The 16mm Caper

Chapter 42

Harry looked through the peephole in his door and his mouth dropped. How had Julia found him? He strained to see if she was alone and failing to satisfy himself, he slowly opened the door.

"Hello, Mr. Feldman . . . Harry." She hesitated only a second and moved into the room. Harry checked the hallway and then closed and locked the door.

"How did you find me?"

"Ways and means. I've come to see if you might reconsider the position you've taken."

"Why should I?"

"Well you were hired originally to do something for Austin. You failed miserably," her hand came up as he opened his mouth. "I know, it wasn't your fault. Still, you did get paid in any case, and it was a bit more than you signed on for because of the difficulty. Now, to turn around and bite the hand that fed you - well, that's not very professional, Harry."

"What ways and means?" He went to the window and scanned the street below.

"Are you prepared to reconsider, Harry?"

He juggled his situation in his head and decided that there was no reason to reconsider anything. What could she do? Tell the cops and they'd all get burned. He was getting too old to blow what might be a final crack at a windfall. He puffed out his chest and looked her in the eye.

"Julia, I think you should reconsider having come here. This just puts you closer to the center of things if I don't get what I want."

"So that's a no then?"

"Yes, Julia, it's a no." Harry smiled smugly.

"Very well, I'll tell Austin your decision." She went to the door and waited, staring at him. "Do you mind?"

Harry walked over and undid the lock, opening the door and standing aside. Julia nodded and stepped into the hall. At the same moment, Efrom stepped in, his big silenced gun pressing into Harry's midriff.

"What the hell!"

"Good choice, Harry." Efrom squeezed the trigger and the soft pock sound was all Harry heard as his heart exploded inside his chest. He fell backwards onto the armchair and rolled over onto the carpet; a flimsy collection of loose limbs.

"You could have done this yourself," Efrom said, handing Julia the gun. "Got my money?" She took the weapon in her gloved hand, aimed it at his face and fired. Efrom's mouth turned to a surprised, oh, forming a perfect target for the bullet that took out the back of his head.

She diligently retrieved Harry's cell phone and arranged the scene carefully to look like they killed one another then Julia closed the apartment door and departed the building unseen, her gloves and the phone finding their way into the storm sewer by the subway entrance.

******

Austin listened to her description of how things would be and how she had seen to all the details that might have implicated them. Her confidence overwhelmed him. He was used to directing the action and formulating operations; taking time to research and refine every aspect of a plan before executing it.

Julia cut to the chase and did what needed doing without batting an eye. All the years they'd worked for Ralston he'd never imagined this side of her character.

"We can now proceed to turn this film into the money we will require for the future we planned." She drew a delicate hand across his cheek.

"Rushing into this might draw attention from the wrong people, namely the police. After all it was the film that disappeared when Ralston was killed."

"I didn't mean to take out a newspaper spot, Austin," she said with a little disdain. "Back channels. You've been through enough of those over the years for Ralston."

"Of course. Actually, I have a contact in Bermuda with clients who enjoy building their private collections." He walked about the room musing. "Yes, that could be just the right market."

"Maybe we should go there and meet him face to face with the product."

"It's possible. I'd have to contact him first and set it up. These dealers are not keen on face to face meetings; they prefer to stay in the shadows."

"Keen or not, Bermuda sounds like the right tonic after all we've been through." She draped a languid arm over the back of the chair and sighed.

Austin observed her with a furtive glance. This woman could definitely not be trifled with, nor underestimated. He felt a giddy thrill at sharing the company of someone who could do the things she did so professionally and decisively and actually be sane, unlike his lamented daughter whose life was driven by chemistry and disease.

"I'll send my contact an e-mail right away."

******

Mary said she was taking a shower and Peter chose to veg out on the balcony of their room overlooking the sea. He opened his laptop and checked the message center. Sure enough there was the little hand holding a letter and waving to him. He opened the window on his screen and read with interest. Cheryl had intercepted a message from Austin Price to a number in Bermuda offering to meet to discuss a unique and very collectible product.

The number was traced to a Hattie Vermont in St. George and Harv had finished reconstructing a copy of the film from his disc back onto sixteen millimetre, giving it and a copy of the poster the right amount of distressing to look old to the untrained eye.

Communicating with the old group had been dicey for Peter, but he managed to do it without alerting Mary and their plans had finally begun to bear some fruit. Dylan and Harv both agreed that the film would surface again on the market; Austin Price hadn't swindled it from his old boss just to stick it away in a vault somewhere. And with his daughter gone he was free to woo his boss's ex secretary, who also wasn't interested in keeping it.

The group had formulated their scheme and set about preparing for just this moment. Cheryl and Freddy applied their considerable computer skills to finding Austin's Internet connections and monitoring the activity and when he went online to contact Bermuda the game was afoot.

Peter grew excited about the scheme and the fact that he was doing it all right under Mary's nose without her knowing. The next move would be based on whether Austin's contact agreed to a personal meeting or whether they would have to deal by e-mail and post. Dylan had managed to secure several people in Austin's building as clients and was working hard to influence them into suggesting his service to other residents - like Austin Price for example.

Julia got wind of the service and found the idea extremely inviting and practical. She began using Dylan for trips to the hairdressers and the theatre and of course shopping. Dylan made himself almost indispensable, delivering cleaning and parcels, picking up the same with discretion and dispatch. It was blind luck that Austin didn't recognize him from their long ago meeting in the mall bar.