Among Thieves

by David Hosp

  The next room was different in subtle respects. The subject matter of the paintings was religious, to be sure, but the individuals within the works took on more of a lifelike, three-dimensional quality, almost as though the human form had evolved and taken on substance in the few feet from one room to the next. The walls were covered in an embroidered maroon fabric, and uncomfortable-looking chairs upholstered in a hideous pink lined the walls. One painting—a monk in scarlet robes—caught his eye. There was something in the face, a hint of a smile that drew him, as though the man was mocking the very nature of his beliefs.

  The third room impressed Devon. Moved him, even. Gone for the most part were the religious images and holier-than-thou sentiment. This room, much smaller than the first two, felt solid and real, as though it might have once belonged to an individual—a wealthy one to be sure, but flesh and blood nonetheless. One luminous piece dominated the space and drew him in.

  It was a woman. She was dressed in white, and she was standing against a darkened background looking through an arched doorway that receded to a darkened landscape. There was something bewitching about the image. There were no clear lines defining her. Her arms were held out in a sensual invitation, and the boundaries of her gown, indeed of her very flesh, seemed to blur into her surroundings. The lines of the painting, despite their lack of definition, felt more honest to Devon, as though the truth in her beauty could not be contained. She floated on the wall like a spirit, looking down at him with inscrutable eyes, and Devon felt both exhilarated and shamed by her image. He stood there looking up at her for a few moments before he pulled himself away.

  Once he did, he found himself examining each image on the walls with more interest. There was a portrait of an older man in profile. He looked to Devon as if he was sitting on a park bench, watching with an amused heart as those he loved played in pastimes for which he was too old. He seemed more reserved than the woman, but no less real.

  Against the far wall from the entryway on a series of hinged wooden panels were a series of sketches, most of which were so unfinished that Devon wondered why they would be included in a museum at all. And yet they seemed to fit with the rest of the room, each of the works implying some undefined and incomplete aspect of humanity.

  Devon was drawn to two of the sketches in particular. They were framed together, and both portrayed horses. Devon loved racing; whenever he finished a job he spent the days afterward flush with cash out at the track. There was majesty to racing, with the horses brushed and sparkling, and the riders in their bright, colorful costumes. For all the polish, though, it was a brutal contest, with thousand-pound beasts unleashed, their jockeys muscling each other for their livelihood and their lives.

  The two sketches captured the dichotomy for Devon. One was a sketch of a horse and rider being led into a stadium for a race. It was colorful, with splashes of pink and aqua on the rider and in the procession. Spectators milled about, heading into the stadium themselves, admiring the horse and rider, adorned in tall top hats and formal dresses. It captured the grandeur of the races—in every way an upper-class affair.

  The second was very different. It was a study of three riders in black and white. The central figure sat unfinished on a portion of a horse’s torso, leaning back in the saddle. His face was a mask of death, with oversized ears and sunken eyes and an expression that suggested a looming ride through Hades. Beneath him, strapped upside-down to the belly of the same horse’s torso, were two smaller jockeys. They were unfinished and impersonal, and hung there, as if idly waiting for the weight of the horse and rider above to fall on them.

  Devon was fascinated, and he reached out to touch the works. They were sketches on paper, and they were framed in thin pieces of wood and glass. He picked them off the panel and held them up, surprised by how little they weighed. At that moment, the thief in him took over; he turned the frame over and punched through the back of it along one of the sides with his gloved hand. The wood in the frame was thin enough that it gave little resistance, and the glass popped out. He threw the broken wood on the floor and lifted the glass off the backing and slid the two paper sketches out. He looked at them, incredulous. Could it be that easy?

  He took another frame off the wall, this one holding three sketches, each unfinished. None of them held the power over him the first two had, but it mattered little. It took only a moment for him to pop them out of their frames. The realization hit him, and he looked around and laughed. He had been so focused on the limits of his responsibilities for the evening that he hadn’t even considered the breadth of his opportunities. All he needed to do was choose what to take next.

  He saw it instantly.

  The flag was mounted on the wall. The words “Garde Imperiale L’Empereur Napoleon Au 1er Regiment Des Grenadiers A Pied” were embroidered on it. He couldn’t read French, but he understood well enough that it was a flag from the armies of Napoleon, and he recognized it was a perfect tribute. Jimmy Bulger was a history buff, and he often spoke of the mistakes that the great leaders of the world had made in their time. Mistakes of arrogance; mistakes of ignorance. Napoleon was a passion of his. Few things in the world would advance Devon faster than such a gift for Bulger.

  He pulled a chair over to the flag and stood on it. The cloth was encased in glass, and he hoped it would be as willing a trophy as the sketches. He was wrong. The glass was screwed into brass anchors every few inches. There were dozens of them.

  Still, Devon figured he had time and he got to work. Concealed under his coat was a tool belt that had a number of screwdrivers. He pulled one out and sized it correctly, then attacked the first of the screws.

  They were old. They had not quite fused to their anchors, but it was close. He was breathing heavily, throwing his shoulder into the work, and he was through three screws before he admitted to himself it was worthless. He pounded on the glass with the butt of his screwdriver to see whether the glass would break, allowing him an easy shortcut, but it just gave sharp cracking sounds echoing throughout the building. He raised his hand to his head and wiped the sweat away from his brow in defeat.

  A moment later the Irishman poked his head into the room. He looked around the place and saw the broken frames on the ground. He looked at Devon up on the chair, screwdriver in hand. “What the fuck are you doing?” he demanded.

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” Devon replied. “I’m helping myself.”

  “The fuck you are.”

  “What’s your problem? I’m not messin’ with you, am I? You didn’t want my help, fine. But I’m not gonna just stand around waiting.” He turned and looked at the flag again; it wasn’t going to be a willing trophy. Still, there might be some consolation. On the top left corner was a bronze eagle capping the exposed flagpole. That, at least, should be easy enough. He reached up and wiggled it, and to his relief it budged without much effort. He began unscrewing it.

  “Get down from there!” the Irishman hissed.

  “Fuck off.” He kept at his work.

  The man spoke again. “I said get down.” The command was punctuated with the sound of a hammer being drawn back on a revolver. Devon didn’t turn around.

  “What are you going to do? Shoot me? That’d turn this into a whole other fuckin’ scene, wouldn’t it? Even if the cops don’t find you, what are you going to tell my people? Besides, I got the car keys, and you don’t know how to get back to Southie.” It was a risk, but a calculated one. The man was an asshole, but he was also a professional. Leaping from robbery to murder wasn’t worth the risk. Devon kept turning the eagle faster and faster, the sweat pouring off his brow.

  “I’m warning you,” the Irishman said.

  “Fuck off.” As he said the words, fear sliced through his heart. Was he pushing this too far?

  He heard a loud crack and he stumbled forward slightly on the chair, almost falling off. His hand flew to his chest, feeling for an exit wound. It took a moment for him to realize he hadn’t been shot. In his exuberance
, the eagle had separated from its screw and had fallen through his fingers to the ground. The noise he had heard was that of it hitting the floor.

  Devon straightened himself and stepped down off the chair. He picked up the eagle and held it up, showing off his prize. He was smiling.

  The Irishman was still pointing his gun at him. He took two steps forward and swung the butt of the gun down on the space where Devon’s neck met his shoulder. It was a well-placed blow. Devon nearly lost consciousness as he tumbled to the ground, and his arm went numb. By taking the soft flesh, the Irishman had inflicted the pain without spilling any blood that might be used to track them down. As Devon opened his eyes, he was staring into the barrel of the gun.

  “Get this straight, lad,” the Irishman said. “This is my job. You’re hired help. Do as I say, or I will kill you.” He pushed the barrel of the gun into Devon’s eye.

  “Your job?” Devon said through the pain. “You’re in Boston, asshole; this is Jimmy Bulger’s job. I work for him.”

  “He works for me on this,” the man replied. “Remember that.” He put his gun back in its shoulder holster and turned and left the room.

  Devon didn’t take anything else from the room. It took a moment before he felt able to drag himself onto his feet. He gathered up the sketches he’d already pulled from the wall and rolled them up. Then he picked up the eagle, put it in his coat pocket, and stumbled back through the galleries toward the staircase. He could hear the Irishman, still hard at work in the room to the right of the stairs, and he walked in that direction.

  The room was immense, much larger than any of the galleries Devon had seen on the far side of the building. The ceiling was carved wood and the walls were covered in large, heavy oils that appeared far more substantial than the religious scenes Devon had seen, or even the portraits he’d found fascinating in the room he’d pillaged.

  The Irishman was working efficiently: the floor was littered with the waste of several heavy gilded frames. Canvases were rolled in a pile near the door. “How many more?” Devon asked. The Irishman didn’t reply. “How many more?” Devon asked again.

  “Just one here. There’s one more on the list, but it’s downstairs.” The Irishman moved over to a heavy, dramatic oil of a seascape. The water in the painting roiled, and a large ship was being tossed about, completely at the whim of fate. Devon could relate.

  The Irishman grabbed the heavy painting by its sides and struggled to lift it off its perch. As he did, an alarm sounded. It pierced the silence and both men jumped. The Irishman nearly dropped the painting.

  Devon ran toward the stairway. There was nothing in the information they had been given about such alarms, and none of their activity had triggered anything similar. Nonetheless, there was every possibility that the police were already on their way. They had to get out. “Come on!” he shouted. “Hurry the fuck up!”

  He was at the staircase when he realized that the Irishman wasn’t following. He was tempted to leave anyway, but he knew it wasn’t an option. If the Irishman was caught, Devon was screwed; if not with the cops, then with Bulger. He turned back and looked at the door to the gallery. As he did, he noticed that the sound from the alarm was weaker where he was.

  He headed back to the gallery. “What are you doing?” he demanded.

  The Irishman was standing over a small electronic device on the floor. He kicked it hard, and the alarm skipped a beat. He kicked it a second time, harder, and the plastic casing smashed, the alarm dying instantly. “It’s internal,” the Irishman said. “To keep the museum visitors from knocking the painting. It’s not hooked into the system.”

  “You know that for sure?”

  “Aye. I’m sure.”

  “How sure?”

  The two men looked at each other, and Devon could see the shadow of doubt in the Irishman’s eyes. “I’m sure,” he said again.

  “We got to get out of here,” Devon said.

  “We’re finishing the job.”

  “Fine. Then finish it fuckin’ quickly.”

  The Irishman’s eyes narrowed in anger, but it wasn’t directed at Devon. He nodded. “Quickly. Give me a hand.”

  The two of them lifted that seascape off its hanger and set it down on the floor. The Irishman pulled out a straight blade; he clearly wasn’t going to waste time dismantling the frame. He stuck the point of the blade into the canvas at the edge of the frame. With four quick, brutal cuts he freed it, leaving behind a small frame of canvas that had once been a part of the masterpiece. He rolled it up and placed it with the pile of the other works. He pulled two cloth bags out of his jacket. He opened one and slipped the paintings into it. He tossed the second to Devon. “Put those into this,” he said, nodding to the drawings Devon had taken from the gallery on the other side of the museum.

  “These are mine,” Devon said.

  “I’ll deal with that with your boss,” the Irishman said. “Put them in.”

  Devon took the bag and did as he was told. No point in arguing; Bulger would make the final call. He took the eagle out of his pocket and slipped that in as well.

  “One more, downstairs,” the Irishman said. “Let’s go.”

  Devon followed him. As he headed out of the room, he grabbed a small Oriental-looking vase from a display and slipped it into the bag. The Irishman gave him a lethal look, but said nothing. Devon didn’t care anymore.

  They headed downstairs. “I’ll get the last one,” the Irishman said, consulting his list and the hand-drawn map of the museum’s layout. “You go to the security office and make sure the alarm hasn’t been tripped.”

  “I thought you said you were sure about the alarm?”

  “I am. Check it out anyway.”

  Devon frowned, but headed back to the security office. It made no sense; if an external alarm had been tripped, then they were doomed either way. Checking on it wasn’t going to do any good. He was in the office before it occurred to him that the Irishman might have sent him off to prevent him from lifting any more artwork.

  The Irishman was only gone for a few minutes. Devon had just finished looking over the electronics on the security desk when he walked in carrying a painting of an effete man in a top hat. It was still framed. “Any problems?” he asked.

  “None that I can see,” Devon replied. “How the fuck should I know?”

  The Irishman nodded and went to work on the frame. It took only a few moments before he had effectively dismantled the thing and was pulling the canvas off the remnants. He rolled the work up and slipped it into his bag.

  “That’s it?” Devon asked.

  “That’s it.”

  “Okay, let’s get out of here.”

  They headed back to the door where the guard had buzzed them in earlier that evening. “You ready?” Devon asked.

  The Irishman frowned. “Shite,” he said. “I forgot something.”

  “What?” Devon said.

  “The security tapes,” the Irishman replied.

  “You kidding?”

  The Irishman handed his bag to Devon. “Go. I’ll be right there. If you’re not in the car when I get there, I’ll kill you. Slowly.” He was gone before Devon could argue.

  Devon shook his head. The next two minutes would be dangerous. A man walking out of a museum at two-thirty in the morning carrying a couple of sacks would draw attention, police hat or not. He opened the door and walked out into the darkness.

  There was no one on the street; not that Devon was looking. A key to getting away cleanly was to act as if there were nothing unusual about your behavior. He reached the small, beat-up car still parked on the street and opened the hatchback, putting the two bags in and closing the door. He climbed into the front seat, put the key in the ignition and waited. It felt as if he were lying naked on the pitcher’s mound at Fenway Park.

  It took only a moment for the Irishman to show up. He got into the car. “Drive,” he said. Devon didn’t need any encouragement.

  “Did you get the tapes?�
�� Devon asked.

  The Irishman nodded. “I took care of it.” He held up three VHS cassettes.

  Something in the way he responded sent fear through Devon. “You didn’t go back for the guards, did you?”

  “I went back for the tapes,” the Irishman said.

  “Jesus Christ,” Devon said. “If you killed them, we’re fucked.”

  “I went back for the tapes,” the Irishman said again. He looked at Devon, and Devon took his eyes off the road for just an instant to look back at him. He was impossible to read. The man’s eyes betrayed nothing. Devon turned his attention back to the road and directed the car through the streets of the city, back to Southie. He was eager to be done with the Irishman.

  The next day the newspapers reported that the guards had been found alive. They were lucky, Devon knew. To the Irishman, there was little difference between retrieving a security tape and putting a bullet in a man’s head. Both were operational issues and nothing more. Devon prayed he would never see the man again.

  Chapter Twenty

  Finn met Kozlowski and Lissa at the Green Dragon pub. It was tucked back into a maze of tiny streets off Congress, in the ancient part of the city, back behind the Union Oyster House. It had been established in the 1700s, and the Sons of Liberty had once met behind the same door that still swung from the rusted hinges out onto the street corner. The décor could have been handed down through the years, for all the modern style it captured. The stone floors kept the place cool, even as the sun started warming up the city at midday. A new stereo system and the small stage for three-man bands on the weekends were the only nods to the passage of time the place would admit.

  Finn took a table at the back of the place and waited. Kozlowski and Lissa arrived five minutes later. They ordered some coffee, and Finn relayed Devon’s story. The other two sat listening, sipping their coffee, without interruption, for over fifteen minutes. It was a record.