Chapter 20
March 27
You can probably hear Jonah’s laughter across Central Park. I’m glad he thinks it’s funny.
I, however, am completely traumatized, having slept only five hours the past two nights. I’m not sure if I can face Bovano again, but I have to because the picture of the lady with the green eyes is haunting me. Bovano holds the key, I’m sure of it.
A knock sounds on the door. “Boys, I hope you’re not playing video games,” my mom’s voice calls.
“No, Mom. We’re playing Demons and Warlocks.”
“Okay, then. Let me know if you want a snack. I’ll be in the kitchen.” I hear her retreat down the hallway.
It works every time, like a parent-repellant spray. She knows better than to interrupt a card game of Demons and Warlocks. Jonah will assault her with random factoids about the talking tree that shoots fireballs that he invented, or insist on showing her the cool Snake-Demon card that he bought the other day. She’ll have to stand there politely nodding for an hour.
I’m glad she left, because there is no covering up the evidence in here. One peek and she’d know we are most definitely not playing Demons and Warlocks. I would call this game Skinny Kids and Bad Guys. There’s a mountain of papers spread out on my bed, along with a bright smear of mug shots and color-coded flash cards plastered on my wall. Jonah finally slept over last night, and after breakfast this morning we came into my room and have been sitting here for four hours, which is astounding for someone with his attention span.
Everything I’ve drawn from my office espionage is laid out. Jonah has organized it into neat piles and then written down categories and subcategories and pinned them up so he can do further analysis. The kid is in heaven.
I have every picture I’ve sketched for the police (I made copies on my mother’s scanner). Some are mug shots of the known criminals, some are random (like that guy who stole the canvas from me—I saw his face later on the surveillance tape) and some are my own personal suspects, like the green-eyed woman from the photography exhibit. There’s something about her that’s creeping me out. Call it a hunch.
Turns out the four suspects Bovano showed me in the beginning are a group of thieves known as the Picasso Gang. I saw that name along with their pictures in a folder on his desk. I write down what I know about them:
The Picasso Gang
Asian guy—“Marco”
Older, crazy-haired guy—Jackie Vincent
Bald guy—knife perp from alley with Dad
Blond guy—Heinrich. The leader?
I frown at my notes. Somehow listing everyone as “guy” seems like pathetic police work, but I still don’t have many names. I managed to see the last name Heinrich on Bovano’s desk, written on a file that contained pictures of the blond man, black-and-white shots of him out to lunch at an outdoor café of some kind. In Europe? He looks European with his short-trimmed beard and black turtleneck.
“What do the dots even mean?” Jonah wonders aloud, gesturing to a map of Museum Mile that we pinched from my parents’ New York City survival stash. I drew circles in pencil on two museums, sites that Bovano had marked with a thumbtack on the original. The Neue Galerie and the Jewish Museum. My two least favorite places in the world at the moment. Plus more circles on cafés across the street from those sites. Seven spots total.
“And why are the cafés marked?” he continues. “Are they places that have been robbed? Or places where this gang has been seen, wandering around? We need to figure this out.”
“Wait—” I start to say as he traces my circles with black permanent marker. I end my protest with a sigh. I guess we won’t be returning the map.
We keep looking for patterns, but it all seems random. Just two parallel lines running down Fifth Avenue and Madison.
The block where the ice cream incident took place is not marked. That was over on Lexington Ave., three streets away from the museums. Obviously the police don’t think it’s important. Jonah decides to mark it with a big black X, for a caution marker.
The geometry book on Bovano’s desk is a mystery, as is the Egyptian book. Jonah’s theory is that Bovano is looking for a pattern on the map, some sort of geometrical shape that will tip him off as to where the next robbery will take place. The sites along Museum Mile form a long tube. I tell him it could be an obelisk, which would explain the Egyptian book. But the top point of the obelisk would land in the middle Madison Avenue, so that doesn’t fit.
We come up with a list of research that will be done over the next week. My dad is, after all, a librarian, and I’m sure we can use the database at the library he used to work at. They’re still on good terms.
I write down the major questions:
Have there been robberies at these locations?
Do the circles form a pattern that predicts where the ultimate heist will take place?
Is the green-eyed lady important, or am I losing my mind?
If we can’t come up with any answers, I’ll have to go back to Bovano’s office and sneak around again. Or Jonah will attempt his pizza plan, which makes me break out in a cold sweat whenever I think about it.
“Son, I’m very proud of you. I don’t think I tell you that enough.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
We’re at the library later that afternoon and he’s getting all emotional on me. I can tell that he’s psyched I’ve asked for his help. Usually I reject his library geek-outs completely.
I wonder if he’d be so proud of me if he knew that I stole information from Bovano, Tasered a cat, and am currently lying through my teeth to him.
I have him working on the geometrical shape problem. I told him it was for math class, to figure out what two parallel lines can form as a shape, given other lines that intersect with them. Meanwhile I’m scouring the newspaper database for recent New York City robberies. We’re side by side, typing in computer cubbies with a partition between us, but we might as well be working at the same desk, because he keeps leaning over into my personal space to “share” his discoveries. It’s worse than sitting next to Jonah.
“You know, Edmund, not all geometrical shapes are based on their perimeters,” he says as he swivels his chair into my cubby. “Are you sure these lines intersect with others? Do they have closed sides like a rectangle? Some shapes are open ended. Like a balbis.”
“A what?”
“A balbis. A shape like an H . . . two parallel lines connected by a third. Like rugby posts. Know what I mean?”
“Yep. Not the shape I’m searching for, though.” Come on, Dad! Stay focused! I knew this mission would be risky. The man can seriously mentally derail and tool away on random stuff for hours.
He scratches his mustache. “There’s also shapes within shapes. Triangles that have circles inscribed in them, called the incircles of the triangle. Are you sure it’s just two parallel lines? Could be triangles within a rectangle. Circles within that.”
I’m not sure about any of it. Shapes within shapes? This is insane. I’m hoping Jonah has more luck.
“What are you working on?” My father peers over my shoulder.
“I’m researching crime in New York City for history class. Art museum robberies. Mr. Daniels asked us to research New York history, and I guess I got interested because of my job.”
He buys the lie and returns to his computer to help me look up stuff about Museum Mile.
Lying is second nature to me these days, which I’m not too happy about. I hope in the end there’s some sort of good karma that comes from solving the case, or I have some serious repentance to do with the Big Man Upstairs.
Dad’s phone rings. Not so much rings as plays a jazzy tune that mortifies me every time it happens.
“Hi, honey. What’s that? All right, I’ll tell him. Yep, we’ll be home right away.”
He grins at me over the partition as he ends the call. “Good news, Edmund. The police are taking you out to dinner tonight. A thank-you present for all of your hard work. We’re all invited. Let’s go home and get changed.”
I force a smile. I’m sure this has something to do with Detective Bovano and my ill-fated kick during self-defense class. Having dinner with that man is the last thing I want to do. And doesn’t a thank-you dinner happen at the end, when you’ve solved the case and everyone wants to celebrate?
I don’t know what to make of this invitation, but I don’t like it. I’m going to make my father taste all of my food before I eat it. Who knows what Bovano is capable of.