The Courbet Connection (Book 5) (Genevieve Lenard) (13 page)

“I’m waiting for you to get to the part where we catch Dukwicz, Doc.”

I ignored Manny’s impatience. If I didn’t give him a clear explanation, he complained. If I gave too much detail, he also complained. I had not been able to find a balance that pleased him. Therefore, I ignored him.

“One of the services offered on this site is assassinations. Colin showed me one where the service provider called himself a problem-solver. Nowhere did he call himself an assassin or use the words ‘murder’, ‘kill’, ‘dead’ or even the more euphemistic ‘hit’. This was even more nuanced than that. If Colin hadn’t pointed it out, I wouldn’t have found it.”

“Then give Frey a gold star. Just tell us how to get Dukwicz.”

“I think I know where Genevieve is going with this.” Francine was sitting straight, her eyes wide and full of excitement. She pointed a manicured nail at me. “But I’ll let her tell it.”

“I suggest we send an email to all of them, requesting their services. We’ll phrase the email very carefully, aiming to entice Dukwicz to contact us.”

“And why would he want to do that?” Manny asked.

“Because, for the services rendered, we’re going to offer a partial payment in cash. The rest will be in the form of an antique clock.”

“Brilliant!” Francine’s bracelets jingled as she clapped her hands.

“Devious, Jen-girl.” Vinnie nodded his approval. “You’re catching on.”

“Good idea, Jenny. We’ll have to have a clock to offer though. If he responds, we won’t be able to convince him if we don’t show proof. We need a clock. A valuable clock.”

“Phillip has a clock.”

“No,” Phillip said from the doorway. He walked in and sat down. “Genevieve, that clock is a family heirloom. It’s a French Gilt Bronze Mantel Clock from around 1860. ”

“We’re not going to give it to him. We’re just going to show it to him.”

Manny tilted his head. “How much is that old thing worth?”

“It is priceless.” Phillip pulled at his cuffs. A sign that he was exasperated. “To me it is priceless. But the monetary value of it is three thousand six hundred euro.”

“Three thousand six hundred euro for a clock?” Manny huffed. “Crazy. But with the clock at that price and gilded and French, Dukwicz is much more likely to answer the email.”

Phillip only shook his head at Manny’s incorrect assumptions about the looks of the clock.

“I’ll put a virus on the email.” Francine was talking fast, her voice a tone higher. “The moment he replies, the virus will be activated and infect his computer. We’ll have full access to him then.”

“What are you gals waiting for then?” Manny pointed his chin at Francine’s tablet. “Get cracking on that email.”

“Not yet.” I took a step towards my viewing room. “Colin and I saw two advertisements for assassination services. Since we weren’t looking for that in particular, we might have missed quite a few more. We need to find all of them before we send out the email.”

“I agree,” Vinnie said. “You should hit these guys all at once with your email. Don’t send to one, look for more and send another email three hours later. They might be in competition with each other, but for all we know, they might also communicate with each other.”

I had never asked Vinnie about his past. A few stray comments from him and observing him had led me to the conclusion a long time ago that he had seen a lot of violence in his life. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d been dispensing said violence. That made him the voice of experience and expertise in this field.

“Then do it.” Manny got up. “Just don’t take all day. I want to go home early tonight.”

Since it was only half past three, I too hoped we could do a thorough search of the site, send that email and have a quiet night at home. Phillip followed Manny into the hallway, and Colin and I returned to my viewing room. Francine was already working on her computer, again biting her lower lip, her eyes narrowed.

We had just settled into our chairs when Vinnie came into my room and pulled a chair closer. “She thinks she can work faster without my help. Since I’m the one here who knows the lingo, I’d think she would appreciate my help. But no. She wants to do this all by herself. We need to show her we’re better.”

I sighed. Lately Francine and Vinnie were in constant competition with each other. “This is not a competition, Vinnie. There’s no rivalry.”

“Don’t care. We’re going to beat her.” He pushed his chair closer to the desk, closer to the monitors. “Let’s do this.”

Two hours later we had scoured the entire online store. Firstly, we went through it again, looking for obvious advertisements. Then we entered numerous keywords Vinnie had suggested—words I would never have associated with offering to murder someone. ‘Neutralisation’, ‘wetwork’, ‘elimination’ and ‘liquidation’ rendered a few unexpected results that even included sexual fetishes. The keyword search added another two service providers to our list. All in all, we had four names.

“Did you find anything new?” Francine came in, waving her tablet. “I found three more.”

“We got four. Four, Francine.” Vinnie stretched his arms, then rested his hands on his head. Confident.

“How many are new?” She lifted an eyebrow.

“Two. But we found them with my keywords.”

“You’re such a child. At least I didn’t run to Mommy and Daddy for help. I found these three on my own.”

Colin laughed and shook his head. I didn’t understand Francine’s reference to seeking parental help, but decided to ask her about it the next time we had lunch. “What other names did you find?”

“They’re not really names. These are handles. L2OSAAYA, Dys13 and SM66OET.”

“We also have L2OSAAYA and SM66OET. Only YERR2031 is new.” I wrote down the new handle and looked at my notepad. “Including the first two Colin and I found this morning, we now have five people offering assassination services. How horrid.”

“Yeah, it is.” Francine leaned her hip against my desk, smiling when I glared at her. “Shall we write that email?”

Vinnie decided to have an input in the wording and what could have been a ten-minute task turned into a debate, an argument, nuanced insults and a five-sentence email thirty-seven minutes later.

“I wonder.” Francine tapped her index and middle fingers on her lips. “I think we need to make this more real. Vin, do you also think we need someone to kill?”

I jerked back in my chair, away from Francine. “This is fictional. We are setting a trap. We are not going to put someone’s life in danger by putting five assassins’ focus on that person.”

“Relax, girlfriend. I’m just thinking that they might check into our validity to make sure we’re not cops trying to set them up. I have a wicked online persona that’s been dormant for a few months. We’ll bring him back to life and make him angry enough to want murder. Yes. That’ll work. DREAD123 will be pissed off because… because… Oh, my God! I have it. We’ll kill Edward Taylor!”

I crossed my arms tightly, my hands in fists. “No. How could you even suggest this? You are not to put Colin’s life in danger at any time. What if those assassins are smart enough to track Edward Taylor back to Colin? Do you want to be responsible for Colin’s death?”

“Jenny.” Colin shifted closer and put his hands on my shoulders. Only then did I realise I’d started rocking in my chair. I stared at Colin, trying to focus on Mozart, but finding it hard. “Breathe. Take a deep breath, Jenny.”

I shook my head, but took a shaky breath nonetheless. Three breaths later, I was able to write a line of Mozart’s Piano Sonata No.11 in A major.

“Honey, I’m sorry.” Francine’s voice was soft and filled with contrition. “I didn’t mean to upset you so.”

“If you think logically about this, you’ll know Francine would never do something to harm me. Or any of us.” Colin waited for me to study his face. “You know I’m right.”

I swallowed hard. “It doesn’t mean I like the idea.”

“But it is actually a good idea.” He raised one hand. “Just hear me out first. If we do this right, we could kill off Edward Taylor and get Interpol off my back as well.”

“Don’t you first want to know why Interpol is investigating you?”

“Yes and no.” His smile was sweet. He knew I hated this answer. “Yes, because I want to know who’s behind this. No, because I actually don’t care. I don’t have to kill Edward Taylor. I just have to retire him. No one will ever see or hear from him again and eventually those Interpol bozos will lose interest.”

“They might not lose interest so soon, dude. If any of them are like the old man…” Vinnie shrugged. “That would suck.”

“So let’s do this right,” Francine said. “We can have Edward Taylor killed and end Interpol’s game.”

“We should talk to Manny first.” My suggestion elicited many and loud responses. “I will not be part of this if Manny doesn’t know.”

“Know what?” Manny asked from the open glass door. As one we turned. Manny’s hands rested on his hips, his thumbs pointing to the back. Argumentative. His firmly planted feet, frown, thinned lips were all indicative of his mood. “Know what, Doc?”

“They’re going to get Colin murdered.”

“What?”

Francine pushed away from where she was leaning and placed herself between myself and Manny. “Let me explain.
We found five assassins on SSS. We were busy writing the email when we came up with a brilliant idea.”

“It was you.” I leaned to the side to look at Manny. “I didn’t have anything to do with that idea.”

Manny looked at me for a second before returning his stern gaze to Francine. “What idea?”

“To kill Edward Taylor.” She started speaking faster. “In order to make the email more authentic and not make it look like we’re dumb policemen trying to entrap them, I thought we should use one of my baddie online identities. He would be pissed off with Edward Taylor for saying a painting he wanted to use as payment is a forgery. The painting is worth millions, and he wants Edward Taylor dead because he lost the deal of a lifetime. I can do this so that it leaves a small but findable online trace. We can demand a photo of the dead Edward Taylor as proof of services rendered and strategically leak it. Then we make sure those Interpol idiots see it and they’ll stop investigating Colin.”

For a few seconds Manny just stared at Francine. Then he shook his head. “I really hope you plan to do this much more eloquently than you’ve just explained to me.”

Francine’s nose crinkled. “I know. It came out sounding silly, but I think it’s a good plan.”

“It needs work.”

“You agree?” Francine grabbed Manny’s hand and wouldn’t let go when he pulled it back. “Oh, you wonderful man. I could kiss you right now.”

A deep red crept up Manny’s cheeks. He wrenched his hand out of her grip and stepped around Francine. “Do you have a problem with this plan, Doc?”

“She’s scared it’s going to put my life in danger,” Colin said. “Jenny, think about this. Who knows that I’m Edward Taylor?”

“I was able to figure it out.” That was why Colin had broken into my apartment two years ago.

“Yes, but you’re a genius.” He nodded at the monitors. “None of these guys is smart enough to make any connection between the seventeenth-century English poets and the carefully created identities who point out forged artworks.”

“You can’t be sure of that.”

“True. But even you will have to agree that the likelihood of that is remote.” He lowered his chin and raised his eyebrows. “Right?”

I considered it for a few seconds. “I still don’t like the idea.”

“Which is a good thing,” Manny said. “That means you’ll make sure we don’t mess this up. And Doc?”

I looked up from where I was studying the email we’d formulated, re-evaluating the five sentences.

“Thank you for being the only sensible one in this group and insisting on telling me.”

“We’re a team. Everyone should know everything.” I returned my attention to the five sentences, consciously not allowing Manny’s smug tone, Vinnie’s sarcasm and the argument that ensued to affect me.

“Will this work?” I interrupted Francine patting Manny on his cheek, making him even angrier. They looked at me and then at the monitor I was pointing at. I’d changed a few words and added another two sentences.

“Jen-girl, you’re brilliant.”

“I know.”

“No, seriously, girlfriend. This is good.” Francine dropped her hands from Manny’s shoulders and turned fully to face the monitors. “You got the tone just right. It almost sounds petulant. How did you do this?”

“I mentally amalgamated your tones and attitudes and put it into words.”

“Whose? Mine?” Francine slapped her hand against her chest.

“All of you.” I waved my hand in their direction. “I imagined this was what you were talking about. It should sound authentic and you were arguing. It was easy to take it from there.”

Their expressions were an interesting read. They exhibited combinations of amusement, indignation and admiration.

“Let’s send it off then.” Manny looked at his watch. “If I leave soon, it will be the first time this month I’ll be home before seven.”

“Wait.” I looked away from Manny’s scowl. “Francine needs to have her part in place before we can send the emails. She needs to put a virus in the email.”