Page 22 of The Picasso Heist
“You’re here because you don’t look like all my guys.”
That got a snicker out of the one with a short ponytail of jet-black hair who was standing off to the side of his boss. His teeth were crooked, his nose was crooked, and his pockmarked skin suggested the surface of the moon. Plus, his ears were huge.
“You’ll have to forgive Carmine here,” said Lugieri, pointing. “He doesn’t like outsiders. And he really doesn’t like pretty boys.”
Malcolm turned and looked square at Carmine. “I wouldn’t either with a face like that,” he said.
The acoustics in the room were such that the laughter erupting from Lugieri’s other men sounded even louder than it was. One was cackling like a hyena.
“Fuck did you say?” asked Carmine, taking a step forward.
Malcolm didn’t flinch. There was a fine line between crazy and brave. “You heard me, Dumbo,” he said.
The men howled again with laughter, only now it was joined by disbelief.Did the kid really just say that?
The cut beneath Malcolm’s eye dripped a drop of blood as Carmine came at him. Again, he didn’t flinch. Not even as Carmine balled his right fist, raised it high, and landed it square against Malcolm’s jaw, knocking him down.
But only for two seconds.
There was something about the way the new kid rose to his feet—the whole room saw it. The pain didn’t show on him. There was no stagger, no wobble. Just a smile.
“That one was free,” said Malcolm. “Any more, you gotta pay.”
The warning was lost on Carmine, his rage rendering him deaf and blind. He wound up again, his fist a blur, but Malcolm was more than ready for it; he ducked beneath Carmine’s second swing and immediately rose up with two quick jabs and a roundhouse punch that landed so hard against Carmine’s chin, you could hear his teeth crack. The next sound was Carmine hitting the floor with a thud.
Now the room was silent. That should’ve been the end of it, andthey all knew it. All of them except for Carmine. Slowly, he pushed himself to his knees. He spit out blood. He spit out half a tooth. He reached for the sheath strapped against his ankle and removed the blade.
“That’s enough, Carmine,” said Lugieri.
The boss had spoken. But humiliation can wreak havoc on a man’s hearing. Carmine lunged with the knife. He was fast but Malcolm was faster, grabbing Carmine’s wrist and sweeping his legs in one motion. In the blink of an eye, Carmine was flat on his back, the tip of the knife now an inch from his own throat. Carmine was a dead man if Malcolm wanted that.
But he didn’t. Malcolm straightened up and turned to Lugieri, who was out of his chair. Lugieri walked around the table and hovered over Carmine. When he spoke, he was looking down at Carmine but clearly talking to the other men.
“I told you that was enough,” said Lugieri. “Never make me say it twice.”
“I’m… sorry,” said Carmine, his voice trembling.
But it was too little, too late for his boss.Pffft. Pffft.Lugieri fired two shots through the Banish 45 suppressor attached to his Glock 19, right between the eyes of Carmine’s ugly face.
Lugieri turned to Malcolm. “Looks like we have an opening,” he said.
CHAPTER20
I’M NOW ONEweek into the job. Terrance Willinghoff, head of the valuations department, is still being nice to me. And his second in command, Pierre Dejarnette, is still hitting on me.
“When are you going to break up with that boyfriend of yours and run off with me?” he asks, sipping his French-press coffee in his office. He assumes my stopping by that morning to say hello is an open invitation to flirt. Not that Pierre ever needs an invitation, open or otherwise.
“That depends,” I say. “When are you going to give me a tour of the vault?”
He smiles. “It is pretty sexy, isn’t it? The vault.”
“I was thinking more along the lines ofeducational,but sure,sexyworks too.”
“Did you ever hear the story about Bruce and Mindy?” he asks.
“Who were they?”
“Two people who worked here about ten years ago.”
