The air in the Red Room is piped in through slit vents in the ceiling. The temperature is perfect. The humidity, perfect. The company, less than perfect.
Dulwich is not himself; he’s lost sleep, some color, and his throat is raspy, suggesting he’s stressed.
“Are we going to rewind,” Knox asks, “or am I supposed to keep up?”
“What do you think?” Dulwich scratches at the burn scar below his collarbone. The line of pink runs down into his shirt. The phantom itch is one of the man’s tells. He’s editing himself on the fly.
“Akram Okle owns a pair of Indian restaurants, both called Saffron. One in Bethany. The other in Amman. He’s done well. Not well enough to afford his last purchase, but the man knows his art and would have no problem forming a partnership to make a buy. He’s a family man, no connection to organized crime. Well educated. A pleasure to do business with. You’ve got the wrong guy.”
“His mother is gravely ill,” Dulwich says. “As we speak, he’s traveling to Istanbul to join some, or all, of his six siblings. Three brothers, three sisters. He’s not in partnership. He’s a middleman for his brother, Mashe.” He pronounces it “Masha.” “That’s who bought your piece.”
“Okay.” Knox does not appreciate Dulwich knowing what he knows. He circles back to the photos taken of Akram from a year and a half ago. Police. Interpol. A cultural ministry trying to stem the flow of precious art.
Dulwich’s focus can be laserlike. “After I saw these photos, when I realized you deal in more than nose flutes, it seemed so unlike you. So I go back through your college records to find out you were an art history major.”
“Minor. My major was sorority girls.”
“Save it for someone who laughs,” Dulwich says. “Why’d I never hear about this? Too soft for the tough John Knox?”
“I don’t tell everything on the first date.”
“So you’re an art dealer now?”
“Finger cymbals are folk art.”
“How long?”
“A while. Here and there, now and then. Better margins when I can find the right piece. It’s a pretty tight-knit club, gray market art. I have a long climb ahead of me, but yes, I enjoy it. Sue me.”
“You’re about to skip a few rungs,” Dulwich says. “Move to the front of the line. No more papier-mâché face masks for John Knox. What’s the gray market equivalent of Christie’s or Sotheby’s?”
Knox doesn’t answer. His heart is pumping. Dulwich has a disturbing way of knowing how to play him. Knox would love to get away from hill tribe trinkets and into the art world, gray market or not. But Dulwich can’t make such promises.
“You are to offer Akram the bust of Harmodius.”
“Harmodius and Aristogeiton.” Knox doesn’t need Google.
“Apparently so.”
Knox can tell Sarge is out of his element. “Athenians who paved the way for democracy. Bronzes were made of the heroes, the first art in human history to be commissioned out of public funds, adding to the gravitas of the pieces.”
“Listen to you,” Dulwich says.
“The statues disappeared, likely seized in wartime. Copies were commissioned. This is still four hundred years before Christ. A piece — just a piece! — of one of those copies surfaced in the 1980s and sold for millions.”
“You will be offering the head and left shoulder from the original Harmodius,” Dulwich says.
“That’s impossible. No one will believe that. Not even me. The originals were lost two thousand years ago. Come on.”
“It’s been tested. Assayed. Whatever. It can be tested again. It’s the real deal, Knox. And yes, you will have it. I’m told the estimated value is well north of ten million.”
“Well north,” Knox says.
“You’ll be asking five hundred thousand.”
“And why would I do that? Why would anyone do that?” But he knows the answer. It’s been stolen. It’s a piece for one’s bedroom, not one that can be seen by others. There are too many questions that need answering. Given the current climate of cross-cultural theft, trying to deal it to a museum would result in jail time.
“If you’re trying to court me, you’re going about it all wrong. What the hell are you and Primer up to?” Knox has a nose for Dulwich bullshit. The closest they’ve been to the truth was the bit about good and bad players on the same team. That line’s been running through Knox’s head since Sarge said it.
“You deliver the Harmodius. Grace will make sure the money flows in the right directions. You’ll make a name for yourself in certain circles.”
A name? Knox thinks. He’ll be legend, and Dulwich is fully aware of this. He’s offering Knox a career change, a gold pass into the inner circles of the art world, gray market or not. The fucking Harmodius?
“Grace,” Knox says. He works occasionally with Grace Chu on Dulwich jobs. She’s a rising star within the ranks of outsourced Rutherford operatives like him. They have a platonic chemistry that Knox welcomes. She’s insanely smart, wildly ambitious and enough of a risk taker to keep up with him.
“You’re after Mashe Okle’s money stream?”
“It’s NTK.” Need To Know. “You make the offer. You make sure he bites. You and Grace deliver the Harmodius. An in-and-out. Like I said.”
“What’s the catch?”
“You need to sell directly to Mashe. I need you two in the room with Mashe for five minutes.”
“Play the lure? For what, a hit? No thanks.” Knox stands. The acrylic chairs are painfully uncomfortable.
“No hit.”
“Bullshit. I lead you to him and some sniper takes him out that day or three days later. What’s the difference? You think if I never find out, it lessens my role? That’s bullshit. Who is he?”
“No sniper.”
“Who is he?”
“NTK.”
“Fuck that. Good guys and bad guys on the same team, you said. So is he a bad guy on a good team or a good guy on a bad team?”
“I wasn’t talking about him.”
“The client? You were talking about the client?”
“NTK. I don’t need to know. You don’t need to know. Leave it at that. I… we’ve been promised no killing. For you: it’s fifty thousand on acceptance. How much are Tommy’s new meds? Once you two get the five minutes, a hun more. For a week, tops, including travel.”
“I won’t bait a guy for a bullet. He’d have to be a real monster. I would need proof. Who’s the client?” Knox resents Sarge for bringing up his brother’s medical situation. They know each other too well, he thinks, not for the first time.
But Sarge is right. There’s a compound currently in testing for Fragile X and the treatment of social withdrawal. The results are promising, but Tommy’s well above the test’s age limit of twenty-one. Getting him prescribed the drug will be tricky and expensive — and even if Knox succeeds, costs are estimated at ten thousand dollars a month.
“I’m telling you, I wouldn’t ask you to do this if—” He searches. “Listen, there’s no bullet. Not from us, not from our client. Could he take one? Of course. But not from us.”
“Who’s us?”
Dulwich purses his lips. Knox changes tactics.
“What’s the right way for the money to flow? What are you after?”
Dulwich retains his expression.
Knox processes the use of the Red Room, the limited information he’s being offered, the eighteen months of photo surveillance. It feels like the work of Interpol’s Stolen Works of Art group or a domestic organization like Scotland Yard. He doesn’t like it.
“Art theft? That kind of politics? I need guaranteed amnesty,” Knox says.
“The client has no say over that. It’s beyond borders. Grace is your best bet. Trust Grace. She says run, you run.”