Hugo laughed. “I think the Irishman is a chancer and an idiot. But he’s not stupid. Within the next twenty-four hours he’ll either be dead or on a one-way ticket out of Spain. He’s nothing but a petty thief who made a big mistake. Not someone we need worry about anymore.”
“But it is the principle. He must pay for taking from me.”
“I understand your concern,” Hugo replied. “And we’ll see to it that Danny Flynn pays for his mistakes, but for now we have bigger issues at hand.”
Delgado turned around, seeing Alfredo still waiting patiently in the centre of the gallery for him. “Fine. I trust your judgement. Have our friend deliver the egg and the files to my house this evening.”
“What about the Albanians? They are coming also.”
“Hey, the more the merrier,” Delgado boomed, smiling at Alfredo as he spoke. “No reason I can’t get all my affairs in order at once.”
It was a statement full of bravado, but he meant it. As a man of many means and as untouchable as it got, nothing was too much of an issue for Luis Alejandro Delgado. He hung up as Alfredo unfroze and stepped tentatively his way.
“You’ve done a good job, my friend,” he told him, spinning around and eyeing the gallery space – the sixteen huge and colourful canvases suspended from the ceiling with fine wire and hanging a few feet from the walls to create the effect they were floating in space. “Looks good. Looks really good.” He glanced around. “Has there been any interest?”
Alfredo, sweating even in the cool air provided by the state-of-the-art temperature control units, waved one hand from side to side. “Not as yet. But we have only been open a few hours. They will come. Although this one has been here some time.” He gestured to a woman standing on the far side of the gallery with her back to them. She was taking in San Miguel’s Sin Título 3, a square canvas painted a light grey and flecked with violent streaks of petrol blue and bright crimson.
“Is she a buyer?” Delgado asked.
Another non-committal gesture followed from Alfredo, this time his head moving from side to side. “Perhaps. She has spent many minutes in front of each canvas, looking in great detail.” He moved closer. “She is very beautiful. A very sexy girl.”
Delgado eyed his old friend suspiciously. It was unusual for him to talk this way. “Thank you, Alfredo. That is all for now. Leave me to appreciate my art, will you?”
“Of course.”
He waited for the bumbling oaf to scurry back behind his desk on the far side of the room before sauntering over to join the woman in front of the painting. He approached slowly, taking her in as he did. She was wearing a red dress that was frilled at the bottom, like a modern take on a flamenco dancer’s traje de gitana, and which hugged her feminine form in all the right places.
It was no secret (perhaps why he already had two ex-wives) that Luis Delgado liked the ladies. And all kinds of ladies, at that. White, black, brown, yellow, red. If they had a pretty face, a good set of titties and a nice round ass, why discriminate?
Drawing closer he felt a familiar swell of excitement as she tossed her dark wavy hair to one side and he caught a glimpse of her profile. What cheekbones she had. And that pout, resplendent in blood red lipstick. However, despite the dress and her colouring, he assumed her to be foreign. American perhaps, or even English. It was something about her stance, the way she held herself.
“Hello there,” he chimed, slipping into what he’d always felt was a perfect English accent. “You are enjoying the exhibit?”
The woman turned to face him. “Oh, hello. Umm… Yes, wonderful. Really something.” She smiled politely, but he noticed a glimmer of something else as her eyes quickly ran down his body. Attraction, perhaps. Nothing unusual there. Delgado knew he was a good-looking man and had never had any issues attracting female company, not even as a young man, poor and wayward – the money and the expensive clothes only increased his pull.
“Are you an artist yourself?” he asked, knowing this sort of question always worked well with beautiful women. Have them believe you consider them more than just a piece of ass.
“Gosh, no,” came the reply, holding her hand to her chest in mock disbelief. “But I am an art lover. A collector actually of modern art, but also antiquities. It’s how I got this bloody injury here.” She turned her head to show him the cut on her right cheek, covered by foundation but visible all the same.
“Oh my. What happened to you?”
“Wasn’t looking what I was doing whilst packing up a five million dollar samurai sword.”
Delgado was impressed. “Five million dollars? Extraordinary.”
“Yes. A Kamakura, actually. Thirteenth century but still as sharp as a razor. What ho.” She let her hair fall back over that side of her face. “Sorry, I do apologise, I haven’t introduced myself. Gabriella Goldstein.”
She held out her hand and he took it in his. “Gabriella? Perdona. Eres Español?”
“Oh no,” she said, looking bashful. “But my grandma, on my mother’s side, she was Spanish. Her name was Gabriella too.”
“Ah wonderful.” He sighed. “Well it is good to meet you, Gabriella. My name is Luis Delgado and I am the owner of this gallery. I actually commissioned all these pieces you see today. From a young Spanish artist, Pablo San Miguel. He is good, no?”
“Absolutely. And I know who he is. I’ve been following San Miguel’s career ever since his Murcia exhibition seven years ago.”
He stepped back to take her in some more. “I am impressed,” he said. “It is not often I meet someone with such impeccable taste.”
“Oh I don’t know about that,” she said, fixing him with the sort of look designed to send a man wild. “But I certainly know what I
