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stepped inside and headed for the ground floor.

6
    In my uncle’s eyes, I could see a glimmer of respect that hadn’t been there before. “Nice work with the vase, kiddo. Where did you learn to do that?”
    â€œFrom movies, I guess.”
    â€œYou must have been watching some good movies. Once we get out of here, you’ll have to tell me the titles. Now, when the door opens and we step into the lobby, don’t start running. Wait till we reach the street. Do you understand?”
    â€œSure.”
    We sauntered out of the elevator like two guys without a care in the world. Uncle Harvey nodded to the security guards, who nodded back. We walked through the door and onto the pavement. Once we were out of sight of the guards, my uncle yelled, “Go!”
    We sprinted down the street, swerving past surprised pedestrians. My bag clonked against a man’s knee. I hoped he wouldn’t come after us too. We turned a corner, then another, leaving the sea and Otto’s apartment building far behind us.
    I could have kept running, but my uncle waved at me to stop. He was doubled over, red-faced, gasping for breath.
    I looked back along the street. No one was running toward us.
    I said, “Do you think they’ll come after us?”
    My uncle straightened up, still panting, and nodded. “Otto will be furious. He’ll comb the entire country till he finds us.”
    â€œWhat are we going to do?”
    â€œGet in that cab.” He stepped off the pavement and waved his arm. A taxi on the other side of the street did a neat U-turn and came to pick us up.
    As we drove quickly through Lima, Uncle Harvey told me what he knew about Otto Gonzalez. “He’s a major criminal. His networks run drugs out of Peru and into Colombia and Mexico, and from there to the U.S. He’s famous for torturing his enemies before killing them, and over the course of his long and crooked career, he’s apparently committed several hundred murders.”
    â€œBut you sold him a picture.”
    â€œI needed the money.”
    â€œCouldn’t you pay him back?”
    â€œSadly, no.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œWhy do you think, Tom? I’ve already spent it.”
    â€œA hundred thousand dollars?” I said. “What did you spend it on?”
    â€œQuite a lot went on your plane ticket.”
    It was true: my ticket had been darn expensive. Yesterday, when we’d checked on the Internet, there was only one seat left on the flight and it cost $2,200. Which was more money than I’d ever had in my entire life. At the time, Uncle Harvey had told me not to worry and whipped out his credit card. I could pay him back, he’d said, when we found the gold.
    â€œI know twenty-two hundred dollars is a ton of money,” I said. “But even that would leave a lot of change from a hundred thousand dollars. What did you spend the rest on?”
    â€œMostly paying the guy who did the painting.”
    At first, I didn’t understand what he was talking about. When I did, I managed to stammer, “You sell fake paintings?”
    â€œI do all kinds of things,” said Uncle Harvey.
    â€œLike what, exactly?”
    â€œA bit of this and a bit of that.”
    â€œWhat does that mean? What do you actually
do?
”
    â€œWhen we know one another a bit better, I’ll tell you. But not now. Sorry, Tom. It’s probably safer if you don’t know everything about me.”
    â€œYou don’t have to tell me everything,” I said. “But you can tell me this, at least. If you knew you’d sold a fake painting to a ruthless murderer, why did you come back to his country? Shouldn’t you have stayed out of Peru for the rest of your life?”
    â€œThat would have been very sensible.” Uncle Harvey grinned in that irritating way of his, and I thought he was about to say something rude about my dad. “If you recall, Tom, I tried to persuade