“Good,” I say. “I’ll be at your place in an hour; you'd better have more of that Pauillac.”
“Bring plans and dinner,” she says. “I believe that will take a night.”
I hang up and break into laughter. I have known Hedda for years now; she was the one who taught me how to crack a safe when I was seven. Back then, I admired her. My father’s best friend, whose name was known all over the world, and I knew her personally.
My father.
A stitch rushes through my chest.
He was a thief himself, the one who taught me to get whatever I desire.
Sadly, he died in his attempt to steal the Effigy of Eden. Shot in the chest thirty times. That’s what you get when you try to steal from Mafiosos.
He left me everything and nothing. I was fourteen. And I made my way through the underground world. Survived it. Thrived in it.
So I went from being a lost child, with no boundaries and the belief that I could own the world, to the known ghost I am now, with only a name.
Hedda and I have a difficult…relationship. We had a little fallout over a diamond collar I took straight under her nose while I fingered her, and since then, things have been tense. Or rather…playfully vindictive.
I grab a coat because the nights in October can get quite cold already, get the public construction plans for the building with the evidence-holding facility, and take my car keys. I have no interest in riding the subway more than I have to.
I throw the plans onto the passenger seat of my black 1972 911 2.4 Porsche, grab some sushi from the place around the corner, get back, remove my heels, and then start my beautiful lioness. I am a collector of rare things, and so is she.
I drive all the way to Brooklyn, and because the sushi smells so good, I fiddle with the box on the passenger seat, open it, and grab a roll with plain fingers.
As I pass over the Manhattan Bridge, I roll down the window and hold my hand into the cold night’s air. My six-cylinder girl purrs into my ears, and I let her roar several times.
I love this car.
I love Manhattan.
I love what I do.
And I love?—
My eyes flash to the passenger seat.
A hollow sensation pulls at my chest, but I twitch my head and remove the sensation.
I pull up at Hedda’s, get out of the car, and walk up the stairs leading to her front door.
I don’t have to knock because the door is open for me before I reach the last step.
I slip inside and nod towards the red-haired woman in her tight dress who holds the door open for me. Her dress is so colorful it hurts my eyes. I like black. Gloss black, matte black, obsidian black, and more black.
Hedda is the complete opposite: eccentric and colorful. And so is her house. Stuffed with all of her collections.
I walk in without waiting for an invitation. I have already been in here anyway. I throw the plans onto the dinner table and place the sushi next to it.
“Come in,” says Hedda playfully.
“No need for formalities,” I say. “Let’s not pretend I haven’t been in here and you not in mine. I have it on camera.”
“Oh yes, where was it?”
“Not doing your job for you,” I say, using her own words against her.
Hedda chuckles and lifts the lid of the sushi box. She seems to agree, as she gets two wine glasses and the bottle I told her to have.