Mystery on Museum Mile Page 10

  I know I’m right about this. Lars is going to rob the Guggenheim, a museum full of treasure and priceless art and a lot of Picassos. He’ll be there, I can feel it in the very depths of my skinny bones.

  Now I just have to prove it.

  Chapter 24

  Touchy Subjects

  April 19

  April vacation was a total bust. For half the time my parents dragged me to my grandma’s house in New Jersey, and the other half I spent watching Jonah stew in his room, eating peanut butter out of the jar and redrawing the angle problem every two seconds. Not my best week. I even went to the Guggenheim on Friday, but without police support I couldn’t pretend to be an art student (special permission only) and I had to pay admission, which set me back twenty bucks. Plus I felt weirdly exposed without Bovano there to growl at me over the IPODICU.

  Only four weeks remain until the case is dropped. Four weeks!

  Right when I start to panic about my paycheck disappearing and Senate slipping through my fingers, I am called for my next assignment. The Guggenheim.

  I want to phone Jonah and yell “Aha! Told you so!” at the top of my lungs, but that wouldn’t be very classy, plus I’m in Bovano’s car and he’s watching me like a hawk in the rearview mirror.

  The Guggenheim is an über-huge museum on Fifth Avenue, a monstrosity shaped like a cement cylinder that somehow still manages to seem beautiful despite its mass of concrete. As a modern and highly important museum, it’s equipped, I’m sure, with a billion security lasers and ninjas with machine guns. To rob it takes a lot of guts and technical know-how. Pulling it off would be the heist of the century.

  I step into the lobby, the glow from the skylight above warming my shoulders. The inside of the museum circles around and around in an upward spiral, with an enormous open space in the center that leads to a glass ceiling filled with geometrical panels. They form a dazzling pattern that would make Lars Heinrich drool.

  Clutching my canvas and easel under my armpit, I stride toward the modernist section where the Picassos hang. The guard nods at me as I pass, knowing that I am Someone Important, someone not to be searched. My back is straight, my senses on high alert. This may be one of my last assignments, and I am determined to make it count.

  “Eddie Red, testing,” I whisper into my sleeve.

  “I copy you, Eddie. Don’t mess it up,” Bovano responds, his usual cheerful words of encouragement.

  I ignore him and get to work. Draw, look, listen, snap mental images, walk around, draw some more.

  I am in the middle of imitating a Kandinsky in reds and blues when I see him.

  Him.

  Lars Heinrich, in the flesh. The hair pricks up on the back of my neck as if a werewolf just walked in. Is it really him? I can only see a bit of him from the side. His chin is different. His hair is black, stuffed under a baseball cap. Normally I wouldn’t give him a second look, but his ear . . . his ear is the same.

  I need to do something. The clock is ticking, and he isn’t going to stay long. He’s talking to two men I don’t recognize, whispering in a group. He keeps shifting his black-gloved hands, covering the sides of his face and gesturing to the art on the wall.

  I hesitate. My Marco mistake at the Neue haunts me, making me doubt myself. I leave my canvas and walk over as casually as I can.

  Bovano must see that I see him, because he starts to yammer over the IPODICU, “What are you doing, Eddie? What do you see? Just go over to the painting and then turn back. Is it that guy in the cap? He’s not a perp, I don’t recognize him. No, not that way. Over to your left. Your other left, Eddie! Keep your distance. Get in and out. And no yelling Marco for the love of—” He bites back whatever colorful thing he was about to say.

  My heart is pounding like a jackhammer and I can’t concentrate. Every time I get close enough to glimpse Lars, he changes position and blocks my view.

  I pretend to study a painting on the wall. I move in right next to the group, my pulse exploding out my ears.

  “Edmund! Not so close! You’re practically on top of him! Back off now!”

  Did Bovano just call me Edmund? Really? Now, of all moments? I switch off the IPODICU. I know that he’s going to annihilate me, but I just can’t think with his voice gnawing at my brain.

  Lars’s head is bent down, his hat brim pulled low. All I have is that stupid ear. I need this picture.

  I tug on his sleeve, playing the overly helpful kid. “Excuse me, sir, did you drop this?” I hold out a chewed Bic pen from my pocket.

  He turns toward me and then quickly looks away. “No,” he snaps. I see his face for a millisecond.

  Click.

  Gotcha.

  Sharper chin, higher cheekbones. His brow is tighter. Eyes more tapered and without wrinkles. He’s had a facelift for sure. Different nose, longer and pointy. Same blue eyes, same slightly unhinged look I’ve seen in his picture.

  It’s him. No doubt about it. It’s him! I slink back to my canvas while fumbling with my IPODICU. Bovano’s bellowing voice invades my ear as I switch on. “—you there? Do you read me?” A string of swears. “Eddie, do you copy? Was it someone important? Talk to me!”

  Staring down at my canvas, I pretend to scratch my nose. “The blond guy from the mug shot,” I whisper into my sleeve mike. I can’t use the name “Lars Heinrich.” Bovano will know I’ve been snooping.

  “Stay right where you are,” Bovano commands in an eerily quiet voice.

  I nod and glance up at the dark-haired, plastically altered Lars.

  He’s gone.

  “You touched him? You touched him. You actually touched a suspect. Unbelievable. We have you on tape. Touched him. After all I said, all of my warnings. And you switched off your receiver! How dare you disobey my orders! You don’t . . . I can’t . . .”

  Bovano storms around his office, sputtering out sentence fragments, buzzing like an angry hornet.

  I don’t know what he’s so cheesed off about. I got a picture of the guy, no harm done. Just a dumb kid asking about a dropped pen. Nothing suspicious about that. And as a reward for my clever spy maneuver, I now get to enjoy the Frank Bovano motto, Screaming Is Caring.

  “Will you ever listen to my rules?” he snarls. “They exist for YOUR safety, Eddie. You. I can’t believe . . . You actually . . . You’re going to give me a heart attack before this is over!”

  I can’t quite believe I touched Lars either. It was like shaking hands with a famous person. I’m still hopped up on adrenaline from the experience. I feel bad that he got away, but at least now we know what he looks like. I just drew a picture of him that sent the whole office into action. The new and improved Lars Heinrich, hair dyed, face lifted, maybe a fake nose glued on.

  Bovano rumbles at me for a solid twenty minutes. “We’re going to have a serious talk with the chief. You will not work here if you can’t take orders. First the Neue, then the Taser, now this! What’s next? Guns? Kidnapping? You almost blew the whole thing!”

  I’m thinking now is not the best time to tell him that I seem to have lost my IPODICU.

  Chapter 25

  Game

  April 23

  Four days later, my Lars victory has faded. Something just doesn’t add up. Why would he have come out in the open like that? His disguise was good but he was completely exposed. What if, like Jonah thought, Lars wants to mislead us? If that’s his plan, he’s succeeded. The police are distracted, focusing all efforts on the Guggenheim. What if Lars is planning to rob something else? Somewhere else? What if the places where I saw Alisha—the ice cream street and the photography exhibit at the Winston Café—mean something?

  Alisha acted as if it was all a coincidence. But what if the sites are clues to a hidden pattern, and she’s covering for Lars? If that’s true, how do I prove her involvement? I can’t exactly yell, “Liar! Liar! Pants on fire!” and expect that to do the trick.

  “I just don’t get it,” Jonah says as he jumps up and down on my bed. “What am I not seeing?
The angle thing . . . too easy. A trap. How can this be possible? I always crack the codes. It’s the meds. I’ve lost my edge. Not good, not good.” He’s in full-on rant mode.

  Of course it doesn’t make sense, I think, witnessing Jonah go from “active boy” to “lunatic monkey” before my eyes.

  He’s pinned the map up on the slanted part of my ceiling and is examining it while bouncing like a wild kangaroo. He leaps up and studies the map midair, contemplates the information as he lands on the bed, then springs back up to scrutinize it some more. This is Jonah “focusing.” I’m just glad my new IPODICU is hidden, or he’d break it for sure, and Bovano would have a coronary. I barely survived our conversation about me losing the first one. Bovano turned a color that makes dark red look pale.

  Up and down. Up and down.

  My mom will be home in ten minutes, and then we’ll both be in trouble if he doesn’t cool it. Joyce Lonnrot is not a fan of bed jumping or lunatic monkeys.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I ask, not bothering to hide the annoyance in my voice. I already know the answer. I’ve suspected something was up the moment I opened the door to let him in.

  “Off my meds. Clouding my thinking.” Bounce-bounce-bounce.

  “Does your mom know? That’s really dangerous, Jonah. And stupid.”

  “Course not. Now, quiet. I need to focus . . . That museum there, plus that café there . . . Why? Why? Why? NO! There . . . and there . . .”

  I haven’t seen this Jonah for a while, the Jonah who can’t stop speaking, the one who says anything and everything that comes into his brain.

  My earliest memories are of Jonah talking incessantly. We were two, and at first my parents thought that my speech was delayed, but then they realized it was just because Jonah did all the talking for both of us. A few years after, the doctors diagnosed him with ADHD (the OCD came later on) and decided to put him on special medication, which at first doped him out but then steadied him, made him a little less hyper and impulsive. And quieter.

  Unforeseen Problem #3: Best friend and trusted codetective goes off his meds.

  This may lead to possible Mom interference, in which case the investigation will severely grind to a halt. I can’t do it without Jonah. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not a huge proponent for medicating today’s youth. All I’m saying is, sometimes it helps.

  “Napoleon!” he screeches, grabbing the map midspring and ripping it down to the bed.

  “Jonah, that map belongs to my—”

  “Napoleon, Edmund! Chess! Napoleon made his troops learn chess. Strategy . . . military tactics . . .” His fingers fly around on the map, tracing invisible lines and jabbering to himself once again:

  “Pawn move here . . . another here. Eight squares across . . . Oh my God, Edmund! I’ve done it!” He grabs my shirt and I stumble forward as we both crash to the floor. My glasses fly off and go skidding across the room.

  “Jonah! Ow!” I protest, shoving him off me. I start to grope around blindly on the rug. If he breaks my glasses, my parents will flip.

  “No, that one doesn’t fit. Not unless . . . I gotta go,” he announces suddenly. “I’m taking this with me. I’ll call you tonight.”

  He crams the map into his bag, murmuring about the Internet and chess moves and a peanut butter sandwich. And then he’s gone.

  I finally find my glasses and look around.

  A mangled bedspread. A pile of papers strewn across the floor. And silence.

  What just happened?

  He calls two hours later, an urgent hiss through the phone.

  “Come over now, Edmund. My parents are on to me; they made me take my meds. I’m getting drowsier by the second. They’re plenty mad and I have to go to a doctor, and they might switch medications, which means I am down for the count. I need to show you this . . .” His voice trails off mysteriously and the line goes dead.

  With a vague excuse to my parents, I head out the door. My fingers brush the new IPODICU in my pocket. You’re not off the case yet, I remind myself as I sprint to his apartment.

  I find Jonah pacing in his room.

  “Good, you’re here,” he says, forcing me into his desk chair. “You’re not going to believe this!” He spreads the map out across the desk. It’s ripped, wrinkled, and stained, and smells suspiciously of peanut butter.

  “We’ve been studying Museum Mile at the wrong angle. With Central Park on top. That’s how everyone always holds the map, right? But look what happens when we turn it upside down, and the park is at the bottom. See?”

  He’s waiting for me to have a moment of brilliance. It’s not coming.

  “Uh . . . no.”

  “Lars Heinrich is playing chess,” he proclaims, putting his arms out in a Ta-da! move.

  “Huh? I thought he was all about geometric patterns.”

  Jonah makes a scoffing noise in his throat. “Geometry is so eighties, Edmund. Lars is messing with the police. Fooling them into thinking it’s like the job in Paris. But he’s got another game going on, another pattern hidden in the city map. Chess moves. Look!” He places little cut-out chess pieces on the city blocks.

  “There are two rows of eight blocks across. That’s just how you set up a side in chess. The cafés are the row of pawns. Viewed as having little value. No art in them. Museum Mile has the power. The Neue and the Jewish Museum are the rooks. They anchor the board. The Guggenheim is the king. The king must be protected at all times, which is what the cops are doing.”

  “So then what’s the game?” I say. “There aren’t enough sites for many moves. Just the ice cream and the Winston. Two moves?”

  “There’s only one game that fits: Fool’s Mate. It’s the quickest game to checkmate. Each side moves two times. The Winston and the ice cream match up to the White pawn moves. One on Lexington, one on Park Ave. It’s perfect!”

  I rub my left temple. “That’s two moves for white. What about black?”

  “This move, queen to h4, is the final move of the Fool’s Mate game. Black wins.” He drags the queen diagonally over to a residential neighborhood on Lexington.

  “What happens on that block?” I ask. “It’s just some apartments. No museum there.”

  “Lars is after another Picasso, right? He ruled Paris in the eighties with his Picasso Gang—he’ll do the same here in New York. The target doesn’t have to be a museum. Someone out there owns a Picasso. In their home.”

  I’m still confused. Chess has never been my game. Probably because Jonah destroys me every time we play. “So that block is . . . ?”

  His eyes wide, Jonah glances around, looking paranoid, like someone has bugged his room.

  “Checkmate.”

  Chapter 26

  Reconnaissance

  “Uh . . .” I say oh so intelligently. “Can you take me through it again?” Like I said, chess is not my game. And I need to be able to explain this to Bovano. If he’ll listen to me.

  Jonah sighs. “Edmund, look. Do you see the chessboard? The two rows of eight figures? Yes? Good. That’s the white side of the board. The police side. Kind of. But it’s also Lars. More on that in a second. So in the game of Fool’s Mate, white starts the game and moves a pawn. G2 to g4. That lands on the block of your ice cream caper. Lars sent Alisha there to meet with Marco and the bald guy. They were the white pawn that day, the police pawn. Which makes sense because Alisha technically works for the police. The knife fight your Dad saw must have happened after Alisha left. The guys were probably arguing about how lame Lars is with this whole chess game thing.”

  He pauses to take a deep breath. I don’t dare interrupt him when he’s on a roll. “Then black moves,” he says. “E7 to e5, up on Third Ave. That spot doesn’t matter. We must have missed a meeting. No big deal. Then white moves: f2 to f3. That’s the Winston. Once again Alisha was there as the white side. But Lars is pulling the strings and telling her where to go. Are you with me?”

  “Okay . . . I get that.”

  “So then in Fool’s Mate,
black, or Lars and Alisha in this case, moves once more, this time queen from d8 to h4. That puts the white king in checkmate. Game over. Black wins. Lars wins.”

  “But if the king is the Guggenheim, isn’t that still where the crime will take place? Where the attack will come?”

  “No. The game ends at checkmate—it ends with the Queen over on Lexington. No need to go on once there’s checkmate. And think about the symbolism: the police are fools because they’re guarding the king. But the queen will conquer. Alisha is the queen. She’s lying about her involvement. She has fooled the cops. Where she moves will be a Picasso. Lexington Avenue. Wealth. A private art collector. Game over.”

  It’s starting to make sense. Lars is nuts, but maybe not crazy enough to try and rob the Guggenheim. He’s using it as a decoy. “But how can there be a game when the police aren’t playing? They don’t know it’s chess. How can there be two sides?” A terrible thought slams into me. “Wait, does Lars know about me? Am I playing this game with him? Alisha knows about me, and if she told Lars, then—”

  Jonah shakes his head, clucking his tongue. “Lars is playing both sides. It’s his own personal game, set up just how he wants it. The police may symbolically be the white side, but Lars controls the whole board. He doesn’t know about you. All he cares about is the game.” He leans in closer, his gaze slightly wild. “He’s crazy,” he whisper-hisses.

  I want to point out that Jonah looks a little crazy himself at the moment, but that seems counterproductive. Instead I stare at the chess pieces, letting it all sink in.

  Jonah continues in a more normal voice, “It’s fascinating, actually, the hidden psychology of the whole thing. Black will win, but there’s a black boy working for the white team, so if we solve this and stop the crime, then white wins but with a black knight. Which is you. See the irony?”