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“Well look, if you know who has it we should just call the police.”

The silence, and blank looks that followed this, were as if I’d produced a can of gasoline and suggested lighting ourselves on fire.

“Well, I mean,” I said defensively, after the waitress had arrived with Gyuri’s beer, set it down, left again, and neither Gyuri nor Boris had spoken a word. “Isn’t that the safest? And easiest? If the cops recover it and you have nothing to do with it?”

Ding of a bicycle bell, woman clattering by on the sidewalk, rattle of spokes, witchy black cape flying behind.

“Because—” glancing between them—“when you think of what this picture has gone through—what it must have gone through—I don’t know if you understand, Boris, how much care has to be taken even to ship a painting? Just to pack it properly? Why take any chances?”

“This is my feeling exactly.”

“An anonymous call. To the art-crimes people. They’re not like the normal cops—no co

Boris leaned back in his chair. He looked around. Then he looked at me.

“No,” he said. “That is not a good idea.” His tone was that of someone addressing a five year old. “And, do you want to know why?”

“Think about it. It’s the easiest way. You wouldn’t have to do a thing.”

Boris set his beer glass down carefully.

“They’d have the best chance of getting it back unharmed. Also, if I do it—if I call them—shit, I could have Hobie call them—” hands to head—“any way you look at it, you wouldn’t be putting yourselves at risk. That is to say”—I was too tired, disoriented; two pairs of Dremel-drill eyes, I couldn’t think—“if I did it, or someone else not a part of your, um, organization—”

Boris let out a shout of laughter. “Organization? Well—” shaking his head so vigorously the hair fell in his eyes—“I suppose we count as organization, of sorts, since we are three or more—! But we are not very large or very organized as you can see.”

“You should eat something,” said Gyuri to me, in the tense pause that followed, looking at my untouched plate of pork and potato. “He should eat,” he said to Boris. “Tell him to eat.”

“Let him starve if he wants. Anyway,” said Boris, grabbing a chunk of pork off my plate and popping it in his mouth—

“One call. I’ll do it.”

“No,” said Boris, glowering suddenly and pushing back in his chair. “You will not. No, no, fuck you, shut up, you won’t,” he said, lifting his chin aggressively when I tried to talk over him—Gyuri’s hand on my wrist very suddenly, a touch I knew very well, the old forgotten Vegas language of when my dad was in the kitchen ranting about whose house it was? and who paid for what?—

“And, and,” said Boris imperiously, taking advantage of a lull in my response he was not expecting, “I want you to stop talking this stupid ‘call’ business right away. ‘Call, call,’ ” he said, when he got no answer from me, waving his hand back and forth ridiculously in the air as if “call” were some absurd kiddie word that meant ‘unicorn’ or ‘fairyland.’ “I know you are trying to help but this is not helpful suggestion on your part. So forget it. No more ‘call.’ Anyway,” he said amiably, pouring part of his own beer into my half-empty glass. “As I was explaining to you. Since Sascha is in so big hurry? Is he thinking clearly? Is he playing more than one, or maybe two moves ahead? No. Sascha is out of towner. His co

I said nothing. It would be easy enough to phone the police myself. There was no reason to involve Boris or Gyuri at all.

“Amazing stroke of luck, no? And our friend the Georgian—very rich man, but so far from Horst’s world and so far from art collector, he did not even know of picture by name. Just a bird—little yellow bird. But Cherry believes he is telling the truth that he saw it. Very powerful guy in terms of real estate? Here and in Antwerp? Plenty of paper and father to Cherry almost, but not person of great education if you understand me.”



“Where is it now?”

Boris rubbed his nose vigorously. “I do not know. They are not going to tell us that, are they? But Vitya has got in touch to say he knows of a buyer. And a meeting has been set up.”

“Where?”

“Not settled yet. They have already changed the location half a dozen times. Paranoid,” he said, making a screw-loose gesture at the side of his head with his hand. “They may make us wait a day or two. We may know only an hour before.”

“Cherry,” I said, and stopped. Vitya was short for Cherry’s Russian name, Viktor—Victor, the Anglicized version—but Cherry was only a nickname and I didn’t know a thing about Sascha: not his age, not his surname, not what he looked like, nothing at all except that he was Ulrika’s brother—and even this was uncertain in the literal sense, given how loosely Boris threw around the word.

Boris sucked a bit of grease off his thumb. “My idea was—set up something at your hotel. You know, you, American, big shot, interested in the picture. They”—he lowered his voice as the waitress switched his empty pint for a full one, Gyuri nodding politely, leaning in—“they would come to your room. That’s how is done usually. All very businesslike. But”—minimal shrug—“they are new at this, and paranoid. They want to call their own location.”

“Which is?”

“Don’t know yet! Didn’t I just say? They keep changing their mind. If they want us to wait—we wait. We have to let them think they are boss. Now, sorry,” he said, stretching and yawning, rubbing a dark-circled eye with a fingertip, “I am tired! Want a nap!” He turned and said something to Gyuri in Ukrainian, and then turned back to me. “Sorry,” he said, leaning in and slinging his arm around my shoulder. “You can find your way back to your hotel?”

I tried to disengage myself without seeming to. “Right. Where are you staying?”

“Girlfriend’s flat—Zeedijk.”

“Near Zeedijk,” said Gyuri, rising purposefully, with a polite and vaguely military air. “Chinese quarter of the old times.”

“What’s the address?”

“Ca

“Right.” Back in Vegas, if we ever got separated—ru

“So—I’ll meet you back there. And you have my phone number, and I have yours. Will call you when I know something more. Now—” slapping me on the back of the head—“stop worrying, Potter! Don’t stand there and look so unhappy! If we lose, we win, and if we win, we win! Everything is good! You know which way to go to get back, don’t you? Just up this way, and left when you get to the Singel. Yes, there. We will speak soon.”

v.

I TOOK A WRONG turn on the way to the hotel and for several hours wandered aimlessly, shops decorated with glass baubles and gray dream alleys with unpronounceable names, gilded buddhas and Asian embroideries, old maps, old harpsichords, cloudy cigar-brown shops with crockery and goblets and antique Dresden jars. The sun had come out and there was something hard and bright by the canals, a breathable glitter. Gulls plunged and cried. A dog ran by with a live crab in its mouth. In my light-headedness and fatigue, which made me feel drastically cut off from myself and as if I were observing it all at a remove, I walked past candy shops and coffee shops and shops with antique toys and Delft tiles from the 1800s, old mirrors and silver glinting in the rich, cognac-colored light, inlaid French cabinets and tables in the French court style with garlanded carvings and veneerwork that would have made Hobie gasp with admiration—in fact the entire foggy, friendly, cultivated city with its florists and bakeries and antiekhandels reminded me of Hobie, not just for its antique-crowded richness but because there was a Hobie-like wholesomeness to the place, like a children’s picture book where aproned tradespeople swept the floors and tabby cats napped in su