Perfect

by Kellogg, Marne Davis

  I took just small items at first, little pins and lavalieres, but soon I had my eyes on bigger targets. I honed my skills by constantly manipulating marbles and stones in my hands, sensitizing them, making them flexible and quick. Hot goods could vanish into my pockets and bodice in the twinkling of an eye and I could sell or pawn them quickly, leaving no trace.

  I got up my nerve to apply for a job at one of Mr. Homer Mallory’s Fine Jewelry stores. “I’ll get back to you soon,” he’d said. I was still within earshot of his office when I heard him and his secretary share a mean-spirited laugh. “Can you imagine hiring a fat girl like that in our business? She’s got no class.” This coming from Mr. Mallory himself, who was hairy and dirty and had boils on his face and bad teeth. Evidently they thought fat girls couldn’t hear.

  Well, Mr. Mallory and his secretary receive the dubious credit for bringing clarity and righteous justification to my criminal activities, and launching my brilliant unbelievable career. Their unkind remark and arrogant white-trash attitude crystallized my vision and gave rationale to my crusade to steal things from people who were cruel to those who were less fortunate, or more corpulent. I slipped so many goods from Mallory’s Fine Jewelry stores into my overdeveloped bosom, I was able to buy myself a little yellow Corvair convertible for my sixteenth birthday. I was a one-girl crime wave. Of course, even though I thought I knew everything, I didn’t. One day I walked into his newest shop and was no more than two feet inside when they nabbed me. I was sentenced to a year in the Oklahoma State Home for Girls—a nice way of saying reform school.

  I’d stay awake many nights just thinking and thinking, because I had all these big plans, but they weren’t working out. I didn’t understand. And I didn’t have anyone to ask. Certainly not the other girls in my “class.” They were all doing time for stealing hubcaps and hairspray. I intended to be someone, the best jewel thief in the world. And in order to do that, I needed the one thing Mr. Mallory—quite rightly—said I didn’t have: class. But who would show me the way?

  One Saturday night—which was movie night when they would shoo us all into the auditorium where we would smoke and talk while they’d put silly movies up on the screen—it happened. The movie was Pillow Talk with Doris Day and Rock Hudson. I saw what I could become. She was beautiful, successful. She had her own apartment and a beautiful wardrobe. She had elegance, independence. She was her own woman, her own boss. I would be Doris Day. I even took her name as my middle name: Kathleen Day Keswick. Kick, for short. I began to work on my posture, took a jewelry-making class, put my makeup on every morning and kept my nails polished.

  By the time my time was up, I’d chipped off a few of the rough edges and was awarded a full scholarship to Oklahoma State University, where I studied geology and made up an entire family history for myself, claiming I’d been orphaned when my parents burned to death trying to save their dairy herd from perishing in a barn fire. It was such a ghastly and gruesome demise, no one ever asked for further details. I pledged Kappa Kappa Gamma, and spent my spare time figuring out how I could rob my sorority sisters and their rich parents, although I never did. While it was very instructive to study their homes and habits, and the casual way they took their valuables for granted, they were wonderful, gracious girls—not a single one of them came anywhere close to meeting my criteria for being one of my victims. But, in spite of the warm welcome into their circle, and fixing me up with their brothers and cousins, deep inside, I knew I wasn’t cut out for any regular sort of country club Junior League life.

  It was the late ’60s and the college put on a thirty-day, twenty-city, summer tour to Europe, which I took because I had nothing else to do and nowhere else to go. I was bored out of my mind on that god-awful, stupid, sophomoric tour, standing in endless lines of unwashed, strong-smelling foreigners, waiting to see famous paintings that were no larger than postage stamps and, in any event, were behind sheets of bulletproof glass so thick and scratched you couldn’t see through it in the first place. I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to get onto a different track. I was too busy to waste my time sitting on a hot bus in a foreign country watching people actually living.

  When we got to London—it was all happening in London in the ’60s, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, Carnaby Street and “mod” everything, Twiggy and Verushka, Petula Clark and Blow-Up—I ditched the group and took off, leaving all my worldly possessions in the luggage compartment of the bus except for my purse, which contained my makeup, money, jeweler’s needle-nosed pliers, jeweler’s loupe and lock-picking sticks. I happily traded all my money for a psychedelic minidress, pink vinyl go-go boots, and a professional Mary Quant makeover that included bright blue eye shadow, platinum lipstick, and false eyelashes even bigger than Twiggy’s. By the time I left the shop, I was quite certain I was pretty much the sharpest “bird” on the face of the earth. Then it started to rain. And every drop of rain seemed to drill into me the complete pathetic futility of my actions. There I was, my pink-and-purple mini glued to my voluptuous body like a bathing suit, leaving nothing to the imagination, blubbering my eyes out—no money left, nowhere to go. Oh, what a mess I was. What a mistake I’d made. I wasn’t Twiggy. I was Kick Keswick from Oklahoma City and I’d really screwed up.

  That was when the Rolls Royce Silver Cloud pulled to the curb. The rear door opened and a man’s voice said, “Get in, miss. Get in out of the rain.” It was Sir Cramner Ballantine. But to my eyes and ears, he looked and sounded just like Cary Grant in That Touch of Mink.

  The car took us to Claridge’s where we spent two days in a suite, at the end of which time he offered me a position in the executive suite at Ballantine & Company Auctioneers, one of England’s oldest and most esteemed auction houses, founded in 1740 by Sir Cramner’s ancestors. Sir Cramner saved my life, made my life. He bought me a spacious flat on leafy Eaton Terrace, home to tycoons and diplomats, and placed the Pasha of St. Petersburg around my neck: a thirty-five-carat brilliant-cut perfect diamond suspended from a gossamer-fine platinum chain. I have worn the Pasha every day of my life since then—it is always there, nestled in my bosom, keeping me grounded.

  He educated me about the finest the world had to offer—furniture, paintings, wine, food, jewelry, clothes. He taught me refinement, poise, discretion, and discernment. He turned me into the lady I am today. I loved him until the day he died at age ninety-two, seven years ago.

  S E V E N

  Thomas and I met when he was chief inspector on a bombing case that involved Ballantine & Company. Sir Cramner was gone by then, but I’d been with the company for thirty years, and it was hard to leave. I’d also promised Sir Cranmer I’d continue as executive assistant to his ineffectual son and heir, who was doing his best to run 250 years of family history into the ground.

  During the course of the investigation, Thomas invited me out, twice. Wonderful, sophisticated invitations such as a Schumann concert and an afternoon at the Victoria and Albert looking at the Raphael cartoons, the sorts of invitations I’d waited all my life to receive from a sophisticated, witty, urbane fellow, but never had. I demurred, turned down his offers because by then, due to a number of circumstances, it was too late.

  As London’s notorious, elusive Shamrock Burglar—Scotland Yard never had a clue who I was (and they still don’t)—it didn’t seem very intelligent to strike up a friendship with the city’s superstar inspector. And I was seeing someone else (a misguided affair if there ever was one, which only served to confirm my belief about men and trouble) and, finally, and most importantly, I was getting ready to take my stash and move permanently to my beautiful little farm in Eygalières outside of St. Rémy. La Petite Pomme, with its quiet view, lavender beds, and hyacinth blue shutters.

  Actually, Thomas did invite me out a third time, just for a quick hot-curry dinner at the Indian spot in Cadogan Square around the corner from my flat in Eaton Terrace. I had accepted and he stood me up! Not without a call or anything—a homicide had gotten in the way, as I recall—bu
t I’d simmered alone for about twenty minutes before hearing from him, sipping single malt scotch and excoriating myself. Reconfirming, yet again . . . Men. Romance and I seemed fated never to end up in the same place at the same time.

  Two days after the nonexistent dinner date, I padded my body with several million in diamonds and cash from my safe, boarded an Air France nonstop to Marseilles, and decamped to Provence, where I was finally able to stop looking over my shoulder and breathe.

  After I’d settled in, I thought about Thomas from time to time—he would drift into my consciousness every now and then, especially when my old friend, Flaminia Balfour—she and her husband, Bill, live on a beautiful hilltop farm down the road in Les Baux—would trot out some relic who was ancient enough to think that I was “une tomate.” And I still was (and am) a “tomate” in many ways—beautiful, full-figured, luscious, rich, and extremely well maintained—but I had virtually zero interest in spending my time taking care of a groping nonagenarian.

  One evening at Flaminia and Bill’s, my dinner partner died, not from any sort of strenuous or amorous activity beyond the effort required to sip soup or white burgundy but simply from being old. Right in the middle of the soup course. He gave a startled little peep, fell face first into my lap—bringing his bowl of cream of asparagus with him—and died. From old age. He was simply too old to be alive anymore.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake.” I held my hands in the air and stared at the bottom of the yellow-and-blue Limoges bowl that covered his wizened old bean like Don Quixote’s helmet. My favorite pink-and-gold bouclé Chanel dinner suit soaked up the thick pale green liquid like a big expensive sponge.

  I’m embarrassed to say the three of us got completely hysterical.

  “What on earth are you thinking, Flaminia? Do I really seem that desperate to you?”

  “I’m so sorry, Kick,” she said, helping Bill curl the old gentleman onto the floor, where he lay comfortably until the authorities arrived. “I just want so much for you to be happy To meet a man.”

  “Why? It doesn’t make any difference, Flaminia. I couldn’t possibly be happier.”

  “He was very, very well fixed.”

  “So what? So am I. Please, please, give it a rest.”

  She nodded as the ambulance drivers wheeled away the shrouded remains. “I suppose you’re right. I did push this one a little too far—I should have let him bring his nurse.”

  “He had a nurse? Oh, my God. This is getting worse by the second.”

  Half-Persian, half-French Flaminia had the grace to blush, probably for the first time in her life.

  It was at times such as that—thankfully there weren’t too many of them—that I’d recall Thomas. He’d seemed such a completely decent man, but timing is everything and the timing hadn’t been there.

  One afternoon my phone rang. “Kick,” Flaminia said, “can you come to dinner tonight?”

  “Don’t tell me,” I said. “You’ve met a man.”

  “Toujours.” She laughed. “There’s always that chance. But truly come just because it’s a wonderful group and will be a beautiful October evening. Get dressed up. Seven o’clock.”

  The evening was chilly, so I draped a black pashmina over my black silk evening pajamas and secured it with a large art deco diamond brooch, put on three graduated strings of sixteen-millimeter pearls and diamond-and-pearl earrings, all of which I feel obliged to point out I’d bought legitimately at auction at Christie’s in Geneva. On my wrist I clasped the one piece I’d stolen and kept because it was too magnificent to break down and I couldn’t bear to sell it: the Queen’s Pet, a cuff of five rows of 5-carat diamonds with an egg-sized clasp encrusted with a diamond melee. The clasp concealed a locket with a miniature of Prince Albert painted by Winterhalter for Queen Victoria. The bracelet was unfenceable and no one with a brain in his head would break down such an exquisite creation, reduce it to its basic elements of gemstones and precious metal and sell it for scrap. On this particular evening, it seemed like the perfect thing to complete my ensemble.

  And there, at Flaminia and Bill’s cocktail party, was Thomas Curtis.

  My heart stopped, and not from any romantic notion or pleasure at seeing him again. I was filled instead with the deep-down sorrow and grim realization that he was there to arrest me. That my beautiful life was finished. That all my years of meticulous planning and disguise and secrecy had evaporated like fog. That he had tracked me down and would now unceremoniously haul me off to the hoosegow like a common criminal.

  I glanced up, and far off in the distance I thought I could almost make out the lights at La Petite Pomme where my little Bijou was curled up asleep in her basket waiting for me. My head ached as though in a vise and my eyes filled with tears.

  E I G H T

  I stared at his hand. It was strong and square and had a firm hold on a tumbler of Scotch, not a badge or a pair of handcuffs. His other hand was casually in the pocket of his tweed sports coat and he smelled vaguely of Trumper’s Lime cologne.

  “I didn’t like the way it ended between us,” Thomas said. “With me standing you up.”

  “Really?” I said casually. “How did you find me?” My voice sounded completely normal even though my mouth felt filled with cotton and I was quite sure I would need to be defibrillated to get my heart and breathing to resume. The headache arced through the center of my head like lightning bolts and would have buckled a weaker person’s knees.

  He didn’t answer. He studied me up and down, not in a lecherous or leering way but with appreciation. “I’m so glad to see you, Kick. You look sensational. You’re even more beautiful than I remember.” He admired my bracelet. “That’s an impressive piece.”

  You know, it is true that criminals are compelled to reveal themselves one way or the other. They—we—cannot stay away from their works because their works eat them alive. At some point they have to say the truth about themselves if they’re going to have any sort of real life at all. It becomes an unstoppable mandate, almost a crusade to tell someone. To confess. You cannot restrain yourself from freeing the swarm of bees that lives in your mouth. This was that moment for me. This would be when the truth flew out of my mouth like a beautiful flock of liberated bluebirds—I would not live the lie any longer, no matter the consequences.

  “I stole it,” I answered evenly, now fully prepared to present my wrists for the obligatory handcuffing. “I’m the Shamrock Burglar.”

  “Of course you are.” He raised his glass to me in a mock toast. “And I’m the Samaritan Burglar.” He was alluding to another of London’s “celebrity” burglars, but one that was a do-gooder. The Samaritan stole priceless works of art from peoples’ homes and left the paintings at police stations with notes warning the owners to take better care of their valuable property or some real thief might get his hands on their goods and actually steal them for good.

  We both laughed and laughed—the Shamrock and the Samaritan. What a ridiculous idea. I felt wonderful, lighter than air. Because no matter the outcome, the fact remained, I’d told the truth. For the first time in my life! I was liberated. It wasn’t my fault he didn’t believe me.

  Later that evening, when we returned to my house and I was whipping up a little midnight snack—a tarte Tatin, one of my specialties—he brought a painting in from the car and hung it over the fireplace in my living room.

  “Come here a minute, Kick,” he said from the living room door. “There’s something I want to show you.”

  I recognized the painting immediately, La Polonaise Blanche, by Renoir. I’d last seen it in Sheilagh Winthrop’s bedroom when I was in her pitch-black closet cleaning out her safe while she was at her father’s ninetieth birthday party. I’d watched, horrified, through my night-vision goggles, as a masked burglar entered the room, replaced the painting with a note card, and then for some reason unknown to me, came into the closet. I had no choice. I whacked him with my little hard rubber ball peen hammer and he’d fallen like a ton of bricks. I
got out of there as fast as I could. In the newspapers, the theft of the painting was attributed to me, the Shamrock Burglar, a bit of notoriety I never cared for. Any hack could break and enter and swipe a painting off a wall, it took virtually no skill or finesse. Clearly, it had been the work of the Samaritan Burglar, except the painting was never recovered.

  To discover that night, in my living room, that Chief Inspector Thomas Curtis actually was London’s Samaritan Burglar absolutely stunned me. That he had conducted these robberies while the people who owned the works were out to dinner or out of town and had asked the police to keep an eye on their homes left me with my mouth hanging open. It was as egotistical as it was disgraceful.

  We sipped Champagne and made love all night long.

  Beyond acknowledging the reality of our former lives, Thomas and I had never gone on to discuss the subject in any significant detail—we didn’t talk about methods or favorite heists. He’d never asked me about my techniques, my various identities, or my stash, which, depending on the market price of precious gems—mostly diamonds—and metals, could maintain my lifestyle at the height of ultimate luxury for two or three hundred years at a minimum.

  And I’d never asked him.

  Our pasts weren’t hidden from each other, but we’d both come to Provence to become new people, learn new things, to look to the future, not spend a lot of time reflecting on the past. Our histories sat like expensive books on a coffee table that you walk by and see every day and maybe even pick up occasionally but never really delve into. Like the giant volume of Impressionists in my living room that serves as the stand for the drinks tray, they finally became fixtures in our existence, window dressing or decorations. They were just there.

  One thing I do know, though, is that Thomas had been a do-gooder, a helpful thief, a scolder and a disciplinarian.

  I, on the other hand, had no altruistic or philanthropic motives at all. Not only was I an unparalleled burglar, I was also a master jeweler and made perfect copies of pieces I stole from the auction house where I worked. So while many of the thefts from residences—where I knew the owners were out of town or out for the evening, and where I left my lovely, famous bouquet of fresh shamrocks, tied with an ivory satin ribbon in place of their precious gems and jewels—were made public, the majority of my robberies had gone undetected. As a matter of fact, even Thomas didn’t know of my jewelry-making skills or the auction-house switches. It was actually from those thefts that I’d realized my greatest gains.