I told him to sit down, he was making me nervous.

“So what does it say? Translate as you read.”

I skimmed the pages and had another idea. “Look, that’ll take forever—and drive us both crazy.” I told him to take a break, go for a walk, give me time to read the pages on my own, then I’d tell him what they said. Not only did that make sense, but frankly, I needed a break from him and his relentless cigarette smoke.

“You won’t leave anything out,” he said, not a question.

I said no, and after a moment, he nodded, then headed out.

For the next couple of hours, I read. Scribbled a few notes too, though I wouldn’t need them, the pages galvanizing and unforgettable. When I finished, I called Smith’s cell.

He came back into the room, the smell of cigarette smoke surrounding him like a toxic aura, but I didn’t say anything this time. I told him to relax, that if he wanted to hear everything, all the details, it was going to take time.

Smith leaned back on the sofa and closed his eyes.

“Hoping for a bedtime story?”

“It’s helps me to see it,” he said.

“I’ll tell you everything, do my best to paint a good picture,” I said and began to describe all that Peruggia had written.

70

Vincent recalled the nights he had spent watching Chaudron’s apartment just after Chaudron had made his forgeries. How he had observed the couriers coming and going, always late at night, always in a hurry.

One night, after one of these men had come out with a flat package under his arm, Vincent followed. The man walked a long way, not stopping or idling until he was in the seventh arrondissement, home to the richest Parisians, with its ornate buildings, foreign embassies, and that mammoth praying mantis, La Tour Eiffel. Here, the man slowed, checking one fine home after another until he finally entered a corner building overlooking the Champ de Mars, a luxurious private home with white columns and balcony windows, topped by a large silver dome.

The man was out fast, with nothing under his arm, and again Vincent followed. This time into a small bar where he chose the barstool just beside him. He waited until the man had a drink, then another, gleefully celebrating, peeling francs off a large roll of bills. Vincent leaned close and slid his knife under the man’s coat. He ordered the man to get up, kept the knife at his heart, his other arm over the man’s shoulder as if they were the best of friends who had had too much to drink. Then Vincent led him into the bathroom, where he got him against the wall, the knife at his throat. He asked about Chaudron and the painting and to whom he had just delivered it.

“I have no idea what you are talking about!”

“I will kill you,” Vincent said, and he meant it, giving the courier a prick of the knife.