Lifeguard

by James Patterson

  Mickey’s place wasn’t far from the highway. No Breakers on this street. No Bices or Mar-a-Lagos. Just shabby streets of boxy homes and trailers where people drank beer on lawn chairs, with flatbeds and Harleys in their open garages.

  A cop car streaked past me, and again I tensed. Then another cruiser. I wondered if somebody knew my car. Maybe I’d been spotted in Palm Beach?

  I wound the Bonneville down onto West Road, a couple of blocks from the yellow house Mickey and Bobby had rented.

  My stomach almost came up into my throat.

  Flashing cop lights everywhere. Just like before. I couldn’t believe my eyes. People were crowded all over the front lawns—in tank tops and muscle shirts, looking down the street. What the hell was going on?

  Mickey’s block was barricaded off. Cops everywhere. Lights flashing like it was a war zone.

  A stab of dread. The cops had found us. At first it was just fear. This whole mess was going to be exposed. I deserved it. To have gotten involved in something so stupid.

  Then it wasn’t just fear. It was more like revulsion. Some of the flashing lights were EMS vans.

  And they were right in front of Mickey’s house.

  Chapter 16

  I JUMPED OUT of the Bonneville and pushed my way to the front of the crowd. No way this could be happening again. No way, no way.

  I edged up to some old black guy in a janitor’s uniform. Never even had to get the words out of my mouth.

  “Some kind of mass-a-cree in that house over there.” He was shaking his head. “Bunch a white folk. Woman, too.”

  Everybody was staring at Mickey’s house.

  Now it was as if I were having a full-out heart attack. Everything in my chest was so tight that I couldn’t breathe. I stood in the semidarkness with my lips quivering and tears sliding down my cheeks. They had been alive. Dee had told me to come back. Mickey and Barney and Bobby and Dee. How could they be dead now? It was like some terrifying dream that you wake up from, and it isn’t real.

  But this was real. I was staring at the yellow house and all those police and EMS people. Tell me this isn’t real!

  I pushed forward, just in time to see the front door open. Medical techs appeared. The crowd started to murmur. They were wheeling out the gurneys.

  One of the body covers was open. “White boy,” somebody said.

  I saw the curly red hair. Mickey.

  Watching him being wheeled toward the morgue van, I flashed back twenty years. Mickey always used to punch me in the back at school. His twisted way of saying hello. I never saw it coming. I’d just be walking in the hall, between class, and wham! And he hit like a sonuvabitch! Then he started making me pay him a quarter not to get punched. He’d just raise his fist with his eyes wide. “Scared?” One day, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I didn’t care what happened. I charged him and slammed him back against a radiator. Left a welt on his back that I think stayed with him through high school. He got up, picked up his books, and put out a hand to me. In it was about four dollars. In quarters. Everything I had given him. He just grinned at me. “Been waiting for you to do that, Neddie-boy.”

  That’s what flashed through my mind, the whole crazy scene in an instant. Then there were more gurneys. I counted four. My best friends in the world.

  I backed away in the crowd. Felt boxed in, trapped. My chest was cramping. I pushed against the tide of people pressing closer for a better look.

  And I was blasted with the thought: What good is a lifeguard who can’t save lives?

  Chapter 17

  I DON’T REMEMBER MUCH about what happened next. All I know is that I staggered back to my car—fast—and drove—much faster.

  I went through my options. What choices did I have? Turn myself in? C’mon, Ned, you participated in a robbery. Your friends are dead. Someone’s bound to connect you with Tess. They’ll pin a murder charge on you. I wasn’t thinking straight, but one thing became shining clear: My life here is over now.

  I flipped on the radio to a local news channel. Reporters were already at the scenes of the murders. A young beauty at Palm Beach’s posh Brazilian Court. Four unidentified people murdered execution-style in Lake Worth. . . . And other news. A daring art heist on the beach. Sixty million in art reported stolen! So there was a theft. But no mention if the police thought any of this was connected. And, thank God, nothing about me!

  It was after eleven when I finally crossed the Flagler Bridge back into Palm Beach. Two police cars were parked in the middle of Poinciana, lights flashing, blocking the road. I was sure they were looking for a Bonneville.

  “Game’s over, Ned!” I said, almost resigned. But I passed right by without a hitch.

  The town was quiet up there, considering everything going on. The Palm Beach Grill was still busy. And Cucina. Some tunes coming out of Cucina. But the streets were generally quiet. It reminded me of a joke: there are more lights in downtown Baghdad during an air raid than in Palm Beach after ten o’clock. I hung a right on County and drove down to Seaspray, then hung a left to the beach. I cautiously pulled into number 150, automatically opening the gates. I was praying for no cops. Please, God, not now. Sollie’s house was dark, the courtyard empty. My prayers were answered. For a little while.

  Sollie was either watching TV or asleep. Winnie, the housekeeper, too. I parked in the courtyard and headed up the stairs to my room above the garage. Like I said, my life there was over now.

  Here’s what I’d learned in Palm Beach. There’re thousand-dollar millionaires, the guys who pretend they’re rich but really aren’t. There are the old rich, and then there are the new rich. Old rich tend to have much better manners, are more attuned to having help around. New rich, which Sollie was, could be trouble—demanding, insulting, their insecurities about their windfall money coming out in abusive ways toward the help. But Sollie was a prince. Turned out he needed me to keep his pool clean, drive his big yellow Lab to the vet, chauffeur him around when he had an occasional date, and keep his cars polished. That turned out to be a joy. Sollie traded in collectible cars at Ragtops in West Palm as frequently as I switched out DVDs at Blockbuster. Right now he had a 1970 six-door Mercedes Pullman limo that used to belong to Prince Rainier; a ’65 Mustang convertible; a Porsche Carrera for a runaround; and a chocolate Bentley for big events . . . your typical Palm Beach garage stable.

  I pulled out two canvas duffels from under the bed and started to throw clothes in them. T-shirts, jeans, a few sweatshirts. The hockey stick signed by Ray Bourque that I’d had since the tenth grade. A couple of paperbacks I always liked. Gatsby, The Sun Also Rises. Great Expectations. (I guess I always had a thing for the outsider bucking the ruling class.)

  I scribbled out a quick note to Sollie. An explanation that I had to leave suddenly, and why. I hated to go like this. Sol was like an uncle to me. A really great uncle. He let me live in this great house and all I had to do was keep the pool in order, clean a few of his cars, and do a couple of errands. I felt like a real heel, sneaking away in the dark. But what choice did I have?

  I grabbed everything and headed downstairs. I popped the trunk on the Bonneville and tossed in the duffels. I was just taking a last look and saying good-bye to where I’d lived these past three years when the lights went on.

  I spun around, my heart in my throat. Sollie was standing in his bathrobe and slippers, holding a glass of milk. “Jesus, you scared me, Sol.”

  He glanced at the open trunk and the bags. He had a look of disappointment on his face, putting it together. “So I guess you don’t have time for a good-bye game of rummy.”

  “I left a note,” I said a little ashamedly. To have him find me sneaking away like this, and more, for what he was bound to find out in the morning. “Look, Sol, some terrible things have happened. You may hear some stuff. . . . I just want you to know, they’re not true. I didn’t do it. I didn’t do any of it.”

  He bunched his lips. “It must be bad. C’mon in, kid. Maybe I can help. A man doesn’t
run off in the middle of the night.”

  “You can’t”—I dropped my head—“help. No one can now.” I wanted to run up and give him a hug, but I was so nervous and all mixed up. I had to get out of there. “I want to thank you,” I said. I hopped in the Bonneville and turned the ignition. ”For trusting me, Sol. For everything . . .”

  “Neddie,” I heard him call. “Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad. No problem is too big to solve. When a man needs friends, that’s not the time to run off. . . .”

  But I was at the gates before I could hear the rest. I saw him in the rearview mirror as I swung out of the driveway, driving off.

  I was almost crying as I hit the Flagler Bridge. Leaving everything behind. Mickey, my friends, Tess . . .

  Poor Tess. It was killing me, just remembering how we’d been together only hours before, when I thought things were finally working out for me. A million dollars and the girl of my dreams.

  Your luck’s returned, Neddie-boy. I couldn’t help but laugh. The bad luck.

  As I headed toward the Flagler Bridge, I could make out the shining towers of the Breakers lighting up the sky. I figured I had a day at most before my name surfaced. I didn’t even know exactly where I was going to go.

  Someone had killed my best friends. Dr. Gachet, I don’t know what the hell kind of doctor you are, but you can be sure I’m gonna make you pay.

  “Split aces,” I muttered again grimly as I crossed the bridge, the bright lights of Palm Beach receding away. The perfect score. Yeah, right.

  Part Two

  ELLIE

  Chapter 18

  ELLIE SHURTLEFF WAS KNEELING in front of the security panel in the basement of Casa Del Océano and shining a light on the clipped coaxial cable in her gloved hand.

  Something didn’t make sense at this crime scene.

  As the special agent in charge of the FBI’s new Art Theft and Fraud department for the south Florida region, she’d been waiting a long time for something like this. Sixty million in art reported stolen last night, right in her own backyard. Truth be told, Ellie was the department.

  Since leaving New York eight months ago—and the assistant curator thing at Sotheby’s—Ellie had basically sat around the Miami office, monitoring auction sales and Interpol wires, while other agents hauled in drug traffickers and money launderers. She was slowly starting to wonder, like everyone else in her family, if this had been a career move or a career disaster. Art theft wasn’t exactly a glamour assignment down there. Everybody else had law degrees, not MFAs.

  Of course, there were benefits, she constantly reminded herself. The little bungalow down by the beach in Delray. Taking her ocean kayak out in the surf—year-round. And surely at the ten-year reunion get-together for the Columbia MFA class of 1996, she’d be the only one packing a Glock.

  Ellie finally stood up. At barely five-two and 105 pounds, with her short brown hair and tortoiseshell frames, she knew she didn’t look like an agent. At least, not one they let out of the lab much. The joke around the office was that she had to get her FBI windbreaker from the kids’ department at Burdines. But she’d been second in her class at Quantico. She’d lit the charts in crime scene management and advanced criminal psychology. She was qualified with the Glock and could disarm somebody a foot taller.

  It just happened she also knew a little about the stylistic antecedents of cubism as well.

  And a bit about electrical wiring. She stared at the sheared cable. Okay, Ellie, why?

  The housekeeper had specifically overheard the thieves putting in the alarm code. But the cable was cut. Both the interior and outside alarms. If they knew the code, why cut the cable? They had access; the house was shut down. The Palm Beach police seemed to have already made up their minds, and they were very good at this kind of thing. They’d dusted for prints. The thieves had been in the house for only minutes; they’d known exactly what to take. The police declared the three intruders in their stolen police uniforms brazen, professional thieves.

  But no matter what the local cops thought, or how that asshole upstairs, Dennis Stratton, was ranting about his irreplaceable loss, two words had begun to worm their way into Ellie’s head:

  Inside job.

  Chapter 19

  THE DENNIS STRATTON was sitting, legs crossed, in a well-cushioned wicker chair in the lavish sunroom overlooking the ocean. Multiple calls were lit up on the receiver and a cell phone was stapled to his ear. Vern Lawson, Palm Beach’s head of detectives, was hovering close by, along with Stratton’s wife, Liz—a tall, attractive blonde in cream slacks and a pale blue cashmere sweater wrapped around her shoulders. A Latino housemaid flitted in and out with a tray of iced tea.

  A butler led Ellie into the room. Stratton ignored them both. Ellie was bemused by how the rich lived. The more money they had, the more padding and layers of swaddling they seemed to put between themselves and the rest of us. More insulation in the walls, thicker fortress bulwarks, more distance to the front door.

  “Sixty million,” Dennis Stratton barked into the phone, “and I want someone down here today. And not some flunky from the local office with an art degree.”

  He punched off the line. Stratton was short, well built, slightly balding on top, with intense, steely eyes. He was wearing a tight-fitting, sage green T-shirt over white linen pants. Finally he glared at Ellie as though she were some annoying junior accountant with a question about his taxes. “Find everything you need down there, Detective?”

  “Special Agent,” Ellie said, correcting him.

  “Special Agent.” Stratton nodded. He craned his neck toward Lawson. “Vern, you want to see if the ‘special agent’ needs to see any other part of the house.”

  “I’m fine.” Ellie waved off the Palm Beach cop. “But if you don’t mind, I’d like to go over the list.”

  “The list?” Stratton sighed, like, haven’t we already done this three times before? He slid a sheet of paper across a lacquered Chinese altar table Ellie pegged as early eighteenth century. “Let’s start with the Cézanne. Apples and Pears . . .”

  “Aix-en Provence,” Ellie interjected. “1881.”

  “You know it?” Stratton came alive. “Good! Maybe you can convince these insurance idiots what it’s really worth. Then there’s the Picasso flutist, and the large Pollock up in the bedroom. These sons of bitches knew just what they were doing. I paid eleven million for that alone.”

  Overpaid. Ellie clucked a little. Down there, some people tried to buy their way into the social circuit through their art.

  “And don’t forget the Gaume. . . .” Stratton started to leaf through some papers on his lap.

  “Henri Gaume?” Ellie said. She checked the list. She was surprised to see it there. Gaume was a decent postimpressionist, moderately collectible. But at thirty to forty thousand, a rounding error next to what else had been taken.

  “My wife’s favorite, right, dear? It was like someone was trying to stab us right through the heart. We have to have it back. Look . . .” Stratton put on a pair of reading glasses, fumbling on Ellie’s name.

  “Special Agent Shurtleff,” Ellie said.

  “Agent Shurtleff.” Stratton nodded. “I want this perfectly clear. You seem like a thorough sort, and I’m sure it’s your job to nose around here a bit, make a few notes, then go back to the office and file some report before you break for the day. . . .”

  Ellie felt the blood boil in her veins.

  “But I don’t want this tossed up the chain of command in a memo that gets dropped on some regional director’s desk. I want my paintings back. Every single one of them. I want the top people in the department working on this. The money means nothing here. These paintings were insured for sixty million. . . .”

  Sixty million? Ellie smiled to herself. Maybe forty, at the most. People always have an inflated impression of what they own. The Cézanne still life was ordinary. She’d seen it come up at auctions several times, never commanding more than the reserve. The Picasso was from
the Blue Period, when he was turning out paintings just to get laid. The Pollock—well, the Pollock was good, Ellie had to admit. Someone had steered him right there.

  “But what they took here is irreplaceable.” Stratton kept his eyes on her. “And that includes the Gaume. If the FBI isn’t up to it, I’ll get my own people involved. I can do that, you understand. Tell that to your superiors. You get the right people on it for me. Can you do that, Agent Shurtleff?”

  “I think I have what I need,” Ellie said. She folded the inventory into her notes. “Just one thing. Can I ask who set the alarm when you went out last night?”

  “The alarm?” Stratton shrugged. He glanced at his wife. “I don’t know that we did. Lila was here. Anyway, the interior alarms are always activated. These paintings were connected straight to the local police. We’ve got motion detection. You saw the setup down there.”

  Ellie nodded. She packed her notes in her briefcase. “And who else knew the code?”

  “Liz. Me. Miguel, our property manager, Lila. Our daughter, Rachel, who’s at Princeton.”

  Ellie looked at him closely. “The interior alarm, I meant.”

  Stratton tossed down his papers. Ellie saw a wrinkle carved into his brow. “What are you suggesting? That someone knew the code? That that’s how they got in here?”

  He started to get red in the face. He looked over at Lawson. “What’s going on here, Vern? I want qualified people looking into this. Professionals, not some junior agent, making accusations . . . I know the Palm Beach cops are sitting on their hands. Can’t we do something about this?”

  “Mr. Stratton,” the Palm Beach detective said, looking uncomfortable, “it’s not like this was the only thing going on last night. Five people were killed.”

  “Just one more thing,” Ellie said, headed for the door. “You mind telling me what the interior alarm code was?”

  “The alarm code,” Stratton said, his lips tightening. She could see he resented this. Stratton was used to snapping his fingers and seeing people jump. “Ten, oh two, eighty-five,” he recited slowly.