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want me to find the painter’s copy of the lease so you can destroy it and kick the guy out.” My fingers grip the door handle. I really can’t stand any more of this. It’s time to cut to the chase. “No problem.”
    The man is still trying to hammer a point into my head, but he’s finding my skull can be remarkably thick. “You understand, don’t you? These people don’t belong here.”
    What in the hell does he want from me? “There’s no doubt in my mind that you deserve to live here much more than they do,” I assure him, my voice slick with sarcasm.
    “I have no intention of living here,” the man tells me. “I have a perfectly fine house a few blocks away. But I’m something of a bibliophile, and my library is overflowing. I need a building close to home where I can store my rare books.”
    I laugh so hard that tears start to well up in my eyes. This is, hands down, the strangest conversation I’ve ever had. “Whatever,” I say. “Are we done here?”
    “Yes,” the man replies.
    “Then drop me off down the street. You don’t want anyone on the block to see me getting out of your car. I’ll meet you around the corner when I’m done.”
    I consider hitting the road as soon as his car is out of sight. This whole scenario is too goddamned weird. And it gets even stranger when I discover that the front door of the building has been left unlocked. I wonder if I’m being set up. Maybe I’m the unwitting star of some new reality show that explores the dark side of the human soul. I turn around and grin for the cameras, just in case they’re watching.
    Past the front entrance is a small foyer. I’m facing a pair of doors. The left must lead to the lower apartment. The right door is blocking the stairs to the top two floors. I examine the lock on the door I need to open. Then I immediately check the foyer for hidden cameras. I’m not smiling anymore. I’m serious now. This has to be some kind of joke. Every apartment in Manhattan has at least one dead bolt on the door. Every apartment except the one I’m being paid seven hundred dollars to rob. There’s just a dinky bedroom knob—the type with a push-button lock. I spend a moment wondering if anyone who lives in New York could really be so stupid. Maybe a painter, I decide.
    I take out one of Mia Osman’s credit cards and slowly slide it down the crack between the door and its frame. The lock opens on the very first swipe.
    Paintings line the stairway that leads up to the artist’s apartment: A bum in Washington Square Park. A panhandler on a subway platform. Poor kids dancing through the spray of a fire hydrant. They’re crap. The guy can paint, but his choice of subjects is pure cheese. I’m expecting more of the same when I step into the living room on the building’s third floor. But the first thing I see steals my breath for a moment. One entire wall of the room is covered in mismatched frames. Behind the glass in each frame is a mitten that must have belonged to one of the artist’s kids. There are dozens of mittens, and none of them are identical. Every one is a different color. Some are damaged and dirty. Others couldn’t have been worn more than twice. The first mitten in the row closest to the ceiling looks small enough for an infant. The white snowflake stitched on its palm is almost too tiny to see. Little by little, the flakes get fatter and the mittens grow larger. The last one that was framed is almost adult-sized.
    It’s as beautiful as anything ever displayed in my parents’ home. My father always chose art that screamed good taste and deep pockets. He never bothered to see if it spoke to him. As far as he was concerned, a painting was just a way to hang money on the wall. I don’t think he ever realized that each of his “investments” contained a little piece of someone’s soul.
    I’m starting to feel a bit jittery. So I pull my eyes away from the mittens and scan the living room. No television. An ancient