JК
The English Assassin :: Silva Daniel
Страница: 9 из 209”
“If it came from his workshop, his fingerprints will be on it. And if there’s anyone who can find them, it’s you.”
“I’ll be happy to take a look at it for you.”
“Are you working on anything now?”
“I just finished a Modigliani.”
“I have a job for you.”
“What kind of job?”
“I received a call from a lawyer a few days ago. Said his client has a painting that requires cleaning. Said his client wanted you to handle the job and would pay handsomely.”
“What’s the client’s name?”
“Didn’t say.”
“What’s the painting?”
“Didn’t say.”
“So how is it supposed to work?”
“You go to the villa, you work on the painting. The owner pays for your hotel and expenses.”
“Where?”
“ Zurich.”
Something flashed behind Gabriel’s green eyes, a vision, a memory. Isherwood frantically rifled through the file drawers of his own less reliable memory. Have I ever sent him to Zurich for Herr Heller?
“Is Zurich a problem?”
“No, Zurich is fine. How much would I be paid?”
“Twice what I’ve just given you-if you start right away.”
“Give me the address.”
GABRIEL did not have time to return to Cornwall to pick up his things, so after lunch he went shopping. In Oxford Street he purchased two changes of clothing and a small leather bag. Then he walked over to Great Russell Street and visited the venerable art supply store of L. Cornelissen amp; Son. A flaxen-haired angel called Penelope helped him assemble a traveling kit of pigments, brushes, and solvents. She knew him by his work name, and he flirted with her shamelessly in the faded accent of an Italian expatriate. She wrapped his things in brown paper and bound them with a string. He kissed her cheek. Her hair smelled of cocoa and incense.
Gabriel knew too much about terrorism and security to enjoy traveling by airplane, so he rode the Underground to Waterloo Station and caught a late-afternoon Eurostar to Paris. In the Gare de l’Est he boarded a night train for Zurich, and by nine o’clock the next morning he was strolling down the gentle sweep of the Bahnhofstrasse.
How gracefully Zurich conceals her riches, he thought. Much of the world’s gold and silver lay in the bank vaults beneath his feet, but there were no hideous office towers to mark the boundaries of the financial district and no monuments to moneymaking. Just understatement, discretion, and deception. A scorned woman who looks away to hide her shame.
“If it came from his workshop, his fingerprints will be on it. And if there’s anyone who can find them, it’s you.”
“I’ll be happy to take a look at it for you.”
“Are you working on anything now?”
“I just finished a Modigliani.”
“I have a job for you.”
“What kind of job?”
“I received a call from a lawyer a few days ago. Said his client has a painting that requires cleaning. Said his client wanted you to handle the job and would pay handsomely.”
“What’s the client’s name?”
“Didn’t say.”
“What’s the painting?”
“Didn’t say.”
“So how is it supposed to work?”
“You go to the villa, you work on the painting. The owner pays for your hotel and expenses.”
“Where?”
“ Zurich.”
Something flashed behind Gabriel’s green eyes, a vision, a memory. Isherwood frantically rifled through the file drawers of his own less reliable memory. Have I ever sent him to Zurich for Herr Heller?
“Is Zurich a problem?”
“No, Zurich is fine. How much would I be paid?”
“Twice what I’ve just given you-if you start right away.”
“Give me the address.”
GABRIEL did not have time to return to Cornwall to pick up his things, so after lunch he went shopping. In Oxford Street he purchased two changes of clothing and a small leather bag. Then he walked over to Great Russell Street and visited the venerable art supply store of L. Cornelissen amp; Son. A flaxen-haired angel called Penelope helped him assemble a traveling kit of pigments, brushes, and solvents. She knew him by his work name, and he flirted with her shamelessly in the faded accent of an Italian expatriate. She wrapped his things in brown paper and bound them with a string. He kissed her cheek. Her hair smelled of cocoa and incense.
Gabriel knew too much about terrorism and security to enjoy traveling by airplane, so he rode the Underground to Waterloo Station and caught a late-afternoon Eurostar to Paris. In the Gare de l’Est he boarded a night train for Zurich, and by nine o’clock the next morning he was strolling down the gentle sweep of the Bahnhofstrasse.
How gracefully Zurich conceals her riches, he thought. Much of the world’s gold and silver lay in the bank vaults beneath his feet, but there were no hideous office towers to mark the boundaries of the financial district and no monuments to moneymaking. Just understatement, discretion, and deception. A scorned woman who looks away to hide her shame.