“Hal gave us his key.” Pearson turned to me. “In case you were worrying.”

I greeted him and introduced myself as Mary. “Temporary replacement,” I added.

“I need a temp replacement.” Erik shook his head at a strappy white sandal, chucked it. It clunked a wall.

“How many shoes are there?” I said.

“Less than half of what we need,” said Erik glumly.

“Direction,” Pearson said to Erik. “This space is loftier than London, but we still need to build from the ground up.”

If Erik, the native Austrian, had surprisingly no accent except a slight Californian uplift, Pearson’s voice carried a faint impression of the nasal vowels and burred r sounds that I recognized from my own childhood in the Northeast. A rural working-class inflection, just a smidge of it, but recognizable. An odd inflection for someone with such a pretentious name. Pearson Winters.

“We should start with the nave,” Pearson added.

“That high?” Erik tipped his head to the gallery’s twenty-foot ceiling, his curly hair falling back. “Layla won’t do ladders.”

“Layla doesn’t have to,” Pearson said, then turned to me. “Anything you need from us?”

“No.” It was time for me to act like I had a job to do. I walked toward the gallery desk. “Keep on with your knavery.”

They looked startled at my pun. No doubt I came off as stuffy and middle-aged, with my suit and heels, even though Pearson was older than me. They were both wearing T-shirts and jeans—the loose, faded, but expensive kind that emitted a scripted nonchalance. Their shoes gave away their fashion origins. Erik was the surfer, slapping around on canvas shoes, and Pearson the post-punk strutter in leather boots. They seemed comfortable together. And yet did I detect a small tension about Layla radiating through their banter?

I sat down at the chrome desk and turned on the computer, typed the temporary login and password I’d been given. It led me to something like a library page, only the internet available, the home page the gallery’s website. No inbox. No gallery files. No price lists. What should I pretend to do now? Not for the first time, I wondered why Nelson de Wilde had approved of this plan. Janis said he owed her, but still. I was spying on the crew of one of his artists, a prominent figure who could connect him to many rising future stars.

After a moment, Erik called after me. “Does your agency employ serfs? We need about thirty.”