“Get this straight, lad,” the Irishman said. “This is my job. You’re hired help. Do as I say, or I will kill you.” He pushed the barrel of the gun into Devon ’s eye.
“Your job?” Devon said through the pain. “You’re in Boston, asshole; this is Jimmy Bulger’s job. I work for him.”
“He works for me on this,” the man replied. “Remember that.” He put his gun back in its shoulder holster and turned and left the room.
Devon didn’t take anything else from the room. It took a moment before he felt able to drag himself onto his feet. He gathered up the sketches he’d already pulled from the wall and rolled them up. Then he picked up the eagle, put it in his coat pocket, and stumbled back through the galleries toward the staircase. He could hear the Irishman, still hard at work in the room to the right of the stairs, and he walked in that direction.
The room was immense, much larger than any of the galleries Devon had seen on the far side of the building. The ceiling was carved wood and the walls were covered in large, heavy oils that appeared far more substantial than the religious scenes Devon had seen, or even the portraits he’d found fascinating in the room he’d pillaged.
The Irishman was working efficiently: the floor was littered with the waste of several heavy gilded frames. Canvases were rolled in a pile near the door. “How many more?” Devon asked. The Irishman didn’t reply. “How many more?” Devon asked again.
“Just one here. There’s one more on the list, but it’s downstairs.” The Irishman moved over to a heavy, dramatic oil of a seascape. The water in the painting roiled, and a large ship was being tossed about, completely at the whim of fate. Devon could relate.
The Irishman grabbed the heavy painting by its sides and struggled to lift it off its perch. As he did, an alarm sounded. It pierced the silence and both men jumped. The Irishman nearly dropped the painting.
Devon ran toward the stairway. There was nothing in the information they had been given about such alarms, and none of their activity had triggered anything similar. Nonetheless, there was every possibility that the police were already on their way. They had to get out. “Come on!” he shouted. “Hurry the fuck up!”
He was at the staircase when he realized that the Irishman wasn’t following. He was tempted to leave anyway, but he knew it wasn’t an option. If the Irishman was caught, Devon was screwed; if not with the cops, then with Bulger. He turned back and looked at the door to the gallery. As he did, he noticed that the sound from the alarm was weaker where he was.
He headed back to the gallery. “What are you doing?” he demanded.
The Irishman was standing over a small electronic device on the floor. He kicked it hard, and the alarm skipped a beat. He kicked it a second time, harder, and the plastic casing smashed, the alarm dying instantly. “It’s internal,” the Irishman said. “To keep the museum visitors from knocking the painting. It’s not hooked into the system.”
“You know that for sure?”
“Aye. I’m sure.”
“How sure?”
The two men looked at each other, and Devon could see the shadow of doubt in the Irishman’s eyes. “I’m sure,” he said again.
“We got to get out of here,” Devon said.
“We’re finishing the job.”
“Fine. Then finish it fuckin’ quickly.”
The Irishman’s eyes narrowed in anger, but it wasn’t directed at Devon. He nodded. “Quickly. Give me a hand.”
The two of them lifted that seascape off its hanger and set it down on the floor. The Irishman pulled out a straight blade; he clearly wasn’t going to waste time dismantling the frame. He stuck the point of the blade into the canvas at the edge of the frame. With four quick, brutal cuts he freed it, leaving behind a small frame of canvas that had once been a part of the masterpiece. He rolled it up and placed it with the pile of the other works. He pulled two cloth bags out of his jacket. He opened one and slipped the paintings into it. He tossed the second to Devon. “Put those into this,” he said, nodding to the drawings Devon had taken from the gallery on the other side of the museum.
“These are mine,” Devon said.
“I’ll deal with that with your boss,” the Irishman said. “Put them in.”
Devon took the bag and did as he was told. No point in arguing; Bulger would make the final call. He took the eagle out of his pocket and slipped that in as well.
“One more, downstairs,” the Irishman said. “Let’s go.”
Devon followed him. As he headed out of the room, he grabbed a small Oriental-looking vase from a display and slipped it into the bag. The Irishman gave him a lethal look, but said nothing. Devon didn’t care anymore.
They headed downstairs. “I’ll get the last one,” the Irishman said, consulting his list and the hand-drawn map of the museum’s layout. “You go to the security office and make sure the alarm hasn’t been tripped.”
“I thought you said you were sure about the alarm?”
“I am. Check it out anyway.”
Devon frowned, but headed back to the security office. It made no sense; if an external alarm had been tripped, then they were doomed either way. Checking on it wasn’t going to do any good. He was in the office before it occurred to him that the Irishman might have sent him off to prevent him from lifting any more artwork.
The Irishman was only gone for a few minutes. Devon had just finished looking over the electronics on the security desk when he walked in carrying a painting of an effete man in a top hat. It was still framed. “Any problems?” he asked.
“None that I can see,” Devon replied. “How the fuck should I know?”
The Irishman nodded and went to work on the frame. It took only a few moments before he had effectively dismantled the thing and was pulling the canvas off the remnants. He rolled the work up and slipped it into his bag.
“That’s it?” Devon asked.
“That’s it.”
“Okay, let’s get out of here.”
They headed back to the door where the guard had buzzed them in earlier that evening. “You ready?” Devon asked.
The Irishman frowned. “Shite,” he said. “I forgot something.”
“What?” Devon said.
“The security tapes,” the Irishman replied.
“You kidding?”
The Irishman handed his bag to Devon. “Go. I’ll be right there. If you’re not in the car when I get there, I’ll kill you. Slowly.” He was gone before Devon could argue.
Devon shook his head. The next two minutes would be dangerous. A man walking out of a museum at two-thirty in the morning carrying a couple of sacks would draw attention, police hat or not. He opened the door and walked out into the darkness.
There was no one on the street; not that Devon was looking. A key to getting away cleanly was to act as if there were nothing unusual about your behavior. He reached the small, beat-up car still parked on the street and opened the hatchback, putting the two bags in and closing the door. He climbed into the front seat, put the key in the ignition and waited. It felt as if he were lying naked on the pitcher’s mound at Fenway Park.
It took only a moment for the Irishman to show up. He got into the car. “Drive,” he said. Devon didn’t need any encouragement.
“Did you get the tapes?” Devon asked.
The Irishman nodded. “I took care of it.” He held up three VHS cassettes.
Something in the way he responded sent fear through Devon. “You didn’t go back for the guards, did you?”
“I went back for the tapes,” the Irishman said.
“Jesus Christ,” Devon said. “If you killed them, we’re fucked.”
“I went back for the tapes,” the Irishman said again. He looked at Devon, and Devon took his eyes off the road for just an instant to look back at him. He was impossible to read. The man’s eyes betrayed nothing. Devon turned his attention back to the road and directed the car through the streets of the city, back to Southie. He was eager to be done with the Irishman.