“Does that mean I can come in?” he asked.
“No,” said Tuesday.
“I meant to pay. I swear. My secretary gets requests for money all the time, so she turns them down out of hand. I forgot to tell her this one was legitimate.” He shrugged. “It was a crazy night. And I am truly sorry for the trouble I’ve caused.” He looked down at the floor. “Still making fists with your toes, I see.”
“Stop staring at my feet,” said Tuesday.
The stranger flushed. It made Tuesday smile one of her small smiles, the kind that meant she was playing around. That was enough for Dorry to relax a little. She set Gunnar down on the sofa, next to Pryce’s letters about Valentine’s Day.
“To be honest—” said the stranger.
“Please do,” said Tuesday.
“I have a proposal for you. I assume by now you’ve heard about Pryce’s quest.”
Tuesday nodded.
“I know a lot about him. He’s – he was, I guess – a family … acquaintance. I’ve seen his collection. And, assuming some ‘portion of his great fortune’ includes the collection, I can personally vouch that it’s worth whatever we can do to make it ours.”
“Pretty liberal use of the plural possessive there, Arch,” said Tuesday. She crossed her arms and propped herself against the doorframe.
“I know things,” he said. “You know things, and what you don’t know I bet you know how to find. The check I just gave you – I can write another one, just as big, if you agree to help me with Pryce’s game.”
“No,” said Tuesday.
He opened his mouth in a perfect O. Dorry leaned into the silence growing between them. Because she knew Tuesday, she knew it was a deep-thinking silence. But the stranger – Arch or whatever – didn’t know that. He panicked.
“I’ll double it,” he said. “One hundred thousand for your help.”
“I’m charmed that you take my silence for hardball,” said Tuesday. “Trust me, you’ll know when I’m playing hardball, and that wasn’t it.” She stared at him. “Why me?”
“Because you’re smart,” he said.
“Unlike,” said Tuesday, “the horde of lawyers, accountants, private investigators, and public relations handlers your family has on retainer.”
“They’re smart but you’re smarter.”
“I doubt that.” Tuesday narrowed her eyes.
The guy frowned. Then he muttered, “I met you, I liked you, I feel bad that I flaked on the fifty thousand. And, well: nobody in my … complex family knows who you are, which means you can operate with a degree of anonymity.”
“Fine, that’s why me. Why you? What does the collection have that you can’t get somewhere else? You’re almost passing for aspirational middle class in this J. Crew catalog drag right now—”
“Hey,” the guy said, and smoothed his blue sweater over his stomach. “This is not J. Crew.”
“—but I bet you’ve got four figures in loose change in your pockets. From a financial standpoint, to you, Pryce’s ‘great fortune’ has negligible value. Forgive me for questioning your motives, but contracting me for this is like – if I were to contract Dorry here to help me hunt down a pack of gum.”
“I would do that,” said Dorry.
“I know you would, kid,” said Tuesday. “No, not even a pack of gum. It would be like me hiring a PI to find a wad of gum under a desk. So why do you, dirty, filthy, stinking-rich Nathaniel Allan Arches” – with every adjective Tuesday lobbed at him, he nodded – “want a wad of used chewing gum?”
He tugged on his right earlobe, and Dorry blinked. A tell. He had a tell. The next thing out of his mouth would be a lie, or, if not a direct lie, something that wasn’t entirely the truth. Her mother had had a tell: whenever she was about to drop a Wild Draw Four on Dorry in Uno, she tapped her fingers on the cards.
He inhaled. His chest rose. So many tells, thought Dorry, and looked at Tuesday, who had no tells, or at least none that Dorry had ever noticed.
“Why does everything have to be about money?” he said. “Honestly, and I would expect someone who roots around in the digital drawers of rich people for a living to know this already, if you have enough money, it stops meaning anything. You can’t touch it or taste it or feel it. Then the things that matter become what you can touch, or taste, or – feel.”
“Objects, you mean. Something in Pryce’s collection,” Tuesday said.
“Let’s just say” – his already deep voice lowered, which made the bottoms of Dorry’s feet tingle – “that the value is sentimental.”
Tuesday didn’t respond.
“One hundred fifty thousand,” he said. “Final offer.”
“One hundred fifty is my retainer, plus expenses,” said Tuesday. “I want a working partnership. We split the detecting, the legwork, fifty-fifty. If we win, we split the reward fifty-fifty. I’ll take half, you take half. Or you can buy me out, for however much Pryce’s estate is currently valuing whatever the prize turns out to be.” She smiled. “But for no less than five million.”
Dorry’s throat dried up. She made a little coughing sound halfway between a gasp and a laugh.
“Oh, now you’re playing hardball,” said Archie.
“Still not,” said Tuesday, grinning. “But closer.” She stuck out her hand.
Archie paused.
“Why does everything have to be about money?” Tuesday said. “C’mon, I know you’re good for it. I’ve done the research.”
He slid his hand into hers.
“We start tonight,” said Tuesday. “Because you know anyone else who’s serious has already started too.”
So Archie came in. He introduced himself to Dorry with a handshake, and Dorry felt herself start to giggle, because seriously, a handshake? Then her hand went sort of rigid in his warm grip, and after he let go, her first thought was I did that wrong. Or did she? How was she supposed to shake a guy’s hand, a guy who wasn’t her dad’s coworker, wasn’t her mom’s old college friend, wasn’t saying, while they held her cold hand, I’m so sorry for your loss?
They all sat at Tuesday’s rickety Ikea table and ate and strategized.
“Tell me about Pryce,” said Tuesday.
“He was a weirdo. A true-blue, first-class, dyed-in-the-wool weirdo.” Archie dipped a piece of naan into the malai kofta sauce. “New money, vulgar money. Barely tolerated. And I really don’t think he gave a fuck. Oh—” His eyes darted to Dorry.
Dorry snorted. “Dude,” she said, “you kiss your mutha with that fucken thing?”
“This is your influence?” he said to Tuesday. “Look what you’re doing to the youth.”
“I believe the children are our future,” said Tuesday.
Dorry cleared her throat.
“Oh children,”