by Stuart Woods
“I’ve been robbed!” Rocco yelled. “The picture was in the trunk!” He fingered the hole. “They’ve fucked up my Maybach!”
“Okay,” Masi said, “let’s get you booked.” He produced the handcuffs.
“Now, wait a minute, guys,” Rocco said. “I’ve cooperated, I’ve told you everything you wanted to know.”
“Not yet, Rocco,” Masi said. “Tell us who stole it.”
“How should I know?”
Masi reached for a wrist.
“Hang on a minute, Art,” Stone said. “Rocco, who knew the picture was in the trunk of your car?”
Rocco looked thoughtful. “Well, André Eisl saw me put it in there, so did Sol Fineman.”
“Anyone else know about it?”
Rocco thought about it. “No one else.”
“That kind of narrows it down, doesn’t it?” Stone said.
“Maybe it was just some junkie, looking for stuff to steal,” Masi replied.
“They didn’t break into the car,” Stone pointed out. “Just the trunk.”
“Then the guy we want is Sol Fineman,” Masi said.
“Yes,” Stone agreed, “and every cop in town has been looking for him since he disappeared from his apartment, with no results, not a trace.”
“Oh, shit,” Art said.
“He’s in the wind,” Stone replied.
“Well, gee, fellows, I’m awful sorry about that. The painting getting stolen wasn’t part of our deal, though. Can I go to my kid’s soccer game?”
“Getting our hands on the picture was the deal,” Stone said.
“Hey,” Masi said to the cop, handing him the arrest warrant, “hold this guy until a squad car can get here to take him in for booking.”
“You’re going to hold a bunch of parking tickets against me?” Rocco said.
“You could have walked, Rocco,” Stone said, “but you didn’t come through.”
Masi borrowed the cop’s handcuffs and cuffed Rocco Maggio to his car door. “See you around, Rocco. Sorry about your kid’s soccer match.”
“Wait a minute,” Rocco said, “maybe I can still help.”
“Speak,” Stone replied. “You know where we can find Sol Fineman?”
Rocco’s face fell. “No, I just have a number.”
“Which is now non-working,” Masi said. “Have a nice stay at Rikers.”
Rocco was weeping when they drove away.
50
AS SOON AS they were back in the car, Stone told Fred to drive them home, then he called Dino.
“Bacchetti.”
“It’s Stone.”
“How’d you do at the garage?”
“The car had been broken into. The picture was gone.”
“Oh, shit. Any idea who took it?”
“Our chief suspect is Sol Fineman.”
“The invisible man? That Sol Fineman?”
“One and the same. Of course, that’s per Rocco Maggio. He says only André Eisl and Fineman saw him put the picture into his trunk.”
“Well, if that’s all you’ve got.”
“Have you had any reports of Fineman? Anything at all?”
“Hang on, I’ll see.” Dino put him on hold.
“Dino’s checking,” Stone said to Masi.
“I’m praying,” Art replied.
Dino came back. “Not a fucking trace,” he said. “It’s like the guy just vaporized.”
“We need him bad,” Stone said.
“Sorry, pal.” Dino hung up.
“Now what?” Masi asked.
“We’ve still got our list of possible buyers, and we’ve visited only two of them. What’s our next one?”
Art consulted the lists. “First Lot Auctions,” he said.
Stone gave Fred the address.
• • •
FIRST LOT AUCTIONS occupied a double-wide gallery space on Madison Avenue in the Nineties. Fred double-parked out front so they could see the car, and they went inside. A young blond woman in a tight black dress and chewing gum was dusting pictures and sculptures displayed for the next auction.
She stopped chewing. “Something you wanted to bid on?” she asked. “The sale is tomorrow morning at ten.” She resumed chewing.
“No,” Stone said, “we’d like to speak to the owner of the place.”
“That would be Mr. Marx. He’s in London at the moment.”
“Who’s in charge?”
“Mr. Michaels,” she replied. “I’ll see if he’s available.” She disappeared into a back room.
“Why do I think this is futile?” Art asked.
“If you have a better idea . . .”
“No.”
The young woman reappeared and resumed her dusting. “He’ll be just a moment,” she said.
Ten minutes passed. “Let’s go,” Stone said, heading for the back door, with Masi right behind. The door opened into a hallway, with rooms on each side. In the last one they found a man packing papers into a cardboard box. He seemed startled to see them.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“Mr. Michaels?”
He looked them over. “No, he’s gone for the day.”
Stone walked over and looked into the cardboard box. He picked up a letter on top of a stack of papers; it was addressed to Mr. Warren Michaels.
“Okay, Warren,” Stone said, “what’s the rush?”
“Who are you?”
“We represent Sam Spain.”
Michaels went a little pale. “Sam Spain is dead. I read it in the Post.”
“We represent Mr. Spain’s estate,” Stone said, “and we have reason to believe that you are in possession of some property of Mr. Spain’s.”
“I’m not. I don’t know anything about it.”
“About what?”
“Ah . . .”
“It’s a picture,” Stone said. “A very rare one.”
“I don’t know.”
“You haven’t even asked what sort of picture,” Stone said.
“I don’t need to ask—I don’t have anything belonging to Sam Spain.”
“Actually, it belongs to Mrs. Mark Tillman,” Stone said. “Am I getting through to you?”
Michaels opened a desk drawer, retrieved a sheet of paper, and handed it to Stone. It was the police flyer with a reproduction of the van Gogh. “This is the only thing I know about belonging to a Tillman.”
“Then where is it?”
“How should I know?”
“Perhaps you’d rather talk to Sol Fineman about this?” Stone asked.
That had an effect. “Now, wait a minute, I don’t want that guy in here again.”
“Do you find Mr. Fineman frightening?”
“Yes, I do. The man carries a blackjack.”
“Not anymore,” Stone said. “We relieved him of that. Still, Mr. Fineman has other methods.”
“Please, I don’t know anything about this.”
“Then how did you become acquainted with Mr. Fineman?”
Michaels’s shoulders slumped. “He came to see me.”
“And what passed between you?”
“He showed me a picture and asked if I wanted to buy it. Not auction it—he was very clear about that—buy it, for five million dollars. I don’t have that kind of cash, and my boss is in a country inn somewhere in England. He wouldn’t say where. I knew what it was, of course, from the flyer.”
“And you reported this incident to the police?”
“Mr. Fineman made it very clear to me what would happen if I did that. He hit me with the blackjack.”
“And then what?”
“When I came to, he was gone.” Michaels rubbed a spot behind his ear.
Stone believed him. “Let’s get out of here and leave Mr. Michaels a
lone with his conscience,” he said to Masi.
• • •
THEY SPENT THE REMAINDER of the day visiting the rest of Masi’s list. Everybody denied everything.
“I’m at my wit’s end,” Stone said.
“I can think of one more place Fineman might have taken the picture,” Masi said.
“And where is that?”
“The insurance company.”
“Arthur Steele already told Sam Spain to go fuck himself,” Stone pointed out. “Why would Fineman go to him?”
“Steele has had time to reconsider. Paying Sol Fineman five million is a lot better than paying Morgan Tillman sixty million.”
“No, Arthur hasn’t bought it back.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because he would have called me, to gloat.”
“Gloat?”
“I know Arthur. He’s a poor winner.”
51
IT WAS NEARLY MIDNIGHT before Rocco Maggio got home, and his wife was still up and fuming.
“I know, I know,” he said. “Is Mario still up?”
“He cried himself to sleep,” she hissed.
“What could I do? I was in jail!”
“Jail! What have you done now?”
“Nothing, absolutely nothing!”
“Start talking or start packing,” she said.
“All right, awready, it was parking tickets.”
“Jail? For parking tickets?”
“For . . . a lot of parking tickets.”
“How much are we talking about here?”
“Look, we’re both tired, let’s get some sleep and talk about this tomorrow.”
“Let’s talk about it right this minute!” she spat. “How much?”
“A little over a hundred grand.”
“How much over a hundred grand?”
“Twenty-two five, give or take.”
“A hundred and twenty-two thousand five hundred dollars in parking tickets?”
“Give or take, plus a fine.”
“How big a fine?”
“Fifty percent,” he murmured.
She picked up her iPhone, opened the calculator, and began punching keys. “A hundred and eighty-three thousand, seven hundred and fifty dollars?”
“Give or take.”
“For parking tickets? How long were you in jail?”
“I don’t know, sometime after lunch, which I didn’t have, until about an hour ago. It took two lawyers and a judge to get me out, and I had to wait for two cashier’s checks to be hand-delivered.”
“How did you get a bank to write two cashier’s checks after closing time?”
“I know people, all right?”
She was calculating again. “Do you know that you could have rented twenty garages in Manhattan for a year for that kind of money?”
“I don’t need twenty garages, I just need a little space at the curb.”
“At the curb, next to a fire hydrant?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes I’m in a hurry.”
“Well, I’m going to bed. You find somewhere else to sleep, and don’t you forget that breakfast is at six AM in this house!” She stalked up the stairs.
Maggio went into his den, took a throwaway cell phone from his desk drawer, and dialed another throwaway cell phone.
“Huh?” a sleepy voice said.
“You know who this is?”
“Sure, Rocco, I know—”
“Don’t say my name, schmuck!”
“I’m sorry, Rocco—”
“Shut up and listen.”
He shut up.
“You know Sol Fineman?”
“Works for the late, great Sam Spain? Sure, Rocco.”
“You say my name one more time and I’m gonna come over there and shoot you in the head.”
“Sorry, R—”
“I want you to find Sol Fineman and put two in his head from up close. I want him to see it coming.”
“Okay. You want me to tell him anything?”
“No, but I want him to tell you something. I want him to tell you where is the five mil I paid him for a certain piece of art, and I want the five mil and the piece of art back before you shoot him. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“And feel free to persuade him by any means you choose, as long as it’s effective.”
“Got it, Rocco.”
Maggio threw the phone across the room.
• • •
“HONEY,” THE FORMER Sol’s wife said, “why are we leaving in such a hurry?”
“Sweetheart, it would only disturb you to talk about that.”
“It will only disturb me if you don’t talk about that.”
“You know the five million we got for the picture?”
“Yes.”
“Well, now we’ve got another five million for the picture.”
“Honey, did you spend the day at the track?”
“No.”
“A casino?”
“No, sweetheart, it’s all from the picture.”
“And where is the picture now?”
“In a safe place in Manhattan.”
“What for?”
“To make the exchange easier.”
“You’re going to exchange the painting for something?”
“For another five million.”
“Baby, you must be making a lot of people really, really angry.”
He thought about that. “Only one, actually.”
“And who’s that?”
“Rocco Maggio.”
“Well, from what I’ve heard, he’s enough all by himself.”
“Yeah, but everybody else is going to be really happy when I’m done.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Like this—the owner of the painting is going to be very happy because she gets her picture back, and her insurance company is going to be really happy because they only have to pay five million instead of the tens of millions it’s insured for to the victim of the theft. That leaves only Rocco Maggio, and I grant you, he’s going to be very, very angry at Sol Fineman. His problem is, Sol Fineman don’t exist anymore.”
“Is that why we’re driving west, instead of south, to Florida?”
“Yep. There are other sunny places like New Mexico and Arizona. Mexico, if things get too hot.”
“You don’t want to take a plane, maybe?”
“The government X-rays your luggage these days.”
“Oh, yeah, it’s been so long since I’ve flown anywhere, I forgot.”
“Once the sun comes up, it will be a beautiful drive. We’ll drive through Pennsylvania and Indiana—those are very beautiful states, even from the interstate.”
She was quiet for a while. “Do you want me to drive for a spell?”
“No, sweetheart, I’m not sleepy, I’m excited about our new life.”
She was quiet for a little longer. “Is there something else I can do for you?” she asked, unzipping his fly.
“Sweetie, you could always read my mind.”
52
DINO’S SECRETARY BUZZED HIM. “Yeah?”
“Commissioner, there’s a Lieutenant Levine on the line, says he’s in charge of the Sol Fineman investigation.”
“Put him through,” Dino said, and waited for the click. “Bacchetti.”
“Commissioner, it’s Dave Levine, about the Sol Fineman thing?”
“Yeah, did you find him?”
“Nossir, but the thing is, somebody else is looking for him, too, and they ain’t carrying badges.”
“Anybody we know?”
“I recognized one guy—he works for a Jersey don named Maggio. He and his crew are tearing Fineman’s apartment apart as we spe
ak. I’ve had calls from two other locations we’re watching, Sam Spain’s Bar and a chop shop in East Harlem. People are also looking for him there.”
“Have you found any trace of Fineman?”
“Nossir, it’s like he never existed.”
“Then follow the other guys who’re looking for him. Maybe they’re smarter than you.”
A brief pause, then, “Yessir.”
“Just kidding, Dave, but maybe they know something we don’t.”
“Gotcha, Commish, we’re on it.” Levine hung up and got conferenced with two sergeants who were working for him. “All right, guys, it’s like this—we don’t have to worry about where Sol Fineman is anymore, all we have to do is tail the goombahs who are scouring the city for him. We’ll let them do the work, and when they grab him, we’ll grab them and take the credit. Got it?”
“Got it,” one sergeant said.
“Sounds good to me,” the other echoed.
Everybody hung up.
• • •
STONE HUNG UP THE PHONE. He and Art Masi were sitting in Stone’s office, wondering what to do next. “That was Dino,” Stone said.
“Good news?”
“I don’t know—maybe, maybe not.”
“Tell me anyway,” Art said.
“Rocco Maggio has got every soldier in the Maggio family in Manhattan looking for Sol Fineman.”
“What happens if the NYPD doesn’t get Fineman first?”
“Terrible things, no doubt, but Dino has them following the soldiers. The cops will let them do the work, then bag Fineman and get the credit.”
“I like it, as long as the soldiers don’t have Fineman for too long before the cops show up. They might get money and the picture, and then we’re off to the races again.”
“You’re a pessimist, Art, you know that?”
“I wasn’t until I started looking for this van Gogh. I was happy as a clam, pulling down my pay and my consulting fees, and now I’m a nervous wreck because I’ve got a million bucks at stake.”
“That’s supposed to motivate you, Art, not make you nervous,” Stone said.
“I think I’m going to be nervous for the rest of my life, no matter what happens.”
“Art, just think about what you can do with a million dollars.”
“You think that hasn’t crossed my mind? First of all, I’m going to have to hand my Uncle Sam forty percent of it, and then I’ve got six hundred thousand. Then I’m going to pay off my mortgage, and I’ve got four hundred thousand. Then my wife is going to spend two hundred thousand, if I’m lucky, gutting the house and making it the way she always dreamed it would be, then she’s going to spend fifty thousand on clothes and spa treatments to celebrate the dream house, and if the spa treatments don’t do it for her, she’ll spend another fifty thousand on cosmetic surgery, ‘to make you proud,’ she’ll say. So now I’m down to a hundred grand, and my bookie’s going to take fifteen of that, and by the time the wife and I get back from our European holiday for the month of vacation time I’ve got built up, I’ll be back to zero, maybe even in debt again.”
