The Masterpiece Robbery

(Middle of the first chapter) Edward Graystone tapped a finger to his chin and eyed Joan studiously before he decided to pamper her with an explanation. “All my paintings are authentic,” Graystone said. “However, three of the masterpieces in this room are on loan, and the Chrysanthemums is one. Only one painting in my collection is a copy.”

Joan smiled. “That would be the Mona Lisa, wouldn’t it?”

“Maybe yes, maybe no,” Graystone replied. “You have a good eye, Joan.”

Then Graystone launched into a story about his deal with two other collectors to exchange paintings from time to time. Beck was standing so close that Joan could feel his body heat, and he touched her occasionally with a sensuous hand to her back or a brush of his shoulder.

Twitching her aching toes and noticing the last few stragglers departing the party, Joan listened to Graystone halfheartedly and waited. It had been a long evening, and she hoped that she and Alex would leave now, when six men entered. The fact that they were wearing all black and looked like cookie cutter copies of each other made them immediately noticeable.

After quickly casing the room, three of the men started toward their little group while the others disbanded in different directions.

His jaw muscles twitching, Beck said in a dour tone that startled Joan, “Looks like trouble, Edward. Where is security?”

Just then the men pulled guns!

Joan gasped and moved sideways, closer to Alex, and grabbed his arm. All the men had identical faces! Obviously masks.

“What is the meaning of this?” Graystone barked. “Who are you?”

“This is a robbery, grandpa,” one of the men growled in a muffled tone, and Joan noticed that his expression stayed fixed. The masks were good. At a distance in the dark, they would be undetectable.

Hearing startled gasps of horror, Joan scanned the room and saw the other robbers gathering the help at gunpoint and herding them to the back of the house. A delayed feeling of doom besieged her.

How methodical the robbers were. In moments they had cleared the room, except for their little group, and one of the other three quickly approached them. Beck stood staunch; Graystone wore a deep frown; and Alex looked every bit as frightened as she was.

 Quietly and efficiently, the robbers pulled tape from their pockets and latched onto their victims, pulling their arms behind them and taping their wrists and ankles. In another split second, they had slapped tape over their mouths and shoved them in heaps onto a pair of facing sofas.

Joan had wanted to scream her head off, but she was too petrified. One robber stayed with them while the others disbursed through the room and started dismounting the paintings. Two more entered with tube mailers and other supplies. More efficiently than Joan could comprehend, canvases were ripped from frames, rolled, and stuffed into tubes.

Trying to discover some identifying something about the men, Joan watched bravely. One of the men taking down the Renoir seemed to have a tic in his neck, and his head twitched to the right in quick jerks occasionally. Another yanked off his right glove and briefly sucked his bleeding thumb. Seemed he had snagged it on a staple. And when one of the men rolling canvases bent forward enough, a blond ponytail fell partially from under his mask.

Those studied observations were all Joan had time for.

From start to finish, the operation was conducted like a well-rehearsed ballet, in twenty minutes or less, and the men departed, leaving them stunned on the sofas, staring at each other.

Beck stirred first. He bunny hopped over to Alex, who stood, and they turned their backs to each other. Beck worked to get the tape loose from Alex’s wrists.

In the meantime, Joan came to life. She kicked her shoes off, stood and squatted, forcing her hands down her hips, and backed her rump through the circle of her arms. When her hands were behind her knees, she fell back and started wiggling her feet through to get her hands in front of her. By now the hem of her skirt had crawled high on her thighs, exposing embarrassing parts of her anatomy to anyone who might look. Doggedly, she kept her head down, contorting her frame into a pretzel-like exhibition. At long last, her arms aching terribly but her hands in front of her, she managed to get to her feet again and yanked her skirt down as best she could. Frantically she tore the tape off her mouth and gasped.

Graystone, his eyes beckoning her urgently, moaned loudly. Joan thought she should help Alex first, but she hopped over to her host. “First you have to stand up,” she told him in a raspy whisper.

Graystone, in his slightly inebriated state, compounded with his years and general declining condition, struggled to get to his feet. He fell back several times before he finally achieved enough momentum to stay upright. He stuck his chin out for Joan to remove the tape from his mouth, and she managed to rip it off. He gasped like a smothering man getting his first breath of oxygen.

“Quickly, now my hands!” Graystone ordered, and turned his back to her.

The tape was strong, and Joan could not tear it loose. She noticed that Alex and Beck were not having any luck either.

“Hurry!” Graystone exclaimed impatiently.

Wincing at two nails she had broken into the quick and the skin around her mouth burning from the tape, Joan mumbled, “I’m trying, but this tape won’t tear.”

Alex hopped over to them and grunted for her to get the tape off his mouth, and when she had, he said, “Joan, I have a small pocket knife. See if you can get it out of my pocket!”

By now, Beck wanted the tape off his mouth. “Okay, Alex, but let me get this first.” She obliged Beck. “I’m trying, guys, honestly I am.”

When Beck’s mouth was free, he kissed her lips as if to inspire her. “You’re doing great, Joan. Now take a deep breath and try to get Alex’