Hollywood Hills (2010)

by Wambaugh, Joseph - Hollywood Station 04

  Raleigh tried to affect a confident self-assured smile at the mirror, but he thought he saw fear in the pale, watery eyes looking back at him.

  Jonas Claymore woke up first, as usual. He extended his legs over the side of the bed gingerly but was surprised not to feel the stab of back pain this morning. Then he put his hands on his bony knees, leaned forward, and pushed himself upright. There was a twinge but nothing he couldn't handle.

  He gave Megan a smack with his open hand on the bottom of her foot, and she sat up saying, "Huh?"

  "I'm feeling okay today," he said. "It's time to go to work."

  She began coughing almost at once and was feeling her own burning pain in her shoulder joints and knees. She hoped there were some perks left or even some zannies lying around.

  "I'm glad you feel okay," she said. "Because I don't feel okay."

  "A chick your age should be able to bounce back," he said. "You oughtta take better care of yourself. Do some workouts once in a while. We gotta get some cash to tide us over. When was the last time you called your mom?"

  "Maybe a month," she said.

  "Go take a shower," he said. "Clear your head. Think about asking your mom to give us another loan. Tell her you'll pay her back with a high rate of interest."

  Megan got painfully out of bed, walked to the little bathroom, and said, "Sure. My mom's gonna believe I'll pay her back. Like she believes in honest lawyers and leprechauns."

  "We're gonna cruise today," Jonas said. "Nothing serious yet. Just cruising and casing. We ain't making the same mistakes the Bling Ring made. We'll make sure we know what's what before we ever set foot on anybody's property, unless we spot some easy pickings like we did the last time. Then we go for it."

  Megan sat down on the toilet and said, "How easy was it last time, Jonas? You've been flat on your back for days." And she slammed the bathroom door before he could whine about hearing her pee.

  At 12:30 P. M., Raleigh Dibble was sitting in the kitchen of the Brueger home, waiting and clock-watching. He'd done every chore he could think of. He tried to consider every way that Nigel Wick-land's plan could go wrong, but whenever he did, he thought of what it would be like to stroll into a bank and put half a million into a safe-deposit box and some mad money into his checking account. But why did it have to be only half a million? Nigel had told him that his European auctioneer claimed that a million was the least they would get in today's market for the two Impressionist works. Maybe they'd get 1.2 million. Maybe 1.5 million! Or maybe it was crazy to aim for the stars at his age. But since this was all about art, why not dip the brush of imagination into the colors of fantasy and boldly paint a portrait of a future life? Then again, isn't that what people who end up looking at the stars through steel bars and chain-link did? Right before somebody pisses all over their palette?

  When the phone gave two brief rings, indicating someone was at the gate, Raleigh jumped from the kitchen chair. He looked at his watch and saw it was 12:50. Not precisely 1 P. M., but he was glad Nigel was early. His hands were shaking when he picked up the receiver and said, "Yes?"

  "It's me," Nigel said.

  Raleigh pressed the key to open the electric gate and went to the door. Nigel pulled into the faux-cobblestone driveway in his Chevrolet cargo van and made the circle, parking by the entrance door. Raleigh stepped out and walked to the driveway as Nigel got out. They were both too nervous to even think about shaking hands. Nigel opened the side door of the cargo van.

  Raleigh looked at "Wickland Gallery" on the side of the van and said, "I'm surprised you brought your own wheels, Nigel. A man as careful as you."

  "I had no bloody choice," he said. "I told Ruth that our van needs a tune-up and I asked her to bring her brother's truck to work today. She said she would, but then she called in sick. Believe me, I don't want some nosy neighbor asking Leona what the Wickland Gallery was doing at her house while she was gone. But I didn't think your frayed nerves would withstand a postponement, so here we are. Now that I look around more carefully at this place, there's no need to be worrying about nosy neighbors."

  Just like him, Raleigh thought. He fucks up and covers by blaming it on my nerves.

  Of all the things that Raleigh did have to worry about, he figured the Wickland Gallery van was the least of it. The Bruegers' mini-estate was secluded by many olive, lemon, and orange trees, and especially by the wall of junipers planted both inside and outside the encircling five-foot wall. He doubted if anyone would notice or even see the van when it entered.

  "Help me unload the equipment, will you?" Nigel said.

  For the next few minutes, they carried into the house a tripod, two floodlights on lightweight stands, and two umbrella reflectors. Nigel carried the Canon 350 digital camera that he believed was simple enough for him to handle.

  The moment they were inside, Raleigh began worrying about Marty Brueger. He ran to the French doors and looked out at the cottage to make sure the old man was inside and not strolling in the garden.

  Nigel was trying to take careful measurements of both canvases and he said, "For god's sake, Raleigh, can't you relax a bit and help me?"

  Suddenly Raleigh's nerves began to crack, and he said, "How much practice did you do, Nigel ?"

  "I've been practicing nearly every day for two weeks," Nigel said. "My friend at the lab and I both made different mistakes, but eventually we learned from those mistakes. The last few times I photographed a painting of similar size, it turned out perfectly."

  "Did you use the same camera?" Raleigh wanted to know.

  "Yes, and the same goddamn tripod and the same lights. Now please close the drapes and stop fretting. You're making me nervous."

  It was the first time that Raleigh had ever closed the heavy drapes in that part of the house and he was surprised how dark the great room and corridor became. Then he realized that the drapes were lined with blackout material because the Bruegers used to show movies in that room. There was a screen that lowered from the ceiling at the touch of a button.

  Nigel pulled two pairs of latex gloves from his pocket and said, "Put these on. I don't want our fingerprints on these pieces."

  "Why do we need to worry?" Raleigh asked. "According to you, they're not even going to notice anything for months. And the moving guys will be handling the pictures, won't they? Their prints will be all over them."

  "Just do it, Raleigh," Nigel said. "Why do we have to debate everything?"

  Raleigh pulled on the latex gloves and said, "I thought there was no risk here."

  "All the so-called art lovers in this town hang their pictures too high," Nigel complained as he set up his umbrella lights. "These baroque gilded frames are just what I'd have expected from Sammy Brueger and his ilk."

  Raleigh thought the frames looked okay. And who gave a shit about the frames anyway? He couldn't stop himself from checking his watch obsessively.

  It took Nigel Wickland nearly an hour to carefully remove both canvases from their frames and rehang them from little wires that he carefully stapled to the stretcher bars.

  Then Nigel said, "Get me something steady to stand on. A small stepladder, perhaps."

  Raleigh ran to the laundry room and came back with a six-foot ladder, opened it, and placed it behind Nigel. And trying to be helpful, Raleigh turned on the lights over both paintings.

  "No, no!" Nigel said petulantly. "We must have the painting lights off."

  After he sulked for a moment, Raleigh said, " I don't know anything about photography. Will these be developed as slides or what?"

  "Digital photos, just as I told you before," Nigel said. "The lab will download them onto a computer and blow them up to any size we want. And thanks to my trial-and-error rehearsals during the last two weeks, I know precisely how large I want them."

  There he goes again, Raleigh thought. Precisely.

  Nigel put the ladder where he wanted it and placed the umbrella lights at each side of the largest painting, The Woman by the Water, which looked to Ra
leigh to be almost four feet tall and nearly five feet wide.

  Nigel stood on the first step of the ladder and said, "Move that light a bit to the left. They must be level with the painting."

  Raleigh did as he was told and Nigel said, "That's too much. Come back half an inch. There. That's good. Now do the same with the other one. I've got to make sure to line it up so that there's no perspective."

  "Okay, just get it done!" Raleigh said.

  Still looking through the viewfinder, Nigel said, "And I must get the piece as big as I can get it within the frame."

  Raleigh was sweating and thinking, It's only the lights that're making me sweat. I'm not really that scared. Then he blurted, "What if Marty Brueger comes here to the main house and starts banging on the door?"

  "Bloody hell!" Nigel said. "I'm trying to compose this shot!"

  Raleigh's courage was leaking out like the sweat that was running from every pore, and he said, "What if somebody comes by for some other reason and catches us? What would we say?"

  Nigel sighed and stepped off the ladder. He took the inhaler from his pocket and had a puff. He waited a moment and said, "Well, then, we would simply tell them that as Mrs. Brueger's art adviser, I decided to photograph the paintings to have the pictures put onto greeting cards as a surprise for my dear client."

  "And then what would we do?"

  Nigel took a deep breath, blew it out, and said in sheer exasperation, "And then of course we would abandon this little project and I would go back to being a gallery owner on the verge of bankruptcy. And you would continue as a domestic servant who will spend his old age living off welfare and Social Security. Now, will you please act like a man so we can proceed and get this job done ?"

  Raleigh glared at him for a long moment, feeling the anger swell his throat. This flouncing Nancy boy was telling him to act like a man? But all he said to Nigel was "Okay, let's proceed."

  Nigel got back on the ladder and aimed the camera again. Before he shot his first picture he calmed himself by talking, and he said, "I chose these Impressionist pieces precisely because Impressionist art is blurry. It is, after all, the artist's impression, is it not? The Impressionist artist is not interested in photographic clarity. They're perfect for our needs."

  Raleigh gave up counting the shots that Nigel took. Finally Nigel said, "Voila! It's done. Now to Flowers on the Hillside." "Damn!" Raleigh said. "That took too long. The second one won't take as long, will it? Marty Brueger will be waking up pretty soon."

  "Not a problem," Nigel said. "The second one will go fast."

  For the very first time, Raleigh took a look at the other painting. It was a blur of colors that suggested a field of flowers on a hillside with something that looked like a windmill in the distance. "This one's worth almost as much, huh?" Raleigh asked. "It's a lot smaller."

  "You have no idea," Nigel said, moving the light stands and the tripod. "Flowers on the Hillside could possibly fetch even more than The Woman by the Water. Now, let's position everything exactly as we did before."

  At that moment, Raleigh had a head-slapping thought: What if these paintings did bring in way more than a million as he'd fantasized? What if they brought in 2 million? How would he ever know? What if Nigel told him that the recession is bad in all the cities he'd mentioned? What if he claimed that he could get only $300,000 for both pictures? How would he ever know if Nigel was lying? He quelled his suspicions by reminding himself that this was only the first phase of the scheme.

  Raleigh decided that he needed to work out some details with his prissy partner before Nigel came back to do the switch. But how would he do that? He knew nothing about the European auctioneer and what the art could reasonably fetch. Was he completely at the mercy of Nigel's true intentions? The more he came to dislike Nigel Wickland, the more worrisome the scheme became.

  Ten minutes later the phone buzzed from the cottage and Raleigh uttered a choked-off cry. Then he said, "It's Marty Brueger!"

  Nigel lowered the camera and said, "Go tend to him, then. Christ, he's virtually senile. You can handle it." And he went back to composing his shot.

  Raleigh hurried out the side door and ran to the cottage. When he entered, Marty Brueger was in his pajamas, looking as though he'd forgotten why he rang.

  "Yes, Mr. Brueger," Raleigh said. "Do you need something?" "My teeth," Marty Brueger said. "Where's my teeth?" "Aren't they in the glass where they usually are?"

  "Don't you think I looked there?" the old man said.

  "We'll find them, Mr. Brueger," Raleigh said. "Why don't you just sit in your chair and relax and watch The Girls Next Door? That Hugh Hefner's really a card, isn't he?"

  "It's not on now, Raleigh, and I can't find the most recent videotape."

  "You don't need videotape anymore, Mr. Brueger," Raleigh said.

  "All of your favorite shows have been recorded for you, remember?" "I always forget how to do that TIVO shit," Marty Brueger said.

  "I'll go over it again with you," Raleigh said. "Everything's there for you anytime you want to watch: You just go to your stored programs and select whatever you wish."

  "Even Showbiz Tonight?" Marty Brueger asked.

  "Every single episode," Raleigh assured him. "You've got them there waiting for you."

  "I still need my teeth," the old man said.

  "I'll do a thorough search for them," Raleigh said.

  "If you find them, I'd like to go to one of those new trendy places for dinner," Marty Brueger said. "Like Mr. Chow's."

  "Mr. Chow's has been around a long time," Raleigh said. "It's not new but it's still very popular with movie people."

  "Spago isn't new anymore either, is it?" Marty Brueger asked. "No, sir," Raleigh said. "I think it's older than Mr. Chow's. And you might see some celebrities there as well."

  "It's funny how time plays tricks on your memory," Marty Brueger said. "Do famous people still go to the Polo Lounge for lunch? People in the business who're my age?"

  Raleigh thought, There's nobody in the business your age, but he said, "I think so. I'll find out for sure."

  "Talking about restaurants has made me hungry," Marty Brueger said. "Maybe I'll stroll up to the house and look for something in the fridge that I can eat without teeth."

  "No, no, Mr. Brueger!" Raleigh cried. "Just sit down and relax. I'll fix you something tasty for a snack, but first you need something to chew with, don't you?"

  "I'll tell you, Raleigh," Marty Brueger said. "It's a sad time in a man's life when his dick's gone missing and he can't even find his fucking teeth."

  While Raleigh Dibble searched for Marty Brueger's teeth, Jonas Claymore and Megan Burke were driving toward Woodrow Wilson Drive, eyeing many potential targets, as well as checking their maps and addresses for any homes belonging to stars or celebutants.

  "I think Outpost has some juicy targets," Jonas said to Megan, who had downed two perks and was zoning as he drove. "But I like it way up here, too."

  "I think we're going to die like Bonnie and Clyde," Megan said bleakly.

  "Who?"

  "The old movie? You know, about the bank robbers? A guy and a chick rob banks and it's all a trip until they get shot to pieces. I think that's how we'll end up."

  "Who wants to get old?" Jonas said.

  "Yeah, but it might be nice to get old enough to walk in a bar and buy a drink without showing a phony ID. Is that asking too much?"

  "You got no imagination," Jonas said.

  "Yes, I do," she said. "I can imagine us checking out like Bonnie and Clyde now that we've decided to really go bad."

  Ignoring her, Jonas said, "I musta seen a hundred houses that look good to me. Like that one there."

  He pointed out one of the many Spanish Colonial Revivals, usually done in the mission-or hacienda-style with a red-tile roof and white-plastered walls. This one was large, with a detached guesthouse and a solid barrier of junipers that almost hid the main house from view except from the road above. Jonas pulled to the side and stop
ped.

  "Get out for a minute," he said.

  "What for? I'm tired!"

  "You're always tired," he said. "Get out."

  Megan opened the door, mumbling, got out, and shuffled along behind him. He strolled over to the junipers and pulled two of them apart, peeking in at the property.

  "See," he said. "This place has more land than the others. Do you know what land costs up here?"

  Megan just shook her head, and Jonas said, "Plenty, that's how much. I bet there's a tennis court down behind there. This is the kinda place we should go for. But not now. Look, there's a van down there by the garage. It says something on the side but it's parked at an angle, so I can't read it. Probably a delivery guy or a plumber or something."

  "Can we go home now?" Megan said.

  He said, "What we gotta do is come back here sometime when there's no car in the driveway and no gardeners around and ring the bell."

  "There's a big gate," Megan said.

  "We ring the bell at the gate," Jonas said. "There must be one. And if there's no answer we go over the wall and check it out and see what we can see."

  "And what if there's another dog like last time?" Megan said. "Maybe a vicious guard dog?"

  That stopped him. His back was still sending him messages from time to time. He said, "Okay, we'll come by a couple more times on other days before we try out a house like this. Meanwhile, we can go for more conventional places where we can see the yards and figure out if there's a guard dog or not."

  "Let's go home and I'll call my mom," Megan said.

  "For what?"

  "I'll beg her for a loan of two hundred. I'll say that I'm staying with a friend and we're being evicted on Saturday unless we can come up with the money. She always says she'll never give up on me. I'm her firstborn and I don't think she'll let me down. Not that I'm proud of it." She paused and said, "I just need a taste of ox."