Raleigh said, "I'd trade your ass to have two months cut from my sentence. Or two weeks. I'd do it for no sentence reduction at all, just to see how you handle your inferiors in the prison yard, you pompous flouncing popinjay!"
There was no more said until Raleigh parked behind Nigel's gallery, where they unloaded the light stand, floodlight, and toolbox.
Nigel Wickland said, "I don't suppose we shall need to see each other after tonight."
"Not in this life," Raleigh Dibble replied, and headed for the Hollywood Hills.
There was just enough room to park the Volkswagen on Jonas and Megan's street, so Jonas had to double-park the van beside the car of a tenant who seldom went anywhere at night. They were excited when they got the bundles inside and removed the tape and the mover's blankets.
Jonas picked up the largest canvas and placed it on the back of the sofa, leaning it against the wall, and then he stepped back to appraise it.
"It's what you call an Expressionist picture," he finally said to Megan.
"Oh, really?"
"Yeah, it's a picture where the expression on the person's face tells you what the artist had in mind."
Megan said, "You can hardly see the woman's expression if that's what you're looking for."
"That's the way Expressionists paint," Jonas said. "You have to look through the fuzzy brushwork and guess what she's thinking."
"Do you think it's really worth five thousand?" she asked doubtfully.
"Just look where it came from. The crib up there in the Hollywood Hills is worth gazillions."
"Where will we sell it?"
"I don't know. Not at a swap meet, that's for sure. We gotta do some research."
"How about the other one?"
"Not as much," Jonas said. "It's smaller, and flowers are overdone these days. All the swap meets have lotsa framed pictures of flowers. But we might get a few Franklins for it."
"Do you think you'd better get rid of the van? The cops probably have a report on it by now."
"Yeah," Jonas said. "I'm gonna dump it over on Normandie after I wipe off all my fingerprints. Gimme a dish towel, will ya?" When they got out to the street, Jonas was barely seated in the van when 6-X-32 pulled up behind him with red and blue lights on and gave a short toot on the horn. Megan, who was about to get into the VW bug, saw them and headed back to the apartment, having to force herself to walk slowly.
Hollywood Nate approached on the driver's side of the van and Flotsam on the passenger side, shining his streamlight in on Jonas's hands. Nate said, "License and registration, please."
"Sure, Officer," Jonas said, his chin quivering. "What did I do wrong?"
"Do I have to tell you it's illegal to double-park like this?" Nate said.
Jonas was so relieved, he felt like crying, and said, "I'm sorry, Officer. I had to make a delivery for my boss. I been working all day and this is the last stop. I'm sorry. Please don't write me a ticket."
Jonas tried hard to keep his hand from trembling when he offered the driver's license to Hollywood Nate, hoping that the registration was in the glove box. Nate didn't even bother to take the license from him. He looked at the side of the van and said "Wickland Gallery. This doesn't look like a gallery neighborhood."
"We sell good art and crappy art, Officer," Jonas said. "Real affordable stuff. You and the missus should stop by sometime if you're thinking about --"
"Crappy art," Nate said. "I'll keep that in mind if I ever have another missus and need anything crappier than I've got now."
With that, Nate turned and walked back to the radio car. When they were cruising again, Flotsam said, "Why didn't you write that one? Double-parker, dude. One for the recap."
Nate said, "This recession's been tough on working stiffs like that kid. Besides, all my bones hurt. I just wanna sit in our shop tonight and think of ways I can burn the fucking Goth House to the ground."
"That reminds me," Flotsam said, taking out his cell phone to check on Jetsam for the second time.
When the black-and-white pulled away, Megan ran to the Volkswagen and headed toward Normandie Avenue. She drove south for a few blocks until she saw the Wickland Gallery van just past Melrose in front of a liquor store. Jonas was already out and walking northbound when she picked him up.
"I was so scared, Jonas!" she said. "I thought they had a report on the van and you were busted."
"I'm starting to think I can talk my way outta anything," he said. "He didn't even look at my license, so I can't be connected to the van even if they pick it up. Two cops in one day have tried to hack me and I'm still here. This might be, like, kiss-met."
"What?"
"It means that destiny is calling. Something big is in my future. You're lucky you hooked your wagon to a star!"
"I only hope I didn't hook my wagon to a wagon," Megan said. "A beat-up old Volkswagen that might end up driving us both straight to jail."
Chapter Nineteen.
RALEIGH MANAGED TOget to sleep as the rising sun was providing the citizens of Hollywood, California, with new hope on the cusp of autumn. Just as he was beginning to dream, the phone rang. He sat up when he heard Rudy Ressler say, "Raleigh, it's Mr. Ressler. How's Marty?"
During all the turmoil at the Brueger estate, Raleigh had hardly thought about the old man, and hadn't even phoned Cedars-Sinai since Marty Brueger was admitted.
"He's fine, Mr. Ressler," Raleigh said. "You and Mrs. Brueger have nothing to worry about. I'll let you know if there's any bad news at all."
"You won't have to," Ressler said. "I've booked a flight. We're coming home."
This time the blast of fear sent blood surging through Raleigh's skull. He jumped out of bed and stood naked and tense. "But Mr. Ressler," he said. "You have several weeks left on your vacation rental. Mr. Brueger is fine. Stay and enjoy yourself."
"To tell you the truth, it's not all that enjoyable," Ressler said. "The villa isn't what it was cracked up to be. The toilets work half the time and the water's never hot enough. This guy Silva who's supposed to be our translator is a greedy little wop who's always in our pockets for something or other. I'm not enjoying it at all and neither is Mrs. Brueger. We're leaving here."
Raleigh caught his breath, swallowed hard, and said, "I see. Do you know when you'll be arriving at LAX?"
"Not yet," the director said. "I'll let you know. We'll expect you to pick us up."
"Of course," Raleigh said. "I'll be in the big Mercedes."
After he hung up, Raleigh Dibble experienced the terror of being utterly out of control. The boiling heat in his head topped a roiling stomach that sent him to the bathroom again.
He phoned Nigel Wickland's cell phone ten minutes later and was not surprised to find his partner awake.
"It's me," Raleigh said.
Nigel said. "Please don't tell me there's something wrong with the replicas."
"No," Raleigh said. "The Bruegers are leaving Italy and coming home."
Silence on the line and then, "My work will be tested a lot sooner than we thought. All right, what of it? Just don't lose your head. The replicas look perfect. Just behave as you always do and it will be fine."
"You haven't heard anything about your van yet, have you ?" "Of course not."
"If you do hear anything ... let me know ASAP."
"Why?" Nigel said. "Are you going to reimburse me if the thieves strip it?"
"I'll feel a lot better when you get the van back, that's all," Raleigh said. "So just let me know if it gets impounded for any reason." Nigel clicked off without responding.
Raleigh wondered if Nigel Wickland was serious when he talked about shooting himself if the thieves got caught. If that happened, suicide didn't seem to Raleigh like such a bad idea.
Jonas Claymore and Megan Burke had decided to spend every last dollar she'd wheedled from her mother and buy enough ox to chase the dragon all weekend. This because they would have a windfall as soon as they figured out the best way to approach art dealers with the painting
s. It was when he felt euphoric that Jonas got his latest idea.
He tried to roust Megan out of her stupor and was only half successful. He said, "Baby, I got it."
"Got what?" she mumbled.
"It's too fucking risky to be messing with art dealers or auction houses. What I think we should do is make them pay us ransom!" "Ransom?" she said drowsily.
"Yeah," he said. "We call the Wickland Gallery on Monday morning and we talk to the boss there and we say we know how they fucked up the other night and got their paintings swiped, but we'd like to help get them back. Shit, I could even tell him where to pick up his van as an act of good faith. You on this?"
"Uh-huh," she muttered.
"Then get your head in it. All we gotta do is negotiate the price and tell them if they go to the police, we slash the paintings to pieces. Then we set up a money drop. I seen this done a million times in the movies, so I know all the tricks."
"Tricks?" she said.
"What's the use?" he said. "You're all spun out. I could get more companionship from a hamster."
Jetsam's neck spasm was not responding to muscle-relaxing drugs and he was advised by his doctor to take a few days off and rest at home. When he phoned Flotsam and told him about it, his partner said, "Do what the croakers tell you, dude. There's some good surfing coming down and you don't wanna miss it. So take it easy and rest up."
When Jetsam found out that Flotsam was partnered with Nate, he said, "Bro, I'm glad you got teamed with Hollywood Nate. He is like, so hormonally ingenious and cinematically dialed-in, he might put you onto some scintillating starlets from his movie ventures."
"He ain't done it yet, dude," Flotsam said. "But if he does, I'll save them for when my li'l pard comes back. I won't use them all up without you."
Hollywood Nate was glad that Snufffy Salcedo was still recuperating, because roll call that night would have driven him mad. The watch commander was conducting it instead of Sergeant Murillo, and he was droning on about the chief's pet program, the thing he brought with him to the LAPD from the East Coast.
The lieutenant said, "You should pay particular attention to reporting districts six-forty-three and six-forty-four. CompStat indicates unusual four-five-nine activity there. I'd like some explanations as to why these crimes are happening."
Everyone glanced at one another and eyes rolled, and Sergeant Murillo arrived in the nick of time, entering the room and saying, "Lieutenant O'Reilly, call for you from the captain. About the inspection next week."
"Oh, yes," the watch commander said, and went downstairs to take the call.
Sergeant Murillo sat and said, "Let's see, what were we talking about?"
The whole attitude of the troops changed with Sergeant Murillo in charge, and Flotsam said with a smirk, "The super chief's baby, of course. CompStat. You know, like, let's explain why this crime happened, where it happened, how it happened, et cetera. What I'd like to say is, it happened because some dude's been shooting up too much dope and needs money and he kicked down a door to find some. Period. End of story."
"We can't say things like that," Georgie Adams griped. "With CompStat, nothing is allowed to be random crime. Random is not in the CompStat lexicon. Yet, these're just jump-on crimes, Sarge. They happen."
"But we gotta come up with some goofy answer," Hollywood Nate said, echoing what he'd heard so many times from Snuffy Salcedo. "Because Mister brought it from back East, and the mayor thinks it's some kind of special juju, and the media has bought into it, and it's bullshit."
"It's all about putting the cops on the dots," Viv Daley said. "You put a pin map on a PowerPoint and it's supposed to do some kind of magic numbers-crunching."
Della Ravelle said, "It's nothing but pin maps that've been around a hundred years but without the computers back then. CompStat is supposed to figure out trends, but what if, like Georgie says, most of street crime is random? We're expected to invent trends to justify a theory. Mister is a master at stroking City Hall and conning the media."
Viv Daley said, "Back East where Mister comes from, not everybody has a car, so crimes can come in clusters in a small area, and cops can maybe look for trends there. But L. A. is a city on wheels. Everybody has at least one car. Everybody's in motion. One bad guy can scatter his offenses like cold germs all over the map. Where's the trend?"
Hollywood Nate said, "I'm gonna create a two-sentence book called CompStat for Dummies. The book will say, 'It's a computerized pin map, stupid. Now just go in there and do your Kabuki dance for the chief.' Think it'll sell down at PAB?"
It all stopped when Lieutenant O'Reilly came back into the roll call room and said to Sergeant Murillo, "Did you discuss CompStat and its importance?"
"Absolutely," Sergeant Murillo said. "And everybody here is onboard a hundred percent. It's the best thing that's happened to the LAPD since Kevlar vests and semiautomatics."
Lieutenant O'Reilly looked for irony in his sergeant's expression but nodded and said, "Fine. Let's go to work."
The moment 6-X-32 drove out of the parking lot and cleared, Hollywood Nate got a cell call. He didn't recognize the number but answered, and Leona Brueger said, "Hi, gorgeous."
"Mrs. Brueger!" Nate said. "Are you home?"
"Leona, remember?" she said. "And no, I'm not. It's the middle of the night here and I couldn't sleep and started thinking of you." "That's ... that's flattering," Nate said.
"I had too much champagne at dinner," Leona Brueger said. "It always wrecks my sleep. How about talking sexy to me until I get drowsy?"
Nate said, "I'm, uh, just leaving Hollywood Station with my partner beside me, preparing to crush crime and terrify lawbreakers. I don't see how I can do that."
"Bad timing," she said. "The story of my life."
"Maybe you'll invite me to a dinner party when you get back," Nate said. "With some of the industry people?"
"You actors," she said. "One-track minds. Okay, I'll let you guardians of law and order do your thing, but how about checking on my house? Rudy told me that our butler sounded a bit stressed the last time he called. Just make sure everything's okay."
"Absolutely," Nate said. "I'll stop by this evening. See you when you get back."
"You'll be seeing me sooner than you think," she said. "Bye-bye, gorgeous."
Nate closed his cell and said to Flotsam, "I need to make a quick stop up in the Hills."
That piqued Flotsam's interest. "Yeah?" he said with a leer. "You got some smokin' hot Hills honey up there? Maybe a stupendous starlet from one of your SAG jobs? How about an introduction? My li'l pard and me, we'll take your leftovers."
"Not exactly that," Nate said. "I met a director who's asked me to check on the house of his girlfriend. They're off in Italy for a couple of months. I've been meaning to stop but I haven't had time."
"What's the girlfriend look like?"
"Old enough to be your mother and mine," Nate said. "But she's still pretty hot."
"The miracles of modern medicine," Flotsam said. "My partner met a chick a year or so ago that was rebuilt from spare parts. T and A, all of it. She looked great, but he said he was scared to touch her for fear something would fall off."
"We'll just take a minute to ring the bell and ask the butler if everything's okay," Nate said. "And I'll leave my card to prove I've been there."
"Is he, like, gonna put you in a movie?"
"That's the idea," Nate said. "I'm thirty-eight years old. My time's running out."
"I'm thirty-five, dude," Flotsam said. "That's the good thing about the surfing life. You can do it till your libido expires and way beyond. There's no sell-by date as long as your knees keep working."
As Nate drove up toward Woodrow Wilson Drive, he said, "Magic hour. This is the best time to shoot movies. The light ... it's magic up here."
"Dude, when you get to be a star and buy a crib up in the Hills, I'd like to be your part-time houseboy. I know you're gonna have them starstruck Susies all over you, and my partner and me, we could take t
urns working for table scraps and whatever Bettys you leave still breathing when you're done with your monkey sex."
"I'll try to leave them breathing," Nate said.
"I hear that the homicide teams ain't too fond of the people that live up in the Hills," Flotsam said. "They're, like, way too busy arranging their toothbrushes according to feng shui to talk to coppers. The detectives are, like, 'Well, please give us a call after the kid's yoga, soccer, and lacrosse. It's only serial murder we're looking into.' Me, I prefer the people in east Hollywood, who have their kids the old-fashioned way. The brats up here go around saying, `We're in vitro twins,' or, 'I'm a reversal,' referring to daddy's vasectomy turnaround. It's all too weirded for me. But I wouldn't mind one of them trophy bride Hills-honeys who like to get their religion on."
"What's that supposed to mean ?"
Flotsam said, "You know, they go, 'Oh my god, oh my god!' when they finally get nailed by someone from their own generation after sleeping so long with semi-erect sugar daddies."
"I'll try to remember all that," Nate said. "When I get to be a star."
Hollywood Nate found the address written on Rudy Ressler's card, stopped at the drive-in gate, and pushed the call button. Raleigh Dibble's voice said, "Yes? Who is it?"
"Police officers," Hollywood Nate said. "Could you let us in, please?"
Raleigh stood petrified in the billiards room, where he'd been shooting pool to kill time as the hands of the clock on the wall seemed locked in place. And now he was paralyzed by the telephone voice. The voice said again, "Hello? Police officers. We need to come in, please."
Raleigh pushed the appropriate phone key, put down the pool cue, and walked into the foyer. He vaguely thought about getting something warm to wear because he knew from experience that a jail cell was a chilling experience, even during an arid day like this, when the Santa Anas were baking the Hollywood Hills.
The black-and-white had already parked in front of the entry arch, and the uniformed officers were getting out by the time Raleigh opened the door, hoping that the handcuffs would not be cinched so tightly this time. He remembered how they'd bruised his wrists when he'd been transported from courtroom to jail.
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