said John Smith, “this woman, a friend of his”—and he went on to describe the scene, Korolyov’s panic and the rest of it, as relayed by Nestor.
Ed looked at Cutler. Cutler said, “First of all, that’s not an eyewitness’s account. It’s corroborating evidence, but an eyewitness is somebody who actually saw the crime while it was taking place. It’s information you can use in making a case, but it’s not eyewitness evidence.”
Ed said to himself, ::::::Thank God for you, Cutler! Nobody’s throwing any knuckleballs past you, baby!:::::: It was all he could do to suppress a smile. He lifted his chin and looked at John Smith. What a look it was! It came with the bearing of a tolerant-up-to-a-point leader. “Tell Mr. Cutler what else you have.” ::::::Now that he’s blown your big one out of the sky.::::::
John Smith turned to Igor’s outright confession that he had forged the paintings. He told of the photographs he had of Igor’s forgeries-in-the-making… and his revealing all the steps Korolyov had taken to give the paintings a lock-tight authentic provenance, including the name of the German expert and the trip to Stuttgart to pay him off. He told him about the sub-forgery, so to speak, of a catalogue from a hundred years ago, printed on paper from the period… the catalogue was a work of art in its own corrupt way. John Smith paid an un–John Smithly lyrical tribute to the skill it took to fabricate it… finding paper from a hundred years ago, duplicating binding eccentricities, out-of-date photo-reproduction processes, even rhetorical quirks from the period… In fact, it was all so un–John Smithly lyrical, the catalogue seemed to rise up from out of its ankle-sucking sleaze into some Dionysian eminence far above the scales of right and wrong…
When John Smith finished, Ed looked at his salvation, a man immune to childish ambitions and emotions… Lawyer Cutler. Stan Friedman and John Smith himself fixed their eyes, too, upon the pit bull with the law degree.
The unassailable arbiter leaned forward and thrust his elbows and forearms on the top of the table and looked at each of them in turn with an expression of absolute canine dominance… canine, insofar as a middle-aged man with jowls, a belly, a newly laundered and crisply ironed white shirt, and a fine Italian silk necktie could actually look like a pit bull. Then he spoke:
“Based on what you’ve told me… there is no way you can run a story saying that Korolyov has done this or done that, other than give these paintings to the museum, not even on the basis of the forger’s admissions. Your man, Drukovich, seems eager to take credit for his own talent and audaciousness. That’s typical of hoaxers of any sort. Besides that, he’s an out-and-out drunk and obnoxiously proud of what he’s done.”
::::::Yes! I knew I could count on you! You’re a realist in the midst of these juveniles who have virtually nothing to lose, no matter what we run… whereas I—I have everything to lose… such as my career, my livelihood… all to the music of my wife’s unending scorn. I can just hear her, “You’ve always had your shiftless and trifling tendencies—but my God! do you have to take it up to this level? Do you have to libel a leading citizen, a man so generous they rename a museum for him and carve his name in marble letters this big and this deep on the face of the museum, and the Mayor and half of the other eminent citizens of Greater Miami—including my shiftless, trifling, used-to-be-eminent, self-destroyed husband—all these eminent people come to a banquet in his honor, and now you’re intent upon making them look like dupes, fools, marks, hooples, hicks—all because of some newborn post-puppy’s ideals of a free press with a mission to fearlessly inform… and make a name for his Yale-educated self and his self-educated ego—well, I hope your own trifling, shiftless ego is happy now! Your freedom of the press, your mission of the press, oh, you sentinel of the citizenry, you, who keeps watch while they sleep—yaghhhhhn! you incompetent dope, who was about to take his first big step as a big-time newspaper editor—first big step… oh, yes!… into the worst car wreck imaginable yaghhhhhhhh!” God bless you, Ira Cutler! You saved me from the weakest side of myself! On this subject there is no higher power than—::::::
Ira Cutler’s voice broke in. “You can’t afford to accuse Korolyov of anything—”
::::::Yes! Tell ’em, brother!