The Art Forger

by B.A. Shapiro

Genres: General Fiction

Synopsis

Razor-sharp writing and rich plot twists make The Art Forger a rousing literary thriller spanning three centuries of forgers, art thieves, and obsessive collectors.

On March 18, 1990, thirteen works of art today worth over $500 million were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. It remains the largest unsolved art heist in history, and Claire Roth, a struggling young artist, is about to discover that there’s more to this crime than meets the eye.

Making a living reproducing famous artworks for a popular online retailer and desperate to improve her situation, Claire is lured into a Faustian bargain with Aiden Markel, a powerful gallery owner. She agrees to forge a painting—a Degas masterpiece stolen from the Gardner Museum—in exchange for a one-woman show in his renowned gallery. But when that very same long-missing Degas painting is delivered to Claire’s studio, she begins to suspect that it may itself be a forgery.

Her desperate search for the truth leads Claire into a labyrinth of deceit where secrets hidden since the late nineteenth century may be the only evidence that can now save her life.

Release date: October 23, 2012

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Print pages: 368

Sample

One

I step back and scrutinize the paintings. There are eleven, although I have hundreds, maybe thousands. My plan is to show him only pieces from my window series. Or not. I pull my cell from my pocket, check the time. I can still change my mind. I remove Tower, a highly realistic painting of reflections off the glass Hancock building, and replace it with Sidewalk, an abstraction of Commonwealth Avenue through a parlor-level bay window. Then I switch them back.

I’ve been working on the window series for over two years, rummaging around the city with my sketchbook and Nikon. Church windows, reflective windows, Boston’s ubiquitous bays. Large, small, old, broken, wood- and metal-framed. Windows from the outside in and the inside out. I especially like windows on late winter afternoons before anyone inside notices the darkening sky and snaps the blinds shut.

I hang Sidewalk next to Tower. Now there are a dozen, a nice round number. But is it right? Too many and he’ll be overwhelmed. Too few and he’ll miss my breadth, both in content and style. It’s so difficult to choose. One of the many reasons studio visits make me so nervous.

And what’s up with this visit anyway? I’m a pariah in the art world, dubbed “the Great Pretender.” Have been for almost three years. And suddenly Aiden Markel, the owner of the world-renowned Markel G, is on his way to my loft. Aiden Markel, who just a few months ago barely acknowledged my presence when I stopped by the gallery to see a new installation. And now he’s suddenly all friendly, complimentary, asking to see my latest work, leaving his tony Newbury Street gallery to slum it in SOWA in order to appreciate my paintings, as he said, “in situ.”

I glance across the room at the two paintings sitting on easels. Woman Leaving Her Bath, a nude climbing out of a tub and attended to by a clothed maid, was painted by Edgar Degas in the late nineteenth century; this version was painted by Claire Roth in the early twenty-first. The other painting is only half-finished: Camille Pissarro’s The Vegetable Garden with Trees in Blossom, Spring, Pontoise à la Roth. Reproductions.com pays me to paint them, then sells the paintings online as “perfect replicas” whose “provenance only an art historian could discern” for ten times my price. These are my latest work.

I turn back to my windows, pace, narrow my eyes, pace some more. They’ll just have to do. I throw a worn Mexican blanket over the rumpled mattress in the corner then gather the dirty dishes scattered around the studio and dump them in the sink. I consider washing them, decide not to. If Aiden Markel wants in situ, I’ll give him in situ. But I do fill a bowl with cashews and pull out a bottle of white wine—never red at a studio visit—and a couple of glasses.

I wander to the front of the studio and look out the row of windows onto Harrison Avenue. The same view as Loft. I spend a lot of time in this spot, pretending to work through my latest project, but mostly daydreaming, spying, procrastinating. It’s four stories up, and each of the six windows in front of me stretches from two feet above the floor to two feet below the fifteen-foot ceiling.

This building was once a factory—handkerchiefs, some old-timer told me. But the old-timers aren’t known for their veracity, so it could have been hats or suspenders or maybe not even a factory at all. Now it’s a warren of artists’ studios, some, as in my case, live-in studios. Illegal, of course, but cheap.

According to media hype, SOWA—South of Washington—is the new trendy district in the south end of Boston’s South End; the north was the new trendy area about ten years ago. But to me, and to anyone who spends any time here, it’s barely on the cusp. Warehouses, projects, a famous homeless shelter, and abandoned basketball courts form the base of a neighborhood erratically pockmarked with expensive restaurants, art galleries, and pristine residential buildings protected by security. The roar of I-93 is so constant it sounds like silence. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.

Below, Aiden Markel turns the corner from East Berkeley with his lanky, graceful stride. Even from half a block away, I can see he’s wearing perfectly tailored pants—most likely linen—and what’s probably a $500 shirt. It’s eighty-five degrees on a late summer afternoon, and the guy looks as if he stepped out of his Back Bay condo on a cool September morning. He pulls out his cell, glances at my building, and touches the screen. My phone rings.

THERE’S NO ELEVATOR and no air-conditioning in the hallways and stairwells. As we hit the fourth floor, Markel’s breathing is steady and his clothes are bandbox. Clearly, the man spends time in the gym. Not to mention that he hasn’t stopped talking since I let him in the door. No one would guess we’ve barely spoken to each other in three years.

“I was around the corner from here just the other day,” Markel says, continuing his running monologue of small talk. “Dedham and Harrison. Looked at Pat Hirsi’s newest project. You know him, right?”

I shake my head no.

“He’s working with cobblestones. Very ingenious.”

I pull open the wide steel door with two hands.

Markel steps over the threshold, takes a deep breath, and closes his eyes. “Nothing like the smell of an artist at work.” He keeps his eyes closed, which isn’t exactly what I want him to do; he’s supposed to be here to look at my paintings, fall in love with them, and set me up with a one-woman show at Markel G. Right. Like that’s going to happen. Although, what is going to happen or why he’s here is beyond me.

“How about a glass of wine?” I ask.

He finally opens his eyes and gives me a slow, warm smile. “Will you be joining me?”

I can’t help but smile back. He’s not classically handsome, his features are too large for that, but there’s something in the way he carries himself, the wide deep-set eyes, the dimple in his chin, that tugs at me. Charisma, I guess. That and our shared history.

“Sure.” I grab a pile of canvases I somehow forgot were on my beaten up couch and lean them against an even more beaten up coffee table. Sometimes I think I’m a living parody of myself: the starving artist sleeping on a mattress in her studio to save on rent. Yet, there it is.

Markel doesn’t move. He stares at me for a long moment then shifts his gaze over my shoulder, a wistful look on his face. I know he’s thinking about Isaac. I probably should just say something, but I don’t know what to say. That I’m sorry? That I’m still upset? That I lost a friend, too?

I pour wine into two juice glasses as he settles into the couch. Not an easy feat as it’s lumpy and too deep for comfort. I should get a new one, or at least a new secondhand one, but the landlord just raised my rent, and I’m pretty much broke.

I sit in the rocking chair across from him and lean forward. “I heard your Jocelyn Gamp show went fabulously well.”

He takes a sip of his wine. “It was her molten pieces. She sold everything she had. Plus three commissions. Amazing lady. Amazing artist. The Met’s requested a studio visit.”

I like how he doesn’t take any of the credit. “She sold” rather than “I sold” or even “we sold.” Extremely rare among the run-amok egos of most dealers and gallery owners.

“Not often a Boston show gets covered in the New York Times,” I suck up.

“Yes, it was quite the coup,” he admits. “I’m glad to see that you’re still following the goings-on in the art world even though we haven’t exactly been following yours.”

I look up sharply. What the hell does that mean? But I see that his eyes hold compassion, maybe even a little guilt.

“Isaac’s Orange Nude sold last week,” he says.

Ah. As everyone knows, I was the model for Orange Nude. Even though it’s an abstraction, there’s no denying my long, unmanageable red hair or the paleness of my skin or my brown eyes. If I hadn’t thrown it out the door when we broke up, I’d probably be living in a condo in Back Bay instead of renting in an industrial building in SOWA. But then again, I’m not the Back Bay type. “Don’t tell me how much you got for it.”

“I’ll spare you the pain. But the sale started me thinking about you, about the raw deal you got.”

I struggle to keep the surprise off my face. In the last three years, no one outside of a few art buddies and my mother—who never really understood what it all meant—has looked at the situation from my point of view.

“So I decided to come down and see what you’ve been up to,” he continues. “Maybe I can help.”

My heart leaps at the offer, and I jump up. “I pulled out a few from my latest series.” I wave at the paintings. “Obviously, windows.”

Markel walks toward the pieces. “Windows,” he repeats, and he takes in the whole dozen from a distance, then approaches each individually.

“It’s urban windows, Boston windows. Hopper-esque thematically, but more multidimensional. Not just the public face of loneliness, but who we are in many dimensions. Unseen from the inside. Or unknowingly seen. On display from outside, posturing or forgetting. Separations. Reflections, refractions.”

“Light,” he murmurs. “Wonderful light.”

“That, too. Without light nothing can be seen. And with it, still so much is unobserved.” Studio visits make me talk like a pompous art critic.

“Your light is amazing. The subtle values. Almost Vermeer-like.” He points to Loft. “I’m struck by the difference in value in the light from the far left window through to the right ones.” He steps closer. “Each slightly different, and yet each such a luminous part of the whole.”

I’m also pleased with that particular play, but Vermeer, the master of light . . .

“How many glazings are you doing?”

I’m reluctant to admit the truth. Not only are very few artists using classical oil techniques these days, but those who are aren’t nearly as compulsive as I am about layering. I shrug. “Eight? Nine?” Which is actually low for me.

“It’s reminiscent of the light falling on the black-and-white tile floor in The Concert.” He walks closer to Loft. “The light bouncing off the building here. It’s almost as if it’s caressing the diamonds of the chain-link.”

He steps back, examines the paintings closely, just as I had earlier. “I love how you’re playing with classical style and contemporary subjects, with abstraction. But it’s the realistic pieces that grab me.” He waves dismissively at Sidewalk. “The abstracts aren’t nearly as strong.”

“Not too OTC?” I ask. OTC is “over the couch” in artist-speak, a derogatory term for paintings purchased by buyers who want their artwork to match their décor.

Markel laughs. “Not even close. I’ve been trying to tell people for years that realism isn’t dead. That nothing can touch a great talent in classical oil.”

A rush of warmth fills my body and races up to my face. It’s been a long time since anyone said anything like that about me.

“I have lots more,” I say, heading over to the three-tiered shelving I built to house my art books and canvases, although now it’s all canvases and my books are in semiorganized piles on the floor. The shelves are a mess, of course. But a mess I know intimately.

I begin pulling paintings before he says he wants to see them. I grab the stepladder. I need it so I can reach the highest shelf, which is where I store most of my more realistic paintings. The ones I figured no one would be interested in.

“These some of your reproductions?” Markel calls from the other side of the room.

I look over my shoulder. “Yeah. I don’t usually have any completed ones here. But the truck’s tied up all week, so the Degas isn’t getting picked up till Friday.”

“Reproductions.com. Got to love the name. Saw the article in the Globe last month. Nice exposure for you.” He hesitates. “I guess?”

“Not exactly the kind I’m looking for.” Just what I need: publicity for pretending to paint someone else’s masterpiece. “I tried to get out of the interview, but Repro wouldn’t stand for it.”

“Are they doing as well as their hype?”

“Probably better,” I say, although I’m not really listening and not at all interested in Repro. I’m too focused on pulling my best paintings, but not too many. Light. Interesting value is what he wants, deep and translucent. I grab one. Not strong enough. Then another.

“Now this is OTC,” he says, pointing to the Pissarro, which although incomplete is obviously filled with trees covered in masses of white blossoms.

I laugh. “For the pretentious.”

“But poor,” he adds.

I lumber down with three canvases under my arm. “Not all that poor. Those things go for thousands of dollars. Tens of thousands for the bigger ones. Unfortunately, I only get a fraction of that.”

I quickly remove my more abstract paintings from the wall. Replace them with the ones I’ve chosen. I turn to him, but he’s staring at the fake Degas.

“You’re damn good at this.”

“It beats waitressing.”

His eyes don’t leave my rendering. “I’ll say.”

“Degas’ later work isn’t all that hard to copy. Not like his early oils. They’re a real bitch,” I say, trying to be polite when every part of me wants to grab Markel and pull him to the other side of the studio. “What with all those layers. Painting and waiting. Painting and waiting. Could take months, maybe years.”

“And Reproductions.com has you do that?”

“No. Never. A piece like that would have to sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars.” I come to stand by him. “Degas is my specialty, his oils in particular. I’m actually certified—whatever that means—by Repro, after I took the requisite classes.” I wave to the piles of books in the corner. “I’m working on a book proposal about him. His relationship with other artists, dealers, collectors of his day. Cross-germination. That kind of stuff. But I’m not working on it as hard as I should be.”

Markel’s eyes remain glued to the Degas reproduction. “This seems like a better use of your time. Do they appreciate you?”

“Sometimes I get a bonus when people order a Degas with the stipulation that I’m the artist,” I shrug. “Although you can hardly call a person who copies a masterpiece an artist.”

He doesn’t contradict me, and I gesture him back to my real work. He steals a last glance at Woman Leaving Her Bath before he follows.

We stand in silence, staring at my windows. I force myself to remain silent, to allow the work to speak for itself.

After two minutes that feel like twenty, Markel touches my arm. “Let’s sit down.”

We walk over to the couch and sit on opposite ends. He finishes off his wine and pours himself another. I decline his offer of a refill, wanting the wine, but fearing I’m too jittery to hold onto it.

Markel clears his throat, takes another sip. “Claire, I’ve just been given the opportunity of a lifetime. A chance to do good, real good for lots of people. And I hope you’ll feel the same way about the one I’m about to give you.” He pauses. “Although I suppose yours is really more like making a deal with the devil.”

I have absolutely no idea what he’s talking about, but I catch the word “opportunity.” “And you’re the devil?”

He shakes his head vigorously. “The devil’s the one who gave me this opportunity. Although I’ve no idea who he is. He’s levels away from me.”

“Like Dante?”

Although I meant it as a joke, he ponders the question, a professor attempting to answer a precocious student. “No. I guess that’s wrong. Pawns are the better analogy. But clever pawns. Who can capture the queen. Either way, I’m mixing my metaphors.”

“I’ve got no problem with the devil. I’m one of those people who thinks heaven would be boring. But being a pawn has never suited me.”

This time he does laugh, but I can tell it’s forced. “Then we’ll stick with the devil.”

Enough of this. “Okay,” I say. “What are we talking about here?”

He locks his eyes on mine. “Something not quite on the up-and-up.”

I don’t break the stare. “I thought you said it was an opportunity to do good?”

“The end is good. It’s just the means that are a bit iffy.”

“Illegal?”

“There’s illegal and there’s illegal.”

“And which one is this?”

Markel looks across the room at the Degas and Pissarro.

And now it all makes sense. “Oh” is all I can say.

He takes a sip of wine, relaxes into the lumpy couch. The most uncomfortable part of this conversation is clearly over for him.

I cross my arms over my chest. “I can’t believe that after everything that’s happened, you, of all people, would even consider asking me to forge a painting.”

“How much does Reproductions.com pay you?”

“They pay me to copy, not to forge.”

“So you said a fraction. A few thousand a picture? A little more?”

Often it’s less, but I nod.

“I’ll pay you $50,000. Plus expenses, of course. A third up front, a third on completion to my satisfaction, and the final third on authentication.”

“Is this because of what happened with Isaac?”

“It’s despite what happened with Isaac.”

I’m stupefied by this answer, and it must have showed on my face, because he says, “You’re the best for the project.”

“Out of all the thousands of artists you know?”

Again, he looks across the room at the Degas reproduction. “You’re the only one I’d trust with it.”

“How do you know I won’t talk?”

“It’s not your style,” he says, which is true. People who have been on the wrong side of rumor know when to keep their mouths shut.

“What about turning you in? I could always go to the police.”

“Not when you understand what’s at stake,” he says.

“So tell me.”

“I meant what I said about your paintings, Claire. You have a unique talent. You always did. Just because you’ve been blackballed doesn’t mean you can’t paint.” He pauses. “I’d also like to give you a one-woman show at the gallery.”

I barely conceal a gasp.

“In six, nine months,” he says. “After you’ve finished this project. Do you think you could have twenty paintings ready by then? Of the realistic highly glazed?”

I turn away to hide my longing. My own show at Markel G. An impossible dream.

“I’m pretty sure I can get the same Times reporter who covered Jocelyn Gamp to cover you,” he says.

The New York Times. Sales. Commissions. Studio visits from the Met. My heart actually hurts.

“Claire, please look at me.” When I do, he says, “I’ll protect you. Like I said, I’m levels away from anyone with any knowledge, and you’ll be a level away from me.”

“What’s the part where we get to do something good?”

“I’ll tell you all the details when you’re on board.”

“There’s no way I can agree to something this mysterious.”

Markel stands. “Just give it some thought.” He touches my shoulder. “I’ll check in with you next week.”

“You really are the devil, aren’t you?”

“If you believe in the devil.”

Which, of course, I don’t.



Two

When Markel leaves, I flop down on the couch and stare at the pipes and vents chasing each other across the ceiling, trying to process the strangest studio visit ever. Markel G. My own show. The sweet possibility of reclaiming all that’s been lost, everything I’ve ever wanted. But a forger? A pretender? The absolute last thing I want to be.

You’re damn good at this.

I climb out of the couch, walk over to the front windows, and stare down on Harrison Avenue. I look over the chain-linked parking lot to the elevated highway in the distance, then to my window paintings lined up along the walls.

You have a unique talent. You always did.

Damn him. Damn him and his compliments and his offers and his strings.

I grab my backpack and head to Jake’s, the bar where everyone knows my name. Unfortunately, not only does everyone know my name, they also know about Markel’s visit.

There’s illegal and there’s illegal.

When I reach the bar, I square my shoulders and push open the door. Jake’s is clearly and proudly old neighborhood, nothing like the ritzy places drifting south from Back Bay. Here, there are no blue martinis, and the tables are scarred from years of use, not purposely distressed to look chic. There’s no valet because the clientele walk from their tiny apartments or studios. A neon BUDWEISER sign hangs in the narrow window to scare the hip away.

Most of my buds are already here; it’s six, after all, the drinking hour. To be followed by the eating hour—hot dogs, burgers, and BLTs comprise the menu—followed by another drinking hour. Or hours. Right arms shoot straight into the air as each person catches sight of me. Our gang sign.

Mike points to the open bar stool next to him. “Here” is all he says as he turns back to his conversation with Small. Small’s name is Small because she’s very small, maybe five feet, and that’s generous. She says she named herself Small to confront the issue head-on and because her real name is so ethnic it labeled her. Mike’s only half a foot taller than she is, but far too unsure of himself—not to mention he’s a man—for that kind of piercing self-deprecation.

I slip onto the stool. Maureen, owner and bartender, opens a bottle of Sam Adams and puts it down in front of me. She knows I don’t want a glass.

Rik, buff, handsome, and with kangaroo eyelashes every woman I know covets, leans from behind to give me a kiss. “Do tell,” he demands. Rik’s the one graduate-school friend who stuck by me after the “Cullion Affair” slithered its way into the MFA Museum School as well as the art scenes in Boston and New York. I love him for it.

I return the kiss. “And hello to you, too.”

“I want to hear every last delicious detail.” Rik always wants to hear every last delicious detail.

“Well, he seemed to like some of my stuff, especially the paintings where I applied . . .” I lower my voice in imitation of Markel’s tenor, “ ‘. . . classical realism to contemporary subject matter.’ He said he’d give me a call, but I’m thinking he was blowing me off.”

“Did the great man tell you why he suddenly decided to grace you with his oh-so-fabulous presence?”

“Just what he said before. That he wanted to see what I was up to.”

“Nothing about Sir Isaac Cullion?” When I don’t answer, Rik adds, “Not even one teeny-tiny single solitary word?”

I’ve known Rik long enough to know that if I don’t give him something, he won’t let go until he’s got the truth. I heave a dramatic sigh. “He did tell me he sold Isaac’s Orange Nude. That it made him think of me.”

Small turns toward us, and Mike puts a hand on my shoulder. Maureen leans her elbows on the bar. Danielle and Alice, who are on the other side of Rik, stop talking. Everyone looks at me expectantly. There are few secrets among us, especially not career ones—and these are probably the only people who actually believe Isaac lied.

“Didn’t go well?” Mike asks. We sometimes call Mike “the church lady” in joking salute to his keen sense of right and wrong. He’d be horrified at Markel’s offer. And even more horrified that I didn’t refuse outright.

“I’m guessing not, although I wasn’t expecting much.” A lie everyone recognizes. They’ve all said roughly the same thing after a career disappointment. It’s how we survive.

“A shot of tequila for my friend here,” Mike says to Maureen. Aside from Rik, who isn’t really an artist anymore, Mike’s the only one of us who can afford actual drinks. He’s a lawyer by day, painter by night.

I knock back the shot as soon as it’s in front of me. The warmth spreads down my throat and into my empty stomach. A dangerous thing if Maureen decides to comp me a second shot, which, under the circumstances, she probably will.

“Any idea how much Markel got for it?” Small asks.

I know she’s talking about Orange Nude. “I told him not to tell me.”

“More to the point: Does anyone know if Cullion actually painted it?” Danielle’s voice is thick with sarcasm.

There’s dead silence in the bar; I stare into my empty shot glass. Although she doesn’t mean to, and would never purposely hurt anyone, Danielle often steps over the line she doesn’t see. It’s like her tact sensor is missing.

“Claire knows,” Rik jumps in. “She was there. And she wasn’t wearing any clothes.”

I throw him a grateful glance and hold up my hands. “Present and nude as charged. I can attest to its authenticity.”

“Never should’ve given it back to the old fraud,” Rik says to me. “You didn’t even—” He stops, frowns, and we all follow his gaze. “Well, well, well,” he says sourly, “if it isn’t the fabulous Crystal Mack, our own local artist at work. Slumming it tonight?”

“Oh, darlin’,” Crystal says as she slides onto the stool next to Rik. “Don’t be silly.” She kisses him on both cheeks. “Talking about the Orange Nude sale?” She looks at me and winks. “I heard mid–six figures.” She’s overdressed, as usual. Something clingy and expensive in that trendy green that makes me look seasick. Unfortunately, it looks just fine on her. Blondes can wear any color they want.

“Probably out of testimony to the beauty of the model.” Rik throws his arm around my shoulders. “Rather than the skill of the artist.”

“That,” Crystal smiles at me sweetly, “or the power of scandal.” Crystal, too, often steps over the line—but her eyes are wide open.

Maureen puts a second shot in front of me.

We turn away from Crystal and break into smaller conversations. Crystal orders a double scotch straight up and begins an animated discussion with Maureen, pretending that the bartender isn’t the only one willing to talk to her. Not that Crystal cares. Her purpose in coming here is to make herself feel better by making us feel worse. It works every time. The good news is that no one will ask any more questions about Markel with her around. The last thing anyone wants to do is give Crystal more ammunition.

By nine, Rik and I are the only ones left standing. Everyone else has gone home, and although we know we should, too, we linger at the far end of the bar. The two tequila shots have worked their magic on me: I’m all loose and stretchy, comfortably buzzed.

“I’ve still got options,” I say.

Even though we haven’t mentioned Markel in over an hour, Rik knows exactly what I’m talking about. “You’ve got lots of options, Claire Bear. Lots more than you even know.”

“Markel told me that just because I’d been blackballed, that didn’t mean I couldn’t paint.”

Rik’s eyes widen. “Oh, honey, he actually said that to you? What an asshole.”

“No, no,” I say quickly. “He didn’t mean it like that.”

“Well, then how the hell did he mean it?”

“I think it was a compliment.”

“Some compliment,” Rik mutters.

“So,” I say, “I made it to the final round of the ArtWorld Trans contest. And I haven’t been rejected from the Cambridgeport Show yet.”

“What’s the Trans thing?” Rik isn’t a studio artist anymore, so he isn’t up on the latest contests and juried shows. He landed a job in the curatorial department at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum right out of graduate school—which was an amazing coup—and has happily worked his way up to assistant curator in four years. He claims he doesn’t miss the “drudgery, backstabbing, and poverty of being an artiste.” Sometimes I believe him, sometimes I don’t.

“The submission’s got to reflect whatever you think Trans means,” I explain. “Transpire, transplant, transcendent, transfusion, transmutation, transgendered.”

“Sweet,” Rik says, and I can tell he’s running through the paintings stacked in his closet to see if any would work. He blinks his eyes to stop the parade. “What’d you submit?”

I shrug as if I don’t really care. “A few from my window series. Transparent, transition, transpose, translucent. I figured if every painting had a bunch of Trans, it might give me an edge.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“I heard next year it’s going to be Counter, so I thought I’d submit some of my repros as counterfeit.”

“Funny,” Rik says, in a way that clearly indicates he doesn’t think so. “So how’s that going anyway?”

“Markel liked them.”

Rik homes right in. “What interest could Aiden Markel possibly have in repros?”

“I don’t know, Rik. I can’t read the man’s mind. They were there, I guess.”

Rik holds his hands up. “Sor-ry. Didn’t mean to step on any toes.”

“No, no,” I say. “It’s me who’s sorry. Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Rik grins. “We all know you can’t handle your liquor.”

He insists on walking me home. It’s only a few blocks out of his way, so I acq. . .