My feet started moving of their own accord. I drifted down Fifth Avenue like a sleepwalker. I clutched the cell phone, squeezing and releasing it over and over. I made myself drop it back in my pocket. I couldn’t call, not yet. Uncle Solly. I’d go back to Uncle Solly’s, tell him everything. He’d help me figure out what to do. He’d still been asleep when I’d left this morning, but he’d be up by now. I wondered if he knew yet. At some point, they would have to notify all the members of the board that the Vermeer was gone.
If Joel needed money for bail or legal fees, I was sure Solly would supply it if I asked. I still wasn’t sure whether to rush to Joel’s rescue. It would depend on what he said about last night. Still, we were friends, weren’t we? I knew he didn’t have any family in New York, and his dad was a grocer back in Indiana. Was I still mad at him? I thought I wasn’t until I felt my fist punch my palm again. I wouldn’t call until I could tell him I had the money if he needed it. Then we’d see. My pace quickened. The sooner I talked to Solly, the better I’d feel.
My key clicked in the lock, and I swung open the heavy oak door. The scent of coffee floated in the air.
“Uncle Solly?” I raced down the stairs to the ground floor. He’d be in the kitchen, having breakfast looking out at the garden, which caught a little morning sun. But the level of the coffee in the electric pot had not gone down since I’d dashed out, and the table held only the small plate and scatter of toast crumbs I’d left.
“Uncle Solly! Are you up?” Could he be ill? Uncle Solly liked to get up and about early. He said sleeping in was for old men. I took the stairs to the parlor floor and the more heavily carpeted flight up to his bedroom two at a time. He kept the whole floor-through as a kind of suite. His door had been closed this morning when I clumped down from the top floor. It was still closed. The artworks in the hall were all museum quality: a Corot, a Klee, a Dürer woodcut. But I barely glanced at them.
I rapped on his door. Nobody entered the master suite without permission. It was his one area of reserve, as far as I knew.
“Uncle Solly! Are you there?” I knocked again. “It’s me, Janny.”
A faint groan responded, then my name.
“Come, Janny. Help me.”
I pushed open the door and peered in. At first I couldn’t see him, my view blocked by the early Empire pineapple four-poster bed, which I’d adored as a child and sometimes been allowed to bounce on, and the half-open doors to what he called his dressing room, really a deep walk-in closet.
“Here I am, Janny. I think I’ve broken my leg.”
He pushed the closet doors further ajar so I could see him lying on his back across the threshold. He wore silk pajamas and a Cardin bathrobe. Like Cinderella, he had lost a slipper, and the leg with the bare foot was twisted at an unnatural angle.
“Oh no! How did it happen?”
“I tripped,” he said, “like an old fool.”
I knelt beside him as he tried to push himself up, grunting with the effort. The leather scuff slipped off his other foot, and I caught it and laid it on the floor. At the same time, I eased my shoulder under his arm.
“Lean on me, Uncle Solly. Don’t try to move. Lie down and rest while I call nine-one-one”
My arm bracing his upper back, I tried to lower him to the floor.
“No, no!” He trembled as he shook his head. “Don’t call! Not yet!”
“You need an ambulance, Uncle Solly. And a stretcher, and probably some painkillers.” I reached for my phone. “Lie down so I can make the call.”
“No! I have to tell you first.”
Why wouldn’t he let me call? Was his distress simply old age’s fear of losing independence? I’d never had to humor Solly before.
“Tell me what?”
“I’m not getting senile, child.” That sounded more like the old Solly. “Open your eyes and look.”
As I slid my arm out from under him, he relaxed onto the floor and laid his head on the Kirman runner that started on the threshold of the closet and ran between ranks of beautifully tailored suits and shirts to what should have been the rear wall of the closet. Instead, a sliding door opened on a blaze of light that poured from a hidden room. Not daylight. Gallery light.
“May I look?”
“The secret is out,” he said without opening his eyes. He had aged ten years since the day before. “Unless — but see for yourself. Then I will explain. After that, it is up to you.”
The rows of clothing parted like a curtain going up. My feet made no sound as I stepped into the bright little room. I already knew what I would see: the missing Vermeer. Six other paintings hung on the spotless walls. I recognized all of them. All were of known provenance and had dropped out of sight in the past fifteen years. The art world believed that they were squirreled away in some private collection. And so they were.
Seeing them all together dazzled me. I took my time. It was hard to tear myself away, but eventually I came out and sank down next to Solly. I took out my phone.
“If I call nine-one-one,” I said, “I can ask for an ambulance and the police at the same time.”
“Don’t be angry with me, Jannele. I did not steal all of them, only my beautiful girl with birds. The others I paid for, more money than any museum would offer, through agents paid to be discreet.”
“But why? I don’t understand why you had to hoard them. You’re the one who always told me museums make art lovers of us all.”
“It is the vice of my old age,” he said, “the only one I have left. I become selfish and demanding, like any rich old lover.”
“But the Vermeer!” I insisted. “You’re cheating the museum.”
“It is well insured,” he said, “I made sure of that.”
“I still don’t understand. It was looted by the Nazis.”
“This I know,” he said. “It is the reason for everything.”
“That’s the part I want to hear.”
“Wait a little,” he said. Vait a leetle. Agitation made his accent more pronounced.
I could see beads of sweat on his forehead. He must be in terrible pain. Part of me thought he deserved it. He reached out for my hand, and I let him take it.
“You see, I know this painting. When I was a boy, it belonged to the family of my dearest friend. Her name was Elisabeth — Liserl, we called her. Such a pretty little girl. She died at Auschwitz. But her older brother survived. After the war, he made a family in America. It returns to his grandchildren when I die. The museum would have kept it forever.”
“But you’re not dying,” I protested — not because it made his crime more heinous, but because I loved him.
“I am, Jannele. I have an inoperable tumor. The doctors give me six months. Then the Vermeer goes back home where it belongs. I give the others to the Met to make up for it. I have made you my executor. You will find a way.”
“Give me a moment,” I said. I kissed his wrinkled knuckles and laid his hand gently on his chest. I entered the hidden room and looked at the Vermeer for a long time. Then I slid the door shut behind me. Closed, it looked like an ordinary wall.
I crouched down beside Uncle Solly.
“One more question. How?”