The Collection

by Lance Charnes

  He nods. That means the same thing in any language.

  “I imagine this isn’t your entire collection.” Now’s when I start pushing the envelope. I hope my heart isn’t as loud outside as it is in my ears. “You must have some pieces in storage that you rotate in.” I lean forward and try on my best sincere smile. “Perhaps I can see those? If they’re the same quality as what you have here, I wouldn’t be surprised if I find more works I’d like to take home.”

  I can feel Lucca’s eyes boring holes in the back of my head. I wish he wasn’t behind me. I keep waiting to feel a gun barrel or knife against my skull. Salvatore leans on an armrest and props his chin on his knuckles, watching me. Angelo starts to whisper something to him, but Salvatore waves him off. “I must ask, Ricardo. The number of, ehm, souvenirs that you want.”

  “I think it’s more an issue of how many pieces you have that speak to me, not a dollar limit or any set number.” His eyebrows shoot up. “I’d planned to buy several pieces from local galleries. But since you’ve offered me this extraordinary opportunity…”

  Morrone nods, then leans forward to tap his ash into an ornate Victorian silver bowl.

  Lucca weighs in for the first time. He lobs some almost-Italian at Salvatore like it’s a hand grenade. Salvatore bats it back with some heat behind it. Lucca counters, sounding peeved. His brother’s answer is over-patient, like this is just the latest round of this fight.

  Who’s running this negotiation?

  The last place I should be is literally in the middle of this. I’d better leave before these guys really get into it, or I say something fatally wrong. “Well, Salvatore, let’s start with the Robinson. I look forward to seeing the Modern works you have in storage. We can talk prices once I’ve added more to the list. Does that work for you?”

  He consults with Angelo for a moment. “I think of this,” he says. “We talk soon, si? We make the deal soon.”

  “I’d like that.” All I have to do is figure out how to not actually buy anything. I stand and hold out my hand. “Salvatore, thank you so much for sharing your collection with me. I appreciate your offer, and I hope we can do business.”

  He pushes himself to his feet, rests his cigar in the bowl, then shakes my hand. “I like that. Please, give to Signorina Carson my respect.”

  “I will.” Not that she’ll take it. I shake Angelo’s hand, then turn to Lucca. “Good to see you again, Lucca.”

  He nods once and gives me the limpest possible handshake. I swear a taxidermist installed his eyes.

  I see myself out.

  I’m maybe two steps away from the office door when I hear a storm of angry almost-Italian inside. Salvatore and Lucca just let loose. What are they arguing about—selling me paintings?

  Or where to bury me?

  In the town car, Carson apologizes for needling Morrone. “Can’t help it. I look at him, I see those women.”

  “Noted.” Yes, I sound grouchy. “Just don’t do it again.”

  After that, it’s a quiet ride from Morrone’s place back to the hotel. I can’t tell if we accomplished anything. We’d confirmed Morrone has a ton of art on display or in storage, but we already knew that. Carson said half a dozen vans and light trucks moved in and out of the south building but always loaded or unloaded behind closed doors. She didn’t break in—the Armani blonde stuck to her like a sheepdog. I’ve given Lucca yet another reason to hate me. Worst of all: even if Morrone decides to show me what he’s got in storage, I might end up in the back room at Diciannove, not the super-secret place we’re looking for.

  “We’ll think of something,” Carson says after a long silence. This time, she doesn’t sound so sure.

  Chapter 42

  I’m not the only person out jogging every morning. Besides Carson, I usually see a dozen or more other runners. So I don’t pay much attention to the guy in black sweats who cuts ahead of me on the cobbled Via Dante pedestrian mall on my way to Parco Sempione. I’m too busy thinking about all the missed opportunities at Morrone’s place yesterday, even the ones that didn’t really exist.

  Then I run into the guy.

  He’s made of bricks and has arms like steel straps. Before I can even think what the hell? the world’s biggest bee stings my neck. I taste garlic. A metal door slides open behind me. I’m falling down a well. After what seems like forever, I hit bottom.

  My head feels like somebody’s beating on it with a two-by-four. Maybe that’s why I feel like I want to puke.

  I’m on my back. Whatever I’m on is smooth and hard. When I tell my arms and legs to move, they don’t. They’re still there… I think. There’s straps. I pry open my eyes, get the whirlies, and close them again.

  Now there’s smoke. A cigarette. “Put that out!” I shout. It comes out like a gargle. “Barf on you.”

  Laughs. At least two men. A panicky little voice in my head says you’re gonna die. They’ll boil you in olive oil. Slice you up like pepperoni. The shape I’m in, I believe it.

  I try opening my eyes again. This time, the world doesn’t spin, it just rocks. The ceiling’s fuzzy. No, acoustic foam. Explains why the room’s dead. Heh heh heh he said “dead.” My head rolls to my left. I see a hand that might be mine with an IV line in it.

  My first coherent thought: what the FUCK?

  A guy slides into view. Olive skin, acne scars, brush-cut dark hair, a faded blue tee. The smoker. Harsh downlight shines off his nose and forehead and highlights the little thread of smoke rolling off his cig. He watches me like I’m an interesting bug. That’s how I feel, minus the “interesting” part.

  He says something in not-quite-Italian, then smirks. Somebody off to my right laughs. I turn my head through thick Jell-O to see the other guy. It’s Mongo from Blazing Saddles. Don’t shoot him, you’ll only make him mad.

  “Signore,” Smoker says.

  I figure he’s talking to me. I push my head through some more Jell-O and focus on him as well as I can focus at all. I’m still more confused than scared, though the balance is tipping the other way now. “Who you?”

  He takes a drag, drops the butt on the floor, then pulls another from a red pack I can’t read. “I ask you that question, signore. Who are you?” A chain-smoker’s voice, raspy.

  Who am I? Can I conceal myself for evermore? No, that’s not right. But that question jolts me out of the fog. The fear’s taking over. My cover’s broken. Did Belknap sell me out to Morrone? Is this my last stop before I become part of a footing for a parking garage?

  My brain goes from stoner to blind panic in a heartbeat. Like when the FBI came through the gallery door and put cuffs on me. I close my eyes and work very hard to concen—

  Something long and thin slams into my stomach. Whack. My eyes jerk open, my body bucks automatically and the straps chew into my arms and legs. It triples the pain and shock. I catch Mongo pulling away one of those bamboo swords they use in kendo. He looks bored.

  “No sleep, signore,” Smoker says. He’s not bored exactly, but he’s seen more exciting stuff. “You pretend to be a Hoskins. Why?”

  I try to scrape together my few coherent thoughts while I wait for my heart to stop crawling out of my chest. “I’m Hoskins. Richard Hoskins. U.S. citizen. What is this? Who are you?”

  Whack.

  Shit!

  “That is not so, signore. You are Matthew Friedrich, U.S. citizen. We know this, it is true. Why do you pretend?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “You do.”

  What? While I was drugged? “I wouldn’t say that. It’s—”

  “You do not.” Smoker pats the fingers of my left hand. His skin feels like 40-grit sandpaper. I almost scream. “Your fingers say it. Fingerprints, si? We have friends in America.”

  Where’d they get my fingerprints? How…

  The party. My Champagne flute.

  Another fear flare: did they run Carson’s prints too? Is she here? What are they doing to her?


  “What do you want?” It comes out like a squeal. “Who are you?”

  Smoker takes a couple long drags. He’s got plenty of time. “Why do you pretend? What do you want with Morrone?”

  I don’t even know what I start to say because the kendo sword crashes into me. I buck and my arms feel like they’re coming out of their sockets. Plus, on landing I slam the back of my head into what sounds like stainless steel. It’s a gurney. I’m on a gurney. I’m gonna die on a gurney.

  Smoker fiddles with something I can’t see. “We try a new thing, signore. Make the talking easy for you.” He brings up a syringe. The light glints off the needle.

  I hate needles. I fucking HATE needles. I try to yank my arm out of the way when he reaches for my hand, but it won’t move. He holds my hand against the steel table, pokes the needle into the plastic thing on my IV feed. Garlic again.

  I have no idea what happens next.

  The next thing I remember, I’m still on the gurney. I still have a headache. Everything between my armpits and my knees aches like a sonofabitch. This time, I do barf. Not much comes out. It’s not the first time—my face feels crusty.

  What happened? Did I talk? What did I say?

  I try to shift and still can’t. I move enough to tell I’ve peed myself. My inner five-year-old burns with the shame. Jason Bourne wouldn’t do that.

  You’re not Jason Bourne.

  “Mr. Friedrich. You come back to us.” A familiar voice. A few seconds later, Lucca Morrone saunters into view. His shirt is a deep red, the color of port or coagulating blood. He stands at the edge of my gurney, gently tapping his fingertips on the steel. “You talk… very much. You tell us many things. Some of these things interest me, many do not.”

  What did I say?

  “This Allyson—” oh, Jesus, no “—she is a very interesting woman. And the girl who works for Lorenzoni, what is her name? Yes, Gianna. It surprises me, you are so attracted to both, but I think they are very different, yes?”

  What did I SAY?

  “And the Carson woman.” He shakes his head. “Why do you not have the sex with her when you want to? I think she is very fond of you, yes?”

  WHAT DID I SAY?

  My face must be putting on a show, because he laughs and slaps the edge of the gurney. “Do not worry so. Your women do not concern me. What interests me is why you are here.”

  I blabbed everything. I probably told him my shoe size. This is the most epic of epic fails. I have to look up to see whale shit. If I’m lucky, he’ll shoot me now.

  Please shoot me now.

  Lucca crosses his arms and looks at me like I’m the most miserable invertebrate in the world. “You think you can find all those paintings my brother keeps.” He chuckles. It’s that ridiculous.

  Stop gloating and kill me. My only regret is I can’t warn Gianna and Carson. What will he do to them? I finally scrape up enough will to speak. “Don’t hurt them.” Even whispering takes all the wind out of me.

  He frowns. “Hurt? Who?”

  “Gianna. Carson. Please. Not them.”

  He laughs again. I’m just amazingly stupid, I guess. “To hurt them does not interest me. Yet. I want them to be alive. And you.” He plants his hands on the gurney and leans close to me. “I want to find the paintings also. You find them and give to me, yes? If you do, you can go. You can do all those things to your women.”

  Uh… what? “You don’t… know where?”

  “No.” He straightens and folds his arms again. His expression says I’m still a bug, just not as interesting. “For more than the year, no. He hides them from us, from the locale.”

  My brain is starting to put itself back together again. Unfortunately, that means I’m becoming coherent enough to be scared. What happens if I don’t find the paintings? “Why’d he hide them from you?”

  “My brother hides them from everyone. It is how he stays alive.”

  My brain’s still stuttering, so this doesn’t make sense at first. But then I flash back to something that zipped through my mind when we were waiting to see Morrone at the party: Why haven’t the Russians killed him yet? Why is he still alive?

  And it clicks. He’s still alive because only he knows where the art is. The Russians know this; so do his own people. As long as he has it, nobody will risk killing him and flushing all that money. “They’re… not his?”

  “No. They belong to the locale. It is our money. He forgets this.”

  I pick up a little brotherly resentment there. “How many paintings? Dozens?”

  Lucca turns up his hands. “I do not know. A year past, there are two hundred maybe.”

  Two hundred? Holy shit. That explains how they can peel off a dozen for a coke deal.

  “You will do this.” Lucca looms over me. “I do not tell anyone what I know… yet. You find these paintings and give them to me so the locale may control them again. I give you five days. If you do not succeed, I kill one of your women. You choose which.”

  He says it like he’s talking about replacing the carpet in my hotel room. My throat twists shut.

  “Then you have four days. If you still do not succeed, I kill another. Then three days. Then I kill the third. Every time, I give you video so you can watch. Two days after, I tell my brother, and he will kill you himself. It will not be an easy death. Do you understand me, Matthew Friedrich?”

  I can’t get a word past the brick paver in my throat, but yes, I fully understand. I finally manage to nod.

  “Very good. If your women hide, we find them, the way we find you. If you tell my brother of this, I will kill you—” he snaps his fingers “—in the way the Russians do. Very painful, very ugly. If you tell the polizia, I do the same. Do you understand this?”

  I nod again.

  “Very good. This is the end of our business for now. I give you the number you can ring if you have information. Arrivederci, Mr. Friedrich. Yes, I will see you again.”

  Then Smoker puts out my lights.

  Chapter 43

  The next time I open my eyes, I’m looking straight up into white. I can’t feel much. I’m still flat on my back, but now I’m on something soft. A cloud? Am I dead?

  The cloud rocks. A fuzzy head leans over me. Or is it just that I can’t remember how to focus? I close my eyes for a moment.

  When I open them again, the head’s gone and the white above me is warmer, yellower. Did I fall asleep? Now there’s a dull throb coming from someplace deep inside me. It’s not a good throb. Instead of cloud-stuff, I feel soft, smooth cotton against my arms, hands and back (where’s my shirt?), a pillow under my head. I’m on a bed.

  The fuzzy head comes back. I re-learn how to focus.

  “How do you feel?” Carson looks… worried. She’s worried about me?

  “Like shit.” That takes more effort than reciting the whole Odyssey from memory.

  She nods. “Looks like it.” The bed rocks; she must’ve sat. “Say when it hurts.”

  Her fingers start prodding my shoulders and collarbones. It’s kinda weird, her touching me without a shirt in the way, but it doesn’t hurt. She moves down my chest and I can’t feel the skin on her fingertips anymore, just pressure.

  I make an Olympic-weightlifting effort to pick my head off the pillow. I’m in my hotel room and I’m wrapped like a mummy from my sternum to my navel. “Why bandages?”

  “Think you got a cracked rib.” She presses the magic spot. A sharp pain makes me squawk. “Yup.” Apparently only the one, though, since I manage not to scream when she works her way up the other side. “Want water?”

  My mouth feels like I ate a bale of cat fur. “Yeah.”

  Carson brings back two tumblers of water, holds one to my lips, wipes the spillage with a hand towel. When I drain the glass, she pours some water from the second one onto the towel, then drapes it across my forehead. She’s being so gentle with me. “Can you talk?”

  I seem to have breathing
and eyesight nailed, so… “Maybe. How’d you find me?”

  “They dumped you outside the hotel.”

  That takes a while to sink in. “We have to move?”

  “No point. They’ll find us again. What happened?”

  It takes a while, but I manage to push out a jumbled version of my morning’s adventure. It barely makes sense to me, and I was there. I think. Reality’s still a flexible concept. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “When they shot you up—what do you remember?”

  It’s all muddled, with lots of blank spaces. “Garlic.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No.”

  “Probably sodium thiopental.”

  “You mean sodium pentothal? Truth serum?”

  “Pentothal’s a trade name. Truth serum’s bullshit. What it does, makes it so you can’t shut up. Like you need the help.” Even the dig is gentle. She sets a hand on my breastbone. “This okay?”

  “Uh-huh.” Actually, it feels nice. My heart beats against her fingertips. I can focus on that and keep my brain from pinwheeling away.

  “What’d he hit you with?”

  “Wasn’t him. Mongo. A kendo sword.”

  “A shinai? The bamboo one?” I nod. “Mongo?”

  “Big guy. Didn’t say anything.”

  “Must’ve tried to hold out. That’s why they beat you.” A nice thought. She blows out a long breath. “You told him about you, me, Allyson and Gianna. What about Belknap?”

  Answering that takes a long, hard slog through the rubble of my memory. “Weird. Didn’t say. Or I don’t remember. Must’ve told him.”

  A tinny version of the Star Wars “Imperial March” blats out from under Carson’s butt. She stands and pulls her phone. “Yeah…? Allyson. I did…”

  Allyson knows? Shit. I talked about Fight Club, with a mafioso, no less. It probably doesn’t count that I was drugged to the gills. Allyson’s probably ordering Carson to drown me in the bathtub. All I can do is lie here and listen.

  Carson paces back and forth past the foot of the bed as she gives Allyson a very edited, no-nonsense version of what I told her. As I process her words, I realize she’s downplaying the chaos I’ve caused. Under control. No lasting damage. We can work with this. Contained. If there’s ever a time for Carson to chuck me under the bus, this is it… and she doesn’t.