The place was huge. He’d heard it had once been a private residence, but he found it hard to believe. The floors alternated between hardwood and mosaic, and there was artwork on every wall, in every nook and cranny. The main staircase, roped off, was a great marble affair, sweeping up to the second floor. At the foot of the side staircase, the Irishman took out a diagram of the museum’s layout and a list. Devon had no idea where he had gotten them; presumably from the same source who had given the information about the museum’s security provisions. It didn’t really matter to Devon. He was responsible for getting them into the place; what they stole once they were in wasn’t his decision.
The Irishman frowned as he oriented himself. “Upstairs,” he said.
“You need any help?” Devon asked.
He looked at Devon with contempt. “I work alone.”
Devon put his hands up. “Fine with me,” he said. He was put off by the Irishman’s manner. Who the hell was he to look down his nose at Devon? Devon had gotten them into the place, hadn’t he? Still, his annoyance was eclipsed by his relief. Bulger would be pleased, and pleasing Jimmy Bulger was a good thing to do. He’d get better jobs now. More lucrative jobs. Jobs that would help make his reputation and give him the cash he needed to be the player he’d always wanted to be. Let the Irishman be a prick; Devon ’s future was made.
He loitered in the lobby for a few moments, but got bored quickly and decided to see what the second floor looked like.
He strolled up the stairs; he was in no hurry. At the top, he looked around. The Irishman was grunting in a room off to the right; it sounded as though he was struggling with whatever prize he was after. Devon considered offering his help again, but decided against it. Fuck him; if the bastard was too good to accept assistance the first time around, then he could handle whatever heavy lifting there was by himself.
He headed left instead, walking down the hallway that ran along the stairs to the galleries beyond. He walked quietly, though he knew there was little reason to worry. The guards were bound tight, and there was no chance that their activities would be heard outside the wall of the museum.
The first gallery he came to bored him. It was a medium-sized room at the corner of the floor, the walls painted a pale color he couldn’t quite make out in the wan light. The artwork was religious in nature; three representations of the Virgin Mary with the baby Jesus. The lines in the paintings were clean and well defined, giving the subjects a cartoonish character to his untrained eye. They reminded him of the stained-glass windows that had adorned the church his parents attended when he was little, and the thought depressed him enough that he moved through the place quickly.
The next room was different in subtle respects. The subject matter of the paintings was religious, to be sure, but the individuals within the works took on more of a lifelike, three-dimensional quality, almost as though the human form had evolved and taken on substance in the few feet from one room to the next. The walls were covered in an embroidered maroon fabric, and uncomfortable-looking chairs upholstered in a hideous pink lined the walls. One painting-a monk in scarlet robes-caught his eye. There was something in the face, a hint of a smile that drew him, as though the man was mocking the very nature of his beliefs.
The third room impressed Devon. Moved him, even. Gone for the most part were the religious images and holier-than-thou sentiment. This room, much smaller than the first two, felt solid and real, as though it might have once belonged to an individual-a wealthy one to be sure, but flesh and blood nonetheless. One luminous piece dominated the space and drew him in.
It was a woman. She was dressed in white, and she was standing against a darkened background looking through an arched doorway that receded to a darkened landscape. There was something bewitching about the image. There were no clear lines defining her. Her arms were held out in a sensual invitation, and the boundaries of her gown, indeed of her very flesh, seemed to blur into her surroundings. The lines of the painting, despite their lack of definition, felt more honest to Devon, as though the truth in her beauty could not be contained. She floated on the wall like a spirit, looking down at him with inscrutable eyes, and Devon felt both exhilarated and shamed by her image. He stood there looking up at her for a few moments before he pulled himself away.
Once he did, he found himself examining each image on the walls with more interest. There was a portrait of an older man in profile. He looked to Devon as if he was sitting on a park bench, watching with an amused heart as those he loved played in pastimes for which he was too old. He seemed more reserved than the woman, but no less real.
Against the far wall from the entryway on a series of hinged wooden panels were a series of sketches, most of which were so unfinished that Devon wondered why they would be included in a museum at all. And yet they seemed to fit with the rest of the room, each of the works implying some undefined and incomplete aspect of humanity.
Devon was drawn to two of the sketches in particular. They were framed together, and both portrayed horses. Devon loved racing; whenever he finished a job he spent the days afterward flush with cash out at the track. There was majesty to racing, with the horses brushed and sparkling, and the riders in their bright, colorful costumes. For all the polish, though, it was a brutal contest, with thousand-pound beasts unleashed, their jockeys muscling each other for their livelihood and their lives.
The two sketches captured the dichotomy for Devon. One was a sketch of a horse and rider being led into a stadium for a race. It was colorful, with splashes of pink and aqua on the rider and in the procession. Spectators milled about, heading into the stadium themselves, admiring the horse and rider, adorned in tall top hats and formal dresses. It captured the grandeur of the races-in every way an upper-class affair.
The second was very different. It was a study of three riders in black and white. The central figure sat unfinished on a portion of a horse’s torso, leaning back in the saddle. His face was a mask of death, with oversized ears and sunken eyes and an expression that suggested a looming ride through Hades. Beneath him, strapped upside-down to the belly of the same horse’s torso, were two smaller jockeys. They were unfinished and impersonal, and hung there, as if idly waiting for the weight of the horse and rider above to fall on them.
Devon was fascinated, and he reached out to touch the works. They were sketches on paper, and they were framed in thin pieces of wood and glass. He picked them off the panel and held them up, surprised by how little they weighed. At that moment, the thief in him took over; he turned the frame over and punched through the back of it along one of the sides with his gloved hand. The wood in the frame was thin enough that it gave little resistance, and the glass popped out. He threw the broken wood on the floor and lifted the glass off the backing and slid the two paper sketches out. He looked at them, incredulous. Could it be that easy?
He took another frame off the wall, this one holding three sketches, each unfinished. None of them held the power over him the first two had, but it mattered little. It took only a moment for him to pop them out of their frames. The realization hit him, and he looked around and laughed. He had been so focused on the limits of his responsibilities for the evening that he hadn’t even considered the breadth of his opportunities. All he needed to do was choose what to take next.
He saw it instantly.
The flag was mounted on the wall. The words “Garde Imperiale L’Empereur Napoleon Au 1er Regiment Des Grenadiers A Pied” were embroidered on it. He couldn’t read French, but he understood well enough that it was a flag from the armies of Napoleon, and he recognized it was a perfect tribute. Jimmy Bulger was a history buff, and he often spoke of the mistakes that the great leaders of the world had made in their time. Mistakes of arrogance; mistakes of ignorance. Napoleon was a passion of his. Few things in the world would advance Devon faster than such a gift for Bulger.