“—because you lack sufficient objective evidence and have no eyewitness. You can’t even indicate that Korolyov is to blame for any of it—”
::::::Oh, testify, brother! Draw ’em a map of the straight and narrow!::::::
An enormous weight slid from his shoulders… The monkey jumped off his back. Finally he could let his breath out! ::::::There is a God in Heaven! I’m freed from the—::::::
The high-pitched voice of the pit bull sounded again: “On the other hand, you’ve got some strong material there, and you’ve nailed down the facts you have pretty well, it seems to me. Whatshisname—Igor?—says he forged the paintings, and you’ve got that on tape. That’s what he said. You’ve established the fact that the same Russian painter goes by two names, Igor in the city and Nicolai in the country—”
::::::But what’s going on? What is this “on the other hand” business all of a sudden?… and this “strong material” stuff? My pit bull is cutting the ground out from under me with his hind legs? Stick to your guns! Stick to your guns, you miserable hound!::::::
“—and he has a secret studio in an old-age condominium in Hallandale, which is north of nowhere,” Cutler was saying, “and you can use that material, so long as (a) this guy was aware you were taping it, and (b) you don’t write it so that it looks like your sole purpose in going to all this trouble has been to expose Korolyov as a fraud.” He looked at John Smith and said, “I understand you’ve tried to get in touch with Korolyov, John.”
::::::“John” he calls him, and I know he’s never laid eyes on him before. But he sees him for what he is—a kid! A kid playing with fire! Just a kid!::::::
“Yes, sir,” said John Smith. “I’ve left—”
He broke it off because a cell phone began ringing somewhere in his clothes. He dug it out of the inside jacket pocket and looked at the caller ID. Before answering he bolted upright and—looked at Counselor Cutler and said, “I’m sorry… sir… but I have to take this.” He went to a corner of the office and nestled his face so closely into it that one cheek was mashed against the interior wall and the other against the exterior glass wall, even with the BlackBerry squeezed in between.
The first thing they heard after “Hello” was John Smith saying, “Jesus!” in something close to a moan, a very much un–John Smithly “Jesus” and even more un–John Smithly moan. Then he went, “Oooooouh!” as if he had just been punched in the pit of his stomach. Nobody could imagine such sounds coming out of John Smith’s body. He stayed in the corner for what seemed like forever but was more likely twenty or thirty seconds. Then in a soft, polite tone, he said, “Thank you, Nestor.”
John Smith had a pale complexion, but when he turned around, he was as white as a corpse. All the blood had drained from his face. He stood stock-still and said in a hopelessly defeated voice, “That was my best source. He’s in Hallandale. They just found Igor Drukovich dead at the bottom of a stairway. His neck was broken.”
::::::Damn!:::::: said Ed to himself. He knew what that meant… There was no way he could not run the story now… and Sergei Korolyov’s name was cut in stone on the front of the museum… and he had sat just two seats from him at dinner! ::::::And now there’s no way I can get out of risking my neck. Fearless Journalist Ed Topping… Damn! and damn again!::::::
21
The Knight of Hialeah
Barely 6:45 a.m.—and all was uproar in the office of Edward T. Topping IV. Too many people in here! Too much noise! He hadn’t had time to take so much as a glance at that great symbol of his eminence, his glass-wall view of Biscayne Bay, Miami Beach, the Atlantic Ocean, 180 degrees of blue horizon, and a billion tiny glints flashing off the water as the great Heat Lamp above began to amp up the juice. He hadn’t even been able to sit down at his desk, not once, unless you counted leaning his long bony haunches against the edge of it from time to time.
He had a telephone receiver at his ear and his eyes fixed upon the screen of his Apple ZBe3 computer. Impatient, frantic, even panicked calls, texts, tweets, twits, and e-screams were hurricaning in from all over the country… all over the world,