As Darkness Falls

Chapter Four

Neal, under the guise of one of his oldest aliases, Wes Brandt, and Mozzie walked up to the high-priced home belonging to Vincent Nialman, an old thief like Mozzie, who had managed to use his craft to make himself richer than most other thieves ever could and without getting himself caught. He wasn't a bad guy and he never hurt anybody to Neal's knowledge, but despite appearances, Neal certainly didn't trust him and he didn't like him much. It was because of Mozzie that he never brought Vincent to the FBI's attention until now, now that it was necessary.

Jones and the other two agents with them remained inside the van like they did for every other case. There was no need for them to cut Neal's anklet like they normally did, as Neal had been to see him more than once with it on and had already given him a reasonable story for why he wore it, but they made sure that Neal was now wearing the watch the FBI had given him for on the stings so that they could listen in on the conversation.

After a young woman that worked for Vincent as a housekeeper let Mozzie and Neal inside for the second time that day, the man spoke up first saying, "Wes, I didn't expect to see you again so soon and I see you've brought Mozzie with you this time, but why are you here again? We're not exactly good friends."

Mozzie cut in for Neal as he asked, "Well then, why did you invite him to come and look at your latest acquirement first and not me? Last time I checked, we are friends, or I thought we were."

"Of course, we are friends, Moz," Nialman replied. "I just wanted to brag a little; reminding Wes here who's the better thief."

"This house is enough, believe me, though it's a little tacky for my taste," Neal answered. "Look, Mozzie just wanted to see the painting for himself. He didn't believe me that you really secured a painting that was believed to be lost all this time. It was kind of a bet between us. Looks like I won. Where did you get it again?"

Vincent looked at Neal skeptically, then responded, "I already told you, the seller was anonymous. If you think that I was fooled into purchasing a fake, you're either not as good as you thought you were with seeing true beauty, or you're simply jealous."

Neal put his hands in the air as if to back off and replied, "No, no, I was just curious. If your seller had something as beautiful as this in his collection, I was hoping to find out what else he had and if he, or she, had anything else worth purchasing."

"I don't think he'd have anything else that you'd be interested in," Nialman answered smugly.

"Come on, Vince," Mozzie interrupted before Neal could say anything else. "It's my birthday today and I was really hoping to find the perfect thing to help make today worth celebrating. Please, you know me and you owe me. Remember, I kept you from being broken into tiny, tiny pieces by those card sharks and made you the man you are today."

Vincent groaned, then pulled Mozzie aside in order to talk to him in private, and said, "I shouldn't be doing this. I don't trust Wes and not really you either, but I hate to admit that you're right. I do owe you. The seller's name was Don Grayson. If you want to get into contact with him, I'll send you the address he gave me."

Mozzie responded, "You'd be doing me a real solid."

"Do you plan on bringing him with you?" Nialman asked.

"I don't necessarily trust him either, but the man has a better eye for priceless than I do," Mozzie replied. "He won't try to trick me with this. Out of curiosity, did you happen to meet your seller in person?"

Vince glared at Mozzie and answered, "I've said enough, now get out of here before your friend gets tempted to steal my artifacts from the spaceship crashing from Roswell."

Neal overheard him and responded, "I think the extraterrestrial crash in Roswell was real?"

"Get out, both of you!" Vincent responded. "Do it before I sick the cops on you!"

"You wouldn't unless you were willing to bring them on yourself," Neal replied.

Nialman grumbled, "Whatever, just get out, now!"

After finally leaving the man's place, Mozzie spoke up again saying, "Wow, I knew he was two baskets short of a picnic, but today he seems extra buckets of crazy. Even I know that the Roswell landing wasn't real. The ships really landed near Area 51 and are being kept under lock and key like Fort Knox."

"Okay," Neal answered oddly. "Did he give you this guy's address yet?"

"Not yet," Mozzie responded. "You know that he might not now thanks to you making fun of him. You shouldn't have done that."

It was then that Jones walked up to them after stepping out of the van parked down the street and replied, "I hate to admit it, but the odd little man is right. You should never make fun of the crazy, especially when you need them to help you out."

Mozzie got up into Jones' face and answered, "You should learn to follow your own advice, Suit Junior."

"Moz…" Neal tried to cut in.

"Don't defend him, Neal," Mozzie responded. "He doesn't deserve it."

Jones looked back at Neal and replied, "Yeah, don't worry about it, Caffrey. I know he's all talk."

Neal stepped in between the two and said, "All right, enough. Nialman will be sending Mozzie an address soon and then we can go and have a chat with our soon to be new friend, that is if Hagen hasn't gotten to him first just that no one would be around to try to contradict that his forgery isn't the real Rembrandt. We should give Peter a call and let him know what's going on now."

"I'm already on it," Jones answered as he pulled out his phone and dialed.

"Are we going to be stuck with Junior here all day?" Mozzie asked as Jones stepped away to talk. "He isn't much better, but I'd rather work with the real suit over this one. He's nicer to me, thanks to Mrs. Suit."

Neal smirked and responded, "Relax, Moz. I'm sure we'll be seeing Peter soon. Just look on the bright side, at least we're not working alone with Diana. She hates you even more than Jones does."

Mozzie shrugged and replied, "You're right. Suit Junior is better than Miss. Suit Junior.