Among Thieves (22 page)

He loitered in the lobby for a few moments, but got bored quickly and decided to see what the second floor looked like.

He strolled up the stairs; he was in no hurry. At the top, he looked around. The Irishman was grunting in a room off to the
right; it sounded as though he was struggling with whatever prize he was after. Devon considered offering his help again,
but decided against it. Fuck him; if the bastard was too good to accept assistance the first time around, then he could handle
whatever heavy lifting there was by himself.

He headed left instead, walking down the hallway that ran along the stairs to the galleries beyond. He walked quietly, though
he knew there was little reason to worry. The guards were bound tight, and there was no chance that their activities would
be heard outside the wall of the museum.

The first gallery he came to bored him. It was a medium-sized room at the corner of the floor, the walls painted a pale color
he couldn’t quite make out in the wan light. The artwork was religious in nature; three representations of the Virgin Mary
with the baby Jesus. The lines in the paintings were clean and well defined, giving the subjects a cartoonish character to
his untrained eye. They reminded him of the stained-glass windows that had adorned the church his parents attended when he
was little, and the thought depressed him enough that he moved through the place quickly.

The next room was different in subtle respects. The subject matter of the paintings was religious, to be sure, but the individuals
within the works took on more of a lifelike, three-dimensional quality, almost as though the human form had evolved and taken
on substance in the few feet from one room to the next. The walls were covered in an embroidered maroon fabric, and uncomfortable-looking
chairs upholstered in a hideous pink lined the walls. One painting—a monk in scarlet robes—caught his eye. There was something
in the face, a hint of a smile that drew him, as though the man was mocking the very nature of his beliefs.

The third room impressed Devon. Moved him, even. Gone for the most part were the religious images and holier-than-thou sentiment.
This room, much smaller than the first two, felt solid and real, as though it might have once belonged to an individual—a
wealthy one to be sure, but flesh and blood nonetheless. One luminous piece dominated the space and drew him in.

It was a woman. She was dressed in white, and she was standing against a darkened background looking through an arched doorway
that receded to a darkened landscape. There was something bewitching about the image. There were no clear lines defining her.
Her arms were held out in a sensual invitation, and the boundaries of her gown, indeed of her very flesh, seemed to blur into
her surroundings. The lines of the painting, despite their lack of definition, felt more honest to Devon, as though the truth
in her beauty could not be contained. She floated on the wall like a spirit, looking down at him with inscrutable eyes, and
Devon felt both exhilarated and shamed by her image. He stood there looking up at her for a few moments before he pulled himself
away.

Once he did, he found himself examining each image on the walls with more interest. There was a portrait of an older man in
profile. He looked to Devon as if he was sitting on a park bench, watching with an amused heart as those he loved played in
pastimes for which he was too old. He seemed more reserved than the woman, but no less real.

Against the far wall from the entryway on a series of hinged wooden panels were a series of sketches, most of which were so
unfinished that Devon wondered why they would be included in a museum at all. And yet they seemed to fit with the rest of
the room, each of the works implying some undefined and incomplete aspect of humanity.

Devon was drawn to two of the sketches in particular. They were framed together, and both portrayed horses. Devon loved racing;
whenever he finished a job he spent the days afterward flush with cash out at the track. There was majesty to racing, with
the horses brushed and sparkling, and the riders in their bright, colorful costumes. For all the polish, though, it was a
brutal contest, with thousand-pound beasts unleashed, their jockeys muscling each other for their livelihood and their lives.

The two sketches captured the dichotomy for Devon. One was a sketch of a horse and rider being led into a stadium for a race.
It was colorful, with splashes of pink and aqua on the rider and in the procession. Spectators milled about, heading into
the stadium themselves, admiring the horse and rider, adorned in tall top hats and formal dresses. It captured the grandeur
of the races—in every way an upper-class affair.

The second was very different. It was a study of three riders in black and white. The central figure sat unfinished on a portion
of a horse’s torso, leaning back in the saddle. His face was a mask of death, with oversized ears and sunken eyes and an expression
that suggested a looming ride through Hades. Beneath him, strapped upside-down to the belly of the same horse’s torso, were
two smaller jockeys. They were unfinished and impersonal, and hung there, as if idly waiting for the weight of the horse and
rider above to fall on them.

Devon was fascinated, and he reached out to touch the works. They were sketches on paper, and they were framed in thin pieces
of wood and glass. He picked them off the panel and held them up, surprised by how little they weighed. At that moment, the
thief in him took over; he turned the frame over and punched through the back of it along one of the sides with his gloved
hand. The wood in the frame was thin enough that it gave little resistance, and the glass popped out. He threw the broken
wood on the floor and lifted the glass off the backing and slid the two paper sketches out. He looked at them, incredulous.
Could it be that easy?

He took another frame off the wall, this one holding three sketches, each unfinished. None of them held the power over him
the first two had, but it mattered little. It took only a moment for him to pop them out of their frames. The realization
hit him, and he looked around and laughed. He had been so focused on the limits of his responsibilities for the evening that
he hadn’t even considered the breadth of his opportunities. All he needed to do was choose what to take next.

He saw it instantly.

The flag was mounted on the wall. The words “Garde Imperiale L’Empereur Napoleon Au 1er Regiment Des Grenadiers A Pied” were
embroidered on it. He couldn’t read French, but he understood well enough that it was a flag from the armies of Napoleon,
and he recognized it was a perfect tribute. Jimmy Bulger was a history buff, and he often spoke of the mistakes that the great
leaders of the world had made in their time. Mistakes of arrogance; mistakes of ignorance. Napoleon was a passion of his.
Few things in the world would advance Devon faster than such a gift for Bulger.

He pulled a chair over to the flag and stood on it. The cloth was encased in glass, and he hoped it would be as willing a
trophy as the sketches. He was wrong. The glass was screwed into brass anchors every few inches. There were dozens of them.

Still, Devon figured he had time and he got to work. Concealed under his coat was a tool belt that had a number of screwdrivers.
He pulled one out and sized it correctly, then attacked the first of the screws.

They were old. They had not quite fused to their anchors, but it was close. He was breathing heavily, throwing his shoulder
into the work, and he was through three screws before he admitted to himself it was worthless. He pounded on the glass with
the butt of his screwdriver to see whether the glass would break, allowing him an easy shortcut, but it just gave sharp cracking
sounds echoing throughout the building. He raised his hand to his head and wiped the sweat away from his brow in defeat.

A moment later the Irishman poked his head into the room. He looked around the place and saw the broken frames on the ground.
He looked at Devon up on the chair, screwdriver in hand. “What the fuck are you doing?” he demanded.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Devon replied. “I’m helping myself.”

“The fuck you are.”

“What’s your problem? I’m not messin’ with you, am I? You didn’t want my help, fine. But I’m not gonna just stand around waiting.”
He turned and looked at the flag again; it wasn’t going to be a willing trophy. Still, there might be some consolation. On
the top left corner was a bronze eagle capping the exposed flagpole. That, at least, should be easy enough. He reached up
and wiggled it, and to his relief it budged without much effort. He began unscrewing it.

“Get down from there!” the Irishman hissed.

“Fuck off.” He kept at his work.

The man spoke again. “I said get down.” The command was punctuated with the sound of a hammer being drawn back on a revolver.
Devon didn’t turn around.

“What are you going to do? Shoot me? That’d turn this into a whole other fuckin’ scene, wouldn’t it? Even if the cops don’t
find you, what are you going to tell my people? Besides, I got the car keys, and you don’t know how to get back to Southie.”
It was a risk, but a calculated one. The man was an asshole, but he was also a professional. Leaping from robbery to murder
wasn’t worth the risk. Devon kept turning the eagle faster and faster, the sweat pouring off his brow.

“I’m warning you,” the Irishman said.

“Fuck off.” As he said the words, fear sliced through his heart. Was he pushing this too far?

He heard a loud crack and he stumbled forward slightly on the chair, almost falling off. His hand flew to his chest, feeling
for an exit wound. It took a moment for him to realize he hadn’t been shot. In his exuberance, the eagle had separated from
its screw and had fallen through his fingers to the ground. The noise he had heard was that of it hitting the floor.

Devon straightened himself and stepped down off the chair. He picked up the eagle and held it up, showing off his prize. He
was smiling.

The Irishman was still pointing his gun at him. He took two steps forward and swung the butt of the gun down on the space
where Devon’s neck met his shoulder. It was a well-placed blow. Devon nearly lost consciousness as he tumbled to the ground,
and his arm went numb. By taking the soft flesh, the Irishman had inflicted the pain without spilling any blood that might
be used to track them down. As Devon opened his eyes, he was staring into the barrel of the gun.

“Get this straight, lad,” the Irishman said. “This is my job. You’re hired help. Do as I say, or I will kill you.” He pushed
the barrel of the gun into Devon’s eye.

“Your job?” Devon said through the pain. “You’re in Boston, asshole; this is Jimmy Bulger’s job. I work for him.”

“He works for me on this,” the man replied. “Remember that.” He put his gun back in its shoulder holster and turned and left
the room.

Devon didn’t take anything else from the room. It took a moment before he felt able to drag himself onto his feet. He gathered
up the sketches he’d already pulled from the wall and rolled them up. Then he picked up the eagle, put it in his coat pocket,
and stumbled back through the galleries toward the staircase. He could hear the Irishman, still hard at work in the room to
the right of the stairs, and he walked in that direction.

The room was immense, much larger than any of the galleries Devon had seen on the far side of the building. The ceiling was
carved wood and the walls were covered in large, heavy oils that appeared far more substantial than the religious scenes Devon
had seen, or even the portraits he’d found fascinating in the room he’d pillaged.

The Irishman was working efficiently: the floor was littered with the waste of several heavy gilded frames. Canvases were
rolled in a pile near the door. “How many more?” Devon asked. The Irishman didn’t reply. “How many more?” Devon asked again.

“Just one here. There’s one more on the list, but it’s downstairs.” The Irishman moved over to a heavy, dramatic oil of a
seascape. The water in the painting roiled, and a large ship was being tossed about, completely at the whim of fate. Devon
could relate.

The Irishman grabbed the heavy painting by its sides and struggled to lift it off its perch. As he did, an alarm sounded.
It pierced the silence and both men jumped. The Irishman nearly dropped the painting.

Devon ran toward the stairway. There was nothing in the information they had been given about such alarms, and none of their
activity had triggered anything similar. Nonetheless, there was every possibility that the police were already on their way.
They had to get out. “Come on!” he shouted. “Hurry the fuck up!”

He was at the staircase when he realized that the Irishman wasn’t following. He was tempted to leave anyway, but he knew it
wasn’t an option. If the Irishman was caught, Devon was screwed; if not with the cops, then with Bulger. He turned back and
looked at the door to the gallery. As he did, he noticed that the sound from the alarm was weaker where he was.