“Go get his briefcase,” Sam said to his man.
“Hang on, Arthur,” Stone said.
“Commissioner, this is Art Masi.”
“Be quick, Masi.”
“I think Stone Barrington has gone up to Harlem to try and buy the van Gogh from Sam Spain. He took...” He looked at Joan and raised his eyebrows questioningly.
“Thirty-five thousand dollars,” she replied. “It was all the cash we had.”
“Thirty-five thousand dollars,” Art said into the phone.
“And a gun,” Joan said. “His .380.”
“And he’s carrying.”
“How long ago?”
“Maybe three-quarters of an hour.”
“Have you called his phone?”
“Just a minute, Commissioner.” He turned to Joan. “Please call his cell phone.”
Joan did so. “It’s busy,” she said.
“The line is busy, Commissioner.”
Stone held up the transparency to the overhead light and compared it to the picture, then he picked up his phone. “Arthur, the picture matches the transparency.”
“Are you there with the guy with the picture?” Arthur asked.
“Yes.”
“Ask him why I should pay five million dollars for a fake.”
Stone sighed. “Sam,” he said, “he wants to know why he should pay five million dollars for a fake van Gogh.” Stone held up the phone so Arthur could hear the reply.
Sam sort of smiled. “Tell him he’ll get the picture, plus you without any extra holes in your head.”
36
There was silence on the other end of the phone. “Arthur?” Stone said.
“I’m here.”
“What do you want to do?” Stone asked.
“I’m thinking it over.”
“I don’t think that’s the answer he wanted,” Stone said, “and it doesn’t sound very good to me, either.”
“I’m not sure how long it will take me to get the cash,” Arthur said. “Call me back in ten minutes.” He hung up.
“Well, Sam,” Stone said, “nobody has five million dollars in his bottom desk drawer, but he knows how to come up with it.”
“I’m feeling impatient,” Sam said.
“Relax, have a drink.”
“It’s a little early,” Sam said, “even for me.”
“Let’s see what’s on TV,” Stone said, pointing a thumb at the set on the office wall.
“Soap operas and Fox News. Neither one of ’em appeals.”
“Five more minutes, and we’ll have an answer.”
Stone’s phone rang.
“Answer it,” Sam said.
“Hello?”
“It’s Arthur. Hold the phone so he can hear me.”
Stone held up the phone.
“Go fuck yourself!” Arthur yelled, and he ended the call.
“I tried, Sam,” Stone said. “You bit off more than you could chew.”
Sam put the picture back into the laundry bag and held it out to his cohort. “Deliver it,” he said. The man took the laundry bag and left by the back door.
“Is the million bucks starting to sound any better, Sam?” Stone asked.
“No,” Sam replied, and he reached around behind him as if to draw a weapon from the small of his back.
Stone looked at his .380; the magazine was lying beside it, and he didn’t carry with one in the chamber. The cosh, however, was there, too. As Sam was halfway to his feet, Stone grabbed the cosh and swung it as hard as he could at Sam’s head. It connected at the temple with a loud thud, and Sam collapsed into a heap, a short-barreled .38 revolver lying beside him.
Stone tried to get up, but his feet were still taped to the chair at the ankles. He saw a coffee mug on the desk with assorted implements in it, including a box cutter. He grabbed it and sawed his feet loose, then got up and kicked the .38 aside, grabbed his .380 from the desk, shoved the magazine into it, worked the slide, and pointed the weapon at the head of the inert Sam Spain. He prodded at the man with his toe. “Get up,” he said.
Sam did a convincing job of playing the corpse.
Stone was feeling Spain’s neck for a pulse when he heard the front door of the bar crash open, followed by the splintering of the rear outside door. A uniformed officer stepped through the rear door, followed by another through the door from the bar. Each held a pistol in front of him.
“Drop it!” both of them shouted in unison.
Stone set his .380 on the desk and stepped away from it, his hands up.
“What’s the matter with him?” one of the cops said to Stone, indicating Sam Spain.
“I hit him in the head with the cosh on the desk,” Stone replied. “He was about to shoot me with the .38 over there.” He pointed at the gun on the floor.
“Who are you?” the cop asked.
“Barrington.”
“You got some ID?”
Stone reached for his wallet.
“Careful,” the cop said; his gun was still pointed at Stone.
Stone held his jacket open. “The only weapon I have is on the desk.” Gingerly, he fished out his wallet and handed the man his driver’s license.
“It’s okay,” the cop said to his partner, and they put away their weapons. Sounds of others entering the bar drifted in.
Stone knelt by Sam Spain and held two fingers to the artery in his neck. “Weak and thready,” he said to the cop. “You’d better call an ambulance.”
“Who is he?”
“That’s Sam Spain,” the other cop said. “Do like the man says.”
Stone didn’t wait for him to move. He picked up the phone on the desk and dialed 911, then handed the cop the phone. The man called for an ambulance, then hung up.
“We’re supposed to tell you that the commissioner is on his way,” the cop said.
The ambulance pulled into the alley, and two EMTs took charge of Sam Spain. “What happened to him?” one of them asked nobody in particular.
“Blow to the head, left temple,” Stone said.
“Blow with what?”
The cop picked up the cosh and struck the desktop with it.
“Gotcha,” the EMT said. He slipped an oxygen mask onto Sam Spain, then stripped off his jacket, pushed up a sleeve, and started an IV.
“Is he going to make it?” Stone asked. He wanted Sam to make it because he wanted to know to whom the picture was being delivered, and because he didn’t want to answer a lot of questions if Sam died.
Dino came into the office from the bar as Sam was being hauled out on a stretcher; he was followed closely by Art Masi.
“Jesus, Stone, what did you do to the guy?”
“I hit him with the same cosh the other guy hit me with,” Stone said. He picked up the ice bag from the floor and pressed it to his head.
“You want an ambulance?”
“No, but I want to be there when Sam Spain wakes up.”
“If he wakes up,” Dino said. “You want a lawyer?”
“I am a lawyer, Dino, remember?”
“Okay, consider that your rights have been read to you. Now, what the fuck happened?”
“I made Sam Spain an offer he couldn’t refuse, and he refused it. He wanted five million. I got Arthur Steele on the phone, and he declined, rather rudely, to pay it. Sam put the picture in a laundry bag and gave it to his guy and told him to deliver it. The guy left, and Sam reached for that .38 over there on the floor. I grabbed the cosh from the desk and hit him.”
“How hard?”
“As hard as I could — he had the .38 in his hand.”
“Okay,” Dino said, “I buy that. Get your money, and let’s go to the hospital.”
“Stone,” Art Masi said, “where is the picture being delivered?”
“I have no idea,” Stone replied, “and I don’t know who the guy delivering it is, either. We’ll have to ask Sam Spain, if he wakes up.”