“So here’s the deal.” Decker put his hand on the kid’s shoulder. “I can handle this all by my lonesome. So if you want to just fart around, I’m okay with that. No one will have to know. You tell me, Tyler. What do you want to do—if anything?”
“I know I’m acting like a dick.” McAdams rubbed his forehead. “I am a dick. I don’t like being a dick, but I don’t know how not to be a dick. I guess being a dick is better than being a tool. Although I guess I’m kind of a tool, too.” He looked up at Decker. “Some people just don’t have winning ways.”
“Do you know how many different and difficult personalities I’ve had to work with over the years?” When McAdams didn’t answer, Decker said, “Yes, you’re a little obnoxious, but nothing I haven’t seen before. Besides, I don’t care about personalities. I just care about getting the job done and I need to organize my time. In or out?”
“If it would be useful to you, I will look up art thefts on the Internet.”
“It would save me time so, yes, it would be useful. And while you’re on the computer, find out what you can about Tiffany and, specifically, those panels. See if they were ever mentioned in any book or loaned to a museum for a traveling exhibition.”
“I’m not sure I can do all that with just a laptop.”
“It’s called research. You never wrote a term paper in college?”
“I had all of Widener at my disposal.”
“There are five colleges about a mile away that are highly regarded. I know they have libraries.”
“You know if I start doing that, word might get around that I’m researching Tiffany and grave robberies.”
“I’m not too concerned about that, Harvard. You’re town, they’re gown. Never the twain shall meet.”
Wan and out of breath, he forced himself to walk calmly down the hallway, knocking on her door instead of banging. As soon as Angeline answered, she took one look at him and asked what was wrong. He came in and gently shut the door. Then he began to pace: hard to do in her tiny one-bedroom apartment.
“What?” she asked. “Tell me!”
Panic in her voice. He managed to get it out. “They’re onto us. They know about your forgeries.”
Angeline felt her heart race. “My forgeries? Our forgeries, okay.”
“Whatever.”
“Not whatever. This is a partnership.” She rubbed her forehead. “Oh my God, are you sure?”
“Yes.” More pacing. “That fucking lock. I knew it was too cold to go out. I knew that there was a chance that the metal would freeze and the key would break off.”
“So why did you go out?”
“I figured it was so cold that no one else would be out and I could work without being bothered.” He knocked his fist against his head. “Shit! I’m so damn stupid! Wasting all this energy and time and risk for something so in-significant. Serves me right for being greedy!”
Yes, he was greedy, but her main concern was calming him down. His voice was getting louder and louder. She put her finger to his lips and spoke in low tones. “It’s like one in the afternoon. Let’s sit down and maybe we can work out a plan.”
“That’s it! No more. I can’t take the chance any longer. Not when such big things are at stake.”
Angeline tried to take his hand but he pulled it away. She said, “Sit down and let’s talk.”
Eventually he plopped down on her futon. She sat down next to him, putting her hand on his knee, hoping to make him feel a little bit more relaxed. “Are you sure they know about us?”
“Positive.”
“Your client told you this?”
“No, he doesn’t know anything about this, thank God for that. I just saw them today at the graveyard at the Bergman mausoleum around an hour ago. I saw the dumbfuck watchman talking to Ken Sobel and his son or son-in-law. It’s not good, Angeline. We have to stop.”
Not as dumbfuck as you thought. “I guess if you change out the locks and the watchman does his job, discovery was a possible outcome.”
“I was going to replace it back with the original. It took me a while to get the fragment out. I couldn’t exactly take it to a locksmith.”
“That’s true.” Angeline took a deep breath and let it out. “When you say they’re onto us … do you mean us … or the forgeries?”
He looked up. “The family knows about the forgeries … I’m not positive about us.” A pause. “I’m sure they don’t know about us. If they did know, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“So there you go.” Angeline felt calmer.
“They can link me to the forgeries if they know my client. But I don’t see how that would be possible. You don’t even know my client. Unless …”
“What?” He always did that. Calm her down to make her nervous again. “Unless what?”
“You have the stained glass that was used in the forgeries. So … we need to get rid of the glass.”
“Right.” She smiled. “You’re thinking more clearly than I am.”
“And we should do that immediately.”
“Okay. So why don’t you grab a beer from the fridge and catch your breath and let me pack up my leftover crap. You think about where we should hide the stuff until things cool down.”
“I’m not going to hide it. I’ll dump it when I go back up north.”
“No way. It’s top-quality glass and I still have over a thousand dollars’ worth of material. I’m not throwing it away.”
“It’s not wise to hang on to it, Angeline.”
“Just … chill.” She got up and looked at him. Slim, dark, sultry, brilliant, a little bad boy, a little evil and a great fuck. “Think about a plausible story so if the cops pay me a visit, I don’t sound like a moron.”
“Why would they visit you?”
“Because they’ll probably talk to everyone in Littleton—me, my friends, my professors. We’re an art college remember?”
“The cops don’t touch the colleges, Angeline. Upstate owns this town.”
He was right about that. Whenever student shit spilled into Greenbury, the colleges called up the police and cleaned up the mess so mommy and daddy were none the wiser. “True, but just in case, we should plan something.”
He was still in a very dark place but not nearly as panicked as he was a few minutes ago. As she started packing up the glass, he stood up and grabbed a beer from her minifridge. “If you think that there is any chance that the cops will talk to you and will somehow magically find out that you’ve done stained glass way back when, let’s get you some new glass altogether. So when they ask if they can have a sample of your glass, you can say sure.”
“Great idea!” She walked over and threw her arms around his neck. “Now you’re thinking.”
He gently extricated himself from her grip. “I’ll go check the Dumpster for empty boxes.”
It