“Who cares? I’ll bet the swimming pool’s big enough to surf on,” Flotsam mused.
“Something’s not normal with that guy,” Nate went on.
“Dude, you were expecting normal?” Flotsam said. “This is fucking Hollywood.”
A short time later they spotted a young man running south on Orange Drive from Hollywood Boulevard, dodging pedestrians, holding something under his shirt. They felt sure he’d snatched a purse from one of the tourists on the Walk of Fame and they closed in on him and caught him two blocks south. They ordered him to put his hands on his head.
He did, and the hidden object fell to the pavement. It was a box containing a pepperoni pizza that he was trying to keep warm until he got back home with his girlfriend to watch American Idol.
“See what I mean, dude?” Flotsam said to Hollywood Nate. “It’s this geography.”
TWENTY
On Monday morning, Jonas was awake early, feeling electric at the prospect of making real money for the first time ever. He felt the old vibration mode as though he’d been doing crystal meth again, which he had not. He believed that his tweaking days were over now that he’d learned the joys of ox. Jonas’s hands were shaking noticeably while he was trying to get some orange juice into himself to wash down one of the peanut butter sandwiches that Megan had made for their breakfast.
She swept the little kitchen and made a halfhearted attempt to wipe down the stovetop. But when she opened the refrigerator to give it a wipe, she gave up. There was so much spilled juice and milk and jelly and ice cream on the shelves that she’d have needed a garden hose to clean it.
Megan had even washed a load in the coin-operated washer in the community laundry room that they shared with five other apartments, and she had the clothes in the dryer by the time Jonas finished his sandwich. She was hoping for a word of appreciation.
“Try to dress a little nice for once” was all he said, sneering at her cutoffs and coffee-stained T-shirt.
Even when she was feeling halfway decent he managed to ruin it for her, so she said, “Why? Are we doing lunch at the Bel Air Hotel?”
“Meg,” he said, as soberly as possible. “This is gonna be the biggest day of your life. This is way big. You and me gotta look and act… professional. In case.”
She leaned against the drainboard, one hand on her hip, and said, “In case of what, Jonas?”
“That’s the thing!” he said. “I don’t know. I’d like to call that house up there if I had the number, but I don’t. So we’re gonna call the Wickland Gallery and jist-”
“Wing it.”
“Right.”
Megan said, “Don’t think for one minute that I’m going to talk for you on this one. Like when you had me talk to the maid after you got the phone number of that no-name actress whose house we were supposed to burgle. She told me to go fuck myself in Spanish and English both.”
Jonas said, “Don’t start bitching at me, Megan. Put on something clean and we’ll go to the public phones at the cybercafé and make the call. I gotta think of the best way to show the owner that we’re serious people he can deal with.”
Ruth had opened the Wickland Gallery that morning, which was a bit unusual. Normally, by the time she arrived, Nigel Wickland would already have coffee brewing and croissants set out. She was as meticulously groomed as ever and had removed her teal jacket, hanging it in the little closet in Nigel’s office.
When he did arrive at 10 A.M., he looked terrible. His eye pouches sagged and his orbs were red-rimmed and watery. His beautiful mane of white hair had been hastily combed, and he was wearing exactly the same shirt, jacket, necktie, and trousers that he’d worn on Friday. That had never happened before in the years she’d worked at Wickland Gallery.
She said, “Good morning, Nigel. Is everything all right? You look a bit… tired.”
He had a distant look on his face when he said, “I’m knackered, Ruth. I may have to lie down in my office for a bit. I couldn’t sleep last night.”
“Is anything wrong? Are you sick?”
“Not now, I’m not,” he said. “I think the sea bass I ate for dinner had turned. It smelled fishy, and as they say, if it smells like fish don’t eat it.”
“Where’s the van? It’s not in the carport.”
“Oh, I… I lent it to my nephew, Reginald. Have I ever told you about him?”
“Not that I recall.”
“He’s a bit one-off, that lad. My sister’s boy. Said he needed to move some things from his girlfriend’s house, and he promised he’d bring it back by tomorrow.”
“I hope we don’t need it today,” she said.
“The way business has been, that’s unlikely,” said Nigel Wickland. “Very unlikely.”
“I’ll bring you some coffee,” she said.
Ruth had the coffee poured and had spooned in his sugar and cream when the phone rang. She went to her desk and picked it up.
Jonas had actually come close to paying Megan a compliment when he said, “I ain’t seen you in a dress since I met you, Meg. You don’t look so bad.”
She was wearing a candy-striped baby-doll shirtdress that she’d worn to a dance in high school. Now high school seemed to Megan like half a lifetime ago. Sometimes she felt like checking her driver’s license to be sure that she was only twenty years old. The dress came to midthigh and she thought it would look better if she wore heels, but her ankles and knees were hurting too much, so she wore her only pair of flats, on which the soles were worn through. The lip gloss and eyeliner made her feel feminine for a change, and that gave her a bit of a lift.
Jonas was wearing the only sport coat he owned, a green-checked cotton blend. He wore it over a clean black T-shirt with faded jeans and tennis shoes. He seldom shaved his wispy facial hair, hoping in vain to grow it into a real five-day stubble like all the rich young dickheads whose cars he parked, but so far he couldn’t produce a manly growth.
When Jonas and Megan arrived at the shopping mall that housed the cybercafé, Jonas said to Megan, “Don’t interrupt me when I’m talking to the guy. Just stand there and listen. Remember, this is my game plan and I’m the quarterback.”
They chose the public phone that was farthest from the cubicles full of people who rented the computers at all hours seven days a week. Business was brisk on a Monday morning, and the downstairs customer closest to Megan and Jonas was a black man in a tracksuit and very pricey tennis shoes. He was sitting beside a curvaceous blonde with sultry eye shadow, wearing shorts, ankle strap platforms, and an apricot top that came down far enough to just cover her silicone rack but was high enough to display her gleaming navel ring.
Jonas mouthed the words “pimp and whore” to Megan, as if she didn’t know. He was so nervous, he dropped one of his quarters and she had to pick it up for him.
When Ruth answered and Jonas asked to speak to the gallery owner, she said, “May I ask the reason for your call? I might be able to help you.”
“I gotta speak to the owner of the Wickland Gallery,” Jonas said. “It’s important.”
“I’m sure I can assist you,” Ruth said, “if you’ll just tell me what it’s about.”
Jonas said, “My aunt died and I’m inheriting some very valuable paintings. I wanna sell them through your gallery. But I gotta speak to the owner or I won’t do business with you.”
“Just a moment, please,” Ruth said.
Jonas winked at Megan, put his hand over the phone, and said, “Official bitch.”
“Officious,” she said.
“What?”
“Officious,” Megan said.
“What?”
“Never mind.”
A mellifluous but weary voice came on the line and said, “This is Nigel Wickland. How may I serve you?”
Jonas said, “I was thinking about how I can serve you. I think I may have some property that belongs to you.”
The line was quiet and then Jonas heard the sound of a door closing. The gallery owner got back on the line and said urgently, “Who are you?”