Page 37 of The Picasso Heist
“You’re the one who wants to keep the painting. The insurance angle was your idea,” I remind him.
I watch as Nikolov processes everything. He’s trying his best to focus on the big picture but he’s forgotten to tell his fists. They’re balled so tight, his knuckles look whiter than a J. Crew catalog.
Meanwhile, Blaggy’s trying to catch up. “What’s an ARPL?” he asks.
“It’s an all-risk-of-physical-loss policy,” I say.
“How much longer?” asks Nikolov.
“Until the policy is signed? I told you, it’s probably two days, maybe—”
“No,” says Nikolov, folding his arms. His eyes narrow until they’re as keen as a knife’s edge. If looks could kill… “How much longer before you finally tell me what you haven’t told me yet?”
CHAPTER32
SOMETIMES IT’S BESTto play dumb. This ain’t one of those times.
“How’d you know?” I ask.
“Your right ear,” he says. “You tuck your hair behind it when you’re hiding something.”
“Bullshit.”
“You did it when we first met. Of course, a tell isn’t a tell until you do it more than once. You’ve done it three times in the past five minutes.”
Note to self: Never play poker with Anton Nikolov. “I’m not so much hiding something as stalling,” I say. “We’re waiting on a phone call.”
“From whom?” he asks.
“Bergamo. We had a bit of a curveball thrown at us after the auction. It’s a new security measure Echelon’s implemented.”
“What kind of security measure?”
“That’s the problem. I don’t know what it is yet.”
“Once again,you work there. How do you not know?”
“Because I don’t run the place,” I say. “But it’s not going to be a problem.”
“How do you know that if you don’t know what it is?”
I take out my phone. “Because Bergamo is about to call and tell us. And then, whatever it is, we’ll deal with it.”
“Or maybe I just don’t transfer the money for the painting. Maybe I bow out,” says Nikolov. “How about that, huh? And why the hell are we waiting on Bergamo? I’ll call him myself.”
“You can’t.”
“Of course I can.”
“No. I mean he won’t pick up, not if he’s still in the Echelon building,” I say. “Plus, he might still be with his wife.”
“The way that woman drinks, she won’t remember a damn thing in the morning.”
“Okay, that one I’ll give you.”
Nikolov scoops up his glass, heads for a credenza doubling as a bar, and pours himself some more scotch, all but emptying a bottle of Macallan. As soon as he takes a sip, my phone rings.
“Put it on speaker,” says Nikolov.
