Read 1 - Artscape: Ike Schwartz Mystery 1 for Free Online Page B

you. You owe your landlady three months’ back rent. You will need money to hire lawyers to get custody of your kids. You have no job and no insurance, because the Bureau let you go three months ago. They said you had lost your nerve or your touch or whatever nice way they describe someone who needs Jack Daniels for breakfast. You have no assets worth mentioning. You cashed out your 401k, sold your house, car, sound system, television, and furniture to pay bills. Your in-laws have an Illinois court order giving them temporary custody of your children. The grounds are not important, but I will cite them if you wish. You just buried your wife. I would tell you I am sorry, but I never knew her, and I am not a sentimental man. In short, Grafton, your back is against the wall. You are unemployed and unemployable. You cannot even tell people what you did for a living, at least not right now. In a year or so, you could get a job with a company selling or manufacturing security systems, but if, and only if, the FBI decides you’re safe and lets you.
    “Oh, you need me, Grafton, you need me big time. Lucky for you, I need you, too, so I want to offer you a deal.”
    Harry sat speechless. Donati had access to information that could only come from someone deep inside the Bureau. And Donati was right. Harry needed money.
    “I am hoping,” Donati added, “that I have estimated your financial problems and your level of, shall we say, disenchantment with the Bureau and all it represents.”
    “All right, you’ve got your facts right. Tell me what you want and then I’ll tell you whether I’m interested.”
    Donati stared straight ahead without speaking for a moment. “Grafton, your outstanding debts come to something over two hundred thousand dollars. Throw the lawyers in there and you are looking at a quarter of a million shortfall. That includes your landlord but not your credit cards, which are also maxed out. I will pay you one hundred thousand dollars for a week’s work, work you have done before. When we are finished, we are finished. You get fifty thousand up front, the remainder when I collect my money after the job.”
    “Just what do I do for one hundred K?”
    “You go to a little town in Virginia and inspect a building for burglar alarms. When I say so, you go back to the building, deactivate them, and then help me and my associates remove several hundred paintings from the building. That’s all.”
    “Sorry, I need to know more. I need to weigh the risks. I can’t work without that.”
    “Fair enough. I have been employed by a group of people who specialize in political, shall we say, manipulation. They are funded by one of those groups in the Middle East that you know more about than I do. They want me to steal some paintings and hide them. They will then ransom them for a great deal of money. When that has been done, I collect my fee, I pay you and the others, and we all separate.”
    “What’s to prevent me from blowing the whistle on you and your friends?”
    “I hoped you wouldn’t ask that. Well, I believe I have your price and I am correct about your anger at the FBI. If that is not enough, there are your children. I do not like getting at people through their families, you see, but I am a businessman in a business with no margin for error. Do you understand?”
    Harry weighed the man’s words. Donati had done the math—he stopped counting months ago but guessed he owed at least that much. He weighed the risks. He thought of a career spanning twenty years devoted to, for the most part, the prevention of crime. There were times when it was not clear which side he was on—Waco and Ruby Ridge, for example. And now, he was about to cross the line, become a thief. He was the best, even now, at breaking alarm systems, and as Donati said, he would work or not work when the Bureau let him, and they were not about to turn him loose. Not yet.
    “Okay, you don’t need to threaten me. If I work, I work.