Chapter 14

Later that afternoon, Simon Duchamp locked himself inside the small office at the back of Duchamp Gallery Santa Fe and used a new burner phone to call Dalton Conroy.

Conroy was his inside man at Vitale Insurance. The company offered a wide variety of specialized plans, including policies for valuable works of art. Conroy oversaw fraud investigations, had access to who had what art pieces, where the pieces were kept, and any security that was used to protect said pieces.

It took four rings before the insurance exec picked up. "Yes?"

"Is this a bad time?"

"Oh, it's you. Call you back in five."

The line went dead.

Simon looked at his phone, eyebrow raised.

Conroy had a higher opinion of his status than was warranted, both in his importance to Simon and at his day job. Simon knew for a fact the man often took credit for work done by subordinates. For a long time, Simon had been able to overlook the man's arrogance thanks to the quality of information passed on, but recently, Conroy had begun acting as if Simon couldn't operate without him.

While it was true that the information he sourced was useful to each job, Conroy was not irreplaceable. There were plenty of other well-placed people who could do what he did. All it took was identifying a person's weakness, applying pressure where needed, and then offering a suitable amount of money to "solve the problem." The classic stick and carrot.

It was almost ten minutes before Conroy called back.

"What do you want?" Conroy said.

"If I'm troubling you, I'll find what I need elsewhere."

Conroy laughed. "Like you could do that."

"I could. Easily."

The line went quiet for a moment.

"Sorry," Conroy mumbled. "Things are a little busy here. I've been looking for a replacement for that person I had to fire last week, while making sure the cases she'd been working on are covered."

"Finding the right people for a job is always difficult." Simon could care less about Conroy's personnel problems, but as the saying went, you catch more flies with honey.

"You can say that again. Anyway, what are you looking for?"

"The artist's name is Matilda Stone, active second half of the last century."

"Title of the picture?"

"I just need to know the location of as many of her paintings as you can find. And I need the info asap." While Simon had the list from Nico, there was no need to share it with Dalton.

"Sounds like a big job."

"The size of the job is not your concern."

"All right, all right. I didn't mean anything by it. I should have something for you in three or four days."

"Two days tops. One would be better."

"I can't promise you that."

"Then your services are no longer needed. Goodbye, Mr.—"

"Hold on. I didn't say I couldn't do it."

"It sounded that way to me."

"I'll have it for you in two days."

"That's better."

"But I want…"

"You want what?"

"I—I want double my usual fee."

Simon narrowed his eyes. "Standard fee, per our agreement."

"I'm updating our agreement."

Simon didn't respond.

"Or I guess I could let the authorities know about your operation."

"You seem to forget that if I go down, you go down with me."

"Mutually assured destruction. But then again, you're the bigger fish, which means it should be easy to get immunity in exchange for my testimony."

Simon definitely needed to start looking for a new source. This wasn't just boring, it was getting on his nerves.

"All right, Mr. Conroy. Double fee on this job. But this is a onetime thing. Do not expect it to happen again in the future."

"Whatever you say."

Simon stabbed the disconnect button and then called Phillip, his bodyguard.

"Yes, Mr. Duchamp?"

"I'm in the back office."

"I'll be right there."

Phillip entered a few moments later. He was a big, bald slab of muscle shoved into a black suit and tie. Because of this, he was often assumed to be lacking intelligence. That was far from the case.

"I'm growing concerned about Dalton Conroy," Simon said.

"I see."

"I don't want you to do anything yet, but I have a feeling our relationship with him will soon need to be terminated."

"I'll await your word."

"Thank you, Phillip. How are we doing on the other matter?"

"I should have the problem dealt with soon."

"Have you figured out who it is?"

"I'll know by tomorrow evening."

There was a leak somewhere in Simon's operation. Ironically, he would not have known about it if not for Dalton. The leaker had apparently contacted an investigator who worked under him. Unfortunately, Dalton didn't know the leaker's identity.

"Very good. The sooner we can put this behind us, the better."

"Understood."