“Well, Jonathan, what can I say? Your urgency is their coupon.”

“What’s your cut?”

“I don’t get cuts. Stop trying to get in my shorts.”

“I just . . . Nah, that’s not enough. Go tell them it’s too low.”

Owen sighed. “I’m going to give you a second to play that back in your head.”

“Goddammit, you know I meant pretty please with sugar on top. You have to know this isn’t fair.”

“I do? I don’t think so. I don’t care about this silly little decoration, remember? Are you really going to piss your diaper over having to settle for five million dollars for something that isn’t yours?”

Everything that Jonathan had ever gotten wrong tallied to that sum. The shame of it was in all the moments lost to laziness and distraction. In his lack of stamina. In getting too comfortable. He hadn’t applied himself as well as he could have. And he could only hate Owen for paying attention enough to make the point.

It could be worse. He could be in prison. At least there was that. So he let the jab go unanswered.

“What’s next, then? When can we do this?”

There was a smile in Owen’s voice. “Ah, great. Back to the beginning of the carousel ride. So, once again, are we in a hurry?”

“I’d just as soon get it over with.” Especially if I’m being screwed to the tune of two and a half million dollars. But he didn’t say that part. He swallowed the pout. It was a small triumph, a warm touchstone of who he was, a reminder that he’d gotten far on being careful with words and tone.

“We can do it today, if you like,” Owen said.

“Well, I’d need to have enough time to go get it.”

“Lucky us. My schedule is wide-open. So whenever suits you, suits me fine.”

“Where do you want to meet? The same place as before?”

“I don’t care where we do it. You can handle that, if it worries you. Tell me when and where. I’ll be there.”

Jonathan didn’t like that. He set the meeting for twelve thirty in the same restaurant they’d met before. It would be busy and anonymously so. It felt solid.

Owen hadn’t suggested any adjustments to what Jonathan proposed. That was either because the transaction was going to be all the way straightforward, or that Jonathan had missed something. He knew, on a cellular level, that despite all of Owen’s protestations of not caring about the painting and the double cross, he cared about something in this, and in some way that was bad news for Jonathan.

So he made coffee and got comfortable in his desk chair. Jonathan threw a saddle on that paranoid feeling and let it take him where it might.