Quick & Dirty

35

Art Masi walked into Stone’s outer office.

“Good morning, Lieutenant Masi,” Joan said.

“Good morning, Joan. Is he in?”

“I’m afraid not,” she said. “He left about forty minutes ago, and he didn’t say when he’d be back.”

Art stared at her. “Was he carrying anything?” he asked.

“Just a briefcase.”

“Joan, not to pry, but does he keep much in the way of cash around the office?”

She looked at him. “He has a safe,” she said.

“Oh, shit,” Art muttered.

Stone woke up, slowly and painfully, in the office at the back of Sam Spain’s Bar. He was alone in the room, but he wasn’t going anywhere. His hands and feet were duct-taped to a heavy wooden armchair; there was a ball of something cottony in his mouth and a strip of tape around his head to keep it there.

He took a few deep breaths through his nose to clear his head and, he hoped, help the pain in his head go away. That didn’t work. He looked at a clock on the wall and did some arithmetic: he’d been out for twenty minutes or so. He felt nauseated, but he couldn’t afford to vomit — he could easily strangle to death.

The office door opened and a man walked in: short, dark, mustached, carrying something in his hand. Stone closed his eyes and prepared to be hit again. Instead, something cold was pressed over and around his left ear.

“It’s just some ice,” the man said. “It’ll make you feel better.”

It did. The nausea backed off, and so did the pain, a good bit.

“It was an old-fashioned cosh,” the man said. “A couple of pounds of lead shot in a leather bag. My wife sewed it.”

Stone tried to thank him, but all he could produce was a grunt through his nose.

“I’ll take off the gag if you promise not to yell. Then I’d have to cosh you again.”

Stone nodded.

The man snatched off the tape.

Stone took a deep breath and blew the wad out of his mouth. “Ow,” he said, if a little late.

“That’s better, isn’t it?”

“Much better, thanks. How about my hands and feet?”

“Not just yet,” the man said. “Sam’s gonna come in here and talk to you in a minute, and my advice is to be nice. If you cooperate, you might get out of here under your own steam. If not, well, there’s a little river under this place that runs pretty fast all the way to the East River. It would be something like getting flushed down a really big toilet. You getting the picture?”

“That’s the question I came here to ask,” Stone said.

The door opened and Sam Spain walked in. “And I’m ready to answer it,” he said. “I want five million.”

“I’ll have to ask,” Stone said.

“Ask who?”

“The CEO of the insurance company.”

“So call him.”

“Hard to do,” Stone said, “in the circumstances.”

“Free up his left hand,” Sam said to his man.

The man did so.

Stone flexed his fingers to get rid of the numbness. “Give me a minute,” he said.

“Take your time,” Sam said.

“Joan,” Art Masi said, “can you get Dino Bacchetti on the phone for me? If he’s tied up, tell whoever answers it’s an emergency.”

“Sure,” Joan said, and made the call.

“Okay, I think the hand’s working now,” Stone said.

Sam picked up Stone’s iPhone from his desk, where it rested near his little Colt Government .380, and placed it in Stone’s hand.

“It has to read my right thumb,” Stone said, “or it won’t turn on.”

Sam nodded to his man, who cut loose Stone’s other hand.

Stone pressed his thumb against the phone and it opened. He went to his contacts and selected Arthur Steele’s private line.

Arthur answered immediately. “Yes?”

“It’s Stone. A man who says he has the picture wants five million for it.”

“Have you seen it?”

“Hang on.” Stone looked up at Sam Spain. “I have to see the picture,” he said. He watched very carefully as Spain walked to a large safe and tapped in a code.

Spain reached into the safe and extracted a laundry bag. He opened it, produced a picture, sans frame, and held it in front of Stone.

“It’s upside down,” Stone said.

Sam turned it 180 degrees. “Well?”

“In my briefcase there’s an envelope containing a photograph of the painting. I’ll have to compare the two.”

“Go get his briefcase,” Sam said to his man.

“Hang on, Arthur,” Stone said.

“Commissioner, this is Art Masi.”

“Be quick, Masi.”

“I think Stone Barrington has gone up to Harlem to try and buy the van Gogh from Sam Spain. He took...” He looked at Joan and raised his eyebrows questioningly.

“Thirty-five thousand dollars,” she replied. “It was all the cash we had.”

“Thirty-five thousand dollars,” Art said into the phone.

“And a gun,” Joan said. “His .380.”

“And he’s carrying.”

“How long ago?”

“Maybe three-quarters of an hour.”

“Have you called his phone?”

“Just a minute, Commissioner.” He turned to Joan. “Please call his cell phone.”

Joan did so. “It’s busy,” she said.

“The line is busy, Commissioner.”

Stone held up the transparency to the overhead light and compared it to the picture, then he picked up his phone. “Arthur, the picture matches the transparency.”

“Are you there with the guy with the picture?” Arthur asked.

“Yes.”

“Ask him why I should pay five million dollars for a fake.”

Stone sighed. “Sam,” he said, “he wants to know why he should pay five million dollars for a fake van Gogh.” Stone held up the phone so Arthur could hear the reply.

Sam sort of smiled. “Tell him he’ll get the picture, plus you without any extra holes in your head.”