Innocence

Gwyneth chose silence again, and the longer it lasted, the more I wondered why she didn’t take offense. Then she said, “There are a few things I would need to know first. Not that they matter anymore. But just for my satisfaction.”

“This island of mine is eleven acres with—”

“Not that. I’m sure your island is lovely and your preparations complete.”

“Then what? Ask me, dear. Anything.”

“You sold pieces for Telford.”

“Quite a few. Some belonging to your father.”

“Among them were many famous works. Stolen works.”

“Yes, famous to one degree or another.”

“If the buyers ever sell or display them, they’ll incriminate themselves.”

“I have only a single buyer for everything Ryan brings to me. A consortium. And the consortium never intends to sell anything that it buys.”

“Then how could they hope to profit?”

“Profit is not their motive,” Goddard said. “The consortium is comprised of some of the world’s richest men. They wish to acquire certain meaningful works of art from the heritage of the West, so that they can destroy them.”

I couldn’t keep silent. “Destroy them? Destroy great works of art? But why?”

“They’re fools,” Goddard said. “Less than most men, but fools nonetheless. Like voodooists, they believe that each iconic thing they burn or shatter or melt down will strengthen their cause and weaken their enemy. From their kingdom in the Middle East, they intend soon to destroy the West entire, but first they want the personal satisfaction of eradicating some of its most precious and inspiring creations, piece by piece.”

Sickened, I said, “But that’s insane.”

“Insane and evil,” Gwyneth said.

“Quite insane,” Goddard agreed. “But insanity is everywhere these days, and celebrated. Insanity is rapidly becoming the new normal. Don’t you think? And as for evil… Well, we all know that evil is relative. Has your curiosity been satisfied, little girl?”

“One more thing. The Paladine marionettes.”

Clearly surprised, he said, “What about them?”

“Through surrogates, I’ve tracked down, purchased, and destroyed four of them.”

Another wet laugh escaped him, a sound hardly more mirthful than the sodden wheeze of a consumptive. “You’re no different from the gentlemen of that consortium.”

“More different than you could conceive,” she disagreed. “They destroy what is precious and inspiring. I don’t. I need to know if there were only six. Only six were ever announced, but maybe you’ve held back a couple, waiting for the price to rise.”

“Why are you concerned about imaginary marionettes if you still have two of the originals to find?”

“I need to know. That’s all. I need to know.”

“There were only six. They’re kitsch, not art. I don’t expect them to appreciate in price. If there had been seven or eight, I’d have sold them when the selling was good. Come with me tonight, and I’ll re-acquire the remaining two for you. We’ll burn them together. Oh, little girl, I have a thousand stories to fascinate you, the truth of the world, what happens behind the scenes. You’d find me witty and charming company.”

Without hesitation, she said, “I’d rather slit my throat.”

Goddard pushed a button on the raised tailgate of the Mercedes, and stepped out of the way as it closed automatically. “I’d shoot you for your insolence, but you’ll suffer worse if I just leave you to a less swift fate. You’ll wish that I’d shot you, that nothing worse had happened to you than being tortured as even now the fools are torturing your Simon. Tell me, little girl, why does it disgust you to be touched? Is it perhaps because when you were much littler, your daddy diddled you?”

“Ah, there it is,” she said, “the fabled wit and charm.”

He gripped the pistol in both hands, and for a moment, I thought he would kill us. But after a silence full of menace, he said, “Both of you stay together and move back past the Land Rover, along the driver’s side, and then twenty feet behind it.”

“We aren’t going to rush you,” she assured him. “I believe what you’ve told me. Poor Simon’s beyond saving now. You have nothing we want.”

“Move back anyway.”

We did as he ordered, and watched him drive away into the storm. The tires of the Mercedes cast up pale clouds of powder, exhaust fumes smoked the night, and the brake lights briefly made of the clouds and fumes a blood mist before the SUV turned right into the cross street and out of sight.

Gwyneth started toward the Land Rover, but I said, “Wait,” and when she turned to me, I stepped back to make absolutely sure that she could not see anything of my face. “Father told me never to forget the moth.”

“What moth and what about it?”

“He said, ‘The flame delights the moth before the wings burn.’”

She was as shadowed to me as I to her, a girl shape, dark in the night. “Is there more?”

“Eighteen years ago, my first night in the city, the night you were born, I saw a marionette in the window of an antique-toy store in this open-air shopping mall along the river. There was something strange about it.”

“Odds are that’s one I’ve found and destroyed.”

“You’ve made yourself up to resemble it.”