Masterpiece (25 page)

He strode over to the study’s closet and removed the briefcase and a fistful of packaging materials. Very gently, with surgical precision, he set about wrapping the drawings in protective paper and laying them flat inside the briefcase. Small as they were, they fit quite easily. Then he clicked the briefcase shut and returned it to the closet.

Marvin watched in silent dread. He could only pray that this was not the last view he’d have of
Justice, Fortitude, Prudence
, and
Temperance
.

A minute later, he found himself clinging to the jacket sleeve as Denny hurried out the door to the Met.

A
fter a brisk walk that seemed to cover ten or twelve blocks—Marvin noted with relief that they were close enough to the museum not to need taxis or subways—Denny ran up the stairs of the Met and finally strode through the door of Christina’s office. There, Marvin took in the dismal scene with one glance. James and Karl both looked stricken. Christina was sitting at the table, her blond head bowed, her hands covering her face. Her glasses were strewn in front of her, and her cheeks were wet with tears.

“My career is over,” she said. “Over. Who will ever understand this? How could I have done such a terrible thing?”

“Christina,” Denny said soothingly, “let’s be sure first. I’ve talked to you at least six times since the drawing left the museum, and up until now, everything was going as planned. I just can’t believe you made a mistake.”

Marvin listened in disgust. How convincing Denny sounded in his concern.

“Look at it,” Christina said dully.

As soon as Denny walked over to her, Marvin crawled down his sleeve to one of his pants legs, and from there to the floor. The bunched-up label made this journey quite arduous, but as soon as he was safely down, he scrambled beneath the table. Now, the question was how to get James’s attention.

He could try crawling up to his wrist, as he’d done before, but everyone was so focused on the drawing, he didn’t know if James would even notice him. He crouched near the table leg, mulling over this new challenge. Above him, he could hear the tense conversation.

“They looked the same,” James was saying. “Nobody could tell them apart.”

Christina sighed. “That’s why I wanted you to come. I was hoping you’d say I was wrong. But . . . oh, just look at it. As soon as the FBI said they’d retrieved the tracking device from a cab in a taxi yard, I had a sick feeling in my stomach. I had to check the original, to reassure myself. And then . . . well, I knew. You can tell, too, can’t you, Denny?”

Of course he can!
Marvin wanted to shout.
He planned the entire thing
! He couldn’t bear to see Denny’s sympathetic nod. “It’s not the Dürer,” he said quietly.

Christina turned to James, inconsolable. “You see? We could run all sorts of tests to confirm it, but we don’t need to. When you’ve looked at his work for as long as Denny
and I have, you can feel it in your bones.” She shook her head. “It’s that way with any forgery. Whatever the tests say, it’s human judgment we all rely on for the final verdict. Because when you know an artist well, the thing that bothers you about a fake will continue to bother you the longer you look at it. Until it becomes unbearable.”

Marvin saw her look at his drawing and close her eyes, and he flinched with the realization that something he’d made could cause anyone such grief. But before he had much time to contemplate this, he glimpsed something shiny by the table leg. It was the metal tack he’d hidden the night he was abandoned in Christina’s office.

Aha! A weapon. Or, if not a weapon, an excellent poking tool. Marvin grabbed it with his front two legs. Holding the sharp point aloft, and still carrying the folded label, he crawled with great difficulty over to James’s sneaker. He climbed up the side of the sneaker, under the edge of James’s jeans, and pressed the tack against the boy’s bare ankle.

No response. The distressed conversation above continued.

Marvin tensed his leg muscles and vigorously plunged the point of the tack into pale flesh.

“OW!” James yelped.

“What is it?” Karl asked in concern.

“Ow, I don’t know, my ankle hurts.” James hopped on one foot, almost knocking Marvin to the floor. He dropped to his knee and lifted his pants leg.

“Did you twist it?” Karl started to crouch down next to him, but James had already spied Marvin.

“No, no, Dad. It’s okay,” James said quickly. “My foot must have fallen asleep. Pins and needles.” He looked at Marvin, took the tack and dropped it on the floor, and then surreptitiously placed the beetle under his jacket cuff.

Marvin released a long breath. So far, so good. Now he just had to show James the address label. From his new position, he could see Denny examining the drawing on the table in front of Christina. It was framed
identically to the original, but even through the glass, Marvin had no trouble recognizing it as his own work.

“I just don’t understand it,” Christina said. “I was so careful. I checked the drawing a dozen times. I don’t know how I could have confused them.”

Karl crouched next to Christina, his hand on her shoulder. “They looked so much alike,” he said gently. “The museum wouldn’t fire you over one mistake.”

She raised her eyes despairingly. “Denny, tell them. That drawing was worth at least half a million dollars. On loan from another institution! And I put it at risk needlessly, for my own stupid purposes.”

Karl shook his head. “No, that’s not fair. You were trying to recover the one that was stolen—
Justice
. It was a good plan.”

“It was, Christina, and we all gave it our blessing,” Denny said. “But I’m afraid this won’t do much for relations between our two museums. The truth is, we were both responsible for the drawing, and we’ll both pay the price for this . . . disaster.”

Marvin could hardly stand this show of contrition.

Christina gestured at the table, then pressed her fingers into her temples. “I don’t even care about my job. The worst thing is that
Fortitude
is gone, and it’s my fault.”

Karl rubbed her shoulder. “Maybe the FBI will be able to recover it,” he said. “I know the microchip fell off or was taken off or whatever, but at least they know where the drawing was up until that point, right?”

“Yes, but it was in a series of public places—a hotel, a church, an office building. The tracking device isn’t precise enough to pinpoint rooms, and the drawing never stopped moving for more than a few minutes, so the FBI didn’t have time to close in on the location. Or at least not until the cab returned to the cab yard and they discovered the matting and the microchip on the floor of the backseat. They’re still searching, and retracing the path—but I haven’t much hope.”

“We need to start notifying people,” Denny said quietly.

“Yes.” Christina sounded hopeless. “I just wanted to give the FBI a little more time, in case . . . Oh, Denny, I can’t bear this.”

“I know, my dear. I’m so very, very sorry.”

This was too much for Marvin. He couldn’t stand the drawn look of fear and sadness on Christina’s face. As if reading his mind, James blurted, “I have to go to the bathroom.”

Karl barely glanced at him. “Okay, buddy. You know where it is.”

As soon as they’d left the office, James lifted his wrist and brought Marvin inches from his face. “Where have you BEEN? I couldn’t figure out what happened to you! Were you in the museum? Did you get knocked off my arm somehow?” He shook his head. “We’ve got to think of a safer way to carry you around. Oh my gosh, I thought I’d lost you again.”

Looking James straight in the eyes, Marvin promptly rolled on one side, exposing the rolled label.

James stared at him. “What is that?” he asked.

Marvin used his front legs to wiggle the label out from under its belt. He held it out to James.

“It looks like a little piece of paper,” James said. “All rolled up. Like a spitball. Is it a spitball?”

Marvin waited.

“Is there something on it?”

Marvin ran enthusiastically from James’s wrist to his hand.

“Okay, okay.” James crouched down in the hallway, leaning against the wall. He took the label with two fingers and turned his hand over slowly so that Marvin wouldn’t fall off.

“What am I supposed to do with it?” he asked, watching Marvin. “Open it up?” He began to unroll the miniature paper bundle. When he was finished, he spread the crinkled white rectangle on his thigh and looked at it.

“Gordon Perry, 236 East 74th Street, Apartment 5D, New York, New York,” he read.

Marvin frowned. Uh-oh. So the label didn’t have Denny’s name on it, after all. But surely that was still the correct apartment. Seventy-fourth Street made sense, just blocks from the Met.

“Who is this?” James asked, studying Marvin intently.

Marvin ran around excitedly.

“What’s the matter? Why are you so excited?” James watched Marvin with his serious gray eyes. “Do what you did before, when I gave you a ride to the kitchen. Go to the end of my finger if I’m right. Does this guy have something to do with the drawing? The real drawing?”

Marvin raced to the tip of James’s finger.

“Yes? Did he steal the drawing?”

Well, that wasn’t quite right, but James was so smart, he would figure it out.

“Really?” James bit his lip. “What should we do? Call the police?”

Marvin retreated to the middle of James’s knuckle. No, no, that wouldn’t work. The police would have no idea what to do with this information, and no reason to believe it mattered.

James looked at the label, his brow furrowing. “I don’t know, little guy.”

Marvin ran to the tip of James’s finger and stretched his legs out over the air.

“You want me to take you somewhere? Where?”

Marvin waved his legs frantically.

“Okay, I get it. Where? To this address?”

Good for James
! Marvin knew he would understand. He stayed at the tip of James’s finger, waving two legs in the air.

“But what if this guy is the thief?”

Marvin continued to thrust himself forward into space, willing James to get up on his feet and in motion.

James cast a sideways glance at Christina’s door. “Should I tell them?”