Page 21 of The Picasso Heist
The two fell silent, both considering what lay ahead. “So you really think someone’s going to take a swing at me in there?” asked Malcolm. “Like it’s some initiation type of thing?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then what?”
Amir turned to the kid. There was a big age gap between them. Amir had had forty-plus more years of living.
And learning.
“They’ll check you for a wire, then they’ll check you for a weapon,” he said. “You have neither, and you’ll act ticked off that they suspect otherwise. You know it’s not personal, they have to do it to anyone new, but you don’t give a shit because you’re not just anyone, and they need to know that. You have to show them and in no uncertain terms.”
“How?”
“The only way you can. By being the biggest badass in the room,” said Amir. He pulled back the cuff of his dress shirt, glanced at his gold Rolex. It had been more than a few minutes. “You ready?”
Malcolm nodded. “Ready,” he said.
Malcolm stepped out of the car and was about to close the door behind him when Amir told him to wait a second. Malcolm watched as Amir got out from his side and joined him on the sidewalk in the slight drizzle.
“The ring,” said Amir, pointing at Malcolm’s right hand.
“What about it?” It was a black opal ring that Malcolm had picked up at the Pul-e Khishti bazaar in Kabul during his second tour in Afghanistan. He almost never took it off.
“Let me see it for a second,” said Amir.
Malcolm removed the ring and handed it to Amir, who immediately put it on the middle finger of his left hand, front and center.
“What are you doing?” asked Malcolm.
He never saw the answer coming. Amir, a southpaw, wound up and punched Malcolm as hard as a seventy-year-old man could. The edge of the ring caught Malcolm’s cheek, immediately drawing blood, and he staggered on his feet.
“Now you’re ready,” said Amir.
CHAPTER19
THERE’S BETTER ITALIANfood to be had on the Lower East Side of Manhattan than the heavy red-sauce-and-garlic fare offered up at Osteria Contorni. But for authentic old-school Italian ambience, nothing else comes close. The fact that the restaurant still uses vintage Chianti wine bottles, the kind with straw wrapped around the base, as candleholders says it all. Time moves a little slower here.
So do the staff. There’s not a single out-of-work actor playing the role of waiter at Osteria Contorni. Nor are there any females. These guys are lifers; each one seems to be older than the next, and all of them have a slight hunch to their backs from leaning forward to take orders all these years. They joke, they bicker, they bust balls, but they always look out for one another. No one ever pockets a cash tip for himself.
No wonder it’s Dominick Lugieri’s favorite restaurant.
Over here,mouthed one of his crew to Malcolm when he walked in, motioning with a fat finger. The guy was standing by a red doornext to the nearly empty coat-check room. August in New York City is the definition ofsticky. Not a lot of layers being shed.
The closer Malcolm got to him, the more the guy squinted. He was looking at the open cut across Malcolm’s cheek, the streak of blood.
“You should see the other four guys,” said Malcolm.
It was a waste of a good line. Dominick Lugieri’s front man hadn’t been chosen for his sense of humor. He didn’t even crack a smile. He just pointed with that same fat finger at the red door. He wanted Malcolm on the other side of it.
That’s where the full pat-down happened. It was a narrow hall with another red door on the far end. Malcolm spread his arms and got treated to all ten fat fingers, head to toe. Satisfied—no weapon, no wire—the guy pressed a small buzzer on the wall and motioned for Malcolm to keep walking. The second red door opened, and that’s when Malcolm saw him. The man himself, Dominick Lugieri. Eating a bowl of pasta e fagioli.
Of course a man like Lugieri never eats at a restaurant alone, even in his own private dining room at his favorite establishment. There were, count ’em, one, two, three henchmen hovering near his table.
Lugieri angled his spoon on the side of his bowl and eyed Malcolm up and down, then up and down again. He could clearly see the cut and blood on Malcolm’s cheek but when he spoke, he didn’t ask about it.
“We have a mutual friend,” he said, leaning back in his chair. Lugieri had a bit of a belly but was otherwise in decent shape for a fifty-year-old guy who had survived two attempts on his life. Two attempts that made the papers, at least. “Our friend tells me that you’re good, but all my guys are good. So do you know why you’re here?”
“Our friend wouldn’t tell me,” said Malcolm.
