“Half-armor,” she murmured. It was always good policy to impress the client, even if you weren’t particularly interested in the job. Word of mouth was important. “In the style of the northern Italian armorers of the sixteenth century. Looks like part of a garniture meant for jousting at the barriers. Suits of armor from this era often consisted of dozens of supplementary and interchangeable pieces that allowed the set to be modified for specific uses. Sort of like a modern all-in-one tool kit.”
“It’s the helmet that we’re interested in here,” Mack said.
She peered at it. The bad lighting made it difficult to see much detail. “What about it?”
“It’s the only piece that was stolen.”
She looked up. “Is there a better photo around?”
One of the two men who hovered near the far end of the desk, the individual who went by the name Dewey, edged closer with a crablike movement.
“Lucky to have that one,” he said, sounding apologetic.
She could only guess at Dewey’s age. His face was a worn and weathered map that could have belonged to a man of fifty or seventy. He was dressed in military surplus complete with camouflage fatigues, battered boots and a wide leather belt. His graying hair was caught in a scruffy ponytail secured with a rubber band. She would not have been surprised to learn that he commuted to and from work on a very large motorcycle.
It was hard to imagine that he was representative of Lost and Found’s typical clientele. How in the world had he and his partner managed to find the very-hard-to-find Mack Easton? More to the point, why had Mack agreed to help them? Surely he was too expensive for this pair. If he wasn’t, she certainly was.
“I was going for a shot of the fifteenth-century display,” Dewey explained. “We had just finished setting it up, you see. This was maybe two years back, right, Notch?”
The other man nodded vigorously. “Right.”
Notch wore a fringed leather vest over a faded denim shirt. At some point in the shirt’s obviously colorful history, the sleeves had been ripped off high on the shoulders, no doubt to better show off the tattoos that decorated both beefy arms. A heavy steel key chain dangled from his belt. It looked as if it could double as a handy weapon in a bar fight. A red bandanna wrapped around his head secured Notch’s thinning locks.
There was an indefinable air of connection between the two men that told Cady that Notch and Dewey were more than business associates. They were partners for life.
Dewey returned his attention to Cady. “I wanted to get a picture for our album. Lucked out and accidentally got a bit of the other exhibit in the shot.”
“Never would have guessed that the helmet on the sixteenth-century suit was the real thing.” Notch spread his hands. “Like, who knew, man?”
Cady cleared her throat. “How did it come into the, uh, museum’s collection?”
“I found it right after we bought Military World from old man Belford. He had it stashed away in the back room. I polished it up and added it to the rest of the outfit. Seemed to match, y’know?”
“I see.” She tapped one finger against the photo while she considered her options. As much as she wanted to take on another assignment for Lost and Found, she had a reputation to maintain. One had to draw the line somewhere. She did not trace reproductions.
Surreptitiously she glanced at her watch. She might be able to catch the one o’clock flight if she left Military World within the next forty-five minutes. She could be home in time for dinner.
She turned back to Easton. Something in the way he was watching her told her that he had noticed her checking the time. She summoned up what she hoped was an expression of professional interest. “What did the insurance people say when you notified them about the theft?”
Notch and Dewey exchanged uneasy looks.
Mack did not move. “There’s a slight problem with the insurance situation.”
She sighed. “In other words, the helmet was uninsured?”
Notch made an awkward sound deep in his throat. “Things have been a little rough lately, financially speaking. Dewey and me had to economize and make some cutbacks, y’know? Sort of let some of the insurance go.”
“Not that the insurance company would have covered the helmet for anything like its true value, anyway,” Dewey said quickly. “If we’d had coverage, it would have been for a reproduction, not the real thing on account of we didn’t know it was genuine, if you see what I mean.”
“I don’t want to be rude,” Cady said gently, “but what makes you think the helmet is a genuine sixteenth-century piece?”
Dewey and Notch stared at her, openmouthed.
“You’re supposed to be an expert,” Dewey said. “Can’t you tell from looking at it?”
She made a bid for patience. “This is only a photograph. There is no way I or anyone else can use it to determine whether or not the helmet is genuine.”
Notch looked stricken. “But Mack here said that you knew your stuff.”
“Old armor is very popular right now,” she explained. “A lot of the well-heeled early retirees in the software industry are collecting it like mad. Guess it reminds them of all those sword-and-sorcery video and computer games they love to play. Prices are going through the roof. Unfortunately, antique armor is fairly easy to fake. Bury a piece of steel in the ground with some acidic substance for a while and, presto, you get aged armor.”
Notch bristled. “Are you sayin’ our helmet is a forgery?”
“I’m saying that is an extremely likely possibility.” Cady spread her hands. “Even the experts get burned a lot when it comes to armor. And the business of creating counterfeits isn’t exactly new. A lot of the best reproductions of antique armor were made in the nineteenth century. By now, the steel has taken on the patina of genuine age and can easily pass for the real thing.”
“I still say our helmet is the real thing,” Notch declared.
Cady slanted a quick, searching glance at Mack. He moved his head in the smallest of negatives. He was staying out of the argument, letting her handle the clients.
Summoning up her best professional expression, she turned back to Notch and Dewey. “Why are you convinced that the helmet is genuine when every other piece in your collection is a reproduction?”
“Simple.” Dewey rocked triumphantly on his heels and looked shrewd. “Someone stole it.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Someone ripped it off,” he elaborated. “Why would anyone take the risk of stealing the damn thing if it weren’t real?”
She drummed her fingers on the photo. “People frequently steal stuff that has very little value. Good grief, a shoplifter is only too happy to grab a tube of toothpaste. Whoever took the helmet might have wanted it for his desk. Or perhaps a teenager swiped it to show to his buddies.”
“Why take only the helmet?” Dewey retorted. “Why not take the whole damn suit?”
“Might have been a little awkward getting it out the front door,” Cady said dryly.
“Not that hard to do,” Notch said. “People think that a full suit of armor is real heavy because it looks like it weighs a ton and because they’ve seen pictures of knights having to be hoisted up onto their horses. But that ain’t the way it was.”
“He’s right,” Dewey added. “Heck, a modern soldier, fully equipped, carries about the same amount of weight as a fifteenth-century knight.”
“I understand,” she said. “I didn’t mean that your thief couldn’t have managed to lift the whole suit; I meant that someone probably would have noticed him walking out the door with it.”
Dewey snorted. “The guy didn’t walk out the front door with it during regular hours. He broke in at night. Could have helped himself to a dozen pieces of armor. Taken his time about it and cleaned us out. But all he ripped off was that helmet.”
Mack finally moved. He sat forward; not far, but enough to get everyone’s attention. He met Cady’s eyes across the expanse of the desk.
&nbs
p; “This wasn’t a casual smash-and-grab,” he said. “It was a professional job. Very smooth. Almost invisible.”
“Invisible? How?”
“Hell,” Notch said gruffly. “We couldn’t even convince the cops that there had been a burglary. The bastard didn’t leave any tracks, that’s for sure. Pardon my language, ma’am.”
In spite of her growing reservations about getting involved in the affair, Cady felt the first faint stirrings of professional interest. “What do you mean?”
Mack propped his elbows on the arms of his chair and steepled his fingers. “Dewey and Notch do have some security here at Military World.” His voice was dry. “Maybe not state-of-the-art, casino-style security like they’ve got out on the Strip, but, trust me, it amounts to more than a couple of locks on the doors. Notch is right. Whoever broke in last week knew what he was doing. He was good enough to disarm the sensors while he was inside and reset them again when he left. And all he took was that one piece.”
The lines around Dewey’s eyes deepened into ruts. “If I hadn’t noticed the helmet missing the other day, we still wouldn’t know we’d been robbed.”
“You might be better off letting the police handle this,” she said, striving for a practical, diplomatic approach.
“Not if the helmet is genuine.” Mack met her eyes over the tips of his fingers. “We both know that if it’s the real thing, it will disappear into a private collection or turn up in some museum complete with papers and provenance. We’ll never be able to prove that it’s the property of Military World.”
“In my professional opinion,” Cady said, “I don’t think the chances are great that the helmet is genuine.”
“But what if it is?” Dewey broke in eagerly. “What would it be worth?”
“Well, that’s hard to say,” she temporized.
“You must have some idea,” Notch insisted. “You’re an expert. That’s why Mack called you in to consult.”
She looked at Easton and was almost sure she caught a flicker of laconic amusement in his eyes. She sat back in her chair and put her fingertips together in imitation of his own enigmatic pose.
“If the helmet is actually the work of one of the great sixteenth-century Italian armorers,” she said judiciously, “it could be worth a considerable amount of money. As I said, armor is highly collectible at the moment.”
“How much is ‘a considerable amount’?” Notch breathed. Excitement glinted in his eyes. “Couple thousand, maybe?”
Dewey sidled closer to hear her reply.
She hesitated, studying their eager faces. It was probably not a good idea to feed their fantasies of sudden wealth. On the other hand, she was here in the capacity of expert consultant. She was going to get paid for wasting her time today. The client deserved something for his money.
“It’s not unusual for good, uncommon pieces such as that helmet, assuming it’s genuine, to go for several hundred thousand dollars at auction.”
“Several hundred thousand?” Dewey repeated. “Holy shit. Excuse me, ma’am.”
Notch stared at her. He looked dazzled. “We could pay off the mortgage on Military World. Own it free and clear. Expand the place. Go big time.”
“I stress that such a price would be for a genuine piece of antique armor that was in excellent condition with a good provenance,” she said quickly. “Speaking of which, have you got any?”
Notch blinked, bewildered. “Any what?”
Easton answered for her. “Provenance. A paper trail that spells out the helmet’s history of ownership and identifies the experts who have authenticated it in the past. It’s used as evidence to help prove that a work of art or an antique is genuine.”
“Huh.” Dewey switched his attention back to Cady. “You mean like a receipt or something?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean,” she said. “Documentation is crucial. Do you know who owned the piece before it came to Military World, for instance? Was it ever exhibited in a museum? Was it part of a private collection?”
Notch exchanged an uncertain glance with Dewey. “I s’pose I could look through some of old man Belford’s records, but I wouldn’t count on finding much. He wasn’t big on bookkeeping. You remember him sayin’ anything about how he got ahold of that helmet, Dew?”
“No,” Dewey said sadly. “The old man was one or two bricks shy of a load toward the end.”
Easton touched the photo. “That picture counts as provenance. It’s concrete proof that the helmet belongs to Military World.”
“It could be helpful,” Cady agreed. “But first we’ve got to find the helmet and determine whether or not it’s genuine.”
“That’s where you come in,” Easton said softly. “You’ve got the contacts. If a quality piece like this was stolen for the underground market, there will be rumors.”
“Tracking down rumors requires a great deal of time,” she reminded him. “And I’m not exactly cheap, Mr. Easton.”
For the first time he smiled. “I’m aware of that, Miss Briggs.”
The smile produced a fizzy feeling in her stomach. Was he flirting with her?
Nah. What were the odds?
She cleared her throat. “I might not turn up any useful leads.”
“I’ll take the risk. We’ll work this the same way we did the last three jobs. I’ll use my computer program to keep track of whatever is going on in the on-line markets and auction sites. You will check your sources in the other markets. Agreed?”
“Well—”
Dewey shifted, reaching into his back pocket. “If it’s cash up front you want, I’ve got some.” He hauled out a worn wallet, opened it and seized two twenties with a twitching movement. “Here you go. How much of your time will that buy?”
She gazed helplessly at the two twenties. She had no idea how to tell him that forty dollars wouldn’t purchase even half an hour of her time.
“Well—” she said again.
“Hold on, I’ve got a little too,” Notch said eagerly. He started unbuttoning his shirt, revealing a money belt strapped around his hairy stomach. “Couple hundred bucks in here that I’ve been savin’ up to pay for the repairs on my truck. But they can wait. How much do you need, Miss Briggs? A hundred maybe? All of it?”
Mack Easton was to blame for this, she thought. He had sold a dream to two men who probably hadn’t seen anything resembling the real thing in years. She looked into Notch’s and Dewey’s eyes and knew that neither of them had ever had a major break in their lives. The possibility that the helmet was genuine sixteenth-century armor had brought forth a crop of hope and excitement in ground that had long lain barren.
She knew when she was trapped.
“I can make some phone calls,” she said reluctantly. “And check some sources. I’ll see if anyone has heard of any exceptional pieces moving in the private collector market in the past week.”
Dewey and Notch glowed.
She was doomed. Well, it wasn’t as if she had a whole lot of other things going on in her own life right now, she thought. She could spare a few days to research the lost helm. She would have to be extremely cautious in making her inquiries. If any of her colleagues discovered that she was working for an outfit called Military World, it would be years before people stopped laughing.
“I’ll tell you what, I’ll give it a week,” she said, surrendering to the inevitable. “If I don’t turn up any leads by next Thursday, we’ll call it quits, okay?”
“All right,” Dewey crowed. “Thanks, Miss Briggs. I knew the minute I saw you that you were a real lady.” He tried to shove the two twenties into her fingers.
She did not know how to explain to him that where she came from, nice women did not accept twenties from strange men.
“You won’t be sorry,” Notch said, happily thrusting some mangled bills toward her. “Mack here says he’s got a feeling about that helmet and he’s almost never wrong. Me and Dewey are gonna get rich. I know it in my bones.”
“We’ll see.
” Gently she pushed the cash back at them. “Keep your money.” She glared into the shadows where Mack sat. “Mr. Easton and I will work out the details of my fee.”
“You sure?” Dewey asked. “Because Notch and I don’t mind stakin’ you.”
“I’m sure.”
Mack smiled slightly. There was cool satisfaction in his eyes. “Notch, you and Dewey had better get back out there on the floor. You’ve got customers. Miss Briggs and I will settle the details of her consulting fees.”
“Right you are, Mack.” Notch grinned at Cady. “Nice meetin’ you, ma’am. Be lookin’ forward to hearin’ from you real soon.”
Dewey bobbed his head. “Have a good trip back to Santa Barbara, Miss Briggs.”
“Thank you,” Cady murmured.
She waited until the two men had disappeared through the door of the office. Then she turned back to Mack. “You do realize that when this is finished, it will be your job to inform Notch and Dewey that they aren’t going to get rich off that helmet? I’m certainly not going to be the one to deliver the bad news that it’s a genuine fake.”
“You take care of your end of this deal, Miss Briggs. I’ll handle my clients.”
“One more thing.”
“What?” he asked.
“I want your personal guarantee that you will not tell anyone else in the business about this job.”
He was clearly amused now. “Worried about what your colleagues will say if they find out you’re chasing reproductions?”
“To be absolutely blunt about it, yes.”
He lowered his voice to a tone that vibrated with mocking sincerity. “Don’t worry, Miss Briggs. Your reputation is safe with me.”
Either he had deliberately infused the words with all sorts of sexual implications, or her fantasies were getting out of control. It was time to change the subject.
“Mind if I ask you a question?” she asked.
“What is it?”
“Why did you take this job? You can’t tell me that Military World is a typical Lost and Found client.”