The red-haired man who sat on the floor ignored them all, all except the girl who had danced. Now in his throat a low murmuring of rage and humiliation had begun, and grew in loudness. On the second try he struggled back to his feet. His right hand went out to a small white cube, and from its flat surface he grabbed up a small but heavy artifact of silvery metal. Raising this, he lunged straight for the crouching dancer as his right arm swung the lethally compact weight straight for her skull.
The old man's was the only voice to cry a warning, and his yell did no one any good. It sounded simultaneously with a sharp, dying scream.
The thin young boy still leaned back tiredly against the flat white wall. His blinking eyes, completely lost, were looking somewhere on the far side of the dim room. The dark-haired girl who had come with him through the tunnel stood quietly beside him now. She was thoughtfully probing with one finger inside her own mouth, as if intent on making sure her teeth were all still there. She took no account of what had happened to the white carpet just a few feet away.
The athletic man, who was alert and could move very fast, was already a step in front of the huge old one. But there he halted his swift advance, warily astonished; his move had obviously come too late, and he had no wish to step into the fresh blood.
The huge, gray old man was astonished too. Then, because he was no stranger to sudden violence and it did not particularly upset him, and because he possessed a quickly penetrating mind, he was immediately struck by circumstances even more amazing than the mere fact of abrupt murder. Inspiration of a magnitude extremely rare grew swiftly behind his clear blue eyes. Slowly he put out a massive hand, to take his wiry companion by the shoulder.
"Gliddon," the old man said. He used the careful tone of one who wishes to wake a sleeper gently, not to startle.
"What?" The attention of the wiry man was still warily absorbed in the scene before him. Hell of a mess to be cleaned up, at best, he was thinking. The killer was now standing, swaying, as if dazed. The silver artifact lay on the floor, near something else.
"Gliddon. These two kids behind me. I want you to get them out of here. They're both stoned blind, and I don't think this has made any impression on them at all. I doubt that they'll remember seeing a thing—but anyway we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now get 'em out of here and put 'em down to sleep somewhere. I want to deal with this." He nodded at the red spectacle before them.
"But."
"Oh, you can take charge of the cleanup later. But right now just get those two put away." The old man, an expression in his eyes befitting the discoverer of a new continent, was moving forward slowly, his gaze shifting from the dazed, spattered killer to the demolished victim, and back again. "I want to handle this, alone. I have my reasons."
Chapter One
In my opinion I owe the breathing legions of humanity no explanations of any of my affairs, no apologies for any chapter of my life. And I consider this judgement to apply with particular force to my role in the events surrounding the recent and much-publicized disappearance of one of the world's noblest works of art. Let those breathing folk who in financial anguish claim rights to the painting recover it if they are able, or get along without it if they are not. Nor do I consider that it is up to me to interpret for them those strange and violent events, mystifying to so many, which like red parentheses enclose the painting's vanishment. By the standard of objective justice it is rather I who deserve an accounting from the breathing world, I who am entitled to some reparations . . .
Bah. At my age I should know better. And in fact I do. I press no formal claim.
Only this much do I insist upon: you will understand that almost my sole purpose in setting down this history is to please myself. Almost, be it noted. Mina, my true great love, my delight now for almost a century, accept these pages from me as my humble effort to explain some things you must have wondered at; and be assured, my dear, that none of the breathing women mentioned here could ever begin to mean as much to me as one look from your eyes, one touch from your sweet hand. In addition, I would like to think there are a few other readers who will be able to appreciate the story, as a story, as I tell it on my own terms, in my own way. And part of my pleasure shall be to use my informed imagination to create for those discerning readers some scenes at which I was not present and could play no role. I warn you—if it is not already too late—that in these scenes it amuses me sometimes to be accurate and deceptive at the same time. You may accept those portions of the story or not, just as you choose. Indeed—do I need to say it?—you may think what you like about the whole business.
It is my decision to begin upon a certain warm spring night, not long ago. It was a night through which the smell of orange blossoms spread, to bless the Arizona air. More than five hundred years had passed between that night, and the last time I had seen my treasure. Time had marked my long-sought masterpiece, and I too was changed . . . very much changed. And yet, merely seeing it again awoke in me such things . . . one look and I was back in the City of Flowers, where winters are too cold to tolerate orange trees and palms but where nevertheless the pungent summer atmosphere bore and still bears the blended fragrance of a thousand blooms . . .
This is she, Signore Ladislao. An excellent likeness, if that is what you wish. From this you may know her. Pray Jesus and San Lorenzo that you may bring her safely out . . .
An excellent likeness; oh yes indeed. When at last I stood before that panel of polychromed wood again in Arizona, I could feel its craquelure of centuries like a net of painful scars on my own skin. I thought for a moment that my eyes were going to fill with tears. And who will believe that of me, now, no matter how solemnly I write it down?
But this history is so far getting off to a very rambling start.
Consider Phoenix, Arizona. Consider wealthy suburban Scottsdale, to be precise, as it was upon that recent warm spring night. Palm trees of all sizes and several varieties mingled everywhere with the ubiquitous orange. At dusk the streets were busy, in part because of the natives' habit, bred into them by their summer temperatures, of putting off, as much as possible, business and pleasure both till after sundown. One tourist who was present on the evening we are talking about found himself in particularly hearty agreement with this practice. He was registered at his downtown Phoenix hotel as Mr. Jonathan Thorn, permanent address listed as Oak Tree, Illinois.
At sunset a taxi took Mr. Thorn from Phoenix to Scottsdale. The street where he debarked from his taxi was wide, not too busy, and lined on both sides with expensive shops. The shops' signs were all small, discreet. Rows of expensive vehicles were parked diagonally in front of the low buildings. The plank sidewalks, partially blocked from the street by imitation hitching posts made of real, weathered wood, were roofed with more planks against the summer sun. Beyond these wooden cloisters, the low-built expensive shops were modern, though constructed in part of real adobe brick.
The building that Mr. Thorn approached was typical, being grilled on all its doors and windows with thick bars of black wrought iron. The front door was intermittently open to the plank sidewalk, admitting a trickle of people in elegant but open-throated warm weather attire. As he passed the hitching post in front, Mr. Thorn took note of an incongruous old Ford sedan, inscrutably battered and unrepaired, waiting there between a Mercedes and a new luxury model Jeep. He took note, I say, but only barely; at that moment he had other things to think about.