I quickly got up and grabbed his gun and held it on the two men. It was a pretty needless exercise. Both men were throwing up and had no interest in me. Meanwhile, Sabrina looked down at her guy and asked, "Who are you working for?"

"Fuck you," he answered between gasps.

She kicked him in the kidney and he screamed out. I was pretty sure she had done some damage. She moved over to my guy.

"You want a shot to the kidney too?"

The guy tried to roll over on his back to protect himself from her kick, but another rumble of vomit came up and he had to go back on his side.

"You've got two seconds," she said quietly, but with the kind of tone you don't ignore.

"Mario," he gasped. "Mario Guidry. He hired us to get a painting from you, that's all."

Sabrina nodded to me. I dialed 911 on my cell phone. I told the dispatcher that two men had attempted to mug us. She asked where we were, and of course, I had no idea. I walked out to the end of the alley and gave her a landmark. She assured me a car would be right there. I laid the gun on the ground out of reach of the two thugs. The last thing I wanted was to be mistaken for one of the attackers.

"You were fast," I said to Sabrina. "Where did you learn that?"

"Self-defense classes," she said off-handedly. I didn't believe her. However, I dropped it. But there was definitely more to this girl than met the eye.

The police arrived a few minutes later and we rode with them to the station. Before they got there, we decided we would tell them a piece of the story—just enough to implicate Mario.

When we were in the police station, I explained to the detective in charge that my great-grandfather had lent a Fairfield gallery a painting that I was trying to recover. Somehow, a guy named Mario Guidry got wind of it and tried to steal it. Supposedly his great-grandfather had tried to take it from my great-grandfather back in the 30s. I told them I had no idea why someone would want the painting. We embellished it a bit, but stayed pretty much to the truth.

It took them about five minutes to break one of the crooks, who confirmed that they were sent to steal the painting. While we were there, we asked if anyone if they had heard of the Simpson Gallery, just in case they could provide us with more information than our elderly friends, but again we struck out.

We were out of there in less than two hours. We told them we wanted to press charges, but they'd have to let us know if they wanted us to come back. They doubted it, seeing as how the muggers were admitting to everything.

As we were walking back to the car, I asked, "What did you mean back there when you said you had seen a lot of crooks? Are you some kind of cop and you're just not telling me?"