As the long foot chase came to an end, Gary reached the Expo building and merged into the surrounding crowd. Emz held back, scanning south to see if the twins were visible, but they were nowhere in sight. He then headed obliquely across Wonder, slipping east to circle around the mass of people. Many of them were in cosplay costumes of varying quality and effort, ranging from cute Japanese monsters to classic superheroes to mashups and genderbent modern movie characters.
Emz made sure he could still see Gary, edging his way into the building, nervously glancing around for his pursuer. Once satisfied, Emz took Xtina along the east side of the festively decorated Convention building. This stretch was lined with smaller queues of people swiftly filing in—VIPs and traders. A bit further up were several parked vans dropping off boxes of goods at a delivery bay. Emz headed towards the end of them while messaging Luki. As he waited for his techie to arrive, he scanned the surroundings with nervous energy. So many pieces were at play that any small setback, like being spotted now, could ruin all the plans. Luckily, Luki’s van soon arrived and parked next to him.
The moment the door opened, Emz dashed in to find Luki standing next to his items, exactly as planned. Thank you, Luki, Emz thought with a grin.
“This is the painting,” Luki pointed to a flat, painting-shaped rectangle propped against the van’s inner wall, wrapped in thick brown paper with a label attached.
“Great.”
He then pointed to a delivery man’s vest and cap, draped over a small chair. “This is your delivery person's costume.”
“Great.”
“And in this bag is your VIP badge, some cheap merchandise for your trading stall, and your cosplay outfit.” Luki finally indicated a rucksack on his desk.
Emz peered inside, pulling the costume apart to try and work out what it would look like. Without removing all the items, he could only make out a white jacket, black undershirt, long black gloves, and a large, bright lavender-coloured wig. “What is this?”
“James from Team Rocket,” Luki said, as if it were obvious.
“Who?”
The older techie frowned. “Do you not remember the Pokémon cartoon?”
“Mate, I was born in 2020. I barely know the word Pokémon.”
Luki nodded. “Ah, you were a pandemic baby?”
“Apparently.” Emz shrugged. “Anyway, gotta go.” He quickly removed his winter coat, threw on the familiar blue and orange branded vest and cap of the delivery company he had once worked for when he first arrived in Newland, and slipped the rucksack over his shoulders. As the bag caught the top of his gun, he remembered to remove it, unclipping the whole holster and placing it on the van’s carefully designed compact desk. “Keep an eye on this, mate.” Emz then picked up the painting and slapped Luki on the shoulder as a thank-you before exiting the van and heading towards the Convention building.
He weaved through other delivery teams dropping off large amounts of merchandise at a big metal roller door and got in a short queue for a door meant for smaller deliveries. Emz noticed a few security cameras with their mandatory red recording lights illuminated, so he ensured that his cap was pulled down low and always angled to avoid his face being seen. He was soon in front of a desk with a smiling young male clerk behind it.
Emz gently placed the painting on the desk. “A delivery for the auction. It needs special care.”
The clerk nodded and scanned the label. “Thanks, all registered,” he replied, gently taking the item and heading to the back of his small office. There, he carefully placed it onto a cart, which was then pulled away through a backdoor by a four-legged robot.
Emz left the delivery entrance and headed towards the VIP queue further down, removing and tossing the delivery cap and vest into a recycling bin along the way. Without his winter coat, he shivered and pulled the beanie down to fully cover his ears. The queue moved fast, and he was soon inside, through the weapons detector, warm and registered. He headed for the nearest bathroom to change into the costume. He checked the time and, seeing that it was not yet 9:30 a.m., relaxed a little and took his time to get ready.
When finished dressing, Emz was wearing the Team Rocket uniform: a cropped jacket displaying a bold red ‘R’ on the chest over a black undershirt, slim-fitting white trousers tucked into sleek knee-high black boots, long black gloves extending to his forearms, and the voluminous bright lavender wig—a shoulder-length cut with a slight inward curve at the ends and a thick strand arcing out over his forehead. There was a plastic red rose and Poké Ball in the bag, but he left those in the bag and checked himself out in the big bathroom mirror, along with other people admiring their costumes.
Emz thought he looked stupid, but a couple of the other people getting ready in the spacious VIP bathroom smiled and pointed knowingly. His regular clothes were pushed into the rucksack, and he headed out to find his assigned stall. After wandering around, he eventually found the empty table with ‘BigP0kéBall$$’ printed on a label. As requested, it was close to a fire door. Emz sat down on a chair behind the desk, dropping his head so that his face couldn’t be seen under the wig, but he could still see through the fake hair strands. He took out the plastic rose, Poké Ball, and cheap sets of trading cards that Luki had supplied and arranged them slowly, scanning the room as it grew fuller with people in costumes. The other traders around him were setting out their own goods for sale.
He tried to calculate how long it would take Gary to make it in, register, and find his stall—if he didn’t back out at the last minute and go home, that is. A large display hanging on the wall cycled through all the events of the day and showed 10:24 by the time Emz finished placing all his cards. Still no Gary. So, he pulled them all together and started again, more slowly.
He was halfway through the second round when he finally saw Gary, still in his running clothes, heading his way through the growing masses. Emz got up, went around the desk, and stood with his back to the approaching Gary, pretending to be focused on his display.
“Excuse me, are you BigP0kéBall$$?” Gary asked, tapping Emz on the padded shoulder of his white cosplay jacket.
Emz whipped around, grabbed Gary’s tapping hand, twisted the wrist into a lock, and swiftly brought his knee up hard into the muscles above Gary’s knee, weakening the leg. Before Gary could even yelp in pain, Emz clamped his other hand over his mouth and forcibly pushed him backward, limping through the double fire doors into a bare concrete stairwell. He dumped the older man on the nearest steps leading up to the next floor.
Gary dropped onto the hard concrete steps with a painful, bruising bump.
Emz raised a foot high over one of Gary’s knees and pointed at the older man. “Make a loud noise, and I will break your kneecap. You’ll never run a marathon again. Understand?”
Gary rubbed his thigh and nodded reluctantly.
“Good.” Emz then took a plastic cable tie from a pocket, squatted down, and quickly zipped Gary’s legs together with a rapid, ratcheting zip-zip-zip.
“You tricked me,” Gary whined pitifully.
Emz stood back up. “Well, you gave me no choice, mate.”
“It’s my card! Luki told me I could take it. He did, honestly.” The old man pleaded.
“I honestly don’t care.” Emz shrugged with apathy, which lost something under the cartoonish cosplay costume. “Just give me the card.”
Gary looked shifty. “I don’t have it on me—”
Emz raised a foot over Gary’s knee again. “Don’t fuck with me.”
Gary stopped talking and looked at the floor sullenly.
Emz placed his foot back on the floor. “You wouldn’t have come here without it.” He then pointed to Gary’s mobile device strapped to his arm with a runner’s armband. “It’s with that old-fashioned mobile on your upper arm.”
Reluctantly, Gary removed the blocky, slab phone from his armband. From a few card holders on the back, he pulled out the Blastoise trading card in its protective clear case and weakly offered it to Emz, who snatched it from the old man.
He checked it over to make sure it was the right card and then slipped it into his pocket. He pulled out the Wartortle card in its own protective case and tossed it into Gary’s lap. “There you go, be thankful you’re getting that.”
Gary picked it up with a sulky face, an annoying expression to see on a child, but far too pathetic for an old man. “It’s not fair. He really did tell me I could take the other one. I’m not lying.”
Emz rolled his eyes. “I’ve got to go, but one question for you: the work you did for him, the energy management thing—was the work worth about the value of that card in your hand or the one you took?”
Gary looked up and, after a pause, answered with a clear lie. “The other one.”
“Bullshit.” Emz confidently replied. “If he did say it, you knew that he made a mistake, and you took advantage.”
Gary didn’t argue and just cast his eyes down.
“For that lie, you can get yourself out of the cable tie,” Emz said, then left Gary to sulk in the emergency stairwell while he returned to his seller stall to retrieve his rucksack. No one seemed to have noticed or cared about the kerfuffle, so he dashed off to find another bathroom and change back into his regular clothes for the final action of the day.
Out of his cosplay costume, Emz took an elevator up to the topmost floor of the Convention building, where the auctions were happening, feeling vulnerable without his gun.
He found the right room and, taking a deep breath, pushed his way inside. It was nearly 11 a.m.—an hour until the planned auction—so the rows of chairs set up for any potential bidders were empty. However, by a raised dais at the end of the long room, several people stood around in a standoff on either side of the auctioneer's podium, with the Money Happens painting prominently displayed behind them. The auctioneer and two armed guards were on the dais, trying to calm down Drexler, the twins, and the large, nondescript henchman from the limo, who were demanding the painting. The guards gripping their holstered sidearms were the only thing keeping Drexler and his unarmed crew from ripping the painting off the wall. As Emz strolled down unnoticed for the moment, he could hear the auctioneer’s appeasing tone. He was saying that he would be very happy to release the painting, but unfortunately, it needed to be agreed upon by the co-owner, Ciaran Tobin, which was enraging Drexler, who was angrily swearing in German.
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Madison eventually saw Emz and tapped the other twin to get their attention. Slowly, the entire room turned to focus on Emz as he walked closer.
“What have you done?” Drexler demanded, taking a step toward Emz. His henchman looked confused, but the twins looked positively incensed. Their appearance was ragged from the grocery landslide, and a nasty swelling was noticeable along the side of Morgan’s head. They clearly wanted to rush forward and attack him, but a quick glance back at the armed guards behind kept them momentarily restrained.
Emz wasn’t sure how to play this, but he needed to think of a way to keep them around until Petrovi? arrived—or so he hoped. However, Emz didn’t get or need to say anything, as Drexler’s anger suddenly turned to shock when Ciaran Tobin walked into the room behind Emz.
Turning to the new arrival, Emz saw the man who had tricked him a couple of weeks ago, though he was a little shorter and more youthful-looking without the lifts, makeup, glasses, and wig.
Tobin seemed equally shocked to see everyone present, but one glance up at the painting at the end of the room coloured his face with anger. “I painted that, it’s mine, you can’t sell it!” he emotionally shouted, with an Irish twang and a raised fist. “I decide what to do with it!”
Drexler stepped forward again and raised his hands in a placating gesture. “Ciaran,” he said gently, “you didn’t paint it, I did. You just assisted me. Remember?”
Tobin had stepped forward and banged his fist into his own chest. “I painted it!” he demanded, his voice trembling with the sting of injustice. “And I already sold it, for me!”
Drexler took another slow step forward too, making an awkward triangle with Emz in the middle and slightly to the side. “Let us discuss this later. We can take the painting from here and talk about it together.”
Something in Drexler’s phrasing or tone triggered Tobin, who suddenly looked repulsed, practically leaning back in disgust.
What followed was an uncomfortable silence. Emz was lost for what to say, flicking his eyes back and forth between the two men, and then he became somewhat relieved when both the main entrance and a side door opened. Petrovi? and his men rushed into the room, guns drawn, all in charcoal suits with thin, silvery scars on their faces. Somehow, they had managed to enter the building with weapons—an unexpected outcome that made Emz’s spine tingle. Endgame time.
The two armed guards began to draw their guns, but seeing that they were far outnumbered for their meagre jobs to risk, they quickly dropped them to the floor and raised their hands, as did the auctioneer.
Petrovi? gestured towards a couple of his men to deal with the auction staff. Picking up on the unspoken command, two Serbs corralled the staff away through the main entrance. “Come, this is a private matter. You should wait outside,” one of them said, more as a command than a request.
As soon as the door closed, Petrovi? had everyone else gather round the dais at gunpoint. He looked up at the painting without any emotion, then at each of them in turn as if weighing them up, before finally settling on Emz.
“You messaged my man about this?”
Confidence was king. Emz nodded. “Yeah, I heard some chatter, and I felt you needed to know.” He cast a casual thumb toward the others. “Ripping clients off is not what I do. It’s not professional.”
Drexler became excited again and pointed an angry finger at Emz. “It is he who is deceiving you—”
“Do not speak unless I ask,” Petrovi? suddenly said with frightening menace. “Do it again, and I will have my men shoot you in the balls.”
One of the Serbs lowered his gun to point at Drexler’s crotch, making the tall Austrian immediately shut up and stand up straight.
“Why are you here?” Petrovi? asked Emz.
“To stop this sale until you got here,” Emz replied with as much conviction as he could muster. “It wouldn’t be good for business if a client got screwed over. I had to try and stop it and let you know.”
Petrovi? gave nothing away, as to whether he believed him or not. “Who are they all?”
Emz looked along the line. “The guy at the far end in the black jumper is just a hired thug; the weird-looking twins too; then obviously Matthias Drexler, who I believe arranged the theft and auction sale; then this guy…” Emz nodded his head toward the young Irish painter immediately to his right, shaking with fear. “He’s the guy who gave me the art and made the deal with you. But he was dressed up like Drexler at the time, so I got played.”
Petrovi? looked back and forth between Drexler and Tobin, scowling. “I do not see it. How were you tricked?”
“I’ll show you.” Emz raised his hands to calm any concern, then slowly stepped over to Drexler and carefully removed his platinum glasses, while the Austrian angrily, but silently, eyeballed him. Emz then moved back to the side of Tobin and held the glasses over his face. “I now realise he was wearing heel lifts, some aged makeup, and a wig to copy Drexler’s dumb haircut.”
Petrovi? nodded almost imperceptibly, conceding the possible deception. He then looked over at Drexler, while Emz pocketed the glasses.
“You, Drexler,” Petrovi? said, making sure he had his full attention. “You stole from me?”
“No, no, I did not. It was the black man,” Drexler pleaded.
Petrovi? scowled. “Then why would he contact us about the sale?”
Drexler opened his mouth, his mind searching for a convincing answer. “He is trying to frame me?”
Petrovi?’s scowl deepened. “Why would he do that? What does he gain from stealing from me only to frame you?”
“He is trying to cover up selling my painting to you in the first place.” He gestured to Tobin and Emz. “They conned you and sold you my painting.”
“It’s my painting,” Tobin insisted.
Another Serb pointed his gun at Tobin’s crotch, swiftly silencing the Irishman.
Petrovi? glanced menacingly at Tobin, then refocused on Drexler. “When did you find out that they had sold your painting to me?”
Drexler paused, calculating the best answer. “A little over a week ago.”
“Why did you not reach out to me to tell me of this con?”
Drexler again paused. “I did not originally know who took my painting or where it went. My people have been tracking it down.” Drexler then added to connect his account to the last answer. “So, a little over a week ago I found out who took my painting, though only recently had my team tracked the black man down, and we're following him when he went to your apartment building and stole it back—evidently trying to cover his tracks and frame me.” The twins vigorously nodded agreement.
“When did he steal it, which day?”
Drexler looked at the twins. “Thursday, at eight in the evening!” Morgan firmly answered, “We didn’t catch him, but he did it.” They added, before shutting up, remembering Petrovi? didn’t like being spoken to without permission.
“Ha!” Emz laughed.
Petrovi? cast his gaze back to Emz. “Why is that funny?”
“Well, I don’t know which black man they were following, but Thursday evening I was at the hockey game,” Emz replied confidently, while the twins shook their heads. “I can show you my ticket, some photos I took. Check my seat number, I’m sure I’m easily visible online in the crowd, probably one of only a few black guys there.”
“What was the score?”
“Two-all at the end of the third period, and then the Pirates won in extra time.”
Petrovi? glanced at one of his men, clearly a fan, who nodded confirmation back.
The Serbian boss leaned over and whispered into the ear of his evident lieutenant, the man who had paid Emz a couple of weeks ago. The lieutenant nodded acknowledgment and then drifted to the back of the room to make a call. Petrovi? then looked back at Morgan. “Did you see him at my building? Is he lying?”
Both twins stiffened up. “We didn’t actually see him; we were following him with a tracker.”
Petrovi? scowled. “Can you show us the tracking information?”
This time, Madison answered. “We lost the signal. He must have found the tracker and somehow wiped all the history.”
Emz resisted a smile, instead rolling his eyes as if the ruse was pathetic.
Petrovi? looked back at Drexler and pointed at Tobin. “Do you know this man?”
Drexler seemed reluctant to answer, but eventually said, “He is an old student of mine. He had a mental breakdown and needs help.”
Tobin's eyes moistened with tears, but he resisted saying anything.
Petrovi? turned to Tobin. “You sold the art to me?”
Tobin nodded.
“Say the words,” Petrovi? insisted.
“Yes. I did, because it’s my painting.”
“Are you working with him?” Petrovi? gestured towards Emz.
Tobin looked over at Emz, and after a pause, shook his head. “No, I just used him to make the trade.”
Emz wasn’t sure how Tobin would answer, but was very happy that he gave an honest reply, though the admission made Emz feel a bit sorry for the man.
“And you were dressed like Drexler to fool him?”
“Yes.” Tobin admitted simply.
“Why?”
“It is my painting, but Drexler lies and pretends that he painted it, so I needed to trick this man to do the trade for me.” Tobin shrugged. “I had no idea someone had stolen it from you until I was contacted about the auction to validate ownership.”
This was the weak point of the story; if it unraveled that the auction team didn’t send any communication to Drexler or Tobin, it would cast doubt on Emz. However, the Serb lieutenant came back from his calls and whispered into Petrovi?’s ear, looking at both Emz and the twins as he quietly spoke to his boss. Like their last conversation, it was too quiet for Emz’s bud mics to pick up, so he had to wait to find out what it meant.
Petrovi? nodded, then looked at Emz. “Okay, our people have confirmed that there is no record of you in my apartment building since you first brought the art over, and it appears that you did attend the hockey game on Thursday.”
Emz gave a quick nod.
The Serb boss then looked over at the twins. “Though you two were seen going to the penthouse floor, while there was an attempt on my door lock, and then you were seen fleeing from the service entrance.” While the twins looked aghast, held only from replying by guns pointed at their faces, he turned to Drexler. “You secured a table at the restaurant to get them past reception. Not very clever.”
“What? I did not!” Drexler cried. “It was him—”
Taking a cue from his boss, the man pointing his gun at Drexler's crotch suddenly stepped forward, raised his handgun high, and hammered the end of the grip into the Austrian’s face, breaking his nose with a sickening crunch. Drexler’s head snapped backward before lolling forward as a torrent of crimson gushed from his shattered nose.
Petrovi? waved his hand in a tired motion. “Take those four out of here.”
The Serb thugs rushed in and grabbed the twins, Drexler, and Tobin, jabbing guns forcefully into the soft tissue below their ears and quickly shepherding them out of the room by the side door, leaving only Petrovi?, his lieutenant, Emz, and the petrified roll-neck-wearing henchman, who was doing his best to turn invisible and stay unnoticed.
Petrovi? stepped up onto the dais, removed the painting from the wall, considered it for a moment, then punched a hole through it before discarding it on the floor like garbage. He slowly turned around and towered over Emz.
“I am not sure about you,” the Serb boss said. “You either got played but got yourself out of it, or you were involved in a complex con and outmanoeuvred all your marks, including me.” He left the comment heavily hanging.
Emz kept his expression neutral but scrunched up his toes out of sight to deal with the anxiety.
“I think that you got played. But either way, you have got talent. We will be in touch with work.” Petrovi? then thudded down and marched out of the side door with his lieutenant.
As soon as the door closed, the nondescript henchman breathed out a long, heavy breath. “Fuck,” he croaked, then looked at Emz.
“Mate, looks like you’re out of a job.”
The henchman nodded, took a few deep breaths, and then, a little bewildered to still be alive, looked between both doors before rushing off through the main entrance.
Emz laughed with relief. “Fuck my life,” he muttered to himself, a nervous chuckle escaping him. He held his face in his hands for a long moment before finally standing up straight. Taking the folded platinum glasses from his back pocket, he appraised the opulent, haute couture frames. “Maybe I’ll make a tiny little profit after all.”
