Lily’s lips bent ever so slightly at his touch.
Harry glanced at Melissa. “We used to do that as kids.”
His sister walked to the wide picture window. “I like it here,” Lily said. “Everything moves so fast. I like seeing everything move so fast.”
The East River, barely disturbed by a ripple, carried a near-perfect reflection of Manhattan’s skyline upon it. On summer days like this the city seemed to have a shining twin that lay just beneath the water.
Lily leaned her forehead against the glass and put her palms up flat against it. She began to sing haltingly in light, dancing syllables.
“Way down… below the ocean…”
Harry joined in. “Where I want to be, she may be.”
Lily seemed deaf to his participation.
“Know that song, Melissa?” asked Harry. “‘Atlantis’?”
“Nuh-uh,” she said. “Any coffee?”
“In the pot. Make fresh if you like.”
Harry sat back down at the desk, and his chest rose and fell with a deep breath and a deeper sigh. He took the sheet of paper from the printer. As he read, he started nodding. He liked what he saw.
“Melissa, I may have to go out for a while.”
“Okay. We’ll be okay-Lily’s fine.”
Harry looked up with a tilted grin. “Yeah,” he said. “Lily’s fine.”
6
They sat at a booth in the diner on Columbus Avenue. Harry had been coming here since the 1980s, when he and his sister lived nearby. Now it was a twice-a-week breakfast place for him and Geiger. Harry would have his cheddar omelette and bacon, and Geiger would have black coffee. Harry would talk about the business-a tweak to the e-mail codec, new customized spyware, a database he’d hacked into-and Geiger would listen, sometimes responding with a one-sentence remark. Harry brought the Times, and when he was talked out they’d both read the paper. Harry never took the first section because Geiger read only the letters to the editor.
Harry emptied a third thimble of cream into his coffee to placate his stomach as Geiger opened the folder and extracted three sheets of paper. The first was the printout of the potential client’s website entry. His name, Richard Hall, and cell phone number were followed by his request:
I represent the owner of a private art collection. Two days ago a painting, a de Kooning, was stolen. We believe the thief is an art dealer who has served as a go-between in acquisitions for my client. My client feels that notifying law enforcement will not necessarily help recover the painting, so I have contacted you.
Harry watched Geiger’s gray eyes slide back and forth. Even after working for him for more than a decade, Harry knew little about Geiger. He’d pieced together a scant profile from random remarks-not from New York, a music lover, vegetarian, didn’t own a TV, lived somewhere in the city-but he had long ago stopped asking even the most casual personal questions. Whatever more particular sense of the man Harry had came from a tilt of Geiger’s head while listening, the speeds and patterns of his fluttering fingers, the occasional comment about a job. Harry had come to view the nature of their bond in the simplest of terms: need. Geiger had, for reasons Harry did not understand, entrusted him with a significant part of his life, and Harry had put the task of serving him at the empty center of his own. They were the strangest of partners-joined at the hip, light-years between them.
Richard Hall’s entry continued:
The man in question is David Matheson. He is 34 years old, resides at 64 West 75th Street, New York, New York, and his Soc. Sec. number is 379-11-6047. I have him under surveillance and would be able to “deliver” him, as I am told this is how the process works. It is likely that Matheson had a buyer in place before the theft, so it is crucial that this be dealt with quickly. I am authorized to pay an additional $200,000 should you retrieve information leading to the painting’s recovery. Please contact me by 2:00 p.m. or I will look for someone else. Sincerely, Richard Hall
Geiger put the first sheet down.
Harry grinned. “Not bad, huh? Would you do an asap?”
“One step at a time, Harry. We have a way of doing things.”
Harry nodded and stifled a frown and a burp.
The other pages were research on both the Jones and Richard Hall. Harry had hit a dozen different veins, as he liked to call them, while digging up information about David Matheson. He’d earned an undergraduate degree in international studies and a master’s in art history, and had worked for ten years as an art appraiser, consultant, and buyer. He was on watch lists in Greece and Egypt for meeting with suspected black marketeers in antiquities. He had lived in New York for thirteen years and was divorced; his only child, a son, lived with his mother in California. All Harry had on Hall was his birth date and Social, his honorable discharge from the National Guard in 1996, and thirteen years of FICA contributions from Elite Services Inc., an investigative outfit in Philadelphia.
Rita, the waitress with the bleached platinum beehive who often served them, arrived with her coffee pot. She knew not to bother talking to Geiger. With him it was always the same-black coffee, two refills, and hardly a word. Sometimes his gaze would meet hers, but there was no invitation in it. At first she’d taken his manner as coldness, but in time she’d seen her mistake: she’d interpreted his lack of warmth as the presence of its opposite, where, in truth, there was no emotion at all. She slid his cup over and poured, then slid it back and looked to Harry.
“Darlin’?”
Harry waved the offer away. “Already over my limit, Rita, and I’m paying for it.”
“Want the usual for breakfast, Harry?”
“Nothing today, hon.”
Rita moved on. Geiger put the sheets back in the folder.
“So what do you think?” Harry asked.
“Not a lot here to work with,” said Geiger.
Harry frowned. “I didn’t have a lot of time.”
“I wasn’t criticizing the effort, Harry.”
Harry nodded. There hadn’t been any negative edge to the words; there never was. Geiger’s neutral delivery was like an aural Rorschach test. Harry heard what he did or didn’t want to hear depending on his mood. Sometimes it made him nuts.
“Chances are very good that Hall’s client didn’t buy the painting legally,” said Geiger. “That’s why they don’t want the police.”
“That crossed my mind. Doesn’t matter, though-right?”
“Did you find out if any de Koonings have been stolen or gone missing in the last fifty years or so?”
“Uh-huh. Two-in 1979 and 1983.”
Geiger’s fingers danced on the tabletop.
“Harry, even if I get Hall the information he wants, there’s no way we’d know if his client ever actually gets the painting back. We’d never see the extra money.”
“We could make it part of the deal. If Matheson fesses up, I could go along with Hall when he gets the goods. Then we’d know.”
“No. The job is over when the session ends. We don’t go past that line. Inside versus outside, Harry. You know that.”
Harry’s head bobbed and his shirt-hanger shoulders hunched in a shrug.
“I know, I know. It’s just a ton of money.”
Geiger picked up his coffee, blew on it, and took a sip. Harry noted, as he often had before, that even this simple action was executed with the finesse of a ballet dancer.
“Harry, how much did we make last year?”
“A million and change.”
“Twenty-five percent of that is…?”
