“Possibly, but I will arrive bearing gifts that may turn Mr. Spain’s head.”
“I don’t want you to lose yours in the process.”
“Neither do I. If you haven’t heard from me in, say” — he consulted his wristwatch — “two hours, call Dino and tell him I’ve got my tit caught in a wringer in Harlem.” Without another word, Stone hung up.
An hour later Stone arrived at Sam Spain’s Bar, just as Sam himself was turning the CLOSED sign to OPEN. He walked in and set his briefcase on the bar; Sam was already behind the bar at an adding machine, counting last night’s take.
“Good morning, Sam,” Stone said.
“Sez who?” Sam grumbled.
“My name is Barrington,” Stone said.
“Ah, you’re the ex-cop, now a civilian.”
“Today I’m in the business of buying art.”
Sam swept a hand toward the junk on his walls. “Take your pick — five hundred bucks.”
“I want to pay more than that.”
“Okay, a thousand bucks.”
“Even more, Sam. I want to buy the picture you bought from Manolo Fernandez, and I’m willing to give you a handsome profit on the transaction.”
“Now, listen—”
“No, you listen. I’ll make this easy for you. If you hang on to that picture or try to move it, the earth is going to fall on you. You’ll be hounded by the NYPD, the FBI, and the state police forces of a dozen countries. There will be so many cops in here, from so many places, there won’t be room for the people who buy your booze, let alone fence their goods, and you’ll end up doing some very serious time. That’s not a good prospect for somebody your age, Sam. Think about it.”
“Okay, I’m thinking. How much should I be thinking about?”
“I’m authorized by the insurance company to offer you one million dollars in cash for the return of the picture — today.”
Sam looked surprised. “Is there a million bucks in that briefcase, or are you packing something else?”
“There’s a substantial down payment in the briefcase,” Stone said. “I can have the rest of the cash here in a couple of hours.”
“How substantial?”
“Thirty-five thousand dollars.”
“Show me half a million, then we’ll talk about the other half.”
“I don’t walk around with that kind of money,” Stone said, “and I’m not going to. The rest of the money will be delivered to your back door by a security company.”
“Listen,” Sam said, “I know what that picture is worth. If your insurance company wants it back, they’re going to have to cough up half its value, and we both know how much that is.”
“Sam, there’s something you don’t know about that painting.”
“Yeah, what’s that?”
“It’s a fake. It wasn’t painted in France in 1890, it was painted by a guy out on Long Island last year. If you try to sell it, the prospective buyer is going to have it subjected to every possible test, and it’s going to fail one or more of them. Then the picture will be worth about three thousand dollars.”
“I don’t believe you,” Sam said.
Stone heard the sound of the front door opening and closing, but Sam didn’t even glance at it. Stone started to turn, and then something hit him on the side of the head, hard.
He didn’t even feel the floor rising to greet him.
35
Art Masi walked into Stone’s outer office.
“Good morning, Lieutenant Masi,” Joan said.
“Good morning, Joan. Is he in?”
“I’m afraid not,” she said. “He left about forty minutes ago, and he didn’t say when he’d be back.”
Art stared at her. “Was he carrying anything?” he asked.
“Just a briefcase.”
“Joan, not to pry, but does he keep much in the way of cash around the office?”
She looked at him. “He has a safe,” she said.
“Oh, shit,” Art muttered.
Stone woke up, slowly and painfully, in the office at the back of Sam Spain’s Bar. He was alone in the room, but he wasn’t going anywhere. His hands and feet were duct-taped to a heavy wooden armchair; there was a ball of something cottony in his mouth and a strip of tape around his head to keep it there.
He took a few deep breaths through his nose to clear his head and, he hoped, help the pain in his head go away. That didn’t work. He looked at a clock on the wall and did some arithmetic: he’d been out for twenty minutes or so. He felt nauseated, but he couldn’t afford to vomit — he could easily strangle to death.
The office door opened and a man walked in: short, dark, mustached, carrying something in his hand. Stone closed his eyes and prepared to be hit again. Instead, something cold was pressed over and around his left ear.
“It’s just some ice,” the man said. “It’ll make you feel better.”
It did. The nausea backed off, and so did the pain, a good bit.
“It was an old-fashioned cosh,” the man said. “A couple of pounds of lead shot in a leather bag. My wife sewed it.”
Stone tried to thank him, but all he could produce was a grunt through his nose.
“I’ll take off the gag if you promise not to yell. Then I’d have to cosh you again.”
Stone nodded.
The man snatched off the tape.
Stone took a deep breath and blew the wad out of his mouth. “Ow,” he said, if a little late.
“That’s better, isn’t it?”
“Much better, thanks. How about my hands and feet?”
“Not just yet,” the man said. “Sam’s gonna come in here and talk to you in a minute, and my advice is to be nice. If you cooperate, you might get out of here under your own steam. If not, well, there’s a little river under this place that runs pretty fast all the way to the East River. It would be something like getting flushed down a really big toilet. You getting the picture?”
“That’s the question I came here to ask,” Stone said.
The door opened and Sam Spain walked in. “And I’m ready to answer it,” he said. “I want five million.”
“I’ll have to ask,” Stone said.
“Ask who?”
“The CEO of the insurance company.”
“So call him.”
“Hard to do,” Stone said, “in the circumstances.”
“Free up his left hand,” Sam said to his man.
The man did so.
Stone flexed his fingers to get rid of the numbness. “Give me a minute,” he said.
“Take your time,” Sam said.
“Joan,” Art Masi said, “can you get Dino Bacchetti on the phone for me? If he’s tied up, tell whoever answers it’s an emergency.”
“Sure,” Joan said, and made the call.
“Okay, I think the hand’s working now,” Stone said.
Sam picked up Stone’s iPhone from his desk, where it rested near his little Colt Government .380, and placed it in Stone’s hand.
“It has to read my right thumb,” Stone said, “or it won’t turn on.”
Sam nodded to his man, who cut loose Stone’s other hand.
Stone pressed his thumb against the phone and it opened. He went to his contacts and selected Arthur Steele’s private line.
Arthur answered immediately. “Yes?”
“It’s Stone. A man who says he has the picture wants five million for it.”
“Have you seen it?”
“Hang on.” Stone looked up at Sam Spain. “I have to see the picture,” he said. He watched very carefully as Spain walked to a large safe and tapped in a code.
Spain reached into the safe and extracted a laundry bag. He opened it, produced a picture, sans frame, and held it in front of Stone.
“It’s upside down,” Stone said.
Sam turned it 180 degrees. “Well?”
“In my briefcase there’s an envelope containing a photograph of the painting. I’ll have to compare the two.”