They let him out the next morning. He'd managed to talk the night duty officer at the Midtown South Precinct into listing the incident as a misdemeanor. When they got around to the actual paper work, after he'd gotten a few hours sleep in the holding cell, the duty cop who'd come on with the shift change let him go with a scofflaw warning. Said to behave himself and nodded toward the door.

He grabbed a quick Egg McMuffin on his way over to Tenth Avenue (the rain had stopped), checked into a cheap hotel he knew that was squeezed between a used furniture store and a Korean market (a friend of his used to date the grocer's oldest daughter), threw his duffle bag onto the narrow bed in the cramped room the day clerk had given him, took a shower and shaved, dug a fresh shirt out of the duffle, put it on with a tie and rumpled sportcoat (the extent of his business wardrobe), made a call from the phone beside the bed (made a mental note to buy a cell), had a short conversation, hung up and stared pensively at the receiver, then went downstairs and headed uptown.

He decided to walk the mile or so to where he was going. It was a nice spring day, clear and cool after the rain, and it felt good to know he could go in any direction as far as he wanted with no walls to keep him in.

But that didn't mean he couldn't be followed.

He'd been tailed right from when he stepped out of Midtown South onto West 35th, even though he'd been checking his back. It was a different tail from last night, and the man had stayed far enough behind and blended well enough so that Sykes didn't spot him. The man was peering now out the window of a laundromat across Tenth Avenue, catching glimpses of Sykes walking along behind the trucks and cars lined up at the 53rd Street light, making his way uptown. The man pulled out his phone and made a call.

"He's going north on Tenth," he said. "I'll give him a block and then stay with him."

Sykes kept walking north until he got to Lincoln Center, cut across the plaza with its glass-faced theaters where the world's best came to perform, past the big fountain that everybody got their pictures taken in front of (a young couple was there now trying to fit it in a selfie), continued east on 64th, took the Tavern on the Green entrance into Central Park, went catty-corner across Sheep Meadow, remembered tossing a Frisbee there, kept going until he came to Fifth Avenue, walked two more blocks north, turned and went up the wide granite steps into the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

He crossed the Great Hall with its vaulted ceiling, people crisscrossing and meeting each other for this or that exhibit, got a nice whiff from the giant flower arrangements he recalled were replaced every week, compliments of a donor he wouldn't mind meeting, and went over to the ticket counter that was tucked under the second floor balcony.

"One adult, please," he said to the woman behind the counter who gave him a smile.

"It's been taken care of, sir."

"Excuse me?"

"You're Mr. Sykes, aren't you?"

"I am. How did you know?"

"I was given a good description." She nodded toward a set of marble stairs going up through a tall archway. "Mr. Tierney said he'll meet you in the Old Master's section. Said you know where it is, that you'd probably want to check in there."

Sykes nodded with a wry smile. "Mr. Tierney's memory serves him well. Thank you."

"You're most welcome. Here's your pass, just pin it to your jacket."

She pushed a plastic card to him and he pinned it to his lapel.

The guard at the foot of the stairs glanced at the card and nodded him by. He went up through the arch and made his way to the European Paintings Galleries. Got there and looked around and felt like he'd returned to some exclusive club and was visiting old friends. He walked slowly and began taking in the classic canvases that the world had known for centuries – Rubens, Velazquez, Caravaggio...

He was studying the brushwork on a Dutch piece called Young Woman with Water Pitcher, paying particular attention to how the artist achieved the soft blur of the lighting, when a man's voice spoke up behind him.

"Don't tell me you're adding Vermeer to your repertoire."

Sykes turned around, smiled when he saw an aristocratic man – dark good looks, pinstripe suit – smiling skeptically back at him.

"Hello, Philip," Sykes said, tapping the badge on his lapel. "Thank you for your thoughtfulness. I was concerned after my call that you might have barred the door."

"Don't think I didn't consider it," said Philip Tierney, the museum's chief curator. He shook Sykes's hand and looked him over. "Two years upstate haven't worn you that badly."

"I'm flattered you kept track."

"One doesn't take ones eye off you." Tierney gestured toward a nearby hallway. "Shall we?"

Tierney's sprawling, open office that looked out on Central Park was decorated with art from the museum's storage vaults – an eclectic mix of Impressionists, Moderns, Old Masters...

Sykes sat himself in a chair next to Tierney's Jacobean desk and continued the conversation they'd started on their walk from the gallery.

"... It would only be as a consultant. I wouldn't be working for the museum directly."

Tierney sat down behind the desk and shook his head. "Victor, if the art world ever got wind of it, and believe me they would, your record would undermine the credibility of half the paintings in this museum."

"I need a job, Philip."

"So paint."

"I mean now."

"I'm serious," Tierney said. "You've been a master at copying everyone else. Try something of your own for a change."

They exchanged stares. After a moment a voice interrupted.

"Philip?"

The two men turned toward an attractive, fortyish woman standing in the doorway of a glassed-in office across the room – the museum's public relations director, Helen Carty.

"Sorry to interrupt," she said, "but they're waiting."

Tierney glanced at his watch and nodded, pushed up from his desk and said to Sykes, "I'm sorry, this just came up, I have to get back upstairs. Think about what I said."

Sykes stood and walked with Tierney to the office door. They shook hands, said their goodbyes, and went their separate ways.

~~~~~~

Back outside, Sykes came down the museum steps that had people sitting on them here and there, taking in the springtime sun. He turned right to go down Fifth Avenue, heading south on the wide sidewalk that bordered the park, went half a block – and froze.

Sitting on one of the benches under the newly blossomed trees was the man he'd run from last night at the bus terminal. The man nodded to Sykes without expression and got up from the bench.

Sykes instinctively started to back up and immediately bumped into another man who had come up behind him – the one who had followed him from the laundromat on Tenth Avenue.

"Don't do anything stupid," the man said before Sykes could turn around. "Just come with us."

Sykes started to make a move, yelped when he felt the sharp pain of a kidney punch that made his knees buckle. His vision blurred, and just when he thought he was going to collapse on the pavement two pairs of large hands grabbed his elbows.

They pulled him stumbling to a black Escalade SUV parked at the curb. One of the men opened the rear door and shoved Sykes inside. The other man went around and got in the other side, the first one climbing in behind Sykes and pulling the door shut.

The Escalade pulled away from the curb and merged with the one-way traffic heading down Fifth.

Sykes sat in the back between the two men, taking shallow breaths, all that the pain in his kidney would allow, trying to clear his vision enough to see who it was in the passenger seat up front, though he had a pretty good idea.

When the man turned around, he saw he was right. "Hello, Victor. Long time no hear."

"Hello, Rizza," Sykes said in a strained voice.

Loan speculator Rizza Zekov had the smile and demeanor of a reptile. He kept his intimidating eyes on Sykes for an uneasy minute, then looked over at the man driving. "I ever tell you about this guy?'

The driver shook his head. "I don't think so."

Zekov nodded and began filling him in. "I give him three-million to do his art thing. Open a gallery, all the trimmings. Big-time collectors dealing off the radar." He looked back at Sykes, sandwiched between the two men. "My chance to be a player, he says."

The driver knew enough to just listen, kept the car in the flow of traffic moving along the boarder of Central Park.

Zekov continued. "For collateral he gives me paintings. Says they're worth four, five times the loan. But guess what?"

The driver shook his head.

"They're fakes." Zekov jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "His fakes. Like that, I'm out three mil. And Mr. Sykes is on sabbatical, compliments State of New York. But, like all good things, the sabbatical ends. And here we are."

When Sykes spoke, he had difficulty sounding convincing. "You'll get your money, Rizza."

Zekov turned around. "I know I will. Because I know you know what'll happen if I don't."

"I need time," Sykes said.

"You got it." Zekov held up a finger. "One month."

Sykes started to protest but was interrupted by the chirp of a cell phone.

Zekov reached into his pocket and took out his phone, saw that the caller was one of his collectors. "What."

He listened for a moment, didn't look pleased. "He said that last time." Listened some more. "So? Lean." Listened again. "Then lean harder." And ended the call.

He held the phone in his lap and stared out the window. The car was approaching a traffic transverse that went into the park.

"Go in here," he told the driver.

The driver turned the car into the 72nd Street entrance, pulled up for a red light at the intersection of the park's East Drive.

Standing at the crosswalk waiting for the light, a kid with a skateboard propped against his thigh was bobbing to something playing on his earbuds. His board was decorated with a primitive fantasy design, a hand-painted figure that looked like a dragon's head on the body of a man – an enigmatic figure that caught the eye of Sykes in the back of the SUV. He leaned forward to get a better look. Something about the design was pulling his attention, despite the situation he was in. Or maybe because of it.

He was tempted to reach across the henchman on his right and lower the window and say something to the kid, ask him what his thing was, where he could be reached, because his impresario instincts were kicking in, telling him that there was something here that could be turned into something. But then the light changed and the car moved out and the kid disappeared behind them.

Zekov told the driver to take the East Drive around the park instead of going across the transverse. The car turned north, driving past the Loeb Boathouse and the lake where people were feeding the ducks and sailing model boats.

Zekov turned around to Sykes. "So, we understand each other?"

"Where am I going to get three-million in a month?"

"Your usual art form," Zekov said. "Screw somebody."

He turned back around and watched through the windshield. After a few moments he pointed ahead. "Pull over here."

The driver slowed down to let a group of joggers go by in the runners' lane, then pulled the car off to the side, stopping at a small bridge the road ran over. He stayed with the car while the two henchmen, following orders that Zekov was snapping, got out with Sykes and took him down the bridge embankment, to a bridle path that ran under the stone structure, Zekov following close behind.

In the shadows under the bridge the two men shoved Sykes up against the stonework, pinning his arms.

Zekov, wanting to make this quick and get out of here before a cop car came along, stepped in and put his face up to Sykes's.

"Three million," he said.

"You'll get it, I..."

"By the time this heals."

Sykes could see what was coming. "Rizza..."

Zekov cocked his head back and slammed his forehead against Sykes's nose. Stepped back from the gush of blood.