by Tom Turner
Crawford got up, unsteady, then Do-rag threw a punch at him. Crawford ducked it and swung back at him. He connected more with the guy’s ear than jaw, but it did the trick and Do-rag flipped backward onto a table where three guys were sitting.
Crawford glanced over at Ott. He and Johnson were writhing around on the floor like a pair of mud wrestlers. He saw Ott get off a straight right, his arm like a cobra strike.
Then Do-rag got up. He seemed to have a quick debate with himself about whether to wade back into battle with Crawford. Then, from ten feet away he charged, drawing back his fist. But Crawford’s knee was faster. He caught Do-rag square in the three-piece, and when he pitched over, Crawford slammed him with an uppercut. Do-rag staggered and went down hard, done for the night.
Ott climbed off Johnson, and Crawford saw a few drops of blood trickle down onto Joey Ramone’s likeness.
“You okay?” Crawford asked Ott.
“Yeah,” Ott said, picking up his empty mug from the floor. “Wasted a perfectly good Yuengling, though.”
“You got good hands,” Crawford said.
“For a fat fuck, you mean?”
“For an old fat fuck.”
Ott put the mug down on the table and picked up a thick Corona beer coaster.
He frisbeed it over at Johnson and it bounced off his shoulder.
“We gotta go, boys,” Ott said, getting up. “Can’t get anything done here, with all your distractions.”
Crawford and Ott walked up to the bar.
“Sorry about that,” Crawford said to Jack Scarsiola. “What do we owe you?”
“I should pay you,” Scarsiola said under his breath. “Twelve bucks.”
Crawford handed him a twenty.
“Thanks,” Crawford said, and put the change down on the bar.
Ott ignored Scarsiola and walked away.
Crawford and Ott went down the sidewalk to their car.
Just before they got in, Ott looked up at Crawford.
“Guys’ll never live that down,” he said, a big lump coming up on the side of his face, “getting beat up by a couple Palm Beach pussies.”
EIGHTEEN
Nick had to fight his first instinct which was to rent a Ryder truck, strip the walls of the Hoppers, Bacons and Freuds, drive up to New York and get Christie’s or Sotheby’s to give him big guarantees in their spring auctions. But in keeping with his new policy of not doing anything rash, he spent hours on the Internet researching how the art market worked.
He quickly found out about something called provenance. It put the kibosh on his get-rich-quick art scheme. The gist of provenance was that you had to prove you owned a painting through a paper trail of documentation. That could come in the form of transaction records or a painting being gifted in a will, but galleries were very strict about it. Possession was definitely not nine-tenths of the law when it came to art. Galleries and museums spent a lot of time investigating and verifying in order to confirm that a painting was neither stolen nor fake. And the better known the artist and the more valuable the painting, the more digging around they did.
So Nick decided the answer was to bide his time. He was pretty sure he could sell one or two of the lesser-known pictures in Robertson’s house to one of the galleries on Worth Avenue. None of them were going to knock themselves out doing a provenance search on a $20,000 painting by a somewhat obscure artist.
Nick’s new life, meanwhile, was hard to beat. A cook cooking him anything he wanted, for starters. Today was eggs Benedict for breakfast, followed by cold salmon and a salad with lots of walnuts and avocado in it for lunch. Tonight, the cook had told him, was going to be a two-inch steak with béarnaise sauce. He spent most of his time reading, novels out by the pool and art books in the library. He wanted to be informed and knowledgeable for the fancy dinner parties he’d soon be attending.
One thing was sure, Nick realized, if he was going to play the role of art connoisseur, he damn well better look the part. He could no longer be a schlub dressed in Haggar slacks. It was time for an extreme makeover, time to overhaul his image, upgrade his lifestyle. The right clothes, he knew, were an investment in the future. Problem was he had maxed out his Sears Discovery card and was now down to the last of his life savings, $1,800 in tip money. He knew he had to bite the bullet and go to Maus
& Hoffman, a high-end men’s clothing store on Worth. It was known for splashy colored shirts, pants and jackets, with prices way beyond a bartender’s salary. He picked out a pair of tan linen pants there that cost $400, then exhaled hard, and bought a long-sleeved pink shirt with a small blue-green flamingo on the breast pocket for just under $300.
Next he found a hand-tailored double-breasted blue blazer marked down from $1,200 to $600 which he felt exuded GQ. Fortunately, he didn’t have to spring for a tie. He had rummaged through Spencer Robertson’s mildewy closet and found a rack of them. He had turned one of them around to examine the label—hoping, praying almost—and yes, there it was, the distinctive label of the fabled Lilly Pulitzer. He was over the moon.
After buying the pants and shirt, Nick walked back to the shoe department. The cheapest pair of loafers cost more than $600. That would come close to wiping him out. He thanked the salesman, then asked for directions to a shoe store he had heard so much about.
It was time to step up—and into—his first pair of Stubbs & Woottons, which he’d heard didn’t actually cost an arm and a leg. They were fashionable shoes he had become aware of several months ago, having spotted a pair on a well-heeled Viggo’s patron. The shoes, actually black needlepoint slippers with martini glasses on the vamp, seemed to immediately proclaim the man a bon vivant, a swell, a player. Nick had seen another pair with crossed golf clubs on another Viggo’s patron. They were essentially theme shoes and he just had to own a pair.
He walked across the street into an alley of chic shops, following the directions he had been given. He saw the sign and went inside. There were several pairs in his size. He felt the slightly rough texture of the celebrated slipper shoe. It was a tough choice, between a pair with dice stitched into them—showing a five-two lucky seven, then another with skull and crossbones, and a third, the sun on the left shoe and the moon on the right one. Then he looked up and saw the perfectly coiffed salesgirl come toward him. She had found another pair in his size. They had a caricature of the devil in red with a pitchfork. He nodded, smiled and gave her a thumbs-up.
He wore them proudly to his appointment with a cosmetic surgeon in Boca Raton later that day. He had been told Boca had more cosmetic surgeons than landscapers, pool guys and personal injury lawyers put together.
LATER THAT afternoon, when Alcie was off duty, Nick carefully removed a painting by an artist named Seagraves Albaran off of a wall in the powder room of Spencer Robertson’s house. He wrapped it in brown paper and took it to a gallery at the corner of Worth and South County, which specialized in American realism.
“Oh, my God,” said the young blonde working there, “I know a man who collects Albarans. This is one of the best I’ve seen in a long time.”
In less than a half hour, the woman had snapped a shot of the painting with her cell, e-mailed it to her buyer and gotten his approval to buy it.
Nick loved his new line of work even though he had a sneaking suspicion that the woman might not be giving him full market value, and he knew for a fact, that her 50 percent commission was highway robbery. But what did it matter . . . he had gotten a check for $16,000, not to mention her card and cell number.
So in practically no time at all, he had a nice, new bank account—adding three zeroes to his net worth—and had met an elegant Palm Beach beauty to boot. He imagined an intoxicating future ahead of him with the woman. He looked at her card.
Lil Fonseca. Had a nice exotic ring to it.
Besides being suddenly flush with cash and the possibility of a new woman in his life, Nick had become the de facto grandson of a man who had paintings worth millions. So what if the old guy wished h
im Happy New Year twice a day, wore Depends and called him Oswald?
Nick was seeing Spencer Robertson’s life close up—such as it was—and realized, like most people, his was a series of routines. He slept until ten at which time he was served a hard-boiled egg and a piece of toast slathered with Peter Pan chunky peanut butter. Then he turned on the TV and spent the morning watching quiz shows and, in the afternoon, soap operas and the Golf Channel. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and the Glossy were delivered daily but, with the exception of the Times, were never removed from their plastic bags. The old man opened the Times religiously to the crossword puzzle each morning. He just stared at it, though, knowing he was supposed to do something, just not sure what.
Nick was ecstatic about his new life. He knew he was a much better grandson to Spencer Robertson than Avery Robertson had been, or ever would be. He watched cartoons and inane quiz shows with the old man and listened to his bursts of blather. He even developed a certain fondness for him and even wanted to improve the quality of his life . . . just as long as old Spencer didn’t stretch it out too far. All he asked for, in return, were a few dozen paintings. Why not? Spencer couldn’t take them with him, so who better to end up with them than an art history minor who actually knew the difference between a Hopper and a Holbein.
AND, THE fact was, he owed it all to one person.
Cynthia Dexter.
She had made it all possible.
But all of a sudden she had become a liability. Particularly after her distressing call to the house earlier that morning.
He had absolutely no idea how she got his number, as she fiercely rebuked him for standing her up. She harangued him about the four messages she had left on his cell, starting with, “Do you want to meet me at the movies or pick me up,” then, “Nick, please let me know what the plan is,” after that, “I hope you’re okay, Nick,” and finally, “I think it’s very rude that I haven’t heard from you.”
Then, she told him, she’d found out that he lived at the Palm Beach Princess from the nice bartender at Viggo’s. So she drove to the Princess and the guy at the desk said no, he hadn’t seen Nick for a few days. Last time was when Nick got into a Yellow Cab, which was weird since he had a car.
Next, Cynthia said how she’d phoned Yellow Cab, and convincingly playing Nick’s mother, explained where and when her son was picked up by one of their drivers. But she told the dispatcher she had no idea where he went from there, and now he was missing. He hadn’t called in days and she was very concerned.
Nick wanted to reach through the phone, grab her and smack her silly. She was so damn smug and pleased with all her little detective work.
Then she continued and told him how the sympathetic dispatcher had checked the records and told her the cab had taken her son to 101 El Vedato.
101 El Vedato, huh?
She said she knew right away that was the address of Spencer Robertson’s house. Well, now . . . wasn’t that interesting, she thought? How she had told Nick all about how rich Robertson was. Senile, too. Told him how Robertson just had the one elderly butler to protect him from the scam artists of the world.
Guys like you, Nick, she said.
NINETEEN
Nick heard a commotion at the front door as he hung up with Cynthia Dexter.
“Yo, Grandpa Spence,” a voice boomed out. Nick was in the kitchen getting ice cream out of the freezer.
He hurried toward the front door, wearing the green Poinciana golf hat he had found in Spencer Robertson’s hallway closet.
A man in his midtwenties, knapsack on his back, came reeling into the house. Alcie hadn’t been able to intercept him because the man had his own key. The man’s arm was around a woman whose nipples seemed to be holding up a loose-fitting halter top. They were both inebriated.
“And who might you be?” the man asked, looking Nick over from head to toe.
Nick in his linen pants and Stubbs & Wootton slippers felt he should be doing the asking.
“Avery,” he said, “and you are?”
“Jesus, dude . . . it’s me, Dickie,” the man said throwing a bear hug around Nick.
Nick had to play along until he figured out who Dickie was. According to Cynthia Dexter, Avery was the only living relative of Spencer Robertson. His guess was she had missed one.
“So how’s it goin’, Dickie?” Nick said, enthusiastically, waiting for an explanation of their relationship. He saw Alcie back out of the room, figuring Nick had things under control.
Dickie released his hug.
“Christ, last time I saw you was at the funeral, you were like twelve,” Dickie said, looking him over.
Nick didn’t know what to say.
“Even back then, I remember those big ole Mick Jagger lips,” Dickie said, giving Nick a punch on the shoulder.
Nick laughed. He hadn’t wasted any time making an appointment with the cosmetic surgeon in Boca. But the doctor was a little collagen happy and went pretty heavy on the stuff. For the first twenty-four hours after he got his new lips, Nick had had a problem enunciating his words properly.
“I like ’em,” the girl slurred.
It was like Dickie had forgotten about the woman next to him, falling out of her clothes.
“Oh, sorry, this is my girlfriend, Gigi.”
Gigi flounced forward and gave an exaggerated curtsy. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Same here,” Nick said, shaking her hand. “Welcome.”
Dickie took off his knapsack and dropped it on the floor.
“So how is the old bastard, anyway?”
“Uh . . . not that great, I mean, you know, he is ninety-six.”
“Jesus, really? Time flies when you’re havin’ fun, huh?”
After his initial panic about getting found out, Nick knew he was now in the clear.
He had a lot of experience dealing with drunks, too.
“Whose funeral was it?” Gigi asked, reaching up to her shoulder and adjusting her black bra strap without any sign of modesty.
Dickie looked over at her gravely. “Avery’s parents, my aunt and uncle . . . really bad accident.”
Thank you, Gigi, Nick thought.
“Yeah, really bad,” Nick said, wondering how they bought it. “How long you down for, Dickie?”
“I’m figuring ’bout a week. Get my shit together . . . see what happened, I got kicked out of Duke.”
The guy was like twenty-five and still going to college? And how’d the cretin get into Duke and the best he could do was fucking Hofstra?
“Sorry to hear that, man. You guys stay here as long as you want,” Nick said, not meaning a word of it.
“Thanks, man, where you living now anyway?” Dickie asked. “When you’re not down here on the gravy train?”
Nick remembered what Cynthia Dexter told him. Avery lived in some place way out there, like Montana or Wyoming.
“Montana. You know, I ski-bum around . . . rest of the time fish and hunt.”
Dickie looked envious.
“Sick, what’s the name of the place?”
Shit.
“Oh, little town outside of, ah, Helene called . . . Big Elk.”
Gigi cocked her head. “Wait, isn’t it Helena?”
Fuck.
“Yeah, but us locals just call it Helene.”
She bought it.
Dickie had a faraway look, like he was fantasizing about life as a ski bum. He was around five ten, had the potbelly of a six-months pregnant woman and was expensively, but badly, dressed. He had dirty blond hair that was combed straight back; a few strands flopped forward on both sides and circled his eyes. His hair had a glossy sheen to it, like he went heavy on the gel.
“All right if we take the yellow bedroom?” Dickie asked.
“Yeah, sure, I’m in the blue one. Want a hand with your stuff?”
“Thanks, dude, I’m good,” Dickie said, heading toward the front door, Gigi right behind him.
Nick was glad he sold the
Albaran before the two lushes showed up.
A few minutes later they came back in with their stuff, mixed two large vodka and OJs, stumbled upstairs and didn’t come back down.
For the rest of the night Nick was kept awake by caterwauling shrieks of passion. The carnal racket started up again around eight o’clock the next morning when Nick was in the kitchen with the old man’s nurse. She looked at him, puzzled.
“My cousin, Dickie,” he explained.
She rolled her eyes.
Two days later, Dickie and Gigi hadn’t left the house. They were heavy maintenance, but gave Nick a chance to study Dickie like a textbook. He couldn’t possibly get a better education about the conduct and speech of a spoiled, entitled, debauched young aristo.
Above all else, Dickie Mortimer was a hardcore roué. Nick wondered why it had taken Duke three and a half years to toss his ass out of there. Despite being twenty pounds overweight and having marshmallow skin, Dickie was handsome. But, Nick predicted, he would have a short shelf life. In ten years his features would go soft and mushy.
Dickie’s modus operandi was to get out of bed at ten, stumble down to the refrigerator and, in one gulp, drain a half carton of OJ. Then he’d go back up and he and Gigi would come back down two hours later expecting bacon, eggs, the whole nine.
After breakfast, Dickie and Gigi would go for a swim. One time Dickie boasted how he was going to do thirty laps, but petered out after two and a half. Puffing like he had just run three miles, he dropped onto a chaise longue. After slathering on a handful of SPF 30, he flattened out in the chaise, his protuberant stomach the closest body part to the sun. Within minutes he was snoring.
Nick spent as much time as possible in Dickie’s orbit, soaking up all he could. One time, Alcie wheeled the old man out to the pool to give him some sun and fresh air. Dickie swung around when he heard the clank of the wheelchair. He looked up at Gigi, mischievously.
