“Yowza,” I said.
“But of course those paintings weren’t stolen,” said Quick. “The trust is the rightful owner of that painting. As such, the painting could not be sold at auction, it could not be sold to a legitimate collector, it could not be shown. It is ours. If we find it, we can simply take it.”
“If you find it.”
“How do we know your client isn’t taking us for a ride?” said Quick. “The details of the robbery have been in all the papers. You wouldn’t be the first person to come to us with supposed information about one or the other of the missing paintings. The other claims have proven to be fraudulent. Somehow I expect that this claim is fraudulent, too.”
“There’s an L,” I said.
“Excuse me?” said Spurlock.
“On the back of the canvas. Apparently the work was damaged at one point. You can’t tell from the front, but my client informed me there has been a restoration. From the back of the canvas it is clear. There is an L-shaped repair.”
Spurlock looked at Quick, who opened a file. Slowly, he paged through the documents until he found what he was looking for. An old photograph of a browned piece of canvas. He fought to contain his excitement as he passed the photograph to Spurlock.
“Who is your client, Victor?” said Quick, leaning forward now. “And what does he want?”
“He simply wants to come home,” I said.
“Go ahead, Mr. Carl,” said Spurlock. “Explain what we can do?”
“My client is currently under indictment for crimes he committed long ago. He is actively being sought by both the district attorney’s office and the FBI, as well as by his former gang, who would like to silence him. What he wants is a deal with the government that will give him protection and allow him to avoid any jail time. It all seems fair enough to me. But the feds have let it be known that the deal is not acceptable to them. I was hoping someone with influence would ask them nicely to change their minds. Isn’t there a congressman on your board? Isn’t one of your benefactors also a large contributor to the Republican Party?”
“You’ve done your homework, Mr. Carl. And you are telling me there is to be no money involved?”
“This is America,” I said. “There’s always money involved. My client would like to start a new life with a nice stake, but his needs aren’t excessive and the amount won’t be anything you’ll have trouble meeting, even with your financial troubles. I’m sure we can work that out later.”
“I’m sure we can,” said Spurlock. “Yes, yes, I am sure.”
“Whom in the public sector should we talk to?” asked Quick.
“Do you know K. Lawrence Slocum in the D.A.’s office?”
“Larry? Sure. Head of homicide now, isn’t he?”
“That he is. He’s handling it for the D.A. On the federal side, there’s a prosecutor named Jenna Hathaway who has taken charge of the case.”
“Hathaway, you say?” said Quick.
“That’s right. Apparently she’s looking for a glory ride. You want to apply pressure, you apply it to her.”
“Good. So now, Victor,” said Quick, “for us to do what we need to do, you have to tell us: Who is your client?”
“His name is Kalakos. Charles Kalakos. Slocum will know him as Charlie the Greek.”
There was something in Stanford Quick’s eyes just then, a slight flinch that indicated he had heard the name before. Interesting. Maybe Quick had done his homework, too.
“But I have to emphasize,” I said, “that this all must be done with the utmost of discretion. There are dangerous people who will be very unhappy if Charlie comes home. Any leak of what we are trying to do here will destroy the possibility of a deal, put my client’s life at risk, and end your chance at recovering the painting.”
“We understand,” said Spurlock.
“If it goes public, the deal is off.”
“You can rest assured, Mr. Carl,” said Jabari Spurlock, his hands clasped before him and his head nodding sagely, “that we will be the very souls of discretion.”
Discretion lasted about twenty-four hours, and then all hell broke loose.
8
It had seemed a simple enough plan. I had one agenda for my client and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jenna Hathaway had another. The easiest way to get us all on the same page was to have someone else involved, hence my visit to the Randolph Trust. A few discreet phone calls from the powerful members of the board about a missing Rembrandt would have the FBI eating out of my hand.
I was so sure it would all work as planned, I hadn’t even thought much about the strange questions raised by the visit, like why had Mrs. LeComte been so concerned about my meeting with Spurlock? Or why did Stanford Quick seem to recognize Charlie’s name? Or even the strangest of alclass="underline" How had a loser like Charles Kalakos and his ragtag neighborhood gang been able to pull an impeccably planned, brilliantly executed professional heist? Still, why should I care about any of that? I was a man out to make a deal, and it looked like a deal was at hand.
Until somebody let loose our laundry and hung my client’s life on the line. And not just my client’s life.
“I know you,” said a man with a harsh strain of Philly in his accent. “You’re that Victor Carl.”
He had stopped me right after I left my office. I had been working late, it was after seven, and Twenty-first Street was pretty much deserted, the shoe-repair shop closed, the Korean grocery closing. There was plenty of traffic on Chestnut, but I was heading away from Chestnut, just past the alley at the edge of my building, when the man had stepped in my way.
“That’s right,” I said. “And you are?”
He raised a small digital camera and took a snap, the flash momentarily blinding me.
“Whoa,” I said, blinking away the afterimage. “What are you, a reporter?”
“Not exactly,” he said, and he wasn’t exactly dressed as a reporter either, no ratty sport coat, no wrinkled shirt, no mustard stains on his tie, no air of bored disappointment with his life. Instead he was wearing shiny white sneakers, pressed jeans, a retro 76ers jersey over a white T-shirt, silver chains hanging down, and a white baseball cap with the Sixers logo embossed in cream. It was a strange look, stranger still on a guy with gray hair who was shaped like a pear.
“You mind turning your head a bit to the side, Victor, so’s I can catch your profile?”
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Hey, pal, I’m just trying to snap some pictures here. No need to get hostile. Now, be a Joe and turn to the side.”
“Go to hell,” I said, and as soon as I said it, something hard clamped down on the back of my head, holding it stiffly in place.
I reached back and found a gnarled hand attached to an absurdly thick wrist. The hand turned my head to the side. From that angle I could see what had hold of me, a younger man in the very same outfit, except his retro jersey was green, for the Bucks, and his chains were gold. This second man was a foot shorter than me, but with the girth of a bull.
Camera guy took another photograph, checked the outcome on the camera’s small screen.
“Jesus, I hope that isn’t your good side,” he said. “Turn him around, Louie.”
Louie twisted his wrist and spun me around 180 degrees, like we were partners at a square dance.
Camera guy took another photograph.
“I think we’ve got enough here,” he said. “I want to thank you, Victor, for your generous cooperation.”
Louie let go of my head. I shook my neck, straightened my jacket, tried to restore some level of dignity.
“What the hell is going on?” I said.
“Louie and myself, we’ve come here to deliver a message.”
“From who, the mayor?”
“The mayor? Now, why would the mayor be sending someone like you a message?”
“For his buddy Bradley. To threaten us off the Theresa Wellman case.”