Collectibles, page 8
Since then, Sato had risen in acclaim, and—American Endpoint, a take on American Gothic that featured the nuclear-blasted silhouettes of the classic farmer couple—just sold for $24.9 million at auction. Which brought newfound attention to the drawing. Rhine’s owner refused to speculate on the value or availability, instead chasing a Daily News reporter out of the bar, threatening to break her neck for printing the story.
But according to the paper, several experts predicted the doodle, given the age, uniqueness, and location, could be worth at least ten million, possibly more.
Tommy did the math in his head. He was getting less than one percent of that. He wondered how much he should ask for when he heard a buzzing from the kitchen drawer.
As if on cue.
He pushed aside the thick pile of past-due bills and pulled out the burner phone Niles had given him. There were no pleasantries when he flipped open the little plastic brick. Just: “It has to be tonight.”
Tommy’s chest tightened. “It’s Saint Paddy’s. Busiest drinking night of the year. No way do they get out of there before five, five-thirty. And even then, the city is going to be full up.”
“You saw the paper,” Niles said. “Someone else could get there first.”
“Yeah, about that.” Tommy peeked into the living room, where Chloe was still engrossed in her cartoons, the buttered bread sitting in front of her untouched. “About that. This thing is worth ten mil? And I’m getting fifty K?”
“Maybe you should have done your research,” Niles said. “That was the price we agreed to. Are you not a man of your word?”
“Don’t hand me that,” Tommy said. “You knew the value of this and you knew you were low-balling me. Which is bad enough. But if you want this done tonight, then the price just went up. Hazard pay.”
Silence on the other end. So long Tommy wondered if maybe Niles hung up and decided to go with someone else, which frankly at this point, would be a relief. He didn’t have much sunk cost into this and . . .
“Five hundred thousand.”
Tommy’s knees went momentarily weak. He leaned against the kitchen counter. That was . . . the rest of the mortgage, plus some. That was Chloe going to a private school, instead of the crumbling public school around the corner.
That was the kind of security he never thought he’d be able to give her after Nellie died.
“Do we have a deal?” Niles asked.
“Yeah,” Tommy said, almost on reflex. “We have a deal.”
The line went dead. He folded up the phone and placed it back in the drawer, then went to the living room and sat on the couch next to Chloe, who curled into the nook of his hip and tried to explain what was happening on the show, where the cartoon characters were on a treasure hunt or something, but Tommy couldn’t follow. His head was somewhere else.
∗ ∗ ∗
Liz poured herself a nip of whiskey, neat, from the bottle of Jim Beam that she kept stashed in the cupboard. Tommy never touched it himself, but noticed that she’d bought it last week and it was already mostly empty. He didn’t love that Liz drank while she was watching Chloe, and he considered saying something, but this was the tenth night now that he’d asked her to stay over.
“How much longer is this job going to go?” Liz asked, a little green shamrock glittering on her cheek. Chloe’s handiwork, Tommy suspected.
“Should be done after this,” he said, stashing his cell phone behind the toaster. No sense in having a tracking device with him in case things went sideways.
Liz took a sip from the glass as she turned to him. She was already a little tipsy, and annoyed about leaving Uncle John’s party early. But there was something else too. Her dark eyes were scanning him, like there were words written on his skin and she was trying to make them out. Tommy knew exactly what those words were; the story of his guilt.
“Tell me again what this is,” she said.
“Just an overtime thing,” Tommy said. “Building owner wants a job done, has a few guys pulling all-nighters. We don’t have the permits, so we have to keep it quiet.”
“Why are you lying.”
“How do you know I’m lying?”
“I could always tell when you were lying,” Liz said, holding up the glass and pointing at him. “Ever since you were a kid I could tell. You don’t look me in the eye.”
“I’m just tired.”
“Hmm.” She took another sip. “Be smart, okay?”
“C’mon, you know me.”
“Yeah,” she said, with a little laugh. “That’s why I’m telling you to be smart.”
Tommy crossed the kitchen and kissed her on the forehead.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Anything for that little girl,” Liz said, retreating to the living room. “And you, of course, but mostly the girl.”
Yeah, Tommy thought. Anything for her.
∗ ∗ ∗
A few minutes after five thirty a.m., and finally the yeti was pulling down the roller gate. From his bench on the other side of Tompkins Square Park, Tommy cursed under his breath. He was going to have to move fast.
He’d already stashed his gear on the roof of the building to save time. The street was so crowded he took the risk, slipping into the apartment building down the block alongside some drunken kids. It was a simple matter of taking the stairs to the roof, crossing building over building, and leaving his bag in a dark alcove, and then returning to his spot in the park to wait.
The drunken lunatics, at least, provided him a little cover. The cops were too busy chasing the green-garbed revelers puking and pissing in the street to pay much attention to a man on a bench.
Tommy crossed the park and kept his head down, concentrating on his shoes as he hoofed it back to the apartment building he’d gotten into before. There were no cameras, so it seemed like the safest entry point. He hit a few bells and an angry voice blared out of the speaker before someone too lazy to check buzzed him in. He made quick time to the roof, outside and across, to the apartments that sat atop Rhine, where he pulled on a ski mask and a pair of gloves. There was a fire escape tacked on to the back of the building—useless, since it led down into a concrete box, and probably a remnant from when the building first went up. He had been worried it might be corroded and not hold his weight, but he noticed an ashtray on one landing, some laundry hung out on another, so it seemed people ventured onto it. Still, he went slowly, so as not to rattle anything, or draw the attention of anyone who might still be up.
At the bottom, he found the ladder had been removed—or fell off—and the drop was a little more than he would have liked. He lowered himself down as far as he could safely go and dropped. He landed on the wooden deck amidst empty beer kegs and weather-beaten furniture.
The door was locked with a simple deadbolt, and Tommy made quick work of it. As the metal cylinder slid aside, he took a deep breath, thankful that this was smooth. Glad that he’d put in so much planning. Annoyed at himself for doing it in the first place, but knowing that this one act would set up his daughter for life.
And anyway, it’s not like he was hurting anyone.
But as he stepped into a darkened hallway, enveloped by the smell of stale beer, he knew there was a problem, because the first thing he heard was a loud bang.
And then another.
His gut told him to go. But he’d come this far, and he wasn’t even sure if he could get back up the fire escape, so he crept down the hallway, past the bathrooms, and looked into the bar space, where he saw two men in clown masks. They’d already pulled down the Plexiglas, and one of the men was beating around the panda with a hammer, leaving sloppy holes in the drywall.
“What are you doing?” Tommy blurted, more out of frustration with the carelessness of the job, and then realized his mistake.
The two men turned. The clown masks were hard to distinguish in the darkness, but one man was a little taller than the other. Tall Clown said, “I guess you’re here for the drawing too? Beat you to it.”
“Don’t antagonize the man,” Short Clown said. “That’s not productive.”
“Can it, Billy.”
Short Clown hung his head. “Could you not use my real name?”
Tall Clown shrugged and reached back with the mallet, ready to drive it into the wall, and Tommy said, “Will you please stop that? You’re going to ruin the piece.”
“What are you, like an expert on walls or something?” Tall Clown asked.
“Actually, yes, I am, and you’re going to destroy that thing if you’re not careful. Have you checked for studs and screws?”
The clowns looked at each other.
“No,” Short Clown said.
“Okay, what’s your plan for transport?” Tommy asked.
“We have a garbage bag,” Tall Clown said.
Tommy sighed, running his hand over the cloth and foam case hanging from his shoulder. It was meant for a circle lighting rig. But it was exactly the size he needed, it was padded, and it had a strap. A last-minute addition to his kit, and even though it meant buying a hundred-dollar light he’d never use just to get the case, it was worth it.
“Okay, first of all,” Tommy said, striding over to the wall and pulling a magnet out of his pocket. “You get the cameras?”
“Yeah, of course . . .”
“Good,” he said, running the magnet over the wall, finding two screws that had to be removed, both thankfully behind blank wall and not ink.
“Wait wait wait, you think we’re cutting you in on this?” Tall Clown asked. “I said we got here first.”
“C’mon Richie, guy seems to know what he’s doing, and . . .”
“Hey, what did you say about names?”
Billy laughed. “Yeah, my bad, I guess.”
“Listen, both of you shut up,” Tommy said. “I’ll make you a deal. Fifty K if you help me with this.”
That shut them both up quick. They looked at each other and even though Tommy couldn’t see their faces, he could tell they were smiling.
“Great,” Tall Clown—Richie—said. “Pay up and let’s get to work.”
“What do you mean, pay up? I don’t have that kind of money.”
“So, what, you’re work-for-hire?” Billy asked. “Didn’t you take something up front? Standard is half.”
Tommy was suddenly flushed with embarrassment. “Well, no, I . . .”
“Jesus, this guy is a shitty crook,” Richie said. “Look, you have to understand, why should we believe you’re going to make good on this? What are you going to do? Give me your Venmo? That’s not how this works.”
“Look,” Tommy started, “the longer we’re in here . . .”
He paused. There was a sound coming from behind the bar. Groaning? He strode over and found an older, balding man, hands and mouth duct-taped shut, blood blooming from a wound on his skull. He looked up at Tommy with helpless eyes and yelled something through the tape.
“Who the hell is that?” Tommy asked.
“The owner,” Billy said. “I guess he was getting the security beefed up after that Daily News article? But the company couldn’t come out until tomorrow so he was going to sleep in the bar with a bat.”
Tommy’s chest hurt. He threw up his hands and headed for the back, figuring he’d risk the fire escape.
“I’m out,” he said. “Good luck, guys. This is too heavy for me.”
A metallic click stopped him mid-stride. He turned and found Richie pointing a gun at his back.
“Nah, you’re going to stay,” he said. “We don’t even have a fence for this. And whatever you’re getting, we get half. That’s because you seem like a nice guy.” Tommy exhaled. He deserved this. And if this was the penance he had to pay, so be it.
“Keep an eye out at the windows,” he said.
And he got to work. Pulling the screws carefully to leave the smallest holes possible, then cutting around the piece with a rotary saw. He went slow, making the cuts as even as he could, though he was sure he would have to sand it down to straighten it out once he got it back to the house.
As he worked, his heart rate slowed. This, at least, brought him a little peace, and allowed him to put out of his head the mess he was currently standing in. Two-fifty was still a large portion of his mortgage, and while it would mean no private school for Chloe, at least he could get her a tutor or something.
Once the cuts were made he used the careless holes that Richie had knocked into the wall and pulled down the square, his breath frozen in his chest until it came free intact. He took a moment to admire it. Crazy that this thing was worth so much, but hey, in the eye of the beholder. It was certainly aesthetically pleasing. It reminded him of the characters on the cartoons that Chloe watched, and . . .
“You done or what?” Richie asked.
Tommy slid the section of drywall into the carrying case and cinched it over his shoulder. “Yeah.”
“Good,” Richie said. “One last thing.”
He reached the gun over the bar, aiming at the owner. Tommy was ready to dive for him when Billy pulled him away.
“He didn’t see our faces,” Billy said.
“But he knows our names.”
“Hey,” Billy said, looking over the bar. “You going to remember our names?”
Tommy couldn’t see the man’s response, but it seemed to placate Billy, who pushed Richie toward the side door. Tommy followed. Billy opened it a crack, looked around, and ducked out. Richie followed, and Tommy went after them. They moved quickly across the street, toward a parked car with no license plates on it. Billy opened the door and waved for Tommy to get in. He climbed in the back, onto the torn-up leather seats, and before he’d even gotten the door closed, Billy had the car started and jumped away from the curb.
They drove a few blocks, toward the Lower East Side, parking on an empty street. Billy got out, and from the sound of it, got to work reattaching the license plates.
“So, when’s the drop?” Richie asked.
“This afternoon.”
“Great,” Richie said. “I know this great little diner uptown. Waitress knows me. We can get some pancakes and some coffee and wait.”
“Can’t I just call you?”
“No you can’t just call me,” Richie said, as Billy climbed back in the car, pulling off his clown mask. Richie took this as a sign he should remove his too, and then he slapped Billy on the arm. “Guy says he’ll call us.”
“Let’s go to that diner,” Billy said. “What’s it called? The one uptown?”
“I got somewhere I need to be,” Tommy said, thinking about how Liz needed to leave in the next two hours to get to work.
“Then we’re coming with,” Richie said.
“No,” Tommy said.
Richie turned, and for the first time he got a good look at the man’s face. It was dark and angular. The face of a man who meant what he said.
“This isn’t exactly a debate,” Richie said.
Billy turned. His face was softer, slightly less threatening, but no less serious.
“Yeah man, you have to understand the reality of this, okay? So let’s just all play nice, everyone goes home with a fat payday.”
Tommy wondered if he would even walk away with half—or his life, at this point. The risk was too high. Chloe had lost one parent. He wasn’t going to let her lose another. Not because he’d made such a dumb, dangerous decision.
So he made one more dangerous decision. Hopefully the last one of these he would have to make.
“Okay,” he said. “How about this. The drop is in a building that’s under construction. We can get inside and wait there. It’ll only be a few hours.”
Silence from the front.
Then Richie said, “See, that makes sense. You’re getting the hang of this.”
∗ ∗ ∗
Tommy had been worried about the night watchman, at his little booth at the front of the site, but the man was asleep and they didn’t even have to try to sneak past him. They took the elevator to the thirtieth floor, the whole time, Tommy fidgeting, ants marching under his skin. He couldn’t believe how calm and collected these men were, talking about where they’d get breakfast after this.
And right after they beat a man bloody.
Tommy had to remind himself of that. That they’d hurt someone who didn’t deserve to be hurt. Or maybe he did deserve it, after threatening to break that reporter’s neck. Still, Billy and Richie were ready to kill the guy.
He reminded himself of that, to justify what he was going to do.
Through the window across the under-construction floor, the first rays of the morning sun hit the Empire State Building. But the space was still dim. Over his shoulder, Tommy said, “There’s an office set up in the back, got some couches and stuff, and I think maybe a coffee maker. It’ll at least be comfortable.”
“Well if it ain’t working, one of us will run out and get some,” Richie said. “See? We’re not so bad. I’ll treat. Won’t even come out of your cut.”
“I’d like a Danish, too,” Billy said.
“How about a box of donuts?” Richie asked. “A box of donuts and a Danish.”
“It’s nearly seven in the morning, Billy. Where am I going to find a Danish?”
“Probably any place you can also find donuts.”
As Tommy walked, he thought of Chloe, curled up on the couch next to him, watching cartoons as he reminded her to eat her breakfast. The warmth of her little body, and way it felt for her to fit into the grooves of his side.
The way it felt to protect her.
Anything for her.
He made for the plywood planks he’d seen earlier, aiming for the middle, where he knew the I-beam would be. He walked carefully and calmly, holding tight to the bag on his arm in case he lost his footing.
“I’ll tell you this much . . .” Richie started, before there was a cracking and a crash and Tommy felt the boards shift underneath him. He dove forward, toward finished floor, careful to keep the drywall safe, and when he turned back there was just an I-beam and a gaping hole.
He looped around and headed for the exit, but risked a look down into the chasm. Billy and Richie were lying two floors below. They were still, and Tommy wondered if they were alive, but then the pair began to writhe and groan.
