Shortly after Roach clocked out for the day, Nikki heard Rook amble up behind her chair and watch her computer slide show of the pictures from Barbara Deerfield’s camera. The photography was not the best. Straight-?on flat shots of every painting snapped in pairs, one in natural light followed by a twin but using flash.
“Clearly these were for internal reference only. You wouldn’t put them in a brochure or on the Web site,” she said.
“So these were like her notes from the meeting with Matthew Starr.”
“Right. And Lauren, my, what did you call her—my ghoul friend—called and confirmed her time of death as sometime around noon that same day.” Nikki continued to click through each of the shots.
Rook must have read her mood, because instead of a victory gloat, he watched silently for a while. But only a while, before he said, “Are you free tonight?”
She continued to click the mouse, maintaining a cadence, enjoying her private art show, or looking for clues, or both. “I’m going to be working tonight.”
“This is work. How would you like to meet New York’s greatest art thief? Well, retired art thief.”
A tiny thrill buzz hit Nikki and she spun around to face him. “Casper?”
“You know him?”
“I know of him. I read the profile you did on him for Vanity Fair a few years ago.” She regretted it the moment she said it. But it was out there now.
“You read my article?”
“Rook, I read. I read a lot of stuff. Don’t get yourself in a lather.” She was trying to downplay it, but she’d shown her hand.
“Anyway,” he said, “I was thinking if someone’s trying to move art in this city, Casper would know.”
“And you can arrange for me to meet him?”
Rook hit her with a faceful of mock disdain.
“Right,” she said, “what was I thinking? You’re Mr. First-?name-?basis.”
He got out his cell phone and scrolled through the contacts. Without looking up at Nikki, he said, “That Vanity Fair piece was five years ago. And yet you remembered it?”
“It was good. Informative.”
“And you remembered I wrote it?”
“…Yes.”
Then he looked up at her. “Informative.”
In the ghetto of antiques galleries south of Union Square, a dictionary’s toss from the Strand Bookstore, Heat and Rook approached a single glass door between a Shaker furniture house and a rare maps shop. An eye-?level door sign in 1940s style gold leaf read, “C. B. Phillips—Fine Acquisitions.” Nikki reached to press the buzzer embedded in the metal frame. “I wouldn’t do that,” said Rook.
“Why not?”
“Don’t insult the man.” He held up a forefinger to say, Wait a sec. It was actually two seconds before the buzzer sounded. Rook said, “He’s Casper. He knew, he always knows,” and pushed the door open.
They climbed a flight of polished blond hardwood stairs through a mellow downdraft, the ghost scent of an old public library. At the landing, Nikki took in the room and was reminded of one of the Truths of New York City: You can never tell from the door what’s behind a door.
The hushed showroom of C. B. Phillips Fine Acquisitions sat one flight of stairs from Broadway but was a time journey across latitudes, to a vast drawing room empty of people and teeming with dark, heavy furniture in velvets, and needlepoints lit low below the tasseled maroon shades of small table lamps and muted ochre wall sconces. Clubby artworks of maritime scenes, bulldogs in military dress, and cherub architects adorned walls and carved mahogany easels. Nikki looked up and was staring at the pattern of the vintage stamped tin ceiling, when the soft voice right beside her made her jump.
“It’s been too long, Jameson.” His words were whiskey soft, carried on candle smoke. In it, there was a hint of Euro-?somewhere she couldn’t pinpoint but found pleasant. The dapper old man turned to her. “I apologize if I startled you.”
“You came out of nowhere,” she said.