Hollywood Hills hs-4 Page 11

  “I know what a fortnight is, Nigel,” Raleigh said. “I had the misfortune of working one summer in London at a bistro near the King’s Cross tube station, and it was a misery. But I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “We must have a chin-wag about dear old London town sometime,” Nigel said. “Anyway, I shall have to return to the Brueger house another time after that.”

  “I don’t like that next part,” Raleigh said. “The part I now see coming.”

  “I’ll need access again to replace the paintings with my photocopies on poster board, fitting them into the existing frames. And then I’ll be on my way with the originals. No harm, no foul, as your basketball fans love to say.”

  “You’re talking like a wack job,” Raleigh said. “Whadda you mean, no harm?” Realizing that his diction was slipping, Raleigh lowered his voice and said, “You’re talking about entering her house and stealing her paintings!”

  “She’s an ignorant arriviste, like most of my clients,” Nigel retorted. “She cares nothing about Sammy Brueger’s art or any art. She told me that she wouldn’t mind if the house burned to the ground with all the paintings in it. Everything is insured to the hilt.”

  “And what the hell happens to me when she figures it all out and calls the police?”

  “She won’t figure it out, Raleigh,” Nigel Wickland said. “She’s culturally ignorant. She barely looks at any of her art, and I can promise you that only a close inspection by an expert could detect the switch. That may happen a few years from now when she bothers to take the paintings from the storage facility where they’re going. She’s told me they’ll all be stored when she moves away from the house, and I guarantee you that’s where they’ll stay for a very long time because she doesn’t care about any of them. In fact, she’s commissioning me to box each piece and personally supervise the trucking transfer to her preferred storage facility.”

  “Hellooo!” Raleigh said. “So what happens when she does get around to collecting them and maybe putting them up for auction with some art dealer like you? Somebody’ll spot the switch for sure!”

  “That’s the beauty of my idea,” Nigel Wickland said. “After they’re crated and ready to leave Casa Brueger, I’m going to make sure that the crate containing the switched paintings is a different manufacture from all the other crates, and that the crate shows subtle signs of having been tampered with. The people who transfer these things are just ordinary truckers who will notice nothing. When the switch is finally discovered years from now, the theft will be blamed on someone who works at, or has access to, the storage facility. Leona will collect from the insurance policy and nobody will be harmed except for the insurer, and when has anyone felt sorry for insurance carriers? It’s foolproof, Raleigh.”

  Raleigh was silent for a moment and then said, “How much money could the paintings bring? Realistically.”

  “They could be sold easily in Copenhagen, Stockholm, Bern, or even Berlin. I’ve personally contacted a discreet European auctioneer who believes he can get at least six hundred thousand U.S. dollars for The Woman by the Water. The other piece of Impressionist art that I have my eye on is called Flowers on the Hillside, and he assured me that it should bring an equal amount. Raleigh, you and I will be dividing at least a million dollars after expenses. Tax-free! No more tending to dotty old men for you. And enough money for me that I can perhaps keep my gallery open until this goddamn recession ends. Plus there’s a special bonus for me in that these two wonderful pieces of art will end up with someone who truly appreciates them and not with some vulgarians in the Hollywood Hills.”

  “Half a million,” Raleigh said, and the sound of it brought a catch in his throat. When he spoke again he said, “When did you find out about me, Nigel?”

  “Find out what?”

  “That I’m an ex-convict. Someone who might seriously listen to your ‘foolproof plan’?”

  “The first night we met,” Nigel Wickland admitted. “When you were gone to the gents, Julius Hampton talked about you. He said that you’d had a bit of difficulty with the law and had been in prison. You see, Raleigh, he had a background investigation done by a private investigator when he hired you. Perhaps you didn’t know that.”

  Raleigh was quiet for a long moment, and then he said, “Nobody accepts an ex-con at face value. They all have to dig, and distrust you, and pay you less than they’d pay somebody who’s ten times worse but never got caught. Someone who’s done lots worse things than not paying enough of the taxes that the government gouges you with.”

  “I know how ex-convicts get shat on,” Nigel Wickland said, putting his manicured fingers on the back of Raleigh’s hand and patting sympathetically. “So yes, I confess that I did think you might be more amenable to my idea than the average person would be. But I could also see immediately that you were a man with imagination and ambition.”

  “Now you’re going too far, Nigel,” Raleigh said. “Quit while you’re ahead.”

  “You look a bit peaky,” Nigel Wickland said, eyes widening. “Are you in, then?”

  “If this goes sideways and I get busted, I’m ratting you out to the police and making the best deal I can for myself,” Raleigh Dibble warned. “You better understand that up front.”

  “Fair enough,” said Nigel Wickland. “I’m not worried, Raleigh. Not at all.”

  “You will be if you end up inside with lots of other guys who had foolproof plans,” Raleigh said. “And state prison, where we’ll go, is a lot worse than Club Fed, where I did my time. In a state lockup you’ll learn to sleep on your back with one eye open.” Looking at Nigel Wickland, he added, “But maybe you’re not so scared of that part.”

  “That was unnecessary, Raleigh,” Nigel Wickland said. “Homophobic humor is beneath you.”

  TEN

  Up, up. get the fuck up!” Jonas Claymore said to Megan Burke, who had been awake most of the night, vomiting.

  It was 10:30 A.M. and she was exhausted, and still suffering from withdrawal aches even though Jonas had taken the last $100 from his checking account and bought them half an ox. They divided and smoked it late in the evening after dining on a Fatburger that neither of them really wanted.

  “I don’t feel well,” Megan said, lying on the double bed they shared, her makeup from last night smeared all over her face.

  She looked like a blow-up doll that somebody had let the air out of, he thought. She looked like the corpse in one of those slasher movies, where the guy with the knife likes to paint their dead faces. Jesus! How did he get himself into this relationship?

  “We gotta do some work today,” he said. “We’re dead broke.”

  Megan dragged herself into a sitting position, feet on the floor, and said, “I’ll get another waitress job as soon as I feel better.”

  “Don’t try to clown me,” he said. “You ain’t gonna feel better till you stop jonesing. And you ain’t gonna stop jonesing till you give up the beans and norcos and perks. Because you can’t handle any of it.”

  She yawned twice and said, “And you can, I suppose.”

  “I’m a recreational user,” Jonas said. “I know my limits. But you? You’re all smoked out.”

  “Sure,” Megan said, shuffling across the bedroom to the bathroom. She sat down and continued, “You’re always in control, aren’t you?”

  “That’s disgusting,” Jonas said. “Can’t you close the door when you piss?”

  She answered by slamming the door without getting off the toilet. Then she said, “You’re the one that got fired. Get mad at yourself, not at me.”

  “I didn’t get fired. I quit.”

  Megan didn’t answer. She was nauseated and started dry heaving.

  “Why can’t I catch a break?” Jonas said to her impassive calico cat.

  Then he dressed in a Warner Bros. sweatshirt that he thought made him look like a studio employee, along with relatively clean jeans and tennis shoes.

  When Megan started to dress in anothe
r T-shirt and shorts, he said, “Why can’t you call one of your old cock-blocking roommates and borrow some share wear? And for chrissake, brush the moss off your teeth. Any more, it’ll look like you invented a tooth sweater.”

  By noon on a hot Los Angeles day, they were cruising in Jonas’s fifteen-year-old VW bug in the Birds, those streets on the western side of the Hollywood Hills named for feathered friends, like Nightingale, Robin, and Oriole.

  “Do you know that Harrison Ford don’t even know how many airplanes he owns?” Jonas said as they drove up into the Hills. “I read this interview where he said he owns six or eight. He don’t even know for sure how many.”

  Megan, who was wearing a passably clean yellow jersey, jeans, and flip-flops, slouched in her seat and stared out at the multimillion-dollar homes. “How long do we have to do this?” she said. “I’m getting carsick.”

  Ignoring her complaints as usual, he said, “And then there’s Nicolas Cage. He’s in financial trouble because it takes mega-millions for him to survive each year. Do you know he has a collection of comic books that’s probably worth more than a few of Harrison Ford’s airplanes?”

  “Uh-huh,” Megan said. “That’s intriguing.”

  Any response at all from her these days encouraged him, and he said, “He had an Action One Superman comic book worth who knows how much. One like it sold recently for three hundred grand. And he didn’t even know the comic books were stolen until months passed. Think of it, Meg, three hundred thou for one comic book. And they don’t even miss them till somebody gooses them and says, ‘Where’s the fucking comic book?’ That’s the kind of stuff you find laying around celebrity cribs all the time. And the best thing is, you’re not hurting anyone when you take it. Half the time they don’t even know it’s gone.”

  Megan said, “The way I feel today, I don’t give a shit what they know. I need some ox. I’m sick.”

  “It’s nice to hear you say something,” Jonas said, “even if it’s bitching at me. Usually I talk in an echo chamber.”

  She didn’t respond and he said, “See that house on the left, the one two houses from the corner? See the security camera on the roof? I could just climb up on that garage and throw a bag over it. But first I’d have to know if the house belongs to a careless celebrity. We gotta stop at the library or the computer café and get on the Internet and find out who lives there. It’s a promising target.”

  Jonas drove aimlessly until they were on one of the top streets, looking down at a midsize residential property on a corner lot, where an elderly woman in a bathrobe and sun hat was sitting on a chaise longue beside a swimming pool. She was drinking what looked like a glass of iced tea and watching a small TV that sat on a table next to her.

  Jonas parked, continuing to look down at her, and said, “If we happened to be really desperate I could go to the door of that house and say I’m looking for the Lohan residence or something. And you could open the pool gate and go in there and grab that TV. We could easy trade it for at least an ox or two down at Pablo’s Taco Shop.”

  “I’m really feeling awful, Jonas,” Megan said.

  “You down for it?”

  She paused and said, “I guess so.”

  “You really down?” he asked. “Don’t wuss out on me.”

  “I’m almost desperate enough to do Wilbur for a couple of OCs,” Megan said, tears in her eyes. “That’s what I’ve come to.”

  He looked at her closely. She really was all smoked out. She was jonesing way worse than he thought. He couldn’t believe she’d even think about fucking that disease-ridden drug dealer. If she ever did something like that, he was dumping her ass for sure.

  Jonas said, “Okay, we’re gonna do this thing just for you. Just to score you an emergency bean or two.”

  He didn’t want Megan to know how nervous he was when he stopped the car two houses from the corner and said, “Walk to the swimming pool gate. When you hear her go into the house, open the gate, run in and jack the TV, and meet me right here. If she’s home alone, we’re cool. If she’s got a maid or if somebody else answers the door, we pass. Okay?”

  Her chin quivered when she said, “Okay.”

  He drove down the hill and stopped thirty yards past the pool gate. The plaster-white wall around the pool was six feet high, and the pool gate was on the side street for the pool cleaner’s easy access. He figured it might be locked but Megan could climb the wall with no trouble.

  Jonas grinned at Megan with feigned insouciance when she got out and closed the car door. He drove around to the front of the house and parked at the curb by the driveway, where his license plates were not facing the residence.

  It was one of the ubiquitous “Spanish-style” homes with red-tile roofs that dot the upscale hillsides all over Southern California, the kind that wouldn’t look too crazy within five hundred miles of the Mediterranean Sea. He walked boldly to the front door of the house and was about to use the black metal knocker when he saw the doorbell and pressed it. He was expecting an intercom voice and he had a story ready about a neighbor he was looking for.

  There was a wait of over a minute, which was a good sign, and then the door opened and the elderly woman in the sun hat, her face tanned and creased like old leather, said in annoyance, “Are you from Manny the Plumber? I’ve been waiting all morning for you.”

  Jonas said, “Uh, no, Manny couldn’t make it but he wanted me to come and set up another appointment if that’s okay.”

  “Can’t you even fix a clogged toilet?” the woman asked, doubly annoyed now. And she opened the door as though thinking that any fool from a plumbing company could unclog a toilet if he’d just come in and look at it.

  “No, ma’am,” Jonas said. “I just work in the office and-”

  He didn’t get to finish it. An eighty-five-pound golden retriever barking deliriously leaped past the woman and slammed Jonas in the chest with both front paws and all his weight behind it.

  “Sigmund!” the woman yelled. “Down! Down, Sigmund!”

  Jonas was knocked flat on his back, and the dog began wagging and squirming, and for a moment Jonas thought his spine was broken. He felt a spasm when he tried to get up, but the dog was sitting on Jonas’s head and drooling on his crotch.

  The woman grabbed the beast by his collar and tried to pull him away, saying, “Bad boy! Bad Sigmund!”

  But Sigmund didn’t give a shit what she said, and he gave Jonas a big lick on the mouth before he decided to surrender to his mistress.

  Jonas struggled to his feet in agony, his right hand pressing his lower back, and said, “I could sue you for this, lady!”

  “Oh, please!” the woman said. “Sigmund didn’t mean to hurt you. He loves people too much.”

  “He’s a menace,” Jonas said, moaning as she managed to get Sigmund inside and close the door.

  “Let me take down your name and address,” the woman said. “I’ll call my insurance company immediately. Please believe me, he’s an adorable dog. I’m so sorry.”

  When she opened the door and went inside to get a pen and paper, Jonas carefully descended the two steps, each one causing pain to shoot down his leg. He limped to his car, started it up, and made a U-turn just as the woman opened the door again, notepad in hand.

  Jonas made a quick left and drove halfway down the block, where Megan came running to his car with the TV set.

  “I did it,” she said, opening the Volkswagen’s door and putting the TV on the rear seat.

  “You drive,” he said. “Drop me at home and then go trade for the ox. A mad dog just attacked me. Oooooooh, my fucking back!”

  Raleigh Dibble liked his job of overseeing the Brueger estate so much that he could go almost an entire day without thinking about Nigel Wickland. The art dealer was spending a great deal of time at the custom photo lab of his associate, learning enough photographic tricks to be able to do what he had to do. He phoned Raleigh every day on Raleigh’s cell to report his progress. And every time that Raleigh consid
ered Nigel’s plan, he vowed to call it off. He’d lie beside the Brueger pool on hot afternoons and think of the dozen ways that this could go sideways.

  And then Raleigh would wonder when Nigel was going to call and tell him that this was the day. He wished that Nigel wasn’t a homo. In prison the more flamboyant butt pirates were always snitching on the straight guys to make points with the COs. Of course, that didn’t mean that Nigel would go all fluttery if something did go wrong, and drop a dime on him. Nigel might turn out to be a stand-up guy. Maybe.

  And then he’d remember how awful the federal prison had been, and he’d imagine how much more horrible state prison would be. He wouldn’t be serving time with tax cheats and white-collar criminals and organized-crime guys, as he had at Club Fed. No, this time he’d be in with the vilest of psychopaths: rapists and serial killers and thugs and cutthroats of every stripe. His life would be in danger when he was just walking across the yard. He could be murdered by gang members just for talking to the wrong guy, or even to the right guy at the wrong time.

  His fear would make Raleigh appreciate how this Brueger job was the sweetest setup he’d ever had. In some ways it was even better than when he’d had his own catering business, when he had always had to worry about finding decent meat and fish and produce for a price. And hiring people who actually gave a shit. And paying taxes. All that made him think of $500,000, tax-free. Tax-free! He’d get a safe-deposit box, and that’s where it would stay until he could see what was what. He’d go to the bank from time to time just to visit his money. He’d take it out and run his fingers over it.

  Or if the recession got worse and property values went in the toilet, maybe he’d use the money to buy the little condo he’d always dreamed of owning. Cash would be king if real estate really tanked. And he’d have cash, more than he’d ever had in his life. A condo that was worth a million nowadays could probably be had for half a mill when California eventually went bankrupt and Arnold Schwarzenegger went back to making dumb movies.