Page 87 of The Picasso Heist
“Yeah, a lot of places do them pretty good. I like ’em here. You want some? I just ordered, I’ll tell the kitchen to do another.”
“No, thanks. I’m all set.”
“My mother, God rest her soul, used to make clams Posillipo all the time. They were the best I ever had. Her sauce, I’m tellingyou—it was her sauce. You know what her secret was?” Lugieri leaned in and said, almost whispering, “A coffee filter.”
“Like what you put in a coffee maker?” asked Malcolm. “That paper-cone thing?”
“Exactly. Most people, all the restaurants, they add a clam or fish stock from a can to the sauce. But not my mother. She took the water that she cooked the clams in, mixed it with a little white wine, and then carefully poured the leftover broth through not just a strainer but a strainer lined with a coffee filter. Did it take longer? Absolutely. But she didn’t care.She knew.It’s the little things in this damn life that matter. Attention to detail. That’s what makes a sauce.” Lugieri motioned to the manila envelope in Malcolm’s hand. “So what little thing have you brought me today?”
Malcolm glanced at the other two men in the room standing by the wall. He knew them, knew their names. They’d been with him on the visit to those would-be weed kingpins from NYU, the Grass-Fed Pandas. From that day on, no one in Lugieri’s crew had given Malcolm blowback on anything.
“Give us a minute, guys,” said Lugieri.
Malcolm opened the envelope as the guys left the room. The first picture he put on the table was of Bergamo and a young woman talking at a party.
“Her name is Halston,” said Malcolm, pointing directly at her head. “This was at Bergamo’s beach house out in the Hamptons.”
Lugieri leaned in for a closer look. “A pretty girl who isn’t his wife,” he said, knowing there was more to come. “Got it.”
Malcolm placed the second photo on top of the first. “This is her walking into the building of Bergamo’s apartment in SoHo near his headquarters.” Out came the third photo. “And this is her getting into his limo another afternoon.”
“So he’s fucking her is what you’re saying.”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” said Malcolm. “But I’m pretty sure she’s fucking him.”
“What do you mean? Who is she?”
“Halston Graham recently graduated from Columbia and now works for an art auction house on the Upper East Side.”
The fourth photo was of her walking into the Echelon building.
“Bergamo’s a member there,” said Lugieri.
“That’s right. I assume that’s how the two of them met.”
“So what does this have to do with me?”
“Up until this point, nothing,” said Malcolm.
“But you said she’s fucking him, right? Is she blackmailing him? Threatening to talk to his wife or something?”
“She’s talking, all right.” Malcolm removed the last two photos from the envelope, pushed the others aside, and placed them next to each other in front of Lugieri.
“Shit,” said Lugieri, his eyes bouncing from one to the other.
“She was in the US attorney’s office for over two hours,” said Malcolm. “That’s her entering, and that’s her leaving.”
“Who was she talking to?”
“I’m working on that, but it was someone in the criminal division.”
“How do you know?”
Malcolm reached one last time into the manila envelope. He had no more pictures, but he brought out a visitor’s pass withGRAHAM, HALSTONandCRIM. DIV.printed on it. Halston Graham was visiting the criminal division.
“She threw it in a garbage can outside the building,” said Malcolm.
There was a knock on the door. One of Lugieri’s guys popped his head in. “Your clams are here,” he said.
