“Whether I’m wearing gloves or not is none of your concern,” he said. “What I am concerned with is your removing this drawing when you had no business to.”
“It was in the drawer I was working on, Dr. Crawley. At first I thought it was just part of the regular inventory.”
“At first?”
“I think it’s been mislabeled.”
“How is that?”
“According to the inventory number it’s a drawing by Santiago Urbino, one of the minor Venetian painters.”
Crawley looked professionally pained. “I know who Santiago Urbino was.”
“I think it’s a mistake. I think it’s by Michelangelo.”
“Michelangelo Buonarroti?” said Crawley, astounded. “You’re insane.”
“I don’t think so, sir,” said Finn. “I’ve examined it closely. It has all the earmarks of a Michelangelo piece.”
“So we’ve been hoarding a page from Michelangelo’s lost notebook for the past sixty-five years without knowing about it, and suddenly a young intern who is still cramming for her master’s degree pops up with it out of the blue.” He let out a little hollow laugh. “I don’t think so, Miss Ryan.”
“I looked on the inventory listings,” said Finn, refusing to give up. “The museum doesn’t have any other pieces by Urbino. Why this one?”
“Presumably, my dear, because Mr. Parker or Mr. Hale decided that he liked it.”
“You’re not even willing to consider that it could be Michelangelo’s work?”
“And let you write a paper on it that would eventually lead to a great deal of embarrassment to the museum, and to myself as well? I prize neither your work here as an intern nor your ego that much, my dear.”
“ ‘My dear’? It’s Finn, or Miss Ryan,” she said angrily, “and my ego has nothing to do with it. The drawing is not by Urbino, it is by Michelangelo. Whoever inventoried it was mistaken.”
“Whom is the inventory of the piece credited to, and when?” asked Crawley. Finn tapped a few keys on the keyboard and tapped the space bar to move across to the end of the inventory line.
“AC, June 11, 2003.” Whoops. A little political incorrectness could take you a long way.
“Alexander Crawley. Me. Not too long ago.”
“Then perhaps it’s your ego that’s in question,” said Finn.
“No, Miss Ryan, not my ego, but your competence-and, I might add, your arrogance.”
“I studied Michelangelo’s work in Florence for an entire year.”
“And I have studied the masters all my working life. You’re wrong and your refusal to admit that you’re wrong and defer to a more educated judgment on the matter shows me that you’re not the kind of person we need here. When your own ego gets in the way of the work, any professional sense goes out the window. I’m afraid I’ll have to terminate your internship at Parker-Hale.”
“You can’t do that!”
“Of course I can.” Crawley smiled blandly. “I just did.” He smiled again. “I suggest that you gather up whatever personal belongings you have and leave now to avoid any further embarrassment.” He shook his head. “A shame, too. You were a very pretty addition to our little department.”
Finn stared at him for a long moment, not quite believing what the man had said, then walked out of the niche, grabbed her knapsack and ran off. She knew she was going to start crying and the last thing she wanted to do was show any weakness in front of that arrogant little son of a bitch. Five minutes later she was on her bike again and headed south to Alphabet City.
4
Once upon a time Alphabet City was the address heard crackling out of police radios on TV crime shows; now it’s more likely to be the latest rap-per’s address or the place to find the newest edgy restaurant. The fact that the city built a brand-new precinct house on the other side of Tompkins Square Park might have had something to do with it. But it probably had more to do with New York’s never-ending quest to renew itself as neighborhoods got hot for no particular reason, were gentrified, and then settled down to a comfortable, if boring respectability.
Finn’s place was a small five-story brick apartment building on the corner of Fourth and A that only rated as a walk-up because the single elevator was so cranky. To the left of the building were the shops, bars and restaurants that made Alphabet City fun, and to the right lay Houston Street, the southern border of the Lower East Side, which was the hot new neighborhood du jour. Directly behind her was Village View, one of the old slab-sided, high-rise, 1960s-era urban renewal “projects” that used to stain the neighborhood like giant crime-infested cancers.
Still furious, she pulled up in front of her building, keyed herself in and locked up the old bicycle in the dark alcove behind the stairwell. She punched the Up button and was surprised when the elevator lurched into view, its round mesh-glass window making it look like some Stephen King one-eyed monster rising out of the building’s depths. She climbed in and endured the slow jerking ride up to the top of the building.
The apartment was tiny by anything but New York standards. The extra-wide hallway leading from the front door was a living room at one end and a kitchen at the other. The kitchen looked out toward the Lower East Side, and had a table by the window big enough to accommodate a maximum of two guests for dinner. To the left was a small bedroom that looked out onto Fourth Street, complete with a chain lock on the window even though it was the fifth floor.
To the right of the kitchen was an alcove the super referred to as a “study” when he’d rented it to her. At the time it had looked like a walk-in closet or a nursery for an especially small baby, but she got a friend at school to build in some simple pine bookcases, then installed a drawing table that fit snugly and she had a place to work. Beyond that was a bathroom with the smallest sink, tub and toilet in the world. When she was sitting on the toilet, her knees were under the sink. If she wanted to she could put the lid down on the toilet and soak her feet in the tub. An actual bath meant tucking her knees up under her chin.
When Finn had taken the apartment, everything had been painted a sullen nicotine yellow, but now she’d brightened things up with pink in the bathroom, forest green in the bedroom and a fawn color in the living room/kitchen. The study alcove was a workmanlike flat white. In her spare time she’d torn up the swamp green linoleum tiles and had a sanding party for the old hardwood floors.
Her computer was a used Sony laptop she’d picked up for peanuts from a sale at her mother’s faculty office and was stored under the ratty red velvet couch in the “living hall” just in case a junkie had the energy to make it up five flights of stairs to steal it. To Finn, the cramped apartment was a palace and a magic doorway into her future. From here she could go anywhere-even though she couldn’t really imagine herself being anywhere else at the moment.
Unlocking her door, fury unabated, she stormed into the apartment, threw her backpack on the couch and then began to undress, leaving a trail of clothes from the couch to the bathroom. She soaked herself in the minuscule tub for the better part of an hour, shaved her legs even though they didn’t really need it and washed her hair as well, which didn’t need it either.
Still furious after all that, she let the tub drain, ran a freezing cold shower and stood under it for as long as she could, counting her blessings and imagining Crawley wandering around Central Park waving a white cane in front of him, screaming, “I’m blind! I’m blind!” Serve the creep right. She pulled her worn terry-cloth bathrobe off the hook on the bathroom door, grabbed a towel and padded into her bedroom, looking for something to wear while drying her hair. She flopped down on the bed and stared blankly into her cupboard.