“Surely,” said Elgort in his stately voice. “There are other places where your business acumen could be put to use. Places where you do not have a small but potent contingent determined to make things difficult for you. It just makes sense. And, four million dollars plus the diamonds is a very fair price. It is our first and best offer.”
“Your first and best offer?” Negron threw his hands up in the air. “Is that a threat?”
“Well,” said Don, keeping an eye on the group of henchman, who seemed to have edged a bit closer, fanning out behind Negron’s chair like sentinels. “it’s not exactly a threat, it’s just that it’s better than our second or third offer.”
“You make no sense,” said Luis. “Why would your second offer be worse? Why wouldn’t we just take what we want. You’ve shown no real ability to be a threat to us.”
“Is that what you’d like,” said Elgort, coldly and calmly. “A demonstration of our power?” There was a steely glint in his eye.
“Si,” said Luis. “We frankly are not so far impressed.”
Don turned from him and addressed Negron.
“Antonio, your secretary seems a little put out.”
Oooh, go Don. Switching to first name and insulting Luis all in one little sentence. The man belonged on the stage.
“But I’d like to remind you that not all power is physical power. Yes, you have some impressive henchmen, and I’m sure there are hundreds more like them back where you come from. But we come from here. Chicago. We draw our power from here, and will always have resources here unknown to you.”
Don rolled on before they could interrupt. “Due to your skepticism, we now withdraw our first offer. Our second offer is simply that you go away and don’t come back. You can keep the diamonds, but no cash. If you still insist that we prove ourselves to you, then we move on to our third offer.”
Negron stood, and with him Luis.
“This has been all very entertaining, but like you say, this is not a good place for dead bodies, even if you had some way of making that happen. It’s time for you to, as they say, put up or shut up.”
“Very well,” said Don, who also stood, moving behind Elgort’s chair. He took his smart phone out of his breast pocket. “Our third and final offer is that you leave Chicago forever, and you pay us the 3.72 million pesos that you currently have in the bank of Mexico City.”
At the sound of the precise number there was a startled look on Alejandro Luis’s face. He looked at Don as Don pressed a button on his phone, which emitted a small beep.
“I’m sorry to keep you so long,” said Don, putting the phone back in his pocket, and placing his hands on the back of Elgort’s chair. “An associate of ours is very good with computers, but I made the mistake of directing him toward your smartphone, Tony, when actually,” he gestured at Luis, “it turns out that it is your butler’s phone that has access to all of the accounting and financials of Popocatépetl Incorporated. So, it took a little longer.”
Luis had pulled his smartphone from his pocket, and stared at it in horror. I discreetly pushed my chair back from the table. It appeared that the meeting might be over.
Luis stabbed uselessly at the frozen screen and then threw the smartphone across the auditorium, where is smashed on the cement aisle.
“Too late,” said Don.
“Kill them!” yelled Negron.
Don yanked Elgort’s chair backward, onto the two back legs, and began to drag the old man backward to the door, which they were the closest to. Elgort held his cane in his left hand as he pulled the revolver from his right pocket.
All eight of Negron’s men were rushing the man and his great nephew at once, the three furthest back pushing forward, unable to see the threat of the gun until the front five leapt out of the way.
Bang, bang, bang! The gun fired three times, the rubber bullets finding their mark. Two of the men went down hard, but the third, a huge guy with a crew cut took the bullet square in the chest and kept barreling toward them.
Elgort grimaced, and fired again, hitting the man in the groin and the thigh before he went down. In the moment the sightline was clear, Elgort fired the last shot straight at Negron, missing him but hitting Luis in the side of the neck. The rubber bullet broke the tender skin there and blood spurted out and spattered across the long table, which I just happened to be in the process of sliding under.
At this point Don was about five feet from the exit door, and the five remaining henchman were back in pursuit. He whistled loudly and half a second later the door to the room was pulled open by Jorge Alvarez, who had been waiting just outside.
As the chair slid out the door, Elgort tossed his brass tipped cane to Jorge who grabbed it out of the air and swung it into the knee of the first pursuer. He hit the second man in the face, and the third in the chest, but was unable to extract the cane from the man’s grip. With a jerk, the man pulled Jorge to him and grabbed the front of his shirt.
I didn’t see what happened next because Negron yelled, “Get the puta!” as I popped up on the opposite side of the table as him.
“Get me yourelf, jerkwad,” I spat at him as I leapt on to the table and sent a kick at his head. He blocked, just, and I jumped off the table and on top of the arm he had used to shield the kick. I got purchase on his wrist as we both crashed to the floor, pulling his arm up between my legs and twisting it hard with both hands until I heard his elbow snap.
He screamed in pain, and suddenly I was off him and airborne. One of the henchman had run to his aid and simply grabbed me around the waist and thrown me across the room. I landed hard against the first row of auditorium chairs, right next to Jared Dexter, who was still unconscious. I managed to miss the arms of the chair and was cushioned, slightly, by the upholstery. It still winded me.
I sat up and looked around. There were only five people left in the room: Dexter, unconscious; Luis, unconscious and bleeding; Negron, curled on the floor yelling Spanish obscenities; myself; and the henchman, who was coming at me with an angry look on his face. I had hurt Daddy, after all. The three henchman that had been shot with the rubber bullets had all staggered to their feet and out the door, hellbent on catching the old man that had wounded them. I had no idea what happened to Jorge, but he was gone, too. A rubber bullet hurts like hell, and can even kill you if it catches you in just the right place, but these guys were tough and now they were mad.
I scrambled backward up the aisle between seats. I glanced at Negron and saw him use his good arm to reach into his breast pocket and pull out his phone, presumably to call for reinforcements. I can’t say that idea appealed to me.
As Henchy started up the aisle toward me I raced down one of the rows, then hopped over the chair back and over the next and the next until I was back at the front. There was no time to look back for my pursuer; I raced across the floor and threw myself on Negron, grabbing his hand around the wrist as he was trying to push a number into his phone. I sat heavily on his broken elbow, and he loosened his grip enough to allow me to wrench the phone free from his other hand. He may even have passed out, I didn’t know because just as I grabbed the phone I was again picked completely off the ground and thrown across the room. This seemed to be Henchy’s favorite move.
Fortunately, he threw me in the direction of the door. I landed on my feet, but the momentum was too much and I fell sprawling across the floor. The green and red pencils Nick had given me flew out of my pocket and rolled in front of me. I got to my knees as he grabbed me by the hair and the back of the jacket. He was intending to launch me into the air once again, but both my hair and my jacket came off, leaving me in a heap on the floor. The force of his own momentum made him stumble back a few steps, a surprised look on his face as he stared at the black wig in his hand.
I didn’t waste my chance. I grabbed the pencils, scrambled to my feet, and raced out the door and into a scene of utter chaos.
Thirty-three
I’d been in the Modern Wing dozens of times to look a
t the art. I’d been there for two different weddings.
I’d never been there for a riot.
The riot ambiance was quite different. As I ran along the second-floor balcony, I was struck first by the noise. Shouts, occasional gunfire, screams of visitors caught in this unexpected nightmare.
It was clear what had happened. Security had responded, in force, to the sound of gunshots when Elgort fired the revolver. The responding officers and security guards had run straight into Negron’s men as they raced after Don and Elgort, who were now nowhere in sight.
There were several dead or wounded officers on the ground. Negron’s men had overpowered them and taken their weapons. I assumed they had called for reinforcements, and that the police had also called for reinforcements. Soon there would be dozens of armed men assaulting each other in the middle of the greatest art collection on the planet. What the hell had we done?
I glanced up toward the sculpture garden and the foot bridge. That was one way out. No sign of the Shelbys. This made me think of Nicky; I hoped he had left before any of this started. Marty, too, who had been stationed with his laptop in the gift shop downstairs, right below our meeting room.
I turned and headed down to the first floor instead, casting aside my glasses as I went down the stairs. Only Henchy had seen me without my wig, and now with my white blouse instead of my grey suit coat I was betting I could get out of here without any of Negron’s other men noticing me. As long as I didn’t get hit by a stray bullet, of course.
I made the first floor and began working my way toward the exit. Most of the museum guests were gone, out the door or hiding in the galleries or the gift shop. My guess was that Eldon and Elgort would blend in with them, and disappear through the exit. The henchmen were in a pitched battle with the police now, they wouldn’t be able to keep track of who was where.
I made a run across the center of the hall, heading for the door. I was halfway across when I heard Negron’s voice, shouting across the space.
“Stop!” he bellowed, and remarkably, for an instant, everyone did, even the cops. We all swiveled up to look at Negron on the cantilevered staircase, leaning heavily on Henchy, his left arm hanging at a horrible angle.
Negron scanned the crowd and then pointed straight at me.
“My diamonds!” he yelled.
Oops. Did I mention that I pocketed the pouch of diamonds when we were rolling around on the floor together? My bad.
“Kill her!” he shouted, and all eyes turned to me.
I was braced for the end as a shot rang out, followed suddenly by the shattering of the glass door to the street. Before the glass even hit the ground, a motorcycle raced through the opening, its engine roaring throughout the cavernous space.
While attention was diverted I dived behind the Cy Twombly sculpture in the middle of the room. People had broken from their trance, cops were yelling and men in dark suits were firing from positions staked out in the gift shop, the connecting windows all gone. A bullet ricocheted above my head.
I chanced a look around.
Negron was making his way, half carried, up to the third floor, likely looking to escape into the gardens over the Nichols Bridgeway. The motorcycle had made it to the end of the gallery and turned around. The driver was dressed in a bright red, skin tight body suit. It could only be Selena Salerno.
She flipped up the face mask of her red helmet.
“I see you, Red Riley!” she shouted, and started back down the concourse toward me. How did she always recognize me? I had nowhere to go, so I straightened into a fighting stance, even though I had no chance against Salerno in a fist fight, never mind Salerno on a motorcycle.
But, up on the second floor galleries, two brave security guards rushed a Mexican who was searching the gallery, most likely still looking for the Shelbys. They hit him hard, with momentum, and all three of them broke through the floor to ceiling glass, tumbling downward into Griffin Court, and right into the path of the motorcycle.
Salerno tried to swerve, but her front tire hit the leg of one of the guards, sending her skidding to the side. She separated from the motorcycle, coming to a halt on her back in the middle of the floor.
A police officer stepped forward, gun trained on her prone form, but he was almost immediately shot by one of Negron’s men. I screamed as the shot echoed away and the officer dropped to the ground. A brief moment of silence followed; the cops in the building had lost. Two of Negron’s men stood battered and bruised just outside the gift shop, holding pistols that had belonged to the police. One of them had shot the cop, then trained his gun on Salerno. The other had his gun pointed at me. I raised my hands up to shoulder height in surrender, my red pencil clutched in my fist.
In the near distance, the sound of police sirens could be heard through the shattered doors. Lots of sirens. And close.
One of the men looked up at Negron, who had made it to the third floor.
“Boss?” he said, indicating Selena on the floor, still unmoving.
“She’s compromised,” Negron growled in a low voice. “I have no more need of her. Kill them both and bring me the diamonds.”
The man nodded and then brought his gaze back down to me, which was when I shot him in the face with the blow dart. He screamed and reeled backward, tripping over the motorcycle and falling to the ground clutching his face, his gun firing wildly off to the side.
The second man turned on me. Tires squealed as cop cars jumped the sidewalk, blocking the doors. As he pulled the trigger, Selena swept his feet out from underneath him, the bullet whizzing above my left shoulder.
He fell heavily on top of her, but she wasted no time headbutting him with her helmet and rolling him to the side.
I didn’t stay to see the rest, I yanked the motorcycle upright and jumped on, leaving a long strip of black rubber across Renzo Piano’s beautiful floor as I headed away from the police pouring in through the door and back deeper into the museum.
All the people were gone. I weaved in and out of the Asian art, careful not to hit anything. Of all the strange things that had happened this month, this was the strangest: cycling alone through the abandoned Institute.
My reverie was interrupted however by the approaching grand staircase. I bumped down it and into the ticketing and information area. I killed the engine and jumped off the bike, letting it fall over on its side. I ran into the coatroom just as I heard police cars pulling up in front of the main entrance. I grabbed a random trench coat off the rack and headed for the door just as the first officers, decked out in full tactical gear, burst through.
I screamed in terror.
“Get down!” the first one yelled.
Instead I raised my hands in the air, the trench coat still gripped in my left hand.
“Don’t kill me! I just needed my coat!”
A rough hand grabbed me around the waist and half-pushed, half-carried me to the door.
“You can’t be in here ma’am, this is a terrorist attack!”
I screamed again as he pushed me out the door and down the steps past the lions and into the crowd of people gathered there. My head was aching, I may have broken a rib, and my heart was pounding wildly, but I couldn’t help but smile to myself. I slipped into the trench coat and blended into the crowd, turning up the collar as I hurried off down the sidewalk.
A light rain was beginning to fall.
Thirty-four
An hour later I was sitting at the big table on the fourth floor of Shelby Furniture. I was showered and dressed in jeans and a tank top from the clothing collection they kept there. I’d consumed four Advil and two Tylenol with Codeine. I had my hands wrapped around a hot mug of tea, and was having trouble keeping my eyes open.
“And then,” Don says, more animated then I’d ever seen him, “just as the guy puts his hand on my shoulder, Ruby steps up behind him and throws a belt around his neck!”
“My belt!” offered Ellery Park, from her seat across the table.
“So Eller
y catches Uncle Elgort, who’s about to fall because I lost my balance. Ruby puts her foot into the back of the guys knee and brings him crashing down, his head hits the marble, and he’s out.”
I shook my head. “When did you get there?”
“We’d been there the whole time,” Ruby explained, trying not to act too proud of herself. “We weren’t sure what was going to happen, but when it did, whoo boy, it wasn’t hard to miss.”
She saw the pained look on my face.
“What is it?”
“The art.”
“Well, we’ll find out, I’m sure,” said Nick, putting his hand on my shoulder, “but most of the shooting was in the great hall. There’s not much there except glass.”
“The Twombly got hit,” I said.
“Yeah,” replied Park, “but no one is ever going to be able to tell the difference.”
Everyone laughed. There was no getting around it, Park was great kid. Smart, enthusiastic, skilled. I’d done my best to keep her at arm’s length, I didn’t really want anyone else involved in all this, but here she was at the table. I’d failed completely; she was one of us.
“I’m so sorry I left!” Marty blurted suddenly. “I should have helped, but I didn’t realize it was going to get all Reservoir Dogs.”
“You did your part, brilliantly,” Don assured him. “Nick found us, and we were able to get Uncle Elgort and all of us into the elevator just as the shooting started. We went down to the first floor and back into the main part of the museum, and by that time they were evacuating. We just walked out with everyone else.”
I looked at Marty. “The bad guys set up shop in the shop, so if you hadn’t left when you did you would have been in serious trouble.”
Marty ran his hand through his hair, clearly still incredulous about the entire thing. “The gunfight, though, that wasn’t part of the plan, was it?”
“No!” said Don and I at the exact same time.
“Well what happened?”
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