Sol turned back to the case and tried 986: nothing. He tried 689, and the locks opened. “Got it.” He reset his stopwatch. “Three minutes from now.” He began counting the bundles of hundreds, flipping through them to be sure there was no plain paper hidden there. He saw a postage scale on a nearby credenza and moved it to the conference table and started weighing banded bundles at random: all the same weight. He counted the stacks and rows of bundles and multiplied in his head. Five hundred of them.
Steele had turned on the light box and set the transparency there and was peering first at the light box, then at the painting.
“You have twenty seconds,” Sol said, feeling for the pistol at his belt.
With five seconds to go, Steele switched off the light box. “It’s the authentic painting,” he said.
Sol snapped the case shut, spun the combinations, set it on the floor, and extended the handle. He walked toward the door and stopped. “Nice doing business with you,” he said, and headed for the elevator.
? ? ?
HE STEPPED OUT into the lobby, where his wife awaited, had a quick look around, then, satisfied, handed her the handle to the case. “Out the uptown door and turn right,” Sol said. “I’ll catch up to you in the next block.” She started in that direction and he turned toward the front door.
The van was where he had left it. He got in, started the engine, and pulled out into the traffic, just as a cop came around the corner toward him. He looked straight ahead, ignoring the uniform, then made a right at the corner. He made another right and started looking for his wife. There she was, near the next corner. Sol stopped the van next to her, got out and loaded the heavy case into the rear, while his wife stripped off the FedEx logo from each side of the truck. She got into the driver’s seat while Sol got in beside her and started stripping off his jacket and shirt.
He ripped off the mustache, eyebrows, and goatee and wrapped them in his shirt, along with the tinted glasses, which he had wiped clean. “Take a right on Forty-second Street and head for the tunnel,” he said. “Check your mirrors regularly.” He reached out the window and turned the mirror so that he could see behind them.
“So far, so good,” she said.
Traffic was backed up a block at the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel, and it took another ten minutes before they were inside it. Finally, they broke out on the New Jersey side in bright sunshine and drove normally past the cops stationed there.
“Take 3 West and get off at 17 North,” Sol said. He got out a cell phone and made a call. “Twenty minutes,” he said to the man who answered. “Get your clearance and start an engine.” Twenty minutes later they pulled up at the security booth at an entrance to Teterboro Airport. “November one, two, three, Tango Foxtrot,” she said to the guard, and the bar was raised. They parked the van, and Sol got the case from the rear, while his wife gave the attendant the car rental papers and told him they would pick up the van. Two minutes later they walked out onto the ramp, where the chartered Citation was waiting.
She got onto the airplane, while Sol helped the copilot hoist the case into the rear baggage compartment. “Got your clearance?”
“All the way to Wichita,” he replied. He followed Sol onto the airplane and settled in the right cockpit seat, while Sol strapped himself in next to his wife and put on a headset so he could hear the pilots talking. He heard the other engine start.
“Teterboro ground,” the pilot said, “N123TF is ready to taxi, IFR to Wichita.”
“N123TF, taxi to runway one, via kilo taxiway.”
The pilot repeated the instruction, and the airplane began to move.
There were two aircraft ahead of them waiting for the runway, and another ten minutes passed before they were rolling and rotating.
Sol waited until they were given a higher altitude and had contacted New York Center. “Pilot,” he said.
“Yes, sir?”
“Request a new destination and routing to Anderson, Indiana, identifier AID.”
“Yes, sir.” The pilot did so, and ATC cleared him direct AID, where their car was waiting for them.
Sol sat back in his seat and squeezed his wife’s hand. “Now we can relax,” he said. “We’ll sleep near Chicago tonight and get an early start in the morning. I’ve arranged a charter flight from New Orleans Lakefront to the Caymans the day after tomorrow, and we’ll open a bank account there, then make our way back to New Orleans and drive west.”
She gave him a big, wet kiss.
58
STONE WAS AT HIS DESK in the late afternoon when Arthur Steele arrived, carrying a briefcase.
“Have a seat, Arthur. How did it go?”
Steele placed the briefcase on the desk and opened it. “It went just fine,” he said.
“May I?” Stone asked, reaching for the painting.
“Of course.”
Stone switched on his desk lamp and held the picture up, minus its frame. “Oh, my,” he said. “It’s the first time I’ve seen it.”
“I’d like you to deliver it to Mrs. Tillman,” Steele said.
“I’d be happy to.”
Steele took an envelope from his inside pocket and handed it to Stone. “Your fee,” he said.
Stone removed the check from the envelope, looked at it, and nodded. “Thank you, Arthur.”
“Don’t miss the board meeting tomorrow,” Steele said, rising. “Two PM. I’ll need your support to convince the members that I’ve done the right thing.”
“I don’t think they’ll doubt it for a moment.”
Steele shook his hand and departed.
Stone locked the briefcase in his safe, then phoned Morgan Tillman.
“Well, hello there. I was about to call you and invite you to dinner tonight.”
“Just the two of us?”
“Yes, indeed,” she replied.
“I’ll have a surprise for you.”
“I hope it’s what I think it is,” she said.
“That, and something else.”
“Seven o’clock?”
“See you then.” He hung up and buzzed for Joan.
She came in. “Yes, boss?”
“Deposit this, please,” he said, handing her the check, then asked her to write another.
? ? ?
STONE PRESENTED HIMSELF at Morgan’s door, only fashionably late, and rang the bell.
She opened the door and gave him a big kiss. “Is that my surprise?” she asked, pointing at the briefcase.
“It’s one of them,” he replied.
“Let me fix you a drink first.” She did so.
Stone opened the briefcase, removed the painting, and handed it to her. “I hope you’ll give it a good home.”
She took it and held it under the lamp. “Oh, my God,” she whispered, and brought it toward her lips.
“Don’t kiss it!” Stone said quickly.
“Why not?”
“Because if you do, you may have to someday explain to some expert how van Gogh managed to get lipstick on it.”
She went to the hall closet and came back with the frame that the thief had discarded, and a small tool kit. “Will you rehang it for me, next to the Utrillo there, while I finish cooking? I’ll be done in fifteen minutes.”
“Of course,” Stone replied. She went into the kitchen, and he put the painting carefully back into its frame and secured it. He went to the wall and held it up to the empty space waiting for it. Then, as he started to reach for a hammer, a corner of the van Gogh struck the Utrillo and knocked it off the wall and onto the floor.
“Clumsy ass,” he said aloud to himself, hoping he hadn’t damaged the painting. He picked it up and found it to be heavier than he had expected, then he turned it over and discovered that the picture wire had come loose from the eye screw on one side. And as he did, he saw something that startled him.
Inside the canvas frame of the Utrillo he saw a second canvas frame that fit neatly inside the first. Another painting was concealed there. He found a screwdriver in the tool kit and gently pried the smaller picture out of the larger frame. He set down the Utrillo and turned over the second canvas.
To his astonishment, he found himself looking at another van Gogh, identical to the one he was about to hang. He picked up the framed one and held them up together, then he walked back to the table he had been sitting next to and put both paintings under the lamp. They matched, brushstroke by brushstroke. One of them had to be a fake, but which one?