The Nest Part 6

"I work for Paul Underwood," Bea said.

"I realize that-and I mean this as a compliment-there are lots of things you would be willing to do that Leo wouldn't."

"I know." Bea did know. Leo's interest in Paul was bewildering. Paul seemed to believe Leo was working with Nathan Chowdhury again, but Bea found that unlikely. And Leo had never liked Paul. Ever. He'd called him Paul Underdog behind his back for years and had only shown a grudging kind of interest in Paper Fibres or what Bea did every day. He'd been visibly shocked to discover that Paper Fibres was a thriving publication. Not that she ever volunteered to talk about work; n.o.body was more dismayed than she was to find herself still going to the same office every day. Over the years, she'd managed to a.s.sume mostly managerial duties. She eagerly took on any job that removed her from working with writers and let Paul be the editing face of the magazine, which he loved. He still sought her input and shrewd pen, but those exchanges happened between the two of them, in private.

"Apparently Leo's meeting with Nathan," Bea told Jack.

"Nathan? Nathan Nathan?"

"Yes." She knew Jack would be happy to hear Nathan's name. Everyone would.

"Well, that's very interesting. Sounds like the perfect time for an in-person progress report."

She didn't tell Jack what else she thought about Leo, that for all the moments he seemed terrifically healthy and eager and nearly like his old self-his old, old self, the Leo she loved so much and missed even more-there were nearly an equal number of times he seemed remote and anxious. Bea knew Leo better than anyone. On the surface he was fine, stellar even. But she'd also seen him staring out the office windows, jiggling his leg, eyeing the harbor and the ocean beyond like a death row prisoner from Alcatraz who was wondering exactly what distance the body could survive the open water in February. That was partly why she'd chickened out every time she thought to talk to him about what she was writing. If Jack was going to start putting pressure on Leo-and Bea realized it was a bit of a miracle he'd held off for this long-she needed to do something. Once his divorce was final, Leo would be free to roam. She didn't understand what was going on with him and Stephanie, but those two made Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton look like slouches in the on again/off again department. But this she knew: She needed to figure out what to do. She needed to commit to what she was writing or move on to something else while she was writing, before her confidence and inspiration fled. Again.

She'd been hiding in a corner of Celia's enormous living room, pretending to examine the bookshelves, which were full of what she thought of as "fake" books-the books were real enough but if Celia Baxter had read Thomas Pynchon or Samuel Beckett or even all-any!-of the Philip Roths and Saul Bellows lined in a row, she'd eat her mittens. In a far upper corner of the bookcase, she noticed a lurid purple book spine, a celebrity weight-loss book. Ha. That was more like it. She stood on tiptoe, slid the book out, and examined the well-thumbed, stained pages. She returned it to the shelf front and center, between Mythologies and Cloud Atlas. Satisfied, she waded into the crowd to find Paul; maybe he wouldn't mind if she left. If Stephanie wasn't here by now, she wasn't coming.

Bea heard Lena Novak before she saw her, that old familiar hyena laugh. She froze, thinking she had to be wrong, only to see her old-her old what? They hadn't been friends but they hadn't exactly been enemies either-heading in her direction. Bea could not handle Lena Novak right now, absolutely could not. She turned on her heel and fled into a nearby powder room, nearly slamming the door behind her. Seeing herself in the mirror she was only mildly surprised by how terrified she looked.

Lena Novak was another one of the Glitterary Girls who, unlike Bea, had gone on to publish a well-regarded book every few years. Bea had recently stumbled across a feature in a glossy magazine on Lena and her handsome architect husband and adorable daughter and their "ingeniously" renovated Brooklyn town house and the horse-barn-turned-weekend-home in Litchfield, Connecticut. She'd been increasingly nauseated by every paragraph and had finally tossed the magazine into the recycling bin at work. "Hey, I wanted to read that!" one of the interns had said, fishing it out of the bright blue receptacle. "I love Lena Novak!"

In the powder room, Bea washed her hands and found an old lipstick in the corner of her purse. She carefully applied the color, checking to make sure none of it was on her teeth. She used her dampened fingers to calm the hair around her face that had frizzed under her winter hat. She moved as slowly as possible, trying to remember where her coat had been ferried off to and the most direct route to the front door. She eyed a gla.s.s shelf housing an impressive collection of tiny antique perfume bottles. Really? she thought. Where do people get the time? (And then: Who am I kidding? I have the time.) Someone rapped gently on the door.

"Hold on," she said. She squared her shoulders, happy that she'd worn her favorite zebra-print wrap dress from her favorite secondhand clothing store. She took a deep breath and opened the door. Maybe Lena wouldn't even recognize her, she thought, as she walked into the front hall. But the moment she emerged from the tiny powder room, Lena pounced, squealing and pulling Bea into an alarmingly fierce hug. "I heard you were here, but I didn't believe it!" she said, rocking Bea a little as if they'd just been reunited after a lengthy, involuntary separation.

The Glitterary Girls were just an invention of some journalist for an urban magazine. Bea had been horrified when the article came out, which made them sound like silly socialites. ("Perched on a Soho rooftop on a languid summer night, the most buzzed about writers in Manhattan glitter like beads on a particularly smart necklace.") The breathless writing was awful, the designation didn't even make sense, a meaningless phrase a.s.signed to a group of female writers who happened to live in New York City at the same time, happened to be around the same age, and, for the most part, disliked one another. At best, they were grudging acquaintances bound by a name they all wished they could shake-except for Lena, who had adored the catchphrase and taken it literally. (Gliterally, Bea had joked to the one woman in the group she actually liked, a poet from Hoboken who had also seemed to drop off the face of the earth in the ensuing years.) Back then, Lena was always trying to gather "the girls," for drinks or dinners or suggesting they go to events together, as if they were a lounge act in Vegas.

"You look exactly the same!" Lena held Bea at arm's length and gushed. "Come sit and talk to me." She clapped her hands, and her bared cleavage bounced a little. Had she bought herself new b.r.e.a.s.t.s, too? Bea didn't remember Lena ever being voluptuous. They sat in a quiet corner of the dining room next to an enormous table covered with trays of meticulously made canapes. Bea positioned herself with her back to the room and steeled herself for Lena's interrogation only to realize, within minutes, that of course Lena wanted to talk about Lena.

"Here she is," she said, handing Bea her phone and swiping through what seemed like hundreds and hundreds of photos of her daughter. "She's three. I finished the edits on my last book on a Wednesday morning, e-mailed the pages to my editor, stood up from my desk, and my water broke."

"You were always really efficient," Bea said.

"I know!"

"What's her name?" Bea asked, looking at the photo of a little girl with a party hat sitting in front of a birthday cupcake.

"Mary Patience."

"Patience?" Bea wasn't sure she'd heard properly.

"Oh, you know," Lena said, as if it were obvious, "one of those old family Mayflower names."

"Have you been adopted by a new family?" Bea knew Lena had grown up in a trailer park somewhere in central Ohio with a single mother who managed to raise four kids working a variety of minimum-wage jobs. You had to listen closely these days to hear any echo of the broad and nasal midwestern vowels in Lena's speech, and her unruly black hair had been straightened, and somewhere along the line Nowaski had become Novak-and there were those new impressive b.r.e.a.s.t.s-but there was no way Lena's round and freckled face with the slightly bulbous nose that looked like it had been raised on kielbasa had anything to do with the Mayflower.

"My ridiculous husband," Lena said, her voice full of admiration. "He's in the blue book."

Bea looked down at the picture of Lena's daughter again and was secretly pleased to see that the girl's nose had been inherited from the kielbasa not the Mayflower side of the family. She looked kind of sweet.

"So tell me about her?" Bea said, sending a fat one across the plate to Lena. "Tell me everything about being a mom."

Forty-five minutes later, she'd neatly extracted herself from the predictably dull conversation. ("They say being a mother is the hardest job in the world and it's true," Lena had said, solemnly, "many, many times harder than writing an international bestseller, harder than figuring out that NEA grant application!") She stood and hugged Lena good-bye. "Don't fall off the face of the earth again, okay," Lena had said, giving Bea a little shake, pressing her thumbs just a little too hard into Bea's upper arms. "Get in touch. Find me on Twitter."

Bea went to collect her things and to tell Paul she had a headache. Her coat was in a small maid's room adjacent to the kitchen, underneath an inexplicably huge pile of fur coats (didn't anyone in New York have any shame anymore?) and rooted around the left sleeve for the mittens she'd tucked there for safekeeping. She could hear Lena in the kitchen now, animatedly talking to Celia.

"-Absolutely no idea," Lena was saying, sounding more thrilled than confused. "I haven't spoken to her in years. I know she still works at Paper Fibres." Bea froze.

"G.o.d," Celia said, a touch of satisfaction in her voice, too. "Still? How depressing. Is she married?"

"She had that boyfriend for a long time, that older guy? The poet? Did he die? I think he was married."

"So she's not writing at all?"

"From what I gather, no." Bea could hear Lena chewing something crunchy, a carrot or a celery stick or a lesser mortal's finger bone. "Do you hear anything from Stephanie?" Lena asked Celia. "They're not working together anymore, right?"

"No, they're not. I can't ever get any good gossip from Stephanie. All she would tell me is they went their separate ways and it was mutual, which I'm sure isn't true." Celia's voice lowered a bit. Bea inched closer to the open doorway, flattening herself against the wall. "I did hear something interesting from another source."

"Yessss?" Lena said.

"She had to pay back part of her publishing advance a few years ago. It was a lot of money."

Bea winced, frozen in place, afraid to move.

"That's rough," Lena said, and this time the concern in her voice was genuine. Bea felt a wave of nausea move through her and she had a terrible and sudden urge to defecate. Being scrutinized or mocked by Lena was leagues better than being on the receiving end of her pity.

"Terrible," Celia said, momentarily chastened by Lena's sincerity. "Really terrible."

Both women were quiet, as if they'd just read Bea's obituary or were standing over her gravestone.

"But you know what?" Celia said, resummoning her nerve. "I'm just going to say it since Stephanie's not here. I never loved her stories. I never got what all the fuss was about. I mean, they were cute-the Archie stuff-it was clever, but The New Yorker? Please."

"They were of a place and time," Lena said, her register lowering into the interview or public reading voice Bea recognized and remembered loathing. "They worked in that late '90s kind of navel-gazing, where-did-we-come-from thing. We were all doing it. We were so young. Not everyone was able to figure out how to transition to more mature material." Bea couldn't believe how regal Lena sounded, as if someone had appointed her the f.u.c.king Emperor of Fiction.

"Well, her clothes are of another place and time, too," Celia said. "G.o.d. What is she wearing? Who still shops at thrift stores? Hasn't she heard about bedbugs?"

"Stop," Lena said, sounding guilty but still laughing.

"And those braids. Honestly," Celia said. "How old are we?"

"I feel bad for her, though," Lena said. "Stuck at Paper Fibres. People in that world know who she is, still recognize her name. It must be hard, being Beatrice Plumb."

Bea was grateful that she was still leaning against a wall, had flattened both hands on the cool plaster and felt st.u.r.dy, supported, and able to withstand the wave of rage and humiliation roaring over her. She closed her eyes. The room smelled like cat even though there wasn't a cat in sight and no other signs of an animal in the house. She wondered if Celia made a housekeeper or a neighbor hide the cat when she had guests so her pristine apartment wouldn't be sullied by a bowl of pet food or a scratching post; she seemed like that kind of traitor.

Bea stepped away from the wall and hurried to b.u.t.ton her coat and pull on her hat. Celia and Lena were gossiping about someone else and moving into the living room. Bea entered the now-empty kitchen, heading for the front door; she stopped in front of an impressive array of expensive cookies destined for the dessert table. She opened her canvas tote and carefully slid all the cookies inside. Celia walked back into the room just as Bea was covering the stash with paper napkins. "Bea!" she said, stopping short, looking slightly abashed but also annoyed. "Where did you come from?"

"Nowhere," Bea said. Celia eyed the empty plate and Bea's bulging tote. "I can't stay for dessert," Bea said, "but thank you for a lovely evening." They stared at each other for a few laden seconds, each daring the other to speak, and then Bea turned and walked straight out the front door.

CHAPTER TEN.

Jack was winded when he ascended the stairs after arriving at the Bergen Street stop in Brooklyn. How could he be so out of shape? He'd been to Stephanie's once before, years ago, right after she moved in and she and Leo were doing whatever it was she and Leo did on and off for all those years: f.u.c.king, teasing, staging their hetero melodramas. He and Walker had casually considered buying a brownstone once, but Jack didn't want to live so far from his shop, and reopening in Brooklyn was unthinkable; he believed he'd lose too many customers, which was probably no longer the case now that Brooklyn was unaffordable and unrecognizable. Jack remembered Stephanie's street as being fairly derelict. Today it seemed as if every third house had a construction Dumpster out front. He stopped in front of one brownstone under renovation. The doors were open and the curving mahogany staircase with freshly painted white risers was visible. He could see straight through into the rear open kitchen where two workers were laboring to fit a ma.s.sive stainless-steel refrigerator into a cutout in the back wall.

Another lost opportunity, Jack thought. Well, that was the story these days if you were a longtime New Yorker and hadn't jumped on the real estate carousel at the right time. No matter where he looked lately, the city was mocking him and his financial woes. He picked up his pace and soon he was standing in front of Stephanie's building. A light in the upstairs hallway went off. Good. Someone was home. He hoped it was Leo, but if it wasn't, he'd sit there until Leo returned. He had all day. It was a Monday and his store was closed.

"Three months," Leo had said that afternoon in the Oyster Bar. "Give me three months to present you with some kind of plan."

And so he had. Three months and seventy-two hours to be exact and Leo wasn't answering phone calls or e-mails and he'd better have a f.u.c.king plan. Jack was in a near panic. He'd barely slept since the meeting with his old friend Arthur, the one who had helped him obtain the homeowner's line of credit.

Jack was concealing an enormous debt from Walker, a tangled thicket of money and deception. Walker knew that most years Jack's revenue barely covered his expenses, but he never objected because Jack loved what he did. But Walker was completely unaware of how Jack's rent had risen (dramatically, precipitously) during the last five years and that Jack was keeping the store above water with a home equity line of credit taken against the small weekend property they owned on the North Fork of Long Island. At the time, it had seemed a logical solution to what he hoped were temporary financial woes, a welcome bit of magic, when his old friend Arthur had proposed the opportunity over drinks one night when Jack complained about his balance sheet. He and Arthur had gone to Va.s.sar together and shared an apartment the first year they lived in Manhattan.

"As easy as opening a credit card!" Arthur worked for an Internet mortgage lender and claimed he helped friends "put their equity to use" all the time. "Won't cost you a cent!"

Jack knew he wasn't alone in the mid-2000s, falling prey to this gilded logic, but he realized with a sickening heart that he'd been among the last before the financial system nearly buckled under the weight of its own greed and folly. Worse, he knew better. He'd listened to Walker rail against the loans for years, had heard him discourage their friends and acquaintances and neighbors and his clients from partic.i.p.ating in the feverish, implausible extending of credit. "It's not just foolish," Walker had said over and over about the swollen mortgage industry, "it's bordering on illegal. It's fraud and it's completely unethical."

Unethical. The word rang in Jack's brain-unethical would also describe how he'd taken advantage of the signatory authority he and Walker had given each other years ago for all matters relating to the weekend cottage so they both didn't have to drive out to Long Island whenever papers needed to be signed for anything regarding the house or property.

The cottage they'd owned for twenty years was nothing lavish or fancy, but it was on a lovely piece of property with a stream running through a wooded area and a short walk to the beach. It was going to be their retirement home, a place to go when Walker could scale back his practice, relax, take more time to do the things he loved: cook, read, garden. After The Nest became Jack's favorite expression. After The Nest, they'd winterize the cottage, renovate and expand the kitchen, buy a car, maybe add a guest room; the list went on and on. Walker used to gently mock Jack. After The Nest, world peace! he'd say. After The Nest, the lame will walk and the blind will see! Walker was dismissive of The Nest. He'd spent too many hours with clients who showed up at his door outraged because something they thought they'd inherit didn't materialize. Walker didn't believe in inheritances, which he thought were nothing more than a gamble, and a shortcut; Walker didn't believe in shortcuts or gambling.

The entire time (all of ten days) that Arthur was processing the loan, Jack expected somebody to stop him. But no. It had proved frighteningly easy to tap into the property's equity. Whenever he voiced a hesitation, everyone-from Arthur to the bank manager who handed him a credit line of $250,000-told him how smart he was being, how wise it was to consolidate his debts and take advantage of the low-interest payments. Jack told himself he'd only spend a little, just what he needed. But every year he needed more, and some years he used the funds to upgrade the retail s.p.a.ce and attempt to lure in more customers. Better lighting. Fresh paint. A new computer invoicing and inventory system. He told himself they were capital investments. Who wanted to shop at a pricey store that didn't have fresh flowers on display? An espresso machine up front? His initial fear about using the card waned because he'd be able to pay it off after The Nest. He'd have to confess his scheme then, but Walter always told Jack the money from The Nest was his, a gift from his father to do with as he liked. So when he did confess, the loan would be paid, there'd still be ample money left, and the weekend cottage would be safe. If it wasn't? Walker would never forgive him.

"Extension?" Arthur had said a few days ago, frowning. He gave a long, low whistle and shook his head a little. Jack's fingers went numb; his heart pounded so hard he was sure if he looked down he could see it through his shirt. "That, my friend, is an impossibility." He hit every syllable of impossibility to stress his refusal. "We set up the loan in 2007," Arthur said, squinting at the paperwork in front of him. "Another place, another time. Prerecession. I couldn't get you this kind of loan now, never mind an extension. I see a few late payments and-" He shrugged. "Is this really a problem? Are you in some real trouble here?"

"No trouble. Just exploring options." Jack wasn't going to confide in Arthur who had a big mouth. He'd spent the last few nights tossing and turning and silently rehearsing his plea to Leo for immediate help. He climbed Stephanie's stoop and rang the bell a few times. Timidly at first and then with more duration and persistence. He knocked. Nothing. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and called Leo's cell. No answer. He wanted to call the house phone but realized he didn't have Stephanie's number. He descended the stoop and backed up onto the sidewalk, trying to get another look at the upper floor where he was sure he'd seen a light. He imagined Leo inside, watching him, smug and safe behind the still curtain. At the garden level, Jack spotted someone tall and male moving about inside. Leo! Jack let himself through the gate at the sidewalk. He walked up to the street-level window and rapped, hard and insistent. He peered through, hands cupped around eyes, nose pressed to the gla.s.s that slightly fogged from his breath.

The face that appeared on the other side of the window was twisted with indignation and sitting above a policeman's navy uniform shirt. Outside, Jack raised his hands in surrender, took a step back. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry. I'm looking for my brother." The face disappeared from the window and within seconds the door beneath the front stoop flew open and the furious man was walking toward him, fists clenched. A medium-size dog rushed at Jack, stopping short of his ankles and crouching down with a low, menacing growl.

"Please." Jack stepped backward and almost tripped over an elevated brick border that enclosed the small front garden of ragged English ivy and a struggling dogwood. "Don't shoot." He was simultaneously frightened and furious. He hated having to lift his hands to this beefy, red-faced cop. "It was an honest mistake, Officer. I'd forgotten Stephanie rented the ground floor."

"I'm not a cop. I'm a security guard and you better have a good reason for looking in my windows and I better hear it fast."

"I'm looking for Leo Plumb," Jack said in a rush. "I'm his brother. Leo's brother! He's staying upstairs."

"I know who Leo is."

"Again," Jack said, relieved to see that the cop-security guard-whatever, wasn't wearing a gun. "Please accept my sincere apologies." Jack looked down at the dog who was coming closer to his ankles and barking.

"Get back here, Sinatra." The man snapped his fingers at the dog who returned to his owner's side, whined, settled onto his haunches, and then resumed barking at Jack.

TOMMY O'TOOLE STARED at Jack for a few minutes. He was definitely related to Leo, the same WASPish features, thin lips, slightly beakish nose beneath dark hair. On Leo it all added up to something a little more impressive. Tommy enjoyed rattling the intruder. His clean-shaven face had gone green and there were beads of sweat on his upper lip and along the top of his generous forehead. His tweed coat looked like something Sherlock Holmes would wear. Jesus. Where did he think he was?

"You look through a window on some of the streets around here and people will shoot first and ask questions later," Tommy said, knowing Jack wouldn't recognize the exaggeration.

"You're absolutely right. I will be more careful." Jack lowered his hands and took a tentative step out of the garden patch. The dog lunged and Jack scrambled back inside the brick enclosure.

"Sinatra!" Tommy bent down and stroked the dog's back. "Francis Albert. Be quiet." The dog licked Tommy's hand and whimpered a bit. "Sorry," he said to Jack. "He's very high-strung. I should have named him Jerry Lewis."

"That's very funny," Jack said, without smiling. He stared at the dog who appeared to be some kind of pug mix with a short brown coat, black pushed-in snout, and slightly bulging blue eyes that were eerily Sinatra-like. Jack stepped out of the ivy one more time and looked down at his suede shoes, which were dampened with what he optimistically hoped was lingering morning dew but a.s.sumed was dog urine.

"What did you say your name was?" Tommy said.

"Jack. Plumb." He extended a hand, and Tommy reluctantly stepped forward to shake it. Tommy didn't trust this guy; there was something furtive, something not quite open about him. The kind of guy he'd keep his eye on if he were loitering around a lobby or a store.

"We've had a Peeping Tom in this neighborhood," Tommy said. "Some creep who walks up to windows looking for women inside and whips it out in broad daylight. Sick b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"I a.s.sure you"-Jack placed one gloved hand over his heart-"I am not your Peeping Tom."

"Yeah, I imagine not."

"Do you know if they're home?" Jack asked. "Leo or Stephanie? I thought I saw a light go on upstairs a few minutes ago."

"I guess they're gone for the day," Tommy said. He suspected he wasn't telling the truth. He thought he'd heard Stephanie walking around a few minutes ago.

"Listen," Jack said, taking his phone from his pocket. "I'd like to call just in case someone is there and can't hear the bell for whatever reason. Do you have Stephanie's number? I've come all the way from Manhattan."

"From Manhattan?"

"Yes," Jack said. "The West Village."

"That's quite a trip. I guess you've been on the road what? Two, three days?"

Jack forced what he hoped was a self-deprecating laugh. G.o.d, he hated everyone. "I just meant I'd hate to get back across the bridge and discover they'd been in the shower or something."

Tommy eyed Jack. If Stephanie were lying low, she wouldn't answer the phone either. Also, he should probably offer Sherlock a paper towel or rag; he definitely had dog p.i.s.s on his shoes.

"I'll be quick," Jack said. "I'd be incredibly grateful."

"I've got her number inside." Tommy gestured to the open door behind him. Jack followed Tommy and the dog into the front foyer, which was dark and nearly empty except for a few woolen jackets hanging on an overloaded hook by the door, a small card table with a landline receiver, and a poster on the wall from a Matisse retrospective at MoMA, which Jack a.s.sumed was left over from a previous tenant. The hallway smelled, incongruously, of potpourri. Something cinnamon heavy. Tommy stood in the doorway, watching Jack. The dog, calmer now, sniffed at Jack's ankles.

"Stay here," Tommy said. "I'll get her number. It's in the back." He moved down the hallway to the back of the apartment where Jack could see a kitchen. The dog followed him, snorting. Jack looked through the open pocket doors into the living room. The furniture looked like castoffs, what Jack thought of as the divorced-man's special. Two overstuffed flowery and worn sofas probably bestowed by a concerned female relative or friend. A sagging wicker bookcase, which housed a bunch of true crime paperbacks, out-of-date phone books, and an abandoned gla.s.s fish tank one-quarter full of loose change. The coffee table was covered with a pile of New York Posts turned to completed Sudoku puzzles.

A fairly decent pedestal table, something that must have sat in a much nicer room at one time, was covered with an a.s.sortment of framed family photos. Jack stepped into the living room to look at the table. Nice but not old. He surveyed the photos, lots of pictures of someone he a.s.sumed was the ex-wife and various family tableaux: weddings, babies, kids in Little League uniforms with gap-toothed grins holding bats half their size.

He could see through to the dining room, which was empty except for a plastic collapsible table surrounded by a few folding chairs and, oddly, in a dark corner of the room a sculpture sitting on top of a small wooden dolly on wheels. Jack thought he recognized the familiar shape of Rodin's The Kiss. Figures, he thought, as tacky as everything else in the place, probably ordered from some late-night shopping network meant to woo the guy's divorcee dates.

Jack could hear Tommy in the back, opening and shutting drawers, rifling through papers. Jack quietly approached the statue. There was something off about the Rodin reproduction, which was polished to a sheen. As he got closer, he could see it was badly damaged. The original cast had probably been nearly two feet high, but it had lost at least six inches off its base. The right side of the man's upper body was missing, his disembodied hand still partly visible on the woman's left thigh. The woman sitting partially on his lap was mostly intact, except for her right leg, which seemed to have melted below the knee. Melted? Jack thought. Was it plastic?

He gave the thing a little shove; the sculpture didn't move, but the wheels of the dolly did. So that's why it was on wheels, it was heavy. There were deep gouges in the surface of the metal. Jack realized he was looking at a badly damaged bronze cast of Rodin's The Kiss. This in itself wasn't all that rare-there were quite a few on the market, some valuable, some not, depending on where and when they'd been forged. One of Jack's best customers collected Rodin and Jack had sourced some bronze castings for him over the years. The most valuable were the so-called originals produced by the Barbedienne foundry just outside of Paris. Authenticating them was a nightmare. If there was a foundry mark, he knew where it would be, but there was no way he could turn the thing over himself.

"What are you doing in here?" Tommy said. Jack looked up to see Tommy standing in the doorway, a stained and wrinkled Post-it in his hand. He looked p.i.s.sed.

"I was admiring your piece," Jack said. "It's a good casting. Where did you get it?"