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“In that case, perhaps we can reach a compromise.”
“How much did you have in mind?”
Gabriel smiled.
It did not take long to arrive at a figure—hardly surprising, for there was no negotiation involved. Gabriel simply named his price, and Aiden Gallagher, after a moment or two of sputtering remonstration, wrote out the check. The Irishman then requested reimbursement for the Van Dyck. Gabriel laid a five-euro banknote on the examination table and, check in hand, went into the sunlit Connecticut morning.
He took his time driving back to JFK but still managed to arrive four hours before his flight was scheduled to depart. He dined poorly in the food hall, purchased gifts for Chiara and the children in the duty-free shops, and then wandered over to his assigned gate. There he removed the check from the breast pocket of his handmade Italian sport coat—a check for the sum of $10 million, payable to Isherwood Fine Arts.
Included in the final settlement was $75,000 for the fraudulent report from Equus Analytics, $3.4 million for the forged Van Dyck, $1.1 million for the forged Albert Cuyp, $100,000 for the Old Master canvases that Gabriel used for his own forgeries, and $525,000 in assorted expenses such as first-class air travel, five-star hotel rooms, and three-olive Belvedere martinis. And then, of course, there was the $4.8 million that Sarah Bancroft had lost in the collapse of Masterpiece Art Ventures.
All in all, thought Gabriel, it was a rather satisfying end to the story.
He rang Chiara in Venice and gave her the good news.
“Reprobate,” she said, and laughed hysterically.
