Innocence: A Novel (26 page)

In our pell-mell plunge through the city to Ogilvie Way, she had been motivated by fear for Simon, but now the flame in her was anger, not focused on Telford and his associates, but on herself, for having been too late to the artist’s bungalow. She was angry, not with Simon, but again with herself for having failed to see that when he rebuilt his life, he’d be proud of his recovery and of her faith in him, that he would be pleased to be regarded by her neighbors as someone who had been entrusted with her keys, and would thus endanger himself. Such a thing as righteous anger exists, especially but not always when it is directed at oneself.

I was distressed, however, by the
extent
to which Gwyneth blamed herself. To me and for all time, in all matters that might arise, she would always be blameless, for I knew the purity of her heart.

Nothing that I could say would induce her to accuse herself less bitterly, so that for the moment I was merely along for the ride—and
quite a ride it was. We slalomed around more stalled vehicles than before, tested drifts sloping out from parked vehicles, drove on the sidewalk along a cross street where two SUVs had collided and were blocking the way. When the drivers of city plows sounded their horns, admonishing her to cut her speed, she only blew the Rover’s horn in return and eased down farther on the accelerator, churning through the all-but-deserted snow-choked avenues.

Although her route seemed impromptu, I knew that it was taken with purpose, because a few times she slowed, stopped, and considered a residence or a business, as if this might be a place where Simon had been taken. Then she either shook her head or muttered something under her breath, and we were away again, the tire chains softly burring through compacted snow, louder on the ever-fewer occasions when they bit down to pavement.

“Why would he have a partner?” Gwyneth asked. “He doesn’t need anyone to help him steal these things. He has easy access. And all kinds of ways to conceal the theft. Why share with a partner?”

I didn’t think the question had been addressed to me; she was clearly thinking out loud. Besides, although she led a severely circumscribed life, limited by her social phobia, she had vastly more experience than I. Perhaps she knew enough about the ways of the world to puzzle out the reasons for a criminal’s behavior, but I was a naïf and knew it.

Before I could regret my uselessness, she answered her own question. “Of course! He needs a fence! If he sold these things himself, the buyers would know he isn’t rich enough to have such pieces in a collection. They would suspect that he was looting the museum and library. He needs an art dealer with at least an okay reputation—and a heart for larceny.” She let up on the accelerator and repeated, “Yes, of course.” She hung a U-turn on the avenue, thumping across the
raised median rather than taking the time to drive to the next intersection. “Goddard. Edmund Goddard.”

“Who’s Edmund Goddard?”

“He deals in high-end fine art and antiquities, gallery sales and auctions. He has a sterling reputation, but not with me.”

“Why not with you?”

“Daddy worked with many of the better dealers to build his collection, but after a few experiences with Goddard, he never did business with him again. He said Goddard was a man of such sharp practices that one day he would cut himself instead of others, and cut himself mortally.”

On a street of luxury shops, she pulled to the curb in front of a large gallery, where the sign announced only GODDARD. Laminated to the interior of each of the four big windows was a three-inch border of beveled mirror, meant to create a jewel-box effect that, with the assistance of cunningly designed lighting and black-velvet backdrops, presented just four paintings as if they were diamonds of priceless character.

They were postmodern abstracts that I found not merely ugly but also depressing. I admit that I don’t understand art that isn’t in the least representational. But I feel no need to understand it.

“I know where Goddard lives,” Gwyneth said. “But I’m drawn to this place.”

She pulled away from the curb, turned left at the corner, and turned left again into an alleyway that led behind the stores that faced the avenue. The back door of the gallery stood wide, and a man in a long overcoat shoved a large carton through the open tailgate of a Mercedes SUV.

Free of his burden, he turned toward us. He was tall, stout, and totally bald. From a distance, I couldn’t determine his age, only that
he might be somewhere between forty and sixty. A lot of men, even the young, had embraced baldness for many years; and it wasn’t easy to tell who earned the look and who faked it.

Gwyneth braked twenty feet short of him, put the Rover in park, doused the headlights, switched off the engine. “That’s him. That’s Goddard.”

“What now?” I asked.

“I have no idea.”

We got out of the Rover and approached Goddard, and he said to Gwyneth, “There’s nothing here for you, girl.”

“I’m looking for Simon.”

As we closed the distance between us and him, he drew a pistol from a coat pocket and aimed it at her. “That’s far enough.”

I had no illusion that we could win a duel with Mace and Taser against a pistol, and neither did Gwyneth. She said, “You wouldn’t shoot me and put your swanky life at risk.”

“If you give me the slightest reason,” he said, “I’ll shoot you
and
your mysterious friend, and I’ll piss on your corpse.”

THE ALLEYWAY WAS LIT ONLY BY A FEW WIRE-CAGED
security lamps above the back entrances to some of the businesses, and the one above the door to the gallery had been extinguished. The blanket of snow didn’t brighten the way, for the flanking walls of the six- and eight-story buildings crowded close and blocked the ambient light of the city. Along the length of the alley were strange and tortured
shadows, though I thought they must be only the shapes of things and not the things themselves.

Far enough from Goddard to feel certain that he was not able to see my eyes within my hood, I stared directly at him, but I still couldn’t guess his age. Fat smoothed out whatever lines time might have carved in his face. His voice had sounded as though he lived entirely on mayonnaise and butter but never quite cleared his throat of them; and even in this poverty of light, he had about him an air of dissolution.

“I’m looking for Simon,” Gwyneth repeated. “Will you pretend you don’t know who I mean?”

Goddard waved the gun in a dismissive gesture but at once brought it back on target. “I’m past all pretense. What would be the point now? He’s not here.”

“Where are they holding him?” she asked.

“Why should I bother to tell you? It’s over now, all of it, even if Telford refuses to see.”

“Simon has no idea how to find me. There’s no point in hurting him.”

“There’s no point in any of it, anymore,” Goddard said, “but I don’t care enough about your Simon to tell you anything. Unless …”

“Unless what?” she asked.

“I’m leaving the city. You should, too, if you want to live.”

“I think I’ll stay awhile.”

“I’ve got a private island, everything I need.”

“Except integrity.”

His laugh was wet and low. “Integrity isn’t a survival trait, little girl.”

“You said ‘unless.’ Unless what?”

“You might not think so, but I can be sweet,” Goddard said. “I’m a man of culture, of highly refined taste and much experience. Out of
this rat race, with nothing more to win or lose, you’ll find that I’m quite compatible. You might even find, after all, that you don’t mind being touched.”

I had begun to wonder if he and Gwyneth were not talking about precisely the same thing. There seemed to be implications in his words that didn’t quite relate to Simon and Telford. Now his proposition was so outrageous that I thought he must be to some degree unhinged.

He said, “Leave the city with me, and on the way, I’ll call Ryan Telford and tell him we’re both out of it, you and me, there’s no reason for him trying to squeeze information out of your artist friend Simon. It’s all over now. It’s wasted effort.”

For a moment, the quality of her silence suggested that she might be considering his proposal, but then she said, “You’d only take me to Telford.”

“Little girl, tender as you are, if you came with me, I’d betray a hundred Ryan Telfords. I’d shoot a hundred of them dead for you, and my own mother if she were still living.”

In this gloom, the falling snow was not as bright white as it was elsewhere, and in the shelter of the buildings, the wind proved not as fickle as before, so that the night seemed less chaotic. And yet, listening to their conversation, I felt as if everything was cockeyed, and I wouldn’t have been much surprised if the buildings suddenly tilted at precarious angles or if the pavement rolled like a ship’s deck under my feet.

Gwyneth chose silence again, and the longer it lasted, the more I wondered why she didn’t take offense. Then she said, “There are a few things I would need to know first. Not that they matter anymore. But just for my satisfaction.”

“This island of mine is eleven acres with—”

“Not that. I’m sure your island is lovely and your preparations complete.”

“Then what? Ask me, dear. Anything.”

“You sold pieces for Telford.”

“Quite a few. Some belonging to your father.”

“Among them were many famous works. Stolen works.”

“Yes, famous to one degree or another.”

“If the buyers ever sell or display them, they’ll incriminate themselves.”

“I have only a single buyer for everything Ryan brings to me. A consortium. And the consortium never intends to sell anything that it buys.”

“Then how could they hope to profit?”

“Profit is not their motive,” Goddard said. “The consortium is comprised of some of the world’s richest men. They wish to acquire certain meaningful works of art from the heritage of the West, so that they can destroy them.”

I couldn’t keep silent. “Destroy them? Destroy great works of art? But why?”

“They’re fools,” Goddard said. “Less than most men, but fools nonetheless. Like voodooists, they believe that each iconic thing they burn or shatter or melt down will strengthen their cause and weaken their enemy. From their kingdom in the Middle East, they intend soon to destroy the West entire, but first they want the personal satisfaction of eradicating some of its most precious and inspiring creations, piece by piece.”

Sickened, I said, “But that’s insane.”

“Insane and evil,” Gwyneth said.

“Quite insane,” Goddard agreed. “But insanity is everywhere these days, and celebrated. Insanity is rapidly becoming the new normal.
Don’t you think? And as for evil … Well, we all know that evil is relative. Has your curiosity been satisfied, little girl?”

“One more thing. The Paladine marionettes.”

Clearly surprised, he said, “What about them?”

“Through surrogates, I’ve tracked down, purchased, and destroyed four of them.”

Another wet laugh escaped him, a sound hardly more mirthful than the sodden wheeze of a consumptive. “You’re no different from the gentlemen of that consortium.”

“More different than you could conceive,” she disagreed. “They destroy what is precious and inspiring. I don’t. I need to know if there were only six. Only six were ever announced, but maybe you’ve held back a couple, waiting for the price to rise.”

“Why are you concerned about imaginary marionettes if you still have two of the originals to find?”

“I need to know. That’s all. I need to know.”

“There were only six. They’re kitsch, not art. I don’t expect them to appreciate in price. If there had been seven or eight, I’d have sold them when the selling was good. Come with me tonight, and I’ll re-acquire the remaining two for you. We’ll burn them together. Oh, little girl, I have a thousand stories to fascinate you, the truth of the world, what happens behind the scenes. You’d find me witty and charming company.”

Without hesitation, she said, “I’d rather slit my throat.”

Goddard pushed a button on the raised tailgate of the Mercedes, and stepped out of the way as it closed automatically. “I’d shoot you for your insolence, but you’ll suffer worse if I just leave you to a less swift fate. You’ll wish that I’d shot you, that nothing worse had happened to you than being tortured as even now the fools are torturing your Simon. Tell me, little girl, why does it disgust you to be touched?
Is it perhaps because when you were much littler, your daddy diddled you?”

“Ah, there it is,” she said, “the fabled wit and charm.”

He gripped the pistol in both hands, and for a moment, I thought he would kill us. But after a silence full of menace, he said, “Both of you stay together and move back past the Land Rover, along the driver’s side, and then twenty feet behind it.”

“We aren’t going to rush you,” she assured him. “I believe what you’ve told me. Poor Simon’s beyond saving now. You have nothing we want.”

“Move back anyway.”

We did as he ordered, and watched him drive away into the storm. The tires of the Mercedes cast up pale clouds of powder, exhaust fumes smoked the night, and the brake lights briefly made of the clouds and fumes a blood mist before the SUV turned right into the cross street and out of sight.

Gwyneth started toward the Land Rover, but I said, “Wait,” and when she turned to me, I stepped back to make absolutely sure that she could not see anything of my face. “Father told me never to forget the moth.”

“What moth and what about it?”

“He said, ‘The flame delights the moth before the wings burn.’ ”

She was as shadowed to me as I to her, a girl shape, dark in the night. “Is there more?”

“Eighteen years ago, my first night in the city, the night you were born, I saw a marionette in the window of an antique-toy store in this open-air shopping mall along the river. There was something strange about it.”

“Odds are that’s one I’ve found and destroyed.”

“You’ve made yourself up to resemble it.”

“To somewhat resemble it,” she acknowledged.

“The Paladine marionettes?
Six
of them?”

“It’s cold out here. I’ll explain in the Rover.”