Muller in our sights again. Then all of us doubters will owe you an apology.” Benny shook his head in a bemused fashion, sucking on his cigarette. There was a look in the big man’s dark eyes that made Andreas uncomfortable.
“You would have executed him,” Andreas stated, more than asked. “Right there in the church. If you could have been sure it was Muller.”
“What should I care for churches? That place is more like a museum, anyway.”
“So the answer is yes.”
“If I could have been certain, why not? It would have been risky. I would have had to take out the Dutchman as well, and there were a lot of people around. Then again, how many opportunities can one expect?”
“This recklessness of yours is disturbing. You make me question involving you.”
“What recklessness?” Benny barked smoke into the old man’s face. “It’s all been talk so far. Raiding empty rooms. Bad information. The only reckless thing I’ve done is get that girl out of danger.”
“Forgive me, you did well there. It is only that I take you at your word, and your words have been disturbing.”
“I don’t know why. We both know the man needs to die. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, because I lost him and who the hell knows if we’ll ever find him again.”
“You didn’t lose him, you took care of Ms. Kessler. That was the correct thing to do. Now you are wounded, and I can be of little help in a fight. And he has this bodyguard. The business has become too dangerous.”
Benny stared at him for several seconds.
“You’re saying we should give up.”
“Turn it over to the authorities. It’s what I was telling Matthew. The odds are not in our favor, and the goal is insufficient to the risk.”
“The goals are different for each of us. Your boy is an innocent, chasing a painting that will only bring him grief whether he finds it or not. You are right to tell him to stay out of it. Our goal is much simpler.”
“Your goal.”
“My goal, then. Simple, direct, well justified, and I am capable of carrying it out.”
“Yet your arm is bandaged, and we still do not know if we are even chasing the right man.”
“Damn you,” Benny said, mashing out the cigarette in the filthy ashtray. “We’ve just been through this. I got cut doing what you asked me to do. It would have been much easier just to eliminate those two.”
“It won’t be easy the next time. They will know you now.”
“Are you trying to convince me or yourself? Finding Muller was your idea. Now we are close and you want to give it up. What the hell have you been after all this time?”
There must be something in his face, Andreas decided, that kept inviting the question. And no matter how many times he recounted the arc of this journey in his own mind, it yielded no obvious answer. The dream of confronting Muller had lived within him for more than fifty years. It lived still, an unconscious reflex, like breathing. Yet something had changed. There were times when he could recall his brother Mikalis, the child Mikalis, so clearly that it was as if he had just seen him days before, scampering across the square toward him: round, dark eyes; stick-figure arms and legs; tousled hair; a small scar on his forehead from an errant rock thrown by Andreas himself. The fiery Mikalis from the war years, however, the young man martyred in the church, had achieved the murky indistinctiveness of myth. The same was true for all of them. Stefano, Glykeria, brave Giorgios, poor unfortunate Kosta-all the dead had become vague memories. The events remained etched firmly in his mind, and he knew they were real, but the players had become ghosts, as if such courage, treachery, grief could never have been the stuff of true lives. Even that hardened killer Captain Elias seemed insubstantial, a role he had once played and then put away. Which was more or less the case.
What was real to him now was his son’s illness-ravaged body, his grandson’s dangerous predicament. The young, ruthless Fotis was a shadow; the old, scheming Fotis-kind, cantankerous, desperate for life-was the man he contended with now. It was hard to keep the desire for revenge hot for decades. Who knew when a word, a scent, would transport him back to those bad days? It still happened, but less frequently, and more of his time and energy went to the living, as was only right. He wanted to protect each of these people from harm, from the past, and from each other, and it seemed an impossible but worthy task, sufficient in itself.
“I do not want to see the boy hurt, Benny. And I don’t want you hurt any further.”
“You are not considering that the other side will not let this go, whatever we do. They are still searching. Meeting with the girl shows how reckless they’ve become. She doesn’t know anything, but they were willing to seize her on an innuendo. Who will they try next?”
“They know we are on to them now. They will be more careful.”
“Don’t depend on it. These old men do not behave logically about this painting.”
It was true, of course. With death so near, they felt they had nothing to lose, and immortality, real or spiritual, to gain. They were capable of anything.
“Then we must be on guard. And seek further protection from the police.”
“Our best defense is to hunt down the threat ourselves.”
“My friend,” Andreas spoke gently, unsure for a moment what he wanted to say. “Do you have anyone you are close to now? A wife, a lover?”
“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
“Where is your son?”
“In Israel. With his mother. Like good Jews should be.”
“Why aren’t you with them?”
“We’re divorced, years ago. You knew that. Anyway, I can’t live in that country anymore. It’s all factions and I’m still considered an unstable fellow. I can’t even bear to visit.”
“Does the boy come here?”
“Yes. Sometimes he sees me and sometimes he doesn’t. What are you getting at, Spyridis? That I need love?”
“A man’s family steadies him. Risks are considered in proportion to what might be lost. A man who feels he has nothing to lose is a strong weapon, but a dangerous one. I was feeling that way when I came to you two weeks ago. I no longer do.”
They were quiet for a time while Benny smoked a third Gauloise. Andreas regretted the personal questions, the lecturing tone. Benny was too old to be treated that way. The mood had come upon the old man without warning.
“What do we do with these two?” the big man asked, pointing his chin down the street toward Matthew’s apartment. “I can’t keep playing bodyguard, I’ve got better things to do.”
“Ms. Kessler should report yesterday’s incident. It might gain her some protection. The police might even be able to find del Carros.”
“Why? He didn’t actually do anything. His man cut me when I stuck a gun in his ribs.”
“We can ask her to leave your name out of the report, if that is what bothers you.”
“It’s nothing to me. I’m a licensed investigator, the gun is registered.
