AVERY
PLAYLIST: FORTUNATE SON – CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL
I open the secret box under my seat, pull the burner from it, and call Rossi.
“And?” he asks. “Did it work?”
“Rossi,” I say sternly, before I crack into another laughter. “Of course, it worked. They’re searching the coordinates right now. They were both tracking me the entire time, and none of them noticed. It was fabulous. Let’s meet at the bench. I got a gift for you.”
“You got it!”
“Rossi,” I say and drive off, letting my lioness roar. “When didn’t I ever get something?”
His laughter resounds through the speaker, and I have to join in.
“Wait till they find that coin.”
“I can’t wait for them to find it. It’ll hopefully make her trust me enough to get them to back off for a while. Did you get anything new about the hat?”
“No. She’s as gone as the wind. But I have all tabs open.”
“She won’t be able to hide forever,” I say. “She will go for that effigy, and she will find it was me, and she will have no other choice but to come for me. Until then, I’ll have our friends from the FBI wrapped around my finger.”
“You better be right.”
“Rossi,” I say. “I’m always right.”
He laughs.
“Of course you are, Princess.”
I grin.
“See you in thirty.”
Half an hour later, I sit down on my bench at Madison Square Garden with a view of the Top of the Empire State Building.
Rossi already sits on his bench, the one next to mine, with a dirty, oversized, beige coat on, worn-down shoes, and overall looks like the average homeless person.
“What a lovely evening,” he tells me. “The air is, for Manhattan, beautifully clear, is it not?”
I grin. So the coast is clear, and the one surveillance camera with a view of our bench blacked out.
“Happy late birthday,” I say, and hand Rossi a silver ornament wrapped in a brown bag
“My birthday is four months away,” he says.
“Whatever,” I say.
He risks a brief glance inside.
“Woman!” he says. “I’m gonna cry. That’s why you wanted to do it!”
“Uh-huh,” I say. “And don’t you dare,” I say. He does it anyway.
“You shouldn’t have,” he begins, sobbing.
“Rossi,” I say. “I love you. I couldn’t let that collection stay incomplete, and I know you never would have dared.”
“The risk!” he says.
“It’s what I live for, and you’re worth it. I’m glad you’re my friend and that you’re gay, because otherwise I would have to hate you.”
He laughs.
I laugh.
And we just sit there.
Watching the dogs play in the dog run park.
“Did you figure anything out about the monitor?” I then ask.
“There might be a way, but right now it needs some proper prior testing.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “I’m rather enjoying it.”
He looks at me from the corner of his eye.
“Is that a smirk?” he asks.
“She is cute, and I drive her nuts,” I tell him. She’s so reactive; she either shoots or fucks me one day.”
“Love a confident woman,” says Rossi.
Just when I am about to answer, I see a familiar face walking up to us.
“Can’t live without me?” I ask Shaw as she appears in front of me.
“The opposite,” she says through gritted teeth.
“Why aren’t you answering your phone?”
“Must’ve forgotten it in the car,” I say and tap my pockets. Meanwhile, she eyes Rossi, and then shows him her badge and gestures for him to leave.
Right under the nose has always been the best choice.
“Should we get something to eat, so you don’t run on your coffee addiction and aggressions alone?” I ask her provocatively.
“I don’t have aggressions,” she says.
“So you don’t feel a deep desire in you to strangle me?”
“I’d love nothing more,” she says and clenches her jaw. “However, it turns out you have been quite helpful.”
“Because I am the best,” I say, and she sighs.
“Is there ever a moment when your massive ego doesn’t need constant stroking?”
“Art doesn’t ask for being admired; it’s the perception of the viewer that pedestals it,” I say, fighting the grin.
She bites her jaw so hard I can see it flex.
“Do you want something, or why did you go to the ordeal to personally track me down via my ankle monitor?” I ask.
“We found this at the coordinates,” she says, handing me her phone with a photo of the coin I stole from Hedda, placed there by Rossi for me.
I look at it.
“Looks like a 1933 Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle coin,” I say.
“It is,” Shaw says. “And we know for a fact that Hedda stole it.”
“Huh,” I say. “The Met heist didn’t quite fit her.”
“I think so, too, which is why I came to the conclusion that she might try to lie low to stay in business.”
“Sounds plausible. I mean, it’s known to the underworld by now that it was her with the Mona Lisa; she’s too hot right now. No one wants the publicity around it—”
My mind wanders off as I said it. There was this russian oligarch who wanted to hire me to steal the Mona Lisa. Hedda might have him as a buyer. But it has been such a long time ago…I mean, I turned thirty-six this year. I was twenty back then. But it’s worth a gaze.
“Are you listening?” Shaw asks me, and I realize I completely zoned out.
“Yes,” I say, and add, “Maybe you can repeat the last sentence.”
She sighs and talks extra slowly.
“I was saying that I’d really like your insight on the Fullerton heist.”
“Benjamin Fullerton, the private collector?” I say. “I thought that case was closed.”
I congratulate myself on my own cunningness, because Shaw already starts trusting me.
“His ex-wife claims she was framed, and we’re reopening the investigation to have it airtight.”
“Sure,” I say. “Not that I’d have a choice.”
We sit there another moment as darkness falls over the city.
“You should get a life,” I tell her as I get up after a while.
“I have a life,” she shoots at me.
“You’re married to a job that underpays you, and drown your loneliness in overworking and gym time. You call that a life?”
“At least I have a regard for rules and morals,” she says.
I laugh derisively. “And where do your rules and morals get you? Nowhere. They isolate you in the hope that you can tell yourself you have done everything right,” I say. She stares at me with wide eyes.
“I let you in on a little secret,” I say silently as I lean down on her.
Her hair smells like rose petals, a scent I enjoy very much.
“Life is not about doing everything right. It’s about failing so much so fast that you know exactly who you are and what you can do.
That’s where life begins. But if you keep isolating yourself, you will never know what life has to offer for you. ”
“I’m quite alright where I am,” she says defiantly.
“Are you?” I ask her. “Because all those self-help books won’t get you anywhere if you don’t act on them.”
Her eyes flash at me with anger as she explodes.
“Have you been in my apartment?” she shouts.
I am amazed by how long it took her to figure it out.
“No,” I lie.
“You’re a liar,” she says threateningly.
“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” I say, turn and walk away.
“I will have you arrested for it,” she calls after me.
“No, you won’t,” I tell her as I turn back to her. “Choose wisely, Special Agent Shaw. The world isn’t waiting for you unless you make it,” I say and walk without looking back. I have, after all, a Russian oligarch to find.