Page 50 of The Picasso Heist

I TELL BERGAMO to pick me up that night in the cheapest car he owns, something inconspicuous. He and his driver show up in a four-door Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT.

“Really?” I say, climbing into the back seat. “The cheapest car you own is a Porsche Turbo?”

At least he got the time and location right—midnight and nowhere near my apartment. The address I gave him is a parking lot on the Lower East Side near the Houston Street entrance to FDR Drive.

Bergamo thinks I’m being silly with the cloak-and-dagger arrangements. There’s a fine line between prudent and paranoid, he tells me, and paranoid never looks good on a woman.

He ain’t seen nothing yet.

“No driver,” I say.

“What? What do you mean?”

“You heard me,” I say. “This trip can only be the two of us.”

“Halston, you haven’t even told me where we’re going,” he says.

“You’ll see.” I lean forward and tap his driver on the shoulder. “No hard feelings, okay? There’s a diner across the street. We won’t be more than an hour.”

Bergamo’s driver doesn’t work for me. He waits on his boss to tell him what to do, his eyes fixed on the rearview mirror.

“Apologies, Nico,” says Bergamo. “Grab some coffee. We’ll be back.”

Nico steps out and I go around and take his place behind the wheel. Bergamo doesn’t budge from the back seat. It figures.

I might be driving, but I’m not about to be his driver. “Get in the front, Enzio,” I say.

“Christ, you’re bossy.” He takes his time walking around the car and plops himself in the shotgun seat with a sigh. “You do have your driver’s license, don’t you?”

I answer by gunning the gas and peeling away from the lot. I think Bergamo curses my name but the screeching tires drown him out.

Porsche. There is no substitute.

After a few blocks I still haven’t told Bergamo where we’re heading, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out.

“Chinatown,” he says. “We’re going to Chinatown?”

“Yes.”

“Are we eating?”

“No,” I say. “Gambling.”

Minutes later, I turn onto Mott Street, then go down an alley that gets only garbage and delivery trucks for traffic. When the sun’s up, at least.

Bergamo chuckles as he looks ahead. “Seriously? Valet parking?”

There are two young guys, Chinese and in their twenties, standing by a small podium near an unmarked door in the alley. One of them holds a clipboard. “Yeah. Valet parking,” I say. “If you’re on the list.”

“And are we?”

I pull to a stop, roll down the window. “Guests of Shen Wan,” I announce.

The guy doesn’t even have to check his clipboard. He nods, opens my door for me. As he leans forward, I spot the holstered gun beneath his jacket.

“Shen Wan? Is he the one?” asks Bergamo as we enter a small, narrow hallway with red velvet drapes lining the walls. “Is he the guy? Shen Wan?”

I ignore the question and tell him to take out his cell. “And anything else that’s metal.”

There are two more guys in front of us, twice the size of their counterparts outside. One’s waving a mag wand—a handheld magnetometer—and the other holds out a couple of Yondr pouches.

Bergamo’s never seen a Yondr before. “What are those for?” he asks.

“You can’t use your phone inside.”

“Forget it. I’m not handing over my phone to anyone.”

“You don’t have to. The pouches lock up the phone. You get to hold on to the pouch.”

I watch as Bergamo’s fashion mind kicks in; he’s obviously thinking about how he could make designer Yondr pouches. The man who got rich with the Bergy bag strikes again.

We get ushered in.

“Is this one of those underground casinos you see in the movies?” whispers Bergamo.

Not exactly.

There are no craps or roulette tables and definitely no slots. There’s only baccarat, a dozen tables or so with a thousand-dollar minimum, and a bar and lounge area. We walk by them all and go into a back room. That’s where the real action is.

Mah-jongg. Only not the way your bubbe plays it. This is ridiculously high stakes, and only men. One of them being Shen Wan.

He’s known me since I was seven. “Lucky Seven” he dubbed me when my father introduced us. As soon as Shen sees me now, he nods.

Bergamo and I stand in the corner, waiting for his game to end, the room silent save for the continuous clacking of mah-jongg tiles. No one gives us a second look. If you’ve made it into the casino, let alone into this room, there’s a reason. It so happens Shen Wan owns the casino.

“What’s funny?” I ask. Bergamo’s chuckling to himself.

“No one in this room knows who I am,” he says. “I mean, maybe they know the name but certainly not the face.”

“They better not.”

It dawns on him. “Yeah, you’re right.”

I know I’m right. No one can know what we’re about to do. No one except for the one man who will make it happen.

Shen Wan walks over and gives me the kind of embrace that says what no words can. I’m like a daughter to him.

He’s maybe an inch or two over five feet, but he carries himself like a giant, and for good reason: In the kingdom of the connected Chinese, Shen Wan is royalty.

After I introduce him to Bergamo, Shen asks if we’d like something to drink. We both decline.

“In that case,” he says, “come with me.”