by Tom Turner
“Hi, Alcie,” Nick said.
Alcie noticed the book was called, Lucien Freud. His Life and Art.
Artist? Alcie always thought the guy was a shrink.
“Hi . . . Avery,” he said, then looking down at the sketch he got from the cop, “or should I say . . . Nick?”
“What?” Nick said, putting his book down quickly.
“Thought you might want to take a look at this.” Alcie handed him the sketch.
Alcie sat down in the chair opposite Nick.
Nick glanced at the picture and looked up.
“What in God’s name—”
“From day one, I had a feeling. You were good, man, don’t get me wrong,” Alcie said, pointing a finger, “but after a coupla paintings walked out the door—”
“Alcie, you better stop right there, before I—”
“Come on, man, give it up, that’s you. Even though your lips grew a little. Want me to call Paul Broberg, tell him good ole Avery’s back in town?”
Nick put a hand up.
“Okay, okay, let’s talk about this,” his face the color of sushi.
“Yes, let’s,” said Alcie. “Hey, I’m not lookin’ to queer your action, just want a piece of it. Those paintings . . . I know they’re worth a shitload of cash . . . why you lookin’ at me that way, bro? Hey, somebody’s gotta read that goddamn New York Times. Why the cops after you anyway?”
Nick shook his head. “I don’t know . . . some misunderstanding.”
Alcie gave him his two-foot-wide grin. “That’s good enough for me, man.”
Nick suddenly looked like he had shrunk a size.
Then he took a glance at his watch.
Alcie smiled.
“You gotta get somewhere, Nick?”
“Yeah, matter of fact, a guest . . . is coming for dinner.”
“A guest?” said Alcie, with a knowing smile. “Wouldn’t happen to be the owner of a certain gallery on Worth Avenue, by any chance?”
Nick realized just how badly he had underestimated Alcie.
“Yeah, actually it would.”
“Wonderful,” Alcie said, walking out of the room, “I’m dying to meet our partner.”
NICK TRIED to get back into the Freud book, but it was impossible. He was a complete mess after the one-two punch of having just seen himself in a remarkably accurate police sketch and having been found out by Alcie. He realized with profound sadness that, even though he had made a smashing debut at the Poinciana, his days in Palm Beach might be numbered.
He thought about Alcie some more. He wanted to cold cock the impudent bastard for the crack about his lips.
He was on the same page of the Freud book he’d been on fifteen minutes before. Lil was late. She had called him that morning. Said she was psyched up, just had a $10 million brainstorm. Wanted to come talk to him about it. He told her to come on over, he’d love to hear all about it.
He wasn’t thrilled about having to tell her about their new partner.
A HALF an hour later, Nick was pouring Lil a hefty vodka when Alcie walked in. Nick noticed that the former butler had wasted no time trading in his knife-creased gray flannel pants, crisp white shirt and gray tie for khakis, a blue sports shirt with the Poinciana logo and a pink cable knit sweater tied at the waist. Then he looked down and saw Alcie’s shiny shoes. Belgian loafers, he knew they were called. But the real shocker was Alcie wasn’t wearing socks. Nick had recently experimented with the no-sock look himself and—though in no way racist—didn’t regard it as a look that befitted an elderly black man.
After dropping his bomb earlier, Alcie had come back and said to Nick that if he had any regrets about the new partnership arrangement or contemplated any form of violence toward him, that that would be extremely ill-advised. For if anything happened to him, Alcie warned Nick, it would automatically trigger the mailing of letters to the authorities saying that Nick should not only be regarded as a blatant perpetrator of fraud and art theft, but should be taken into custody as the primary suspect in whatever foul play befell Alcie.
Lil was staring up at the Hopper again, mesmerized, when she heard footsteps and swung around.
“Hi,” Alcie said, putting out his hand, “I’m Alcie Luvley. Avery’s, ah, distant cousin.”
Lil realized immediately it was a team scam. This guy was in on it, too. She had to play along with his nonsense.
“Nice to meet you, Alcie, I’m Lil Fonseca.”
Alcie smiled broadly and shook her hand enthusiastically.
“I know what you’re thinking, ‘Avery’s cousin?’ ” he said, like he was dishing with her. “Well, it’s one of those things we don’t talk about much en famille—ole Spencer’s little Thomas Jefferson indiscretion—if you know what I mean?”
He gave her a wink.
“I think I do,” she said, looking over at Nick.
Nick forced a smile.
“Alcie, we’re expecting someone, if you don’t mind—”
“I don’t mind at all, I’ll just go hang with Uncle Spence,” he said, turning to leave. “Very nice to meet you, Lil.”
“Nice to meet you, too.”
As Alcie walked out of the room, the doorbell rang.
“Let me handle this,” she told Nick.
He nodded and smiled. “Absolutely . . . this is your department. I’ll just get the door.”
Nick opened it. He couldn’t believe it. It was the arrogant dick who had been playing backgammon with his friend, Bill McCullough, at the Poinciana.
“The kibitzer,” the man said.
“The name’s Avery Robertson,” Nick said, returning Jaynes’s haughtiness.
“Ward Jaynes.”
“Yes, I remember.”
They shook hands as if the other had warts.
“Hello, Ward,” Lil said, coming up behind them.
“Hello, Liliana,” Jaynes said, “turns out me and your sidekick here have met before.”
Lil looked at Nick.
“The Poinciana,” he said.
She nodded.
Ward Jaynes stepped from the foyer into the hallway.
“Can I see it now?” Jaynes asked.
“That’s what I love about you, Ward . . . cut right to the chase. Follow me.”
She led the way into the living room, stopped in front of the fireplace and looked up at the Hopper.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
Jaynes’s steely eyes surveyed the picture. He studied it for close to thirty seconds without saying a word.
Then, finally. “Not as good as my ‘House on a Hill, Monhegan.’ ”
Lil turned to him. “What a surprise, Ward, I do believe you’re trying to negotiate.”
“It’s a good picture, Liliana,” Jaynes said, stepping closer. “Not one of his best, though.”
“It’s a very good one, Ward.”
“I’ll give you . . . $8 million for it,” Jaynes said, “but I need to see something that proves you and . . . junior here are authorized to sell it.”
The sack on this guy, Nick thought, insulting him in his own house. He felt like booting him out onto the street, but knew he was their meal ticket.
“Wait a minute, Ward,” Lil said, unblinking. “I guess I didn’t make it clear, we’re not selling it.”
“What are you talking about?” Jaynes threw his arms up.
“What we’re offering you is an option. You said $8 million, which means you think it’s worth twelve. Avery won’t officially own the piece until his grandfather dies and he inherits it, so we’re prepared to give you an option.”
Jaynes took a threatening step closer to her. “Fuck an option. I came here to buy a painting.”
“Our proposition is simple, you pay us 10 percent now—$800,000—which buys you an option to get it for $8 million. You doing the math, Ward . . . that’s a one-third discount off what it’s worth and what you would have paid if you walked out the door with it tonight.”
Jaynes looked like he was crunching numbers.
“How old is Spen—”
“Ninety-six and fading fast,” Lil said, smiling. “Want your doctor to check his vitals?”
Alcie Luvley, listening intently from the hallway nearby, was impressed. He shook his head and chuckled. He couldn’t believe the balls on this white chick.
THIRTY
Ott saw Crawford come off the elevator and followed him into his office.
“The guy in the sketch,” Ott asked, “where’d you see him?”
Crawford hung up his jacket and sat down in his chair. “With Lil Fonseca. She sold a painting of his.”
Ott scratched his cheek. “Your friend, Lil . . . she gets around pretty good.”
Crawford agreed. “Yeah . . . I got Greenleaf’s number from her.”
Ott leaned forward. “And?”
“No help, it was his number at the Princess.”
“You think that’s all she had?”
“I don’t know.” He had a pretty good hunch she might be holding back. “You gotta hear what I got from the manager at the Poinciana.”
“Good?”
“Yeah,” Crawford said, nodding. “So I go to the guy’s office and his secretary sits me down. He wasn’t there and I saw this little book. I took a look at it and it’s got all the Poinciana’s members’ names in it. Phone numbers, addresses, these committees they’re on. I see Jaynes’s name on a bunch of ’em. Finance, Golf, Club Operations . . . anyway, the manager comes in and I ask him a bunch of questions about Cynthia Dexter. Halfway into it, I steer it around to Jaynes. Guy’s loosened up a little by then and tells me Jaynes is a big time muck-a-muck there—”
“Yeah . . . but any connection to Dexter?”
“Hold on, I’ll get to that,” Crawford said. “I’m working the guy pretty hard, but, you know, his job’s all about discretion, keeping his mouth shut. Anyway, we go back to talking about Dexter and he tells me how she was like a mother hen to some of the younger female employees. They got a lot of young girls from like Mexico and South America working there.”
“Illegals?”
“You kidding? It’s the goddamn Poinciana,” Crawford said. “At one point the guy mentions something about ‘the incident’ and I go, ‘What incident?’ And I can see he thinks he screwed up. Told me something he shouldn’t have. So I press him and he gets nervous. Then he says it was in all the papers, he’s not ‘speaking out of school.’ Besides, he figured, I knew all about it. I go, refresh my memory. Anyway . . . the ‘incident’ turns out to be some affair Jaynes had with a seventeen-year-old girl who works there. Brazilian, I think she was.”
Ott smirked. “So an affair . . . you mean, like candlelight, soft music?”
“Yeah, right,” Crawford laughed, “more like nailing her in the broom closet kind of affair.”
“That’s what I figured.”
“I keep pushing the guy, finally told me the whole thing got messy ’cause some ambulance chaser lawyer heard about it. Gets his hooks into the girl, becomes her lawyer and ends up threatening to sue not just Jaynes, but the Poinciana, the Board of Governors, everybody he can think of. Going after ’em for $200 mill.”
“So how’s Dexter fit in?”
“Supposedly she knows all about what happened, she’s helping out the girl,” Crawford said. “Lawyer puts pressure on Dexter to testify against Jaynes. Says he’s gonna subpoena her if she doesn’t do it voluntarily.”
“So she’s between a rock—”
“You got it,” Crawford said. “Lawyer figures she’s the key to taking down Jaynes—”
“—shaking down, is more like it.”
Crawford nodded.
“So Jaynes’s play is to discredit the girl,” Ott said, “or get her on the first plane back to Rio.”
Crawford nodded slowly. “So guess what happens?”
“What?” Ott leaned closer.
“Absolutely nothing. Not a goddamn thing. It all just goes away.”
“Payoff, huh?”
“What else? The lawyer and the girl get nice fat checks.”
“How long ago was this?”
“I asked the manager . . . about a year and a half. Then he tells me—guess he and Dexter were pretty tight—the lawyer called her again just a couple weeks ago.”
Ott nodded. “So the lawyer got greedy or pissed through the money . . . decided to come back for another bite?”
“I guess,” Crawford said. “One thing for damn sure, Jaynes’s life is way less complicated without Dexter around.”
THIRTY-ONE
Crawford drove down Jaynes’s driveway and pressed the buzzer at his house. A strawberry blonde with a tempting smile and a skimpy thong opened the front door.
“Well, hello,” she said, jiggling her stuff.
“Hi, I’m Detective Crawford . . . Mr. Jaynes here?”
“Sorry, you just missed him. I’m Hannah, we’re having a pool party. Want to . . . join us?”
She pulled the door open and Crawford looked through the foyer down a long, wide hallway, then into a massive room with a coffered ceiling and out through a set of open french doors.
A football field and a half away—was Jaynes’s pool. The same one he had seen two weeks before. The perspective was totally different this time. He saw the same woman who was with Jaynes back then talking to a younger woman. They both had drinks in their hands. Then he saw another group of three women—talking, gesturing. There were probably ten women altogether. Half were topless.
“Come on in, take a swim, cool off,” Hannah said.
“Thanks, but I’m not allowed to swim on duty. Unless, of course, someone’s drowning.”
“I could pretend.”
Crawford laughed, looked over her shoulder, then his eyes came back to her.
“Do you know where Mr. Jaynes went, Hannah?”
“He’s at his gym . . . down the driveway, turn left, just before you get to South Ocean.”
“Thanks,” he said.
Crawford followed the woman’s directions to the gym.
He pulled in next to a golf cart and got out of his car. The entrance to the building was through two columns supporting a flat roof with a railing on three sides. Crawford grabbed the knob of the door, opened it and went inside.
Two big, burly guys were on him in a second.
“Who are you?” one asked.
“Crawford, Palm Beach police.”
He saw Ward Jaynes on an elliptical machine twenty feet away. Sweat was flying off his face, his arms and legs pumping like pistons.
He saw Jaynes look over and give a nod to the two men. They backed away. Crawford walked over to him.
“Your usual M.O., Detective.” Jaynes wasn’t even breathing hard. “Show up uninvited.”
Crawford got closer. Five fit-looking young people—three men and two women—dressed in identical white sweatpants, sneakers, and tight white T-shirts stood in Jaynes’s orbit, like they were awaiting commands.
“Know why I just show up?” Crawford asked, a foot away from Jaynes now.
Jaynes slowed down. “I’m dying to know.”
“ ’Cause one time when I just showed up, I found a suspect burying a body in his backyard.”
A beautiful Asian girl handed Jaynes a bottle of water. Jaynes took a swig, then shot a scowl at Crawford.
“Sounds like a bullshit story to me.”
“I don’t do bullshit stories,” Crawford said, looking around. “This place puts any gym I’ve ever seen to shame. ’Course I go to places with medicine balls and fat, sweaty guys who grunt a lot.”
He looked around some more. Jaynes had to have a couple million into the place. A glass-walled squash court. A long, narrow pool with two lap lanes. No barbells or free weights, just sleek, silver machines, so glossy they looked wet. Every piece, he figured, was either brand new or cleaned and polished daily.
“So . . . I just came by to talk,” Crawford said, “get to know you a little better.”
“Aww, that’s sweet,” sa
id Jaynes, putting on a burst of speed with his legs, like he was slashing through a defensive line.
The Asian girl handed him a towel. He mopped his face and forehead, then looked up at Crawford.
“So . . . All-America in lacrosse, three years on the Dartmouth football team, course . . . it was the Ivy League.”
“You do your homework,” Crawford said. “I’ll give you that.”
Jaynes had researched him just like some company he was about to short.
“I like to be informed,” Jaynes said, taking his hands off the elliptical and sitting up straighter. “It’s what I do.”
“I heard what you do is . . . hatchet jobs. Companies, people . . . you name it.”
Jaynes put his hands back on the elliptical and smiled.
“Only when they deserve it.”
“Not the way I heard it.”
“Well, then, someone’s got their facts screwed up. I do my homework, find out what I need to find out, then . . . act accordingly.”
“Is that what you did with Darryl Bill, acted accordingly?”
Jaynes ignored him and pedaled harder. Crawford couldn’t believe he wasn’t at least breathing heavily.
“A word of advice,” Jaynes said, finally. “I’ve been very tolerant of you, but I wouldn’t show up a third time thinking you can throw around accusations.”
“The third time I show up is usually when I make my arrest.”
Jaynes slowed down again, sweat dripping off his face now. He climbed off the elliptical machine and walked over to Crawford. He got almost nose to nose with him. Crawford smelled something stronger than sweat. He wondered if endorphins or testosterone had a scent.
“You ever box, Detective?”
“Couple times in college, why?”
“I got a ring over there,” Jaynes said, flicking his head, “how ’bout a little exercise, go a few rounds?”
“Are you serious?”
“Why not,” Jaynes said. “You’re probably ten years younger than me, plus being the big jock and all.”
“I got a much better offer from Hannah up at your house.”
“Come on, Detective, just a round or two. Fifteen-ounce gloves, nobody gets hurt.”
Crawford shook his head.
