87

He peers up and down the street, colorless eyes raking over new buildings and old ones, a metal structure identified only as the New Museum, the sidewalk teeming with people in motion. He looks for someone who is standing still, focuses first on a young man checking his cell phone, then a disheveled man on the corner—homeless or just playing the part? He can usually spot a professional, but it is more difficult here in Manhattan, on this odd and diverse street called the Bowery—so many different sorts of people: sophisticates and bums, Americans, Asians and Europeans, some decked out in furs, others in clothes so threadbare they have to be freezing, a damp wind blowing across the city from its two large rivers.

He checks his tracking device, the red dot hovering, the American at home, just five stories above him. He replays a few moments of their time together in Florence and Paris and considers their odd bond. He knows the American is his connection to the man he is after, the man who has tried to have him killed. He suspects this man wants the American dead too and likely has someone watching him. He scrolls through the American’s calls and texts, not sure if they are important, but he will check them out.

The handheld device pings: a signal that the American is on the move. A few minutes later, the Russian glances up, and sure enough, there he is, exiting the building. The Russian turns away but keeps an eye on the device, on the red dot moving, then dares a peek over his shoulder and sees the American disappear into the subway.

In less than a minute, he has picked the front door lock and makes his way up the old metal staircase to the fifth floor.

The door to the American’s loft is just as easily picked.

He steps in, surveys the uneven wooden floors and tin ceiling, the spare furnishings, a large wall crammed with books, more on a low wooden coffee table, one right on top about that artist he had seen in the Florence museum and liked, Caravaggio. He thumbs through it, stops on a full-page color reproduction of the Medusa head, and tears it out. Rolls it into a tight tube and slips it into his breast pocket.

He pads down the hallway into another, even larger room with canvases on the walls, splatters of paint on the floor, the smell of oil and turpentine heavy in the air. He goes up to a painting and touches it. His fingertips come away stained with pigment, the surface of the painting left with slight indentations. He picks up a brush, uses it to whisk his fingerprints away. Wipes the brush handle with a rag, uses the same rag to clean his fingers, turns it inside out, and stuffs it into his back pocket. He stops a moment to admire a painting of a nude without a face, has to stifle the urge to leave the American a note: I like this one—finish it!