Masi made a little groaning noise. “Let’s not do anything that might damage the picture.”
“Yeah,” Stone said, “Arthur Steele wouldn’t like that.”
It was fairly late, but it was the shank of the evening in Sam Spain’s, and everybody looked and sounded drunk. Stone let Dino take the lead, followed by Masi, and then he did what he used to do in places like this: he watched the crowd at the bar for signs of discontent. Then something happened: somebody opened an office door at the rear of the place, and for a millisecond before the door closed, Stone caught sight of a picture on the wall above the desk that was the color of sunshine.
The man who’d left the office ducked behind the bar and replaced a large, older man on the stool in front of an old cash register. The older man, who had big shoulders and a flat gut, spotted Dino and pretended to smile. He pointed his chin at Stone and said, “Hey, Dino, who’s the civilian?”
“He doesn’t look it, Sam,” Dino said, “but he’s the meanest sonofabitch you ever met, and he’s heeled.”
Sam Spain snorted. “Yeah? If you say so.”
Dino said, “You don’t mind if we have a look around the place, do you, Sam?”
“Especially in the office,” Stone said.
“You mean tear it apart and run off my customers?” Spain asked. “You’re going to need a warrant for that, and I’ll still sue your ass and the department’s when you’re done.”
“Sam,” Dino said, “you know a junkie named Manolo, don’t you?”
“I know three or four guys who match that description,” Spain replied.
“Last name Fernandez,” Stone said. “This afternoon he ended up in a puddle of his own blood on the sidewalk, just down the street, after a dive off a rooftop.”
“Oh, yeah, I know that kid. He’s always offering me stuff he’s stolen. I never want any of it.”
“Sure you do, Sam,” Dino said. “You buy stuff from everybody. Anything to turn a buck.”
“I got no objection to turning a buck, but I do it by selling booze,” Spain said, waving a hand at the array of bottles behind the bar. “Have one on the house.”
“I’m too young to go blind,” Dino said. “Why don’t you unlock the office door?”
“Is that door locked?” Spain asked with a smirk.
Dino turned around, walked to the door, and delivered a kick just above the doorknob. There was a splintering sound as the jamb gave way, and the door flew open. He walked in, looked around, then opened another door that led to the alley beside the bar.
Stone ran outside and checked the alley from the other end; nothing but garbage cans. He came back inside, looked at Dino, and shook his head. “It was there a minute ago,” he said, “now it’s not.”
Back in Dino’s car, he turned toward Stone, who was in the rear seat with Masi. “Did you actually see it?”
“For just a second, when the guy came out. It was hanging over the desk in a cheap frame.”
“Have you ever even seen the picture?” Dino asked.
“I have an eight-by-ten transparency of it,” Stone replied. “It makes an impression that stays with you.”
“Masi, did you see it?” Dino asked.
“No,” Art replied, “I was looking for blades.”
“Dino,” Stone said, “check your computer and see if you can find a record and an address for Ralph Weede, with an e at the end.”
Dino pulled the car’s computer around on its supporting arm and did some typing. “He has a conviction for assault and battery twelve years ago,” Dino said. “Suspended sentence. I wonder how he got the job at 740 with a record for violence?”
“I wonder, too,” Stone said.
“Oh, and we just passed the building where he lives, sixth floor.”
“That’s the building where Manolo Fernandez took a swan dive off the roof,” Stone pointed out.
Dino did some more typing. “We’ll get him in for questioning,” he said.
“I can put him at Sam Spain’s half an hour after the murder.”
“I’ll mention that to Homicide,” Dino said.
34
It was too late to call Morgan when he got home; he’d call her in the morning.
Bright and early, Morgan called him. “Are you enjoying your scrambled eggs?” she asked.
“Speaking of scrambled eggs,” Stone said, “Margaretta is unlikely to come to work this morning.”
“Funny you should mention that — she’s half an hour late. What do you know that I don’t know?”
“Yesterday somebody threw her son, Manolo, off a roof in Harlem, six stories to the sidewalk.”
Morgan made a moaning noise. “Poor Margaretta, she’s been expecting something like this for a couple of years. I’m sorry it finally happened to her.”
“There’s more. Manolo went off the roof of the building where one of your doormen, Ralph Weede, lives.”
“What makes you think Ralph is mixed up in this?”
“He’s mixed up with Margaretta,” Stone said. “He’s the guy who’s been shtuping her for a while, and he’s the genius who suggested a van Gogh would look nice in her living room.”
“Ralph wouldn’t know it was a van Gogh.”
“Those doormen know everything that goes on in your building. You think they would miss the theft of a sixty-million-dollar painting? Ralph wanted the picture stashed somewhere quiet, where nobody would look for it, until he could figure out how to unload it. He didn’t count on a strung-out junkie lifting it and selling it.”
“Manolo sold the painting? How?”
“Well, he didn’t take it to Christie’s and auction it. I think he sold it for a hundred dollars to a neighborhood bar owner named Sam Spain, who fancies himself something of an art collector.”
“Does he know it’s a van Gogh?”
“If he didn’t then, he does now. I saw Ralph Weede go into his bar yesterday, and I’m sure their chat included a brief lecture on art history.”
“How would a bar owner in Harlem dispose of a sixty-million-dollar painting?”
“Do you know what a fence is?”
“Like a garden fence?”
“No. A fence is sort of a freelance broker who buys and sells stolen goods — in your Limey parlance, things that fell off the back of a truck.”
“Lorry.”
“Sorry, lorry. You get the picture, so to speak.”
“Yes, but surely he’s a small-timer who’s never dealt with something like this.”
“Just as fences know their neighborhood thieves, like Manolo, they know other fences, who know still other fences, including some who may be way out of their neighborhood league. There are so-called ‘reputable’ art galleries on the Upper East Side where you could walk in with that van Gogh in a shopping bag and walk out with a million bucks in cash.”
“Which galleries?”
“That’s the trick, knowing which ones, and Sam Spain knows people who know people who know people who have a good eye for art, a greedy heart, and a lot of untaxed cash. In a week, that van Gogh could be hanging in a very private collection in Hong Kong or Macau, and a man in New York named Arthur Steele would be crying his eyes out.”
“Who’s Arthur Steele?”
“He’s the guy who insured your painting.”
“You’re right,” she said, “I’m beginning to get the picture.”
“No, you’re beginning to lose the picture, unless I can find a way to short-circuit the sales process before the painting leaves Sam Spain’s hands.”
“And how are you going to do that?”
“I’m going to pay Mr. Spain a visit,” Stone said.
“Stone, wouldn’t that be dangerous?”