The Russian grew more agitated. Because he could not lie with ease, Nicholas could only choose between withholding information or speaking truth, and he clearly did not like his choices.
“We went into the city first. Into Manhattan.”
“Why did you go there?”
“He has a few apartments. People stay sometimes, or he does business there with people who won’t come to Queens. We stopped by one of those. He needed to drop off something.”
“What?”
“A painting he sold. A big abstract. I helped him wrap it the night before. He was leaving it in the apartment for the buyer to pick up.”
“How big?”
“I don’t know. Big enough to break my back getting it up those stairs. Maybe four or five feet square.”
“And you were with him the whole time? In the apartment?”
“No, he had to make some calls or something, I don’t remember. I went back to the car.”
“I see. Now tell me, where is this apartment?”
As the old man had anticipated, this was the question Nicholas balked at. He did not outright refuse to answer but simply stayed quiet a long time, glancing at the door. Andreas knew that the moment the nurse arrived, or the girlfriend, that would be the end of the conversation.
“Nicky. Matthew wants the icon returned to Greece, to the church. That is all he has been working for. All I want is to help him. He has done you a kindness. These others have left you to die, you owe them nothing. Your silence benefits you nothing. You could be of great help to us. You could do a service to the church. Which will you choose?”
“Damn you,” whispered the wounded man. “You talk like Dragoumis. I don’t believe either of you. For the boy, for Matthew, I will tell you. Twenty-eighth Street, near Third Avenue. The gray building one in from the northwest corner. I don’t remember the number. The third floor, in back.”
“Thank you.”
“Please leave now, Mr. Spyridis. I don’t want you here when the girl comes.”
“Of course. Did you tell the police about the apartment?”
“No.”
“I wonder why not?”
“I don’t know. Something in my head said don’t talk about it.”
“I am grateful, Nicky, and I will keep your trust. Be well, my boy.”
“We should not even be here. We should have left the country yesterday.”
Van Meer’s voice carried the calm, lazy tone he always affected, as if nothing really mattered to him, but the fact that he had repeated the thought twice in the last twenty-four hours underscored his disapproval. Del Carros had no real fear of Jan’s backing out, yet some attempt to mollify him must be made, to ease the younger man’s professional conscience. Jan thought of himself as someone who did things by the book, but del Carros knew him better. The Dutchman throve on chaos, ever since his violent youth in Amsterdam. The professional polish had come later, and it was a thin coat.
“There is no immediate danger.”
“You cannot know that,” Jan insisted, scanning the street through the windshield. “You don’t know their resources. And there is the police to consider as well.”
“They will be looking for del Carros. They will not find me under that name.”
“It was unwise meeting the woman.”
“We’ve discussed that.”
He would be damned if he would take a scolding from Van Meer, but he had also come to feel that the business with the woman had been handled poorly. She knew some things, yes, but not where the icon was, so what the hell did the rest matter? He kept making mistakes with that family, letting his rage at the dead old man who had robbed him cloud his thinking. He had done the same thing with the son, Richard, the girl’s father, when he had come to Caracas in his father’s place. The banker had a good eye and saw right through the scheme: he knew that the icon they offered him was a fake, that the one on his father’s wall was, in fact, genuine. Del Carros had not really intended to fool anyone in the end, wanting only to get the elder Kessler in his clutches. His son replacing him spoiled that, and the conditions set on the meeting made hostage-taking impossible.
In frustration, del Carros had done the same thing then that he had done all these years later with the daughter. Taunt the banker, insult his father, drop hints about the work, failing to either anger him or draw him out; giving him, instead, the knowledge to piece together things that he should never know. After the meeting, del Carros panicked and called in a large favor. At the time it had felt necessary-the banker knew too much-but del Carros could not lie to himself now as he did then. He had, at that moment, temporarily lost hope of getting the icon, and the action was intended solely to punish the elder Kessler. An act of pure cruelty. Bad enough to have wasted life and energy that way. To repeat the same mistakes with the girl two decades later was unforgivable.
“We’ve discussed it twice,” he said again. “She requested the meeting. I could not rule out her knowing something useful.”
“Spear is the key,” Jan insisted. “He is the one who is close to Dragoumis.”
“So where is he?”
“Did you expect me to get on the train and follow them? The woman knows my face, and there is no escape off a train. That’s why I followed this one instead.” He nodded his head at the hotel down the block.
“And you are certain he did not spot you? He is good, you know.”
“If he’s that good, then I can’t be certain. But I do not think he did.”
“And he went out this morning?”
“Yes, for a few hours.”
“Why didn’t you follow him?”
“I was waiting for you to arrive, as agreed.”
“But he is in there now?”
“Unless there is a way into the alley from the kitchen.”
“There may be.”
Jan showed him the most condescending smile possible.
“You would have me be everywhere at once? Perhaps you should overcome your cheapness and hire more men. Or otherwise trust to reason. He has used the main entrance every time. You worry too much about the wrong things.”
With great difficulty, del Carros held his tongue. It was completely unacceptable that he should be spoken to like this, but Jan ignored the niceties of the employer-employee relationship. And the old man could not rule out that his own anxiety was getting the better of him.
“Let’s hope you are correct. He is the last thread we have to follow.”
Paranoia was a common condition for anyone who had been in the game too long, and Andreas was not immune. The man who stepped out of the double-parked vehicle fifty yards behind the spot where Andreas left the taxi may have been nobody. However, paranoia could also save a man’s life, and so the old Greek passed by the doorway he’d meant to enter, and continued around the corner to Third Avenue.
An odd neighborhood. Indian restaurants, cheap diners, at least one obvious welfare hotel. Neither a good nor a bad part of town, but a passing-through kind of place-a good neighborhood to hide in. Andreas crossed the avenue suddenly and glanced behind as he looked south for traffic. The man from the car had also turned north on Third, but he continued on his way without looking back.
Andreas went down Twenty-ninth Street to Second Avenue as the light grew lower and paler, wasting time, but wanting to be certain. The fact that he was more vulnerable than usual-no Benny and no gun-fed his suspicion. The best thing would be to return to his hotel, but time seemed precious, and he had come all the way down here. He didn’t want to be defeated by irrational fear. Find it, Alekos had commanded him, get it out of Matthew’s life. Turning on Twenty-seventh Street, he headed back to Third, walked the block north, and crossed Twenty-eighth to the gray building he’d passed earlier. The double-parked car was gone. Andreas had still not made up his mind on a course of action when a man emerged from the building in question: squat, heavily whiskered, and sucking hard on a cigarette. When he tossed the butt aside and began shoving the plastic trash barrels into line, Andreas took it as a sign, and knew he had his man.