Peyton Riley (8 page)

"A friend of a friend told me of a talented dealer."

"A friend of a friend could be anyone," she answered. "Tell me, or I'll walk out this door."

"Careful, are we?"

"One needs to be, in this business." A thumb went to rub her lip. "The name."

"Ivor Rasimoff of the Imperial Gallery."

"Warsaw," she said quietly.

"You get around?" Carson asked, his tone light.

"Where the business takes me." She tried for nonchalance but failed miserably. Anja Rubinstein sounded like a breathy little girl, trying to get into a conversation with the grown-ups.

"You're very pretty," said Carson, leaning in his seat, and Peyton rolled her eyes. "Did you ever model?"

"Mr. Varis," she said, and Peyton heard a trace of a giggle. "I really don't have much time. Um. Can you tell me what it is you wanted to meet about?"

"Call me Carson." He went and took one of her hands. Peyton would get a migraine from rolling her eyes too hard, if he kept this up. "That is, if I may call you Anja?"

"You may." The little blonde trollop was
smiling.

"I assume you did your research on me?"

"I did."

His fingers stroked the back of her hand. "And what did you learn?"

She giggled again. "It can't all be true, can it?"

"Sadly, as you know, damaging reputations is really a poor way of handling competition, but many of our colleagues are not above it."

She tilted her head and tucked her hair behind her ear, keeping her other hand underneath Carson's grasp.

"Here's the deal," he continued. "I have a hot piece and a ready buyer. But I can't be involved."

"One of those stories about you?" she asked shyly.

Carson chuckled. "Less a story and more of a…hmm. Misunderstanding."

"I got you," she smiled.

"Offer a cut," said Peyton.

Carson ran his hand through his curls. "Now all I need is someone who'll just put it together. Connect the piece to the buyer. That's all."

Anja pulled her hand away and ran her thumb over her lips. "I don't know…"

"You're a bright girl; people have been talking about you in our circles. I'm sure you can make your own decision."

She began nibbling on her thumbnail. "Can you let me know the details?"

"The piece is coming in from Warsaw. Ivor's got it. The buyer wants to keep it quiet so the interface will all be online. Anonymous. All the transactions are wired, too. No face time, no hard currency. Clean and quick."

"And the fees?"

"I take a five percent fixer's fee off the commission. The rest is yours."

Peyton heard her gasp. "Just to put the buy together?"

"Hey," said Carson. "I do this as a favor to Ivor. I'm in the area, I know there's someone who can help him out, I talk to you on his behalf. All it costs me is a conversation. Can't get too greedy over that."

"Why didn't he talk to me himself?"

Carson gave her a wry smile, and after a moment she smiled back. "Neither the buyer nor I trust Ivor. Would you?"

"I want to see the piece."

"Done," he said simply. She shot him a bewildered look, and he chuckled. "Dear me. What kind of dealer would you be if you didn't inspect it, right?"

She continued chewing on her thumbnail. "I don't know. It sounds too good to be true."

"You've quite the reputation. The O'Keefe sale—what a way to make a splash! Certainly you should not be surprised that business comes your way?"

"But still–"

Carson leaned back and spread his hands wide. "Don't get too comfortable," he laughed. "Deals like this, they come once in a blue moon. My advice is, grab it while the grabbing's hot. You'll not likely see something like this anytime soon."

"Dangle the bait," murmured Peyton.

"I mean, it's all up to you," said Carson. "But I need to know quick, because when I say this is a hot piece, I mean it's a hot piece. If you want to be careful, I understand, but I need to know now because I need to find someone else who can do it, if you can't."

Peyton held her breath as Anja clutched her elbow and chewed nervously on her nail, the thumb nearly plugged inside her fleshy lips. Carson kept his gaze trained on the blonde.

A troop of shrieking kids ran across the room, cutting Anja and Carson from Peyton's view. The pack of schoolchildren were giddy with the post-spring holiday high and spent quite some time laughing and generally being little idiots who blocked her view and scrambled her hearing. When they finally passed, Anja was leaning across the table and holding both Carson's hands in her own.

"…I must, if only for him," she was saying earnestly.

"Listen, Anja, the trouble that he's in, if there's anything I can do…?"

"There's nothing," she said in her little girl voice, and the resignation in it tugged at Peyton. "I'll do this, Carson, but you have to promise me it'll be okay." She paused, the sunglasses halfway to her eyeline, staring beseechingly at him. "I need to be okay. For him. If something happens…"

"It will…it will be okay…" Carson shifted his gaze from her face.

"Then I'm in." She stood, replaced her sunglasses, and stalked out the door.

Carson glanced at Peyton's way. "Not yet," she said. He gave a small nod and ambled off the opposite direction. After timing five minutes, she followed.

They met by the brick exterior of the old part of the museum. Peyton found him leaning against the wall, hands jammed in his pockets, watching the pedestrian traffic.

She popped out the earpiece and stowed it in her pocket. "That went well," she smiled brightly.

He spared her a brief glance and shrugged.

"What's with you?"

He watched a family of incredibly tall Dutch laugh their way past—a blonde mother with a chubby pre-school girl in hand, a chuckling dad pushing a bike on which a small boy perched on the front wire basket. As their laughter echoed away, he shrugged. "I'm just tired. Next stop?"

She glanced at her watch. "Anders Van Der Luyden."

It seemed to take a superhuman effort for Carson to peel himself off the wall, and when he did, he had a sigh that was nearly petulant.

"Are you sure you’re all right?" she stepped in front of him.

He made to clasp her shoulder and then thought the better of it. "Can we talk?"

She glanced at her watch again. "Here? Now?"

"Peyton–"

"Can't it wait? We're on the clock, Carson."

He stared at her, his mouth thinning to a straight line.

"What the hell is the matter with you?" she said. "There's a job to do. Let's go!"

He walked with her in sullen silence, refusing to look her way despite her frequent questioning glances at him. They stalked down from the Stedjelik to the Abragat restaurant in the same chilly, charged mood that had accompanied their exit from Brussels. Finally at the restaurant door, Carson turned and gripped her arm.

"I don't think you should go in there."

"What?"

"He might see you and cotton on to us."

She shook her head, pointing to the red hair pinned and piled under a white silk scarf and black felt hat. "What am I, a moron? I know how to disappear."

"Even so," he shook his head. "Let me handle this."

"Uh-uh. You're the charm offensive but I don't think your charms are going to work on someone like Anders."

He gave her a pointed look and turned to leave.

She caught his arm before it was pulled away. "What's gotten into you?"

"Just wait in that café," he said.

"No!"

"Fine," he hissed. Without waiting for her to follow, he let himself into the hotel. After a few minutes, she followed, spotting him resolutely making his way through the lunch crowd and coming to a halt in front of Anders Van Der Luyden himself.

"Fuck." She scrambled to find a seat that would hide her from sight yet let her monitor the proceedings, but the open plan restaurant's dark wood tables were as flat as could be, and she was starting to get looks, standing there scanning the room.

"Looking for someone, Madame?" asked a waiter who had snuck up on her like a ghost.

She started. "Is there…is there any place that I may have, um, privacy?"

The waiter's eyes roved upward. "The upstairs dining area is closed until dinner service, but–"

"Please?" she said, her voice shaking, giving him her best damsel in distress. "I just really need to be alone for a while."

The waiter studied her for a few seconds, bit his lip and nodded. "Right this way, Madame."

He had her up the stairs, where she begged for a seat near the lip of the balcony overlooking the diners below. The waiter looked worried; it was only when she tucked a bill into his pocket and patted him fondly on the arm that he visibly unclenched and let her take a seat. She ordered a salad and set him on his way, and then she listened very hard for what Carson was saying to Anders Van Der Luyden.

"I don't recall inviting you to sit," said a terse voice coming through her earpiece, as clear in her head as though she were in the table with them. She heard the scraping of a chair; she scanned the diners below to spot them—a couple of heads in a sea of dark wood tables for two. "Mr. Varis, I am expecting someone!"

"She's not coming, Mr. Van Der Luyden."

She heard the sputter of angry words that refused to form and come out. She squinted over the diner's heads, frustrated that she couldn't see beyond Carson's folded elbows on the table. Van Der Luyden leaned back on his seat, his hand gripping a glass like he was toying with the idea of splashing it in the unwanted intruder's face.

Soft footsteps padded up the steps; the waiter had returned with her order. She snapped back to attention, smiling at him and enduring his friendly inquiries until he retreated downstairs.

Beneath the balcony, Carson and Van Der Luyden seemed to be having a face-off.

"What is it that you want, Mr. Varis?"

"Simply to give you a warning."

"Ah." He leaned back again on his seat and sipped his drink. "Is this some sort of extortion attempt? Is that little redheaded bitch a part of this? A silly piece of blackmail? Let me tell you, boy. I eat things like that for breakfast. You will be arrested and in prison without so much as a by-the-way."

"I'm not here to extort money from you. In fact, I'm here to save you a great deal of trouble."

"Too hard sell, Carson," she whispered. Down below his head moved slightly, as though to dislodge a fly.

"What trouble could a man like me be in that you could save me?" asked Van Der Luyden, the malice in his tone like venom.

There was an intake of breath, and then Carson said: "I know you've been approached to buy the Magraith."

"What the fuck, Carson!" she hissed

Van Der Luyden cocked his head and sipped his drink. "And?"

"And I'm here to ask you not to push through with it."

He laughed, a low, menacing chuckle without any sense of humor. "And I suppose you are going to tell me why?"

Carson cleared his throat. "We have reason to believe that…that your dealer is not entirely legit."

Van Der Luyden cocked his head the other way. "And?"

"You will be making a risky purchase and possibly aiding a crime."

Van Der Luyden raised the glass and swirled it. From the light streaming in the skylights near where she sat, Peyton detected a deep golden hue—cognac? She shook her head, annoyed with herself for trying to identify a glass of liquor while Carson was throwing their plans to shit. "Mr. Varis. I have no possible idea how the fact of my intended purchase came to reach your ears. As far as I am concerned, it is you who is posing the risk here. You are, most probably, the criminal of which you speak."

"Mr. Van Der Luyden--"

"Leave this place now," he growled.

Carson stood stiffly and buttoned up his jacket. He watched the other man sip his drink. "I am trying to help, sir, that is all. If you change your mind, you can reach me here." He reached into his suit pocket, laid a card on the table and left.

Heart hammering, Peyton watched as Van Der Luyden took the card in his hand and studied it. When Carson's voice came over the earpiece, it made her jump in her seat. "Heading to the flat. Exit in ten minutes, no more nor less. Recon in thirty."

She forced the salad in her mouth and chewed leaves that slid down her throat like paper, her eyes darting between Anders' form downstairs and any sign of the waiter. She managed to catch the latter's eye with a subtle nod, and he hurried upstairs to get her the bill. Yet Van Der Luyden remained at his seat, the card still held in his hand.

Peyton paid for the meal and hurried out, furtive as she took subtle looks at the restaurant behind her, willing Anders to stay at his table, for them to not run into each other. The walk to the lobby doors seemed to take ages.