Steal, page 21
“Hopefully not,” I said. “Because I’m thinking we’re screwed.”
“Not quite yet. There still might be one way to get this done,” said Julian.
And her name was Elizabeth.
CHAPTER 84
The art of manipulation begins with convincing someone that you know something about him you’re not supposed to know.
“Can I help you?” asked the man behind the counter at Axion Partners. He was nattily dressed in a gray herringbone three-piece suit with a double Windsor knot against a spread collar. He was also clearly proud of the whole ensemble.
“Yes, you absolutely can help me,” answered the woman in the long black coat and dark sunglasses. She was towing a rectangular object, about waist high, strapped to a hand truck. It was covered by a black oversized blanket. “I believe you have an appointment with a customer who will be arriving here shortly. Her name is Dorian Laszlo.”
The man behind the counter stared at the woman, waiting for her to continue. She didn’t. After five seconds of awkward silence, he cleared his throat. “Are you asking me to confirm that?”
The art of manipulation progresses by establishing a power imbalance.
Elizabeth whipped out her badge. “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m asking.”
The man spent a little more time studying her ID from the Joint Terrorism Task Force than most others normally do, but the result was the same. Compliance. “Let me check that for you, Agent Needham,” he said, reaching for a leather-bound appointment book on a table behind him.
“I appreciate it,” said Elizabeth. “Now that you know my name, what’s yours?”
“Stuart,” he said. He opened the book, his forefinger scrolling midway down the page before stopping. “Yes. Here it is. Dorian Laszlo. Artwork packaging.”
“I’m going to guess that there’s also an asterisk or some notation for it being a rush job.” Of course this wasn’t a guess at all.
Stuart nodded. “Yes. For a premium we offer customers a pack-while-you-wait option. That’s what Ms. Laszlo specified.”
“Do you know what it is that she wants packaged?”
He glanced again at the appointment book. “Like I mentioned, it’s artwork. Beyond that I don’t know specifics.”
“I do,” said Elizabeth. “Ms. Laszlo will be asking you to box up a Claude Monet, entitled Woman by the Seine. It has an estimated value of a hundred million dollars. There’s just one problem, though.”
“What’s that?”
Elizabeth leaned in, her voice dropping to a whisper. “It’s a fake.”
Stuart blinked a few times while adjusting the vest of his three-piece suit, giving it a tug. He was processing what he’d been told, filtering it through the purest form of Darwinism. Self-preservation.
“Even if what you’re telling me is true, Agent Needham, how is that a problem for me?” he asked.
“It’s only a problem for you if you don’t help us. And when I say us, I want you to think in capital letters. Capital U, period. Capital S, period. The United States,” said Elizabeth. “You do want to help your country, don’t you?”
“Of course I’d like to help,” said Stuart. “It’s just that I don’t know what you want me to do. It’s not anything that can get me fired, is it? Or anything illegal?”
At a critical juncture, make him think that you’re taking him into your confidence.
“No. We’re the good guys, Stuart. This is about the bad guys. What I need to know, right now, is whether I can trust you. I’m not supposed to tell you what I’m about to tell you. I’m the one who could get fired. So can I trust you?”
CHAPTER 85
“Good,” said Elizabeth, off Stuart’s nod. She edged even closer to the counter, removing her sunglasses. “You see, the only people in this world harder to find than terrorists are the ones who fund them. They’re rich and they’re powerful, and they use both those advantages to help keep what they do extremely well hidden. They cover their tracks. They’re very good at it. But from time to time, we’ve discovered, they still make mistakes.”
“What kind of mistakes?” asked Stuart. He was glued to every word.
“Expensive women and paintings, mainly. Prostitutes and priceless art—they can’t get enough of them, although they sure as hell try. And that’s how we flush them out. Of course, when it comes to art, our government can’t sell them actual Monets or Picassos or van Goghs, but we can make them think that’s what they’re buying. So that’s what we do.”
Elizabeth paused, watching Stuart tug on his vest again as he took all of this in. He wasn’t quite there yet, though. He wasn’t supposed to be. “I’m not sure I’m following,” he said.
“Funny you should say follow. These fake paintings that we sell them have tracking devices built into the frames. That’s how we find these guys.”
Ahhh, said Stuart’s face. “So Dorian Laszlo works for a terrorist?”
“She’s actually an unwitting accomplice,” said Elizabeth. “She’s a go-between. She doesn’t know the truth about who bought this Monet on the black market. The problem, and why I’m here, is that we just got reliable intelligence that the buyer suspects something. In short, he’s onto us.”
“How?”
“We needed a quick and easy way to identify our forgeries out in the wild, so we came up with a numbering system. In fact, that’s how you’re going to know that everything I’m telling you is true. On the back of the supposed Monet that Dorian Laszlo is bringing here you’ll see four little numbers scribbled in black. Nine, one, five, two.”
The art of manipulation is complete once you’ve convinced him that acting in your best interest is also in his best interest.
“So what is it that you want me to do? Tell me. I want to help,” said Stuart.
Elizabeth unstrapped the item on the hand truck. She lifted it to the counter, turning back the corners of the black blanket it was wrapped in. “Do you recognize the packaging?” she asked.
“Of course,” said Stuart. “It’s ours. When did we do it for you?”
“You didn’t.” Elizabeth took a step back, as if admiring it. “But you could have fooled me, right?”
Stuart stared at all the Axion logos and markings on the slender wooden crate. The shipping label, too. Everything was a perfect match. “Fooled both of us, I would say. How were you able to do this?” he asked.
“If we can create a convincing forgery of a hundred-million-dollar painting, we’re not about to let the damn box it arrives in get in the way,” said Elizabeth. “The only thing missing are those wire thingamajigs that you guys use for security on the seal.”
“I call them the no-tamper ties,” said Stuart. He looked again at the crate. “So what’s inside?”
“A better forgery, that’s what. The buyer, like I said, somehow got wise to our numbering system. Or so we believe. That’s why we need to make sure this is what Dorian Laszlo leaves with.”
Elizabeth liked that she didn’t have to lie to Stuart about what was inside. It was indeed a better forgery—certainly better than the one that Julian and his forger had intended to send to Budapest. Elizabeth had been on her way to the restricted cargo area of JFK to make the switch with the real Monet when she got the call from Dylan. “Change of plans,” he told her.
First, she had to get her hands on a black grease pen.
Second, she had to open the crate so she could write the four numbers on the back of the painting. Nine, one, five, two. Dylan had sent her a screenshot from Tracy’s glasses so she could copy the handwriting style as best she could. The only problem was those wire thingamajigs. The no-tamper ties. She didn’t have any extras. Who would’ve thought she needed any? She had to get new ones now before making the switch, which meant her racing to Axion and engaging with her new best friend, Stuart.
“So what exactly am I supposed to do?” he asked, glancing at a clock on the wall behind him. It was the old-school variety, with a spring-loaded second hand that clicked with each movement. “Ms. Laszlo is scheduled to be here in about ten minutes.”
This was the one part of the new plan for which neither Dylan nor Julian had an answer. Elizabeth was on her own. She couldn’t let Dorian Laszlo see her since they’d already met, and if there was one takeaway from that meeting, it was that Laszlo wasn’t about to let her country’s newly reclaimed Monet out of her sight while it was being packaged.
“Do you have a coffee maker here?” asked Elizabeth.
Stuart looked at her as if she were crazy. The clock was literally ticking away over his shoulder. Laszlo could walk through the door at any moment. “You’re asking me for a cup of coffee?”
“It’s not for me, it’s for you.”
“I don’t drink coffee.”
“I don’t need you to drink it. I need you to spill it,” said Elizabeth. “At just the right moment.”
CHAPTER 86
“What was the guy’s name again?” I asked.
“Stuart,” said Elizabeth. “Clumsy, clumsy Stuart.”
Timing is everything, and having Stuart spill coffee on Dorian Laszlo was everything Elizabeth needed to make the switch. The second Laszlo scurried off to the bathroom at Axion Partners to assess the damage to her blouse, Elizabeth appeared from the storage closet with the fake Monet in hand.
“You should’ve heard the way Laszlo cursed him out. She was so ticked off,” Elizabeth told me over the phone, chuckling. “Oh, and regards from Richard Landau. He said he hopes to see you again soon at the Yale Club.”
“He probably shouldn’t hold his breath on that,” I said. Fittingly, von Oehson had his old chum pick up the painting from Elizabeth.
“So did you hear from him yet? Von Oehson?” she asked.
“Not only that, I’m going to see him this weekend.”
“Why?”
“He made me another offer I couldn’t refuse.”
Normally, I’d never allow my students to be used as pawns in a rich man’s game, but if they ever found out the alternative—my turning down the offer and saying no—I’d never be forgiven. Not by a single one of them.
It was finally safe for Carter von Oehson to return to school. All the same, his father wanted to “ease” the transition, and I agreed to cooperate. Mine would be Carter’s first class back. Of course, postponing that class until the weekend, especially leading into the reading period before finals, would hardly be popular unto itself. I never would’ve done it were it not for the sweetener, the offer made to me by Mathias von Oehson.
The plan was another field trip. This one beyond Woolsey Rotunda and the confines of the Yale campus. The entire class, one hundred twenty to be exact, boarded two luxury buses in New Haven on Saturday afternoon and headed into Manhattan. In the process they amended one of the great punch lines of all time. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice. (Or, if you’re lucky, be the guest of an insanely rich multibillionaire who happens to sit on the board.)
I was the warm-up act. No one knew who the headliner was, only that it would be “worth their while.” Even at that it was an undersell.
I gave my lecture from the stage of Carnegie Hall, which was admittedly a thrill. The students were spread out among the first ten rows, trying their best—most of them, at least—to pay attention. This was the last class before the final, and as any Yale undergrad not living under a rock knows, my finals are nothing you can study for. You simply have to hope that all my blabbering during the semester somehow resonated in one way or another. If so, I always assure them, “You’ll do just fine and dandy on the test.”
At the end of my lecture, I asked whether there were any questions. One hand immediately shot up. “Yes, Carter,” I said. “What’s your question?”
We hadn’t spoken in the days since his miraculous return at St. Sebastian’s church. I didn’t want him knowing that I was working for his father. His father didn’t want him knowing, either. It was better that I not even give him the opportunity to ask me again about my being at his funeral. Hence, I’d kept my distance.
Carter stood. “It’s not actually a question, it’s something I wanted to say,” he began, before taking a deep breath. “I haven’t been able to talk to each one of you yet, so with all of us here…I just…you know, feel bad about what happened. It’s a crazy story, and I think in time I’ll be able to talk about it more, but until then I’m really sorry that I made so many people sad and angry and frustrated and…well, probably a little pissed off. I heard about that primal scream you all did.” He then flashed his signature smile, which made everyone laugh. “Okay, a lot pissed off!”
His classmates laughed some more. A few clapped and hollered.
“Thank you, Carter. I think that was a stand-up thing to do,” I said. I figured that was the perfect segue. “And speaking of stand up…”
They all would’ve groaned had they known yet who I was about to introduce.
I first gave thanks to Carter’s father for inviting our special guest. Then, without further ado, I made way for one of my true favorites. This was the guy who so brilliantly captured the reality of what it means to be Black in America years before anyone even uttered the phrase Black Lives Matter. And he did it with one single line in a live comedy show.
“There ain’t a white man in this room that would trade places with me.”
I exited stage left, and from stage right came Chris Rock to do an hour-long set in front of one hundred twenty kids who suddenly sounded like twenty thousand. To hear my students scream so loudly again, this time out of excitement, was the best bookend I could think of to the saga of Carter von Oehson and his suicide that wasn’t.
No one else needed to know the truth. The whole truth. Because that’s the way the world works. Some secrets are better left in the dark—much like the man who had arranged all of this, now standing in the shadows, waiting for me once I walked off the stage.
CHAPTER 87
I stood next to Mathias von Oehson, and we both listened and laughed for a few minutes as Chris Rock absolutely killed it. Playing to a small crowd, albeit in Carnegie Hall, surely brought him back to his club days.
Eventually, there was an exchange to be had. I figured the faster we got to it, the sooner I could get back to enjoying the show.
“So are you at least hanging it on a wall this time?” I asked.
“I’m not sure yet,” said von Oehson. “I’ll wait for the satisfaction of having it back to level off, and then see how I feel. I doubt it, though.” He paused. “That still strikes you as odd, huh?”
“No, not really. To each their own.” Although that wasn’t really the truth. It did seem a bit strange that he would keep this beautiful Monet wrapped in a blanket, stuffed away in a closet. Sure, he couldn’t let others know he had it, but that didn’t prevent him from hanging it somewhere in private, if only for his own satisfaction. Could a man like him ever possess a greater trophy?
It was as if he could read my mind. “Have you ever been big-game hunting, Dylan?” he asked.
“I’ve been hunting, plenty of times. But never for what qualifies as big game,” I said. “Never felt the need.”
“You’re lucky.”
“Or maybe just not that wealthy.”
“You know that’s not it. Given your field of expertise, or at least one of them, you probably understand the psychology behind it,” he said. “Or better put, the abnormal psychology.”
“Heads and horns,” I said. “Try as some men might, you can’t hang true satisfaction on a wall.”
Von Oehson nodded his approval. “I told you from the beginning you were the right man for the job.” With that, he reached for the inside breast pocket of his suit, removing an envelope. “My thanks again. It was always about my son, but you went above and beyond with the painting. Merry Christmas.”
I took the envelope, and this time I kept it. It wasn’t sealed, but I didn’t bother looking at the check. Von Oehson watched as I tucked it away in my pocket. “What’s with the smirk?” I asked.
“The smirk is for the pleasant irony.”
“How do you mean?”
“You don’t want to at least look at it? Confirm the amount?”
“Why? Did you shortchange me?”
Again, he smirked. Okay, fine. I peeked inside the envelope. Lo and behold, von Oehson had tacked on an extra $500,000 to the back-end payment. The check was for $1.5 million.
“I added a 1 percent bonus off the sale of the Monet,” he said. “It seemed about right. Even more so now. That’s the pleasant irony. You returned the painting to me without first collecting what I still owed you. You trusted a guy to make good on a deal that was struck on anything but trust. That’s impressive.”
“Or maybe I just know where you live,” I said. “Some of your homes, at least.”
“Funny.” He motioned to the stage. “Maybe you should be out there.”
“No. That’s my greatest expertise of all,” I said. “Knowing my limitations.”
“Interesting,” said von Oehson. “Now ask me what’s mine.”
I played along. The guy did just give me the biggest check I’d ever been handed. What was that I said about being a pawn in a rich man’s game?
“Okay, what’s yours?” I asked. “What’s your greatest expertise of all?”
He smiled. A devilish grin. “Knowing the limitations of everyone else,” he said.
CHAPTER 88
The single biggest decision Tracy and I ever made together was adopting a baby. Next to that, everything else—including our decision to get married—will always feel like a distant second.
As for our most contentious decision, the one over which we’re diametrically opposed and have spent countless hours heatedly debating, and are still debating on an annual basis…well, that can only be a matter of the utmost seriousness, right?
That’s right. The all-important matter? When are we putting up the Christmas tree?
