Osip was most patient. He made his rounds, chatted with the other two guards, ate with them and encouraged them to hold a mini chess tournament. Each guard would patrol while the other two played. Osip got in the first game and lost. He couldn’t have beaten Victor no matter how hard he tried, but he did not want to win. When Vasily sat down to play what Osip knew would be a long game, Osip ambled slowly out of the room. Once out of sight, he moved quickly down the hall and up the stairs. Within ten minutes, he had removed the six canvases and piled their frames in a closet. He juggled the remaining paintings around to cover the loss, knowing that it would not take a careful inspection the next day to discover the theft.
By the time he was finished, Osip was sweating heavily, something he had not counted on, but there was no help for it. He had to move quickly. The chess game should go on for an hour, but what if Vasily made a stupid move?
He had wrapped the small canvases around his waist and tied them neatly to his chest. He felt a bit awkward, but reasonably confident that he could carry it off. He was buttoning the final button on his jacket just as Vasily stepped into the room.
“Victor won,” he announced as if there had been any doubt of the outcome. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Me?” said Osip. “Nothing.”
“You are sweating and walking strangely,” said Vasily.
“Maybe I’m ill,” admitted Osip. “I’ve been feeling strange since I ate.”
“You ate something bad,” Vasily said wisely, his words echoing off the ancient figures that looked down at them. “Maybe you should go home.”
“Maybe,” Osip said, reaching for a cigarette. “I’ll go talk to Victor.”
It was even better than he had thought. He could get out even earlier. The Dutchman would be waiting. He always arrived early and checked the alleyway to be sure it was safe. Maybe Osip could get an even greater head start, catch an earlier flight, and get out of Russia even faster. It was worth discussing with the Dutchman.
Victor agreed that Osip looked terrible, but then, he thought that Osip always looked terrible. Tonight he looked a little stiff and was sweating through his uniform.
“Go home, Stock,” he said, flushed with his double chess victory. “We’ll take care.”
Osip feigned reluctance but accepted finally, moved slowly to the door and stepped out into the star-filled night. He took a deep breath and, after a final look back at the gallery, started down the street. Five minutes later, he entered the alley and waited. Ten minutes later, the little Dutchman, whose name was not van der Vale and who was not Dutch, decided it was safe to enter the alley. He followed the glowing tip of Stock’s cigarette and moved forward cautiously.
“Stock?” he said in accented Russian.
“Yes.”
“You are early,” said the Dutchman, looking around. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” whispered Stock, moving forward, where he could make out the slight form. “I said I was sick and got away early. You have the clothes for me and the suitcase?”
“Yes,” said the Dutchman, thinking that it would have been much better if this fool had gone through the night on the job. Perhaps it did not matter. He did not, in fact, have clothes for Stock, nor did he have a suitcase or a passport. The Dutchman planned to take the remaining paintings and bludgeon Osip Stock to death with the metal bar he now held behind his back. In spite of his open face and slight body, the Dutchman had done such things before. “The paintings, quick.”
Stock removed his jacket and shirt and peeled off the paintings. In his haste he had hidden the bottom painting, a landscape, so that the paint pressed against his sweaty chest. A good deal of paint stuck to his skin when he peeled the canvas off.
If they inspect me at the airport, Osip thought, the evidence of my guilt will be painted in reverse on my body. He thought about where he might wash.
“Enough.”
Stock thought the voice was the Dutchman’s, who in turn thought it was Stock. They were both wrong. It was the voice of Emil Karpo who now stepped out into the starlight, a tall outline with a hand outstretched, holding a gun.
“Police,” he explained evenly. “You will raise your hands slowly and lie on the ground, face down.”
Osip let out a small whimper and looked at the Dutchman. The Dutchman looked around quickly, and seeing no escape, he brought his hands up. In his right there glittered the bar of metal. Stock took in the metal bar.
“You were going to kill me,” he said slowly.
The Dutchman, who knew more about the Soviet system of justice than Osip Stock did, was beyond concern. He was thinking of the prison years ahead, but Osip was a man who had been betrayed and whose dream had been shattered. He threw down the paintings and, ignoring Karpo’s gun, lunged at the Dutchman.
“Stop,” shouted Karpo, but Stock was not to be stopped. The Dutchman swung the bar and caught the advancing madman on the shoulder, but Osip had his hands around the smaller man’s throat. The metal bar went skittering across the pavement, clanking and sending up sparks.
“Stop,” Karpo repeated, stepping forward. With but one good arm, he doubted if he could separate the two and knew that if he came too close he ran the risk of losing his gun. “I am going to shoot,” he said over the grunting of Osip and the gurgling of the Dutchman.
Karpo aimed a few feet from the struggling pair, who had rolled over on the paintings. The bullet hit the head of an eighteenth-century saint but did nothing to discourage Stock. Karpo aimed the second bullet at Stock’s legs. But it was dark, and the thieves were moving. Even as good a shot as Emil Karpo could be forgiven for what happened.
The bullet struck the Dutchman on the left side of his chest and made a path through his heart before lodging in his lung. There was a convulsion, and the man died, but Osip Stock kept strangling him. As long as he kept his attention on the little man, he would not have to think about what was coming next.
“He is dead,” said Karpo, stepping forward to stand next to Stock. “You madman. He is dead.”
It took a substantial clout with the gun to make Osip stop and look about. It took another clout to make him react.
“Now get up and pick up those paintings,” Karpo said. The kneeling Stock looked up at this angel of death, then down at the Dutchman. Anger turned to fear, which turned to panic. Stock rose, looked at the gun pointed at him, glanced around the alley, and took off at a sprint. Karpo considered chasing him, but he was running at a breakneck pace, his jacket flying open, his thin, birdlike chest heaving.
Karpo raised his gun, but when he had Stock’s back firmly in sight he changed his mind. He knelt to be sure the Dutchman was dead and listened to Stock’s clattering footsteps receding in the darkness.
From a public phone nearby, Karpo called for an ambulance. Then he called the gallery and told one of the guards to come for the paintings. His third call set up a general alarm to pick up Osip Stock. Then he returned to the alley to wait with the body. He would have to make out a report, but he would worry about that later. The fact that he had shot a parasite did not bother him, though he considered that he might have handled the situation better.
For Karpo it was a case closed, a job done. Even as he leaned against the wall within feet of the dead man, his mind was back on the woman with the dark eyes. It was almost like love, this hatred he felt for her, but either way it spurred him on. If he could think like her, he might be able to figure out her next move. As he waited for the ambulance, he closed his eyes and went over the case from his first sight of the woman to his discovery of the maps. Just before the ambulance arrived at 3:15 A.M. an idea came.