“Usually.”
“Only usually?”
“Almost always.”
I followed him up the stairs to Belker’s house and waited while he rang the bell. No answer. He rang again. Still no answer.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” I said. “I don’t think we should break in. It’s daylight. People will see us.”
Diesel put his hand to the door and the lock tumbled. “No one’s looking.”
He opened the door, we stepped in, and the alarm went off.
“Bummer,” he said. “I usually block the electrical signal.”
“Shut it off! Shut it off! Do something.”
“Look around for the painting.”
“Are you insane? You set the alarm off. The police are rushing over here.”
Diesel was going room by room. “The alarm company will call first.”
The phone rang.
“What should I do? Should I answer it?” I asked him.
“No. You don’t know the code word. Just look for the painting.”
My heart was racing, and I was having a hard time breathing. “I’m gonna go to jail. What’ll I tell my mother? Who’ll make cupcakes for Mr. Nelson?”
“I found it,” Diesel yelled from upstairs, barely audible over the screaming alarm.
“I’m leaving,” I yelled back. “You’re on your own. I can’t eat prison food. It’s probably all carbs.”
Diesel jogged down the stairs with the painting.
“What are you doing?” I asked him.
“I’m borrowing it.”
“Omigod, you’re stealing it.”
“Only for a little while. Help me wrap this bed sheet around it.”
“It’s huge!”
“Yeah, it didn’t look this big in the book. The gold frame doesn’t help, either.”
We got the sheet around the painting, and Diesel hustled it out the door and down the street to his car. I had the hood pulled up on my sweatshirt and my face tucked down in case someone was looking and making notes or, God forbid, taking pictures. We slid the painting into the back of the SUV, scrambled into the front seat, and Diesel took off. He turned out of Louisburg Square, onto Pinckney. I looked back and saw the flashing lights of two cop cars as they came in and angle parked in front of Belker’s house.
“See,” Diesel said. “No problems.”
“We missed getting arrested by two minutes. And we’ve got a hot painting in the back of the car. It’s probably worth millions. I mean, this isn’t like shoplifting a candy bar. This would be a felony. Remember what they did to Martha Stewart? They put her in jail. I don’t even remember why. I think she told a fib.”
“Nobody said saving mankind was going to be easy,” Diesel said.
“We’re art thieves.”