“Time?”
“Time to return the paintings to this house and get ourselves out of this nightmare. And if those thieves ever come at you again with demands, you just lie and deny and nobody can prove anything.”
“Yes,” Nigel said, “but restoring you to your former blissful existence depends on the thieves phoning me, doesn’t it? I have the twelve thousand they want, but I can’t do a thing until they make contact, so calm yourself until then.”
“Calm myself?” Raleigh said. “I’m having erratic heartbeats. Any day now I could stroke out and end up in the hospital bed next to Marty Brueger.”
“Raleigh,” Nigel Wickland said. “If our thieves perform as planned, I’ll pay them off and we’ll return the paintings to their vulgar frames in the home of your parvenu mistress. But I should’ve thought it would be better to risk being in a hospital bed next to a Marty Brueger than to spend the rest of your life as a domestic servant, wiping his ass or the ass of someone like him. But I guess you’ve already made your career choice, haven’t you?”
When Raleigh hung up, he thought, What an offensive, elitist, supercilious fucking faggot! He hated Nigel Wickland more than he’d ever hated anyone. His face was aflame and his hands were shaking when he went to the butler’s pantry and poured a stiff shot of Jack Daniel’s. Then he felt his pulse again. It was beating more erratically than ever.
He went into the great room and sat, trying to get some comfort from the wealth surrounding him. Something was nagging and it didn’t come to him until after he’d finished the Jack. Then he realized, the thief surely should have called Nigel today but Nigel didn’t seem at all upset about it. What had Nigel said about his employee? he tried to recall. Something about Ruth being already suspicious enough? Could there be something going on at the Wickland Gallery that would arouse real suspicion from her?
Raleigh had always doubted that Nigel Wickland would give him an honest fifty-fifty split when the paintings were sold in Europe, and he had intended to deal with that when the time came. He decided to visit the gallery tomorrow whether Nigel Wickland liked it or not.
TWENTY-THREE
Jonas Claymore did not like the bunk, the food, or his cellmate in the Hollywood Station jail, where he spent the night. The cellmate was a Latino with a vicious-looking scar that ran from the bridge of his nose across his jaw to his throat. He was fully inked out with gang tatts, and he snored so noisily that Jonas couldn’t have slept even if he hadn’t been jonesing.
Jonas had tried to reach Megan on the phone an hour after he was booked, but she did not answer his cell. He wasn’t sure if they’d impounded his car or left it locked in the strip-mall parking lot as he had begged them to do, but either way the cell might still be in the car. The disloyal bitch had probably bailed the second she’d seen the cops pull into the lot. She could’ve run into Pablo’s and warned him, but no, all she’d thought of was herself. She didn’t care that he was in a place where a guy looked up his ass like a plumber inspecting a drainpipe. Jonas decided then to just give her a few Franklins when he saw her next and kick her out of his apartment along with her fucking cat.
The next morning Jonas learned that he’d be taken by sheriff’s deputies to arraignment at Division 30 of the Criminal Courts Building downtown on Temple Street, but he would have to spend another night in the Hollywood jail while the paperwork was being done. He was outraged.
Megan Burke’s night had been slightly better than Jonas Claymore’s. The perks she’d bought from Wilbur had helped her get a few hours’ sleep all curled up with Cuddles, who seemed overjoyed to be sleeping on the bed with her mistress in the place that Jonas previously claimed. In the morning the calico cat crawled up on the pillow and purred happily while Megan stroked her, and they stayed like that until Megan decided that Cuddles needed her breakfast.
She knew there’d be hell to pay when Jonas got out of jail, so she made several calls and was told that his bail would be set later, or he might be given an OR release before day’s end. She was told to call back in the afternoon for further information. Instead, she began calling motels with ads that said pets were welcome.
Megan packed what clothes were worth packing along with enough cat food for a few days, and by 1 P.M., a Sikh taxi driver was helping her carry her suitcase, a carrier containing Cuddles, and two large objects wrapped in mover’s blankets. Those he had to strap to the luggage rack. She took the Sikh’s cell phone number and promised him a $100 tip if he would pick her up whenever she called him and take her and her possessions to a destination in Beverly Hills and then to LAX. She said to be sure to bring the same taxi with the luggage rack for the bundles.
Before Megan left Jonas Claymore’s apartment for the last time, she wrote a note and left it on the kitchen table. It said, “You told me there would be an 80–20 split and that the 80 % was for the brains. I agree. Here is your 20 %, less the $500 that I gave you last night.” She left $1,900 on the kitchen table beside the note, along with her apartment key and his cell phone.
Hollywood Nate woke earlier than usual that day, probably because he had the Wickland Gallery on his mind. He phoned and Ruth answered.
He said, “This is Officer Weiss at Hollywood Division, LAPD. I had occasion to question someone in a Wickland Gallery cargo van the night before last, and we need to know if your van was stolen.”
Ruth said, “Oh, that must’ve been Mr. Wickland’s nephew. He borrowed it and left it in east Hollywood. We had to pick it up yesterday morning.”
“That explains it,” Nate said. “Is his name Jonas Claymore?”
“Reginald something,” Ruth said. “He’s a bit of a black sheep, according to Mr. Wickland. Is he in trouble?”
“He was arrested for possession of a controlled substance,” Nate said. “For some reason he’s denying ever being in the van. We’re not sure why. It’s possible that he was using it to do drug deals or for some other illegal activity.”
“I’m not surprised,” Ruth said. “That may explain why he just abandoned the van on the street the way he did. Mr. Wickland’s gone to the bank. I’ll tell him when he gets back, but I don’t think he’s going to drive over there and bail him out.”
“Okay, thanks,” Nate said. “At least I know now that he didn’t steal the van from you.”
When Nate got to work, he told all of the midwatch officers who knew about the Wickland Gallery van what he’d learned.
“I figured it was nothing,” Georgie Adams said. “Just some little ass-wipe taking advantage of his uncle.”
Nigel had to endure an in-person meeting to convince the bank manager that neither a bunco artist nor an extortionist was victimizing him, and that he had a good and legitmate reason for needing such a large amount of cash. He was told that he could pick up the $100,000 the next afternoon after 1 P.M. That withdrawal had wiped out Nigel’s savings account and put his commercial account in grave jeopardy. He planned to call his European art auctioneer to find out if he could get a wire transfer of some advance money as soon as the paintings were received over there.
When he got back, Ruth said, “The LAPD called. Your nephew got himself arrested for drug possession. You can call Officer Weiss at Hollywood Station if you’re interested.”
“What?”
“Yes, it appears that he was stopped in our van on the evening you loaned it to him and now they have him on a drug charge.”
“Did they give his name?”
Ruth smiled quizzically and said, “Don’t you know your own nephew’s name?”
Nigel said, “He might have used an alias.”
“You said that his name is Reginald, but they have him under the name of Jonas Claymore.”