They turned down one of the crosstown streets and headed west toward the Hudson River. It was mostly warehouses and shipping companies over here, the loading docks for the trucks quiet now, it being night, just an occasional rig pulled up with a late delivery, or getting an early start for tomorrow's run to wherever. Ahead was the waterfront, where the great ocean liners used to berth (a few still did) that went back and forth to Europe. There was a breeze coming off the water, an almost constant presence here. He'd once given it a name, Windigo, an Algonquin spirit, when he lived in this part of town some years ago.

Janna said, "How's it feel?"

"It'll be fine. Thank you for the help."

"No problem. Be sure to keep it clean." She had noticed his bleeding knuckles back at the hotel and had gotten a couple of bandages from the front desk and put them on the cuts before they went outside. 

"So back to what you were saying," he said.

"What I'm saying is that I didn't know about that review in the paper when I saw you earlier. It's gotta be like money in the bank."

"How do you mean?"

"You still got that agreement, right?"

"With Mavro?"

"Of course with Mavro."

"What about it? The gallery's bust."

"So why can't it be with another gallery? Use that review to do a deal. I mean, Mavro's hot now, right?"

"If he's hot and it's another gallery," Sykes said, "what do you need me for?"

"'Cause you know how to do these things. If we have to, we can set it up in his space over in Queens. But I'm betting there's a better way."

They stepped out into the street around an eighteen-wheeler, the driver giving them a nod as he climbed up into the cab. Sykes returned the nod and went back to staring down at the cobblestones as they continued walking, giving thought to what Janna had said. "If you really want to do it, there should be some kind of draw."

"Mavro's the draw."

"I mean an event. Something that'll get attention that we can hook onto, while he's got the buzz."

"You see?" she said.

"What?"

"That's why I knew we should talk."

They continued along the dim street, Janna watching him think.

"And besides...," she said.

Sykes looked up.

"... you're too big to throw back."

~~~~~~

She took the subway to Long Island City, made a call on her cell when she came out of the station. "Hi, I just got off the train home."

Helen Carty was in her living room on the other end of the call. "How did it go?"

Janna turned down the street toward the loft where the paintings got made, passing by two kids under a streetlight on the other side, tagging a building with their spray cans. "I said what I could. It's up to him now."

~~~~~~

Sykes had come back to his room and was lying on top of his bed in the dark, staring at the ceiling, pizza crusts and a balled-up napkin in a delivery box by his side.

Latin rap music was playing faintly outside the window. A square of light in the corner of the ceiling, a moving reflection, caught his eye. What was making that?

He swung his feet off the bed, went over and looked out the window. On the rooftop of the apartment building across the littered courtyard from the hotel, some young neighbors had rigged a makeshift movie screen and were showing what looked like a homemade music video, which was what caused the reflection.

He raised the window and let the music flow in, sat back down on the bed and rested his elbows on the sill, taking in the show.

The young neighbors applauded and whistled each time one of them appeared on the screen, slapping each other on the back and clinking their bottles of beer.

Sykes continued to watch, enjoying it all, caught up in the beginnings of an idea – an idea that stayed with him until the next morning when he took it to Long Island City.

~~~~~~

He stood in the middle of Mavro's creative refuge and aimed his phone camera at one of the big wall murals, a primitive panorama that made him wonder, not for the first time, where this kid, who'd never been out of New York City, who'd never had any training or hung around with any art crowd, got his ideas for those strange figures up there and what those figures did to one another.

From the other side of the sprawling space, Mavro and Janna watched him take the shot and check the phone screen.

After some more shots from different angles, Janna called over, "You wanna tell us what's going on?"

"Do me a favor," Sykes said, "and come over here and stand in front. I need you for scale and perspective."

They did as asked and Sykes took more pictures, again from different angles, with a variety of expressions and poses. When he finished he said, "Okay, what I want is for Mavro to start thinking about another mural."

Mavro scoffed, not enthused. "For the ripper-off-in-waiting?"

"Just listen..."

Sykes explained what he had in mind and who the pictures he just took were for.

~~~~~~

That afternoon, he stood over Philip Tierney's desk and plugged a USB wire from his phone into Tierney's computer, Tierney and Helen Carty looking on.

"I don't have to tell you," Sykes said, "that every museum in the country is pushing for a younger crowd." He clicked the mouse and the picture of the mural that Sykes had taken, with Mavro and Janna in front of it, filled the computer screen. "Mavro is hot. When he works he's a show. Move that show inside the museum and guaranteed it will draw."

He asked Tierney and Helen to imagine Mavro perched on a scaffold in one of the museum's vaulted spaces, painting a mural on one of the big walls in his abstract-tribal-graffiti style. "I mean, you watch him and you can feel the energy, the brushwork and the splatter." He described how the people would be looking up, under the spell of Mavro's act. Said to envision a cameraman moving in, shielding his lens from the flying paint.

"People have to know there's a happening," he said. "Mavro is a camera magnet. We piggy-back on those reviews from the opening."

He talked them into going up to the museum's roof garden, walked with them among the outdoor sculptures, city skyline in the background against a dramatic late afternoon sky filled with reds and pinks and purples. "Not to forget who writes the checks. The mural can be the centerpiece for an A-list fundraiser. We make a video of him at work, show it on a big screen up here."

He took out his phone and held its screen so that Tierney and Helen could see the picture of Mavro's mural that he'd showed them downstairs. "Imagine this on a movie screen that we set up right over there, against that backdrop. I mean, how dramatic is that?"

He could see by the looks on their faces that they had begun to agree.

"Get a big name to host it, get everybody involved. To use a term from the high culture playbook, it's a slam-dunk."

~~~~~~

To close out the day while he was on a roll, he went to that Upper East Side town house with the iron gate and stood in the library making his pitch. "... and get them buying the paintings. I mean, what better audience could there be? Tell them a percentage goes back to the museum. We just add it to the price."

From behind his massive walnut desk, Rizza Zekov pointed his unlit cigar at him. "Anything you ever tell me sounds like genius. Then it comes to execution, it goes in the toilet."

Sykes gave a quick nod of agreement and then waved a hand in dismissal. "This time there's a built-in ace."

"Naturally."

"The woman who'll stoke the media has a vested interest in making it work." Sykes remembering the money he owed Helen.

"What, you scammed her too?"

"You don't have to kick a man when he's down, Rizza."

Zekov narrowed his cold eyes. "You don't know half what's gonna happen when you're down."

Sykes started to respond, kept his mouth shut.

"This kid," Zekov said, "you thought about the state of your health he flakes out?"

"As a matter of fact I have."

"Good." Zekov moistened the cigar between his large lips and pointed it again. "Keep that thought."