Chapter 2

Keller’s house was a tidy affair.

A single-level box, pale blue with pale yellow grandma shutters and trim, placed neatly in a half-acre plot of kempt grass. A narrow brick path led from the street to the front porch, where hung a swinging bench overlooking a sculpted warthog and a doormat that read “Smile.” The statue was hideous but expensive. The doormat was cute.

A two-rail wooden fence hemmed in the property, separating it physically and aesthetically from the massively modern duplexes erected on either side – all gray and dark gray, looming like stormclouds over Keller’s little sunflower. The neighborhood, once fully stocked with small box houses and lawns, was overrun with these same model duplexes that had first appeared as isolated novelties but then spread like kudzu to where now, from above, Keller’s patch of green was a smudge on a gray canvas.

Abe parked out front and peeked in the mailbox on our way toward the house. Empty. He rapped once, heavily, on the front door. She flung it open within seconds.

She was Keller, and she looked an awful lot like Abe. Some differences: no stubble, permanent laugh lines etched around her eyes, longer brown hair tangled into a bun that leaned forward on the very top of her head, strictly cardio body. She was beautiful in such an obvious way that Abe and I felt forced to acknowledge it only weeks into our friendship, which we did quite awkwardly. Because, yes, his sister was striking and also, yes, there was an undeniable resemblance between the two. These facts didn’t fit together so well. I had no problem admitting Abe was beautiful, but after our chat it felt like I’d almost talked myself into having a crush on him to make myself feel better about having crush on Keller.

We don’t have to unpack that.

  Today she was wearing a plush robe that flowed down just below her knees and socks that were pulled up to the middle of her calves. The socks had little dollar signs on them.

“Hello boys,” she said. Her voice was low but light, always with a hint of mischief. “You’re tragically underdressed.”

Abe looked offended. I looked down at my rumpled prom shirt with sleeves that ended closer to my elbows than my wrists and nodded. Keller shook her head and waved us inside.

“Just how fancy is this thing?” Abe asked.

“It’s a gala,” she said. “It’s the fanciest.”

We walked through the stubby hallway toward the kitchen, I studied the framed paintings hung on either side. Sailboat on a lake, blurry in the good way. Tastefully naked woman with an up do extending a hand to someone out of frame. Six-headed dragon standing knee deep in a pool of blood, on the end of each elongated neck was Keller’s snarling face. Poorly drawn… vase of unbloomed flowers atop a red tablecloth? Wine bottle on an end table beside a vacant couch.

Abe pointed to the dragon. “How morbid. Did you paint this yourself?”

“Commission,” Keller said. “I tried but I’m useless with a brush.” She gestured toward the vase of unbloomed flowers.

Abe and I sat at the kitchen table while she went to the fridge and emerged with one of those water pitchers with a filter in it. She pulled three wine glasses from the cabinet by the sink and brought them over. I don’t think she owned any cups.

There was a tablet on the table displaying a top-down view of the biggest house I’d ever seen. She tapped it twice.

“This is what we’re doing,” she said.

“Straight to business, then?” Abe said.

Keller cocked her head, her bun leaned down to the top of her ear. “I mean, how are you?”

“I’m fine,” Abe said.

“Great,” she said, and turned back to the tablet. “The gala’s here.”

“I’m fine, too,” I added.

She blinked at me. “Great,” she said, then tapped the tablet twice more. “Here.”

I looked closer at the screen. A brick wall of indeterminate height circled the house and surrounding sea of grass. There were two gates – one at the front of the house where the road widened to allow lost or unwanted drivers room to reorient, and one at the back which welcomed a less-glamorous service road that quickly became obscured by leafy trees as though to encourage a veneer of self-sustainability. The lawn was largely flat and featureless but for an artificial lake placed like a doormat out front, and a crop of trees reaching from the wall toward the eastern side of the house.

“What’s the in?” I asked. “Dress up like caterers? Break in after dark?”

“Dig?” Abe chimed.

“Air drop, maybe?”

Keller scowled. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “We’re just going to walk right in.”

Abe and I shared a look. “We’re ridiculous?” I said.

She took a deep breath. “The house, and this gala, belong to a woman named Meredith Vincent. Somewhat inspiring, really. She’s the daughter of a plumber and an art teacher whose genetics mingled to produce something of a mathematical savant. Full ride to Columbia where she got a masters in applied statistics, took a job out of school as an analyst at a hedge fund she’d be running just three years later. Her family life deteriorated early on, maybe high school. Seems like her parents were almost disappointed she turned out so smart. She was repulsed by her inconsequential upbringing and some would say she’s,” Keller tapped the mansion again, “now compensating. Or perhaps subscribing to acquisitive therapy. Either way, she’s loaded and has pieced together quite an extensive art collection.”

Keller slid a few fingers across the tablet and brought up a picture of a woman who looked to be in her late fifties. Unnaturally contoured, painted, and plucked, she nevertheless gazed regally into the lens. Her eyes were sharp and heavy brown – youthful in an honest way, unlike the rest of her. A straight gray bob reached below her jawline, but only just, and rose slowly toward the top of her neck. She was exaggerated but intimidating.

“This afternoon, Meredith is flaunting a new addition to that art collection.” Keller finessed the screen and appeared a painting that was blurry and faded in the expensive way.

“Looks nice,” Abe said.

“It’s shit,” Keller continued. “But she has a few pieces that aren’t. They’ve been setting up canopies and art displays across the front lawn all week, guest access is only through the main gate.”

“Are we on the guest list?” I asked.

“Of course not,” Keller said. “It’s all community art snobs and private school students.” She recalled the picture of the estate and pinched to zoom in on the patch of trees. “So we’re not going through the main gate.”

I wasn’t blown away by this.

“Are those aspens?” Abe asked.

“They look much denser in person,” Keller said.

“Not exactly known for their obscuring foliage.”

“Much denser in person,” Keller repeated. “It’ll be fine. We jump the wall and just walk in, no need to overthink this one.”

Overthinking had never been Keller’s problem. I looked closer at the tablet – she was right that this particular flock of aspens butted up flush against the outside of the wall and only slowed to a trickle after reaching the westernmost edge of the mansion. It couldn’t be that easy.

“What painting are we looking for, then?” Abe asked. “Do you know where it is?”

“The painting is a Jacob Mayfield,” Keller said. “The first Jacob Mayfield, actually. And this whole thing is an art showing, safe to say it’s going to be shown. Meredith held a similar event a year or so ago to celebrate her purchase of it and I’m sure she’s still happy to rub it in some faces.”

There was a heavy rap at the door. Keller leapt up and sashayed toward the front of the house.

I took a sip of water from the wine glass and looked at Abe. He was taking a sip of water, handsomer.

“We don’t know anything about anything,” I said.

“We’ve known less,” Abe said politically, head nodding side to side.

I took another sip. This place was familiar. I trusted Keller more than anyone in the world, yet she was full of half-truths and partial thoughts. A backwards equation that told us to trust her so she could prove why we can.

Keller walked back into the kitchen, leading a giant lump of a man decked in a rather dashing pinstripe ensemble and a newsie cap colored the same pure white as his polished, tassled loafers. He was certainly not underdressed.

He was Donald Mazzik, and he was out of his mind. Over six and a half feet tall and weighing more than six and a half strong beagles, blessed with incredible finger dexterity and a mind for puzzling. He was Keller’s computer expert and expert tailor, equally as capable of hacking into anything with a current as he was of fitting you into the best suit of your life. He would’ve made Abe and I redundant if we had any real skills to begin with. I wasn’t sure where he was from, or if he was even from anywhere that would’ve explained it, but he spoke with a handful distinct mispronunciations.

“Hello Abe, hello Bitch,” he said, I believed in a genuine attempt to say Peach. But some could question. “Bit of a dud today, huh? Low tech and old fashioned, y’all don’t even need me.”

His voice was low and sounded like he had a beard, even though all his chins were hairless. 

“Look at what they’re wearing, Don. They need you.” Keller corrected.

Don raised his eyebrows. “Well damn,” he said, “thought those were pajamas. Y’all were going to see public like this?”

He leaned over and pinched the leg of Abe’s dress pants, rubbing the fabric between his fingertips. “Are these burlap?”

Abe scowled. “They’re khakis.”

Don’s eyebrows narrowed. “If they look like burlap, they might as well be burlap.” He straightened. “I have a few tuxes in the van. Kell?”

Keller smiled shamelessly. “I need help, too.”

Don nodded and lumbered out of the house.

“Burlap,” Abe scoffed, picking at his pant leg.

“Do we know security?” I asked Keller.

“Yes Bitch,” she said with a smirk. “There’s a rotation of three guards on the property at all times, one at the gate and two doing rounds. For the gala last year she brought in a dozen more bodies from the same security service, Don’s guy confirmed the same for this year. Statue types. One at the service entrance with the caterers, two inside the house making sure no one wanders any further than the bathrooms, the rest scattered around the showing.”

“Easy enough,” Abe said.

“And then the paintings themselves will have multiple alarms,” Keller continued. “One in the frame and one on the mount. Can’t take the frame off the wall, can’t take the painting out of the frame. Don, of course, has something for this.”

She picked up what looked like a tube of chapstick from the table.

“He calls it a booster. It generates a rapidly strengthening electric current. You touch this end to something,” she said, flipping open the lid to reveal an innocent enough looking mesh, “and it’ll short it.”

Abe and I waited for more. Keller stayed silent, excitedly.

“That’s it?” Abe ventured. “I touch it to the frame and it shorts the alarms?”

“Yup.”

“What if the paintings don’t have their own power source?”

“Shorts it.”

“So if they’re connected to the house?”

“Shorts it.”

Abe looked at me, skeptically. I looked at the tube, skeptically. It was a dull metal cylinder with two thumb-sized patches of ribbed rubber on opposite sides. The lid was on a hinge like one of those old lighters. At the bottom there was the slight swell of a button.

“Does it only work on electronics?” I asked.

Keller’s head tilted, less like she was considering my question and more like she was questioning my existence. “It generates an electric current, Peach.”

“So if I touched it to a human…” I trailed off.

“Yeah, don’t do that,” she said quickly.

“Oh,” Abe exclaimed and took a step away from the tube. “So that’s the most dangerous thing I’ve ever seen.”

Keller flipped the lid closed with a satisfying click. A very satisfying click.

“That’s why it’s got a cap,” she said and placed it on the table. “We get in, find the Mayfield, and then we wait. Either for our lovely host to give her little speech, or for people to start clearing out. You boys will need to move fast.”

Abe and I shared another look. “Well at least there’s not much to remember,” I said.

Don stomped back into the kitchen holding an armful of clear plastic garment bags. He tossed a couple to me and Abe.

“Suits for you boys, go ahead and put them on. I’m sure I’ll need to give them a tighten.”

He peeled apart the other two bags and lifted a hanger in each hand. “And for the lady?”

Both dresses glimmered in the sunlight that peered in through the slatted blinds – the fabric of each probably more expensive than the combined retail value of every piece of clothing I’d ever owned. On the left was a flowing blue shimmer held up by a couple of barely there straps. On the right was a a sturdier green thing that ended early on the leg and split at the chest into a pair of wide bands that wrapped around the hanger before coming together again and weaving intricately through a series of gold hoops.

I looked at the black and the white and the nothing else of my suit, underwhelmed.

Keller chose the blue one and disappeared down the hallway to her bedroom. Abe and I changed in the middle of the kitchen. The cloth was more pliable than it looked, a sort of athletic tech fabric built to mimic high-end cottons but would stretch instead of split if one needed to, say, climb over a wall. The sleeves on the jacket extended past my fingers and the width of the shoulders was aspirational.

Don pulled a cliche pair of tiny, rimless eyeglasses from his breast pocket and perched them on the tip of his nose. He set a pair of scissors and spool of black thread on the table next to the booster.

“Do you know what this whole thing’s about, Don?” I asked as he gripped my left forearm and inspected the end of the sleeve.

“Stealin’ art,” he said, head still down. “And you’re lucky that’s all it is, too. I ran with crews stealin’ more violent wares, and I’ll tell ya they’re a different breed. The stealers and the stolen froms – both of ‘em.”

He plucked a needle out of his mouth and grabbed the thread off the table and continued. “If a guy has guns, he likes using guns. Taking his guns gives him a reason to use guns. So, really, he wants someone to take ‘em. Or at least he’s well-equipped for that possibility, mentally. And if a guy has drugs? A guy also has guns. You follow, Bitch?”

“I do not,” I said and looked at Abe, who gave me a shrug and a smirk. Don switched arms.

“Art, though,” he carried on, still focused on his work, “art folks are a little more refined. In general. More apathetic, maybe. More likely to put in a police report than hire someone to bomb your apartment building. Art folks love stories, and stealin’ a piece of art is just adding to the story. You know what’s better than showing off a painting? Cashing a fat insurance check and showing off a bare piece of wall. Art folks, really, want you steal their art. You follow?”

“I do not,” I said.

Don was on to the shoulders now, and kept talking. “And for some of the rougher crews I ran with, it woulda been real nice to just be stealin’ art. Nice enough guys, but it was every man for himself, so each job you might take a little off the haul just for yourself. Do that with the art you’re taking from a private collector, you got a nice piece of art. Do that with the blow you’re lifting from some sub-basement dark room, and next you’re praying this Fentanyl headache is gonna leave you breathin’.”

Don straightened and spun me around roughly. “Good enough,” he nodded. “You still look like a middle schooler playin’ dress up, but that’s more of a face thing.”

“You,” he pointed at Abe.

I left them both in the kitchen and walked down the hall to admire myself in the bathroom mirror. Despite the adjustments,` the sleeves were still a bit baggy on my undermuscled arms. The pants were too long – I assumed Don would hem them up after he was done with Abe – but fit well enough through the hips and thighs. A testament to Don’s All Gut No Butt physique and, I dare say, the three sets of body weight squats I did in my bedroom every week.

My reflection sure didn’t look like a thief, and I sure didn’t feel like one, either. What with my middle school face and my fear of just about everything. Even now my heart was pumping faster. Or louder? Or something. I took a deep breath and felt no different. Not quite excitement and not quite terror, just unaffiliated adrenaline making me start to sweat through my shirt and revisit every decision I’d ever made. So I took another deep breath and felt no better and walked back to the kitchen.

Don wasn’t much of a bender and I came back to see Abe standing on the table with Don’s hands dancing around his ankles. The big man finished sprucing the two of us up and laid out a collection of neckties. I chose a spotted blue strip that I thought would complement my eyes. Abe took his time picking an obnoxious yellow one and said, “Keller’s going to hate this.”

Don balled up the clothes Abe and I had been wearing before and palmed them in one massive hand. “You want me to burn these or what?”

I shrugged.

Abe scowled and swiped the tangle out of Don’s hand. “I looked better before you changed me.”

He was wrong, of course, but always as stubborn as he was handsome.

Some strain of libidinous clairvoyance turned my head toward the hallway a fraction of a second before Keller stepped into view at the end of it. And she looked extraordinary.

Her hair had escaped the top bun and waved its way down in perfectly consistent curves, reaching just past the end of her ribcage. Her lips were painted some shade of light red or heavy pink, and her eyes were amplified with subtle bursts of silver. And then there was the dress. It wound teasingly around her body, a glistening white blue that hugged tightly to all the right places and loosened where it needed to – but it wasn’t quite right for her. Something about it didn’t fit the way she walked. It was a piece of art meant for still frames and photographs, made to appear without anyone taking notice of how it got there. But Keller moved too well, with a grace that was more powerful than refined. She was too athletic and purposeful for a dress that was made for the delicate and stagnant.

Her eyes found Abe’s tie and wrinkled.

“Nice Abe, I hate it,” she said. Her eyes moved on to me. “Peach, you look nice.”

She plucked the booster off the table and tossed it to Abe, who caught it neatly and dropped it in his pocket. We stood there circled around the kitchen, cosmetically similar yet at distinctly different levels of comfort.

“Well,” Keller said, “let’s get going.”