I couldn’t contain myself. “Are you stupid?” She flinched and I felt sorry, but only for a moment. “There are two ways to preserve street art. Either we use a gel to have it transferred onto a canvas, or we remove the wall. The gel is okay, but the real beauty of the original should be kept intact, with the original canvas. So we have to remove the wall. Haven’t you ever heard of that?”

“Well, no,” she said, still looking hurt. Stupid, I swear.

“Tina, I have to call Daddy now. I have to talk to him. We have to make plans. We need to hire people, and get moving before it gets destroyed.”

2 It was hot out, but the wind was whipping around two days later when Daddy and I stood in front of the building with Mayor Bradley and his bodyguards and the line of riot police and the helicopters. We didn’t have to be there. I certainly didn’t have to have Pollock there, but there he was, in the bag on my shoulder. The police could have taken care of it all. But we all wanted to be. Mayor Bradley was sucking up to my dad, as usual, my dad wanted to look out for me, and I wanted to see the painting up close. It was even more glorious than it had looked when I first laid eyes on it. There was a jagged, reckless beauty to the dark parts and was offset by the smooth lines and peace of the light ones. The artist was clearly a master. I wanted to cry standing there. I didn’t of course. I had to look nice. I was dressed in a nice black button-down dress because it was a somber thing, kicking all these people out, but I also had to look fabuleux in case any of the news cameras got a glimpse of me. The cops were talking through a bullhorn, but it didn’t seem anyone was listening. Every now and again we saw heads peek up above windowsills, so we knew they were still in there. We didn’t know how many. We didn’t know if they’d put up a fight.

The front door was barricaded with all sorts of scraps of wood and metal. Apartment doors, chairs, couches, anything you could think of was pushed up against the entrance. The police would have to fight to get in. I thought about those people in there. It would be better for them to leave. Living like that must have been hell. We were doing them a favor, really. My father had already donated a bunch of money to the shelters they would be going to in New Jersey. We were doing the best we could, really.

Finally, after a lot of talk from the police with nothing happening, Mayor Bradley grabbed the bullhorn.