“Bottom line, Professor, is it a salable property?”
Haas replied in an odd strained voice, speaking with unnatural precision, “I think, yes, the language, the style, my God, yes, I believe that subject to various tests as I’ve mentioned, that this is a manuscript of an unknown play by William Shakespeare.”
Shvanov clapped Haas on the back hard enough to loosen his glasses. “Good! Excellent!” he crowed, and all the thugs smiled.
Then Mishkin said, “Osip, what did you expect him to say? The thing is a fraud. He set the whole thing up with the forger, Leonard Pascoe. I have proof.”
Haas leaped up from his chair and snarled at Mishkin, “You son of a bitch! What the hell do you know about it? This is real! And if you think you can-”
Shvanov poked Haas hard in the arm and he stopped talking. Then Shvanov stepped closer to Mishkin until he was staring up into the bigger man’s face. “What kind of proof?”
“I’ll show you. Make them let go of me.”
A nod and Mishkin was released. He went to a magazine rack by the fireside couch and took out a FedEx envelope, from which he removed some papers and a compact disk. He said, “First the documentary evidence. This”-handing a sheet to Shvanov-“is a copy of the original Bracegirdle manuscript. This is a sheet on which Leonard Pascoe forged Bracegirdle’s hand. Even a novice such as yourself, Osip, can see that they are identical. Your pal over there found a seventeenth-century letter from a dying man and interpolated a sheet or two in a forged hand and then concocted the whole cipher business out of whole cloth and then arranged for this so-called play to be found in just the place called for in the ciphers.”
“That’s insane!” shouted Haas. “Pascoe’s in prison.”
“A country club,” said Mishkin, “which we visited, as the people Osip had following us have no doubt informed him. Osip, didn’t you wonder why we stopped by there?”
Crosetti saw Shvanov exchange a quick glance with the Deckhand.
“We stopped by for this,” said Mishkin. He held up the compact disk. “Leonard Pascoe is quite proud of his trade, and this was his biggest coup. He’ll have a nice little nest egg waiting for him when he gets out, courtesy of Mickey, or I should say courtesy of Osip Shvanov, because the money he used was the money he got from you, or part of it. It was a perfect fix for him. How much is he into you for by the way?”
“Osip, this is crazy! How could I-?”
“Shut up, Haas! Play this disk, please, Mishkin, and I very much hope that this is not some foolish trick.”
Mishkin turned on the sound system and inserted the CD into the player. The voice of Leonard Pascoe filled the room and they all listened in silence as he explained how to use a phony letter and a phony cipher and various agents to pull off a massive con. When it was over, Mishkin said, “The bird in this case is, of course, the mysterious Carolyn Rolly, who was perfectly positioned to carry it off-well connected to Shvanov, desperate to get out from under him, needing money to rescue her children and leave the country. She supposedly discovered the doctored manuscript in an old book, inveigled our friend Crosetti into fronting it, because we need an innocent mark, don’t we? And she has, throughout this adventure, been somehow always in the right position to advance the plot, although there’s a little variation on Pascoe’s original plan. Carolyn doesn’t have to steal the money because she’s already been paid, and the main purpose of the plot is in any case to get rid of Osip Shvanov. So, now you have the manuscript, and the people from Israel who are ready to buy it are in New York right now. You’ll sell it to them, get your ten million dollars-on the strength of the excellent Professor Haas’s recommendation-whose debt is thereby canceled, and everyone is happy, until your buyers try to present it in public for the big score, and suddenly it turns out that the play is not quite what we have come to expect from the Bard, is in fact the work of a lesser literary figure, Mickey Haas for example, a pastiche. Because you’re a fucking illiterate, Osip, and a foreigner, and therefore a perfect mark, as our friend Pascoe just told us. Shakespeare can’t be forged, but you’d never be able to tell that. And what do you suppose will happen to you when your buyers find out they’ve been had?”
Crosetti saw that Shvanov had gone white around the lips and that a vein in his temple was pulsing. He said, “How do you know the price is ten million?”
“Because my father told me. He’s the syndicate’s man in New York, and his principals are going to be very, very unhappy with you.”
“You have told him this?”
“Of course. And now I’m telling you, which is why I arranged for everyone involved to be here so we could get it all thrashed out. Oh, except for Carolyn Rolly. She seems to be in the wind just now, but I’m sure you can put your hands on her.”
Crosetti observed a puzzled expression appear on Shvanov’s face. He pointed to the woman in the white parka. “What do you mean? That is Carolyn Rolly.”
“Oh, Carolyn,” said Crosetti, half to himself. No one seemed to hear him. Everyone was looking at Mishkin, who had staggered as from a blow. His face had taken on a crushed look that the beating had not been able to put there. Shvanov saw it and it appeared to delight him.
“Yes, I can put my hands on her as you say, Jake,” he said and put his arm around Rolly’s shoulder. “And should I believe him, Carolyn? That you have conspired to cheat me with this professor? Osip, who took you in off the streets, gave you where to live, and showed you what is to be with a man.” In falsetto: “Oh, fuck me more in the ass, darling, it is so good.”
He took her jaw between his thumb and fingers and twisted. “Heh? Have you done this to me, you whore? Yes, maybe: it is something you would do, if maybe you don’t like your children anymore, or you forget I know where they live in Pennsylvania? But who knows what a whore will do?”
He walked to the table where Haas was standing, gaping at him, a rabbit to the cobra, and picked up the packet of manuscript. He evened the edges and weighed them in his hand. “But you, Professor, you are not a whore. We have a business relationship, we are dealing with each other for all this time, I have confidence in you, man-to-man, how could you do this? I am very disappointed.”
“He’s lying,” said Haas, speaking rapidly, stuttering over the words. From where he stood, Crosetti could see the man’s knees actually trembling. “He made all that up to…confuse you. He’s very clever, he thinks he can get away with anything, the great Jake Mishkin, but he’s lying here, this is a genuine play, the greatest manuscript discovery of all time. I’m the fucking expert, Osip, for Christ’s sake, and anyway how could I have ‘conspired’ as you say with this woman, I never set eyes on her before in my life, and going to Pascoe and arranging all this…it’s ridiculous…you can’t believe. These pages in your hand, and the ciphers, and everything, they’re precious, precious, I never dreamed I would ever have my hands on something like this…”
Mishkin said, “He did know Carolyn Rolly. She was a student at Columbia. Bulstrode introduced them. Ask Crosetti.”
Crosetti cleared his throat, which felt like it was full of white library paste, and said, “Well, yeah. She definitely knew Bulstrode. And Bulstrode knew Haas.”
“You see, Professor?” said Shvanov. “It will not add up. And so I think he is right, I think this is all a cheat, and this paper is garbage.” With that, he took two quick steps and tossed the stack of pages into the fireplace.