Chapter 40 Chapter Thirty-Nine

Dollard stopped the cab two blocks from the Brooklyn Museum and paid the fare.He walked to the museum on foot.Joggers passed him, heading for Hope Park. Standing on the safety island in the middle of the road, very close to the Alter subway station, he was able to take a closer look at this building in the emerging period of Greek culture.He had never seen the Brooklyn Museum, but he had seen the brochure.When he first discovered the picture of "Red Dragon and Woman with Sunshine", he subscribed to the Brooklyn Museum whose name is written under the picture. The names of the world's great thinkers, from Confucius to Demosthenes, are inscribed on the stone above the entrance.This is a very majestic building with a botanical garden next to it. It is a building suitable for giant dragons to lie down.

The underpass vibrated beneath the street, making his heels tingle.The air was filled with the stale smell of the grille, mixed with the smell of dye from his beard. Only an hour until closing.He crossed the road and went in, handing his bag to the entrance reception. "Is the reception open tomorrow?" "The museum is closed tomorrow." The waiter was a haggard woman in a blue uniform.She turned away. "People who come to visit tomorrow, do they use the reception?" "No. The museum will be closed and the reception will not be open." Great. "thanks."

"You're welcome." Dollard walked slowly among the huge glass vessels in the first-floor Oceania Room and the America Room—Andean pottery from the Northwest Coast Indians, primitive bladed weapons, artificial ornaments, and hideous masks. Only forty minutes until closing time.There was little time left to examine the topography of the ground floor.He already knew where the fire exits and public elevators were. He went up to the fifth floor.He could feel that he was very close to the dragon now.He's fine now--wouldn't turn a corner and bump into him suddenly. Dragons are not on public display.The painting has been sealed since it was exhibited at the Tate Gallery in London.

On the phone, Dolard learned that "The Red Dragon and the Woman with Sunshine" was rarely exhibited.It's nearly two hundred years old, and it's a watercolor—the light will fade it. Dollard pauses in front of Albert Biestadt's painting A Storm in Mount Rosalie of the Rocky Mountains (1866).There he could see the locked door of the "Oil Painting Study and Collection Department".That's where the dragon stays.Not a replica, not a photo, but a real dragon.This is where he's going tomorrow, and he's already booked an appointment.He walked back and forth on the fifth floor, walking through the corridors with portraits, but he didn't look at any paintings, he was only interested in the exit.He found the emergency exits and the main stairs, then marked the public elevator.

The security guards were polite, middle-aged men in platform shoes who had been used to standing there for years.None of them were armed, Dollard noticed.One of the security guards in the lobby had a weapon, maybe he was a cop. The announcement of the closure came from the public address system, and he went to the first floor to retrieve his purse. Standing under the allegorical portrait of Mr. Brooklyn on the sidewalk, Dollard watched the crowds coming out of the museum into the breezy summer evening. People jogging and exercising stopped to wait for people heading to the subway to cross the street.

Dollard stayed in the Arboretum for a few minutes before he hailed a cab and gave the driver the address of a store he found in the Yellow Pages.