I washed my hands, watched the water go from red to pink.

Smith doused them with alcohol too, told me not to a baby when I winced.

“Now tell me what happened.”

I tried to explain it, seeing the guy, the fight, in fragments, how he’d come out of nowhere.

“Did you recognize him?”

“Yeah, the same guy we fought with earlier.”

“Did you kill him?”

“No.”

“How you’d get away?”

“I’m a tough guy, remember? You know my history.”

“Yeah, real tough,” he said. “Take your pants off.”

“Excuse me?”

Smith indicated my knees, the torn fabric, the bloodstains. I eased my pants down, sat on the toilet seat again.

“So what was he after? The truth this time, Perrone.”

“Might be time you called me Luke. I mean, with my pants down and all.”

Smith almost laughed, handed me the washcloth to clean my knees, asked if I had other pants, another shirt, which I did, back in my hotel room.

“Good,” he said. “So the man you fought with… Was he injured from the shot fired earlier?”

“He was holding his side, so probably, or I wouldn’t have gotten away.”

Smith led me out of the bathroom, offered me the only comfy chair. I took in the room for the first time, utilitarian and bland, a charmless businessman’s hotel. He got a couple of tiny liquor bottles out of the mini fridge, held them up. “Scotch or vodka?”

I told him I didn’t drink.

“Right. I forgot.” He handed me a glass of water. “Here you go, Lucky.”

I scoffed a laugh. “Is John Smith really your name?”

“John Washington Smith.”

“Has a ring to it,” I said.

“Now tell me what you didn’t tell me before.”

I drank the water. It did little to calm me. I wanted the scotch, could practically taste it. I needed a moment, closed my eyes, and silently recited words I knew by heart: Honesty—Hope—Faith—Courage—Integrity—Willingness—Humility—Brotherly Love—Justice—Perseverance—Spirituality—Service. More than their meaning, it was the act of saying them that helped. Then I told Smith I was ready.

I described how I’d found the pages in the back of the Vermeer and how I’d switched them on the guy who’d attacked me. I looked down at my bloodied knees and raw palms, admitted I’d been in over my head. Smith didn’t take the opportunity to gloat, which I appreciated.

I asked him what was next.

“Now that we know what to look for, we go see the painting.”

“No way that Louvre curator is going to give me another private viewing.”

“An INTERPOL employee can make certain demands,” he said, a look sliding across his face, what I’d seen before, something he wasn’t saying.

“Tell me,” I said.

“Tell you what?”

“Whatever you’re not telling me. I just came clean. How about you?”

Smith went to the window, pulled the curtains back, and peered out. “Nothing to tell,” he said. “You were the one holding things back, not me.”

“And I said I regretted it.”