Marty bored Raleigh with personal anecdotes about all the celebrities in the caricature drawings on the walls of the Formosa Café, but Raleigh figured they were lies. He deduced that Marty Brueger was just the slacker sibling of an older brother who had made sure his kid brother was taken care of in old age. Still, Marty Brueger was even less trouble to care for than Julius Hampton had been, so Raleigh had no complaints, and he indulged the old man as much as possible.
Raleigh lived contentedly for nearly a month, and then one evening he got a call from Nigel Wickland. Nigel asked if Raleigh could meet him in Beverly Hills at Nic’s on North Canon Drive for some “filet mignon with blueberries.”
When Raleigh responded, “Puh-leeeze, Nigel, are you serious?” the art dealer said, “All right, never mind the trendy food. We’ll just have a martini or two and a plate of their crispy onions. Meet me there at five thirty.”
The guy was a mystery, Raleigh thought, and just about impossible to predict. Nigel had gotten him this great gig with the Bruegers, yet he hadn’t wanted any thanks or favors in return. Now there was clearly a sense of urgency in the art dealer’s latest invitation. Before he left for the meeting, Raleigh walked out of the main house to the cottage and made sure that Marty Brueger was contentedly watching his big-screen TV.
“I’m going grocery shopping,” he said to the old man. “I’ll make you a nice supper when I get back.”
“Before you go, take the video out and put in the one on the shelf,” Marty Brueger croaked. “I think I like Keeping Up with the Kardashians even more than The Girls Next Door, don’t you? And stop at the liquor store and pick up a bottle of Jameson’s Irish whiskey. Get me the rare stuff that costs two hundred bucks a bottle. Just tell them to bill it to Leona.”
“Certainly, Mr. Brueger,” Raleigh said. “I won’t be long.”
Raleigh made sure that every door in the main house was locked and then set the alarm and video cameras. He had permission to drive the Mercedes SL550, which Leona Brueger called her “runaround town” car, so he decided to take it instead of his old Toyota. He liked the way the car hugged the road as he drove down from the Hollywood Hills on his way to Nic’s on North Canon Drive.
Raleigh found Nigel Wickland waiting in the Martini Lounge and he looked agitated. There was a busy late-afternoon crowd, and Nigel was sitting at a table sipping a vodka martini instead of his usual daiquiri. The art dealer’s bonhomie wasn’t on display this time when he motioned Raleigh to sit.
“Did you get caught in traffic?” Nigel asked, as though annoyed.
“No, but I had to lock up and see that Mr. Brueger was okay,” Raleigh said. “I’m only twenty minutes late.”
“Perfectly all right,” Nigel said quickly.
For once, he wasn’t sartorially turned out like the Savile Row snobs that Raleigh had despised during his London days. Nigel was wearing a gray seersucker jacket that needed cleaning and a slightly wrinkled white dress shirt open at the throat.
After Raleigh’s drink arrived Nigel said, “How old are you, Raleigh?”
Raleigh sipped and said, “What’s this all about?”
“I’m older than I look,” Nigel Wickland said. “I’m sixty-four years old.”
No, you look it, Raleigh thought. The art dealer had a faint scar running behind his ear that Raleigh hadn’t noticed before. He’s had work done, but he still looks his age, Raleigh thought. Then he said to Nigel, “I’m fifty-eight.”
“It’s hell when you know you’re growing old and can’t afford it,” Nigel said. “It’s frightening, isn’t it?”
“What do you mean, ‘can’t afford it’?”
Nigel said, “You’re making a good wage with the Bruegers, but, Raleigh, it’s going to end in a few months. They’re not taking you with them when they move to their vineyard in Napa. You’ll be out of work again.”
“No, I didn’t see myself as a grape picker in Napa,” Raleigh said, a bit insulted. “I expect I’ll get by in life without sitting at a stoplight with a sign saying, ‘Will Butler for Food.’ I’ll find another position. I’ll get by.”
“Aren’t you tired of just getting by?” Nigel Wickland was so intense that Raleigh hesitated.
Then Raleigh said, “Maybe I’ll find me a Leona Brueger and marry her like that weasel Rudy Ressler is doing. Or maybe I’ll win a big lottery.”
Nigel Wickland showed Raleigh a patronizing smile, ran his fingers nervously through his mane of white hair, and said, “Be realistic, Raleigh.”
Raleigh drained his glass and said, “You be realistic, Nigel. Or more to the point, be straightforward. What’re you getting at?”
Nigel Wickland picked up his cocktail napkin and dabbed at his mouth, at the bead of sweat that had popped out above his upper lip. In fact, Raleigh saw, there was sweat forming on his brow as well. Then he said, “I’m in financial trouble, Raleigh. This fucking recession is killing my business. I may have to let Ruth go and I don’t know how long I can keep the bloody doors open.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Raleigh said as Nigel signaled for a round of fresh drinks.
“You and I,” Nigel said, “we could help each other. We could form a… partnership and help each other.”
“What kind of partnership?”
“You could make more money than you’ve ever imagined,” Nigel Wickland said.
“I tried that,” Raleigh said. “And did eight months at Lompoc in a room with lots of guys you wouldn’t care for at all.”
Then, with a burst of words spoken so fast that it took Raleigh a moment to comprehend, Nigel Wickland said, “I just want you to let me into the house some afternoon for an hour or two. I’ll need you to turn off the video cameras and let me in unseen. And you can help me for a few minutes and then go tend to Marty Brueger in his cottage until I’m ready to go.”
After digesting the import of the art dealer’s words, Raleigh said, “For this I’m going to make more money than I’ve ever dreamed of? And what do I tell the police when you steal her jewelry or whatever it is that you have in mind, Nigel? Do I tell them that a home invader came in with guns blazing, or what?”
Nigel Wickland said, “I just want to photograph two of her paintings.”
“Photograph her paintings?”
“Yes, I’ve had some experience with photography and I think I can do it. All I’ll have to do is return one more time two weeks later for about another hour, and that’s it.”
“I think you’ve been drinking too many of those martinis, Nigel,” Raleigh said. “You’re not making sense.”
“It’s about a painting switch,” Nigel said. “I know of a custom lab owned by a sweet young man with whom I once had an understanding. He has mild Asperger’s syndrome and can hardly manage to shake hands whenever we meet, but he’s a marvel at what he does in a photo laboratory. I can shoot two of the Brueger paintings with a digital camera and get the proportions exactly correct. Then I can take the disc to him, and I guarantee you that he will produce an enlargement on poster board to the precise measurement of the paintings in Leona Brueger’s house. It will cost me three thousand dollars but he’s already promised that if he gets his money up front, he can get the work done in a fortnight, no questions asked.” Then Nigel added, “That’s two weeks.”
“I know what a fortnight is, Nigel,” Raleigh said. “I had the misfortune of working one summer in London at a bistro near the King’s Cross tube station, and it was a misery. But I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“We must have a chin-wag about dear old London town sometime,” Nigel said. “Anyway, I shall have to return to the Brueger house another time after that.”
“I don’t like that next part,” Raleigh said. “The part I now see coming.”
“I’ll need access again to replace the paintings with my photocopies on poster board, fitting them into the existing frames. And then I’ll be on my way with the originals. No harm, no foul, as your basketball fans love to say.”