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“Probably,” I said. But I knew I had her here. “You know you’re not going to change the market. And like I said, the chump change money is a waste of your talent.”
Monique rolled her eyes. “Meaning you have something that isn’t a waste of my incredible, one-of-a-kind talent? And a Riley Wolfe Project always comes first?”
I looked at her for a moment. I couldn’t be sure if she was being sarcastic. I mean, the part about me—definitely. But I couldn’t tell if she really did appreciate how good she was. And she really was the best, in my opinion. That was one big reason why I’d brought her something that was going to be the biggest challenge I’d ever faced. I had to have the best if I was going to pull this off. And another reason was that I liked her. I don’t like a lot of people. It’s counterproductive. I mean, if Monique sucked at what she did and I used her because I liked her, I’d be in the slammer very damn quickly. It’s always your “friends.” I mean, who else knows enough to kick you into the shit? Nobody wants to admit it, but it’s true: It doesn’t pay to have friends, because you have to trust them, and that never works out.
“Well?” Monique said. “What do you need that only a great artist like me can provide?”
I smiled. I was pretty sure I had her on the hook. “This.” I dropped a photograph on her computer table. “And this.” A second photo.
Monique glanced at the pictures and looked at me, shaking her head. “Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. I can do those in a week each—and I can name four guys in the metro area that could do these for you. Cheaper, too.”
I smiled bigger, my shark smile, and I could see it made Monique very uneasy. “I could name seven, almost as good as you,” I said.
“Fuck you, Riley.”
“I said ‘almost,’ Monique,” I said. “You know I don’t do almost.”
Monique looked back at me. She could see I was serious now, and for some weird reason that made her smile. “I know that,” she said, in a softer voice, and the tone of it made my blood start to bubble. “That’s one reason I put up with you.”
She wasn’t doing anything but looking at me and smiling, but I felt like pawing the ground and snorting. “What are the other reasons?”
“Money’s good,” she said. “And you never miss.”
I swallowed. My throat was so tight it hurt. “Anything else?”
“Sure.” Her smile got bigger and a little bit wicked. “One of these days, you will miss,” she said. “I kind of want to see that.”
That hit me. I mean, what the hell? She wanted to see me go down in flames? “What the fuck, Monique,” I said. “Why?”
She shrugged, but she was still smiling. “Perfectly natural,” she said. “Everybody wants to watch a cocky bastard get skunked.”
“‘Cocky bastard.’ Thanks, that’s nice.”
“It’s accurate,” she said. “Just because you always find a way to pull it off—I mean, you act like that’s a given.” She just looked at me for a minute. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to slap her or kiss her. Maybe both. Then she shrugged. “Anyway,” she said, “mostly I really do want you to keep winning. Except,” she said, raising a perfect, paint-spattered hand, “for the Bet.”
Now I had to smile. “Sooner or later, I’ll win that, too,” I said.
“You won’t,” she said. “You can’t.” She flicked at the two pictures with her finger. Then she frowned and cocked her head at me. “This contemporary stuff isn’t your usual turf, Riley. What’s up?”
For just a minute, my mind zoomed off Monique and onto the prize. “Something big. Huge,” I said. “Jesus, Monique, when I pull this off—goddamn it, everything changes forever! This is—”
“A Jasper Johns copy is going to change everything forever? That’s not possible, Riley.”
“But it is,” I said. The excitement poured through me as I talked, and some of it must have splashed onto her because she bit her lip and her eyes got big. “These paintings are just the beginning, just seeding the ground. But what they are going to lead me to, Monique—what these two drab contemporary pieces are going to help me do—Jesus Christ, it’s going to be the most awesome—!”
“Ouch!” Monique barked. I looked down. Without knowing it, I’d grabbed her by the wrists, and I guess I was squeezing. I dropped her hands.
“It’s huge, Monique. It’s abso-fucking-lutely huge.”
She rubbed her wrists and looked again at the photos. She shrugged: simple stuff. “When do you need ’em?”
I gave her a tight grin. “Soon. Probably . . . three weeks?”
“‘Probably’?”
I shook my head. “Timetable isn’t really set in stone. But—” I suddenly remembered the important part. “Oh! Here . . .” I fumbled in my pocket and pulled out two small pieces of this morning’s New York Times. Each piece was no more than a strip with a partial headline and today’s date. I held them up. “Very important,” I said, passing the two strips of newspaper to Monique.
“Riley, what the hell . . . ?” she said, glancing at the papers and then back to me, to see if I was joking. I wasn’t. “All right, I give up. What am I supposed to do with these?”
