“So you’re sending money to family instead of spending it on yourself,” Joe prompted. “Is it helping?”
“One would think.” He bit the toast and took his time chewing again. “One would think that American dollars would make them rich beyond their dreams. But don’t forget, there is corruption to pay for, too.”
Joe frowned, sliding his notebook to his lap and making a note beneath the table. “Sounds pricey.”
“You have no idea. There are bribes they must pay to get their mail. Bribes to keep them from being robbed of it. Bribes for the privilege of breathing, I suppose.” He threw up his hands, his feeling of helplessness palpable. “They end up with little. But even that is better than nothing.”
Joe considered this. Peter needed money, and a lot of it. That didn’t mean he was forging art to get it, though. It only meant he had an immediate need for cash, in addition to the chip on his shoulder Joe had observed last time they spoke.
“What about bringing them here?”
“What about the questions you came here to ask?” Peter drank the water with controlled sips, even though his stomach growled loud enough for Joe to hear. “Surely you didn’t come to ask about my family.”
Joe recalibrated the conversation. The last thing he wanted to do was spook Peter, and he didn’t have enough to bring him in to the station yet.
Peter’s attention slid past Joe. With recognition in his eyes, he gave a curt nod.
Turning, Joe spotted a blond-haired man in his early thirties at a table for two. He opened a book and read while he ate.
“Friend of yours?” Joe asked Peter.
“Not really. It’s just the registrar, and he prefers his own company, as you see. His job is unpacking everything shipped to the Met and packing up everything shipped out.” Peter scoffed. “It’s about the least-skilled job at the museum. Anyone with a day of training could do it.”
Joe figured there was a little more to it than that but skipped ahead of that discussion. “How’s work going?” He endured the expected tirade of complaints, then asked if Peter had ever worked on his own, or thought about it, since working here was so challenging.
Peter blinked. “Conserving antiquities isn’t the type of work one could freelance. For steady pay, one needs to be attached to an institution. The bigger, the better. In theory.”
“What about art? Surely you can do that on the side, on commission maybe. I imagine the Met has enough patrons to keep you busy that way. Unless I’m mistaken about the range of your skills.”
“You wouldn’t be the first.”
“But you can do it, right? At least, Egyptian art? Or maybe it isn’t that hard. For example, Dr. Westlake visited a patron who had life-sized Egyptian figures painted all over his dining room walls. She was impressed with the work, but this patron made it sound like it was no big deal. He’d used a lantern slide to project images on the surface and hired painters to fill in the lines.”
Peter had stopped chewing. “Are you talking about Ray Moretti?”
Joe’s pulse kicked up. He was on to something. “Why do you ask?”
“It was Moretti, wasn’t it? I know it was, so don’t pretend otherwise.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I painted those walls myself.”
Joe watched Peter while scribbling on his notepad. “He paid you well, I hope, despite his opinion that the work was easy?”
At this point, Peter speared three pieces of broccoli at once and stuffed them into his mouth. His jaw bunched as he chewed, abandoning his earlier method of making it last as long as possible. “He paid me a fraction of what the work was worth.” His brown eyes smoldered. “He reminded me of all the money he’d given to the Met so far, as if he’d personally bankrolled my salary.”
“You didn’t push back, Mr. Braun?”
He chugged half the glass of milk at once. “As much as I dared. He drives a hard bargain, and I realized that making him upset might put my job at the Met on the line.”
Joe could picture it. Peter Braun didn’t stand a chance against Ray Moretti.
“If I lose my job here,” Peter went on, “I can’t help my family. That’s not something I was willing to risk. And what I did for that manwasn’teasy. You couldn’t hire just any painter to mix thoseexact shades and pigments, using the exact materials the Egyptians used. It’s as much a science as it is an art, and I’d challenge him to find anyone else who could do it better. I almost chose a career in painting, by the way. But commissions are unreliable.”
“Well, I’m sure he knew you were the best,” Joe told him truthfully. “Otherwise, he wouldn’t have hired you. As I said, Dr. Westlake was impressed enough that she remarked to me about the skill of whoever had done it.”
Peter flicked a glance at Joe. “Did she find anything else remarkable there?”
