Page 9 of The Picasso Heist
THERE’S NOTHING LIKE a mic drop for a moment of clarity. Nice work, Wolfgang.
Nikolov watches him walk off, then his eyes snap back to the painting. He’s marveling at what it is. Or, more accurately, what it isn’t. There’s a fake Picasso hanging in MoMA, one of the most famous modern-art museums in the world.
“The kid’s got balls,” mutters Nikolov, and as soon as he says it I know two things for sure.
One, Nikolov is on board.
Two, the real power play is yet to come.
“Should we talk more elsewhere?” I ask.
“Yeah,” says Nikolov. He points at Blaggy. “Go with her to the car. I’ll be there in a few minutes. I need to make a call.”
Blaggy escorts me downstairs, out of the museum, and into a black stretch limousine parked near the corner of Fifty-Third Street and Sixth Avenue. Less than twenty-four hours earlier, Blaggy had a gun pressed against my head. Now he’s opening doors for me.
I’m alone in the back of the limo. The partition’s up so I can’t see the driver, but I can hear him lower his window and make some small talk with Blaggy, who’s waiting out on the sidewalk.
I immediately text Skip, and he answers my question before I can even ask it.
Yes, he tells me, Nikolov indeed just called someone from inside the museum.
With the spyware Skip uploaded, we can now track Nikolov’s location through his cell and see phone numbers of incoming and outgoing calls.
Skip’s already run a trace on the guy Nikolov’s chatting with now—it’s one of his attorneys.
He has several on retainer, mostly for business, legitimate and otherwise, and he also has one personal attorney, a limelight-loving shark named Peter Hammish.
It’s Hammish whom he’s suddenly had the urge to talk to.
Skip texts again minutes later to tell me Nikolov is off the call and heading out.
I stash my phone and wait. The limo door soon opens and in climbs Nikolov, followed by Blaggy. They both sit opposite me. I’m looking only at Nikolov.
“I want it for myself,” he announces.
“Excuse me?” I heard him perfectly.
“You want my help to steal a Picasso and replace it with a fake. Then you want to sell the real Picasso on the black market for roughly sixty cents on the dollar. You get ten million, and I keep the rest. That’s what you’re proposing.”
“That’s right,” I say. “It’s your manpower, and you’d have the bigger exposure—you get the lion’s share of the money. Figure fifty million, just like I told you.”
“And I don’t want the money, is what I’m telling you. I want the actual painting.”
“But there is no money without selling the painting.”
“You’re not thinking big enough,” he says.
“Okay, then. What do you have in mind?”
“You have to be a member of Echelon to bid on the painting at auction, right? I’m not a member, which is why you initially said we can’t control who buys it.”
“Exactly,” I say.
“But what if we could?” he asks.
“What do you mean?”
“What if we knew exactly who was going to buy the painting?”
“In other words, we’d somehow be working with a member,” I say.
“That would open up some other revenue possibilities, wouldn’t it?”
“I can think of one.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m thinking of the same one,” says Nikolov.
“Which is why it’s impossible.”
“Nothing’s impossible.”
“This isn’t like asking someone for a favor. We’re talking about fraud,” I say. “Why would any Echelon member take the risk?”
“Normally they wouldn’t.”
“So why are you smiling like that?”
“You’re right, this isn’t like asking someone for a favor,” he says. “But what if I was the one who was owed the favor?”
“You have someone in mind, don’t you?”
“I do. There’s a member of Echelon who owes me.”
“Are you talking a dollar amount?” I ask. “Someone who owes you money?”
“Not exactly. Let’s just say he’s in my debt.”
“You really think he would do it?”
“I do. But he’ll need some convincing. We’ll need to work him a little bit.”
“The auction’s in three weeks. We don’t have a lot of time.”
“Then we better not waste any,” he says. “What size dress do you wear?”
“What size?”
“Yes. You need a dress.”
“What makes you think I don’t own a dress?”
“I’m sure you do. You just don’t own the kind you’re going to need Saturday night.”
“What’s happening Saturday night?” I ask.
“You’re going to a party.”
“Because the guy who owes you a favor—”
“Will be there, yes,” says Nikolov.
“How do you know?”
“Because it’s his fucking party.”
“So you’re invited?”
“No, actually, I’m not. So we’re both not. But with the right dress, you won’t need an invitation. Do you know what I mean?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” I say. “I do.”
“And do you already own a dress like that?”
“No. Not exactly.”
“Докато умните умуват, лудите лудуват,” he says.
“I don’t speak Bulgarian.”
Blaggy translates. “‘While the supposed smart ones are thinking, the crazy ones are doing.’”
Nikolov leans forward, rests his forearms on his knees. His stare burns right through me. “What it really means is this,” he says. “The next time I ask you a goddamn question, Halston, just goddamn answer it.”
“Four,” I say. “My dress size is four.”