“Did you understand why I asked that?”
“Of course,” Nigel said. “You think that I’m doing business with the man who phoned me and that I’m concealing it from you.”
“Yes, that’s right,” Raleigh said, thinking, Calm. Stay calm.
“Well, it’s silly, Raleigh,” Nigel said. “We may never hear from them at all, and if that’s the case, I’m the only one who’s out any expenses.”
“There’s nothing to worry about, then?” Raleigh said.
“Nothing,” Nigel said. “Leona will never notice what we did, and I will proceed with assisting her to crate and store the replicated pictures when the time comes.”
“I see,” Raleigh said. “Then it was just a big swing and a miss, our whole caper?”
“In your baseball terms? Yes, that’s what it was. I’m sorry for you and I’m sorry for me. I spent money on this plan, if you’ll remember.”
“Yes, I certainly do remember,” Raleigh said. “More money than I knew about.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Raleigh’s demeanor changed and he said, “I’m referring to the money you paid your accomplices to screw me after you used me up.”
“The pressure’s become too much for you,” Nigel said, standing up from his perch on the corner of his desk and walking around to his desk chair.
“I don’t think so,” Raleigh said. “I know that you hired two people from the get-go to pull that bogus theft of your van so that you could cut me right out of the picture. After I helped you switch the paintings, I was taken right out of it, as neat as you please.”
“Jesus wept!” Nigel said incredulously, looking at the door to the storage room, which was ajar. “Is that what you really think? That I hired a couple of blokes to pretend to steal my van so that I could cut you out of the arrangement?”
“That’s what I think,” Raleigh said.
“On my word as a gentleman,” Nigel said, “my van was stolen by unknown persons. Full stop. End of story.”
“You’re no gentleman, you son of a bitch,” Raleigh said, smoldering now.
“Get out, Raleigh,” Nigel said. “You’re making a fool of yourself.”
Raleigh watched Nigel’s face very closely when he said, “And how about the girl in the candy-striped dress?”
“The what?” Nigel said instantly.
He was good, Raleigh thought. He didn’t flinch. But the tic at the corner of his eye began working overtime. “Valerie, if that’s her name.”
Nigel felt truly gob-smacked. How did Raleigh know that Valerie had come here? He said, “Please explain yourself, Raleigh. You’re not making sense.”
“You’re a conniving bastard, aren’t you?” Raleigh said. “Me, I’m just a dumb old ex-con who’s a servant for rich people and makes their meals and wipes their asses, just like you said. But now I realize that I was actually pretty content with my lot in life until I met you. Now that I see what you are.”
“This is going nowhere,” Nigel said. “Whatever I tell you won’t matter. You’re simply overwhelmed by paranoid thoughts. Believe me, I wish as much as you do that we’d never met, but if wishes were fishes, as they say.”
“Tell me about the girl in the candy-striped dress,” Raleigh said. “Tell me about darling, adorable little Valerie. Why did she come to see me? That’s the only thing that puzzles me. What was that all about? Was she doing a little work on her own as a private agent? Maybe she wanted to see what other art was in the house so she and her thieving partner could steal more from Leona Brueger? I can’t figure out that part of it. Why did she come to the Brueger house? Tell me that much, if you know.”
Nigel Wickland was more exhausted than he’d been when they’d done the switch and watched it all implode with the stealing of the van. He was more exhausted than he’d been anytime in the past several days when he’d worried that the police would come to his gallery to say that they’d caught a man with his van and some blanket-wrapped paintings that he would need to explain. He was drained. Raleigh Dibble had most of it wrong but enough of it right. He had let himself be trapped by a fool.
Then it came to him. “Ruth,” Nigel said. “Ruth mentioned the girl in the candy-striped dress to you, didn’t she?”
“You kept her a secret from me,” Raleigh said.
“Bloody hell,” Nigel said. “Yes, I have kept some things from you, but for good reason, trust me.”
“I’m all ears,” Raleigh said, “like a cornfield in summer. Enlighten me, Nigel.”
“They truly stole the van,” Nigel said. “A man I’ve never seen and the girl we both know as Valerie. Will you at least believe that much?”
“Go on,” Raleigh said.
“She’s a smart girl, infinitely smarter than her crime partner, whom I’ve never met. She saw the Brueger name and address on the framer’s tag that’s stapled to the stretcher bars, and she figured out that something was wrong with my claim that the paintings belong to me. She went to you on her own to try to work it out, and I guess she charmed you into inviting her into the house, where you generously showed her around. And she saw The Woman by the Water and Flowers on the Hillside. All because you showed the goddamn paintings to her, Raleigh. You caused all this. It’s all your fault, not mine!”
“I’ve never stopped wondering about the generosity of the thieves,” Raleigh said. “You know, the way they gave back your van as a show of good faith?”
“They’re not master criminals, those two,” Nigel said. “They’re addled drug addicts who got extremely lucky. You saw Valerie. Couldn’t you see that she’s physically unwell?”
“And they took your twelve thousand and gave you back the paintings as promised, right along with your van, didn’t they?”
“Good lord!” Nigel said. “No, I haven’t paid them anything yet because I haven’t heard any more from them since Valerie came here and blackmailed me. All because you invited her into the fucking house.”
“And did she tell you how much more money she wanted not to break it all down for the police or for Mrs. Brueger?”
“No!” Nigel said. “I’ve been waiting to hear from them. I decided that your nerves were so frazzled you couldn’t take another shock like this, so that’s why I wasn’t going to tell you until I received their demand. Don’t you understand?”
“You were protecting me. That’s kind of you,” Raleigh said.
“I was protecting both of us. Believe me, this has become so convoluted I don’t know where I am half the time. I knew that you couldn’t possibly deal with more stress. Of that much I was certain.”
“So all we can do is wait to receive the new instructions from Valerie or her partner, is that it, Nigel?”
“That’s about it,” Nigel said. “We must wait.”
“That’s not about it,” Raleigh said. “I have another plan in mind.”
The buzzer sounded in the office, indicating that someone had entered the gallery door on Wilshire Boulevard.
“Oh, Christ!” Nigel said. “I should’ve locked up. Will you excuse me for a moment?”
Nigel got up and left the office, and when he entered the display room, he turned and said, “Raleigh, if you want coffee, it’s on the table by the restroom door. Help yourself.”
Jonas Claymore, who was standing in the middle of the display room, heard what Nigel said and realized that the gallery owner was not alone.
It was hard for Nigel to repress a sneer of disgust when he saw the gangling, disheveled young man in a hooded gray sweatshirt looking at him with a crazed expression. Nigel thought that the Beverly Hills police should do a better job in keeping panhandlers from harassing the business owners along Wilshire Boulevard.
“I’m afraid we’re closed,” Nigel said to Jonas. “I’ll be locking the door as soon as my last customer leaves.”
Without a word, Jonas scowled, turned, and slouched across the display room to the door with Nigel following after him. When Jonas stepped out onto Wilshire Boulevard, the gallery owner locked the door behind him, pulled a blind over the glass door, and placed a “Closed” sign in the display window.