by Alex Ames
It was about two o’clock in the night and all I saw were three lights going out in other apartments, one dog owner taking a brisk night stroll and a couple coming home from late night entertainment.
I walked in the darkness on the beach back to the apartment and took my night glasses out of my knapsack. I had bought them in Chicago at a flea market of some Russian army immigrant. They were excellent for my purpose, much higher quality than anything similar made in the USA. I powered them on and the apartment complex was bathed in greenish colors, super sharp details. Even though everything seemed quiet, you never knew how many neighbors were victims of insomnia or took a late night walk to the fridge. Another fifteen minutes of curtain and window checking brought up nothing. No movements whatsoever, a quiet neighborhood. My throwaway cell phone glowed in the dark as I made the check-up call with Altward’s apartment. Not even a machine picked up. I packed away the night glasses and the cell phone, walked up the beach to the promenade, looked left and right and then soundlessly climbed over the railing of Altward’s balcony, dropping out of sight.
I peered through the slits in the curtains, couldn’t make out anything but darkness and checked the frame of the balcony door for any alarms and such. No wires showed, no magnetic contacts could be seen from outside in my focused Maglite beam and the lock seemed to consist of three bolts on the upper, middle and lower section of the sliding door. I got out my little electric drill and made two strategic holes on the upper and lower section of the frame. The secret was to make it look like intentionally functional holes, such as for removal of condensed water. It didn’t fool a well-educated policeman—but an ignorant homeowner. And in my case, there would be nothing missing. Two matchsticks and my trusted lock picks later I was able to slide the balcony door open, enter the apartment and close the door behind me.
I listened for a minute in complete darkness, heard the cracks of the house, water in the pipes and the hum of the air conditioner. I looked for electronic eyes staring at me but there were no movement sensors in the corners of the room.
Even though the air conditioner was on, the air was stale in the apartment, as if Altward had forgotten to clean the dishes.
I made sure that the curtains behind me were closed properly and then I switched on the lights. Nicely selected furniture in the room, very good mixture of dark brown polished wood antiques and modern design items, mostly chrome and white. While the style was different from in Altward’s San Diego home, one could see that someone with good taste had decorated the apartment.
There was some selected art on the walls, but since the apartment wasn’t wired for an alarm, I was sure they were prints, not originals. A bookshelf, some magazines, none current, an unread weekend paper from four weeks back on the table. The kitchen counter was clean, the fridge well stacked with non-perishable goods of all kinds.
I opened the door, a small corridor, turned left, found a small bedroom that had been converted into an office. A Macintosh computer was looking at me, early generation iMac. A Yucca plant at the small window, indestructible. Some binders on a shelf and paper stuffed into three trays on the table. I gave them a quick scan but they turned out to be apartment related bills and information, the facility management company had changed over a dispute with the owner, the new keeping company introduced itself and Andrew Altward had forwarded some bills to the Altward Art Foundation, probably the institution that paid all the property related stuff. Lucky bastard.
The binders on the shelf turned out to be a collection of articles on some art projects in the San Diego area; I recognized some of the names. Pleas for sponsorship with local businesses, opening invitations and drafts of folders and brochures. Another binder with similar stuff. And another one. Boring.
I gazed around the room and my eyes fell on some folders that were thicker than the others in the in-tray were. Carefully, I picked them up with my latex gloves. There were two of them; both labeled ‘MX.’ The first folder was very interesting; it had most of the documents I had already gotten from Benito Salanca on the subject of the Maximilian Jewels. But there was also some more information, another article in Spanish, another one written in a funny looking Spanish, maybe Portuguese? They were copied from journals of the last year or so and had the subject of Aztec tribes and outstretched hands for help to the white man. Or something like that. Official looking translations followed later in the stack of paper. Now and then, I stopped reading, listening, checking the time. Going toward three-thirty.
I unbound the folder and placed the papers I didn’t have in my possession onto the desk and got out my digital camera. They make nice and convenient copy machines and I snapped away merrily at the missing stuff.
Then I opened the second folder and its content made me sit down right away. The first stack of papers was a detailed description of the Maximilian Jewels, complete with pencil drawings and a notation of every item. My heart raced with excitement as I looked at the sheets stating the make and weight of each piece of jewelry, the location and cut of the stones. I quickly went over all the descriptions and sure enough, on page 23, a careful drawing of the necklace Phoebe Eastman had been wearing was looking back at me. The drawing was simple and quite accurate, but the mere sketch and dry description couldn’t match the actual look of the item I had seen around Phoebe’s neck.
The excitement of the descriptions and the drawings had me hopping a little bit back and forth on my feet, something I hadn’t done for a while, for years actually. I felt like a little girl before coming down on Christmas morning.
And suddenly, I needed to pee.
Great, in the middle of a heist and a great finding and I had the needs of a little girl. I closed the description, thumbed further ahead and found a notarized valuation of a well-known institute for gem research in Chicago. Followed by another expert valuation, estimating the total value at around eight million dollars. And after that, even better, some letters to and from ‘investors.’ It actually said ‘Dear investor… ’ on the letter and it congratulated the addressee for the interest in a very rare item to own… I couldn’t read on because my need became very pressing.
I sighed and, because rules are rules, I put everything I had found back where it belonged before I left the small room to search for the toilet. I stepped back and looked at the desk; everything looked in order. Strapped on my little knapsack, went to the corridor and followed it in the other direction, passed the front door and silently opened the door of what appeared to be the sleeping room where I hoped to find the bathroom. The Maglite did a little dance over the corners of the ceiling and interior. I froze, switched off the Maglite, and felt the hair on my hand and scalp standing up. Something was not right here! The air was even stuffier than in the rest of the apartment, slightly smelly, maybe Altward hadn’t changed the bed in a while. There was a taste to the smell that I couldn’t yet place.
My still urgent need pulled me out of my hesitation and overrode my fear. I tiptoed over to the window. The eerie feeling of unease sweeping over me like a wave, I checked that the curtains were drawn tight. Then I switched on the bedside light. Again, I found a combination of antique brown polished wood and modern chrome and white furniture. The bed was unmade, maybe that had made me stop in the first place, sheets crumbled and the day blanket folded lazily at one end. But first things first, now ‘it’ was getting urgent. I hated doing this on a job and it was probably only the second time in many years that I had to use a toilet in an object. But this time, I had staked out the apartment for too long and had spent too much time reading the Maximilian articles and descriptions. I moved over to the bathroom, opened the door, the Maglite shining into the dark room revealed the toilet, the bathtub and in the bathtub the deformed blue body of Phoebe Eastman, her face frozen in a mask of a violent death behind a clear plastic sheet wrapped tightly around her.
I stumbled back into the bedroom, slamming the door shut by accident, it made a hell of a bang in the silence of the apartment night. I barely manage
d to pull up my sweater to my face and puked into the fabric, to prevent me from spilling the few remains of my late night snack onto the carpet of Andrew Altward’s bedroom. At the same time, my bladder gave away and I wet myself. I had to fight myself not to faint. I rolled to the side, trying not to leave any urine or puke stains. Breathing in, breathing out, panic washing over me, drowning me, I started hyperventilating.
First, finding the night watchman on the Altward Gallery job, now finding his dead daughter. Too much for a girl like me. When I found the door to the safe room open in the Altward Gallery, I already had the feeling that something was wrong and that something bad lay ahead of me. And although the night watchman was lying face down in his own blood with quite a gash on the back of his skull, I hadn’t been too shocked at that time because I was mentally prepared.
But nothing prepared for the look of Phoebe Eastman’s face. A tie or scarf was pulled very tightly around her slender neck, her face grotesquely swollen, bluish white in the Maglite, her eyes bulging, her hair wild around her head. Her body was wrapped in a thick transparent foil, normally used for wrapping large objects like carpets or construction materials but one could see that she was naked except for the scarf.
I was still lying on the floor with the contents of my stomach in front of me in my sweater, sour and acid smell everywhere and I had to retch again. Without looking, I opened my knapsack and got out a plastic bag that I always had with me on a job to transport jewels or gems that had been stored in a freezer or in food—whatever creative idea the former owner had to avoid putting the valuable stuff into a regular safe. I managed to clean my face with a part of the sweater that was not ruined. Then I transferred the whole mess, without dripping anything on the floor, into the plastic bag. I went quickly into the kitchenette, stole one towel from the cupboard and awkwardly cleaned up between my legs, left it there to soak up the urine. Messy.
I glanced at the kitchen clock, already four-thirty. It was getting too early, I had to count in the drive back to Redondo, and I had planned to be there before sunrise. But not possible now.
A minute or so went by without anything happening at all. Sitting in a fetal position in the living room, I thought about my next steps. But everything I thought of was somehow dwarfed by the fact that a dead young woman was lying a few yards away in the bathroom. Uncle Mortimer, who had educated me for this type of job, had given me one universal piece of advice, “Have the heart of a lion but the courage of a chicken.” Though I never have shaky hands on a job nor was I afraid of being caught, this was definitely chicken time. So I decided to abandon mission, checked the kitchen, no one would miss one towel when they found a dead girl here. In the bedroom, I thought for a second to check on poor Phoebe once more, to see whether I found any clues, or whatever, but then my inner chicken got the better of me and I saved myself more future nightmares.
I checked the floor of the bedroom carpet for urine or puke stains, didn’t find any, and made my way back to the balcony door. Hopefully, my smell collection would very soon be overridden by Phoebe’s decay.
Not photographing the folders with the drawings was my biggest regret as I closed the sliding door behind me, locked it back with the toothpick trick and glued in the mock screws to hide the drilling holes in the frame. At least one thing worked out right.
The morning was slowly approaching in the east when I was back on Freeway 5, driving north on cruise control and fully automatic navigation.
Dancing along on the road in front of me was the face of Phoebe Eastman, her blue tongue pulled further out of her mouth than I had never thought possible with a human.
Chapter 24
I STOOD BEFORE Mundy in the light of the morning sun, a girl dressed in black, urine-soiled trousers, stained t-shirt, blue lips of shock and puffy thick eyes from crying without tears. He was standing there, fully dressed, so much for proper alibis, with a concerned look behind his thick glasses. He caught me gallantly when I broke down in his doorframe.
I did everything like a machine ready to be switched off, shutting down my functions one by one. The last thing I felt was the warmth when Mundy handed me a pill, pushed a hot water bottle under the blanket and pulled the curtains closed. Everything went dark, alas, no dreams.
Dancing over my eyes, a single sunray found its way through a crack in the curtains covering Mundy’s bedroom window and the sunlight on my face finally woke me in the late afternoon. I felt serene, as if nothing had happened at all and I had just spent a day in bed out of pure luxury, something I did now and then. But the bad thoughts and memories came back, bit-by-bit, vision-by-vision, and I pulled the blanket over my face for a few minutes because the room started to spin around me and I began hyperventilating again. I was safe here; it was warm and cozy, sheets smelling of Mundy, my knight in armor—in certain situations.
Finally, I stretched loudly and looked down to check on my level of decency. I wore an old Berkeley College T-Shirt and a pair of baggy grey jogging pants. Nothing else, and I mean, nothing else. Did I have reasons to be embarrassed? The state I had been in came back to me a flash. I could always check Mundy for red ears. Just as I decided to get up, the door opened silently and he popped his head in. Mundy had probably checked on me every hour for the last 12 hours, on the hour, what a sweetie.
“Hey,” he said quietly in a soft voice. “How are you this, eh… afternoon?” He sat down on the bed beside me and patted my hand like a grandmother.
“What happened to the shop?” It was the first normal world thing that came into my mind.
Mundy rolled his eyes as if he had expected this massive avoidance of the core subject. “Fine. I managed to talk to Mrs. Otis after her jealous husband threatened to rip off certain parts of my anatomy because he suspected that I had an affair with her. I told her that you had suddenly fell sick and that she was supposed to put out a sign at the store and otherwise remain home. Was that OK?”
“You are a dear, Mundy.”
He looked at me seriously. “Cal? Would you like to tell me what went down in Newport? You looked and smelled terrible, you were in a state of shock and I actually thought about calling the doctor.”
“Which you didn’t do, I hope.”
“No, of course not. I helped you get cleaned up and I tucked you in,” Mundy said.
“I hope it wasn’t too embarrassing for either of us?”
Mundy’s ears got a little red. “I swear to God, I looked away when necessary.”
I took Mundy’s hand. “I know you did. Thank you very much. Can we get something to eat? I haven’t had anything to eat for nearly 24 hours.”
He glanced at his watch. “I figure you are in for Mundy steak therapy! What about the Outback behind Del Amo Fashion Mall?”
“The lady likes it raw. Can you fetch me something to wear?”
I took a quick shower, dressed in some borrowed jeans, shirt and jacket from Mundy, together with some sexy male underwear and cheap tube socks. Mundy drove us to the restaurant where he had called ahead and reserved us a table in the back. To Mundy’s delight, the bumpy bouncy teenage waitress rotated her hips unbelievably, as she led the way to our table.
“What is that you are carrying with you?” I asked and pointed at the folder in Mundy’s hand. I hadn’t noticed it before.
He placed it in front of me and opened it. “I took the liberty and printed out the pictures from your digital camera. Came out really good. Very interesting read.”
There they were, the other articles in the set of Maximilian Jewels, the Native American’s gift to the new emperor.
I rubbed my eyes. “Unfortunately, the best stuff is missing. Drawings, detail descriptions and all.”
“Where did you find it?” Mundy asked.
The waitress came and we ordered immediately without even glancing at the menu. Mundy ordered two porterhouse steaks that could feed a third world country.
“Where did you find it?” Mundy asked again after the waitress had left.
; I went through the events of last night. The empty-handed search of Phoebe Eastman’s apartment in La Jolla and the findings in Altward’s weekend residence in Newport. Mundy’s reporter self was close to interrupting me several times, but the friend in him let me tell my story.
After I had finished with my disgraceful exit from Altward’s home, he ordered an emergency Scotch, waited until it came running and downed it with one big gulp. Then the waitress brought the two cows.
“How come you always run into these things?” He finally asks, pronouncing every word. “Shit, you stumble over the dead father and now over the dead daughter. Both murdered. And both murdered on Altward’s properties.”
I didn’t say anything. I had already done the math, too.
Mundy said it anyway, “If I was the police and I knew all this, I’d concentrate on two suspects, Andrew Altward and Calendar Moonstone.”
I wolfed down my steak. “I hope the police don’t look too closely at the balcony door and notice my drill marks when they find her.”
“Oh, you of the optimist tribe. When do you think they will find her? Don’t you think you should call the police?” Mundy pointed his fork at me.
I shook my head. “I don’t think that is an excellent idea. They will trace it back, record my voice and play it to the lead detective, namely Ron, and the shit will hit the fan. The cleaning lady will find her, or Altward himself.”
“What will you do with the Maximilian Jewelry information?”
“Another tricky subject,” I said. “Most of the information I got is from public sources. I could pass that on to Ron; mention that I got word from sources about them being on sale on the black market or some such. But this… ” I tapped on the folder on the table. “… of course, is taboo until I find a different legit source.”