Page 39 of The Picasso Heist

IT’S NOT A crime scene. It’s a crime zip code.

The cops don’t know where to begin their report. Where the painting was stolen? Where the painting was destroyed?

When I make it back to the Echelon building, the first squad car is just arriving.

There’s a large crowd gathered, mostly Echelon employees who have spilled out onto the sidewalk and some lookie-loos who were just passing by.

All of them are fixed on the flashing lights and an apoplectic Enzio Bergamo. No one notices me.

Two officers step out of their car. Both have mustaches, but otherwise they’re polar opposites, short and lumpy walking next to tall and lean.

Waxman and Bergamo come forward and begin to tell them what happened.

I can’t hear every word from the back of the crowd but I can hear enough. A Picasso’s been stolen.

“It’s worse than that,” I announce.

Everyone turns. Now they notice me. I’m disheveled and dripping with sweat, and my face is beet red.

Word about what I did has already spread; no one from Echelon can believe I tried to chase down the thief. But that’s nothing compared to the news I give them.

“Destroyed?”

I’m not sure who echoes the word first; it’s a chorus, but Bergamo absolutely says it the loudest. He borderline screams it and then goes full-tilt crazy before I can give the details—which is exactly how you’d expect Enzio Bergamo to react in this situation.

Waxman tries to calm him down while the cops, like two Moseses, part the crowd and approach me. As everyone steps back, they all see it, and the gasps come one after another in a chain reaction.

I have the Picasso with me. What’s left of it, anyway.

Lying at my feet is the crushed case. Parts of the torn canvas are sticking out of the sides with pieces of the shattered frame dangling. Bergamo, on cue, runs to the remains of his one-hundred-forty-nine-million-dollar investment and drops to his knees like Willem Dafoe at the end of Platoon.

With all eyes on Bergamo, I quickly look across the street to see if Anton Nikolov’s paranoid addition to the party is still lingering. He’s not. Raincoat man is gone.

Waxman finally gets Bergamo to his feet, literally pulling him up and dragging him away so the cops can talk to me directly. They have questions. Everyone has questions. And I have answers.

The first rule of getting away with anything?

Control the narrative.