The Red Room Read Free Page B

but the man knows his art and would have no problem forming a partnership to make a buy. He’s a family man, no connection to organized crime. Well educated. A pleasure to do business with. You’ve got the wrong guy.”
    “His mother is gravely ill,” Dulwich says. “As we speak, he’s traveling to Istanbul to join some, or all, of his six siblings. Three brothers, three sisters. He’s not in partnership. He’s a middleman for his brother, Mashe.” He pronounces it “Masha.” “That’s who bought your piece.”
    “Okay.” Knox does not appreciate Dulwich knowing what he knows. He circles back to the photos taken of Akram from a year and a half ago. Police. Interpol. A cultural ministry trying to stem the flow of precious art.
    Dulwich’s focus can be laserlike. “After I saw these photos, when I realized you deal in more than nose flutes, it seemed so unlike you. So I go back through your college records to find out you were an art history major.”
    “Minor. My major was sorority girls.”
    “Save it for someone who laughs,” Dulwich says. “Why’d I never hear about this? Too soft for the tough John Knox?”
    “I don’t tell everything on the first date.”
    “So you’re an art dealer now?”
    “Finger cymbals are folk art.”
    “How long?”
    “A while. Here and there, now and then. Better margins when I can find the right piece. It’s a pretty tight-knit club, gray market art. I have a long climb ahead of me, but yes, I enjoy it. Sue me.”
    “You’re about to skip a few rungs,” Dulwich says. “Move to the front of the line. No more papier-mâché face masks for John Knox. What’s the gray market equivalent of Christie’s or Sotheby’s?”
    Knox doesn’t answer. His heart is pumping. Dulwich has a disturbing way of knowing how to play him. Knox would love to get away from hill tribe trinkets and into the art world, gray market or not. But Dulwich can’t make such promises.
    —
    “Y OU ARE to offer Akram the bust of Harmodius.”
    “Harmodius and Aristogeiton.” Knox doesn’t need Google.
    “Apparently so.”
    Knox can tell Sarge is out of his element. “Athenians who paved the way for democracy. Bronzes were made of the heroes, the first art in human history to be commissioned out of public funds, adding to the gravitas of the pieces.”
    “Listen to you,” Dulwich says.
    “The statues disappeared, likely seized in wartime. Copies were commissioned. This is still four hundred years before Christ. A piece—just a piece!—of one of those copies surfaced in the 1980s and sold for millions.”
    “You will be offering the head and left shoulder from the original Harmodius,” Dulwich says.
    “That’s impossible. No one will believe that. Not even me. The originals were lost two thousand years ago. Come on.”
    “It’s been tested. Assayed. Whatever. It can be tested again. It’s the real deal, Knox. And yes, you will have it. I’m told the estimated value is well north of ten million.”
    “Well north,” Knox says.
    “You’ll be asking five hundred thousand.”
    “And why would I do that? Why would anyone do that?” But he knows the answer. It’s been stolen. It’s a piece for one’s bedroom, not one that can be seen by others. There are too many questions that need answering. Given the current climate of cross-cultural theft, trying to deal it to a museum would result in jail time.
    “If you’re trying to court me, you’re going about it all wrong. What the hell are you and Primer up to?” Knox has a nose forDulwich bullshit. The closest they’ve been to the truth was the bit about good and bad players on the same team. That line’s been running through Knox’s head since Sarge said it.
    “You deliver the Harmodius. Grace will make sure the money flows in the right directions. You’ll make a name for yourself in certain circles.”
    A name?
Knox thinks. He’ll be legend, and Dulwich is fully aware of this. He’s offering Knox a career change, a gold