It was astounding to hear Nigel Wickland on the gate phone. Raleigh, still in his pajamas, bathrobe, and slippers, truly thought that he'd seen the last of Nigel. It was infinitely more astounding to look out and see Nigel parking the Wickland Gallery van on the faux-cobblestone driveway.
Raleigh jerked open the door and said, "They caught them?" Nigel walked right past him into the house and said, "No, they didn't catch them."
"Then how ... what ... ?"
"I'm afraid it's come down to a life-or-death situation, Raleigh. It's us or them."
Raleigh and Nigel sat at the kitchen table, and Raleigh listened slack-jawed to the incredible turn of events that resulted in Nigel recovering his cargo van. And when Nigel was finished, he said, "They've got our paintings. They're blackmailers as well as thieves. Of course, they could testify that I was here in the van, and that you and I had stolen the Brueger paintings before they stole the van. They could put you and me in prison if they wish to. Or I can pay them twelve thousand dollars and hope that the blackmail does not continue for the rest of my days."
Raleigh said, "The important thing is to keep them from being arrested, is that it?"
"Precisely," Nigel said.
"Stop saying that," Raleigh said.
"What?"
"Never mind. Do you have twelve thousand dollars?"
"Just," Nigel said. "As soon as I leave you, I'm going to the bank. It will clean out my reserve account and I'll have trouble explaining it to Ruth, especially since I'm about to lay her off." He paused then, shook his head wearily, and said, "It's the hardworking people like me who are hurt the most by this fucking recession."
"Nigel," Raleigh said after some thought, "if this isn't some kind of police setup and you're able to buy the paintings back, we could still come out of this thing."
"I'm positive it's not a police setup," Nigel said. "With all the things he said to me, it would be considered entrapment. I've watched enough television to know that much. No, he's our louche little thief and he's not in police custody."
"Well, then, if we wait and we do the deal, we're not much worse off, other than you losing twelve grand. Which you can take out of my half million."
"Oh, that is magnanimous of you, Raleigh," Nigel said. "Magnanimous and fucking obtuse."
"One of these days you're going to call me one name too many," Raleigh said, "you arrogant pansy."
Ignoring that, Nigel said, "There is one thing of great concern here. The thieves will spend their twelve thousand on women or drugs or whatever they fancy, and then they might have a bit of a think. They might try to find out about the provenance of the paintings. It's not hard to do since you may have noticed that Sammy Brueger's name, address, and phone number were on a ca:d stapled to the stretcher bar on both pieces. Every art dealer and auction house on the west side of Los Angeles knew about Sammy Brueger and his collection. The thieves could learn the approximate value of the pieces and feel they'd been cheated. Yes, the fucking thieves would then feel that we stole from them. That would let the cat out and they'd know something is amiss and come after me for everything I've got."
"What could they do? Go to the police and say they stole the van?"
"No, but the worm I was talking to might have a smarter crime partner who could contact Leona Brueger either by letter or phone and ask some pertinent questions about The Woman by the Water and Flowers on the Hillside. And perhaps offer Leona some information for a price, information that concerns Nigel Wickland and his van. Leona is a fool in many ways, but she can be shrewd and ruthless when she wants to be. She'd put her finger on it. And she'd call the police, and our whole scheme would unravel."
With that, Nigel walked to the larger replica on poster board and said, "Come here, Raleigh. Touch this."
Raleigh complied, and then Nigel said, "Walk down the corridor and touch a few of the legitimate pieces."
"Yes," Raleigh said. "If she literally puts her finger on it, she'll know. They feel completely different from the real paintings." "Precisely," Nigel said.
"Well, what're you suggesting here, Nigel?"
"I think you know," Nigel said. "Were you able to see anything other than silhouettes when they drove out of here?"
"No, I saw one person in the van and one person in the VW bug."
"Both were men, I presume?"
"I don't know. I suppose so."
"They're thieves," Nigel said. "And blackmailers. They're scum who don't deserve to live."
Raleigh Dibble said, "I'm not killing anyone, Nigel. Not for a million and not for ten million."
"Not even to keep from going to state prison?"
"You'd bring me into it, wouldn't you? You'd tell them everything."
"Turnabout is fair play," Nigel reminded him. "I'd make the best deal I could with the prosecutors. I learned that from you." "You're a miserable shit," Raleigh said.
Nigel said, "Can you make me a goddamn vodka martini, please? It might make it easier if I should decide to go home and shoot myself."
Raleigh felt like weeping the entire time he was making martinis for both of them. When he was finished, he said, "I gave you a twist instead of an olive. You don't look like an olive person."
"Thank you," Nigel said quietly. "I take that as a compliment."
"Okay, we won't be safe until we get the paintings back," Raleigh said. "That much I can see. So what if we get them and put them back in the frames where they belong?"
"And forget the million dollars?"
"Yes, and just be grateful not to be going to prison."
Nigel thought for a moment and said, "And if the thieves demand more extortion money not to tell Leona Brueger how her paintings got to be temporarily stolen, then what?"
"You just deny everything. You were never here, which I would verify. The person who contacted her with the ridiculous story about her paintings being stolen is just some Hollywood madman. The town is full of lunatics."
"When're they arriving?" Nigel asked.
"I still don't know. I've been expecting a call all morning."
"All right," Nigel said. "Then it depends on when the thieves call me and when we can deliver the money and get the paintings. We would have to get the paintings back here and into the frames before Leona Brueger enters this house again. But we still would not be safe from future danger. Is this what you really want?"
"Stay in close touch with me today, Nigel," Raleigh said.
"Don't worry, I shall."
Raleigh said, "When you threatened to shoot yourself, I was wondering, do you really have a gun?"
"Yes, at the gallery for protection. Why? Could it be that you are possibly coming around to the conclusion that if we are ultimately faced with losing the million dollars and going to prison, then we would have no option but to try our very best to remove the thieves from our lives?"
Raleigh drained his martini, shaking his head slowly back and forth. But as he thought about it longer, he nodded slowly and said, "Precisely."
Chapter Twenty-One.
FOR THE VERY first time since they began smoking OxyContin together, Megan Burke did not join Jonas Claymore in the chasing of the dragon. She swallowed a perk instead, and although it helped ease her nausea and joint pain, she still longed for the euphoria that she got from the ox. Before he zoned, she tried to talk to Jonas about what they were doing.
She squeezed his cheek between her finger and thumb and said, "Jonas, don't get all smoked out on me. We've got to talk."
His voice was thick when he said, "I know. That's why I needed the ox. So I could work on my plan and we could talk."
"I've been thinking," she said. "That guy was very quick to cut a deal with you. Even though he might not believe a thing you said, because to tell the truth, it wasn't too convincing. He might be talking to cops right now, getting ready to set a trap for when he hands over the money. Maybe we should try to find out something about these paintings and simply sell them. Maybe we should stay away from the guy we stole th
em from."
"Okay," Jonas said. "Later. Man, that was good smoke. I'm toasted."
He was zoning hard and Megan Burke longed to join him, but she summoned all the self-control she had left in her increasingly frail body and mind. She took both paintings from behind the sofa and looked at them closely. She went to the bedroom and got her cell phone and photographed both paintings in case she decided to make inquiries about them. Then she turned them over and saw the framer's cards stapled to the stretcher bars.
She read the name of the customer, Sammy Brueger, along with an address and phone number. It took her a minute to realize that the address was the house where they had stolen the van!
"Snap out of it, Jonas!" she said, slapping his face lightly.
"What?" he said. "What the fuck's wrong with you?"
"The pictures," she said. "They don't belong to the gallery guy! They belong to the guy who lives at the big house. His name's Sammy Brueger. So the gallery guy doesn't really care about making a deal with you for the pictures. He just wanted to get his van back, and now he's gonna work with the cops and maybe set a trap for us when we go meet him for the money!"
"Later," Jonas mumbled, not understanding a single word she said. "I gotta push the off button for a while."
"Fuck you!" Megan said.
She went to the bathroom and touched up her makeup, shocked to see how pale she looked. A touch of blush on her cheeks brought a bit of life to her face, and she tried to separate her eyelashes with a safety pin, but her hands were so shaky she feared she'd poke her eyeball. When she figured she looked as good as she could, she grabbed her purse and Jonas's car keys and left.
This was by far the most dangerous idea she'd ever had, but she was going to act on it. If it worked and if real money somehow came from the paintings, she was going to get away from Jonas Claymore for good. For her freedom, for her sanity, for her life.
When she'd phoned home for that last $200 loan, her mother had said to her, "Megan, your life has gone from bad to worse since you went to Hollywood. You've got no chance until you leave that terrible place and come home to people who love you."
Megan had never told her mother about moving into the apartment of Jonas Claymore, and she certainly had never told her mother that they were both straight-up drug addicts by now. She hated thinking about all the money she'd begged and borrowed from her mother, who still had Terry, Megan's sixteen-year-old brother, to support. And it hadn't been easy for her mother, with what she made doing a man's work in the department store warehouse. Bitter experience had taught Megan that the more she thought about her mother, and the more guilt that brought on, the more she'd long for the honeycombed tranquillity of an OC high. She was desperate for money now, more desperate than she'd ever been. And it was that desperation that overcame her fear and propelled her back up into the Hollywood Hills in the little VW bug.
During the drive, Megan ran through in her mind several approaches to get access to that house. She wasn't sure what she'd find there, but she wanted to see the man, Sammy Brueger, to get a sense of whether they could work with him now that she knew for certain that Nigel Wickland had lied about being the owner of the paintings. In order to bolster her courage, she kept telling herself that this was just an exploratory visit to test the real ransom target, Sammy Brueger.
She parked the VW bug fifty yards south of the Brueger estate, facing the flatland in case she needed a fast getaway. Then she walked to the gate phone and pressed the button.
"Yes?" Raleigh Dibble said. "Who is it?"
"My name's Valerie Turner," Megan said. "I'm your neighbor from down the road."
"What is it?" Raleigh asked.
"It's my dog, Cuddles," she said. "He's on your property." "There's no dog here," Raleigh said. "This place is completely fenced."
"He's a Chihuahua," Megan said. "He slipped through the gaps in your metal entry gate. I saw him and I have to get him or I'll get in big trouble with my mom."
Raleigh said nothing, but he pushed the phone key, and the electric gate swung open slowly and Megan walked in. The mini-estate looked bigger from the inside. She was glad she wasn't wearing heels when she walked over the uneven driveway, and she could feel the rough stones through the holes in her shoes.
A pie-faced, chubby, balding man who looked pretty old to Megan opened the door and said, "Have you tried calling him?"
"For the last half hour," Megan said. "I'm glad to meet you, Mr. Brueger."
"I'm Mr. Dibble," Raleigh said. "I look after things here. Mr. Brueger is in Cedars-Sinai. He had a stroke."
"Oh, that's too bad!" Megan said. "I'll tell my mom. I think she knows him."
"You can walk the property and call your dog," Raleigh said. "Let me know when you want to leave and I'll open the gate for you."
"Thank you, sir," Megan said.
She walked around the garage toward the pool that was designed like a lazy lagoon with a six-foot waterfall. "Cuddles!" she called. "Here, Cuddles!"
She thought five minutes was enough. She rang the bell and Raleigh came to the door again.
"Did you find your dog? he asked.
"No, the brat," she said. "I know he's hiding here. He does this when he doesn't want to be found."
"If you'll leave your phone number, I'll call you if I find him," Raleigh said.
"Do you have something I can write on?"
"Come in," Raleigh said, and she entered the foyer while he went to fetch a notepad and pen.
Megan walked into the great room and marveled. She'd never been in a house like this, and the thing that impressed her most was the art. There were paintings everywhere. The corridor along the foyer was lined with paintings, all of them with lights attached to the top of the frames.
And then she saw The Woman by the Water and drew in her breath. And next to it was Flowers on the Hillside. They were identical to the paintings that she and Jonas had in their apartment! What did it mean?
Raleigh returned with a notepad, and she scribbled a fictitious number.
"I majored in art in community college," she said. "And I'm very interested in art. Do you know a lot about the paintings here?"
Raleigh thought she was a very pretty girl in a waiflike way. She looked so touchingly anemic and vulnerable, and she didn't do that Valspeak where they made every damn sentence sound like a question. He said, "I know a bit."
She strolled along the wall of paintings and said, "This one?" pointing at a small British watercolor that Raleigh knew nothing about, and he said, "I think that's by a German Impressionist. Can't recall his name. An interesting piece."
"Wow!" Megan said, and pointed at an oil painting of red-coated hunters riding to hounds. "This must be British, right? It looks like the scenes you see on public television."
"Yes, I believe it is British," Raleigh said, feeling a sensation in his loins that he had not felt for ages. He couldn't think of the last time he'd slept with a woman. And this tulip of a girl with alabaster skin was flirting with him. He was almost sure of it.
"This is interesting," Megan said, pointing to the replica of The Woman by the Water. It had looked identical to the one in their apartment until she got very close. Then it was somehow different, but she couldn't say exactly how. She wondered if this was the original and hers was a copy. Or was it the other way around? And why would Sammy Brueger want a copy anyway?
Megan was thoroughly confused when she said, "My mom has always said that Mr. Sammy Brueger is a big art collector, but I had no idea."
Raleigh said, "Sammy Brueger is dead. His brother, Marty, lives here. He's the one who had a stroke."
"Oh," Megan said. "I've always heard her mention the name Sammy Brueger. I never met any of the family. How many Bruegers are there?"
"Mr. Sammy's widow, Leona, lives here. Your mother's probably met her."
"I guess," Megan said. Then, "Would you mind if I had a glass of water? I'm pretty hot from roaming around the property looking for Cuddles."
"Sur
e," Raleigh said. "Come into the kitchen with me. It's a gourmet setup. You might be interested."
Megan followed Raleigh, who took more than one glance at Megan's calves and thought, The girl has natural curves, but she's so thin. She looks so childlike in that candy-striped dress. And then the peril he was facing with Nigel Wickland entered his mind and he lost some of the nostalgic itch in his loins. He hadn't realized how lonely he'd become.
"Would you like a soft drink?" he asked. "Or maybe you're old enough for a cocktail?"
"I'll have a white wine if you'll join me," Megan said.
He saw that look in her violet eyes again. Her smile was playful and provocative, and now he was sure of it. She was flirting with him! "I'd be pleased to join you," he said. "I have a lovely Chardon-nay in the wine cellar that I've been saving. Why don't you have a seat in the great room?"
Raleigh went to the wine cellar, which wasn't a cellar but a very large closet lined in redwood and located just off the butler's pantry. He found a good California Chardonnay that still had the sticker label of $180. He put it in a silver bucket, surrounded it with tiny cubes from the ice maker, folded a white linen napkin over the bucket, and brought it along with two crystal wineglasses to the great room.
He placed the bucket on the table between two side-by-side overstuffed chairs, poured the wine into the glasses, and, handing one to her, said, "Mademoiselle."
"Merci," she said, and there it was again. That look.
Raleigh raised his glass and said, "Here's to Cuddles for bringing a new friend to this lonely house."
Megan giggled and said, "To Cuddles."
"I hope it's not too tannic," Raleigh said. "It didn't get a chance to breathe."
"It's great, Mr. Dibble," Megan said, smiling at him over the rim of her glass.
Hollywood Hills Page 24
