White Collar: An unofficial novel - part 11

Fedora contest

Neal called Moz.

"Where are you?" his friend asked.

A justifiable question. He would have been in at the warehouse by now if it had not been for Jones following him.

"I've got a tail."

"What?!"

How many times had Peter put a tail on him when he was off anklet before, and he had not noticed? Well, Peter had picked Jones for a reason: Neal would notice him. Why? Because he did not want to frame him but make sure he stayed out of trouble, like an overprotective dad. Although it was comforting, it was mostly annoying.

"Have you started?"

"Of course, I started, but without you here, I'm not sure which colors to sample, so this whole thing might be an exercise in futility." What Mozzie was doing was really a little bit of blasphemy. You did not do damage to the master's art. But it would not be any visible damage. No one would know. In brushstrokes, there was often thicker paint at some parts, bumps, really. They could be lowered without lowering the quality of the art.

"Just pull the primaries. I can mix the rest." His painting had not contained green. A good green was impossible to mix with the primaries. It was funny really, the idea that you could replace the color of verdigris or malachite with a mix of blue and yellow, like alchemists trying to make gold. It was a myth based on the idea that everything consisted of trinities.

"I'm not an idiot!" Moz said. "I scraped a titanium white from the Rembrandt, a midnight blue from a Vlaminck."

"Oh, you should get a Monestial blue."

"You know, I should get a Monestial blue. If you find one thick enough, feel free to let me know. Oh, that's right, you're not here!"

"Breathe, Moz," Neal said. "How are we doing on the canvas? Did you check the Dalí?"

"Evidently, our friend Salvador liked to stretch time but not canvases. I'll find something."

"I know you will."

Neal grinned and ended the call. It would be fun to fool Peter. He had missed that. He missed their friendship more, but this would have to do.

He had walked into an open space along the docks before he started his call to make sure Jones could not hear the call. He cast an eye over his shoulder and saw no Jones. With a quick move, he dumped the phone so that the place of the warehouse could not be traced. Mozzie knew where to find him.

Neal continued the walk and made plans for tomorrow. He checked the weather for tomorrow on his FBI phone. Something he did every day, to not make it suspicious when he actually needed the information. Some habits needed planning indeed. It would be a risk of rain. He grinned. That would be perfect. Poor Jones. Would he see the fun in it or give him a hard time at the office later?

Back in his apartment, he started to paint a new painting of the Chrysler building, the one Peter had seen and was now nothing but a burnt scrap that could seal his future in prison.

"Practicing?" Moz asked as he flung the door open.

"Yeah, I figured I should have a copy of the Chrysler lying around in case Peter came looking for it." Mozzie chuckled at this. "You get everything?"

"Some canvas and a spectrum of prewar paint that would pass any wood's light or I.R. spectroscopy they want to throw at it," he replied, unpacking. "The red is from a portrait of Fernande Olivier."

Neal looked at the samples Mozzie very thoughtfully placed in sterile containers.

"The last person to mix this paint was Picasso." It was... just... wow. Moz chuckled again. "We're taking from masters."