Page 92 of The Picasso Heist
“Authenticating is a little tricky when the paintings don’t officially exist. There aren’t many secrets in the art world. Word would’ve gotten out if he’d hired someone. So my father did the best he could on his own to verify them,” I say. “But he’d be the first to admit that he desperately wanted those paintings to be real, and that probably affected his judgment. He never intended to rip anyone off. It was an honest mistake. Or at least it should’ve been.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“After selling about six paintings and banking huge commissions, my father suddenly heard the voice of his own father in his head saying something he used to say a lot when my dad was a kid:An easy buck is the devil’s paycheck.My father just had this gut feeling that something wasn’t right, so he anonymously arranged to haveone of the paintings examined by a black-market authenticator. And that’s when he found out he’d been selling fakes.”
“You said he was in jail. So what happened?” asks Lugieri. “He turned himself in or something?”
“I wish,” I say. “Hewishes. No, he made a really bad decision. Coming clean would have ruined my father’s reputation, ended his career. He would’ve been okay with that if it weren’t for the most important thing in his life: his family. All he could think about was how they would suffer, not just financially but in every way. They’d forever be the wife and kids of that art-scam guy. So my father convinced himself that he had good reasons to not reveal the truth.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t just greed?”
“Greed would be if he kept selling the paintings. He didn’t. In fact, he went to Bergamo and explained they’d been cheated. Bergamo wanted to get his money back from the French attorney but the lawyer refused, citing buyer beware—caveat emptor—along with the complexities of a US citizen filing a lawsuit against a French citizen living in France. It wasn’t impossible to do. It was just impossible to do without it becoming an international news story. To prevent that from happening, my father promised to make Bergamo whole on the transaction. He would basically give him all of his commissions to cover the twenty-five million that Bergamo had paid for one of the paintings.”
“Let me guess,” says Lugieri. “He never got the chance.”
“My father assumed that one of his other clients discovered the painting he’d bought was a fake and turned him in. The FBI never revealed their source. It was only after the trial, after my father was already serving his sentence, that we learned that Bergamo had been behind the whole thing. It was his scam. There was never a French attorney. Bergamo commissioned the fake Légers and conspired to defraud my father’s clients for over two hundred million dollars,” I say. “And the worst part? Bergamo was the FBI’s source. Only theydidn’t know it. After my father learned that the paintings were fake and went to Bergamo—his supposed friend—Bergamo made the anonymous tip to the FBI.”
“To cover his ass.”
“In every way possible. He knew my father would protect him. Sure enough, my father never mentioned Bergamo to the FBI. He knew the damage it would do to Bergamo’s brand just to have his name connected with the investigation.”
I watch as Lugieri folds his arms, nodding along with my last words.
“Wow,” he says. “That is one fucked-up, crazy story. And the craziest part? I actually believe every word of it.”
“I told you,” I say.
“Yes, you did. Thanks for telling me the truth, Halston.” He mulls things over for a moment and then shrugs. “Unfortunately, we still need to kill you.”
CHAPTER78
I’M IN Aplace where no one can hear me scream but I scream anyway. It’s pointless. I’m not changing anyone’s mind.
Then it’s as if Lugieri’s guy, Malcolm, can read mine. His free hand, sans gun to my head, comes slamming down on my shoulder the split second I try desperately to get up from the chair and run. Where I’d be going, I don’t know. Neither does Lugieri. He looks at me.
“Why?” I ask.“Why?”
“Because I do business with the idiot, that’s why. You’re a loose end, and loose ends are bad for business,” says Lugieri. “That’s me telling you the truth.”
He nods at Malcolm. That’s all it takes. My death sentence isn’t even a word. It isn’t even a countdown. The only thing I have time to do is close my eyes.
Click.
More like a half a click, really. I open my eyes. I’m still alive.The gun’s no longer pressed against my head. I turn to look behind me.
“Shit,” mumbles Malcolm. He’s trying to adjust the hammer.
“What the hell?” asks Lugieri.
“It’s jammed,” says Malcolm.
That gets a chuckle out of the other guy from the diner, whatever his name is, in the corner.
“Shut the fuck up,” Lugieri tells him.
“Sammy, give me your gun,” says Malcolm.
He has a name. Sammy. How much of a brain he has remains unclear. “What?” he asks.
