Entourage FF: "Slightly more complicated than that" [Ari, Eric/Vince; R; AU]

[black_eyedgirl]

Title: Slightly more complicated than that
Fandom: Entourage
Characters/Pairing: Ari POV, Eric/Vince, everybody else (some canon het)
Rating/Warnings: R/NC-17 (lots of swearing, implied sex but nothing on screen. Pot-smoking, some drinking, gambling. Past imprisonment.)
Length: 10,700 words
Disclaimer: All belongs to Doug Ellin and HBO.
Spoilers: AU, though characters through S5. Nothing for S6 and please don't spoil in comments because I'm not up-to-date.
Summary: There are three rules of con-artistry. Ari wishes Eric Murphy and Vince Chase would stop taking such delight in breaking them, at least when he's helping them pull the job.
AN: For entourage_fest, prompt was: Thieves like Us-Guys as cat burglars, art thieves, the Sting like con-men, the Leverage guys or what have you. Basically anything slick that involves planning and skill, with them as 'good' guys or unrepentant, unpunished bad guys.
AN2: Anything that looks like it came from Ocean's 11 almost certainly did. (Like the title, for example)


There are three rules. The first is: never mix business and pleasure. (And if you really must, then make sure you never mix business and love). They break them all the time, of course, but Ari really wishes E would stop doing all three at once.

Eric slaps his hand on the table and says, “So, Ari, you in or not?”

“Yeah, E, I’m in.”

“Cool. Well, grab Lloyd on your way back. We need his eyes.”

“And Vinnie?”

Vince smiles. He’s leaning on the wall of the private room Eric likes to book for just this sort of occasion. He looks like porn. Ari has little doubt that Eric will be fucking Vince over this nice conference table later, and makes a note not to touch the surface. Vince drawls, “E knows I’m always in.”

“All in,” Eric mutters, standing up. He brushes Vince’s bare arm with the back of his knuckles as he walks around the table to shake Ari’s hand. Louder, he says, “Gonna tell your wife?”

“My wife and I have a policy that works pretty well for us: she doesn’t ask, and I don’t tell.”

“She doesn’t want to know where the necklaces and BMWs come from?”

“She says one of us needs plausible deniability when it all goes to shit and our kids are about to be prison-orphans.”

Eric smirks. “I always knew she was too good for you.” He looks back down at some list made in his cramped handwriting, probably rendered incomprehensible six other ways. It’s dismissal, and Eric Murphy has bigger balls than Ari thought if he’s seriously going to pretend he didn’t notice Ari hasn’t left yet.

Ari coughs, and Eric’s head jerks up. He walks with Ari back to the door. “Sorry. I just- This is big. If we can pull this off-“

Ari nods, and leaves. This time, Eric watches him walk out. Ari grins. Time to get Lloyd. Art History majors have to be good for something, after all.

* * * *

Lloyd refuses for about ninety seconds of outraged protests that, “You swore our life of crime was over, Ari Gold.”

Then Ari explains that this is Eric’s deal. Lloyd beams.

“There’s something really disturbing about your thing for Irish, you know that, Lloyd?”

“You’ve expressed this opinion before, yes.”

“He’s screwing his pretty-boy poker player. You know that too.”

“I do, and I think they’re adorable together. One day, when the law recognises their love, I’m going to plan the wedding.”

“You’re a walking stereotype.”

“It’s a defence mechanism after far too many years of working with you. You don’t play well with other alpha males, Ari. Except maybe Eric.”

“Eric isn’t-” It’s an instinctive protest. Eric’s a foot shorter than Ari, has a walking curly-haired blind spot who’s gonna get him killed someday, and drags around an entourage of morons every con he pulls. Still, he pulls it off, mostly. Ari grants him that, even if he won’t say it out loud. Eric’s the undisputed boss of his little crew.

Ari, though, has his own people to answer to. Not his partner at the gallery, although he should probably drop Babs an email. Lloyd was sold from the moment Eric’s name was mentioned. But Ari has a wife, who maybe isn’t as relaxed about this line of work as he’d implied to Eric.

He leads off with a kiss, which she accepts smilingly. Then flowers, which makes her glare. She asks, “What did you do?”

“Nothing.” She looks disbelieving. He repeats it. “Nothing, I swear, baby.”

“Hmm.” She takes the flowers from him and walks to the kitchen to find a vase.

Ari says, “Eric Murphy and Vince Chase are in town.”

“No,” she says.

“Baby-”

“No, Ari, and that’s final. Every time they’re here, you get into trouble.”

“I thought you liked Eric?”

“I do like Eric - that doesn’t mean I don’t want him as far away from you as possible.”

Ari shakes his head. She doesn’t care. He says, “This could be-”

She puts her hand over his mouth. “I don’t want to know.”

“So?” he mumbles through her fingers.

“Go do what you do. But I don’t want to know.”

“I love you.”

She takes her hand away and kisses him again. Her polished fingernails slide down his face. “I love you too. Don’t get caught.”

“I’m too good for that.”

“Sweetheart,” she says, with her lips still close to his, “no one’s too good to get caught. Didn’t Vincent teach you that?”

* * * *

Eric manages to sit at the head of a round table. Vince is, again, leaning on the wall behind him: backup, but out of harm’s way. Vinnie’s fuck-up of a brother is on Eric’s right, with the last of the four musketeers - Turtle - on his left. Shauna is a careful two seats away from Johnny. Another gap, and then Charlie, who’s finally being allowed to sit at the big boy table. Ari clocks the last occupant of the room, and heads for the door again. Lloyd squawks when Ari backs into him.

Eric stands up. “Ari.”

“No fucking way, E.”

“It’s cool.” Eric’s hands are spread flat on the table - deliberate and casual. Ari knows perfectly well Eric only plays this calm when he’s freaked the fuck out. This is Eric a hairsbreadth away from punching someone, and he won’t much care who it is.

Billy motherfucking Walsh just smiles, with his arms spread across the chairs on either side of him like he’s just won an award. “Gold. Still getting paid for selling the visions of better men?”

“Walsh. Still setting shit on fire and calling it work?”

“I call it art, you philistine. Destruction is creation. Jesus. Even Murphy gets that.”

Eric shrugs, and Ari can see the flicker of his expression. “We needed an explosives guy.”

“The Unabomber was an explosives guy - Walsh is a maniac!”

“He’s really not,” Vince said, stepping forward.

“He nearly got us all killed last time.”

“That was unfortunate.”

Billy says, “The junk E got hold of was better than he told me. It wasn’t my fault it gave a bigger boom. Besides, it was a great detonation. Beautiful.”

Vince shoots a quick look at Billy. Not afraid (Ari’s afraid), just warning. Warning like Ari and E are gonna spoil their fun if Billy doesn’t at least pretend to play nice. Like they’re frat buddies, smiling for the professors and planning havoc behind their backs. Ari’s a grown man; he doesn’t need havoc. He says, “A word, E.”

Eric slides his chair back with a screech, and walks to Ari, to the far wall. He pitches his voice low and says, “We need him.”

“You want someone who can make things go boom? I’ll get you somebody else. Anybody else. My wife used to screw an architect; they know demolitions guys, right? I’ll let her fuck him again if it means Walsh is out.”

“Ari.”

“E.”

“We don’t want to demolish a building. A wall, max. Probably not even that. I need someone who can do the subtle stuff.”

“And Billy’s subtle, is he? The last job we pulled, he sent a fountain twenty feet in the air. A fountain, E, and it wasn’t even anywhere near the vault doors.”

“I know.”

“So?”

“Vince likes him.”

“Vince likes your cock but it doesn’t mean it should be part of the operation. And yes, I meant that in every possible way. Think with your big head, Eric.”

Eric takes one pace back, very casual. “It’s under control. You’ve got my word on that. Now: in or out, Ari, last chance.” He says it quiet enough that no one but him and Ari know that he just handed out an ultimatum.

Ari doesn’t need this job. He’s making enough, he wants for nothing, but isn’t the American Dream all about wanting more even then? He wants to win, wants to win big because anything smaller than that isn’t winning at all. Ari grabs Eric’s arm and squeezes too tight. “Screw this up and I will fuck you over so thoroughly there’ll be come spurting out your ears.”

He sits across the table from Eric, with Lloyd on his right-hand side. Lloyd puts his notebook on the table and writes, in bright green ink: should I pretend to have fit?

Ari blinks at him.

Family emergency? Wife? Rugrats?

Ari tilts his head to one side.

Fire at gallery? Life’s work gone? Do we need out or not, Ari?

He draws a frowning face beside Ari’s name, and mimics it with his own. Ari grabs the top piece of paper, crumples it into a ball, and stuffs it into Lloyd’s pocket. Lloyd squirms, gives Ari an offended glare, and writes at the top of the page, McQuewick’s building.

“So,” Eric says, “now that we’re all here. McQuewick’s building.”

* * * *

Rule two is: Never risk anything you can’t afford to lose. They all fuck that one up. It’s hard to win anything worth having without risking it all first. Still, if this one goes wrong, it won’t just be New York that’s closed to them, it’ll be the whole of the Eastern Seaboard, if not the country. Ari really doesn’t want to explain to his wife that they need to move to Europe for a few years. Well. She might like Paris. He’ll call that Plan B.

Plan A apparently involves Johnny Chase having a bigger role in this little operation than Ari is comfortable with. “Explain to me,” he says, “why Vinnie isn’t doing this? If he’s not the advance man, what role does he have? His sole talent is looking pretty while he screws the mark over. Johnny can’t even do that.”

Vince laughs, not offended in the slightest. Johnny is, but then he’s running on a permanent low-grade persecution complex. Vince says, “McQuewick knows me. Safe bet his people know me.”

“But he doesn’t know your brother?”

Eric interrupts, “No, he doesn’t. Plus, Vince is too skinny to go for a security job, but Johnny can just about pull it off.”

“I have been…” Ari tunes Johnny out as he starts raving about his new gym, or personal trainer, or protein shake, or whatever the hell his latest shit is.

It’s not that it’s a lie - Eric doesn’t do that so much. Vince is the liar; Eric’s the thief. Eric’s the planner, too. Obsessive about it and getting worse, so Ari hears. Ever since Vince ceased to be a guest of the state of New York and walked back into Eric’s arms wearing the suit he was arrested in two years before. They’d gone straight to DC and less than a month later pulled a con perfect to the last detail. All for the sake of a Ramones guitar, or something equally inconsequential and impossible to sell. That had been three years back, and no one had got near them since. If Eric’s eyes are tired, his hands are as quick as ever.

Eric slides the disc across to Ari. “Copy of the museum inventory. Lloyd can take a look.”

“Tell me the truth, E. Do you want me on board, or do you just love me for my assistant?”

“Jealous? No, I need you to help me pick the fake-out.”

“You think this is going to work?”

“If it’s not, we better find out soon. Johnny’s going in tomorrow, seven a.m.”

“What, next week wasn’t soon enough?”

“Advance means advance. We’ve got time to work out the fine details.”

“We need more than the fine details.”

“We’ve got the basic shape.”

“You have the basic concept, E. You want to fuck over Terrance McQuewick which, fine, he stole my last three artists from underneath me and told The Times I ran a very nice, little, modern, gallery. I’m with you. But we need a plan.”

Eric laughs. “You do run a nice modern gallery. I can’t speak for little. Terrance’s is too big.”

“Terrance has a museum. Which we are supposed to be rolling over if you had a plan better than wholesale distraction.”

“That doesn’t work for you?” Eric grins and leans forward, his shoulder curled in front of Ari’s to spread plans over the table. “Trust me,” he says, “I’ve been working on this one for long enough.”

* * * *

Shauna has - somehow - got Johnny a resume and references that make him look qualified to do this job. But Shauna’s frightening that way. Ari’s pretty sure she can make FBI files disappear with a quick phone call and some tapping on her Blackberry. What she can’t do, however, is make Johnny look the part.

“Jesus Christ, Johnny.” She folds her arms at him - the kind of aggressive female move that Ari’s wife is particularly fond of. McQuewick’s security team don’t have uniforms, just identikit high-end dark suits. The men are meant to be invisible to anyone with no plans, and terrifying to anyone who has them. Johnny looks like he’s auditioning for the latest mob flick. Scorsese would love him.

“Johnny-“ Vince says.

Shauna orders, “Lose the sunglasses. And the white shirt - it’s far too shiny. I don’t even want to know what you were thinking with the tie.”

“It’s Dolce,” he protests.

“I don’t care if it was hand stitched by Jesus Christ himself, it makes you look like a moron. Lose it.”

Johnny looks at Eric for support, and receives none. Eric says, “Shauna set up the I.D.s. It’s her call what’ll fly with them.”

“And also it’s what you’re fucking paying me for,” she says.

“That too,” Eric says. “Go change, Johnny, and then we’ve gotta head out.”

When Johnny comes back, looking more or less like someone McQuewick might hire, they pile into two cars.

Eric drives the first, with Vince and Lloyd in the back. Ari takes shot-gun, and doesn’t have to fight Vince for the right to do it.

Eric traps his cell phone between his ear and shoulder, and calls the other car. Shauna’s going in with Johnny, giving him some last minute instruction. Turtle will be bitching from the driver’s seat, and God knows what Charlie’s role is in this. Walsh, thankfully, has been left back in the suite Eric has hired for the duration.

Eric says, “We’re nearly there… Yeah, Turtle, I know you know… I’m just making sure…. ‘Cause fucking up step one isn’t part of the plan.”

They drive past the building, leaving Turtle to stop and let Johnny out while they continue around the block. They do slow down a little, enough to see ‘McQuewick Gallery and Antiquities’ in heavy stone letters.

Vince frowns. “It looks like a prison.”

“Yeah,” Ari says, “and you would know.”

Eric looks at Vince in the rear-view mirror. “Johnny’ll be fine,” he says. “It’s a good plan.”

“Even if you do say so yourself, isn’t that right, E?” Ari asks.

“I know,” Vince says, like Ari hadn’t spoken. “I just- McQuewick, you know?”

“I know.” Eric says, and swings the car in another pass around the block. They don’t speak again until Turtle calls to tell them that Johnny has now managed twenty full minutes of his first shift and can they go and get breakfast now?

* * * *

Three days after Johnny, they send Vince in as a visitor to the gallery.

Ari says, “I thought McQuewick saw you already. Are you trying to get made?”

Vince laughs. “That’s why I’m going in disguise.” Ari doesn’t know anyone else who finds such glee in the job. He gets the impression sometimes that Eric only does it because he’s good at it, and Ari mostly does it because of the challenge. Vince is just in love with the crazy.

“Yeah?” Ari asks. “Well, as long as it’s not that fucking fat make-up from the Guadalajara gig.”

Eric flushes. “No.”

Vince just laughs some more and goes to get ready. He walks out and it’s the weirdest thing Ari’s seen for a long while. Vince isn’t the smartest or the most talented member of the crew but he’s by far the goddamn prettiest. Vince is striking - when he walks into the room he gets attention.

Now, Ari is standing right in front of him and his gaze is slipping away. A badly cut blond wig, contacts to disguise the distinctive blue eyes, and a bit of make-up to cover his smooth tan complexion. That’s all it takes, apparently.

Vince grins at Eric. “You want me in the glasses or not?”

“Let me see them.”

Vince slips on a pair of glasses, grey-framed accountant style.

Eric smiles too. “Yeah, let’s go with those.”

Vince steps forward, smoothing his hand down Eric’s arm. “You still gonna love me when I’m really fucking boring?”

“I loved you in the fat make-up, didn’t I?”

Ari snorts. “That’s ‘cause you’re a sick bastard, Murphy. Are we ready to go or not?”

Eric shakes his head, nodding vaguely in the direction of the other room. He’s still got his head tilted, trying to work out if there’s anything missing from Vince’s disguise.

Turtle walks in, looks Vince up and down, and starts laughing. He reaches into Vince’s jacket, still sniggering.

Turtle catches Ari looking at him. “Camera,” he explains. Then a string of words; Ari picks up ‘FPS’ ‘gigabyte’ and ‘fucking awesome’.

“Yeah?” Ari asks. “Who’d you lift it from?”

“Friend of a friend,” Turtle says. “We’re calling it a test-run.”

Eric turns to Vince. “You know what you’re doing?”

“Yeah, E.” Vince’s smile is indulgent. “We’re cool.”

“No eye contact,” Eric says, ignoring him. “Head down. Avoid the cameras but don’t look like you’re avoiding them. And get their locations - Johnny’s going to get us hooked into them, and we’ll need it for the day.”

“E,” Vince says. He puts his hands on Eric’s shoulders. “I’ve got it. Don’t worry.”

“Yeah,” Eric laughs. “That’ll be the fucking day.”

Ari had been laughing at Vince’s instruction, but he gets why they might be confused. He walks out of the room, Turtle trailing after, before Eric drags himself against Vince. Eric holds onto the lapels of the ill-fitting jacket and kisses Vince; Ari sees them in the glass and pretends he doesn’t.

* * * *

Johnny’s been in the building two weeks now. Eric is sitting in one of the rooms in their rented suite, where Turtle has set up a bank of computer screens. Eric has the lights turned low, and the reflected glare from the monitors freaks Ari out a little. He always knew Eric was only two steps away from becoming a paranoid dictator.

Video flicks on and off the monitors. Ari says, “Johnny got the things installed?”

“Yeah,” Eric says. “We’re piggy-backing off their systems and feeding it out here.”

“You have any idea what any of that means?”

Eric laughs. “No, but Turtle does, so we’re cool.”

“Turtle? Really? You really want to pin our shared hopes and finances on one of Turtle’s RadioShack buddies?”

“I’ve made my peace with it.”

“What’re you doing sitting in here, E? I thought you and Vince were going to… Well, I don’t really want to know what you were going to do, but I thought Charlie was going to baby-sit the computers tonight.”

“Yeah,” Eric says, “me too.” He shrugs. “Stuff happens.”

“Yeah.” Ari would be happy to leave things like that, but Eric’s apparently in a confiding frame of mind.

Eric says, “He’s not so happy with the job.”

“Trouble in paradise?”

“Not- Kind of. We had a fight.”

Ari thinks, this job’ll do that. He says, “If you want a shoulder to cry on, I’m going to have to go and call my wife. Or Lloyd - he’d love that.”

Eric flips Ari the bird and goes back to his computer screens.

There’s a question he can’t help but ask, when Eric’s in the mood to talk. Ari coughs. “What the fuck happened between you and Terrance McQuewick?”

“Hmm?”

“You and Terrance? I mean, I know he’s a criminally insane asshole who’d sell his mother for a nice Monet, but what did he do to you?”

“I used to work for him.”

“Yeah. Late nineties, you went off grid a little, I remember. He steal from you?”

“Sort of.”

“Didn’t you date his daughter for a while?”

“Yeah.”

“He didn’t approve? Cause I think you should forgive him for that, what with you and Vince playing happy families all over the suite. Today excluded, obviously.”

He catches Eric’s reflection on the monitor. It’s a blank slate. Eric says, “Yeah, well,” and shrugs. “You want to go yell at Billy for a bit? He’s been pretty twitchy lately. Go check he’s not trying to blow the front of the building off or something.”

Ari leaves, hunting for Walsh, feeling vaguely like he’s just missed something.

* * * *

It’s not unusual to come into the suite to find people stuck in a screaming match. And it’s been happening more and more lately, with just two full weeks left to go. So Ari’s not incredibly surprised to hear raised voices when he lets himself in. It’s a little weird that he can’t hear anyone yelling back at Eric.

Ari comes in just as Eric is saying, “I’m going to reach around his fucking neck and throttle him, I swear to God.”

And Ari laughs, because Eric is miming the action while he yells. And either he’s threatening to kill a midget or small child, or he’s got an inflated sense of his own height again.

Ari coughs, and the bedlam stops for a moment. “Care to fill me in?” he asks.

“Fucking Billy Walsh,” Eric says. Then, “Fucking Billy Walsh,” again, for good measure.

Except that Billy isn’t in the room, or near the room, and Ari didn’t have to walk past him to get in here. Vince, Johnny and Turtle are in the far corner, in various hand-wringing poses. Charlie’s by the other desk, on his phone, and Shauna’s flipping through her contacts. The only other person missing is Lloyd, and no one would be crazy enough to send those two on a job by themselves.

“Where is he?” Ari demands.

“Ari.” That’s Vince.

“I swear to God and all his wrathful fucking angels, I will rip that jackass a new one if he’s bolted on us.”

“You’ve gotta catch him first,” Eric says grimly.

“What the hell do you mean, ‘catch him’? I’m gonna go break down his fucking door and-”

Turtle laughs. “What door? Walsh doesn’t live anywhere - he just crashes with the first ex who’s stoned enough to let him in.” He pauses. “Or Vin, sometimes.”

Vince’s forced neutral expression changes. “I’d have thought you’d be happy. Didn’t you want to get another explosives guy?”

“Not now. Now’s for making the best of it with the cast of morons you’ve got, not hunting around for a new one. We’re supposed to go in next week - you know how long it takes to properly vet someone?”

Charlie raises his hand. “I think I’ve got something. A guy I know knows someone who-”

“Yeah?” Ari asks, “This is one of your street buddies?”

Charlie gives Ari the kind of withering look he can only have learnt from Eric. “Yeah, Ari. Street buddies.” He looks at Eric. “There’s this poker game.”

Eric curses.

Walsh has a gambling problem. In this crowd, maybe not so much of an issue. The thing is that he’s really stupidly fucking bad at it. He’s lost his cut of million-dollar jobs in one evening. Vince gets embarrassed just watching him - it’s the combination of Walsh’s complete inability to bluff and his petulant fury when he gets called out on it and loses.

Eric sighs and turns to Vince. “Go get him.”

“You’re not coming?”

“I want- Correction: we need him back in one piece. I wouldn’t help that. Go get him - take Charlie for the directions - and say whatever it is you say when he gets like this.”

Ari shifts. “I’m going along.”

“Ari,” Eric says.

“I’ll play nice.”

“You better,” Eric says. It’s more concern than pretended-threat, which scares Ari, just a little bit.

Regardless, the first thing Ari does when they get out of the car is slam Walsh against the table.

“Ari!” Vince says. His blue eyes are very wide.

Ari drags Walsh up and towards the door. The bastard bites Ari’s arm and squirms away.

“Billy,” Vince pleads.

The other players at the table are caught between starting a fight with them and backing away and leaving them to it. Ari turns to Vince. “Keep an eye on him.” He grabs the ringleader and asks, “Does he owe you money?”

The guy points at the table, at a loose pile of notes.

“Take it,” Ari says. “Then we’ll take Walsh and everyone can go on their merry way.”

Walsh spits a curse - and some saliva - over Vince’s shoulder towards Ari. Ari ignores him.

Vince says, “Billy, come on. We need to go back. Eric’s worried.”

“That fucking hack. He didn’t even look at the plans I drew up.” Walsh pulls a pile of napkins from his pocket with a flourish. They’re slightly damp, and Walsh assembles them like a demented jigsaw. Ari sees the ink lines run crazily from one to the other, with exclamation points and something that looks like a skull-and-crossbones.

Vince takes Walsh’s shoulder and turns him around. “You can’t blow up the building.”

“I can, Vinnie, I really can.”

“Let’s rephrase,” Ari says, “maybe you can, but if you do, we all get arrested. As terrorists, and then we all end up in Gitmo while members of the US army digitally violate us.”

Vince talks over him. “Let’s get back, okay? You can talk to Eric, and I’ll make sure he listens. But no more threatening to blow up the gallery, okay? You’ll get us all killed.”

“I don’t want to get you killed,” Walsh says. He looks at Ari. “Him, I’m not so sure.”

Ari experiences the very real desire to reach across and snap the wannabe-artist’s scrawny neck. So now he’s channelling Eric, which is as sure a sign as any that it’s time to leave. “Get him in the car, Vinnie,” Ari says. “I don’t care what you have to do to get him there. As long as there’s a minimum of two and half limbs left at the end of it, anyway.”

Vince looks at Ari, who turns to walk out of the building and back to the car.

Ari hears Vince say ‘please’ again, and he’s only had the engine idling for a minute or so before Walsh piles in, all mouth and attitude with no follow-through.

Vince gets into the passenger seat and shrugs at Ari in the mirror.

Ari sighs. He knew bringing Walsh onboard was a bad idea. Knew letting Eric make the final call on anything Vince really wanted was a worse one. Well, they’re stuck with it now.

They get back, and Eric doesn’t even speak to Walsh. He takes the ‘plans’ from him, back to the offices, and slams the door. Vince says, “I’ll talk to him,” and Ari doesn’t have the first idea what he means.

* * * *

Everything moves fast after that. Which wouldn’t usually be a problem - Ari likes fast. That’s why he’s in the business in the first place. The art business is quick enough, most days, and his side projects add a little spice when the market is cold.

But there’s fast and then there’s completely without adequate planning. Ari doesn’t remember the initial timetable looking like this. Eric swears blind that it did, that this was always the plan, but Ari’s starting to wonder if Johnny’s close to getting made.

He walks around the exhibition again and makes sure Terrance is nearby. He looks at Charlie, standing in front of a piece of contemporary sculpture that’s good but not special. He leans into the girl next to Charlie - one of Shauna’s, pretending to be an agent - and says, “Twelve thousand, and first refusal on your next three pieces.”

Ari can see the moment Terrance begins to pay attention. He walks the room again, keeping one eye on Terrance. Terrance fails to move.

He walks back to Charlie. There are other people around, it’s not so much of a stretch to say, “Okay, okay, fifteen then.”

There aren’t enough people - or no one recognisable - that he can go much higher than that. And then Ari sees her.

Dana Gordon is on the other side of the room.

He reaches for his cellphone and sends the message: outbid me for Charlie’s piece. I’ll explain later.

She replies: what the hell, Ari? No.

I’ll make it worth your while.

Still no.

Financially, Dana. God. What do you want?

A good reason.

I swear to God, I will eat you out under the dinner table if it’ll make you happy, just do me this one favour. You don’t need to buy the fucking thing. I just need to-

She peers over his shoulder. “Jesus, Ari, no sex talk in a gallery, you know that.”

“Rules have changed since our day, then.”

She looks at him. Ari presses his hands together below his chin and she sighs.

Dana walks over to Charlie and says, “What did he offer? Fifteen. I’ll give you twenty and I guarantee we’ll buy your next three for market value.”

Ari laughs and follows her. “Twenty? Fuck that, kid, I’ll give you twenty-six and a contract.”

The moment hangs in the air and he’s waiting. A heavy hand falls on his shoulder, and Ari and Dana are pushed aside.

“One hundred thousand,” Terrance says, “and exclusivity. And if you have to think twice about that one then you’re a fool.”

Ari protests, lightly. “Wait a goddamn minute. You didn’t give a fuck about this kid until you saw me bidding.”

“Correct,” Terrance says pleasantly. He turns to Charlie, “Do we have a deal?”

Charlie nods, looking dazed. Ari can’t tell whether or not it’s an act. Terrance takes his hand and shakes it firmly.

One of Terrance’s minions says, “We’ll take this now,” and begins wheeling the sculpture away. “See me at the end of the evening for the cheque, and the contracts will be posted on in the morning.”

Dana whispers, “Care to explain?”

“Not right now. I swear, I’ll make it up to you.”

“What the hell can be-? It’s a nice enough piece, Ari. Not worth the price he paid for it, but nothing ever is. It’s hardly a revenge masterstroke.”

“It’s a start,” Ari says, and can’t help the grin. He kisses Dana on the mouth. “We would have made beautiful scheming children together.”

She pushes him away. “I mean it, Ari. You owe me.”

“Isn’t it always the way?”

Dana tuts disapproval, and walks away from him.

Ari heads to the car, parked out back and waiting for him. Lloyd is in the driver’s seat, wearing a balaclava. The radio is playing Kanye West. Ari doesn’t even know any more.

Lloyd jumps when Ari opens the passenger door. “Ari! You frightened me.”

“Well, maybe if you weren’t playing-”

Lloyd cuts him off. “Kanye understands my struggle. And anyhow, did it work?”

Charlie climbs into the backseat. “It worked.”

Lloyd claps. Then he frowns. “And we’re sure this won’t kill anyone?”

“For the last time, Lloyd, yes. The thing’s going to let a little gas out when we need it. It’s a simulated chemical leak, it won’t do anyone any harm.”

“Unless they’re right on top of it when it goes,” Charlie says. “Then they’re gonna get a concentrated dose no matter what we do.”

Lloyd beats the steering wheel in a show of indignation. “Ari.”

Ari glares at Charlie. “No one will be hurt,” he says again. “No one. We just need to force an evacuation, and get the alarms switched to the emergency setting. Johnny thinks that’ll do it.”

Charlie laughs and slouches down so his knees poke Ari in the back through the seat. Ari slams his seat backwards. Charlie curses him and pulls his legs onto the seat cushions. Victory assured, Ari nods at Lloyd, and off they go. It’s been a good night’s work.

* * * *

Lloyd wants to bring Tom to the secret hideout. Ari, naturally, tells him no, and also to stop calling the business suite a secret hideout. Lloyd claims, apparently reasonably, that any business suite taken out in an assumed name can legitimately be called secret. Ari ignores him, except to say no again.

So Lloyd is sitting on one of the chairs with his laptop balanced precariously on his knees. Johnny brought a semi-complete catalogue of Terrance’s gallery back with him, locations included, and Lloyd is supposed to be reviewing their choices.

He’s not, because he’s making eyes at E and Vince, on the other side of the room. Vince has his legs on Eric’s lap; Eric is using them as an impromptu table for his blueprints. They’re not even looking at each other, but Lloyd is apparently an easy sell for romantic bullshit.

Ari kicks him, with a hand on the computer just in case.

Lloyd pouts at him. “You have no soul, Ari.”

“Just focus on the job, would you? I swear, we’re not working another gig where you’re emotionally invested in something other than our fabulous winnings.”

“You promised me this was the last job.”

Eric looks up and laughs. “It’s always the last job. It never takes.”

“Fuck you,” Ari tosses back.

“Taken,” Eric says, holding up one finger.

Vince raises his head - he’s reading a collection of F Scott Fitzgerald short stories - and smiles.

It’s enough to further distract Lloyd from his task, and Ari would complain, but Eric’s cell phone sets into frantic ringing.

“Johnny,” Eric mutters, and answers. “Yeah?… What?… Johnny, you had one goddamn thing to do…. Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m sorry. Look, get back here and we’ll work it out.”

He hangs up and stares at the wall.

Vince says, “E?”

Eric stands up and flings his keys across the room to Charlie. “Get Shauna now.” Then to Turtle. “Go drag Billy out of wherever he’s ended up today.”

“Eric,” Ari tries to interrupt.

Eric says, “Lloyd? How far are we off a list?”

“Murphy!” Ari explodes.

Eric turns, very slowly, and there’s a hint of something in his eyes that scares the shit out of Ari. “Come in here,” Eric says.

Ari follows Eric and Vince into the backroom. Vince puts his hand on Eric’s shoulder. Eric stands there for a minute and breathes.

Eric says, “How much of a problem is it gonna be if we have to go in tomorrow?”

Ari chokes. “What?”

Vince’s fingers end up in his dark hair. “Johnny got fired. Or did they…?”

“Just fired. I think. I don’t even know what the hell he… It wasn’t his fault, looks like. But it happened. And we need his access.”

Ari says, “Terrance is a twitchy mother-fucker. He’ll have the security clearances revoked already.”

“He’s not back in town until tomorrow. And because he is a twitchy mother-fucker, he’ll want to talk to Johnny first. He deals with all terminations in the gallery himself, doesn’t let anyone else near them. Complete control. I bet no one else is going to touch the clearance until tomorrow, in case they’ve fucked up.”

“Doesn’t that leave them open to-?”

“Yeah. Tomorrow. He gets in before five p.m.”

“E, you can’t be serious.”

Eric shrugs. “That’s what I’m asking.”

Ari thinks about it. Everything has been too quick; they’ve been sliding out of control since they started. Since before that, when Eric Murphy the pragmatist got himself tied up in this plan, for no good reason Ari could see. Vince’s fingers tighten on Eric’s shoulder.

Ari says, “No way,” and shakes his head. “No fucking way.”

Vince says, “Ari.”

“No, Vinnie, no amount of can-do attitude and lovebird cooing will get this shit done on time. We’re not ready.”

“Ari,” Eric says.

“We haven’t got a finished wish list, we haven’t got a path through the cameras, we’ve lost our goddamn explosives expert-”

There’s a crashing sound and muffled incoherent cursing. Eric says, “So Billy looks to be in.”

“We’re relying on your memory of McQuewick as a petty tyrant too stupid to let anyone else update his security protocols, and you still haven’t explained to me how we’re getting away from this one with our balls intact. You have no exit strategy.”

“I don’t need one.”

“Well I fucking do. I’ve got kids, E, this can’t end up with me-”

“Worse comes to worst, Ari, I swear you’ll go home to your kids tomorrow night no poorer than you came into this.”

“And you and Vinnie?”

“You don’t give a shit about me and Vinnie. Now go see Lloyd and help him get the list finalised. I’m gonna put on some coffee - it looks like a long night.”

“Did you listen to me at all?”

“Of course I did. And you came up with the same things I had. I’m not missing anything. We can do this, stop freaking out.”

Ari sputters and feels his face turning the colour that always worries his wife. He takes one long deep breath, and then another to make sure. He looks at Eric, who appears to be only marginally more in control of himself than he was when they walked in here.

Vince takes a step forward so he’s right up against Eric. Ari leaves the room.

Johnny’s back, explaining to anyone who’ll listen that it wasn’t his fault. Ari pays enough attention to figure out that no, it probably wasn’t, but Johnny should have played along anyway. Moral lines are tricky in their line of business.

Shauna comes into the room ahead of Charlie, swearing bloody vengeance against Johnny, Terrance, and Eric, in that order. Her eyes narrow on Ari. “Why the hell didn’t you stop this?”

“Which ‘this’ do you mean, Shauna? Johnny being dumb enough to get fired or Eric being dumb enough go ahead with the plan anyway?”

“Either. Both. You’ve been doing this longer, Ari, you’re supposed to know fucking better than to encourage them in this-”

Eric walks out of the room. His shirt is un-tucked. Vince follows him.

Eric says, “Hey, Shauna. How are we going on fake I.Ds?”

“We’re going precisely as fast as we were going before this all went to hell because I’m not a fucking miracle-worker, Eric.”

Vince smiles at her. “Now we all know that’s not true.”

Shauna’s expression softens a fraction - she’s always liked Vince best. She says, “If I can promise some people some financial recompense after, maybe I can hurry them along a little.”

“Do that,” Eric says.

She goes to make the calls, still cursing. But she doesn’t leave. Ari doesn’t know if they’re all too far in to stop, or just too dumb to know when to quit.

* * * *

The weird thing about the night before a job is that, eventually, even on one as rushed as this, you run out of things to do. Contacts refuse to answer their cell phones, information on an empty building doesn’t help, and there are only so many times you can rehearse.

Turtle trails one long cable messily out of the computer room to the lounge. He plugs a laptop into it, starts a program running, and sighs. “Now what?”

“No pot,” Eric says.

“I know no pot,” Turtle scoffs, “at least not for you guys. Lightweights. But we’ve got, what? Another three or four hours before you can leave?”

“Cards?” Vince suggests, before looking warily at Walsh. “Or not.”

“I can handle poker with you guys,” Walsh says.

Eric speaks for the first time in about an hour. “Fuck it. Cards, yeah, why not?”

Vince asks, “Anyone got an unmarked pack?”

There is a long, loaded silence.

Eventually Lloyd volunteers, “I have a new deck. Eric said-”

“I will,” E says, “later, I promise.” He takes the pack from Lloyd. The cellophane tears with a crackling hiss and Eric curves the new cards in his hands. He flips them easily from palm to palm. “Who’s in?”

It’s not exactly how Ari planned to be spending what might be his last night of freedom. Eric promises not to cheat, and the others agree. But Vince cheats with every part of him: his expression and every inch of his body language is a lie. Charlie’s learning and Johnny manages because he’s known Vince the longest. Still, Eric’s the only match for him because he’s never been taken in.

Eric deals them in and out so they catch a few hours sleep each. Eric drops last, falling against Vince’s shoulder.

Seven a.m. comes. Vince touches Eric’s leg. “E.”

Eric’s eyes open without surprise. “Yeah. Time to go.”

* * * *

The plan, such as it is, with its sharp clever edges rounded off, goes like this. Shauna and Turtle are back in the offices. Turtle’s on cameras and Shauna doesn’t get her hands dirty (not since she had the kid).

Vince and Charlie are out front in the gallery. They were meant to be with Johnny, but that one’s obviously out the fucking window. In some feat of musical-roles that makes sense only to Eric, Lloyd is now with them. In a fedora. Lloyd has all the cunning and guile of a drunken three-year-old, but apparently that’s the point.

Which just leaves Walsh and Ari (and now Johnny) following Eric around the back of the building. Ready to blow it up.

“A little,” Eric corrects. “Blow up the building a little.”

Johnny taps his ear. “Turtle. Where the fuck are you?”

Ari hears the hiss of indignant expletive.

Johnny says, “Turtle says they’re in position.”

Eric smiles. “Billy?”

“Yeah. Ready to blow shit up.”

Eric says, “It’s only a- Fine. Go.”

Ari counts - they all do. Fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty. The chemical alarm screams deafeningly. It’ll take security at least an hour to figure out that it’s a false alarm.

Eric says, “Go, Billy.”

Walsh checks the connections one more time in a turn of care Ari thought him incapable of. He says, “Better get out of the way, philistines.”

Johnny drags Ari and Eric back. The explosion, when it happens, is less impressive than Ari was expecting. Walsh, too, is shaking his head as though he’s disappointed.

“Let’s take a look,” Eric says, and opens one of the side doors into the gallery. At least they’ve managed to get the main alarms off.

They walk the hallways soundlessly, having practiced the route in rehearsal thirty or forty times. Off in the museum proper, Ari hears (or imagines he hears) Lloyd’s idea of distraction.

The vault is where Terrance stores his private collection. The kind of pieces he only brings out when he wants to impress a donor, or to show a party how remarkable his collection really is. When the alarms go off, and open every other door in the building, the vault stays locked.

But that’s okay because they’ve just applied a targeted explosive to both sides of the external walls. And Walsh is just about to hook up the connections which will knock the device out just enough that the main door will swing open for them.

Eric says, “Go,” a split-second before the alarm stops. Walsh hits the button just as their system reengages. A different alarm starts: a siren.

Vince is shouting over the radio, “Out, everybody out, now!”

“Vince?” Eric asks, and he’s halfway into the vault already and not stopping.

There won’t be signal in there and so Ari’s the one who hears Vince say, “I don’t care, E, just get out. Please.”

Eric is waving them away as he runs out, as footsteps come thudding towards them from inside the building. “Go!”

“Eric,” Johnny says.

“Tell Vin to go to plan B.”

Eric runs towards the noises; Ari hears him thrown to the ground.

Johnny looks like he might go after him - Walsh pulls him back, and Ari too. “The car,” Walsh says. “We need to get to the car. I can’t get arrested, trust me. Fucking police and their fucking records.”

They make a break back to the side-door. Turtle is yelling down the lines, “What the fuck is happening in there?! Vin? E?”

They’re in the car and going before he hears Vince talking. “They got E, Turtle. We need to get him out. Back in twenty, start working on a plan.”

“I don’t know-”

“We’re going to need some cash, start with that.”

* * * *

Vince beats them back to the suite. He has the others stirred into a frenzy of almost certainly useless activity.

Ari thinks, I don’t need to be here. He has money invested in this, but not a lot. Not more than any other failed business deal. Lloyd will leave with him (maybe), and Eric will (almost certainly) forgive him. This is business. No honour amongst thieves and art dealers.

Vince turns around and says, “Ari.”

Johnny says, “We’ll get him out, little bro, don’t worry.”

Billy says, “He can get himself out - he talks the grey-man talk.”

Vince looks at Ari, past Johnny and the rest, and says, “Ari.”

Ari says, “Let’s talk,” and leads Vince into the computer room.

Vince closes the door behind them, so the lights all come from the screens. Vince has the complexion to pull it off, though the way the pictures jump sends the light flashing up and down his skin.

Ari says, “We can’t get him out, Vinnie.”

“No, I’ve got a plan.”

“Maybe so, but we can’t get him out.”

“We can.”

“I’m not ready to risk my neck for your boyfriend. I’m sorry, but there it is.”

“I’m not asking you to. I just need some money. Shauna and I can do the rest.”

“I don’t have any more money I’m willing to flood into this failing endeavour.” Ari shakes his head, and means the expression that finds his way to his face. He likes E, most of the time. Easier to admit when the guy’s about to be tossed into prison. “No.”

Vince leans on Eric’s chair. “Can you get me in to talk with Barbara Miller?”

“Babs? What the hell do you want with-?”

“I need a decoy painting,” Vince interrupts. “Same size shape and artist as the one Terrance’s goons are about to notice is missing.”

“And you have a Lucian Freud just lying around, do you? E did lift the Freud, right?” Vince nods. Ari says, “And then what?”

“Sloan threatens to auction it off on national television.”

“Sloan, Terrance’s daughter, Sloan? Remind me never to piss my kids off. Why would she-?”

“Eric,” Vince says.

Eric was with Sloan years ago, but that was back when Vince was in prison. Ari doesn’t know what there could still be, so long after, that would make her risk her father’s fury. He looks at Vince, and sees a glimpse of it. “The thing is,” Ari says, quietly, watching the way Vince squirms, “that everyone’s so stupidly fucking wrong about you two that it’s laughable.”

“Not you,” Vince says, “Not Johnny or Turtle or Lloyd.”

“Okay,” Ari concedes, “not everyone. But anyone not in the room. They think you’re E’s fuck-buddy. The pretty face he could replace in a week. But you two were together in ninety-eight before you were inside, and you were together in two-thousand when you got out. Did you ever actually stop, or was Terrance McQuewick’s daughter the beard she looked like being?”

“They were together.”

“While E worked for Terrance.”

“Yeah.”

“Vinnie, was Terrance the reason you got put away?”

“Yeah. I mean, I was pulling a job, but he lied about it. He ordered it, and then called the cops on us. I got put away”

“And he got you out again, when it suited him.”

“Yeah.”

“After Eric had paid off some of your debt in time served.”

“Joint sentence, Ari. E just had to serve his in labour.”

“And what about Sloan? Was she part of the deal?”

Vince blinks - impassive, and Eric was right: he is a good actor. Not quite good enough to fool Ari. He always knew Terrance was a cold-hearted bastard, but there’s a line somewhere, even amongst criminals, and pimping out your daughter crosses it. Vince says, “Sloan never knew. Not then.”

“I thought Terrance hated Eric.”

Vince shrugs. “Now, maybe. Then, maybe, I don’t know. But I guess he wanted him on the inside. And E likes Sloan, he always has.”

“Just not as much as you.”

“Eric doesn’t like anyone as much as he likes me.”

Ari has to laugh, though Vince isn’t joking and it’s not really funny. The truth isn’t, normally, and Vince doesn’t look especially happy about this one. Ari shouldn’t be, but there’s something almost satisfying just in being right, and being the only one who is. (Discounting Lloyd and his ever more elaborate wedding plans).

Vince stands up straight and looks at Ari. “Help?” he asks. “We’ll disappear after, we’ll never bug you again. But help first.”

Ari sighs. “Let’s go see Babs. I’ve been out of the office for a while, I’m sure she’ll be pleased to see me.”

* * * *

Ari’s never quite sure what to do with Babs. His approach to women can largely be divided into how he treats his wife and how he treats Dana. (There’s his daughter, of course, but daughters are automatically excluded - if anyone ever treated Sarah as something less than precious he’d be forced to kill them). Barbara confuses him, so he starts with the best weapon in his arsenal. “Please, Barbara. On my knees if you want it, I’m asking nicely here.”

Barbara raises one arched eyebrow at him. “The fuck, Ari?”

“I don’t know what you want, Babs.”

“God, I feel for that wife of yours. What’s my cut, Ari? Tell me why I should do this the same way you’d be telling a man.”

Vince, who had been silent by the wall, stirs. “You can have my cut.”

“Vinnie,” Ari protests.

“I think Eric’ll probably share his. It’s not about the money anyway.”

“It’s about the money to me,” Ari says.

Vince shrugs. “I don’t like McQuewick.”

Barbara looks between them. “Neither do I. All right. Two thirds of your cut, Vincent, and the rest from Eric if this works. Does that sound fair?”

Ari thinks that it’s becoming clearer and clearer that Vince is actually very good at this.

Vince smiles and takes Barbara’s hand. He says, “That sounds fair.”

Barbara, well, Barbara has never been charmed in her life. But she nods back and says, “I look forward to crushing the bastard.”

“Yeah,” Vince says, “Me too. God, me too.”

Ari thinks for a second that maybe there’s a little too much relish in the way Vince says that. Not quite enough fear for his missing boyfriend. He shrugs it off on the way back to the car.

* * * *

Vince stands in the centre of the room, and for a moment Ari sees how the whole world could twist around him, instead of just Eric’s.

Vince says, “Shauna’s with Sloan at the benefit. Lloyd with Charlie.” He points at the eighteen or twenty million dollars worth of artwork lying around the suite. “I want our assets as liquid as we can make them.”

Ari laughs. “And no one notices they’ve been lifted?”

Vince says, “We’ve got buyers lined up. Helps that no one’s reported a robbery yet.” He moves on. “Billy’s at the gallery. Johnny and Turtle in the other car, wait for my word. Be ready to hit the gallery if you have to.”

“And me?” Ari can’t help but ask.

“You’re with me. We’re on monitors.” He casts his glance around the room one more time. “Go.”

They disperse and Ari follows Vince to the computer room. They wait one hour - two - as Lloyd argues money in the background until Charlie takes the phone away.

Ari says, “Remind me what we’re waiting for?”

“That,” Vince says, as a sleek silver car pulls into frame in front of the gallery. Terrance steps out. They watch him through the cameras, moving towards his office and one of the few places they couldn’t get a camera.

Vince says, “Count sixty.” When Ari hits fifty-nine, Vince lifts his phone and says, “Go, Billy.”

They don’t hear it, but the guards on screen start running. There’s a haze of smoke over one of the cameras. At least Walsh will be happy.

“What the hell did that accomplish?” Ari asks.

“Chaos,” Vince says blithely, “Also: a signal.”

One of the blank monitors flicks into life. Terrance’s office, with Eric sitting at a chair in front of the desk. There are cuffs attached to the arms of the chair, but Eric clearly got out of them hours ago. Time enough to set up a smuggled camera and get it working.

Vince touches a button, and they have audio.

Terrance is saying, “-seriously have believed your collection of amateurs would succeed.”

Eric grins. “Found your Freud yet?”

Terrance punches him. The chair clatters over. Eric lifts himself from the ground with one hand, and Ari doesn’t understand why he won’t fight back. The guards outside, maybe, but he’s never known Eric to back down from a punch-up. Terrance hits him again.

Vince has his hands curled into fists at his side; Ari grabs his shoulder to keep him in the room.

Terrance knocks Eric back: flesh hitting flesh and a spatter of blood. Eric turns to the camera - turns to Vince - and nods. Their psychic connection really should be studied.

Vince calls Shauna and asks, “Ready?”

Eric looks at Terrance on the screen. “You might want to turn on the TV. Channel seven.”

Ari wonders whether Vince has considered that Terrance might just ignore the request. He could shake his head and have Eric arrested and then all this will be for nothing. Again, fucking again, they’re relying on Terrance being as screwed up as Eric thinks he is.

Terrance turns on the television.

Sloan is smiling - she’s still gorgeous - and taking hold of the microphone. She says, “We have something really special for our auction this year. My Dad has donated a painting for some of our more wealthy benefactors to have a go at winning. I’m not going to say what it is right now, but…” She turns confidingly towards the closer camera. “Maybe just a quick look.” She lifts one corner of the covering, showing the edge of the painting. All anyone can see is rich, heavy brush-strokes, and the representation of a white hand. It’s definitely Freud. Babs came through.

The newscaster says, “Maybe after the break we’ll convince Sloan to show us the whole thing.”

Terrance turns the television off and throws the remote across the room. “You think I can’t get that back? It’s stolen merchandise - no one will uphold a sale.”

“Maybe,” Eric says, “but it won’t look good. Not for Sloan, anyway. But maybe you don’t care about that.”

“Don’t talk to me about my daughter. You have no goddamn right to-”

Eric cuts Terrance off. “You pretty much tried to sell her to me, so yeah, I think I do.”

“I did no such thing.”

“You wanted me to work for you and I said no so you tried to get Sloan to sweeten the deal. That didn’t work so you got my- You got Vince thrown into jail by bribing some guys and then you got him out by bribing some more. And in between times you used your daughter as a bargaining chip. So yeah, I think I do.”

Terrance looms over Eric so Ari and Vince can’t see either of their faces. “And you promised that you would never tell her. You promised to leave this city with your fuck-toy, and never come anywhere near my gallery.”

Eric laughs. “I lied.”

Terrance hits him again; Eric is still laughing.

Eric looks at the camera and says, “Vin, that should be about enough, you think?”

Ari notices Vince with his hand on the phone again, calling Johnny. Vince says, “Get ready to go.” This is too perfect. Ari puts the pieces together. He’s going to kill them.

Eric says, “This is how it works. You let me go, and you don’t chase us. You don’t chase the sales. Sloan brings the Freud back. It’s worth twice everything else we’ve got combined. You don’t chase us, and Vince doesn’t release the video where you admit to seven or eight federal offences and a few more moral ones.”

“You’ll ruin me. Ruin Sloan too.”

“Sloan knows what she’s doing. As for you, the gallery’ll make it up in a year or two. I lost what I love best for two years because of you. Learn to deal.”

Terrance stares at Eric. “I could have you arrested.”

“Yeah.”

“If you ever come near this place again…”

“Trust me, we won’t.”

Terrance waves his hand. “Go. If I ever see you again I’ll kill you myself.”

Eric stands up. The camera turns off.

Vince talks into his cell phone. “Johnny, if E’s not out those doors in two minutes I need you to go in.”

“No need,” Johnny says, a minute later, “we’re on our way back.”

Vince exhales slowly, and then looks at Ari. “What?”

“You little fucker. You two planned this.”

* * * *

Ari hasn’t thought about the rules for a while - being around Eric and Vince has that effect. But rule three is: never believe your own lies. And never believe anyone else’s. Trust no one, not Eric Murphy who doesn’t know how to lie, or Vince Chase who’s not smart enough to have lied about this.

Vince says, “It was Plan B. Eric thought something like this might happen.”

“No. Because it was never really gonna pan out right unless we screwed up. He’d be able to chase you. You fucking needed Eric in that room with Terrance. That was always the-”

“No.” Eric says. His face looks like he walked into a door or two, and Johnny’s holding him up. But: “No. It was never Plan A. Too risky.”

“Too goddamn right it was too risky. What if Babs said no? What if I said no, for God’s sake?”

Eric smiles. “You were really gonna leave me to rot in prison? Ari, man, I’m hurt.”

“Fuck you.”

“Again. Taken.”

Vince pushes past Ari to get to Eric. Eric has left his jacket somewhere, and there’s blood on his white shirt. There are dark marks under his eyes, he’s hunched with exhaustion and he looks like shit. Vince doesn’t seem to care.

Eric groans when Vince bumps him; he still doesn’t push him away.

Turtle says, “Don’t need to see it, Vin.”

“Don’t care, Turtle,” Vince replies. His hands settle on Eric’s face, pulling him back for another kiss.

Lloyd makes happy noises. Billy starts rifling through the fridge.

Charlie walks through the door. “Done.” He looks around. “All good? I called the gallery from the payphone and told them where E left the painting. Not sure they believed that we never got it out of the building.”

Ari sighs. “In an hour or so, I’m gonna want to talk about this.”

“Sure thing,” Eric says, “Really soon. Just not right - Vince! - sorry. Not right now.”

Vince drags Eric away to the computer room, and there’s another place Ari won’t be able to touch the surfaces. He says, “They couldn’t use the bedroom?”

“My son’s asleep in the bedroom,” Shauna says. “No traumatising my kid.”

“Nobody ever worries about traumatising me,” Turtle says, without any particular venom. “Now can we smoke the fucking weed?”

* * * *

By the time Vince and Eric reappear, it’s late evening, and Ari’s passively stoned and actively drunk. They order in food and talk ancient history instead. The first cons Ari pulled back in Chicago; the way Vince hustled Eric at poker back in middle school; how Charlie and Eric met in Vegas. Eric tries to teach Lloyd how to cheat at shuffling, though monumentally unsuccessfully.

They don’t get around to talking about the important things before the morning. They’re all freshly showered, and Eric’s bruises are starting to colour. Vince kisses Eric’s neck when he leans over him to put the coffee down.

Ari says, “You were fighting about Terrance. That’s why you-”

“Does it really matter?” Eric asks. “We’re all a lot richer and no one got hurt.”

Vince grins. “We’re actually not a whole lot richer. Barbara Miller took a hell of a cut.”

Eric says, “Yeah, but Terrance McQuewick is a whole lot poorer. I’m sleeping fine tonight. We can always make more money.”

Ari looks at the pair of them across the table. “You realise you’re both crazy.” He turns to Vince. “Especially you. You could have been lying on a beach somewhere with an untouched share of twenty fucking million.”

Vince leans back in his chair. “Yeah, but why’d I want to go lie on a beach anywhere without E?”

They actually make Ari feel a little queasy.

Lloyd appears behind him. “Twenty six million and counting. Babs says she’ll take the Dali instead of a cut. And Dana Gordon wants me to remind you that you still owe her one.”

Ari hits his head on the table. “That woman will bleed me dry.”

“Which one?”

“Either. Lloyd, get the Dali to Babs but I want that out of these morons’ share. Dana can come see me at her leisure. I’m sure I can find some piece of pseudo-feminist bullshit sculpture that’ll take her fancy.”

Eric laughs. “I wouldn’t put it like that, Lloyd.” He turns around. “Turtle? The tech all packed up? I want to be on a plane by three.”

“Three?” Ari asks. “Where’re you headed now? Off to right more wrongs?”

“Nah,” Vince says.

Eric says, “Your beach idea wasn’t bad though. I was thinking maybe-“

“California,” Vince says.

“Yeah.” Eric puts his arm over Vince’s shoulder. He smiles at Ari, “Is this a ‘don’t call me, I’ll call you’ moment?”

“Don’t call me,” Ari says. “I’ve had all the excitement I can take.”

Lloyd is still at Ari’s shoulder. “You always say that.”

Eric stands up to shake Lloyd’s hand. “He always does. Good to see you, Lloyd. As always, let me know if you want to go into a different line of work.”

The suite is emptying out. Billy has already gone, disappeared sometime the night before and taking his cut with him. Shauna had left in the morning to take the kid to nursery. She’s probably going to plunge the money into some investment portfolio and end up owning the rest of them in five years.

Charlie waves at Lloyd and Ari, and hugs Vince and Eric. “Later. I’ve got a gig in Seattle, but after that… you know how to find me.” Eric nods, and pats his shoulder before letting him go.

Johnny’s taking the boxes to the car with Turtle. He nods at Ari and Lloyd, and that’s that. Turtle offers Lloyd an un-smoked roll-up and gives Ari the number of his security-camera friend with a pointed look.

Lloyd goes to pull the car around.

Eric puts his hand out to Ari. “Say hi to your wife for me. And Sarah and Jonah.”

“Yeah, I won’t do that.”

Eric laughs, and Vince comes to stand beside him. Vince says, “Bye, Ari. Come visit. I bet you’d like California. More than you like New York anyway.”

“I go where the money is.”

“Yeah,” Vince says, “and we’re going to California.” He laughs, and slings his arm around Eric’s waist.

Ari calls his wife from the car, and tells her he’s taking the day off. “Want to go buy something to make the neighbours jealous? I’m thinking matching Ferraris, and sex in the back seat, how about you? Yeah, the deal went pretty well.”

FIN. Feedback welcomed, typo-watch welcomed.