maybe that lovely little Velázquez, you know, the garden of the Villa Medici. Of course rarity doesn’t even enter into it.”
“Tell me again, what are we talking about? Because I’m really not sure what you’re getting at.”
“Well, keep it up if you want,” he said affably, wiping his mouth with his napkin. “You’re not fooling anybody. Although I have to say it’s pretty bloody irresponsible to entrust it to these goons to handle and pawn around.”
At my astonishment, which was perfectly genuine, I saw a blink of what might have been surprise cross his face. But just as quickly it was gone.
“People like that can’t be entrusted with something so valuable,” he said, chewing busily. “Street thugs—ignoramuses.”
“You are making absolutely no sense,” I snapped.
“No?” He put down the fork. “Well. What I’m offering—if you ever care to understand what I’m talking about—is to buy the thing off you.”
My tinnitus—old echo of the explosion—had kicked in, as it often did in moments of stress, a high-pitched drone like incoming aircraft.
“Shall I name a figure? Well. I think half a million should do nicely, considering that I’m in a position to make a phone call this moment—” he removed his cell phone from his pocket and put it on the table beside his water glass—“and put this enterprise of yours to a stop.”
I closed my eyes, then opened them. “Look. How many times can I say it? I really don’t know what you’re thinking but—”
“I’ll tell you exactly what I’m thinking, Theodore. I’m thinking conservation, preservation. Concerns which clearly haven’t been paramount for you or the people you’re working with. Surely you’ll realize it’s the wisest thing to do—for you, and for the painting as well. Obviously you’ve made a fortune but it’s irresponsible, wouldn’t you agree, to keep it bouncing around in such precarious conditions?”
But my unfeigned confusion at this seemed to serve me well. After a weird, off-beat lag, he reached into the breast pocket of his suit—
“Is everything okay?” said our male-model waiter, appearing suddenly.
“Yes yes, fine.”
The waiter disappeared, sliding across the room to talk to the beautiful hostess. Reeve, from his pocket, took out several sheets of folded paper, which he pushed across the tablecloth to me.
It was a print-out of a Web page. Quickly I scanned it: FBI… international agencies… botched raid… investigation…
“What the fuck is this?” I said, so loudly that a woman at the next table jumped. Reeve—involved in his lunch—said nothing.
“No, I mean it. What does this have to do with me?” Scanning the page irritably—wrongful death suit… Carmen Huidobro, housekeeper from Miami temp agency, shot dead by agents who stormed the home—I was about to ask again what anything in this article had to do with me when I stopped cold.
An Old Master painting once believed destroyed (The Goldfinch, Carel Fabritius, 1654) was employed as rumored collateral in the deal with Contreras, but unfortunately was not recovered in the raid on the South Florida compound. Though stolen artworks are often used as negotiable instruments to supply venture capital for drug trafficking and arms deals, the DEA has defended itself against criticism