So I have finished the book! Beware...spoilers abound. You may have been able to read the blog posts and still enjoy getting to page 564 after the fact, but now I am really going to ruin the book.
You've been warned.
So shortly after page 564, why, miracles of miracles Boris shows up! Theo is looking for drugs downtown and Boris (who has been looking for Theo), happens to see him walking around. Boris has two big things to tell Theo:
1. Theo actually doesn't have the painting. Boris stole it from him right before Theo's dad died and replaced it with his civics book, all wrapped to look like the painting. Theo hasn't tried to look at it since then (it is stored in a special storage space Theo has rented), and he is rather shocked to find he's never had it. You'd think he would be relieved, but the discovery unhinges him a bit more, if he could be more unhinged.
2. Boris thinks he may be able to figure out where the painting is.
For the next two hundred pages or so Theo continues pining away for Pippa even as he is engaged to Kitsey. Lucius Reeve is more of a problem. And Boris keeps calling up saying he is a little closer to figuring out where the painting is. Finally, Boris shows up at Theo's engagement party (which he isn't enjoying) and tells him to grab all the cash he can, they are going to Amersterdam to get the painting.
Theo is going to pose as an American interested in holding the painting as collateral (buys the painting for $40,000, the sellers use that money to push drugs, they buy it back for $80,000. It's a classic pawn), with Boris and some of his associates providing the muscle, arranging the location, etc. Theo seems to get cold feet before show time (just about the time where Boris is assembling a pistol) and suggests maybe it was best just to call the cops. Boris and his men laugh at this.
They meet the sellers in a cafe off the Red Light district, The Purple Cow. Boris and his men get a funny feeling, and in the blink of an eye they have physically out muscled the sellers of the painting (though they haven't killed anyone, have barely hurt anyone) and made off with painting without giving anyone a cent.
Flush with success, Boris and Theo separate from the other three men, agreeing to meet later for a good meal and maybe a trip back to the Red Light district after the painting is put back. But doublecross! Boris and Theo are accosted by two or three men, they steal the painting and are probably about to kill Boris and Theo...Boris flicks his cigarette at one of them, a scuffle ensues, Theo manages to get hold of a gun, and the two friends gun down their assailants. A third man runs off with the painting.
Boris is shot, Theo is unhinged. They split up and Theo heads back to his hotel room.
The next 20 pages or so are the most excruciating of the book. Theo is alone in his room with a packet of heroin. He is mopey, he is suicidal, he is scared to death that he will be pegged with the murders. He tries to leave the country but can't (Boris has his passport, consulate won't give him a new one unless he files a police report). He finally tries to commit suicide, fails, dreams of his mother, and then...
It's Christmas Day. Boris barges into the hotel room with a sackfull of cash. After the painting was stolen from them he got to thinking, and decided that Theo's idea wasn't so bad after all. He traced the painting to Frankfurt, called the art police, and took all the award money (no questions asked!). We are rich!
And that's it. Theo heads home, the engagement to Kitsey is at least suspended, and Theo spends the next year going around with his share of the art money, buying back all the furniture pieces he passed off as things that they weren't.
And that's the end.
But if I complained that maybe the first, I dunno, five hundred some odd pages of the book lacked meaning, the final two hundred pages are dripping with significance. I'll wrap it up in a final post before the book club.
For those of you in the book club who haven't read the book yet....no cheating! You must read it all!
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