Picture This

by Anthony Hyde

  Zena picked them out with her light: Heade’s Hummingbirds, Wilfredo Lam’s Jungle, and Tom Thomson’s Red Lake.

  Now came the tricky part. I took the flashlight from Zena. Kneeling down, I shone the light up behind the frame of the hummingbird painting. I could see the glint of the wire attached to the painting where it passed over the hanger.

  Zena took one of the wire loops out of her bag. I drilled a little hole in the floor, then screwed an eye bolt into it. I then looped the wire over the painting until I felt it catch on the hanger.

  “Be careful,” said Zena.

  I was. Gently, I attached the end of the wire to the turnbuckle, then hooked the turnbuckle to the screw eye in the floor. My hands were sweating as I tightened the turnbuckle. One turn... another... tighter... tighter... This sounds complicated, but it worked just like a necktie around a man’s neck. I was pulling down on the long end of the tie.

  At a certain point, I was pulling down with the same force as the weight of the painting. Take the painting away, and the alarm on the hanger wouldn’t know the difference... I hoped.

  “Be careful!” Zena hissed again.

  I took hold of the frame. Steady nerves, as Victor had said. Were mine steady enough? I lifted the painting free of the hanger...

  No ringing bells...

  No flashing lights...

  But I was sure holding my breath.

  “You did it!”

  “I think you should kiss me,” I said.

  “All right!”

  “And one kiss each for the other two?”

  “Hurry up!”

  The other two were easier. Soon, the last of them, Tom Thomson’s Red Lake, was in my hand. Zena held her big cloth bag open toward me.

  “My kiss?”

  “Don’t be silly, Paul!”

  “I’m not being silly.”

  “There,” she murmured, a moment later. “Now we have to get out of here.”

  We tiptoed out of the room, leaving the wires behind. Stretched between the screw eyes in the floor and the hangers on the wall, they looked like strange musical instruments.

  We reached the hall outside Green’s office. My eyes were used to the dark and I could see the stairs as we went down to the back door. One creak. We stepped carefully. In a few seconds, we were outside.

  Zena grabbed my arm. “Wait!”

  “What is it?”

  “In his study, by the computer—I was fiddling with my ring. I left it there!”

  “You’re crazy!”

  “I have to get it! It has my name inside!”

  I looked at my watch. “Zena, the alarms come back on in three minutes.”

  “Stay here. I have time.”

  Before I could stop her, she ducked inside. What was she doing? I stared at the second hand on my watch. Two minutes... one minute... thirty seconds...

  With eight seconds to go, Zena opened the door and came out.

  “I found it!” she said. Her cheeks were flushed, and she was breathing fast. Which looked really good, in that tight sweater. But for the moment I wasn’t thinking about her tight sweater, not even about her kisses.

  We found Victor, parked down the block. He saw Zena’s bulging bag and started the engine. “Well done,” he said. “How did it go?”

  I looked at Zena—who was looking straight ahead out the window. “Fine,” I said, “until right at the end.”

  Victor stared at me, frowning. “What happened?”

  Keep your mouth shut. Be discreet. What had happened? I didn’t know... but I wished I did.

  Chapter Seven

  Moving House

  Maybe you’re wondering what happened to the three paintings I’d originally painted for Zena, the reason I was mixed up in all this. Well, the answer was revealed the next morning, in Zena’s apartment.

  Think. As soon as the robbery was discovered, police all over the world would be looking for those paintings. Where could we hide them? We needed them to be easy to get at. That way, Victor could move quickly when he sold them back to the insurance company.

  Victor’s solution was clever. After the robbery, we took my paintings—exactly the same size, remember—and stretched them over the paintings we’d stolen from Green. We put my kids playing catch over the hummingbirds. My portrait of Zena went over Wilfredo Lam’s jungle. And my picture of a rocky lakeshore had the honour of covering Tom Thomson’s painting of Red Lake.

  The next morning, movers showed up, cheerful fellows with lots of muscle. Drinking our coffee, we watched them pack the paintings, and Zena’s other stuff, into cardboard boxes. Then they loaded the boxes into a van to move her to Los Angeles.

  Brilliant. How were the police going to find the paintings in the middle of a move across the continent? My only question was, why L.A.?

  “Why not?” said Victor. “Green’s insurance company has offices everywhere. Some criminals may prefer to return to the scene of the crime. I’d prefer to be as far away as possible. Besides, I know Los Angeles rather well. We give the insurance fellows the paintings, they give us the money. Sounds simple, but it will be rather tricky, I think.” His watery eyes widened and he smiled. “Everything depends on the exchange.”

  “Sure, Victor. That’s how we get our money. But stay out of jail.”

  “You’re such a bright boy,” he said. “Here’s your ticket.”

  We flew on separate planes. Victor had even reserved rooms for us in three separate hotels. On the plane, I slept. When I woke up, I began thinking. All my questions about Zena came back. She hated Green, I was sure. What was she up to? And what had happened at the last minute, when she’d run back into the house?

  I also had questions about Victor. I looked out the window as we passed over long, sandy wastes of the American desert. Los Angeles. There was something suspicious about this trip. L.A. isn’t a centre for the insurance business. It’s not even a centre for the art world. So what was Victor up to? Was he playing a trick? Pulling a fast one?

  Victor called me in my hotel that night. “I have appointed myself social director, camp counsellor, and your chief guide. Let us meet for breakfast, at my hotel, at nine.”

  Victor was all smiles the next morning. He had found a store that sold the Toronto papers. “We don’t even rate a line,” he said.

  “It’s too early,” said Zena. Without asking permission, I’d given her a kiss as I’d sat down.

  “Perhaps,” Victor replied. “But the robbery may not have been reported to the police.” He smiled. “The police will want to catch us and serve the interests of justice. But the insurance company won’t be so moral. They may have told Green to keep quiet, knowing that they might be able to buy the paintings back from us. We may have some breathing room.”

  “Don’t count on it,” I said.

  “Oh, I don’t. That’s what I want to talk about, in fact. How are we going to get away with this? Each of us must make separate plans, but even apart we are still linked. If one of us is caught, surely we all will be.”

  Victor reached inside his old grey suit and brought out two envelopes, placing one in front of me, the other in front of Zena. “Of course, I will tell the insurance company to give us our money in old bills. But the bills will certainly be marked. In the envelopes in front of you, you’ll find $10,000. Surely that will meet your immediate needs. For a time you won’t have to touch the insurance money at all.”

  It was Zena who smiled. “You are so thoughtful, Victor. This will give you more breathing room, all right. By the time Paul and I begin spending the marked money, you will be far, far away.”

  “Africa,” Victor said. “South America. China. There’s so much of the world I still haven’t seen.”

  Late the next afternoon, we met again. Victor had rented a car. He drove us out to the storage lockers where the movers would deliver Zena’s stuff—including the paintings. She picked up her locker key at the desk.

  “I think I should take the paintings when they get here,” Victor
said.

  It made sense. In working out the deal with the insurance company, he’d need to be able to get the paintings quickly.

  “Okay, Victor,” I said, “but don’t get any fancy ideas.”

  He dropped me at my hotel. Since he had a car, I decided to rent one as well. After all, we were in Los Angeles, home of the freeway. A taxi took me to the nearest Hertz office and I rented a Ford. Twenty minutes later, as I pulled out of the lot, I glanced into my rear-view mirror. There was Zena, climbing into a rented car herself!

  I pulled over to the curb and waited. As she came out of the Hertz lot, I trailed her. She followed the signs and drove straight to the airport. She parked, I parked. She went in, I followed. She went up to a ticket counter, I stayed back, so she wouldn’t see me. She paid cash, I suppose with some of Victor’s money. When she left, I went up to the counter.

  “I was thinking of a trip,” I said.

  The woman laughed. “Sounds like a good idea to me. Where to?”

  I threw a glance toward Zena as she walked away. “Maybe where that gorgeous girl’s going.”

  “Lisbon? Portugal?” The woman laughed again. “Won’t do you any good. She bought two tickets, so she must be going with somebody else.”

  Lisbon. Well, that’s where she was from. I’d been suspicious so long I was almost surprised that Zena had told the truth. And I was upset. I didn’t want to lose her. Turning away from the counter, I ran after her but by the time I reached the parking lot, her car was pulling away.

  Then, the next day, my suspicions turned back to Victor. We met for dinner. Everyone was tense. The paintings arrived the next day. After that came the exchange with the insurance company. Except for the robbery, this would be the most dangerous moment of all.

  “You must trust me,” said Victor.

  “That’s exactly the problem,” I said.

  “Zena isn’t worried, are you my dear?” Victor turned to me. “At the end, she will have the money, and it is you who will hand over the paintings. I will only make the arrangements.”

  Victor said he’d already told the insurance company we had the paintings, and now he told us how he’d work the exchange. The problem, of course, was that talking to the company gave them a chance to find us. They could trace his phone calls. “But I’ll use three separate cell phones,” he said. “I’ll put those little cards you can buy in a smoke shop into them. I will only make one call from each phone, and I’ll be in my car, driving. So they can trace each call, but I’ll already be gone, and my next call will be on a different phone, from a different place.” He laid out his three shiny new cell phones in front of him.

  A few minutes later, I left to go to the washroom. On the way, I passed the rack where we had hung our coats—it had been raining outside. I suppose cell phones were on my mind. Victor’s coat hung on the rack like a limp dishrag, and I saw where the pocket bulged. I looked back. A big post blocked the view from our table; Victor couldn’t see me. I slipped my hand into the pocket of his coat and felt the old cell phone he normally used. Taking it, I ducked into the washroom.

  I pressed Recent Calls.

  Nine calls had been made to someone called “T. Crowder” at a number here, in Los Angeles.

  T. Crowder? Who could he be?

  There was an easy way to find out. I pushed Call.

  From the washroom, the signal was pretty weak, but the phone started ringing. A female voice answered. “The Crowder residence. Good evening.”

  “Is that Mrs. Crowder?”

  “No, sir. It’s Maria, the maid.”

  “Thank you.”

  I pushed End Call.

  T. Crowder, it seemed, was rich enough to live in a “residence” rather than a house. He could also afford a maid.

  On my way back to the table, I slipped the phone back into Victor’s coat pocket. I was smiling as I sat down. All my questions, I thought, had been answered. Victor, I said to myself, what a wicked fellow you are.

  Chapter Eight

  Dollars for Art

  Victor’s exchange plan was a scam, a big lie. I’ll give him credit, though—it sounded good, it looked good.

  Supposedly, Victor was driving all over Los Angeles, talking to the insurance company. Supposedly, he was telling them where they should take the money and where they should pick up the paintings. This way, he said, when we picked up the money, we wouldn’t be picked up ourselves by the police. All that stuff with the cell phones made the story convincing. But in fact, I felt pretty sure Victor was sitting in some coffee shop, reading his newspapers.

  Why didn’t I say anything?

  I was taking Victor’s advice, keeping my mouth shut, being discreet. He was playing a game. I was playing along. Winning, for me, meant staying out of jail... and Zena. My share of $600,000? I told you in the beginning, I didn’t care about the money at all.

  Victor’s game ended in Los Angeles, in Union Station. It’s the old train station, which opened in 1939. You can see it in black and white movies. The outside is like a Mexican palace, with a huge clock tower. To one side, there’s a beautiful garden. Inside, the tile floors have patterns like Navajo Indian rugs. Some of the ceilings are as high as a five-storey building. As for the trains, you can travel from here to anywhere in the United States, or you can just go across Los Angeles on the Metro Rail lines.

  The next afternoon, at two o’clock, I was sitting in a big padded leather chair in the station’s waiting room. Beside me was a suitcase. Victor had given it to me. It was locked with a combination lock. Inside were the paintings.

  I was sitting on the left side of the waiting room.

  Zena was also sitting in one of those comfortable chairs, over on the right side. I couldn’t quite see her.

  At 2:14 a tall man with short grey hair walked down the centre of the hall. Wearing a blue business suit and a tan raincoat, he pulled a red suitcase behind him. He looked around, stopped beside the ninth seat on the right-hand side, and sat down. Two minutes later, he stood up and casually walked away without the suitcase. A minute after that, Zena appeared. Without stopping, she took the suitcase... and the $600,000 in it. Pulling the suitcase behind her, Zena walked away, down the hall. She gave me a look—and one little smile.

  Was it a trap? Were the police going to jump out and arrest her? Victor said no—because we still had the paintings. Zena was now out of my sight, but I knew where she was going. She would head through the station to the Metro Rail platform. She’d board a Gold Line train and ride to the next stop on the line, Chinatown. There, she’d get off and walk to the Thien Hau Temple. The temple was one of the important sights in Chinatown. Crowds of tourists would be all around it, snapping pictures.

  Victor had arranged for a taxi to pick Zena up at the temple and take her to a fancy hotel, the Beverly Hills. After all this, if Zena was sure she hadn’t been followed, she was to telephone me. Then I would put my suitcase, holding the paintings, on a train to San Diego. Someone from the insurance company would pick up my suitcase there.

  Complicated? Sure. But the train to San Diego takes two and a half hours. Even if the company called the police after they got the suitcase, we’d have lots of time to get away.

  That’s what we were supposed to do. Except it was all a game, a scam—Victor’s scam. And I’d decided to stop playing along.

  As soon as Zena disappeared, I arose from my comfortable chair. Carrying my suitcase, I walked over to the information counter.

  “I’d like to page someone,” I said.

  “What name, sir?”

  “T. Crowder.”

  “T. Crowder?”

  “I don’t know his first name.”

  “Okay, anything you say.”

  A moment later, the public address system came on with a crackle. “T. Crowder... T. Crowder... would T. Crowder meet his party at the information counter.”

  I stepped back from the counter.

  Two minutes later, a man hurried up. He was dressed in a tan raincoat a
nd a blue business suit; his hair was grey and cut very short. It was the man who’d been pulling the suitcase, no doubt about it. Now, he looked very worried.

  “Mr. Crowder?” I said.

  For a second, he wasn’t sure he wanted to admit it. Then he frowned and said, “Yes, I’m Thomas Crowder.”

  “It’s okay, Mr. Crowder, I’m not a policeman.”

  His expression grew even more worried. “A policeman?”

  “That’s right. I’m not a policeman... just like you’re not from an insurance company. Of course,” I added, “it is a crime, receiving art works and knowing them to be stolen.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Wasn’t that you, pulling the suitcase? The red one? With $600,000 in it?”

  His eyes narrowed. “What’s your game?” he said.

  “No, no. You’re playing the game. Maybe we should go over here and talk about it.”

  Thomas Crowder was frightened. For a moment, he thought of running away—I could see it in his eyes. But I held up the suitcase with the paintings in it, and he followed me.

  When we were back in the waiting room—sitting in those comfortable, padded chairs—I set the suitcase on my lap, across my knees. I fiddled with the combination lock and said, “I only want to get a few things straight. In your pocket, you have a ticket to San Diego.”

  “Perhaps I do.”

  “When you got off the train, you were going to pick up this suitcase. And of course you know the combination to the lock.”

  He licked his lips nervously. “You seem to know everything.”

  “Not quite everything,” I said. “That’s why I want you to open the suitcase.”

  “What if I refuse?”

  “I won’t give it to you.” I sat back. “Mr. Crowder, I don’t think you’re going to call the police and complain that somebody stole your nice red suitcase with $600,000 in it.” I tapped my suitcase with my finger. “If you want what you paid for, you’ll have to open this up.”

  He licked his lips again, but then he nodded.

  I held the suitcase toward him but kept both hands on it as he worked the lock.