Page 44 of Mimosa

In his hands was art, whether copied or not. Sure, it was wrong to do what he’d done, but when he thought about the person who had the original, when he was imagining how the person bragged, not about the painting, but the price he’d paid…

People like that, who didn’t appreciate the intricacies of it, rather than the price, well, they didn’t deserve it. At least in his mind.

The men were quiet on the drive, off in their own thoughts of their roles in the heist. Abs was absently drumming his fingers on his knees, and Cosmo drove with his brows drawn, jaw clenching.

The walkie came on with a little whine as Murphy drove the other car in a completely different route. “How are you all?”

Goldie, who was in the passenger seat, got on the radio and said, “We’re good. We’re ready.”

“I’ll meet you as planned. Good luck and God speed.”

Haze wasn’t nervous, per se. He was ready. They’d done these jobs enough that any apprehension they had left him ages ago.

They were a good team. Connor Murphy was excellent at getting the right people together to do jobs like they did.

Goldie turned his head to tell them all, “Okay, remember, we’re heading into the side door, the one for the staff. He has a live-in maid that goes to bed at nine, and a driver, who is currently driving the guy around. We have to be quiet, work fast and get out. I haven’t noticed her getting up a lot. There’s a light on for half an hour, but it’s faint, like a tablet.”

“She probably reads before bed, on an e-reader,” Abs said.

“That’s what I figured. And, twice, he’s come into the house and she never got up, so I think she either sleeps soundly, or she may just be used to him coming in late. She won’t think it’s a robbery if she doesn’t hear glass breaking or other noises like that.”

Haze agreed. “My tools are all hand tools, so there is no motor noise to take the painting out of the frame.”

As many times as he’d practiced, on every kind of frame, well, if he didn’t get it, he was going to hate himself. If they couldn’t get it out of the frame, the job was done.

Cosmo dropped them off near the house, in the trees behind it. There was a fence and a long back yard to pass through that had several motion lights.

Goldie, when staking out the place, used a drone to fly around the yard to find all the motion lights, and he and Haze together, charted the course through the yard. They took the lead as they got over the fence and made their way through the course they’d set, not setting off one motion detector light.

As the side of the big home, Goldie and Haze stopped to let Abs go first to the side door. “I’m on,” he whispered, taking out his little tool kit, his minicomputer and he started his work.

Haze realized years ago that he was not the only artist among them. Hippy could play music that made them all melt with happiness and soft smiles. The things Mims could do on the computer, well, they were pure art.

Goldie could read people and places like he’d known them all his life, and Cosmo worked cars like he’d built them from the ground up.

Abs, well, Abs and his skills with security systems was epic. If he’d never worked on a particular system, he watched a video or messed with a practice system just once and he had it mastered. He could break into safes, into homes, and get around any keycode like he could sense the numbers to punch.

It took him all of three minutes before the lock disengaged on the side door and he was smiling over at them. “In,” he whispered.

“My boy,” Goldie said and he kissed Abs’s head as they passed.

Haze moved past Abs then the three of them were in the house together, and, from the blueprints of the home, they knew where each room lay and which of those rooms to avoid.

The painting was in the main living area, a huge space with tons of gaudy artwork and sculpture. Haze glanced around, the distaste for the place evident. Whispering, Abs asked, “Is any of this stuff good too?”

“It’s all good. That’s a fucking three hundred grand Ming vase over there holding roses. Jesus, some people do not deserve the beautiful things they own.”

He could tell Abs was itching to take more, but he stopped him. “We aren’t getting caught because we have a replacement.”

“How good are you at making vases?”

“Not.”

“Damn.”

“Will you two get over here? Abs, there are wires back here,” Goldie said as he lay his cheek to the wall to get a look behind the painting with his tiny flashlight.

“Oooh, cool,” Abs said, and he went into work mode immediately. Haze watched him in awe, but then his eyes moved to the painting, and he was captured.

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