After they were quickly briefed near Las Palmas Avenue under the white glow of the full moon, they were ready. The two narks who were making entry wore LAPD raid jackets, and the younger one carried a metal ram, the first one that Britney had ever seen.
The older nark said, “No more kicking doors for me. I kicked clear through a plywood panel last year and tore my Achilles tendon.”
The younger of the narks, who Britney thought was pretty cute, kept smiling at her, and Della whispered, “Watch out for him. He’s got a rep. A real vampire, and he likes fresh, young blood.”
After they entered the building and ran up the staircase, Britney was pleased to see that she was not as winded as the narks, and certainly not as winded as Della Ravelle, who was toting the shotgun just in case the rumor was true about the nurse being strapped. They hurried along the darkened corridor to the apartment, and the two narks stood in front of the door with the ram at the ready.
Della angled on the left side of the door and Britney on the right. On the preplanned signal, which was a simple nod to Britney, she was to bang on the door with her baton and give the command. She was surprised how hard her heart was pounding.
Della shone her light onto the door so that the younger nark could accurately slam the ram right next to the dead-bolt lock. Della held the shotgun muzzle up, and Britney had her pistol drawn and muzzle down against her right thigh, with her adrenaline peaking.
The older detective on the left of the ram nodded to Britney, who yelled, “Police! Open the door!”
They heard what sounded like a feminine scream from inside and high-pitched voices yelling to each other and footsteps scurrying. The detective didn’t hesitate and slammed the ram once against the heavy door, but it didn’t budge. And then the moment occurred that made both detectives actually burst out in roars of laughter before the young one rammed the door a second time.
The door crashed open and the nurse and his tranny lover were caught throwing bags of prescription drugs out the window, where the D3 ran around catching them like a Dodgers center fielder. Lots more detective snickering continued all during the arrest, and even Della Ravelle tried in vain to control her own giggles. It had all been triggered by a moment that won for Britney Small a consolation-prize burrito from Sergeant Murillo for an unforgettable moment on the night of the Hollywood moon. All of Hollywood Station talked about it for days.
When Della Ravelle saw that the battering ram hit six inches higher than the dead-bolt lock on the first attempt at forced entry, she had shouted to the detective, “Lower! Lower!”
But it was Britney Small, in a fever of high-pitched excitement, who had instantly obeyed that command from her FTO. She dropped her voice a few octaves, gamely trying for baritone, and repeated, “Police! Open the door!”
THIRTEEN
THE CALL FROM Nigel Wickland came at 8 A.M. on Monday. Raleigh had just finished cleaning up the dishes after taking a tray of Cream of Wheat and stewed prunes to Marty Brueger. The old coot was watching something on E! that he’d recorded the night before. Raleigh thought how interesting it was that the young bubbleheads and the old bubbleheads enjoyed the same shows. He figured there must be some demographic dynamic at work here that he didn’t understand.
The caller ID showed “Wickland Gallery” on the display. He picked up the phone and said, “Yes, Nigel?”
“We should practice not mentioning each other’s names when we speak,” Nigel said with that superior tone of his.
Raleigh suppressed his annoyance and said, “Okay, double-oh-sixty-nine, what’s on your mind this morning?”
A silence while Nigel suppressed his own annoyance. Then he said, “This is it. I’m coming today.”
That got Raleigh’s attention. He felt a cold rush of fear in his belly, and he said, “What time today?”
“What time do you prepare lunch for…” Nigel paused, trying to keep from mentioning Marty Brueger’s name.
“The geezer,” Raleigh said. “About twelve thirty. Then it’s nap time from about one until three.”
“I’ll see you at one,” Nigel said. “Precisely.”
Raleigh scowled at the receiver when he put it back on the cradle. “Precisely.” That was so like the boarding school assholes who frequented the London bistro and left him nothing but their pitiful Brit gratuities. They’d tipped on average less than car-wash employees in Los Angeles might tip for food and service. Well, he’d be ready precisely at 1 P.M., and then he’d see if that teabag was the mastermind he purported to be. Raleigh tried to concentrate on his daily chores, making sure that he had the household schedule and Leona Brueger’s instructions carefully notated.
The swimming pool cleaner came on Tuesday mornings unless Raleigh called to change the time. Ditto for the gardening crew, who came on Thursdays at about noon. Leona Brueger had offered to hire Raleigh a housekeeper for a biweekly visit or give him an extra $1,200 a month and let him hire his own help. He opted for the money, figuring he could find some Mexican housekeeper in the neighborhood who would drop in once a week to dust, vacuum, and clean his bathroom, and do whatever needed doing in Marty Brueger’s cottage. That would cost him less than $400 a month and he could pocket the rest. So far, he’d been doing the light housekeeping himself and hadn’t needed to hire anybody.
He decided to drive to the supermarket and pick up the week’s groceries just to have something to occupy his mind for the next few hours. Marty Brueger would need more of that pricey Irish whiskey he liked, and Raleigh could pick up a bottle of Jack Daniel’s for himself. Working in the catering business had taught him that bars on the west side of Los Angeles could get by if the only booze left on earth was Jack Daniel’s and just about any premium vodka. But of course the codger in the cottage insisted on whiskey that required an extra stop at a liquor store on Hollywood Boulevard.
Raleigh went to his bedroom for his wallet and car keys and studied himself in the mirror. He imagined what he would look like with a little bit of help, like maybe that chin tuck he’d been thinking about. And a slight eye lift would help, as well as a hair transplant. He knew he’d need serious liposuction to unload the depressing blubber that encased his torso like a truck tire. Well, now he’d be able to afford all of that and more. Lots more. It certainly was not too late to meet an older woman of means, maybe one who lived in the Hollywood Hills, maybe in a house like Casa Brueger.
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 Wickland’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 Raleigh 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, “Voilà! 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.
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