California Fire And Life

101

First thing he sees is the parrot.

It looks like it's just moving along the top of the hedge and then Jack realizes that it's sitting on the shoulder of Mr. Meissner's white shirt.

"Eliot!" Jack says.

"Eliot. Eliot. Pretty bird."

Meissner stops and looks over the hedge.

"It's the space man," he says. "Where's your space suit today?"

"Jack Wade. California Fire and Life."

"I remember, Mr. Wade."

"Jack."

"Jack," Meissner says. "What can Eliot do for you?"

"Chess pieces," Jack says. "You said something about chess pieces, moving in and moving out. I thought you meant the kids."

"Them, too," Meissner says.

"But you meant something else."

Meissner nods. "The truck. With the chess piece on it. The knight. Stuff coming in and out half the night."

"What stuff?"

"Furniture," Meissner says.

"Did you see who-"

"Two Asian boys, two big white guys, Nicky."

"Pretty bird."

"Yes, you're a pretty bird Eliot," Meissner says. The wind ruffles the bird's feathers and it's digging into Meissner's shoulder to stay on. "Is this important?"

"Could be."

"Something to do with Pamela's death?" Meissner asks.

"I think so."

Meissner looks off toward the water. When he looks back he says, "She was a lovely girl. A sweet girl. With problems, but a sweet girl."

"Yeah."

"If you need me to testify…"

"No," Jack says quickly. "I won't need you to testify. Has anyone else interviewed you about this?"

"No."

"Have you talked to anyone else about it?"

"The parrot," Meissner says. "But I don't think he's listening, do you?"

Jack shrugs.

"Mr. Meissner," he says. "Don't tell anyone what you've told me. Not police, not lawyers, no one. If anyone asks you what you saw that night, all you say is that you heard the dog and you saw the flames. It's very important."

"But I want to help."

"You've helped."

Because now I know just what happened.

Nicky swapped the furniture. Brought in a truck, moved some cheap shit in and took the good stuff out.

But one of his boys screwed up.

Put the desk where the bureau was supposed to be and vice versa.

So Nicky still has his precious furniture.

Half a million bucks on the hoof.

Two million when you count the claim.

Add that to the rest of the claim, you've got the sum total of the money that Nicky paid back to revive his financial standing.

"Thank you, Mr. Meissner."

"For nothing."

"For everything."

Jack walks back toward the car.

Nicky has the furniture.

So what?

The heat shadow "evidence" on the tapes will just get dismissed as corrupted. Or Nicky will claim that he "forgot" that he moved the furniture around before the fire.

Yeah, but you have an eyewitness who will testify that he saw the furniture coming in and out.

But you can't use him because the second you name him they'll kill him.

So what are you going to do?

He drives to Laguna.

Ten minutes later he hands a brass cabinet handle to Marlowe.

Marlowe looks at it for at least a second and a half before he says, "Fake."

"How do you know?"

"One, I'm not Helen Keller," Marlowe says. "Two, I'm not Forrest Gump. Three, I've been selling the real thing for approaching hmmmmnn years and I can tell you that this is not the brass from a Georgian cabinet door. Next?"

A claw handle foot.

"May I saw?" Marlowe asks.

"Knock yourself out."

Marlowe takes a wood saw and makes two angled incisions into the wood, cutting a wedge out. He shines his lamp into the wedge and says, "This was made perhaps a month ago, maybe two. What else do you have for me?"

A copper hasp.

"Eighteenth century?"

"Perhaps in a former life."

"So?"

"So I don't know what to tell you," Marlowe says. "Look, I know every piece in Nicky Vale's collection. I verified most of them for him. Others, Christ, I bid against him but he had deeper pockets. I don't know where you got these tchotchkes, but the furniture in Nicky's house was the real thing. These are the work of a master copier, I'd say."

"Any names come to mind?"

"George Scollins," Marlowe says. "The best. He has a studio way out in the boonies, up in Laguna Canyon. Does great restorations, fantastic copies."

"Is that legal?"

"Can be," Marlowe says. "There's a difference between a copy and a counterfeit. It all depends on how it's labeled. A lot of people want antique furniture style without the age. So they buy a Scollins. Or they want a piece of furniture that doesn't exist anymore, so they get Scollins to copy it from a picture. Or they want a rare piece without the rare price tag, so they buy a Scollins. If they pass it off as real to their friends, it's tacky but legal. If they try to auction it as original, that's fraud."

Or if they burn it and try to sell it to their insurance company as the real thing…

"You have Scollins's address?" Jack asks.