Thorne exhaled. “So it’s real.”
Parker didn’t touch it. He pulled a jeweler’s loupe from his waistcoat and leaned in.
“Cut the label. Cut the lining. Remove the Allen Silver from the world. Then burn this coat. Not for me. For the truth.” Steve parker allen silver checked
“What?”
Parker wasn’t there to buy.
Thorne unfolded it from acid-free tissue. The silver fabric caught the single bulb overhead. For a moment, the check pattern bloomed—faint, geometric, hypnotic.
“In 1967. I was young. I needed money. A dealer brought me the cloth. Told me to copy the Viennese pattern. I didn’t ask questions. I’ve spent forty years finding every piece I made in that period and marking them.” He opened the jacket’s inner breast pocket. Hidden inside the seam allowance was a single silver thread, stitched in a tiny figure-eight. Thorne exhaled
“That’s my signature,” Parker said. “The sign of a fake.” Parker lit a cigarette. The smoke curled around the Allen Silver like fog around a mountain.