“I can see your point.”
“You can see my point, but you don’t really agree with it.” He seemed more amused than offended. “And like all policemen, when it comes to questions you would rather ask them than answer them. A characteristic of your profession, is it not?”
“Yes, it is.”
He made a sound that might have been a laugh or a cough. His eyes supplied no clue as to which. “Then let me give you answers rather than questions. I am thinking you want to know why this crazy little man with the funny name wants to pay you so much money for these portraits that you do maybe pretty quickly and easily.”
Gurney felt a spark of annoyance. “Not that quickly, not that easily.” And then a spark of chagrin at voicing the objection.
Jykynstyl blinked. “No, of course not. Forgive my English. I think I speak it better than I do, but I am inadequate at the nuance. Shall I try again, or do you understand what I am trying to say?”
“I think I do.”
“So then, the basic question: Why do I offer so much money for this art of yours?” He paused, flashed the chilly grin. “Because it is worth it. And because I want it, exclusively, without competition. So I make you what I believe is a preemptive offer, an offer you can accept without question, without quibble, without negotiation. You understand?”
“I think I do.”
“Good. You noticed, I think, the painting on the wall behind me. The Holbein.”
“That’s an actual Hans Holbein?”
“Actual? Yes, of course. I do not own reproductions. What do you think of it?”
“I don’t have the right words.”
“Say the first words that come to mind.”
“Startling. Astonishing. Alive. Unnerving.”
Jykynstyl studied him for a long minute before speaking again. “Let me tell you two things. First, these words that you claim are not the right words come closer to the truth than the bullshit of the professional art critics. Second, these are the same words that came to my mind when I saw your portrait of Piggert, the murderer. The very same words. I looked into the eyes of your Peter Piggert and I could feel him in the room with me. Startling. Astonishing. Alive. Unnerving. All these things that you say about the Holbein portrait. For the Holbein I paid a little over eight million dollars. The amount is a secret, but I tell you, anyway. Eight million, one hundred fifty thousand dollars-for one golden daffodil. One day, perhaps, I will sell it for three times that much. So now I pay one hundred thousand each for a few David Gurney daffodils, and one day, perhaps, I will sell them for ten times that. Who can say? You will toast this future with me, please? A toast-that we may both get from the transaction the satisfaction that we wish?”
Jykynstyl seemed to sense Gurney’s skepticism. “It only seems like a lot of money because you aren’t yet accustomed to it. It’s not because your work isn’t worth it. Remember that. You are being rewarded for your extraordinary insight and your ability to convey that insight-not unlike Hans Holbein. You are a detective not only of the criminal mind but of human nature. Why should you not be paid appropriately?”
Jykynstyl raised his glass of Latour. Gurney followed the gesture uncertainly with his Montrachet.
“To your insight and your work, to our business arrangement, and to you yourself, Detective David Gurney.”
“And to you, Mr. Jykynstyl.”
They drank. The experience surprised Gurney pleasantly. Although he was far from being a connoisseur, he thought the Montrachet was the best wine he’d ever tasted-and one of the few in his memory that ignited an instant desire for a second glass. As he finished the first, the young woman who had brought him up in the elevator appeared at his side with an odd glimmer in her eyes to provide the desired refill.
For the next few minutes, the two men ate in silence. The cold bass was wonderful, and the Montrachet only seemed to make it more so. When Sonya had broached the subject of Jykynstyl’s interest two days earlier, Gurney’s mind had wandered briefly into fantasies of what the money could buy, geographical fantasies that carried him to the northwest coast-to Seattle and Puget Sound and the San Juan Islands in the summer sun, blue sky and blue water, the Olympic Mountains on the horizon. Now that image returned, seemingly fueled by the firming up of the financial promise of the Mug Shot Art project-fueled also by the second, even more delightful, glass of Montrachet.
Jykynstyl was speaking again, lauding Gurney’s perception, his psychological subtlety, his eye for detail. But it was the rhythm of the words that captivated Gurney’s attention now, more than their meaning, the rhythm lifting him, rocking him gently. Now the young women were smiling serenely and clearing the table, and Jykynstyl was describing exotic desserts. Something creamy with rosemary and cardamom. Something silky with saffron, thyme, and cinnamon. It made Gurney smile to imagine the man’s strangely complex accent as though it were itself a dish made with seasonings not normally combined.
He felt a thrilling, and wholly uncharacteristic, rush of freedom, optimism, and pride in his accomplishments. It was the way he had always wanted to feel-full of clarity and strength. The feeling blended into the glorious blues of water and sky, a boat racing forward in full white sail on the wings of a breeze that would never die.
And then he felt nothing at all.
Part Three
Chapter 43
No bone shatters as painfully as the illusion of invulnerability. Gurney had no idea how long he’d been sitting in his car, nor how it had gotten to where it was parked, nor what time it was. What he knew was that it was late enough to be dark, that he had a dizzying headache along with feelings of anxiety and nausea, and no memory of anything that had occurred after his second glass of wine at lunch. He checked his watch. It told him it was 8:45 P.M. He’d never had so devastating a reaction to any amount of alcohol, much less two glasses of white wine.
The first explanation that came to mind was that he’d been drugged.
But why?
Staring blankly at that question intensified his anxiety. Staring helplessly into the empty space that should have been filled with recollections of the afternoon made it worse. Then he realized with a slap-in-the-face kind of surprise that he was sitting not behind the steering wheel of his car but in the passenger seat. The fact that it had taken a full minute of consciousness for him to become aware of this ratcheted his anxiety in the direction of panic.
He looked out the windows, front and back, and discovered that he was in the middle of a long block-probably a crosstown block somewhere in Manhattan-too far from either corner for him to read the street signs. The street was busy enough with normal traffic, mostly cabs tailgating other cabs, but no nearby pedestrians. He opened the door and got out cautiously, stiffly, achingly. He felt like he’d been sitting for a long time in an awkward position. He looked up and down both sides of the street for some identifiable structure.
The unlighted building directly across the street from his car was some sort of institutional building, perhaps a school, with broad stone steps and massive doors at least ten feet high. The classical façade was colonnaded.
Then he saw it.
Above the high Greek columns, in the center of a kind of frieze extending the length of the four-story building, just below the heavily shadowed roofline, an engraved motto was barely visible: AD STUDIUM VERITATIS.