“Here,” he said, pointing to the table.
“Here?” Grace repeated. The man had been far too passionate about the restoration to have Grace drop it on a rickety table.
“It’s bolted to the floor,” he said, kicking gently at a table leg.
Another man had appeared, a secretary, perhaps, and the three of them together slid the centerpiece out onto the table. The collector sat down in the chair and stared, his hand over his mouth.
“It’s like going back in time,” he said finally.
Grace hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath. He was pleased.
“Yes,” she said.
“Your work,” he said, “is exquisite.”
“Thank you.”
He stood and backed up to the wall, never taking his eyes off the centerpiece. He pushed a button on the wall, just under a small crude oil painting of a pair of goats. She heard it before she saw it: A clear acrylic lid, a bottomless box, was descending from the ceiling on steel wires. The collector and his secretary switched places wordlessly and the collector hurried to the centerpiece. He motioned with his hands for the lid to drop, to pause, to drop a little more, as if he were helping someone park on the street. They stopped when the lid hovered just over the tops of the trees, and they waited until it was completely still in the air and they were sure the centerpiece was correctly positioned under it. Then the secretary pushed the button once more, and the lid settled around the centerpiece with a soft clunk.
The collector relaxed his shoulders and clapped his hands. “I love it!” he squawked. He put his hands on his hips and bent over his new prize.
“Did you see the peaches?” She pointed toward the orchard. “They’re my special favorite.”
He laughed when he saw the bite marks. “However did you do it?” he said. “You must have such steady hands. Me, I can’t even thread a needle.”
When she left, he tried to write her a check, she supposed as a tip. Grace couldn’t take checks; she had no way to cash them. “I couldn’t,” she demurred. “No, please. You paid for our services. That is the arrangement.”
“Please, please,” he said. “You have made me so happy.” He tried again to hand her a check. She saw that he had written it to Hanna Dunaj. Jacqueline must have told him—he might even have e-mailed with Hanna, or spoken to her. Grace had never had such intimate contact with a client.
“Really, I can’t,” she said.
His face changed; he was used to giving people money and used to them wanting it. “Ah,” he said with a thin smile. He withdrew a clip of bills from his pocket and peeled off several of them. He handed her the rest. “You have given me so much joy—you can’t be compensated fairly for that.”
“Thank you, you’re very generous. Would you like a copy of the notes?” she asked him. “You might enjoy reading our notes on the restoration.”
He looked positively aroused. “I would love that,” he said. “Oh do send all the notes, please.”
? ? ?
On the sidewalk, she looked down at her phone. There, a missed call. She thought she might capsize in the wave of relief; the number on the screen was like a hand reaching out for her.
She couldn’t fuck up now.
Outside Zanuso et Filles she pressed the buzzer.
“Who is it?”
Jacqueline never asked who it was. Grace knew she had opened the safe.
“Julie,” she said, calling Alls at the same time. When the phone rang twice, she hung up. She tromped down the stairs, making up for her wobbly-legged anxiety by landing hard on her feet.
Jacqueline was at the door, dry-lipped and wild-eyed. She motioned Grace in and shut the door behind her. “We’ve been robbed,” she said.
“What? When?”
“Over the weekend. The safe is empty.”
“My God,” Grace said. “What was in it?”
Jacqueline pushed her hands through her hair. “Where is she?” she demanded. “Where is Hanna?”
Grace shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do,” Jacqueline said through her clenched jaw. “You two talk all the damn day. Tell me where she is.”
“We’re just work friends,” Grace said limply. “I don’t even know where she lives.”
“She has a key, and he has a key.”
“Jacqui,” Amaury warned her from across the room.
“You’ve called the police?” Grace asked.
“Ha,” Amaury said.
“We have to call the police,” Grace said, stepping toward Jacqueline’s office.
“No! I already called the police. They’ve already been here.” She looked at Amaury, threatening him into believing it, but he was slumped over at his desk, arms crossed, looking at his lap.
“I knew this day would come,” he said.
Jacqueline was almost gasping for breath. “I knew she was a thief,” she said.
“Are you sure it was her?” Grace asked. “She might just be sick.”
Jacqueline rolled her eyes. “You don’t know her,” she said. “Look, her things are gone too.”
Amaury sighed.
“Go home,” she snapped at Grace. “There is nothing to do.”
“I need to be paid,” Grace said. “You said you’d pay me on Friday.”
“Get out!” Jacqueline shouted. “If you ever want to work again, just get out!”
Amaury groaned and stood up. Grace followed him out the door. She had almost a thousand euros in her purse from the collector. She reached in and fingered the bills.
“What will she do?” she asked Amaury outside the building.
He shrugged his soft, hilly shoulders. “What will we do, you mean.” He looked at her tiredly. “The job is gone,” he said, gently breaking the news. “You don’t need to come back.” She threw her arms around him, and he stumbled back in surprise. He gently patted her back, unsure and uncomfortable.
The ship had been going down anyway; he’d known it and so had she. She released him and slipped a hundred euros into his pants pocket. He was far too discombobulated to notice.
“I guess I won’t see you for a while,” she said to him.
“No,” he said.
? ? ?
She had almost a thousand in her pocket but had planned to end the day with ten, and Alls was not expecting her for five more hours. She could have called him and said she was early; they had certainly allowed for the possibility that Jacqueline would close up shop immediately. But Grace had not sold the trillions, and while the money in her pocket was a nice surprise, it was not nearly enough surprise. Maybe she had the time, after all, to try again.
No one would give her a good price for loose diamonds. She had the ring she had taken the diamonds from; she could pop them right back in. But that wasn’t the case she had made to Alls; she had promised him that she could set diamonds stolen from the Joneses into jewelry stolen from the Smiths.
Grace went to the third arrondissement to look for earrings. Her requirements were specific, and she knew she might come up empty. She needed a pair in eighteen-or twenty-two-karat gold with simple, three-prong settings and only semiprecious stones, so she wouldn’t have to go too deep into her pockets to pay for them. Such earrings weren’t fashionable here; she would have had better luck at the Albe-mall.
The small shops had nothing for her. She vowed to give up after two hours, but it didn’t take nearly that long. She found them in Galeries Lafayette for two hundred, white gold with aquamarines. She paid in cash and threw the receipt in the can on the way out. Switching these stones at home would be easy for her, child’s play. She was excited: This wasn’t exactly the plan, but maybe it was better. She would show him. She would show him that he needed her.
? ? ?
Alls was not at home. The jewelry boxes were gone from her desk. He had left her. So tidily, hadn’t even left a mess. Grace leaned back against the wall.