The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt Page 0,319

be kidding.”

“Dress-up,” he said briskly, as if I had not spoken. “Pure make-believe. So they will be worried to try something if they see it on me, okay?” he added, when I still stood staring. “Safety measure! Because, because,” he said over me, “you are the rich man, and we are the bodyguards and this is how it is. They will expect it. All very civilized. And if we move our coat just so—” he had a concealed-carry holster at his waist—“they will be respectful and not try anything. Much more dangerous to wander in like—” he rolled his eyes around the room in the manner of a daffy girl.

“Boris.” I felt ashen and woozy. “I can’t do this.”

“Can’t what?” He pulled back his chin and looked at me. “Can’t get out of the car and stand with me for five minutes while I get your fucking picture for you? What?”

“No, I mean it.” The gun was lying on the bedspread; the eye was drawn to it; it seemed to crystallize and magnify all the bad energy humming in the air. “I can’t. Seriously. Let’s just forget it.”

“Forget?” Boris made a face. “Don’t do this! You have brought me over here for nothing and now I am in a pinch. And now—” flinging out an arm—“last minute, you start making conditions and saying ‘unsafe, unsafe’ and telling me how to do things? Don’t you trust me?”

“Yes, but—”

“Well, then. Trust me on this, please. You’re the buyer,” he said impatiently, when I didn’t answer. “That’s the story. It’s been set up.”

“We should have talked about this earlier.”

“Oh, come on,” he said in exasperation, picking the gun off the bed and sticking it into the holster. “Please do not argue with me, we are going to be late. You would never have seen it at all, if you stayed in the bathroom two minutes longer! Never known I had a weapon on me at all! Because—Potter, listen to me. Will you listen, please? Here is all that will happen. We walk in, five minutes, stand stand stand, we do all the talking, talk only, you get your picture, everyone is happy, we leave and we go get some dinner. Okay?”

Gyuri, who had moved over from the window, was looking me up and down. With a worried frown, he said something to Boris in Ukrainian. An obscure exchange followed. Then Boris reached to his wrist and began to unbuckle his watch.

Gyuri said something else, shaking his head vigorously.

“Right,” said Boris. “You are right.” Then, to me, with a nod: “Take his.”

Platinum Rolex President. Diamond-crusted dial. I was trying to think of some polite way to refuse when Gyuri pulled the whopping bevel-cut diamond off his pinky and—hopefully, like a child presenting a home-made gift—held them both to me on his open hands.

“Yes,” said Boris when I hesitated. “He is right. You do not look rich enough. I wish we had some different shoes for you,” he said, looking critically at my black monk straps, “but those will have to work. Now, we will put the money in this bag here”—leather grip, full of stacked bills—“and go.” Working quickly, clever hands, like a hotel maid making a bed. “Biggest bills on top. All these nice hundreds. Very pretty.”

vii.

OUT ON THE STREET: holiday splendor and delirium. Reflections danced and shimmered on black water: laced arcades above the street, garlands of light on the canal boats.

“This is all going to be very easy and comfortable,” said Boris, who was clicking around on the radio past Bee Gees, past news in Dutch, in French, trying to find a song. “I am counting on the fact that they want this money quick. Sooner they get rid of the picture—less chance running crossways of Horst. They will not be looking too closely at that bank draft or deposit slip. That six hundred thousands figure is all they will see.”

I was sitting alone in the back seat with the bag of money. (“Because, you must accustom yourself, sir, to being distinguished passenger!” Gyuri had said when he circled around and opened the back door of the car for me to get in.)

“You see—what I hope will fool him—deposit slip is perfectly legitimate,” Boris was saying. “So is bank draft. It is just from bad bank. Anguilla. Russians in Antwerp—here too, on P. C. Hooftstraat—they come here to invest, wash money, buy art, ha! This bank was fine six weeks ago but it is not fine now.”

We were past the canals,