As Nigel returned to pumping the chubby butler about his work history, Julius Hampton began getting restless at being left out of the conversation. After the second martini, the old man said, “Well, Raleigh, is it time to go home and see what’s on TV tonight?”
Then Nigel Wickland said quickly, “Raleigh, here’s my card. Give me a ring and I’ll show you around the gallery. Any time at all. I think you’d enjoy it.”
When they were driving home, Julius Hampton said, “Well, well, Nigel Wickland seemed smitten with you, Raleigh. What’s the secret of your attraction?”
“Unless he likes Pillsbury Doughboys, it couldn’t be physical,” Raleigh said, patting his belly. “I’ve got so much flab spilling over my belt that my hips look like a muffin top. I think he was just being friendly, Mr. Hampton.”
“Nigel doesn’t strike me as the overly friendly type,” Julius Hampton said, looking at Raleigh as though he certainly couldn’t figure out Nigel’s interest.
The next afternoon before taking his nap, Raleigh’s employer told him he could take the afternoon off. Raleigh couldn’t decide whether or not to visit Sharon, his older sister in San Pedro. His other sister had died of lung cancer when he was in prison, and both parents were gone, so Sharon was the only close relative he had left. But she was an Evangelical Christian who always spent at least half of every visit trying to bring him to Jesus. He decided he didn’t feel up to it today.
He thought about going to a movie in Westwood, or maybe visiting an old friend who used to work for him and Nellie in the catering business. She was a busty Brazilian in her midforties. Alma was hopelessly clumsy and had broken more glasses than the Sylmar earthquake, but she’d sleep with him if she was in the mood, and he loved to kid her that she had tits from here to paternity. Raleigh couldn’t remember the last time he got laid and was almost horny enough to buy a knobber from one of those Asian masseuses on Hollywood Boulevard. He phoned Alma but the number was no longer in service, so on a whim he drove his Toyota to the Wickland Gallery and popped in unannounced.
A prim young woman in a jacket and skirt and very sensible heels said, “Good afternoon, my name’s Ruth Langley. Is there anything I can help you with today or would you just care to have a look around?”
“Mr. Wickland’s invited me to stop in for a personal tour of the gallery,” he said. “The name’s Raleigh Dibble.”
When she escorted him to Nigel Wickland’s office, the art dealer stood up, came around his massive mahogany desk, and shook hands energetically.
“So glad you came. You’re just in time to come and have a drink with me,” Nigel Wickland said, donning his linen blazer, the color of a martini olive.
Raleigh figured the ascot must be for evenings in gay bars, because the art dealer was wearing a white shirt with a forest-green silk necktie. He made Raleigh feel shabby in his off-the-rack rusty brown sport jacket worn over chinos, with black leather loafers that needed the heels replaced.
They went to the bar at the Ivy and took a table. Just as before, Nigel Wickland ordered a banana daiquiri, and a second one before he’d finished the first. In the light of day Raleigh could see that the art dealer’s eyes were watery and there were broken veins on the sides of his nose. A juicehead for sure, he figured. Still, he was buying the drinks and Raleigh’s curiosity was killing him, so he ordered a Jack on the rocks.
After he was half finished with the second drink, Nigel Wickland said, “If you don’t mind my asking, Raleigh, did you actually sell your catering business or…”
“It tanked,” Raleigh said with a wry grin, starting to feel the Jack Daniel’s already. “I got nothing out of it. So here I am, a domestic servant.”
“Hardly that,” Nigel Wickland said. “I’m sure you’re a valued employee to Julius. But I can’t imagine that the pay is very good.”
“A living,” Raleigh said. “Sort of. But the food’s great because I buy and cook it for both of us. Mr. Hampton still has a young man’s appetite.” Raleigh drained the glass, and Nigel Wickland immediately signaled for another.
“I’d like to rely on you to be discreet, Raleigh,” the art dealer said. “I know you’ve been with Julius a relatively short time, but I might be able to offer you a better position.”
“With you?” Raleigh said. “I’m an art Neanderthal.”
“I don’t mean in my gallery,” Nigel Wickland said. “After meeting you the other night I realized that you have exactly the qualifications that a client of mine needs at this time. You heard Julius and me mention her name. Leona Brueger?”
“I vaguely remember that,” Raleigh said, getting into the second Jack, a delicious golden burn sliding down his throat and making him feel the glow coming on.
“I’ve recently learned that Leona Brueger is deeply involved with Rudy Ressler, the filmmaker that Julius mentioned.”
“The child molester?” Raleigh said. “That’s what Mr. Hampton called him.”
Nigel Wickland smiled and said, “He doesn’t try to entice children with a kitten and chocolate bars, believe me. College coeds, his targets of choice, are not exactly children, even if they do behave that way. But Rudy’s changing his ways and has been getting increasingly serious about mature women, especially the widow Brueger.”
“It sounds like you know them pretty well,” Raleigh said.
Nigel said, “I’ve come to know more than a little about Leona Brueger after having been contacted to appraise the late Sammy Brueger’s formidable art collection. I’ve been led by her to believe that she’s going to sell it all, along with the house, perhaps to marry Ressler and move to Napa, where she’ll grow grapes or whatever people do when they have more money than good sense.”
“Nigel,” Raleigh said finally, “this is all very interesting, but I don’t see how I could possibly fit in here.”
Nigel said, “Leona Brueger has been saddled with Sammy’s brother Marty, who is eighty-seven years old and ailing. Marty spends most of his time in Leona’s guesthouse, but occasionally he likes to get out and about. She needs the services of a butler/driver/companion who can cook three meals a day for him. Just as you do for Julius. Leona Brueger also likes an occasional little dinner party at home, but the people she’s hired have been unsatisfactory. It’s not so easy for her to find a man who can cook and manage a dinner party as well as do the rest of it for her brother-in-law. After we met, I realized that with your background and experience, you’re just what she’s been looking for. You’re a perfect fit, Raleigh.”
“But I’ve got a job,” Raleigh said. “And it’s permanent, not temporary.”
“If you’re happy where you are, forget I mentioned it,” Nigel Wickland said. “But Leona told me she’d pay seven thousand dollars a month to the right man, and of course you’d have luxury quarters to live in and meals you’d prepared yourself. You can buy anything you’d like from the markets and bill it to your employer’s account. You’d have no living expenses. The job would probably end around the first of next year. After that, she’s going to arrange for a luxurious retirement home for Marty Brueger when she sells the house. She’d do it now, but he refuses to go, and his lifetime care and contentment are prominently mentioned in Sammy’s will, so she must accommodate him. But by year’s end, his growing dementia will probably take care of things. The urgency here and now is that she wants to leave for a long holiday in Tuscany and she’s in need of the right man ASAP.”
Raleigh was quiet for a moment and then said, “Of course that’s a whole lot more than I make, but my job’s permanent. I don’t know about quitting Mr. Hampton for a temporary job.”
“How permanent is any job with a boss who’s eighty-nine years old?” Nigel Wickland asked. “Do think about it and let me know if you’re interested. I’m just doing this as a favor to my client Leona Brueger. It’s nothing to me one way or the other.”
Raleigh thought there was something not quite right, and he said, “I remember that when you and Mr. Hampton talked about Leona Brueger, you wondered if she was holding up well since her husband’s death. It seemed like you didn’t know all that much about her.”