Lost Children

by Willa Bergman

Sunday morning I’m tired and allow myself a lie-in, it helps me pull myself together. I need to do better and I know it. The rules have changed, nothing I’m doing here is normal or simple and I’ve been thrown off-balance. Negotiating is what I’m good at, but you wouldn’t have known it yesterday. Next time I’m going to have to take a different approach.

  I make Walden the next on my list. I’ve all but exhausted what I can find on Meyer and I haven’t the time to head out to Colorado looking for her on a hunch.

  One thing I realised from Bonucci was that it’s pointless for me to try and meet these people if it’s on the record, as they’ll never admit anything to me like that because it just incriminates them. So there’s no point in me booking an appointment or walking into Walden’s office to speak with him, it has to be a chance meeting in a public place, something strictly off the books. Unfortunately tracking down someone, even a man like Carl Walden who has a semi-public profile, is not straightforward. Walden bases himself in New York but he travels a lot, such is the life of a CEO. After making a few calls the best I can do is find out there’s a girl in the office who shares a flat with someone that works at Arctura. It doesn’t open up Walden’s diary for me but the flatmate has said if she knows he’s going to be somewhere she’ll pass it on.

  Patiently I wait. Then impatiently. Two days I’m stuck at the end of the line with nothing else to do. Then I get the call. Walden is having a business lunch today at a fancy restaurant in midtown. He left for it an hour ago so if I leave now I should still be able to find him there. I pick up my bag and head straight for the door.

  The place is easy to find and I’m there in less than twenty minutes. The restaurant is in a pretty beaux-arts building and inside it’s all marble floors and high vaulted ceilings. It makes me think of Chicago mob bosses and Grand Central Station in the 1920s when the light still flooded in from the high windows, before the skyscrapers blocked out the sun.

  I blag my way through the door easily enough and head for the main dining room. There’s less than thirty tables in the room, but each one is occupied by Wall Street brokers who clearly didn’t get the memo that fashion has moved on since the world of 80’s power dressing.

  My eyes dart across each of the faces in the room. I see Walden at a table in the far left corner, a little older than the pictures I have of him but unmistakable. He’s sat with three others and there are four men standing nearby who appear to be a security detail.

  I walk over to Walden to introduce myself but before I can get any more than a couple of words in one of the security guards is already on me. I look at Walden who pauses for a moment. I do not as a rule bat my lashes and act the coquettish ingenue to get something, it feels like cheating. But desperate times… Walden gives his man a subtle wave of his hand telling him to back off.

  “As you can see I’m having lunch, if you call my office I’m sure they can find a time for us to sit down.” He doesn’t seem to be in the mood to talk now so I dispense with the foreplay.

  “I want to buy a painting from you.”

  “I have many paintings, but I’m a collector, not a trader. I buy something because I want it. I’m not in the habit of selling.”

  “In my experience, even collectors have a price.” I resist the temptation to mention the rumours of his money problems, that’s only going to put the man in a bad mood. But the prospect of a blank cheque should at least get him thinking.

  “What painting are you interested in?”

  He takes the bait. Now to take my shot.

  “The Portrait of the Lost Child by Albert Polignac.”

  Now he’s interested in me. I can see him trying to resist all the natural impulses running through his body when I say the name. He wants to appear nonchalant, unreadable, but he can’t hide his tells.

  “That painting was lost over a decade ago.” He says, the hint of curiosity audible in his voice.

  “Yes it was. And it found its way to you.”

  He takes a drink from his glass of wine, not taking his eyes off me. He hasn’t dismissed me out of hand, I think he actually might have it. He’s still talking to me because he wants to know how I know he has it.

  “What makes you think I have it?”

  “I’m not going to tell you how I know.”

  He waits a moment, choosing his words.

  “Even if I did have it, what on earth makes you think that I would want to sell it?”

  This is my first card to play.

  “Because Arnaud de Harlois is the man who wants to buy it.”

  “Arnaud de Harlois is dead.” He quickly replies without even blinking.

  “No, he is very much alive.”

  Almost in bored frustration he looks at me. “And why should I believe that? What proof do you have? Why should I believe you?”

  And now I make my real play.

  “Because he’s my father.”

  A slow smile spreads across his face. My reveal piques his interest. Now he is taking a proper look at me. He starts to speak but then stops suddenly as if changing his mind.

  “It’s of no consequence, I don’t have the painting. So whether you are who you say you are or not is an irrelevance to me, though it may be of interest to the authorities.” He knows too much about the painting. He has it, I can feel it.

  “I don’t think involving the authorities is in either of our best interests in this matter. Won’t you at least hear what I have to say? If nothing else you’ll hear one more story about the painting.”

  He looks around the restaurant, his fingers tap in thought on the table. He looks back at me.

  “I’m travelling for the next couple of days, but you can tell me your story. My assistant will take your details and we’ll sit down when I’m back next week.”

  “No. That doesn’t work.”

  “You’re playing a weak hand very aggressively.”

  “Time isn’t a luxury I have. We need to meet.”

  He pauses again. I can see his mind working before he answers, “Fine. I need to finish up here but I can meet you in my apartment this evening before I leave. Don’t push any harder.”

  One of the security guards gives me the apartment details and then I leave the man to finish his lunch. I walk out the restaurant into the hot Manhattan sun. I should be feeling incredible, I really think he might actually have it. But my mind has already jumped to what’s next. I know how far I still am from where I need to be.

  This can’t be like Bonucci. I know now I can’t treat this like a normal negotiation, if Walden really does have the painting and I’m to walk out of this meeting with it under my arm, then I need a whole new approach. This isn’t Game Theory with a mutually beneficial optimal outcome. This will be me against him, a zero sum game where there’s a painting for the winner and nothing for the loser and I’m going to need every bit of luck I can get if I’m to stand a chance of beating him. I think of what Hiroki said to me that first night I arrived in New York: “Everyone knows you’re the best negotiator Elle, no one says no to you, all that game theory voodoo and mind games.” I wish I shared her confidence. Game theory voodoo indeed; it’s been very useful for me, but it’s not magic. And negotiating a good price for a painting and getting someone to give it to you for nothing are two very different things.

  It’s time for me to pay Detective O’Rourke another visit and call in my one pass with him. He said he’d help me but a meeting tonight without any hard evidence that Walden has the painting is going to test his generosity to its limit.

  I make my way back to 1 Police Plaza and head up to his office. I don’t see him at first, his office looks empty, but then I spot him across the floor talking to another detective.

  “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon,” he says.

  I ask him if I can speak with him and he leads me back to his office. I tell him I believe I’ve found the man who has the painting and I want to call in my one pass with him for a meeting tonight.

  I start to tell hi
m what I’ve found. I try to keep as much of my story as truthful as possible, they say that’s the secret to a good lie. I tell him I have a meeting this evening with Carl Walden where I expect to have eyes on the painting and that I need him and a team in support for a potential raid. I rush everything I’m saying, O’Rourke tells me to slow down and start over. I take a breath and tell him again. He makes me go through it all at least three more times. O’Rourke asks me what makes me think Walden has the painting. I tell him I spoke with Walden less than an hour ago and that when I told him that I knew he had the painting and I wanted to buy it, he not only didn’t deny it, he invited me to his apartment this evening to discuss it.

  O’Rourke slowly works his way through the angles, it’s a little Columbo-esque. After a minute or two working things through in his head he asks me how I happened to come to this epiphany that Carl Walden had the painting? I briefly consider telling him exactly what Yuliya Steinberg told me, but then I think better of it. “Research. Good old fashioned detective work.” I don’t think he likes the answer.

  He tells me to wait in his office and then walks out of it. He’s gone the better part of half an hour when he finally walks back in with another man who he introduces as Captain Leo and who looks even more stern than O’Rourke. Leo starts asking me all the same questions that O’Rourke asked me, and I give him exactly the same answers. Clearly they’re not planning to just pull together a team for me at the snap of my fingers. I’m worried I’m going to miss my window with Walden.

  After what feels like (and is) hours they leave me again to sweat on my own in the office. It’s approaching five o’clock, if the questioning goes on much longer then all this will be over before it’s even begun.

  O’Rourke and Leo walk back into the room. They both look at me with severe expressions plastered over their faces. They tell me they’re going to help me. When they say the words, in my head I do a small leap of joy. I thank them both. They ask me if I’m comfortable wearing a wire, to which I tell them no. I talk them through how I would like things to work. They’re both okay with what I tell them, though they check several times that I’m sure I want to go through with this and make me sign a waiver stating that I acknowledge the personal risk I’m exposing myself to.

  There’s a briefing less than half an hour later. They take me to a room where a dozen officers are there waiting for us. The sight of Captain Leo brings the room to a hush. I take a seat at the front of the room, Captain Leo gives a brief introduction and then hands over to Detective O’Rourke to lead the meeting. On a screen at the front of the room he brings up a picture of Carl Walden. O’Rourke asks me to brief the group about who he is. I run through what I know about him from my research. I get asked some questions about his security detail; I tell them what I know from what I saw at the restaurant, which isn’t much. Next up is the painting, O’Rourke does the talking here. He talks a bit about the original investigation fifteen years ago and then about the painting itself, enjoying the opportunity to show off his subject matter expertise. After him the task force leader is up. Someone’s managed to pull a schematic of Walden’s apartment block and he goes through with the team each of their expected roles if they get the call from me. This part goes totally over my head, it’s like they’re talking another language but they all speak it perfectly. All of this is routine for them, they’ve done it a hundred times before. They’re told to be dressed and ready to go in ten minutes.

  Everything seems to have come together so quickly. For all the stick I gave O’Rourke, when they kick into gear the NYPD mobilises fast. Just a few hours ago I hadn’t even met Carl Walden, now I have my finger on the trigger to have a police response team break the door down to his apartment.

  I check my watch and it’s seven o’clock, time to leave. This is what it all comes down to. Time to find out if I can pull this off.

  5

  Walden’s apartment is in a very modern, super prime residential building on the Upper East Side designed for the ultra rich. The elevator opens directly into the hallway of the apartment and the apartment itself occupies the entire forty-second floor of the building.

  I’m immediately met in the hallway by a very large man dressed in a fitted dark suit. He politely but firmly asks me to raise my arms before performing a body search on me, I assume to check in case I’m wearing a wire. As he checks me I count four more burly men dressed in similarly well-fitted dark suits, the same security guards who were in the restaurant. The first test passed I’m escorted through into what looks like the main living area of the apartment. As I walk into it there’s this explosion of light from all directions, the enormous floor-to-ceiling windows on all sides bathing the room in natural light. The apartment décor is minimalist to let your eye move straight to the sweeping views of Central Park through the oversized windows, which seem to shine an even greater light on what I’m about to do here. One of the men asks me to take a seat and tells me that Mr. Walden will join me shortly. I’m left alone to stare at the view outside.

  “It’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it?” Walden says as he enters the room. “I am so deeply offended by how much this view has cost me, but when I saw it I just fell in love and knew I had to have it. It’s as beautiful as any work of art, it’s the canvas that New York has painted itself on. I stare at it for hours sometimes, I think it’s so important to remember to smell the roses along the way.” He seems in a good mood. He offers me something to drink but I decline.

  “Now, before we go any further, I would like to understand exactly who it is that I have sitting in my apartment.”

  “I’ve told you who I am.”

  “Yes. And you have my attention because of what you said. But you do not yet have my trust. What has Eloise de Harlois been doing all these years? And why is she saying her father, a man widely reported as having been killed by her mother fifteen years ago, is in fact alive and well, and not only that, she’s trying to help him find the painting her mother stole from him?”

  Time to be a lawyer. “At this point I’m afraid I’m not saying anything.”

  He looks at me, “And what exactly are you waiting for then?” he asks, clearly a little irked at my response.

  “Your men frisked me on my way in here. I can understand why you would ask them to do that, the concerns you might have about me. Let’s just say I share similar reservations about you.”

  “You weren’t so shy when we spoke before.”

  “An unannounced meeting in a public space is a very

  different set of circumstances to a pre-planned meeting in your apartment.”

  “You want an act of good faith? Fine. Yes, I have it.”

  “You have what?”

  He takes a deep breath. “I confirm that I, Carl Walden, have the original painting of Prince Alexander in the Gardens of Harlois by Albert Polignac, more commonly known as the Portrait of the Lost Child, which was stolen from the Harlois estate fifteen years ago and is currently listed in all major art databases as either missing or destroyed.”

  A verbal confirmation, it’s a good start. I guess now it’s my turn to offer him something.

  “Arnaud faked his death. He’d racked up enormous debts and was due to be declared bankrupt. This was a way out for him. He took a few possessions and went into hiding with my mother, brother and I. My mother sold the painting on the black market to make some money. We’ve been in hiding until now to keep the creditors off his back.”

  He looks around the room while he rubs his hand against the growing stubble on his chin. “That’s a very interesting story, but at this point that’s all it is, a story.”

  “I don’t really care if you believe it or not, I’m here for the painting.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to sell it to you.”

  “Then why am I here? Why tell me you have it?” He lets these questions linger between us without response.

  “So what are you prepared to offer me for it?”

  “You need to show it to me, f
irst.”

  “No.”

  “No? Then how do I know if you even have it, that you’re not going to try and peddle some fake to me? Or what if it’s in such a bad state after all these years it needs to have substantial restoration work done?”

  “I guess you’re just going to have to trust me.”

  “Look, I’m not going to make an offer on something I haven’t even seen. You talk of trust, I’ve told you who I am. To this day I am listed as a missing person. I’m wanted for questioning by the police. I’ve come to your apartment, on my own, to see you while you’re surrounded by your bodyguards. I am trusting you. It’s you who has to start trusting me. Now I don’t think you invited me here for nothing, so why don’t we cut out the bullshit and you let me see the painting so we can move forward on this.”

  He looks at me, I don’t know what he’s thinking. He calls over one of the men standing behind him and whispers something to him in his ear. Then he stands up and asks me to follow him. He escorts me down a corridor and into a room which at first looks like a large storage cupboard, only there’s nothing in it except another door. The door closes behind us and I hear an automatic lock click into place. He points to a small camera in the ceiling and says to me, “Big brother is watching, just in case you were thinking of doing anything silly.” A panel in the wall in front of us reveals a screen which has the outline of a hand for fingerprint recognition. When he presses his palm to it the screen changes to a numeric interface into which he inputs an eight digit code that unlocks the door in front of us. As he pulls it open I can see the four metal bolts that run through it and the reinforced steel frame surrounding it.

  We walk into another room, larger than the first. There’s a simple black table in the middle of it and a large combination lock safe built into the far wall. Walden walks over to the safe, turns the dial to unlock it and takes out a slim black box. As he puts the case on the table he looks at me and says, “There are only a few people in this world who have been lucky enough to see this since it came into my possession. I don’t allow it to leave this room.”