The Big Score

by Kilian, Michael;

  “She’s not here for the Junior League. When she’s done, follow her. Follow her until she goes home. I want to hear from you in the morning.”

  “That’s all?”

  “For now.”

  Deciding to make one more stop before heading home, Zany got Detective Plotnik from burglary to go with him to Jill Langley’s apartment. They had no search warrant, but the young landlady remembered Plotnik and admitted them, after taking a look at Zany’s badge and police I.D. She seemed to have taken the news of the Langley girl’s murder as if someone had dropped a rock on her head. She’d been drinking wine, sloppily.

  “I’m going to be in deep shit, Zany, if my lieutenant catches me working a homicide,” Plotnik said, once they were inside the Langley girl’s apartment with the door closed.

  “You’re not working a homicide. You’re still investigating the burglary of this apartment. Also, my hotel room. Theft of one painting, or copy thereof, slightly damaged, previously in the possession of the occupant here.”

  “But my partner and I already went through here,” Plotnik said, waving his hand at the tumbled disorder. “We didn’t find zip. We couldn’t even figure out what the burglars were after, the way they’ve torn the place apart. Look at this mess. And if they found what they were looking for, what could be left for us?”

  “There’s always something,” Zany said.

  What there was was a shoebox full of letters in the closet. It had been knocked over, but the contents were still on the closet floor, where they’d been spilled.

  Some of the letters were old. Most were from her family. Two had foreign stamps on them. The name on the Cannes return address was M. Curland. Zany glanced over one of the letters.

  “Look the other way, Maurice.” He slipped both letters into a side coat pocket.

  “I didn’t see that.”

  “I know.”

  After stopping in a Clark Street drugstore, Zany made one more call to the Curland house. He decided not to mention the letters until he had thought about their contents some more, and had had a chance to talk to Christian Curland. Matthias Curland replied that his brother still had not returned and testily repeated his promise to have the man call. Then he paused, asking if Zany had learned anything more.

  “Nothing very useful, Mr. Curland.”

  The other’s hostility diminished. “Are you sure there’s nothing I can do to help?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “Well, let me know.”

  After hanging up, Zany started walking back to his hotel, then changed his direction, heading to the Curlands’ Schiller Street house. He was glad he left his car in the hotel garage. Otherwise, he’d be spending all his time looking for parking places.

  No one answered, though there were lights on upstairs. He rang again. When there was still no response, Zany moved across the street, stepping back into the shadows of a narrow gangway just far enough to keep the house entrance in view. After waiting more than an hour, his hunger and bladder getting the better of him, Zany gave up. If Frank Baldessari had come into the case, Christian Curland could have been picked up.

  There were three messages from Hejmal waiting for Zany when he got back to his hotel, plus another from District Attorney Moran and one from his wife. Zany went to use the bathroom but put off calling room service until he had returned the calls.

  Hejmal sounded uncustomarily excited. “You better get back here, Chief. We’ve had an armed robbery.”

  “What?”

  “The 7-Eleven out by the highway. They really shot up the place.”

  “Anyone hurt?”

  “No. There were three people in the store. The counter guy and two customers. The perpetrators had them lie down, then started shooting. Took $127 U.S. currency and a couple of six-packs.”

  “Any description? Prints?”

  “No, sir. They wore ski masks and gloves.”

  “Ski masks and gloves? To knock off a 7-Eleven?”

  “Yep. We’ve got the State Police on the scene, but Moran wants you out here.”

  Zany swore. Grand Pier had never had an armed robbery, and he hadn’t worked one in fifteen years.

  Two six-packs. Must have been real thirsty.

  Matthias had worked through the day, pausing only for a fitful nap, which had been interrupted by one of the Michigan policeman’s persistent calls. He supposed the man was only doing his job, but he didn’t seem very competent at it. There was little to be gained by such harassment, unless harassment was all he had in mind. Rawlings had even come around to the house again. Matthias had seen him from the upstairs window but refused to answer the bell, hoping the policeman would just go away, which eventually he did.

  Matthias tried to put him out of his mind. After all the trauma and frustrations of this long day, he was finally on to something. His idle sketches of sailboats had brought him to the threshold of an idea.

  His original concept for Poe’s building was a magnificently simple one. A needle—a perfect needle—circular base and circular tapering sides rising 150 stories to a pinpoint top. Some might see in it a resemblance to the obelisk that was part of the symbol of the 1939 New York World’s Fair, but with such extraordinary height it was much more than that, a departure from the architectual norm so radical it might dominate the skyline for decades to come. It would identify the city in the same dramatic way that its Mississippi River arch did St. Louis, especially set so far from the cluster of high-rises that had grown up around the Loop.

  The uniqueness of its silhouette and statement ought to satisfy every craving of an egoist like Poe, yet the lines were so wondrously simple. No one with an aesthetic sense could quarrel with it. There was truth in such a structure—a spiritual truth, if anything that was to serve as Peter Poe’s signature on the city could be so described.

  The problem was that it would not work. To accommodate the stresses, the base would have to be too wide, but the upper reaches of the building would be too narrow. The very top floors would have space for only a small apartment or two each, crammed in around the core column and the elevators, piping, and internal machinery. It simply was not economical.

  He’d done more than a dozen sketches, incrementally widening the base, shortening the tower, enlarging the structure—working desperately to bring design and capacity into balance. But it was of no use. They were antithetical.

  Turning to sailboat sketches for relief and release, he’d let his mind relax. The images came so easily, the sweeping lines almost leaping from his pencil. The idea arrived almost as divine revelation. He had drawn the outline of a sail. He’d hesitated, his pencil poised, then stopped, leaning back in his chair. He’d stared at the simple connection of three lines, then propped up the sketch pad and stood up, backing away.

  There it was—a building, one like no other ever built, ever imagined—a flowing, curving isosceles triangle, a building shaped like a sail. The right angle joining the base and the perpendicular would be its foot, the tapering end the tack. The entire structure would curve—providing increased stability against the stresses of wind—just like a sail billowing in a beam reach. If he used glass curtain walls for the two sides, the building would play with light more magically than Lake Point Tower.

  He rubbed the side of his face, pondering. Poe would want a tower, a phallic erection piercing the sky. They all wanted something like that.

  Well, he could have it. Matthias could add a cylindrical tower rather like his obelisk, affixing it to the sail’s front, suggesting a mast. It would be less tapered. For most of its length, it would have to be perfectly straight, but the forward edge of its base could be flared, and the segment that rose above the head of the sail could narrow, sharply, to a point.

  Matthias had gone back to the table in a rush, setting his hand to rapid effort. When he’d finished it in rough, he leaned back, his chair creaking.

  It wasn’t quite right. The creation looked too exactly like a mast and sail. Hunching forward, he mad
e some quick erasures, then shifted the lines—making the line of sail at the head flare sharply upward, reaching to the top of the tower, softening the juncture of tower and sail to make it more flush.

  Now he sat back again. It was far from a finished drawing. There were a multitude of details to be added, but he could think of no fundamental change to be made. The concept was complete. Out of the misery of this day, he had achieved a success. Would Jill have liked it? He used to show her everything he designed. As he thought upon that, he had little doubt. He recalled that she had once suggested something like this, on an evening sail at sunset, when they were on a course paralleling the lakeshore, gazing at the sails of other boats silhouetted against the Chicago skyline.

  His mind kept working. If the design were to be kept intact and the desired superheight still reached, more land would be required—a long rectangular piece of property, extending farther than the boundaries of Cabrini Green.

  But what was out there? Blocks of crumbling, low-rise slum dwellings. Poe was a billionaire. He could certainly afford the additional acquisition. That consideration could be brought up later. The first requirement was to sell him on the concept.

  A sound downstairs startled him. It was followed by another, the slam of the front door, and then a loud crash. Something was knocked over.

  It was Christian. Matthias heard him swear and continue swearing, shading into some mad, drunken, incomprehensible soliloquy, booming loud but intended solely for himself. Matthias ignored him, even when there was another loud collision. He rested his hands on the drafting table, held himself perfectly still, waiting for this crashing about to subside.

  Finally it did. The following silence was eerie. Matthias toyed with his pencil, then set it aside. There was no point in trying to continue. The only choices left to him that night were going directly to bed, going downstairs to confront, even help his brother, or leaving the house, perhaps to spend the night with Sally. He might drive up to Lake Forest.

  There was a loud, ringing explosion. Then another. Matthias knew at once they were gunshots. He’d no idea Christian had a firearm in the house.

  He found his brother in the dining room. Matthias looked about the room, wondering what his brother had shot. It wasn’t himself. Christian looked dazed, but otherwise unharmed, standing by the long table, gripping a chair to steady himself, a revolver dangling from his right hand. He was staring at Matthias’s painting of Jill. To his horror, Matthias saw that his brother had put two bullet holes in her chest.

  “Couldn’t leave her like you had her, big brother,” said Christian, his speech slurred. “Picture perfect. Fullness of love. Killed her, Matt. Some bastard killed her. Shot her. Shot her in your boat. She’s gone. Dead and gone. Dead and gone. You can’t have her anymore, Matt. Not like you had her. Can’t keep her all beautiful like that, perfect on your wall. No more, big brother. She’s dead. Did you hear it on the radio? Killed her. Shot her up. Girl on your boat. It was Jill.”

  Christian pulled free when Matthias tried to grip his arm, but he got the pistol away. Christian seemed not to notice. He stumbled over to the opposite wall and wrenched the nude from it, hurling it across the floor.

  “She’s dead!” He stood there, shaking.

  With that last, bellowed word, the nervous energy that had sustained him drained away. His head came forward. His arms hung limply at his sides. Matthias took him in hand and steered him to the living room and a couch. Christian slumped back. Beneath heavy lids, his eyes were red and wild and crazy, but his body seemed incapable of movement now.

  “Drink, big brother,” he muttered. “Whiskey. Gin. Something. Anything.”

  “I was going to make you some coffee.”

  “Drink! Been drinking all bloody day. Ever since I heard on the goddamn radio. She was so fucking lovely. First class. Classic and great. Better than us, big brother. Better than either of … Can’t have her, you can’t. Not like that. Nude after Ingres. Can’t. Can’t.”

  Matthias stood helplessly as his brother began to sob, tears flooding forth. He hadn’t been witness to anything like this since they were children. He sighed, then went to the kitchen and poured them both stiff whiskeys, bringing the bottle. Christian was on the brink of unconsciousness. One more drink might end the agony of his day, bringing sleep. Matthias would join him in the drinking. It probably wouldn’t help, but he was going to have to get through the night somehow.

  Christian leaned forward to bring the glass dripping to his lips. Then he sank back again. “She loved you, Matt.”

  “I know.”

  “Shouldn’t have gone off like that, big brother, off to fucking France. Shouldn’t have. That’s why she’s dead. ’Cause you left her.”

  “Shut up, Christian.”

  “Fuck you, big brother.”

  Matthias took a deep breath. “I got the news from a policeman,” he said calmly, quietly. “A policeman from Michigan, where they found her. They also found a painting, a copy of one in our museum.”

  Christian stared into his drink, then at once his eyes sought his brother’s.

  “Painting.”

  “Copy. The painting’s still in the museum. I looked. The policeman asked me some questions. He wants to talk to you, too. He needs to know where we were.”

  “Where we were? Where were you?”

  “In New York.”

  “In New York, with the stuck-up Hillary.”

  “I told him you’d call. He’s at the Days Inn by the lake.”

  “Days Inn? Who would stay at a Days Inn?”

  “A lot of people. It has one of the highest occupancy rates in the city. He wants to know where you were.”

  “I was sinning, big brother. In a gambling den. Sinning and winning. Peter Poe’s gambling den. In Indiana. Later I was with a woman, a most charming woman. Very charming. But I can’t reveal her name. Gentleman doesn’t do that.”

  He lurched to his feet, sticking his hands in his coat pockets, then pulling them out again.

  “I have receipts,” he said. “Cash slips. Quite a few. ’Nother winning night. Must find them. What is this policeman’s name?”

  “Rawlings. Zane Rawlings. He’s the chief of police out there.”

  “Chief Rawlings.”

  Glass in hand, Christian stumbled off down the hall. Matthias heard him rummaging in the study, then speaking on the phone. He was gone several minutes.

  He reappeared, standing in the doorway. “He’s checked out,” he said. “Went back to godforsaken Michigan.”

  “Sit down, Christian.”

  Clumsily his brother obeyed. He gulped some whiskey. Instead of putting him under, the alcohol seemed to be reviving him.

  “How could Jill have a copy of that painting?” Matthias asked. “It was Kirchner’s Red Tower from down in the vault. We’re not even supposed to look at those things. We’ve never allowed any copying. Grandfather forbid it.”

  Christian blinked, trying to focus better. “Jill had a key. She never turned it in.”

  “The vault has a combination lock.”

  “The numbers were in Grandfather’s files.”

  “How could she make a copy? Rawlings showed it to me. It was perfect. Jill wasn’t that much of a painter, not a professional painter. Not that good.”

  “Kirchner wasn’t Rembrandt. He’d be easy. You could do some of his things from memory.” The slurring had vanished from Christian’s speech. His eyes were less wild.

  “Why would she want a copy of a Kirchner? Jill had no love for German Expressionists. She liked Impressionists, John Singer Sargent, George Bellows, Winslow Homer.”

  “Perhaps that’s a question we should ask Larry Train.”

  “Why Larry?”

  “He sells a lot of paintings, big brother. He doesn’t put them all in his front window. A lot of his clients wouldn’t know a Kirchner copy from a real Norman Rockwell. He has clients in Fort Lauderdale, Palm Springs, all over—people we’d never run into.”

  �
��Are you suggesting Larry has some scheme going to sell counterfeit paintings? Copies? And Jill was part of it?”

  Christian shrugged. “Larry might not have known the source, but Jill … We didn’t part company very amicably—thanks to you.”

  “I think that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Matthias said. “I think it’s disgusting of you to suggest it.”

  “She really came to hate you, Matt. Like some wonderful wine gone sour.”

  “You’re drunk, Christian.”

  “Not that drunk, not drunk enough. I must attend to that.”

  He took a large swallow of whiskey. His face was very pale, but he seemed much steadier. He got to his feet again, finishing his drink.

  “I’m going out, Matthias.”

  “You’ve been out. All day.”

  “Going to take a walk. Something. Got to work things out.” He started toward the door. “Don’t wait up. May not be back tonight.”

  The crime scene—the shot-up 7-Eleven out by the highway—was closed and darkened when Zany drove by, yellow police tape placed crisscross over the door, as Zany had ordered. He proceeded directly to the police station. Hejmal, one of Zany’s lady cops, and the night dispatcher were sitting in the outer office, drinking coffee.

  “Hell of a day, boss,” said Hejmal. “Here’s the report and the victims’ statements. The State Police have everything else.”

  “We got a witness on the perps’ vehicle,” said the lady cop, a hefty blond named Barbara Vaclav. “A gray van. No markings. Maybe Indiana plates. The state cops put out an all-points, but there’ve been no stops.”

  Zany nodded, then went to pour himself some coffee. “Where’s Moran?”

  “On television,” Hejmal said. “He made the late news on the local station. Said this is all the result of Washington cutting back on Law Enforcement Assistance Administration grants.”

  “I didn’t know there was an L.E.A.A. anymore,” Zany said, settling down at Hejmal’s desk with the report.

  “Some guy from Chicago called for you, chief,” Barbara said. “Christian Curland. Said you were looking for him.”

  Zany set down his coffee. “Did he leave a number?”