“So what’s in it?” I asked.
Alger’s mouth twitched into a near-smile.
“Actually, I’m not entirely certain,” he said. “But what I can tell you is that it’s unique and that it’s supposedly extremely dangerous. And that everyone wants it.”
“Including you?”
“Including us,” he said, winning him my first smile of the day.
“Okay,” I said. “And you figured out where it is?” If he already had it, I figured we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
“I did,” he said. “In theory, it’s to be sold here in New York at auction today, at noon.”
“In theory?”
“Indeed. If all goes as planned, it won’t be sold at all.”
I started to feel a little more at ease, sensing that we were getting to the part where he told me about our next job.
“So, what’s the plan, then?” I asked.
“Actually, it’s quite simple,” he told me, getting up to refill my now-empty cup again. “You’ll speak to a man, and when you’ve finished, one of the items he was supposed to be watching will be missing.”
“Another distraction,” I understood. Well, I did say I wouldn’t mind, didn’t I? “But, is that…really going to work? I’m…I mean, won’t he catch on that I’m just keeping him busy?”
“I don’t think so. But even if he does,” he answered, his smile sharpening slightly, “I sincerely doubt he’ll mind.”
I grinned before draining the cup of coffee.
“Alright,” I said. “When do we leave?”
§
Well, it turned out Alger had had good reason to take the serious risk of waking me up early. He’d called in Shifty, who’d taken over an hour to show me how to put on makeup for the first time—a key part of any disguise, he and Alger insisted—and another hour to comb, straighten, re-curl, and restrain my now impractically long hair, caging it in a demure twist with just a few rebellious strands strategically allowed to escape. And only after that came the red dress, completing my transformation. Finally, Shifty was satisfied, and Alger and I barely got out the door in time.
I fidgeted through the entire car ride, messing with my hair and stealing glances at my altered reflection in a hand mirror I’d palmed. I kept wondering whether this was this really going to work. What would I say to this fella? What if he just wasn’t interested in talking to me? But I didn’t say anything. Being nervous was one thing, but I didn’t want to let on that I wasn’t sure I could do the job when I’d only just convinced Alger to give it to me in the first place.
Luckily, when we arrived, the lavish decadence of the auction house distracted me from my insecurity. Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling and gilded paintings lined the walls. The lush carpeted hallway led to rooms Alger said were permanent galleries—everything from famous art to blown glass sculpture to obscure antiques. Well-dressed, stuffy-looking men and women perused the displays like they might actually be considering buying the stuff. A string quartet in the corner played something much tamer than the music I liked, smoothing over the low, polite murmur of cultured voices. Clinging to Alger’s arm, I made a valiant attempt to look like I wasn’t awed and a little daunted—after all, I was supposed to belong there, right? Confidence.
Then as we reached the main exhibition room, the Ghost materialized in the doorway, wearing a dressier version of his usual black-on-black and pulling it off surprisingly well. Thrilled to see a familiar face, I barely stopped myself from giving him a very undignified hug, and I was almost too busy congratulating myself to catch on that he wasn’t nearly as happy as I was.
“I regret being the bearer of bad news, Captain,” he said to Alger, “but I fear I have no choice.”
He stepped through the door and handed Alger a piece of glossy embossed paper with gold writing on it. Alger started to read it, and we retreated to a corner of one of the side rooms, the Ghost and I sitting on velvet cushioned chairs.
“What is it?” I whispered to the Ghost.
“A change of plans in the making,” he whispered back.
“What?”
Alger folded the paper in half, creasing it with sharp efficiency.
“It’s not on the list,” he said flatly. “It must have been sold last night.”
“Last night?” I asked.
“At a private auction,” he said, a knife’s edge on his velvet voice. “Held in secret for prestigious customers wishing to remain anonymous, no doubt. It could be anywhere by now.”
I’d never seen him like this, I realized, droplets of dread freezing into a block in my stomach: the sharp tone, the jagged, clipped movements, the undisguised flash of desperate frustration in his eyes. Even when armed men had shown up at his door, he hadn’t come close to losing control. This box was really that important to him, I understood, watching him twirl the embossed paper in his fingers as he paced in front of us. Losing it was worse than fighting for his life. I looked to the Ghost, but he was just watching Alger patiently. Well, someone had to say something.
“So…what now?” I asked Alger.
Abruptly, he stopped pacing and looked at me intently for a moment. Then the mask came back up, and he was in control again, his shoulders relaxed, his face neutral.
“Now, we execute Plan B,” he said smoothly.
“I didn’t know there was a Plan B,” I said.
He smiled.
“My dear,” he said, “there’s always a Plan B.”
I squared my shoulders, resisted the urge to look over my shoulder, and strode into the exhibition room, taking in all the details I could. The place was basically a theater: row upon row of seats faced a stage set with a podium and several tables draped in white, satiny cloth. If things had gone as planned, we’d have been there right on time. Nothing had been displayed yet, but the staff was buzzing back and forth, arranging displays and moving tables, greeting the initial stream of patrons, and so on. I could easily picture it going off without a hitch, as usual. Now it was going to be so much harder, and for so much less. And that’s if I managed to pull it off. Was there a Plan C? But one instant of remembering the way Alger had reacted to the bad news about the box drove all thoughts of failure out of my mind. There was no way I was going to let him down.
As I neared the front of the room, I discovered a door next to the stairs at the base of the stage with two different locks on it. No question, that was the room I was looking for. Next to it, I finally spotted my mark: a broad-shouldered blonde man in a well-cut dark suit, maybe six feet tall or so, relatively young. He was standing in front of the door, his arms crossed, apparently staring off into space; his every movement screamed boredom rather than intimidation to me. My mind reached back to the day I’d met Alger, and I remembered the friendly guard named Oliver, who’d ended up being so helpful. I could get this fella to talk to me. It couldn’t be that hard if I’d done it without trying, before I’d had any training at all, right?
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, pulling a cigarette out of my purse as I approached him.
“Hey, mister,” I called out from a few steps away, “have you got a light?”
“Sorry, ma’am,” he said without even looking, his gruff tone matching his apathetic posture. “No guests allowed up he—”
He broke off abruptly as he turned to face me, and his demeanor shifted just as rapidly. The second he saw me, he seemed to have forgotten completely what he was saying, and his surly expression transformed into a blank stare. Timing. I smiled.
“I’m sorry, no guests are what?” I asked, stopping about a foot from him.
My dumbstruck sap blinked, then shook his head as if clearing it.
“Nothing.” He rummaged in his pocket and pulled out a lighter. “You said you needed a light?”
“Yeah, thanks,” I said sweetly. I put the cigarette in my mouth and leaned forward to touch it to the flame. Then I took a long drag and leaned against the door, trying to figure out how to get from
here to where I was going.
“So, what’s your name?” I asked him.
“I’m—uh, I’m Paul. Andrews.” He was still obviously a bit off his game. I was guessing that wasn’t a question the auction house’s clientele asked him very often.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Andrews. I’m Victoria.” I extended my hand, and he shook it obligingly, starting to relax a little. “Tell me, is this job as boring as it looks?”
He looked a little surprised, but then he smiled.
“Yeah, it really is. I’m just here to watch the wares”—he jerked his thumb towards the locked door—“but no one ever really starts any trouble.”
I took another puff of my cigarette.
“That’s a shame. Just between you and me,” I told him, “these folks look like a little trouble might do them some good.”
His smile graduated to a laugh.
“I think you’re probably right. Why? Are you looking to cause some?”
“Who, me? Never.” I feigned an offended expression, and we both smiled. Perfect. Now we were practically friends. This should work just fine.
“Well, Mr. Andrews, I guess I should be going,” I pretended to confess. “Don’t get too bored. And thanks for the light.”
“Any time,” he answered genially. “Anything else I can do for you before you go?”
And there it was; he was hooked.
“Well, actually,” I said, turning back towards him, “there might be one thing.”
“And what’s that?”
“The truth is,” I said, lowering my voice, “I normally wouldn’t be caught anywhere near these things. But as it happens, I’m in the market for something in particular, and it doesn’t seem to be on the table anymore, if you know what I mean.”
Andrews nodded.
“I might. What about it?”
“Well,” I said, stepping a little closer, “what would really help me out is if you could tell me who I ought to talk to if I wanted to track down something like that.”
He sighed and shook his head regretfully.
“Sorry, doll, but I’m really not supposed to say who those people are.”
Damn. Well, I guess that was what I should’ve expected. But I’d come this far, and I wasn’t about to take no for an answer. I’ll just have to try harder Think, Vic. What do you know about this fella? So I closed the little bit of distance remaining between us, stood on my tiptoes and leaned forward to whisper in his ear.
“Don’t you think things might be more interesting if you didn’t always do what you were supposed to do?”
Andrews gawked at me for a second as I stepped back and raised an eyebrow at him. I saw a thin sheen of sweat break out on his brow. And then the stare morphed into a helpless grin. He glanced around briefly, then took my arm and rapidly unlocked the door.
“Come with me. I might just have what you’re looking for.”
He pulled me into the room and shut the door behind us. It was much bigger than it looked from the outside, and filled with all kinds of interesting and clearly expensive stuff. I could probably have spent days poking through it all—and I could easily have pocketed at least some of it—but that wasn’t what I was there for, so I just let Andrews lead me back to the desk in the corner instead. He finally let go of my arm when we got there, unlocking one of the drawers and pulling out a small, unassuming notebook. After flipping through the pages for a few seconds, he handed it to me.
“Does this help any?” he asked hopefully.
I recognized the book as a sort of ledger. At the top of the page was yesterday’s date, and it had a list of names on the left and dollar amounts on the right so large that they didn’t really mean anything to me. Perfect. The buyers probably didn’t even know about it.
I nodded enthusiastically.
“It’s exactly what I need.”
“Great.” Andrews beamed at me, but then his smile faded a little. “I really can’t let you keep it, though.”
“That’s fine,” I told him brightly, handing it back to him. “I don’t need it anymore.”
He looked a little confused, but then he shrugged.
“Suit yourself.” After locking the book safely in its drawer, he turned back to me and took my hand, looking at me expectantly. “So…what now?”
Oh, hell. I hadn’t really thought past getting the names. How was I supposed to get out of this? I had to say something. “You know, the longer we’re back here, the more likely someone will start to ask questions,” I said. “I don’t want to cause you too many problems.”
He looked doubtful and I ground my teeth. I’d have to do better than that.
“Look—why don’t I come by this evening?” I said, leading him away from the desk. “We’ll both have more time when the auction’s over, right?” I stopped with my back to the door, watching him anxiously.
Andrews didn’t say anything for a few seconds; I could see he didn’t quite buy it. But after a moment, he shook his head with a rueful smile.
“Whatever you say, doll.” And he opened the door.
I doubt he’ll mind, Alger had said. As always, he’d been exactly right. So, home free, I just smiled and winked over my shoulder at Andrews as I walked away.
Chapter 12—Coming Straight On For You
As planned, I wasted a little time wandering around before I headed out, since I had to give Alger and the Ghost enough time to leave and go find the Driver. They’d stayed at the door, watching during my little performance just in case anything went wrong. But Alger had said it’d be better if the staff didn’t see us together after I talked to the guard, so I took my time perusing the galleries, trying not to look as smug as I felt. Giddy from my victory and impatient to spill all the details, I wasn’t paying much attention to my surroundings.
But in spite of my distraction, just as I was about to head out, someone caught my eye: a man sitting in the corner, reading the gold-trimmed program. He didn’t look particularly unusual: average height, medium build, dark hair that didn’t yet show streaks of gray, expensive but unremarkable suit and shoes. A couple of bigger fellas in fancy suits that looked like toughs were with him, but that wasn’t really out of the ordinary for this crowd.
What caught my attention was the look on his face. Rage radiated from him, burning white hot in his black eyes, and it was as hypnotic as it was terrifying. I found myself staring at him from across the gallery as his fingers clenched around the heavy paper, crushing it in his fist.
“It’s not there,” I heard him growl to no one in particular, in an accent I didn’t recognize.
Was it possible that he was after the same thing we were? It didn’t seem like a stretch that he might be talking about the box, if it really was as valuable as Alger had said. For a split second, I thought about trying to talk to him, or at least getting closer to listen to whatever he was going to do next. But then I thought better of it. There were a few names on Andrews’ list; they’d likely sold more than one priceless, sought-after artifact last night. And anyway, I should probably spend my energy on something more practical than conspiracy theories about perfectly normal-looking people skulking in corners. So for better or worse, I shrugged it off and left.
When I got outside and walked the block or so to our arranged rendezvous point, the car was waiting, with the Driver and the Ghost in the front, and Alger in the back. My excitement started to overflow the moment I climbed in beside him.
“It worked!” I said, as we started to drive away. “I did it! At first he—his name is Andrews—he didn’t suspect anything, but I think he did when I asked if I could see the list, and he wasn’t going to let me back there, but then I said—” I stopped to take a breath, and of course, the three of them were laughing. I turned to Alger, a little embarrassed, but still too exuberant to stop myself.
“What did you think? Did I do alright?”
“You were rather brilliant, actually,” he answered, sounding a little surprised. “Whatever you said to him, the po
or fellow didn’t have a chance.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Really.” He patted my hand indulgently. “Naturally, you’ve got a lot to learn, but you’ve made an excellent start. Now,” he said, suddenly all business, “about that list.”
“Right!” I dragged myself back down to earth. “It was just a list of names and how much they paid. But it didn’t say who bought what.”
“As anticipated,” he said. “I don’t suppose you took it?”
I wasn’t sure whether he was hoping I’d say yes or no.
“Andrews said I couldn’t have it, and I didn’t want to take the time to copy it down, so—”
“So you memorized it.” I nodded. He shook his head, and again I couldn’t tell if he was amused or annoyed. “Of course you did,” he murmured. “Well, let’s have it then.”
I reconstructed the page in my mind, re-reading the mental image.
“There were only six names, and—do you want to know the money stuff too?”
“Yes.” Now he was definitely bordering on exasperation. “The names, the prices, what shoes they were wearing, and their favorite color, if you happen to have learned it.”
“Okay, okay,” I said, holding up both hands in surrender. “The first one was Felix Madden: a hundred thousand dollars.” The numbers were so large, they seemed silly to me, but Alger didn’t seem impressed.
“Not likely. He only collects paintings,” he said dismissively. “Next?”
“Julius Rowles,” I recited. “Eighty-six thousand.”
“Rowles? He’s a politician. Why—ah, yes.” A smile flitted across his face. “I’d heard there were some compromising items—” He stopped abruptly, his eyes flicking toward the road next to us, his shoulders suddenly tensing.
“What is it?” I asked. But instead of answering me, he leaned forward to talk to the Driver. His low, dire tone mixed with the roar of the engine.
“You see them?”
The Driver nodded briefly.
“Yeah. Just say the word, Boss.”
Canon in Crimson (Symphony in Red Book 1) Page 8
