“It looks like two stacked curves,” he said.
“Those aren’t curves. They’re B’s. A big one perched on top of a smaller one.”
“I don’t get it.”
She snapped off the specialty bulbs illuminating the grainy picture and rotated to another computer, typing carefully on the keyboard so as to preserve her perfect nails.
The search engine swiftly brought up a logo: Bonhams & Butterfields.
Evan said, “You’re amazing.”
“You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.” A search field led to a database for collectors, which led to—
“Five Phantom IIIs have been sold at Bonhams since it consolidated with Butterfields in 2002,” she said. “Three were bought by an Abu Dhabi sheikh. One by that Ukrainian tennis player whose name I always screw up.”
“And the fifth?”
She pointed. The screen read, “Anonymous buyer.”
“There’s your boy,” she said.
“Does he have to register with them to put in a bid? Can you track him?”
“Auction houses are extremely discreet when buyers desire privacy. So no, I can’t track the buyer. However…” Her cheeks dimpled. She looked pleased with herself, a cat ready to be petted. “I can track the car.”
For the first time, Evan allowed excitement into his voice. “The car.”
“The chassis number, to be precise. It has to be registered when moved between countries. There are duties to be paid, taxes, all sorts of annoying bureaucratic paperwork.”
“I can take it from here.”
“Let me. We traffic in fine things. It’s what we do.”
“How do I repay you?”
She leaned to swing her rope of hair off her elegant neck and tapped her cheek.
He kissed it.
“I’ll be in touch by day’s end. Check your e-mail.” She rose, smoothed the wrinkles from her yoga pants, and dismissed him with a wave. “Now, go on. Some of us have work to do.”
68
Object Permanence
Evan hesitated outside the door of 12B. He and Mia had an understanding that he was to keep his distance from her and Peter. Mia didn’t know precisely what sorts of jobs Evan did. But she’d learned enough to know that he wasn’t safe to be around.
He reached for the doorbell, but his finger stopped shy of the mark.
What if she got angry?
What if she told him to leave?
What if Ted was there, whipping up an organic meal, expounding on the virtues of CrossFit?
Evan glared at his finger, wavering in midair. Given everything he’d endured in his life, how absurd that pushing a doorbell made him nervous.
He rang.
After a long pause, he heard footsteps. “Damn it. Hang on. Hang on.” The door flung wide. She wore a bathrobe, soaked through, her wet hair dripping around her shoulders. One hand gripped a pink razor. “Oh,” she said, cinching her bathrobe tighter. “I thought you were the pizza guy.” She looked at her razor, then hid it behind her back. “Um. Awkward.”
“Sorry to bother you. I know I’m not supposed to…”
“It’s okay. It’s good to see you. I mean, if I weren’t in the middle of a shower and didn’t have a Gillette Venus razor hidden behind my back.”
“It’s still there?”
She checked behind her. “Yup. Evidently I was hoping you hadn’t developed object permanence yet.”
“I’ve got it down pat. I do struggle with stranger anxiety, though.”
“Okay.” She bit her lower lip. “I’m all out of witty repartee and getting shivery. Can we move this along?”
“I just wanted to apologize to Peter. For the lobby last week when I was … short with him.”
“He’s in his room. He snuck his Halloween candy in there, so enter at your own risk. I’ll be drying myself off and pretending not to eavesdrop through the heating vent.”
“Deal.”
She vanished up the hall, and he walked over to Peter’s door. It had been a long time since he’d been down here. The Batman stickers remained, as well as the skull-and-crossbones KEEP OUT! sign, but the Kobe Bryant poster had been replaced with one of Steph Curry.
The door was slightly ajar, and Evan knuckled it open. Peter started, diving to cover up the sea of dumped-out candy. He craned to look over his shoulder. “Evan Smoak?” Rolling out of his emergency belly flop, he pulled a Snickers Mini from a fold in his pajama top and started shoveling candy back into the pillowcase frantically. “Don’t tell Mom.” His mouth was full, the words distorted.
“I wouldn’t be shocked if she knows already.”
Chocolate smudged his cheek. His lips were raspberry blue. He chewed and swallowed. “Why do you think she knows?”
“Because your mom knows everything.”
“Why don’t you visit anymore?”
Evan resisted the urge to scratch at the remnants of the scabs on his neck. “Like we talked about, your mom and I thought it’d be better if—”
“I still think it’s dumb.”
“I understand that. Look, I just wanted to—”
Hopped up on candy bars, Peter leapt to his feet, ran to his desk, and began frenetically coloring in a Star Wars drawing. “Did you know butterflies taste with their feet?”
“I did not.”
“What do you want to wear in your coffin?”
“A wetsuit.”
“Do frogs have penises?”
“Not the ones I’ve met. Listen — Peter? Look at me. I wanted to say that I’m sorry.”
He looked genuinely puzzled. “For what?”
“For how I was in the lobby. You’re right. I acted mean.”
“Oh. I forgot about that already. That was like years ago.” He set down his crayon, now worn to a nub, and looked at Evan. “Friends don’t make a big deal over stuff like that,” he said.
Evan had to clear his throat before he could respond. “Okay,” he said.
“I hope you can come back sometime.”
“Me, too.”
Peter turned back to his coloring book, and Evan slipped out into the hall.
He was feeling better every day. Just this morning he’d teased the sutures out of his shoulder with stitch scissors and needle-nose tweezers. He’d regained decent mobility with his right arm, though he had to be cautious about how far and how fast he pushed it. Oddly, his calf was bothering him more today, the nerve line like a twisting strand of barbed wire.
He stopped in the living room to take in the place. Drying laundry covered the couch. Jazz played softly down the hall somewhere, early Miles Davis. The air smelled of vanilla candles and hot chocolate and dish detergent. The kitchen trash can overflowed.
A real home in all its messy glory.
The Post-it stuck to the wall by the kitchen pass-through was more faded than when he’d seen it last. Written in Mia’s scrawclass="underline" “Treat yourself as if you were someone who you are responsible for helping.” She posted these life lessons, lifted from a favorite book, around the condo for Peter to read.
This one in particular had always given Evan pause. When he’d been trapped in that chalet, he’d been his own client for the first time, the one in need of rescuing. He wondered if he deserved the same happiness that he wished for the people he helped.
Mia surprised him. “How’d you do with the Duke of Sugarbuzz?”
“He was … inquisitive.”
“Did he ask you if frogs have penises?”
“He did.”
Mia toweled her hair some more. “Do frogs have penises?”
“I don’t believe they do.”
Watching her laugh, he felt something tug at him.
“What?” she said.
“Nothing.”
She bit her lower lip. Studied him. And yet she hadn’t asked him to sit.