William Lashner - Marked Man

“I’m sure you’re right,” I said. “But my client is not as available to me as I would like, seeing as he is on the run. And I would like to know the way the trust saw it.”

“Oh, I don’t want to talk about that silly old robbery. Don’t we have other things to talk about?”

“Okay, then,” I said. “Who is this Sammy Glick person you mentioned?”

“Are you jealous of another man?” She laughed. “Sammy Glick is a character in a novel written decades ago. He is a young Jewish boy with a sharp ferret face who rides his ambition to unimaginable heights.”

I put a hand to my jaw. “You think I have a ferret face?”

“From firsthand knowledge, Victor, I have learned that certain intimate relationships of diverse ages can be a glorious opportunity for both parties. One learns from experience, the other is inspired by youth. Have you ever read Colette?”

“No, actually. Is she any good?”

“She’s yummy, and she has much to say on the benefits of ripened wisdom handed down to the young.”

Gad, could this have turned any weirder? “Can we talk about the heist?” I said.

“I would prefer not to.”

“Mr. Spurlock himself suggested I talk to you about the robbery. He’d be disappointed if he discovers that you refused to answer my questions.”

Her face soured at the name of the trust’s president. “I was at the trust before he was born, and I will be at the trust long after he is thrown out of his post.” She took the lemon from the rim of her glass, bit into it with yellow teeth. Her lips curled like an old movie queen. “What would you wish to know, Victor?”

I leaned forward, lowered my voice. “How did they do it?”

“No one is certain,” she said. “You’ve seen the trust’s building. It is a fortress, impregnable, impossible to break into even with a battering ram, and there was no evidence of a battering. The doors were all locked tight, the windows intact. But, like the Greeks at Troy, they found a way inside. How they did so is the enduring mystery. Once inside, they were able to immobilize the guards, silence the alarms, and open the locked cabinets and safes where the most valuable objects were stored.”

“Could they have just snuck in?”

“There are only two entrances into the building and each was constantly guarded. No one was ever allowed in without authorization and without signing the book. Even I was required to sign in and out.”

“Maybe they came in as visitors and never left.”

“Impossible,” she said. “From the earliest days of the trust, Mr. Randolph feared that someone would either steal or vandalize the artwork. And just a few years before the robbery, when that madman took a hammer to Michelangelo’s Pietà in Rome, Mr. Randolph himself tightened all procedures. Visitors were required to put their names into a log, and a complete search of the building was conducted each night after visiting hours. In any event, the day of the robbery was not a sanctioned visiting day and there were no educational events scheduled.”

“Could someone have let them in? Maybe left a window unlocked?”

“Everything that night was checked and double-checked. The records are clear. Still, there were some irregularities. Miss Chicos had signed out some blueprints of the building and her fingerprints were found on the file jacket containing diagrams of the alarm system. None of that information was in the purview of her employment, which made her an obvious suspect. She was a young curator just out of graduate school. Nothing could be proved, but still, the suspicion was enough to force her to forfeit her position. I never thought much of her in the first place. Her tastes were slightly vulgar and her neck was too long.”

“Too long for what?”

“Is there really a chance that your client will return the Rembrandt to the trust?”

“There’s a chance.”

“What about the missing Monet? It was a small work, but so lovely. Does your client have anything to say about that?” Her chin rose, the lines outside the dark circles of her glasses deepened.

“No,” I said. “Just the Rembrandt.”

“Pity. It was one of my favorites.”

“Can I show you something, Mrs. LeComte?” I pulled out the photograph of Chantal Adair. “Have you ever seen this girl before?”

She took the photograph, examined it carefully. “No, never. Lovely girl, though. Is she somebody I should know?”

“Probably not. Do you know where that Miss Chicos is now?”

“I heard Rochester. Just the place for her, don’t you think?”

“Why’s that?”

“I’ve heard things about Rochester.”

“You mentioned you met another Sammy Glick once? Who was the other?”

“Oh, Victor, we all have our lost loves, don’t we? Some dwell on the past, others move forward. This was fun. We should do it again. Maybe someplace more intimate than an outdoor café. And maybe after you’ve read Colette. You know, those of us who have been on the younger side of one of those special relationships want nothing more than to pass on all we’ve learned. There is so much I could do for you if you would let me.”

And I knew exactly what she had in mind.

“It was tough, whathappened to Ralphie Ciulla,” said my father, rooted in position on his Naugahyde lounge chair. He sipped his beer, belched softly. However tough it was on Big Ralph, my father wasn’t taking it personally. “He didn’t deserve to get it that way, a bullet in his head in his mother’s house.”

“No one does.”

“Any idea who did it?”

“It looks like it was an enforcer for the Warrick Brothers Gang.”

“I didn’t know Ralph was involved with those clowns.”

“He was involved with Charlie Kalakos, which was apparently enough for them.”

“Who else they after?”

“Joey Pride, Charlie, the other two also, I would suppose. For some reason it looks like they’re going after everyone involved in the Randolph heist.”

“It could be a bloodbath.”

“It’s shaping up to be.”

“That’s tough.”

“Yeah.”

“Real tough.” Pause. You could see him think it over, my father, not so much working out the intimations of all our varied fates in the grisly death of Big Ralph, but more wondering at the appropriate period for remaining somber in the face of such news. I suppose, after due deliberation, he decided it wasn’t that long. “You want to get me another beer?”

“Sure, Dad.”

“And while you’re up, some chips, maybe.”

When I came in from the kitchen with the Lay’s and two Iron City Beers, the television was on. My dad had been itching to press the power button on his remote from the moment I stepped into his little house in Hollywood, PA. As proof of my theory that he would watch anything so long as it was on, there he was, staring at a little white dot hurtling across an impossibly blue sky.

“Golf?”

“The Phils are in L.A.”

“But you hate golf.”

“Except when they hit the ball into water and get the whiny face. I love the whiny face. ‘Ooh, I’m making six mil a year plus endorsements, but I just hit the ball in the water. Ooh.’”

I handed him his beer and the chips and then walked to the television and turned down the sound. He looked at me with the startled expression of a little kid who’d just had a candy bar snatched from his hand.

“What the hell are you doing?” he said as he pressed the volume-up button on his remote.

I killed it again. “We need to talk,” I said.

“What, are you breaking up with me?” He turned up the volume once more. “Just close the door on your way out.”

“Dad, do you really need for Johnny Miller to tell you that the guy should have made the putt he just missed?”