Sex, Lies & Serious Money

44

Sofia/Maria got off the train and grabbed a cab to Marv’s apartment. He was surprised to see her. “I thought you’d be gone for a week.”

“I got lucky and made a good score.”

“How good?”

“Good enough for it to be dangerous to keep on. They were looking for me. I changed trains and came back.”

“I’m glad you had a good score, because I’m scraping bottom,” he said.

She produced a wad of bills and handed it to him. “There’s five grand. Now you can take me out to dinner.”

She chose an elegant Italian place on the East Side, Caravaggio, where they knew her and gave her an excellent table. Menus were brought and drinks ordered. “Try the osso buco,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“A calf’s shank, cooked a long time, served with risotto.”

“Okay.”

An hour later they ordered brandy. “Okay,” she said, “why are you running on empty?”

“I had the Barrington place set up to get cleaned out. The pictures alone are worth a couple of hundred grand, at least.”

“What happened?”

“A lot of security equipment suddenly appeared. The cops were all over me both times.”

“You went there twice? You must be nuts.”

“I was getting desperate for money.”

“Do you know if you got made?”

“I was talking to Butch in Central Park, and two cops rumbled me. I outran them, but I think they must know what I look like.”

“If they know what you look like, they know who you are. Who’s Butch?”

“A guy I knew in the joint. He put me on to the place at the Fairleigh.”

“What’s the Fairleigh?”

He told her the story.

“Sounds like they’ve got cameras there, too.”

“I guess.”

“What did you hope to find there?”

“Butch and I stole some checks and cleared three hundred grand with them.”

“And now you’re skint? What happened to the money?”

Curly looked sheepish. “The ponies took it from me.”

“You’re starting to look like a bad risk, Marv. I think you’d better get out of town — for a long time.”

“Got any ideas?”

“You say Barrington’s place has a lot of art? How do you know it’s worth anything?”

“I read a lot in prison. I recognized some of the artists, particularly Matilda Stone.”

“Who’s that?”

“An American painter. He’s got maybe a dozen of her paintings.”

“And how do you get rid of stuff like that?”

“I know a fence who deals in high-quality stuff. He’ll take them off me. I reckon my end would be a hundred grand, maybe more.”

“Tell me about the cameras.”

“Nothing to tell — they’re invisible, at least to me.”

“Then how do you know they’re there?”

“Because the cops were all over me. I came in through the front door, picked the lock both times. There’s a security box in a front hall closet, but the system wasn’t armed either time. Still, I heard the cops coming after I’d been in the house maybe three minutes. They even tried to cut off my escape route through the common garden. They had to know I was there, so I figure cameras.”

“Makes sense,” she said. “Do you know where the pictures are?”

“Four of them are in the living room, another four in the study.”

“You said there were a dozen.”

“I’m guessing. I did some research at the library and Matilda Stone is Barrington’s mother, and he owns at least a dozen of her works. She’s got stuff in the Metropolitan Museum. I figure the others are in the bedroom.”

“And this fence is ready to take them off your hands?”

“Cash on delivery, ten grand a picture.”

“So the eight you’re sure about are worth eighty grand to you?”

“Right.”

“Marv, it sounds to me like you’d enjoy a spell in Florida. I know how to make you comfortable there.”

“That’s where you live?”

“It is. And it’s warm all winter. Have you ever spent a winter in a warm place?”

“No, and I think I’d like that.”

“You bet your sweet ass you would. Now all I have to do is to think of a way to crack the Barrington place.”

“You do that,” Curly said.

“Leave it to me. How about the Fairleigh place? He got any pictures?”

“Now that you mention it, yes — more than Barrington, maybe. There’s four Milton Averys.”

“Who’s Milton Averys?”

“Avery — another American painter.”

“You’re sounding like quite the art expert.”

“I told you, I was always reading when I was in prison.”

“Time well spent.”

“The Averys are only worth five grand apiece from the fence.”

“Still.”

“Yeah, still.”

“You know anything about alarm systems?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Well, Marv, what if we cut the power to the system?”

“They’ve got battery backups.”

“Ah. When are the alarm systems not armed?”

“When the people are there.”

“Or when they go out and forget to arm them, right? That worked twice for you.”

“Yeah, but Barrington has two systems — one for the motion detectors and the door and window sensors, the other for the cameras.”

“The cameras are no good unless somebody’s watching, right?”

“Yeah, I hadn’t thought of that. They record when nobody’s watching, though.”

“We don’t care if they record, if they can’t identify us. In fact, they’ve already identified you, so it doesn’t matter if they make you again.”

“It matters when they show the tapes at my trial.”

“Well,” she said, “there is that.”