Portrait of a Thief

The crew meets two members of the rival crew at the Louvre—the street racer, Zhao Min, and the tour guide from the Château de Fontainebleau, Liu Siqi. Min and Siqi are both members of China’s social elite. Alex kept footage of the other crew’s robbery on a flash drive to use as a bargaining chip, planning to trade the footage for the rooster zodiac fountainhead. Instead, a trade is proposed, with the crew offering Drottningholm Palace’s non-zodiac Old Summer Palace artifacts for the rooster zodiac fountainhead. Min and Siqi agree to make the exchange if Lily beats Min in a rematch.

As Lily races Min, she thinks about her past and how close she is to “everything she could ever want” (219). Despite failing to make sense of her Chinese American identity, Lily at least knows how to drive.

Will meets Min on a Paris bridge to receive the rooster zodiac fountainhead, promising to send documentation for the Drottningholm Palace artifacts once he’s back in Boston. Their conversation reveals how much Min’s wealth and social status protect him from suspicion or prosecution. Will drops his replica of the rooster zodiac fountainhead into the river. Min admits he and Yuling were part of the crew who robbed the Sackler Museum.