Nighthawks

by Lambert Nagle

  ‘See Daddy, Grandpa said he made a special kid size door. And he said, you’d never fit in there.’ Mollie couldn’t stop giggling.

  ‘Can you stand aside for me honey so that I can see what’s in there?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Joe lay on his front, his shirt rucked up and heaved himself as close to the doorway as he dared. It would be just his luck to get stuck. He fumbled in his pocket for his phone, raised his arm and lifted his head as he shone the torch app into the room. Inside, it was round like a cave. It reminded Joe of the houses in that film where that hobbit kid goes in search of a ring.

  The room was stuffed with paintings, all in old frames. So was the old man’s house, but they were on the walls, not hidden away in a secret cave in his son’s house.

  Joe had hated his trips to those museums and galleries the old man had dragged him and Luca to, but right now he wished he’d paid more attention. What the hell were these paintings? He’d need help to find out.

  ‘Mollie, I want you to do something for Daddy. I want you to take his phone and take a picture of all the pictures. You know how to do that?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  Mollie stuck her hand out and Joe passed her the phone. She walked around the room and when the flash went off the room lit up.

  ‘Can I put the light on Daddy?’ Molly chirped up.

  ‘There’s a light switch?’ Joe said.

  ‘Yep,’ Molly said as the room lit up.

  Now he could see better, the painting Mollie had copied, which was much larger in real life, was partly visible. He felt proud. She’d done a pretty good job at capturing the wooden ship at sea. The painting had been signed. There was a capital letter R followed by e, m then the letter b. The remaining letters he couldn’t quite make out.

  Mollie walked over to her father and handed him the camera back. ‘Can I go back and play now?’

  ‘Of course you can, honey,’ Joe said. ‘When you’ve finished playing, come find Daddy in his office. He’s got work to do. One last look at the ship, then we’ll close the cave.’

  Joe stared at the sailing ship again. He hated boats and just looking at the sea made him feel seasick. The old man had been the same. The only thing he’d been interested in was rubbing out his rivals and keeping the feds off his back, until that priest came along and got him seriously into art.

  Joe took his phone out and scrolled through the photos Molly had taken of the paintings. He opened the photo of the ship and enlarged the signature. What had the old man said when the priest was praying over him?

  That he didn’t know what to do. And then his yes-man had said that he must do what he believed was right. Joe had got bored listening in by then but had pricked up his ears when the old man had said, “they’re safe.”

  Not any more they aren’t, Pop, when one of them turns out to be a freakin’ Rembrandt. Even your numbskull of a younger son has heard of that dude.

  Joe was in his office, late at night when his Italian burner phone rang. He glanced down. It was the snitch.

  ‘What do you have for me?’

  While they talked, Joe typed ‘missing Rembrandt’ into a search engine.

  ‘It’s about the priest.’

  ’That loser?’ Joe sneered.

  ‘A cop from Boston PD flew over to talk to him. They met at cop HQ.’

  ‘What the fuck?’

  ‘It’s a cold case they’ve reopened. New evidence.’

  ‘Which cop?’ Joe said.

  ‘Cormac Hannigan.’

  Whatever the priest had heard or seen, the Boston PD thought it was important enough to fly all the way over to Italy to speak to him. It could only be to do with something he or the old man had done.

  ‘That priest,’ he exclaimed. ‘He’s nothing but trouble,’ he said before hanging up and calling the duo he’d sent round to intimidate McCarthy.

  ‘Don’t let the priest out of your sight.’ Joe said. ‘He’s been blabbing to the Feds.’

  ‘Okay boss. Did you want us to lean on him again about the painting?’

  ‘I told you to wake that kid, didn’t I?’

  ‘Yes boss. I’ll do it straight away.’

  Still bristling with anger, Joe put his phone away. He’d deal with McCarthy and Hannigan later.

  Looking back at the search results, he clicked through the top link and found himself staring at the FBI’s Most Wanted list. He sat there for a moment, dumbstruck. He couldn’t see beyond the words “five-million-dollar reward.” He read on. “…for information leading directly to the recovery of the artwork in good condition.” Thirteen paintings stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum in Boston, the night after St Paddy’s day.

  He’d been a teenager when the thieves had struck. They’d laughed at the timing—the city full of revellers weaving their way home, too drunk to notice that the world’s biggest art heist was taking place right under their noses.

  And his old man did this? Joe’s grudging admiration soon turned sour. He wouldn’t have put it past him to have worked out that by the time the FBI found out, he’d be dead. Using his own son’s house as a secret dumping ground for stolen paintings meant it would be Joe who got the blame. He could argue that he’d been too young to pull off a heist like that, but it wouldn’t matter. They’d just say he had to be involved. All the evidence would point to him. As far as his old man was concerned, it was the perfect crime.

  On top of it all, Pop had used his own grand-daughter to get revenge on Joe. The innocent little girl had kept it a secret all this time. All Joe had to do was to get her to keep it a little longer.

  Yet Pop’s devious plan was dependent on one thing—that the FBI did find out. But that meant he’d told someone, and that someone could only be the priest. He can’t have told him in confession—priests had some strict rule where you had to keep schtum. But if his father had said something afterwards when they were chatting, that was fair game. That last visit, Pop was so far gone he went and died on the spot, right in the middle of the Last Rites.

  Now the priest was talking to the Boston PD. What about? Had Pop managed to sneak some kind of message across? Joe needed to find out before he made a decision. He dialled his police informer.

  ‘Find out what cold case Cormac Hannigan is working on. I want to know what new evidence they’ve found.’

  So far, only three people knew about the cave. One of them was dead, and the other was Mollie. Even if the old man had told the priest about the existence of the stolen paintings, he wouldn’t have risked telling him where they were hidden.

  Had his father found out that he and Luca were together down at the river when his brother slipped and fell? Had he hidden the paintings in Joe’s house as payback for Luca’s death?

  Two could play at that game. All he had to do was find a way of levelling the score. He’d do it by setting up an elaborate sting. Five million dollars to be paid into an untraceable offshore account in exchange for a Get Out of Jail Free card when the paintings were returned.

  He scrolled through his phone and looked at the photographs of the stolen paintings and counted them off one by one. Eleven, that couldn’t be right. There were meant to be thirteen. The five million was for the recovery of all the paintings. He counted again. Damn it, he’d have to find a way of drilling into the cave as Mollie called it, so he could see if she’d missed any. And he’d have to do that when she and Carmela were out of the house.

  The next morning Mollie was beaming as Joe was driving along.

  ‘I can’t wait for school, Daddy.’

  ’That’s cute honey. What’s happening today?’ He smiled into the driver’s mirror and glanced back at her. There she was as proud as punch, sitting up in her little kid seat.

  ‘Show and Tell.’

  ‘What did you bring?’ Joe asked.

  ‘A picture with ponies Daddy. Can I have a pony?’

  ‘We’ll see. It must be a very little picture if it fits in your backpack,’ Joe said, chang
ing the subject.

  ‘It’s a kid picture,’ Mollie said.

  Joe slowed to a stop and opened the car door as he parked on double yellow lines outside the school. He unclipped Mollie’s car seat and she wriggled out, grabbing her pink backpack, hoisting it on her shoulders before he could help.

  ‘I can do it.’

  ‘Alright honey, see you tonight. Mommy will pick you up. Daddy has to go to work,’ Joe called out, before driving off.

  He was getting better at the school run. When she first started there, he’d worried that his rivals would find out that Mollie was his daughter and try to kidnap her. He got a lump in this throat just thinking about that.

  Chapter 22

  The school desks were angled in a U-shape for Show and Tell. Mollie’s teacher, Miss Arnott, a young woman in her twenties clapped her hands.

  ‘Thank you, Amelia. You can go back to your desk. Mollie, would you like to come up and tell us all about your Show and Tell?’

  Molly blushed. ‘Yes Miss Arnott.’

  On Mollie’s desk was a package wrapped in tissue paper, about the size of Miss Arnott’s hand. She unwrapped her painting and walked up to the front and beamed at her classmates.

  ‘Hold up your picture so that everyone can see and off you go.’

  ‘This is from the cave that my grandpa made. I like it because it’s small but has ponies in it. I like ponies. Is that enough Miss Arnott?’

  Lisa Arnott could scarcely believe what she was seeing. The “pony picture”was a watercolour, no bigger than a postcard, depicting racehorses and their jockeys lining up for the start of a race, surrounded by a crowd dressed in frock coats and top hats. The detail was extraordinary. And what stood out was that the artist had chosen to depict the horses and the crowds with their backs to the viewer, to give the effect of the subjects on the move, disappearing into the distance. The painting brought back memories of that trip to Europe, that she’d scrimped and saved for in a desperate attempt to turn her Master of Fine Art into a career. It was painful to think how unworldly she’d been, pinning her hopes on a job at the end of it. Yet no gallery would offer her one. Why would they, when they had the pick of eager, rich kids, who would work for nothing?

  ‘Thank you, Mollie,’ she said as she got up to usher the child back to her seat, and to get a closer view of the painting. ‘If you leave your picture here on the front table we’ll have everyone up with theirs and put them on display.’ She pulled out her phone and took a photo of Mollie’s picture while the next child walked up to the front of the class to say his piece.

  At recess, instead of heading for the staff room, Lisa stayed behind in the classroom and took her phone out to look at Mollie's picture. Fortunately she wasn’t on schoolyard duty and had already prepared her lesson plans for the day.

  She ruled out Stubbs and other British artists from the eighteenth century who painted prized animals for the wealthy. Mollie’s picture was more urban: a day at the races, in a big city, perhaps, with racegoers and jockeys alike sharing their excitement. She’d seen those sepia and orange tones before. Then it struck her. It was in Paris at the Musee d’Orsay, the home of Impressionism. She scrolled through her phone. And sure enough, there were many similar scenes in paintings by Degas. But had he really painted something that tiny?

  Lisa looked at her watch. The bell was about to ring and soon the keen ones would be trooping back into the classroom. She walked up to the Show and Tell display table and quickly took a measurement. The painting was just four inches by six inches.

  She’d give it one last shot. She typed in the search bar for the smallest watercolour of horses and jockeys painted by Degas. And what popped up stopped her in her tracks: “La Sortie Du Pesage (Leaving the Paddock), once stored in cabinets in the Short Gallery, shows two horses and their jockeys lining up for the start of a race, surrounded by a crowd. It is one of five Degas works on paper stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and the most highly valued among them.”

  It could be a print, or even a forgery. One thing Lisa knew about Degas was that he had the misfortune to be one of the most frequently forged artists of all time. The rational approach was to find a way to keep the Show and Tell display there, while she got to the bottom of the mystery. She tried to push away a niggling thought; what should she do if, after all her investigations, the painting turned out to be genuine? And what would she do if she came face to face with Mollie’s father?

  Carmela hadn’t been feeling well and cancelled her yoga class, so Joe hadn’t managed to get back into the cave that day. Instead he’d been working hard, putting pressure on his Boston PD informer.

  A witness had come forward claiming to have seen Luca’s death all those years ago. He said he’d been running under the Eliot bridge on the Boston side of the Charles late at night and was by the woods when he saw two men pushing each other by the water’s edge. He heard a splash and cries for help. The witness claimed he’d had to run all the way to the Harvard campus to find a security guard to call 911 but had been too traumatised to give a statement to police at the time. That had been enough for a judge to give the Boston PD authority to re-open the case. Add that to McCarthy’s testimony, and Joe had a serious problem.

  He called Rome. It went straight to voicemail. ‘It’s time,’ he said. All that was left was to find the Boston witness. Joe was so busy thinking about what he’d do, when he found out who it was, that he was late to pick up Mollie. What if someone found out, came to collect her and they convinced the school to hand her over? He narrowly missed slamming into the truck in front at the thought.

  His cold sweat didn't let up until he got there to find her waiting patiently for him. He’d felt so bad that when she’d talked non-stop, he hadn’t had the heart to interrupt her. When they got home, he’d fixed her a snack of fruit and then snuck a cookie onto her plate while her mom wasn’t looking.

  ‘Honey, did you put all the photos of the paintings in the cave on my phone?’ Joe asked. ‘I counted eleven.’

  Mollie stood in front of her father, playing with her hair. She rested her index finger on her chin and frowned.

  ‘No, there’s one more.’

  ‘You forgot it? Can you go back into the cave and photograph that one for Daddy?’

  Mollie squirmed, embarrassed. ‘I took it out of the cave. And put it in my schoolbag ready for Show and Tell.’

  Joe stopped in his tracks.

  ‘Your schoolbag? How did that fit a painting?’

  Mollie stared at her father.

  ‘I told you I had a picture. A kid sized one, remember? Did I do something wrong?’

  ‘No honey, you didn’t do anything bad. You showed it to Miss What’s Her Name, the other kids and then what?’

  Mollie giggled. ‘Miss Arnott not What’s Her Name. Miss Arnott said we could have our Show and Tells up until Friday. I’ll draw it for you if you like.’

  ‘Daddy would love that. Now you run along and get your crayons,’ Joe said.

  ‘Okay.’ Mollie skipped out the room.

  With his little girl out the way, Joe pulled up the FBI website once again. He typed in “smallest painting stolen” and sure enough, up popped “a tiny watercolour measuring four inches by six inches.” He held up his palm. He could fit the damn thing in his hand.

  He looked at it closely. The kid had been right. It was a pony picture, but one that had the potential to make him five million dollars richer.

  Mollie had slipped back into his office and was quietly drawing. Joe had calmed down now. If he called the school and made a fuss, it would alert them that something was up with that picture. If Mollie was allowed to bring it home on Friday as planned nobody would be any the wiser. All he had to do was to be sure he was the one who collected her from school. Then he would have twelve paintings. But there was a problem. He was as far away from five million dollars as he’d ever been. He desperately needed to find one more.

  Rome, Italy

  * * *

/>   A male nurse, dressed in scrubs, walked down a corridor and slipped through a door marked Disposal Room. He opened a plastic bin marked flammable, pulled a lighter from his pocket, and held it until it lit a paper hospital gown. He opened the door, quietly checking the coast was clear before walking out.

  As he approached the nurses’ station, the smoke alarm sounded. The nurse on duty called out,

  ‘Did you smell smoke on your way past? I think it’s coming from the disposal room.’

  ’No. Could be a spider that crawled in there and set it off.’

  The duty nurse walked off, calling out behind her.

  ‘You’re probably right. Better go and check, though.’

  With the duty nurse out of the way, the male nurse checked each room one by one, before walking towards an annexe where the more serious cases were kept.

  A cop stood outside one particular door. The male nurse hurried towards the police officer, shouting over the ringing of the fire alarm.

  ‘You need to get out of here’.

  The cop looked at Bruno through the glass in the door. ‘What about him?’ he said.

  ‘I’ll look after him, you call the fire department,’ the nurse said, urgently.

  The cop left his station and ran down the corridor as the male nurse pulled the door into Bruno’s room open.

  Bruno was lying on his back, his left wrist connected to an arterial line. Another IV line was connected to his groin. His breathing was smooth and rhythmic.

  The nurse pulled on gloves, then slipped a prepared syringe with a long, thin needle full of clear liquid out of a box and laid it down.

  He pulled back the sheet and examined Bruno’s torso. He was a bag of bones and his ribs stuck out. The nurse counted to the fourth intercostal space and pulled the cap off the syringe. He slid the plunger back and with his other hand felt for the gap between the ribs in one smooth motion, before plunging the needle in.

  The nurse looked at his watch and counted. Never had thirty seconds gone by so slowly. A minute in and still nothing. He double-checked the syringe. It was empty. Then, Bruno began to shake. He sat up suddenly, eyes wide open.