Peyton Riley by Bianca Mori

Ivor," Carson shook his head. "Do you really think I'll take this sight unseen?"
    "Come on man," said Ivor, his voice taking on a reedy, whining quality. "You know my product; I'm quality, man."
    "That's what I'm afraid of," Carson smirked.
    "Is this the–?" asked Peyton, as Carson surreptitiously tore the wrapping under the table.
    Ivor looked like he was about to sweat bullets. "Carson, man, be careful, eh?"
    Peyton eyed the small man. "You jonesing, Ivor?"
    He flinched. "None of your business."
    Carson tutted. Half the package was now open on his lap; Peyton ducked her head and made out a violent abstract full of agitated reds and angry yellows. He ran a finger over the pigments, which seemed to have been applied with such force that the paint bunched up in some places. Ivor leaned over the table, darting eyes shifting from the painting to Carson's fingers to Peyton's face and at the nearly empty chairs around them like a particularly strung-out reptile.
    "See man?" Ivor whined. "Mid-century canvas. Period-specific paint. Not easy to come by. You see the strokes, man? That's skill, that is."
    "Who did it?" Carson murmured, squinting at the frame.
    "You know I can't tell you that."
    He raised an eyebrow. "We had a price point, Ivor."
    "You said we're selling to a dealer. They'd know ."
    "Ivor…"
    The small man spasmed and tugged at his mustached. "Just a couple grand, Carson, you know how hard it is to put things together."
    "Bullshit," said Carson cheerfully. "I called this out two days ago, Ivor; if you didn't have this lying around looking for a rube to hack it off to then I'm a monkey's uncle."
    He tugged his mustache so hard Peyton worried he's pluck it right off. "Alright, alright man!" He spread his hands on the table and looked up at them with a junkie's most pitiful begging face. "Listen, what if I give you some information, man? You need a hook with that Rubinstein girl, don't you?"
    Carson slipped the painting back into the folder. "You holding out on me, Ivor? After all I do for you?"
    "Hey man, I just got this tip hot, yes? What if I tell you I know how you can meet the girl? Guaranteed."
    "Continue," said Carson.
    He cocked his head in a particularly lizardlike gesture. "Nothing in life is free, eh?"
    "What do you want?" said Peyton, covering one of his hands with her own and then twisting his pinky finger back so quickly he bit back a yelp, eyes watering in pain.
    "Peyton!" Carson scolded.
    "I'm getting a little tired of the back and forth, sirs," she said, giving the finger a little more pressure and causing Ivor to press his forehead on the table. "Clock is ticking. He's either shitting us or he can help; either way, he's wasting time."
    Carson gently pried her fingers off Ivor's. "There's no need for that." Ivor cradled his pinky and glared at her balefully. "But you heard the girl, Ivor. Time's a-ticking."
    "Fine. I want two grand, down. Then I speak."
    Carson peeled some bills off his money clip. "This is coming off our per diem, Peyton," he pouted.
    "I don't like eating cheap," she glared back at the mustached man. "You better talk and it better be worth it, sir, or I snap that clean off."
    So he talked.
     
    The Stedelijk was shaped like a giant kitchen sink and stuffed with people enjoying contemporary art on an improbable weekday. Peyton stood behind one of the bookshelves in the museum's large and airy bookshop, watching Carson browsing among hipster children's books (graphic design alphabets primers and artsy pop-ups), waiting for their mark. In her ear was the device: a combination mic and earphone, a flesh-colored button pressed into the canal, unobtrusive to only the most curious and intimate of inspectors.
    She hated it. Save for the required safe phone, Peyton preferred the clandestine, the analogue, the tactile. Roi sometimes called her Smiley after John le Carre's 70s spymaster—but it wasn't an endearment; rather an impatient shaming of her Luddite tendencies. She saw her old boss's