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“So what do you think?”Callie asks, turning to me.
“It’s beautiful,”I say honestly, unable to take my eyes off of it. “It’s a masterpiece, really.” I glance at the price tag, and immediately regret it; money, for better or worse, is no object, but there’s no getting around the giant “SOLD” tag that’s hanging from the placard.
“Don’t get too attached.”My friend laughs. “Some douchebag came in a few days ago and snapped it up. Fair warning: you think you’ll get used to the attitudes around here, but you’d be wrong.”
“Noted,”I reply with a dry chuckle, and then add, with a hint of jealousy, “so who bought it, anyway?”
Callie bites her lip.“I’m not really supposed to say.”
“Oh?”I raise my eyebrows. “Client confidentiality?”
“Well, yeah,”my friend replies, glancing evasively at the floor. “I’m sure Craig gave you his spiel, right?”
“Discretion or death?”I joke. “Yeah, he might have mentioned it. Are they that important, though?” I examine my fingernails, trying not to come across as too interested, but I know Callie well enough to tell when she’s being cagey.
My friend bitesher lip and glances around the cavernous room before stepping closer. “Do you know much about organized crime, Vivian?”
I balk,barely fighting off a wave of panic and struggling to clamp down on my reaction.You have no idea,I think. “Uhh...” I clear my throat. “Callie, are you on something?”
“You asked,”my friend protests, swatting me playfully.
“You mean...”I run a hand through my hair. “Like,The Godfatheror something?”
“Jeez, Vivian, this isn’t Hollywood,”Callie protests. “You do realize London is crawling with gangs, right?”
“I guessI never really thought about it.” I shrug, trying to act nonchalant and failing.
“Well,according to Craig, the mob basically runs this city,” Callie says.
I give a nervous laugh,feeling exposed. “But what does that have to do with this painting?”
My friend glancesover her shoulder. “Look, I don’t know much about it, but Idoknow that we’ve had a lot more shady characters coming through our doors lately.”
“‘Shady characters’?”I snort, desperate to play it off. “Come on, Callie, don’t start with another one of your crazy-ass conspiracies.”
“I’m not,”Callie replies. “These are legitmobsters. As in, Swiss bank account-holding, suit-wearing, cognac-drinking, gun-carryingmobsters. And over the past few months they’ve been buying up our best pieces like they’re stocking for the apocalypse. You get me?”
My mind goes backto the guy I saw skulking in the apartment lobby, to Lucas’s instructions to lie low, and to Dad’s evasiveness about the so-called speed bumps my new in-laws are dealing with. I’m trying to focus on Callie, to piece together what she’s telling me and what she’s not telling me, but it’s hard to concentrate on anything other than the fact that my personal and professional lives—such as they are—have collided faster than you can say, “mafioso.”
“Why areyou telling me this now?” I ask.
“I’m sorry,”Callie says. “I guess I just... didn’t want to worry you. You’ve got so much on your plate already, and I didn’t want you to freak out on me.”
Seeingthe worry in her eyes, it takes everything I have not to come clean about it all. But I can’t. “Believe me, Callie,” I say with a rueful chuckle, “I don’t think there’s much you could say that would surprise me these days.”
“Well then, how’s one more?”Callie points at the beautiful gray and silver painting. “The guy who bought this? He’s a gangster. A big one. He came in with a bodyguard and everything.”
“Any idea what his name was?”I ask, as casually as I can.
“Eddie Sullivan, I think it was,”Callie replies.
“That’s weird,”I mutter. I’ve never heard the name.
“Weird how?”
“Oh, ah...”I stammer, my mind racing. “Just weird that I’ve never heard about any of this before. How did you know he was a gangster, anyway?”
“I mean...”Callie blushes. “I don’t, exactly. But Sterling’s books are pretty thorough. And no hedge fund manager I’ve seen shows up to an art gallery carrying a gun. Isn’t that funny, though?” she muses, turning back to the painting. “All the big criminals in this city always say they work in finance.”
