Sofia was already shaking her head. ‘Everything Gennaro does could be considered out of the ordinary.’
Greg winced, feeling sorry for his friend. Based on this woman’s tone, Gennaro was certainly going to have some explaining to do in the very near future.
‘OK, well thanks anyway,’ he said, guessing this conversation was going nowhere. ‘Happy holidays.’
He started to turn away, when suddenly Sofia spoke again.
‘I wasn’t finished,’ she continued, shaking her head as if to say ‘typical man, refusing to listen.’
‘Oh I’m sorry. That was rude of me. Please go on.’
She sighed. ‘I was about to say that, for instance, the other day out of the blue, Gennaro asked me to pull all of the records for events on every June eighteenth that we had been open. How’s that for random?’
Greg thought of the date, June eighteenth, and knew he’d hit pay dirt. ‘Completely random. I agree.’ And then he broke into a smile. It was the horseshoe charm he had given to his mother, not thecorno, that had led the woman with the bracelet to the gallery. Or, more specifically, the numbers on the charm, 618 – 18 June.
‘Do you mind if I come in to talk about it? It will just take a moment, I promise.’
Sofia nodded her agreement and held open the door for him as he fixed the bike to a nearby lamppost. ‘He didn’t tell me what I should do with the list when I compiled it,’ she said, as Greg followed her into the darkened gallery. ‘He just gave me a name and a number to call.’
He immediately perked up at this. ‘He gave you a name?’
She nodded as she entered the office of the gallery and rummaged around in a drawer, before taking out a sheet of paper. ‘This is what I pulled,’ she said, handing it to Greg. ‘It’s all names of artists who were featured at gallery events on that date for the past eight years.’
Greg looked at the list, and his brow crinkled in confusion when he didn’t see his own name. ‘Why are there only women listed on this?’
Sofia sighed. ‘Because that is what Gennaro requested. I thought he was looking to expand his little black book, but if it is about what you say, then that makes sense.’
Greg shook his head, not getting it. ‘How so?’
‘Well, you say that there is someone who is trying to find the owner of a bracelet? Obviously, she is looking for a woman, not a man. After all, wouldyouwear a charm bracelet?’ Sofia rolled her eyes at having to explain the obvious again.
Greg nodded and couldn’t help smiling at Sofia’s exasperation. She probably put up with a lot of crap having Gennaro as a boss. But indeed it did make sense.
At the same time, if Sofia had provided a list of only women to the mystery woman, there was little chance of their paths crossing.
‘You also said you had a name and a number? For the woman you sent this list to?’
‘I have not yet sent it – I have not had the time to send it. I was going to but …’ She sighed again. ‘It’s right here, written on the top of the page.’
Greg looked and to his relief saw a list of digits handwritten beside the name ‘Holly’. It was a local number, here in Manhattan.
‘No last name?’ he asked.
This elicited a bitter laugh from Sofia. ‘If she did, I’m sure Gennaro is keeping it to himself, especially if she is attractive … ’
She is, Greg recalled silently.
He also remembered Gennaro mentioning that he was going to call this Holly to ask her out. So if she did happen to leave a last name, it was probably currently in Gennaro’s possession.
Nonetheless he didn’t need it. Now that he had Holly’s number, all he had to do was call and introduce himself, and explain how he came by it. He took a moment to program the number into his phone. ‘Thanks Sofia, you have been a big help – a really big help,’ he said, buoyed by the new information. ‘In fact,’ he added mischievously, ‘if I were Gennaro, I would tell you to take the rest of the day off.’
Sofia’s eyes glittered. ‘Can I tell Gennaro you said that?’
Greg laughed as he turned towards the front of the building. ‘Sure. Blame it on me.’
Going back out onto the street, Greg didn’t hesitate in immediately calling the number he had just been given, and was looking forward to speaking with this Holly and retrieving his mother’s missing bracelet. It sounded as if she was a very kind person to have found it and then go to the trouble of trying to get it back to its rightful owner. And how clever of her to try and do so through the charms. Greg was pleased that it had been one of ‘his’ charms that had led her to Gennaro’s and, thus, to him.
He listened as a phone rang on the other end of the line, somewhere in New York. Three rings, four rings, five rings, no answer. Then a voicemail message came on.
