Among Thieves

“I’m glad,” Lissa said. “How are you doing?”

Kozlowski stood in City Hall’s cavernous lobby, waiting for Fi

The girl was there with him, standing a few feet away, looking at him. He tried to avoid her gaze, but found it difficult. He couldn’t figure out why she was staring. It took a minute before he realized he was smiling. “What?” he demanded.

“Nothing,” she said. “I didn’t know you smiled.”

“I don’t.”

“Me neither. You should do it more. The scar doesn’t look so bad.”

He grunted. After a moment, he said, “So, how are you doing?”

“Fine.”

“Fi

“He’s okay,” she said. “He doesn’t seem like a perv.”

“High praise.”

“I don’t mean it that way. I mean it’s good. It’s just weird.”

“What is?” he asked.

She thought about it. “I never had a normal life before. I’m not used to it.”

He looked her up and down. She was wearing a dress. Her feet were still covered in her heavy black boots, but it was the first time he’d seen her in anything other than sweats. “You’re go

“You think?”

He nodded. “I can usually tell. You keep the right people around you, you’ll do fine.”

She seemed to accept it. “You’re go

“You think?”

She nodded. “Just put the toilet seat down. Devon never caught on; I almost fell in a couple times. He said he was too old to change. Don’t be like that. Don’t be too old to change. You leave the seat up, you’ll lose her.”

“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.”

She looked toward the escalator, and Kozlowski had the impression she was looking over to see whether Fi

“I’m fine,” Fi

She frowned. “It can’t go on like this, boss. You know that, right?”

“I know. Did I mention that you look great?” She did, too. As promised, she hadn’t worn white. She was a realist, not a romantic.

“That’s nice of you. I feel like shit.”

“Morning sickness ends after the first trimester, right?” he asked. “You must be there almost.”

“Almost. They say it’s different for everyone, though. And you’re changing the subject.”

“I am.”

“You can’t do it,” she said. “Not anymore. A kid isn’t like a girlfriend. You can’t string them along forever while you make up your mind. Kids can’t defend themselves the way we can.”

“Have you met Sally?”

“Oh, please, Fi

“I know,” Fi

“Great. Just realize what you’d be getting yourself into. Once you’re really in, there’s no going back.”

Fi

“Soon,” Lissa said. She looked at him for another moment as they headed back to Kozlowski and Sally. “Is there anything else bothering you?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “What else could be bothering me?” He wondered whether she would ask about the paintings. He wasn’t sure what he would say. She didn’t ask, though; she simply stepped up on tiptoe, pulled down on his shoulders, and kissed him on the forehead. He was grateful; he wouldn’t have enjoyed lying to her.

Chapter Forty-Three

He’d kept his word to her for a couple of weeks: he’d given up on the investigation into the stolen artwork. He tried to keep the promise longer, but the questions swirled in his mind. What he knew and what he suspected danced together seductively until he was obsessed. And so, on his own, at night, he would surf the Internet for every scrap of additional information he could get-about the Gardner robbery and anyone who might have had anything to do with it. When that wasn’t enough, he tapped some of the other private investigators he sometimes used for jobs not worth Kozlowski’s time. He kept his obsession hidden from Lissa and Kozlowski.

On the Friday afternoon before the Fourth of July, a week after Lissa and Kozlowski got married, he pulled his notes together and went over them one final time. There was no way for him to avoid it anymore. With a heavy sigh, he placed the call. Then he walked outside, climbed into his car, and drove to the museum.

As he walked through the front door, he half expected alarms to go off and security guards to rush at him accusingly, as if he were the reason the paintings had been lost again. It didn’t happen, of course. The woman at the front desk didn’t even notice him as she took the twelve-dollar admission fee. There was a security guard walking by, and he glanced at Fi

Fi

He turned the corner at the top of the stairs and headed down the hallway to the Dutch Room. There was no one there; the place was dead. The paintings on the wall seemed to mourn the empty frames that hung alongside them.

He walked over and stood in front of the spot where Vermeer’s The Concert had once hung. He’d never seen it for himself; he’d only seen photographs, but he’d watched documentaries where people wept in remembrance of its beauty. He wondered whether he would have felt the same way, or whether he would have passed by it without notice; perhaps even uttered some crass joke at the absurdity of the homage others paid it.

He stood there for a long while, losing all sense of time.

“It is difficult to let go, isn’t it?”

He hadn’t heard anyone enter the room, but recognized the voice. “It is,” he said.

“I understand. Perhaps better than anyone.”

Fi

“Me too,” Fi

“I’d give almost anything to have the paintings back here, where they belong. Where people could enjoy them, marvel at them.”

“A little girl lost her father. She’d give anything to have him back, too.”

Bass nodded. “I read about her. She was the one you were trying to save, when you came here? I’m very sorry for her.”

“Her name is Sally,” Fi

“I’m sure she is.” The old man scratched at the thick layer of patchy gray stubble covering his chin. “Did you see them? The paintings? The papers said that they had disappeared again, but they said they were there in Charlestown all along. Did you see them before they vanished?”