I do not own any of the White Collar stuff. I don't really know who does, but could they sell Matt Bomer to my school? We are an all girls school and would appreciate the eye candy!
Neal carefully hung the painting back into place, the forgery perfectly fitting. The original was already rolled up in a special case for it, and Neal was ready to get out of there. He pressed a button that Mozzie had installed on his belt, and the cord suspending him above the red motion sensors that covered the floor of the museum pulled him up and into the vent from which he was suspended from. The security here was a joke. He had been more challenged robbing one in Chicago when he and Mozzie went there for a week.
Carefully, he removed the clip holding his cord and replaced the vent entrance. Checking to make sure the original was secure on his back, Neal crawled through the maze of air vents until he found the one that opened to the ally on the side of the building. As silently as he could, he removed the grate that separated him from the ally below.
Swinging out and grabbing the ladder on the side of the building, he balanced himself as he put the grate back, then began his climb down. Once on the ground, he removed a coat that normal, non suspicious teenager would wear in October from his back pack, and stuffed the hat and container containing the painting inside. Neal swung the back pack on his shoulder, making it seem like he was just a kid coming home late from the library.
Looking like an average person, he joined the foot traffic of New York on a Tuesday night at midnight, which wasn't much. Five minutes later he walked into an old apartment building and up to the fourth floor. He unlocked the door using his keys, his least favorite way to unlock the door, and walked into the apartment he shared with his best friend, Mozzie.
"Whose there!" A frantic voice called out from the kitchen. "I am armed and ready to pounce!"
"Relax Moz, its just me." Neal said, shutting the door and bolting it shut. "Put the fork down and come take a look at this."
A balding man, probably about college age, walked out from the door leading to the kitchen. He was short, and a reddish tinge on his cheeks showed Neal that he had been right about the fork.
"Welcome back." Mozzie said stiffly, coming over to where his young friend was removing the painting from his backpack. "Any issues?"
"None." Neal said, flashing Mozzie a million dollar smile. "Here, I have school tomorrow so I need some sleep. Do whatever you want with it."
"I already have a fence picked out." Mozzie said excitedly, returning to the kitchen with the painting as Neal trudged down the hall to his room.
He had a bad feeling about this heist, he didn't know what it was, but something had him feeling off. Shaking it off, Neal collapsed into bed, barely remembering to set the alarm for school.
"That's a forgery!" Peter shouted, looking at the painting in front of him. He was no art expert, but even he could tell that it was good.
The museum manager nodded stiffly. "Yes. This is a particularly good one, but we do a weekly cleaning of each of the paintings, and our authenticator clarified that this was a fake."
Peter could only stare at the Raphael in front of him. He marveled at the detail that the artist had put on everything. Peter himself was not artistically inclined, but he had a certain respect for those who were, as long as they used their talents for good.
"Okay, how can you tell?" He questioned the manager.
"Because when we pulled it off its display area, we found this." The manager flipped the painting around to see a little half sheet of paper.
Peter walked up to the paper and examined it. His faced started out as confused, but then it grew into a large smile.
"Jones!" He called out, and waiting a moment for his friend to enter his office. "I need you to bring up a list of students that attend Kandle High School. Search for the name Nick and see how many of those attend an art class there."
Jones nodded and left, while Peter could only stare at the little sheet of paper in front of him. It was a sheet that a teacher had used to grade a student on his project. The student got a perfect score, and under teacher's notes it read
"Great job Nick! I thought it was the real one!"