Collar Robber by Hillary Bell Locke Page A

the whole painting swap finesse is dead now that it has a corpse’s fingerprints on it. Company policy is to look for an exit when the body-count hits one.”
    â€œSort of like your President Obama and Afghanistan.”
    â€œI’d say we did our bit in Afghanistan.” I flared a little at his crack and didn’t bother to hide it.
    â€œSorry, shouldn’t have said that.” He turned his profile to me, then swung back around, slapped his palms on the table, and looked me in the eye. “Who do you think killed him?”
    â€œDon’t know. Not you and not me. I smelled cigarette smoke in the room, so we can probably rule Proxy out. Not Osama bin Laden because my President Obama greased him a few years ago. After that I’d say it’s wide open.”
    â€œA falling-out among thieves, possibly.” Nesselrode muttered this as if he were just thinking out loud. “Or maybe he hacked the wrong target and it caught up with him.”
    Yeah. Or maybe he annoyed a stateside hustler with his eyes on a nice payday and learned about the New Jersey version of alternative dispute resolution.
    â€œLet’s go.” Nesselrode stood up abruptly. “I’ll drive you back to the hotel. Pay the bill.”
    By the time I’d crammed myself into the cream-colored VW he’d parked a block away from the café, Nesselrode had already taken a hit from a brandy flask stashed there. The way he drove on our way to the hotel would make the average New York cab-driver look like a pussy with a PhD in Driver Education.
    â€œHitler won.” He said this to the windshield, one mile and two more brandy hits into our trip. “He didn’t kill all the Jews. But he destroyed European Jewry. The most dynamic engine of culture and civilization that ever existed. The Renaissance and the Enlightenment were Rotary Club cocktail parties compared to the Jews in Mittel Europa . And that bastard wiped them out. Either killed them, or drove them to America or to Israel—neither of which, and I mean no offense, many people would mention in the same breath as culture.”
    â€œNo offense taken. Except for HBO I only have basic cable, so my idea of culture is Duck Dynasty .”
    â€œYou know what?” Red-faced, Nesselrode turned his head and half his body to glare at me as he repeated the slightly slurred words. “You know what? Fuck you.”
    â€œIf that’s an apology, it’s accepted. If it’s a proposition, the answer is no.”
    He started laughing. A little manic, a lot scary. He tossed the bottle to me. I caught it barely in time to keep brandy from slopping all over my lap. I let things sit right there until he started to pull to a jolting, tire-squealing stop in front of the hotel.
    â€œI just remembered something,” I said as I clambered out of the car. “A briefing I got said you’d never lived in Israel. I may suggest that they double-check that.”
    He leaned way over and strained his neck to look up at me with saucer-wide, red-rimmed eyes. His diction suddenly got crisp and clear.
    â€œDany Nesselrode has never lived in Israel.”

Chapter Twenty-one
    Cynthia Jakubek
    We got the deal done at two in the afternoon my time, which meant that Shifcos was clocking some major overtime. We’d fenced a bit, mostly for pride’s sake I think. Just before noon she’d written, “I need you to come off $170k,” so I knew we had it made. All we were arguing about now was bragging rights.
    I phoned Willy’s number and left a message wishing him safe travels. For the next twenty-two minutes I piddled around with my brief on the hopeless appeal for my Free-Man-Born-of-the-Soil Sovereign Citizen client. While doing that I fantasized about beads of sweat popping out on Shifcos’ well-sculpted WASP brow. Then I replied to her email:
    I’ve phoned my client. I can go to $168,500 for a deal today. I can’t talk to