Page 80 of The Picasso Heist

The more I rub the back of my head, the more Skip ignores me.

“Okay,” he says finally. “You can stop now. I get it. Very funny.”

“You didn’t need to press that hard,” I say.

“Actually, I did.”

“Well, then, you didn’t need to enjoy it so much.”

“Who said I enjoyed it? I never said that.”

“Putting a gun to your little sister’s head? It goes without saying.”

Skip and I both catch the eyes of the driver looking at us in the rearview mirror. What’d she just say? A gun to her head? He quickly looks back at the road.

“She’s kidding. It wasn’t a real gun,” Skip assures him.

“Yes, it was,” I say.

“I mean, it wasn’t loaded.”

“Yes, it was.”

The driver’s not sure what the hell to think. He looks at us again with a nervous smile. “I’ve also got a little sister,” he says.

Skip laughs. “Is she also annoying?”

“Don’t answer that,” I tell the driver.

We hit a red light. Skip pulls his sleeve back to look at the Casio G-Shock he’s been wearing since West Point. “Do these events usually start on time?” he asks.

“Almost never,” I say.

“And you know that because you’ve been to, like, what? Zero fashion events?”

“First of all, they’re called fashion shows, not events. Second, unless you live in a cave, everyone knows that. Oh, wait, that’s right. You’ve actually lived in a cave.”

My brother just loves it when I reference his time in the hills of Afghanistan, especially in public. He glances at our driver again before giving me his patented put-a-sock-in-it sidelong glare, as if the man might be a Russian intelligence agent.

“You’re a riot,” says Skip. “Real funny, metalhead.”

That earns him an elbow to the ribs, which triggers his trying to flick my earlobe. We’re officially two kids in the back seat who need to be separated.

Are we there yet?

Ten blocks later we pull up in front of Spring Studios on Varick Street in Tribeca.

The paparazzi and Kardashian fan clubs have dispersed, and the fashion beat reporters have made their way inside, but the red carpet remains.

We step out and I call the senior of the two cops who arrived ahead of us to make sure they’re in place.

“Here,” I say, handing Skip his lanyard.

He gives it a look and chuckles before hanging it around his neck. “VIPs, huh?”

“I know. Gotta love the irony.”

Bergamo has not only invited us to his own demise; he’s given us backstage passes.