Shakeup

41

Eddie Craft and Shelley Moss got off the flight at Heathrow and made their way through the nothing-to-declare customs exit without being stopped. Through the swinging doors was a line of drivers holding up cards bearing their passengers’ names. Eddie steered them to one with the card reading, Schwartzkopf, and soon, they were in the rear seat of an elderly Bentley.

“Who’s this guy we’re staying with?” Shelley asked.

“Alfie Bing,” Eddie said. “Wife’s name is Edie. Alfie is a very great, old-time thief of anything that isn’t nailed down. He lives off Belgrave Square.”

“That’s a pretty tony neighborhood, isn’t it?”

“Alfie’s a pretty tony burglar. This is his Bentley. He bought the ass-end of a long lease on a big flat twenty years ago, and he’s still got a couple of decades to go.”

The Bentley pulled into a muse and drew up at a garage door. A uniformed butler stood in a doorway beside the garage. He directed them upstairs, while he and the chauffeur dealt with the luggage.

“Wow!” Shelley said as they entered a heavily decorated drawing room. “I’ve never seen so much stuff in one room!”

“Alfie has a steel-trap mind and a memory like an elephant,” Eddie said. “He’s got every piece in this room cataloged in his head. He can tell you who he stole it from and its present-day value.”

“Doesn’t he worry about being raided by the cops?”

“When he got out of prison after a two-year hitch, twenty years ago, Alfie disappeared into this flat, under a new name, Bing. He didn’t leave these rooms for more than a year. He had a colleague steal his court and prison files — all on paper in those days, so he might as well have vanished into thin air. He started wearing a toupé, too, and grew a moustache.”

A short, thin man in an excellent toupé, a handsome moustache, and a well-tailored suit entered the room and threw himself into Eddie’s arms. His wife, Edie, tall and beautiful, joined them and introductions were made. Shelley thought his toupé undetectable.

“How long can you be with us, Eddie?” Alfie asked.

“I think a few weeks will do it, if that’s all right.”

“Not long enough. How bad do they want you?”

“Not bad enough to come looking here. They don’t have a charge, really.” He told Alfie the story. “They didn’t even have time to assign me to a parole officer.”

“You’re good, then. We’ve got a nice little suite of rooms for you, one floor up.”

Stone, Maren, Dino, and Viv sat in the dining room at the Carlyle Hotel, sipping drinks while their dinner was prepared.

“What’s the latest on Eddie?” Dino asked.

“He seems to have vanished in a puff of smoke,” Maren replied. “Somebody saw them get into a town car, so we figured an airport, but we’ve no idea which one.”

“A computer search should have brought up their names and flights,” Dino pointed out.

“Funny you should mention that,” she said. “The computer system at JFK went down for a couple of hours and scrambled some files. We finally got them landing at Heathrow, London, but too late, and they haven’t checked into any known hotel in the U.K.”

“Staying with friends, no doubt,” Stone said.

“There was one other thing,” Maren said. “He filed a customs form, declaring two hundred thousand dollars in cash, outbound.”

“Probably staying with somebody not known to the police,” Viv remarked.

“Stands to reason,” Maren said.

Alfie took them all to the Sailing Sloop, an old Chinese restaurant, and ordered at least a dozen dishes for the four of them.

Alfie looked around to see that no other diners were close, then leaned in. “I’ve got an eye on a country house,” he said.

“I can’t imagine you living in a country house,” Eddie replied. “You’re not the type.”

“Not to live in, dummy, to steal from.”

“What’s there?”

“Pictures, four of them.”

“It’s worth the time for just four? Isn’t there a collection?”

“Oh, sure, and it’s nice stuff, but these four pictures are by an American artist named Matilda... something. I’ve got it written down at home.”

“And who’s Matilda?”

“She’s the best unknown painter you never heard of,” Alfie said. “She had a few pictures in the Metropolitan Museum, and the gift shop there printed up postcards of four of the pictures, and they sold out, wham! They reprinted, and they kept selling out, and now she’s one of the better-known artists in America, and the value of her work has increased by a factor of about forty, compared to what they were a few years ago.”

“I know this must be a dumb question, Alfie,” Eddie said, “but if she’s so well known now, where are you going to unload them?”

“I’ve got a buyer in a Scottish castle all lined up. He’s offering a quarter million apiece. Now, that’s a low price compared to what they’d bring at auction, but think about it: it’s a one-night, million-pound job!”

“That’s attractive, I’ll admit,” Eddie said, trying not to salivate. “What’s the security like?”

“Tough, but here’s the thing. The same owner has a house in Wilton Crescent, and it’s wired up with the same gear as the country house. I’ve been practicing on that. By the time we pull the job, I’ll be slick on all the gear.”

They finished dinner, and Alfie had the staff pack up all the leftovers, which were considerable. “Lunch, tomorrow,” he said. “Maybe lunch for a couple or three days.”

On the way home, Alfie had his driver swing down Wilton Crescent, driving slowly. “That’s the house,” he said, pointing out the window. “See the two lamps on? Looks like the owner is home, doesn’t it?”

“How do you know he’s not?”

“Because his airplane isn’t parked where it would be if he were in the country.”

“Where’s that?”

“On the estate where the country house is. There’s an old RAF station on the property that was used to fly intelligence missions into France during the Second World War. He’s got a Gulfstream, and he flies it in there, and they send a fuel truck down from Southampton to fill it up for the trip back. I got a guy who can check the hangar every day, if I like, and we pick a night when the hangar is empty. Simple as that.”

“Sounds like it,” Eddie said. “But I want to see you get by the security in the London house, before I’ll commit to the big job.”

“How about tonight?” Alfie asked.