NINETEEN
Raleigh managed to get to sleep as the rising sun was providing the citizens of Hollywood, California, with new hope on the cusp of autumn. Just as he was beginning to dream, the phone rang. He sat up when he heard Rudy Ressler say, “Raleigh, it’s Mr. Ressler. How’s Marty?”
During all the turmoil at the Brueger estate, Raleigh had hardly thought about the old man, and hadn’t even phoned Cedars-Sinai since Marty Brueger was admitted.
“He’s fine, Mr. Ressler,” Raleigh said. “You and Mrs. Brueger have nothing to worry about. I’ll let you know if there’s any bad news at all.”
“You won’t have to,” Ressler said. “I’ve booked a flight. We’re coming home.”
This time the blast of fear sent blood surging through Raleigh’s skull. He jumped out of bed and stood naked and tense. “But Mr. Ressler,” he said. “You have several weeks left on your vacation rental. Mr. Brueger is fine. Stay and enjoy yourself.”
“To tell you the truth, it’s not all that enjoyable,” Ressler said. “The villa isn’t what it was cracked up to be. The toilets work half the time and the water’s never hot enough. This guy Silva who’s supposed to be our translator is a greedy little wop who’s always in our pockets for something or other. I’m not enjoying it at all and neither is Mrs. Brueger. We’re leaving here.”
Raleigh caught his breath, swallowed hard, and said, “I see. Do you know when you’ll be arriving at LAX?”
“Not yet,” the director said. “I’ll let you know. We’ll expect you to pick us up.”
“Of course,” Raleigh said. “I’ll be in the big Mercedes.”
After he hung up, Raleigh Dibble experienced the terror of being utterly out of control. The boiling heat in his head topped a roiling stomach that sent him to the bathroom again.
He phoned Nigel Wickland’s cell phone ten minutes later and was not surprised to find his partner awake.
“It’s me,” Raleigh said.
Nigel said. “Please don’t tell me there’s something wrong with the replicas.”
“No,” Raleigh said. “The Bruegers are leaving Italy and coming home.”
Silence on the line and then, “My work will be tested a lot sooner than we thought. All right, what of it? Just don’t lose your head. The replicas look perfect. Just behave as you always do and it will be fine.”
“You haven’t heard anything about your van yet, have you?”
“Of course not.”
“If you do hear anything… let me know ASAP.”
“Why?” Nigel said. “Are you going to reimburse me if the thieves strip it?”
“I’ll feel a lot better when you get the van back, that’s all,” Raleigh said. “So just let me know if it gets impounded for any reason.”
Nigel clicked off without responding.
Raleigh wondered if Nigel Wickland was serious when he talked about shooting himself if the thieves got caught. If that happened, suicide didn’t seem to Raleigh like such a bad idea.
Jonas Claymore and Megan Burke had decided to spend every last dollar she’d wheedled from her mother and buy enough ox to chase the dragon all weekend. This because they would have a windfall as soon as they figured out the best way to approach art dealers with the paintings. It was when he felt euphoric that Jonas got his latest idea.
He tried to roust Megan out of her stupor and was only half successful. He said, “Baby, I got it.”
“Got what?” she mumbled.
“It’s too fucking risky to be messing with art dealers or auction houses. What I think we should do is make them pay us ransom!”
“Ransom?” she said drowsily.
“Yeah,” he said. “We call the Wickland Gallery on Monday morning and we talk to the boss there and we say we know how they fucked up the other night and got their paintings swiped, but we’d like to help get them back. Shit, I could even tell him where to pick up his van as an act of good faith. You on this?”
“Uh-huh,” she muttered.
“Then get your head in it. All we gotta do is negotiate the price and tell them if they go to the police, we slash the paintings to pieces. Then we set up a money drop. I seen this done a million times in the movies, so I know all the tricks.”
“Tricks?” she said.
“What’s the use?” he said. “You’re all spun out. I could get more companionship from a hamster.”
Jetsam’s neck spasm was not responding to muscle-relaxing drugs and he was advised by his doctor to take a few days off and rest at home. When he phoned Flotsam and told him about it, his partner said, “Do what the croakers tell you, dude. There’s some good surfing coming down and you don’t wanna miss it. So take it easy and rest up.”
When Jetsam found out that Flotsam was partnered with Nate, he said, “Bro, I’m glad you got teamed with Hollywood Nate. He is like, so hormonally ingenious and cinematically dialed-in, he might put you onto some scintillating starlets from his movie ventures.”
“He ain’t done it yet, dude,” Flotsam said. “But if he does, I’ll save them for when my li’l pard comes back. I won’t use them all up without you.”
Hollywood Nate was glad that Snufffy Salcedo was still recuperating, because roll call that night would have driven him mad. The watch commander was conducting it instead of Sergeant Murillo, and he was droning on about the chief’s pet program, the thing he brought with him to the LAPD from the East Coast.
The lieutenant said, “You should pay particular attention to reporting districts six-forty-three and six-forty-four. CompStat indicates unusual four-five-nine activity there. I’d like some explanations as to why these crimes are happening.”
Everyone glanced at one another and eyes rolled, and Sergeant Murillo arrived in the nick of time, entering the room and saying, “Lieutenant O’Reilly, call for you from the captain. About the inspection next week.”
“Oh, yes,” the watch commander said, and went downstairs to take the call.
Sergeant Murillo sat and said, “Let’s see, what were we talking about?”
The whole attitude of the troops changed with Sergeant Murillo in charge, and Flotsam said with a smirk, “The super chief’s baby, of course. CompStat. You know, like, let’s explain why this crime happened, where it happened, how it happened, et cetera. What I’d like to say is, it happened because some dude’s been shooting up too much dope and needs money and he kicked down a door to find some. Period. End of story.”
“We can’t say things like that,” Georgie Adams griped. “With CompStat, nothing is allowed to be random crime. Random is not in the CompStat lexicon. Yet, these’re just jump-on crimes, Sarge. They happen.”
“But we gotta come up with some goofy answer,” Hollywood Nate said, echoing what he’d heard so many times from Snuffy Salcedo. “Because Mister brought it from back East, and the mayor thinks it’s some kind of special juju, and the media has bought into it, and it’s bullshit.”
“It’s all about putting the cops on the dots,” Viv Daley said. “You put a pin map on a PowerPoint and it’s supposed to do some kind of magic numbers-crunching.”
Della Ravelle said, “It’s nothing but pin maps that’ve been around a hundred years but without the computers back then. CompStat is supposed to figure out trends, but what if, like Georgie says, most of street crime is random? We’re expected to invent trends to justify a theory. Mister is a master at stroking City Hall and conning the media.”
Viv Daley said, “Back East where Mister comes from, not everybody has a car, so crimes can come in clusters in a small area, and cops can maybe look for trends there. But L.A. is a city on wheels. Everybody has at least one car. Everybody’s in motion. One bad guy can scatter his offenses like cold germs all over the map. Where’s the trend?”
Hollywood Nate said, “I’m gonna create a two-sentence book called CompStat for Dummies. The book will say, ‘It’s a computerized pin map, stupid. Now just go in there and do your Kabuki dance for the chief.’ Think it’ll sell down at PAB?”
It all stopped when Lieutenant O’Reilly came back into the roll call room and said to Sergeant Murillo, “Did you discuss CompStat and its importance?”