Free Quiver by Holly Luhning Page B

boxes, taxied them to the other side of the dock, went back for more. Lifted, carried, set, lifted.
    For a moment they sat and watched. His passenger opened her red alligator clutch, pulled out a brush and ran it through her long, dark hair. She turned the rear-view mirror towards herself and dabbed on some lip gloss. “Shall we?”
    He turned the mirror back to its original position and checked his dark hair before he stepped out of the car. He pulled his brown leather gloves over his manicured hands and surveyed the wharf. “There.” He pointed at a man with beige coveralls and a brown hat. Steel grey beard, late forties. They started towards him. She buttoned her long dress coat and effortlessly dodged rubble, though she wore heels. He put his sleeve over his nose and tried not to breathe in the docklands stink, to remain untainted by the grime. They stood at the bow of the boat.
    Finally the worker saw them and asked, “You two here for that delivery? You don’t waste time. Just came in an hour ago.”
    They didn’t say hello. The younger man drew his sleeve away from his face, reached in his coat pocket and handed the older man a plain white envelope. ‘‘Where is it?” he asked.
    “This the entire payment?” The worker riffled through the bills in the envelope.
    “It’s all there. Where is it?”
    The worker looked at the man, then the woman. She was beautiful. Young, not even twenty-five, he thought. She was taller than both the men and kicked impatiently at the ground with one of her high-heeled feet.
    He tucked the envelope inside his coveralls. “Must be quite important, then?”
    Neither of them even smiled. They stared at him until he said, “All right, no small talk.” He adjusted his hat. “This way.”
    They walked to a small office shack. The walls were corrugated steel, the floor plywood. The small windows were fogged with grease and condensation. Mouse droppings lined the window ledge.
    “And how long has it been in here?” the woman said. “It shouldn’t be in humidity like this.”
    “I told you,” said the worker, “it just got in an hour ago.”
    The flat rectangular parcel leaned against the wall, underneath the ledge with the droppings. The young man put a hand on his companion’s arm. “I know,” he whispered to her. “Conditions of transport are variable.” He plucked the package from the mess.
    “Right, if you need to use my services again, just give me a bell.” The older man patted the envelope in his pocket. “Pleasure doing business with you.”
    They drove towards her flat in the East End and unloaded the parcel from the car.
    “We can’t keep moving it, not with conditions like that,” she said as she opened her door. “It’s four hundred years old. You can’t have it tossed in a dirty old shed.”
    “I know,” he said. “It’s becoming dangerous. But it’s tradition. Ritual.”
    “Which is why it should be shipped by a professional company,” she said as they walked inside. The walls were dusty pink, and a bouquet of lilies filled a crystal vase on the small table beside the doorway. She threw her keys on the table and they clattered against the vase.
    “You know we can’t. Suggest it if you like, but it won’t work. You know it’s crucial we arrange...less obvious modes of transport.”
    “It’s just, what if something happened to it?” She pointed to a spot against the wall, across from the day bed. “Put it there.”
    He set down the painting and freed it of its dirty cardboard outer casing and the bubble wrap inside. She hovered as he removed each layer. “It would be safer to leave it in storage,” she said. But after he opened a final layer of paper and she saw it again, she understood why it was worth the risk, the impracticality.
    It was the physical connection. They needed to see it, to touch it. Báthory was once in the same room as this canvas. Looked at it, breathed on it with a pant of anticipation or of indulgence, with