Fall from Grace (12 page)

THEY MET SUNDAY
afternoon at a Dunkin' Donuts on the west side, away from the malls, across the street from the no-name plaza, the one with six empty storefronts, a Radio Shack, and a takeout pizza joint. Not the kind of place Zoë's friends would know about. And Zoë, if her flight left on time, had already been in Aruba long enough to find a hotel bar that would serve a gin and tonic to a seventeen-year-old with a bad fake ID.

Sawyer had a tropical fruit smoothie, Grace had a large black coffee, and they shared a box of doughnut holes. They were the only customers and they sat far from the counter and away from the window.

“Nothing in the paper this morning, nothing online,
nothing on the library's website. I don't even think anyone noticed yet.”

“According to you, the police are all over it.”

“Consider the source.”

“So it's not worth millions?”

“It
could
be.”

“So could your coffee.”

“The hazelnut maybe, but not regular. The painting's worth more.”

“How much more?”

“What difference does it make? I'm bringing it back. Unless you have a better idea.”

“No.”

“Then I'll bring it back.”

“When?”

“They have to realize it's missing first.”

“And if they don't?”

“I'll send them a text,” she said, smiling to let him know she was kidding.

“You gonna put it back the same way you got it?”

“I'll bring it in during the day. Under my coat or something.”

“I suppose you'll need a ride out there when you do.”

“Don't know. Haven't planned it yet.”

“Oh, that's right, you have to have a
plan
.”

“Don't mock my methods. Planning's the best part. Like a giant logic problem.”

“Yeah, that's fun all right.”

“It can be. Check it out.” She held up the last doughnut hole. “This is a rare black diamond.” She dropped it in the cardboard box and squeezed the lid shut. “How can I get it without touching the box?”

“Use a fork.”

“No forks allowed.”

“Okay. Get a couple of straws and—”

“No straws, either. Plastic sets off the alarm.”

“You didn't say that before.”

“Improvise.”

He sipped his drink and thought about it. “What if you wrap a napkin around—”

“That's
still
touching it.” She sat up, rubbed her hands together, then held them both out, palms up, and closed her eyes. “Here, let me show you how it's done. It takes skill. Give me the doughnut.”

He opened the box, took out the doughnut hole, and placed it in her hand. She opened her eyes and smiled and then it clicked.

“That's a stupid trick,” he said.

“Only because you fell for it.”

“And it wasn't much of a plan.”

“What do you want? It's a doughnut. Give me a better challenge and I'll give you a better plan.”

“Like your fun, famous, and rich plan?”

She swirled the coffee in her cup. “You're not having fun?”

He was. A different kind of fun. Not Xbox fun or birthday fun or sex fun. More like hands up, first car in the roller coaster, busted-safety-bar fun. Only better than that.

“I'll give you the fun part,” he said. “And I'll give you the fame part, too. I'll call the Crime Stoppers tip line and tell them you stole the painting. That'll make you famous. Fast.”

“I think what you mean is
in
famous.”

“What's the difference?”

“These days? Nothing. But that's small-
f
fame. I want all-caps fame. In lights. With paparazzi. And my own TV show.”

“What about one of those little dogs to put in your purse?”

She waved it off. “That's ancient. I'm getting a monkey.”

“Too bad the painting's not worth millions or you'd
be rich. Then you'd have all three.”

“I'm not worried about the money. If you're famous enough, you don't need it.”

“Then you're going to have to steal something
really
big to get that famous. How about the Hope Diamond?”

“I told you, stealing diamonds is next to impossible. If I'm gonna have to steal something to get famous, I'm stealing art.”

“Okay. How about the
Mona Lisa
?”

“It's in Paris. And besides, it's been done.”

He jabbed his straw into the icy mush at the bottom of his cup and laughed.

“You don't believe me? Look it up.”

“It's not that. I'm just wondering if they had to have a code name before they could steal it.”

She kicked his foot under the table. “I know when I'm being mocked.”

“I'm not mocking. I'm thinking about all the fun you missed out on not being there to plan that one.”

“It was a hundred years ago.”

“Still, stealing a famous painting from a museum.
That
must have been something to plan,” he said, and as soon as he said it, as soon as he saw her eyes go wide
and light up in that weird, electric way, he knew it was a mistake.

“Oh. My. God.”

A big mistake.

“Do you know how much
fun
that would be?”

“Forget it.”

“You'd have to case the joint and draw maps,
lots
of maps…”

“The library was one thing—”

“You'd have to plan for the alarms and for the guards…” She looked across the table and smiled like he'd never seen her smile before.

“Grace?”

“Tell me,” she said, leaning in, “you got any plans for the break?”

SAWYER TOSSED THE
half-eaten slice on his plate.

It was Hawaiian, his favorite, and it was from Mark's Pizzeria, the place he liked, but he wasn't hungry anymore.

“A deal's a deal, son,” his father said. “And that's not an A.”

It wasn't an A.

It was an A+.

After the curve, sure, but that's the grade that went in the book, the highest grade in the class, everybody else ten points behind. A couple of answers at the end of the test were wrong but he got partial credit anyway, Mr. Young saying that the calculations showed he was on the right path and simply slipped up on a few tricky spots.

As for the last answer, well, that wasn't even close.

Still, it was an A+ and he won, only now his father was rewriting the rules, and Sawyer was losing.

“You got an eighty-six point five, correct?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Eighty-six point five. Right here on the school's website it says that an A-minus is ninety to ninety-two, an A is ninety-three to ninety-eight, and an A+ is ninety-eight and above.” His father held up his iPhone to show him the proof. “You got an eighty-six point five. That's a solid B, which is a good grade for you.”

It was a good grade for him, and Sawyer knew it. But he knew this wasn't about grades anymore, or precalc, or college.

It was about winning.

It was about taking risks, going big, the Hail Mary when the other guy was expecting a punt, jumping through the hoop—no,
around
the damn hoop—and having the balls to pull it off. If it had all fallen apart, if he had gotten caught, he would have had to man up and take the blame. His father would have insisted on it. But it
didn't
fall apart and he
didn't
get caught and now he wanted the credit.

Sawyer picked up the test paper and looked at the
grade, the
Excellent!
written in red ink below the A+ that was a B that might as well have been an F. A month ago he would have sighed and gone with it. Been pissed, yeah, but that was all. Now?

“I'm not going to Wembly.”

They laughed.

“Of course you are,” his mother said, refilling his glass.

“I told you to stop worrying. You're already in. You got the letter—”

“No. That's not what I meant. I'm not going to go there.”

This time they didn't laugh and the room got quiet and he could feel his parents looking at each other, then looking back at him, waiting for him to say he was only kidding, but they were too late. His father plopped down his slice and leaned back in his chair. “When did you decide this?”

“A while ago.”

A sigh, a headshake. His mom tagged in.

“What's wrong with Wembly?”

“There's nothing wrong with it. It's just not where I want to go.”

“So where
do
you want to go?”

“I'm not sure. I'm still trying to decide what I want to do.”

Dad back in. “You can decide while you're at Wembly.”

“Wouldn't that be a waste of money?”

Another laugh. “Oh,
now
you're worried about money.”

“The counselor said I might be able to get a scholarship to a state school. Not full tuition, but something.”

“And what about room and board, what would you do about that? If you're so worried about money, think about what we'd save with you living at home.”

“Have you talked about this with Zoë?”

Zoë?
“No.”

“Don't you think you should?”

He didn't, but he knew what his mother would say if he said that, so he said nothing.

“Maybe what you should do is take some time over Thanksgiving break and
really
think about this. Make a list. Put all the reasons why you should go to Wembly in one column and the reasons to go someplace else in another. That way you'll see why Wembly is the right school for you.”

“This whole thing is ridiculous,” his father said, picking his slice back up, the pineapple chunks flying off.
“You don't know what you want to be, you don't know where you want to go, and you don't know how you're going to pay for it.”

His mother smiled at Sawyer and put her hand on top of his, giving it a little squeeze, balancing the attack. “Sawyer, we understand. Thinking about college is probably the scariest thing you've ever done—”

He had to laugh at that.

“—but your father and I will make sure everything goes smoothly.”

“Yeah.”

“And remember, we're
always
here for you.”

“Oh, I remember.”

“And we'll be with you,
every step of the way
.”

“I know.”

“We won't be going
anywhere
.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And Zoë will be
right
there with you too.”

“Yup.”

“So really, you have nothing to worry about.”

“I guess not.”

She gave his hand another squeeze. “You know what you need to do, what would make things a lot easier for you? You need to sit down and draw up a plan.”

He looked over at her.

“Trust me,” she said, and now she was patting his hand, letting him know it was good advice, “you'll feel better just working on a plan.”

She was right. He did feel better when he was working on a plan.

Operation Trick-or-Treat. Operation Newton Leibniz. Operation Camel Ride. All good plans.

So maybe it was time for a few more.

Like Operation Anywhere-But-Wembly and Operation Anything-But-Insurance-Actuary.

He smiled and picked up his pizza, his hunger returning.

“WHAT DO YOU
think the artist was trying to say?”

Sawyer tilted his head one way, then the other, taking in the wall-sized painting.

“I think he's trying to tell us that there was a sale on blue paint.”

Grace nodded. “There
is
a lot of blue.”

“That's pretty much all there is.”

“According to this, it's called ‘Blue Square Number Four' and it's considered one of the most important works in the Color Field movement.”

He glanced over at the brochure the woman at the desk had given them when they paid the evening student-rate admission. It had a small picture of the painting, the blue a shade or two off.

“Please tell me you're not thinking this one.”

“I don't like paintings that are bigger than me.”

“Well, that's going to seriously limit our options.”

“Very funny.” She flipped to the map at the center of the brochure and took a stubby pencil out from behind her ear. “How many steps was it from the last painting to this one?”

“Seventy-one.”

“Do you remember what it was from the front desk to that African mask?”

“Two hundred and fifteen.”

She wrote the numbers over the lines she had drawn on the map connecting exit doors to points inside the museum.

“All we've got left to get here is the distance from that statue to the side fire exit and this section's done.”

“You still have to pick out a painting.”

“I
was
going to go with that one of the woman on the pink elephant. The French one.”

“Good choice.”

“But did you see how they hang the paintings? They're all flat against the wall.”

“Isn't that how they usually do it?”

“Yeah, but it's different here. The one at the library had
a wire on the back and there was a hook on the wall. Like what you'd do at home. Check it out.” She stepped up to an empty space on the wall between two paintings. “These have special brackets or something. You can see them when you look from the side.”

He leaned in, a dull metal edge just visible at the top and bottom corners.

“Do you lift it off straight or slide it like this
then
lift it off,” she said, moving her hands as she said it to show him what she meant. “Or do you have to use some kind of freaky tool to unlock it? I don't know.”

“
You
don't know something? That's a first.”

“It happens to the best of us. But don't worry, I have a Plan B.” She tugged his coat sleeve then led him past the giant blob paintings, through the gallery of dark portraits with carved frames, around the medieval furniture you couldn't sit on, past the Impressionist gallery, past the old book in the glass case, under the swinging metal mobile, to a small hallway where a row of black-and-white photographs were hung an inch off the wall, suspended from the ceiling by thin wires. They were all the same size, about as big as a cafeteria tray, with the same white mat and narrow black frame, and they
all showed close-ups of the same woman looking up at tall buildings.

“I saw these the last time I was here. This one's my favorite. There's something familiar about it.”

Of course there was. The hat, the short haircut, the weird eyes, the way the corners of the woman's mouth turned up with her smile. No wonder Grace liked it.

“And look, at the end of the hall. A fire exit.”

Sawyer nodded, then stepped closer to the photograph, his eyes focused on the wire that ran down behind the frame. “Shouldn't be hard to get through. Regular pair of wire cutters ought to work.”

“Already on the shopping list.”

“I'd get some wire, too. For practice.”

She penciled it in the margin.

“This still a one-person job?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” she said, writing.

“Then what I would do is hold the picture against the wall with my head; that way I'd have both hands free to squeeze the wire cutter, just in case it's some titanium wire or something.”

Grace smiled. “Nice. I didn't think of that.”

“Do you know where this door goes?”

“It says ‘fire exit,' so I'm thinking it goes straight outside.” She checked the map. “I can't tell looking at this. We'll take the long way around to the parking lot. That way we can be sure.”

They walked back to the main gallery and looked around some more, Sawyer re-counting the steps between doorways and corners, Grace writing it all down. When they had what they needed, they sat on a bench in front of a painting of a sailboat setting out in rough seas.

“I put a little X where there's a camera. See? One in every gallery, one in the hall, one near the door. Way high up.”

“You saw the guards, right?”

She laughed. “Rent-a-cops. Can you believe it? The museum doesn't even have its own security. And did you see the size of them? They couldn't run ten feet without taking a break. No guns, either, just radios.”

He looked at the map. “They must have an office somewhere. Probably over here where it says ‘Administration.'”

“Good. That's all the way on the other side of the building.”

“If that's where it is, yeah. But it could be anywhere. Would you wait for a shift change or something?”

“Don't be silly. If it's a shift change there'd be twice as many guards here. No, it's got to be at three a.m. exactly.”

“Because…?”

“Because that's when late-night workers tend to nod off. Seriously. Lots more accidents at three in the morning than at any other time.”

“
Exactly
at three?”

“No, but a good plan has an exact start time, and mine's three a.m.”

They sat quietly for a while, Grace checking her map, Sawyer watching the other visitors—all six of them—as they glanced at the artwork, listening to the humming audio tour on their phones. A uniformed guard waddled by, panting as she passed.

For ten minutes they sat like this, then Sawyer said, “Your way won't work.”

Grace turned. “Excuse me?”

“What you're thinking. It won't work.”

“Oh, really? And how do you know what I'm thinking?”

“The way you're holding the map, with the main entrance at the top. You're thinking of coming in there, past the front desk, around that gallery to the hallway,
and then out the fire door.”

“It's the fastest route. Count up the steps.”

“Maybe. But you're putting yourself that much closer to the security office.”

“
If
it's over there. You said so yourself.”

“There's a lot of turns. And it'll be dark. You couldn't go as fast. Here, give me that.” He took the map and turned it upside down. “There's another entrance over here. It's where they bring in school groups. It's halfway around the back. You can't see it from the road.”

“But there's two sets of doors to get through there.”

“Yeah, crash-bar doors, just like the ones at the library. Those are your specialty, right?”

“I have
many
specialties, but yes, opening crash-bar doors with a coat hanger is one of them. However, Mr. Suddenly-Likes-to-Plan-Things, look how far that entrance is from the photographs.”

“It's not that much farther and you only have two turns.”

“Running
toward
the security guards.”

“Your way, they're coming up behind you. Like you're running away from them. This way, you see them coming, you can get away easier.” Sawyer looked down the hall, estimating distances. “You could sprint from the school
entrance to the hall in like ten seconds. It'll take five seconds each to cut the wires. Then you hit the exit. You're in and out in thirty seconds.”

“You have to add in the time it takes to get the doors open. And that's two sets.”

“So you're thinking about ninety seconds?”

“No way,” she said. “It has to be less than that. Fifty seconds. Tops.”

“You could do it. But only if you go my way.”

Grace looked at the map, tracing his route with her little finger. “You know something, you're right. And if I get to this point here before they get to the main entrance, they might not even see me go down the hallway where the photographs are.”

“And if the guard office is where I think it is, they'd have to cover twice the distance you have to cover. That may make it easier for you to outrun them if you have to.” He reached down and brushed his fingers against the polished tile. “This type of floor can be really slippery.”

“No problem. I've got a pair of black Adidas trainers from dance class.”

He gave her a sideways glance.

“Yeah, dance class. I'm full of surprises.”

He shook his head and tapped a finger on the map. “I'm just thinking that if it was suddenly slipperier where the guards had to run, it'd give you a lot more time.”

She smiled, the ends of her mouth curling up. “Careful, there's a word for people like you.”

“Planners?”

“Accessories.”