Chapter Text
Harriet Sato signed in at the Yokohama Peace Museum at 5:35 am, fifteen minutes before sunrise on Tuesday, May 12, 202X. She walked up the marble staircase in the atrium to her office on the second floor. She brewed a cup of tea, logged into her computer and sent a memo she’d drafted the night before to her staff, informing them about the Vermeer exhibition planned for early June. At 5:43, she stepped back out into the public area of the museum and walked aimlessly with her coat hanging over her arm. At 5:47, she wandered into the Western art wing of the museum and flicked on a light switch. On the back wall lay the centerpiece of May’s temporary exhibition, a piece called “Las Jugadoras” by the Colombian modernist and revolutionary Maria Del Pilar Valeria Márquez.
Las Jugadoras was painted in 1903 when Márquez was living in exile. It depicts two women seated indoors at a lotería drawing. The woman on the left is resting her chin on her left hand, with her right hand touching the edge of her lotería card. The woman on the right is repairing the hem of her companion’s dress with a needle and thread. Neither woman is looking at their respective tasks; they are preoccupied with each other. Their heads are framed by two windows, and a row of flowers extend from their shared eyeline. The building they are in shows obvious signs of disrepair, but the chipped paint on the walls glows a brilliant yellow at the point where their eyes meet, an uncanny source of light that radiates gently in the space between them, almost evoking a halo in the style of Catholic frescos. The yellow tint of the background stands in gentle agreement with their brown skin and vivid contrast with the bright secondary colors of their dresses. The woman on the left has won the lotería. Four pinto beans in a vertical line cover four images. From top to bottom: La calavera, the skull; El soldado, the soldier; La mano, the hand; and El corazón, the heart. Her expression is enigmatic, tinted with contented exhaustion. Her companion’s expression is more vivid, almost daring. While it was controversial in its time, the British art critic Roger Fry called it “The greatest masterpiece yet created in the New World.” It is valued at two hundred and fifteen million dollars.
At 5:50, Sato’s protogé and the Peace Museum’s Assistant Curator, Juufuutei Raden arrived. She had just overcome a sinus infection and was excited to see Las Jugadoras for the first time. She bounded up the stairs and arrived at the Western art wing at 5:51, in time to see her mentor and friend collapsed in front of the new painting.
Immediately, Raden dropped her bags and rushed to Sato’s side.
“What happened?” Raden asked.
“It’s gone,” whispered Sato through tears. “The Márquez is gone.”
“What do you mean, senpai? It’s right here.”
In her interview that evening, Raden would say that when she looked up at Las Jugadoras, she felt her heart stop. Some instinct told her that the painting was missing. It was like looking at a family member and feeling for an instant that they had been replaced with a perfect imposter, she said. A moment later, it was gone. There it was, just as described. Yellow, tender, brilliant and holy. She searched it for any detail out of place, but the painting matched every image she had ever seen, and every description she had ever read. She’d never seen the real thing in person. If this was it, it was beautiful. Sato-senpai had seen it. Its restoration was her greatest professional triumph. She knew it as well as Márquez had. Her sobs were beginning to turn into screams.
Raden reached into her purse and withdrew a business card. A chestnut case containing 200 of these cards had been distributed to the front office of every museum, bank, mint, mine, World Heritage Site and secret research laboratory in the world.
HAVE YOU WITNESSED AN IMPOSSIBLE CRIME?
FOR UNSOLVABLE MYSTERIES
CALL JUSTICE
At 6:00, a mass email went out informing patrons that the museum would not be opening that day due to a problem with the plumbing. At 9:00 am, Justice Special Investigator Raora Panthera arrived with Justice Pursuit Lead Gigi Murin. What follows is their joint report.
“I saw two women at a lotería drawing in Sinaloa in 1899. They were my age, perhaps a year or two older, and it was obvious to me that they were lovers. I was struck by fear, for them and for myself. I painted it to examine that fear, its presence in me and its absence in them. I understood that they had some timeless resilience in them that I lacked. In painting them I wanted to understand and take hold of it.”
- Maria Valeria Márquez, to El Universal in 1957
You are Raora Panthera. You were born with the God Eyes. There are times, like now, when you wish you weren’t.
On the flight over from Beijing, you review the case notes Cecilia has hastily put together. There is not much to go on. The notes mostly relate to the provenance of the painting, a few scattered indicators that Advent might have gone back to operating in Japan, and the biographical information of some of the people you and Gigi will have to interview, including Sato and Raden. On first blush, it appeared to be the most expensive mental health response call in history. Las Jugadoras has been accounted for since its rediscovery in 1993. It had been authenticated by a total of four separate appraisers both before and after its most recent restoration, which had been completed just five days ago. That might be enough time to steal it, but Sato and Raden were not alleging that it had been stolen. They were alleging that it had been stolen and replaced with a perfect copy, one bearing all of the marks of its restoration. That was flatly impossible.
Of course, impossible was Advent’s MO.
Justice had been pursuing Advent for close to two years at this point. In that time, Advent had stolen, sold, restolen and returned the skull of John F. Kennedy; placed a set of cat ears among the shards of the first and only fossil of Sahelanthropus Tchadensis; swapped the statue of Laika in Star City, Moscow, with the statue of Hachiko in Shibuya, Tokyo, and vice versa; and somehow re-gilded the tips of the Pyramids of Giza with gold stolen from the Banque de France. That last case was particularly frustrating. Justice actually had evidence that Advent would be attempting a heist a week before it happened, and had attempted to turn it over to the French government, but they’d been ignored. The Banque de France had not even realized they’d been robbed until the pyramid incident a month later. When they audited their underground gold vaults, they found that over nine tons of gold had been replaced with now-rotten Pon-de-Rings.
This job, the Las Jugadoras job, was what Liz called a “warm-up.” Not a warm-up for Justice, but for Advent. Advent would commit a crime oceans away from their intended target in order to test some new method or technique that underpinned a much larger crime they had planned. For example, before the Laika job, the statue of Balto in Central Park had gone missing for exactly eight hours in the middle of the day. There was sometimes a thematic link like that between the warm-up and the main event, but never often enough or strong enough to be a reliably predictive clue. Just enough to be frustrating.
You look up from the stack of papers in your lap. You can’t afford to get heated before you even get off the plane. You know from experience that investigating one Advent crime is frustrating enough without thinking of all the others, all the past failures, all the taunts and missed clues and oversights and–
“Raora, whatsamatter?” asks Gigi.
You startle. “Sorry.”
“No problem.”
Your tail tightens further around your body. Gigi notices the motion and hits you with a look of sincere concern. She almost doesn’t say anything. She knows you hate people fussing over you.
But she can’t help herself.
“Hey, if it’s about the case, don’t worry about it. You’re gonna do great.”
In theory, there is always a correct thing to say in any given situation. You believe that. But practically, there are times when your physiology or your upbringing or the dusty scraps of your religion narrow your options to a handful of terrible responses. “Am I?” you ask, and you make it loud and accusatory because otherwise it would be a bitter, resigned, mocking non-question. “I had them in New York, and I lost them. I had them in Paris, and I lost them. I wasn’t even close to them in Chad. I dunno where you get the confidence, Gigi. They keep beating me.”
“They keep beating us,” Gigi says. “For now. Y’know that movie Ceci likes? There’s a part where the old guy tells the other guy, ‘These guys can hit and miss, you can’t miss once.’ We can hit and miss. It’s part of the fun, you know that.”
She leans her chair back, and the auburn-haired flight attendant she’s been ragebaiting the entire flight rushes over.
“Excuse me, but while the seatbelt sign is on, your seat needs to be in the upright position.”
Her accent peeks through when she’s angry. Crunched vowels, subtly fricative Rs. German, but different from Ceci’s. You can’t prove it, but your gut says Austrian. Gigi slides her chair back and gives the flight attendant her winning smile, the kind that’s only more annoying because it is one hundred percent sincere. The attendant – Kiara, according to her nametag – returns Gigi’s smile but not her sincerity. As soon as she’s gone, Gigi opens a particularly crinkly packet of pretzels she’d kept hidden. She had asked for pretzels three times, once when they were taxiing, once during takeoff, and again when the attendant announced that they had left the airspace of the PRC. They were in first class. This was not the kind of flight that offered pretzels. Gigi had, in fact, brought her own; snuck them through security specifically for this bit.
She crunches a pretzel as loudly and slowly as she can, eyeballing Kiara the whole time. Kiara stands dutifully against the wall with a neutral expression, but she cannot hide the flicking of her tail or the sharp angle of her cat ears. You purse your lips to keep from smiling. God help you, Gigi’s right. This is fun.
It’s always fun. None of Advent’s crimes ever hurt people. That’s what made it so frustrating. They appeared to come from a world where crime and punishment were removed from, elevated above, everything normal and mundane. They were emissaries from a beautiful planet, where crime was not the result of societal factors like poverty, disenfranchisement, exploitation, bigotry or greed, but a game, a pastime, harmless mischief meant first and foremost to give the people solving it something to do. It was fun, and wonderful. You’ve come to terms with it a long time ago: You love chasing Advent. But there’s something about it, an aftertaste. You and Gigi are flying first-class. You travel the world on the dime of preservation societies, banks, whole nations on occasion. Isn’t there something better you could be doing with your time and resources?
Wasn’t there a world beyond this beautiful dream, and didn’t you have a responsibility to it?
You can’t remember.
You arrive at the Peace Museum at 9:00 sharp.
It surprises you to see that Juufuutei Raden is the first person to greet you in the lobby. Behind her, the marble walls of the museum stretch out welcomingly. There are two sets of stairs on either side of the main desk. They’re both roped off. Everything is roped off. That’s a good sign, you think.
“Miss Raden.” You extend your hand and she shakes it.
“Detective Panthera,” she says. She’s locked in a strange, nervous rictus smile. It’s kind of charming. You can tell she needs a smoke. “We got your call. Security is working on that list, and the police are not involved. I really hope I heard that part right.”
“You did. Where can I find Miss Sato?” you ask.
Raden dips her head. “I don’t think she’ll be able to talk. She locked herself in her office. I can’t get a word out of her, she’s completely despondent.”
“We’ll give her some time.” You give Gigi a look, and she nods before scribbling something in her notebook.
“Is your head of security here?” you ask as you turn back to Raden.
“She’ll be here in a few minutes. She has a second job, as I understand it.”
Gigi pipes up. “Security director for an acclaimed art museum doesn’t pay the bills?”
You grimace. Gigi’s a great investigator in her own right but she’s not exactly delicate. Raden shrugs. Now that she’s begun talking, some of her nervous energy has dissipated. She just looks exhausted now.
“I’m a curator,” she says. “The museum director deals with her directly on all security matters, and we’ve never had a problem before. From what I understand, her staff likes her a lot.”
“What time will she–”
At that instant, someone knocks on the door behind you. You turn to see a woman in black athleisure wear pushing some kind of handcart. “Ah, Miss Botan!” Raden says. She rushes to unlock the door, and the two of them gingerly bring the cart inside. You get a better look at its contents: some old Sony PVM monitors, AV equipment you don’t know the name of, and a few cardboard boxes full of tapes.
“Miss Botan,” you say. “I assume you’re the security director here?”
“That’s right.” She doesn’t look at you, instead getting straight to work assembling the monitors and plugging in cables. “I figured we’d set up a viewing station here for your convenience. All the tapes and playback equipment are stored off-site for security. Would have been a pain in the ass to go back and forth so I brought everything here.”
You like her professionalism. She radiates this intimidating aura that you imagine would come in handy in her line of work. There’s something else, though. You don’t know what it is yet, but you love when there’s something else. You’ll hold onto it.
“I appreciate it. My partner will go over the tapes with you once we’re done setting up. I understand the restoration was done in this building?”
Botan nods. “That’s right. Ms. Sato picked out the restoration expert personally. We vetted her, and there wasn’t a…” Her face melts into a grimace. “I left her file at the security office. I can go back and get it–”
“No need,” you say. “Stay here, we’ll get that when we’re done with the painting. For right now, I’d like you to use your key to get into Ms. Sato’s office. If she’s ready to talk, bring her down, but if not, get her some ice water or some tea. There’s no rush.” You turn to the anxious young woman in front of you. “Ms. Raden, I’d like to see the painting now, if that’s alright.”
Raden flinches when you say her name. Her hands are folded around her body like she’s cold. Your heart aches for her. She’s a deeply sincere person who’s worried about her friend. Your God Eyes are often a curse, or at least a troublesome responsibility, but in this moment you’re grateful for them. Seeing peoples’ hearts can show you wonderful things like this.
You place your hand very gently on her arm. “Ms. Raden, I know you’re worried about Ms. Sato. If it turns out she’s wrong, we won’t charge you for this, and we’ll refer her to the help she needs. If she’s right…we’ll deal with it. No matter what, things will be okay. I promise.”
Raden seems to believe you. You smile. You like helping. You wish you got to do it more.
“Of course,” she says. She takes a deep breath, then gestures to the marble staircase. “Right this way.”
The painting is beyond words.
You close your eyes almost as soon as you see it, holding that first impression in your head for as long as you can. Instead, a memory surfaces.
You are eleven years old. You are in a hotel in Florence. In front of you is a rich girl your age who is lying to impress you. You don’t know why she would do something like that. She’s staying at this beautiful pre-war luxury hotel with a hand-operated elevator and a crystal chandelier that is literally bigger than your apartment. She’s got beautiful olive skin and a real pearl earring and thick curls of raven hair, so black and shiny it almost looks blue in the soft light. You have been in quiet awe of her this whole time. Surely she must know you’re poor. Surely she must understand that your parents are only in this building because their decrepit Fiat is puking plumes of black smoke from its engine block, just on the other side of the revolving door. Surely she can tell that everyone in your family has been crying, and surely she’s aware, as a rich girl, that rich people don’t cry, because they can afford cars that don’t commit violent suicide on the second day of a weeklong vacation.
But she’s telling you that she met Jude Law when he was in Italy. And your God Eyes tell you two things. First, she is lying. Second, she wants very badly for you to be her friend, to look at her and praise her for being interesting. You don’t know why.
When you grow up, you develop some theories, but you never see her again. Another unsolvable mystery for the pile. Still, for the three hours you waited in that lobby, you were her friend. You open your eyes and take in the women, the gamblers. You ponder the softness of their expressions. They are sharing something with one another. A word appears.
Perdono.
A loaded word. Loaded especially in proximity to its sibling, penitenza. You would like to shut that shit down promptly, but you do not. You let yourself feel it.
This painting is wonderful. It is, in fact, a stunning masterpiece. There is no superlative adequate to describe Las Jugadoras. You feel dwarfed by it, replaced by it, healed by it. It is beautiful.
And somebody took it. This painting is a fake.
You look over at Gigi and know immediately that she’s seen the spark in your eyes. She smiles. You smile too. Not too much. Your work has just begun. You still have to prove it. But this is where the chase starts. And it’s a good one.