The Hypnotist

TWENTY-ONE

Even though Samimi had only been called into his boss’s office to go over plans for his afternoon appointment at the Met, he was anxious. Since he had learned about the Semtex shipment, everything made him anxious.

“Is the meeting set, Ali?”

“All set. I confirmed an hour ago.”

Taghinia smiled as he opened his humidor, extracted a Cuban, rolled it in his fingers, listened to its music, cut off the tip and set about lighting the stinking weed.

Samimi, who was sitting opposite him on the couch, wished he could get out of the office before the stench infiltrated his clothes. He hated his boss’s indulgence but was doing his best to keep his revulsion in check, along with his nerves.

“Your mission today is very important,” Taghinia said.

“So you’ve said.”

“Be careful, be vigilant.” Taghinia inhaled, held the smoke and then blew it out, not caring that it wafted right toward his underling.

Standing, Samimi walked over to the window.

“This is a critical part of our planning,” Taghinia continued with a slight edge of aggravation in his voice that Samimi knew he’d provoked by getting up. His boss didn’t approve of his employee’s disapproval.

“Yes, you’ve said that before, but it’s difficult for me to do my job as well as possible without knowing the details of our plans,” Samimi said. “What exactly does Deborah Mitchell have to do with us getting the sculpture back?”

“You know as much as you need to right now.” Taghinia took another long pull on the cigar and then let the smoke out achingly slowly.

“I know nothing. If I just understood-”

Taghinia cut him off. “All right, all right.” And then, as if he were trying to teach a poor student a basic equation, he continued on in an exasperated voice. “We will need access to an event at the museum over the next few weeks. Deborah Mitchell will afford us that access. Bringing her yet one more little treasure will ensure it. Your job is to make her understand how much you enjoy spending time at the museum and how happy it would make you to be invited to their events, parties and openings. When you need to know more than that, I’ll inform you.”

Samimi nodded impatiently, as was expected of someone frustrated to be left out of the loop.

“My only fear,” Taghinia said, “is that this next step depends on you being charming, and that’s not something you excel at.”

Samimi was used to his boss’s passive-aggressive swipes, but cringed anyway-all part of the act. He was doing what was expected of him, behaving as he’d always behaved, being the same man he’d been for the past three years. Except he wasn’t that sorry little man anymore. He had taken control of his own destiny. He was going to shape his future, not let this slob shape it for him.

“Here you are.” Taghinia handed Samimi a package. “It arrived via the diplomatic pouch yesterday, and the associate director of the museum in Tehran is standing by on the phone waiting to talk to you about it.”

The container was the size and shape of a shoe box and covered in brown leather that was soft to Samimi’s touch. Opening the double brass hinge, he found a silk pouch that contained an antique cup made of gold. With one glance, he knew it was both very beautiful and very rare.

“I expect it will be more than impressive and certainly will make up for your deficiencies,” Taghinia said.

Samimi winced at the barb as he replaced the object, put the box under his arm and rose.

“One more thing.”

Samimi was halfway to the door.

“Yes?”

“Tomorrow, I’d like you to go straight to the warehouse in the morning instead of coming here.”

“The warehouse?” Samimi’s heart was beating so hard he wondered if his boss could see it.

“We’re expecting a delivery. I want you to pay for it.”

“What kind of delivery?”

“It’s not necessary for you to know.”

Samimi frowned. “I think it is, Farid.”

“It’s not your job to think about whether my decisions are right or wrong. When you need to know, you’ll know.” He spat out the words as if they were little pieces of tobacco stuck on his tongue.

“What do you want me to do with this delivery?”

“Wait until the courier has left, then call me. I’ll give you instructions.”

So the Semtex had arrived in the same pouch as the artifact. Samimi shivered as he walked out of Taghinia’s office.

The skinny woman who greeted Samimi had short blond hair and oversize square black glasses. As she gave him a visitor’s badge, Laura Freedman introduced herself and then asked him to follow her. Leading him through the museum’s grand lobby with its soaring ceiling and enormous bouquets of apple blossom branches in niches carved out of the stone walls, she was quiet. She remained so as they walked through the medieval wing, made a left, went through a few galleries of European furnishings and stopped at an elevator bank near the twentieth-century modern art exhibition space.

Samimi was too worried to give the treasures they passed their due. Why was he meeting with Laura instead of the curator?

Exiting the elevator on the fourth floor, they passed by a receptionist at an ornate desk, walked down a richly carpeted hallway and stopped at the first office on the right. The door was open.

“Thanks, Laura,” Deborah Mitchell said as she got up and came around from behind her desk to greet Samimi.

Today she was wearing a long-sleeved ruby dress that set off her dark coloring and chestnut eyes. Her long ebony hair was woven into a braid, and as he shook her hand, Samimi couldn’t help imagining that hair loose and spread out on a pillow. His thought must have somehow translated to her because she blushed. Which made him smile. Which just made her blush deepen. Wouldn’t Taghinia be surprised?

“Welcome back to the museum,” she said.

He thanked her as he put the shopping bag on her desk.

She looked at it and then back at him. “Would you like some coffee? We have cappuccino-or tea, if I remember correctly.”

“Yes, tea.” He smiled.

“And sugar, right?”

“Yes, please.”

There was something pleasantly old-fashioned about the ritual, especially when Deborah went to get it herself. He’d expected her to have her assistant bring the tea.

Sitting in on the visitor’s side of her clean modern desk with its computer and assortment of papers, catalogues, pens and photographs, Samimi noticed the poster on the wall. It was different from the one that had been hanging there the last time he’d visited. This was a green, cobalt and turquoise tile blown up to bleed off the edges of the paper with silver type outlined in black that read, EARLY PERSIAN TILEWORK, THE MEDIEVAL FLOWERING OF KASHI and, beneath that, the dates of the exhibition that had opened in January and would run through June.

“Here you are,” she said, returning with two navy mugs that had the MMA insignia on them.

He sipped the steaming beverage. “Too many people make tea that isn’t hot enough, but this is perfect,” he said. “Thank you.”

Deborah nodded at the unadorned shopping bag and said, “You’ve certainly aroused my curiosity with your call, Mr. Samimi. After the last treasure you brought us, I can’t wait to see this one.”

“Please call me Ali,” he said. Reaching inside, he pulled out the leather box, put it on the desk and made a show of opening it to reveal the blue silk pouch embroidered with white flowers with green leaves. Withdrawing it, he offered it to her.

She nodded, almost shyly, which Samimi had found fascinating the last time he’d met her, too. Here was a well-respected art historian working at one of the world’s finest museums, but she was still reserved. If he were to ever marry, he’d probably look for a wife more like Deborah than the women he’d been sleeping with-a wife with both feet planted firmly in America but who still sometimes dreamt about the ancient desert.

“The man who owns this would very much like to offer it to the museum if you think it worthy of your collection.”

Deborah loosened the tie, reached inside and pulled out an egg-shaped golden cup decorated with the heads of two men, each wearing a crown of leaves. Turning it slowly, she examined it.

“What do you make of it?” He couldn’t be certain but he thought she was impressed.

“It’s exquisite,” she whispered.

“One similar to this, also beaten out of a single sheet of gold, sold in London for over a million dollars last year.”

“I know,” she said, but something in her voice intimated that an object’s value wasn’t just what it sold for.

Using a jeweler’s loupe, she examined the cup more closely. “It’s Achaemenid gold, I think. Everything about the goldsmithing suggests it. Third or fourth century BCE.”

What she said was consistent with what Samimi had been told about the cup from the curator of the Tehran museum.

“The workmanship is extraordinary,” she offered finally, still staring at the vessel, unable to look away from it. “Does your client-”

“Not a client. The mission is simply helping one of our citizens.”

“And he’s offering this to us?”

“He’s an Iranian American who wants to do his part to help forge a stronger bond between the country of his birth and the country of his children’s birth.”

She nodded, understanding the sentiment as he’d hoped she would. Farid Taghinia might have come up with the plan, but this explanation was his contribution and he was proud it had worked.

“What’s his name?”

“He wants to remain anonymous for now. Will that present a problem?”

“As long as you can show us papers proving he owns the cup outright and there’s no controversy surrounding its provenance.”

“I can assure you there isn’t. We’re all aware of how careful you have to be these days. The last thing we’d want to do is add to the conflict your museum and our government are already engaged in. Messy business.” He lowered his voice and leaned forward. “Unofficially, I’m embarrassed by how aggressive we are being. A lot of us are. My friend who owns the cup is.” Samimi hadn’t planned those last few sentences but she’d given him the perfect opening and he wanted to plant the idea that he sympathized with her museum.

She seemed about to say something and then held back.

“The only thing the donor of the cup insists on is that it be displayed. He doesn’t want it going into storage. Also, if you do decide to take it, he will go public with who he is. It’s important to him that people know of his gesture toward peace.”

“It’s way too early to give you any promises. First we need to examine the cup, determine its authenticity and clear its history-but I understand the conditions. If we accept this generous offer, we’ll certainly put it on display.”

Samimi nodded. “How long will the process take?”

“Depending on the paperwork you can provide, the earliest would be four or five weeks. Will that be all right?”

“Yes, fine.” According to what he’d heard on the tapes and what Taghinia had told him, those few weeks were what this charade was all about.

“I just need to prepare a receipt.” Deborah pushed some clutter out of the way and placed the cup in the center of her desk. “I’ll get a few shots to make sure we cover its condition…” She stopped speaking while she photographed the artifact from different angles, including the inside and underside. “If you don’t mind waiting, I’ll print these out and you can initial them. We’ll each have a copy, and you’ll have a receipt.”

“Not at all.” He looked right at her and held her gaze. He hoped he wasn’t moving too fast, but he had a feeling-and he was usually right when it came to women-that she didn’t get enough attention and she’d preen.

And she did, offering him another shy smile.

While she printed out the photos, Samimi drank more of his tea, even though it was lukewarm now, and inspected the poster again. The glorious green, cobalt and turquoise tile was so indicative of the art of his homeland it made him homesick for a moment-not for the political landscape but for the country of his great-grandparents that he had seen remnants of and heard stories about, and that was lost now, probably forever.

“Here you go, Mr. Samimi.” She handed him a stack of photos, a release form and a pen.

“Ali,” he said. As he scrawled his initials on each shot, he breathed in air that was slightly perfumed by the scent she wore. Clean and floral, very pleasant. Handing her back the pen, he looked into her warm brown eyes. “Would it be appropriate,” he asked formally, guessing by her demeanor that this would be the right approach, “if I called and invited you to dinner one night to celebrate?”