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Night had fallen by the time I got to my car. Right away, I opened the glove compartment, got out a wet wipe, and scrubbed my cheek where Whitt kissed me. Yes, he was handsome and fit, but also repugnant. Smarmy was the word Mom would have used. But all in all, I felt optimistic that our meeting would produce results.
At one of the red lights heading out of town, Teague pulled up beside me and waved. When the light turned green, we headed for the interstate. Once I was riding 95 southbound, I called Gabe.
“Hi, Lise. I hope I did good.”
“Apparently. We’re in business. He stepped away, so I didn’t hear any of your conversation. What did he ask?”
“He wanted to feel me out. I acted like a bored billionaire, and he bought it. He also asked how quickly I could come up with the money to make expensive buys. I told him twenty-four to seventy-two hours, depending on how high the price. I hope that was okay.”
“I never considered that,” I said. “What else?”
“He wanted to know how much I trusted you, and then he wanted to know if you were single. I think he has more than profit on his mind.”
“He’s a whoredog.”
“Be careful, Lise.”
“I will,” I said then called Adolph.
Music was playing in the background when he answered. “Hi, Lise. I’m still on the job.”
“Where are you? It sounds like a party,” I said.
“Sitting at the end of the bar at the Hunker Down Tavern, watching our man make an ass of himself.”
The Hunker Down, located near Old City, was where people went to get drunk. The bar didn’t serve food, people could still smoke in the bar, and an evening at the Hunker Down meant waking the next morning smelling like an ashtray.
“The Hunker Down? I’ll owe you big for this,” I said.
“Oh, it’s quite entertaining. He’s been hitting on anything with breasts.”
“Is he having any luck?”
“Quasimodo would have luck in this place. I fear getting an STD from my barstool.”
“Gross. I’m heading back and will relieve you when I get back to town.”
“I’ll be here.”
Since I had my phone in hand, I tried calling Nick, but it went to voicemail. I left him an impassioned message. When I finished, my phone rang. It was Baker.
“Be still, my beating heart.”
“Put a sock in it, Norwood.”
“I heard you paid a visit to the Stephenses. What do you think?”
“Well, we forgot to mention we were from homicide and told them we were investigating their recent burglary, particularly the theft of the sketch.”
“Shari said you got a preliminary list of people who’ve seen the sketch,” I said.
“Yeah, damn long list. Anybody who’s been in their house over the past few decades. Family for holidays, friends for parties, that kind of thing. We’ll be talking to them.”
“Are you going to alert the FBI about the latest victim’s connection to The Floating Ballerina?”
Baker sighed. “Damn feds should do their own work. But yeah, after we talk to a few people, they’ll probably get an anonymous tip. I swear you gotta lead some of these feds by their nose hair. And they still think they’re smarter than Einstein.”
“What did you think of Ricky Stephens?”
“Ortega and I agree with you: the guy’s a loser.”
“What are the chances that he’s Michelangelo?” I asked.
“He doesn’t have the brains to do what happened to those girls and get away with it. We’ll have to tip off the feebs pretty soon, but we want to give him time to try to move the sketch.”
“Thanks.”
“We told them that we’re confident they’ll get the sketch back, that statistically speaking, the longer a thief hangs onto stolen art, the greater the odds of recovery and arrest. The art that’s hard to recover is the art that is sold to a fence soon after the theft,” Baker said.
“Any of that true?”
“Hell if I know. I work homicide.”
“Anything else?”
“That about covers it.”
“Thanks again, and sorry I thought you were a homicidal maniac.”
“Happens all the time,” Baker said and hung up. His sense of humor was drier than unbuttered toast.
I’d intended to head straight for the Hunker Down Tavern and relieve Adolph, but he called before I got close to San Marco. Ricky Stephens had left, and they were going in the general direction of his home.
“I owe you a favor or a dinner or a hundred bucks,” I told him. “Your choice.”
“I’ll take the dinner.”
“It’s a date. Well, not a date date.”
Adolph laughed. “A not-a-date date it is.”
“Where are you now?”
“Still heading in the direction of the Stephenses’ house.”
“Anything noteworthy take place?” I asked.
“He engaged in hilarious repartee with the guys and made the women swoon, at least in his own mind. And then he started making phone calls.”
“Oh?”
“Right after I talked to you, he checked his watch and made a call. There was no answer on the other end, or it went to messages and he didn’t want to leave one, so he bantered with the boys for another fifteen minutes and tried again. Still nothing. This time he looked perturbed and moved from beer to whiskey. He tried five minutes later and was no longer jovial after that failed call. He tried again a couple of minutes later and finally got through to whomever he was trying to contact. They talked for about ten minutes, and then he said goodnight to his compatriots and started for what I assume is home since we just turned onto his street.”
I switched on my blinker and pulled into the left lane to get around a convoy of three tractor-trailers. “Anything about the phone call? Did you overhear anything, notice his demeanor?”
Adolph said, “I was across the room, so no, I didn’t hear anything. As for his demeanor, I’d say anxious, moved to angry—”
“Angry?”
“Not shouting angry, but I could tell he wasn’t happy by the way he shook his head a few times and made that ‘now listen here’ gesture with his index finger. Then his mood changed again, and he was smiling after that. And he’s turning in to his driveway.”
“My guess is he’s in for the night. Thanks, Adolph. I’ll talk to you soon.”
When I got home, I said goodnight to Teague then patted myself on the back for a job well done. The evening had gone well, laying the groundwork for recovering The Floating Ballerina. It sure beat surveillance, for which I was going to owe Elliot the Slim a small fortune. Ricky Stephens’s phone call in the bar was interesting. It made sense that if he did have The Floating Ballerina, and if Baker and Ortega had rattled his cage, that he would be looking to move it sooner rather than later. I figured there was a good chance that he would been talking to a connection in the art-world black market. It would be a hoot if he was talking directly to Alden Whitt.