Hollywood Hills

TWENTY-FOUR

This was the day of reckoning as far as Raleigh Dibble was concerned. He did everything he could to make time pass faster. He dusted and vacuumed the master suite for Leona Brueger’s return and even washed her windows. That involved some precarious labor on a tall stepladder. He drove his own car to the markets where his employer had charge accounts and made sure that there was enough fresh produce, chicken, and fish to provide meals for several days in case she was too tired to dine out.

When he was finished with chores, he called Cedars-Sinai and received a report on Marty Brueger. His condition was not as serious as had been thought, and it was hoped that the old man could soon be moved to a managed-care facility. Raleigh was living in such a state of fear for his own plight that he hadn’t had time to pity Marty Brueger. But now Raleigh thought that if Marty Brueger was moved to a less-structured facility, he would take the poor old geezer some of his favorite Irish whiskey. It pleased him to be concerned with someone else for a change.

When Raleigh was finished with everything he could think of to do, he found himself wondering if he would even be there to prepare a homecoming meal for her or if he would be in jail. Or would he be dead? He sat in his bedroom and stared at Leona Brueger’s nickel-plated revolver. One thing he knew for sure, for the first time he was capable of violence, at least as far as Nigel Wickland was concerned. Nobody in his life had ever harmed him so grievously. Regardless of the consequences, he was not going to let that arrogant son of a bitch get away with it. He knew exactly what he was going to do.

Raleigh planned on going to the Wickland Gallery at 4 P.M., but not to enter. He could watch the gallery entrance from the coffee shop across the street to know if Nigel left. Just before the gallery’s closing time of 5 P.M., Raleigh was going to enter, demand to see Nigel, and strongly suggest to him that he send Ruth home because a private talk was essential and unavoidable. And of course Nigel would be angry that Raleigh had come, but when they were alone, the anger would turn into something else. Mr. Nigel Wickland, the master schemer and manipulator, was going to experience a bit of what Raleigh Dibble had been living with ever since he’d been insane enough to join the gallery owner’s plot. Nigel Wickland was going to experience fear! Every time Raleigh looked at the nickel-plated revolver lying on his bed, it made his palms sweat.

At 1 P.M., Megan Burke made the call to Arjan, the Sikh taxi driver to whom she had promised the $100 tip. She had packed her bag, leaving space for a thousand hundred-dollar bills. She had no idea how big a package that would be, but there was plenty of room in her suitcase, since she had so few clothes left after her year of riding the ox in Hollywood.

She was surprised that she did not feel worse than she did. The joint pain from her opioid withdrawal was still severe, but the diarrhea had abated and she wasn’t vomiting as much. She looked in her pill container and saw that she had enough medication to get her home to Oregon, and from there it would be a few hours of hugs and kisses with her mother and brother and then she’d go directly into rehab.

She had spent the morning talking and crying with her mother on the phone, after which her mother phoned several Oregon rehab facilities until she found one close to home that would permit Megan to bring Cuddles with her to the ninety-day treatment program. Megan’s mother told her that she would go to the bank and see if she could take out a second mortgage to cover the $25,000 cost, but Megan told her not to worry about it, because she had won a big prize in the California lottery and she was paying for her own rehab.

The last thing Megan said to her astonished mother was that there would be $75,000 left from the prize money after taxes. She insisted that her mom take it all, along with profound apologies for having been such a miserable daughter.

Before they hung up, her mother said to Megan, “Honey, you could never be anything but a wonderful, loving daughter. I can’t wait to have you home. The only mistake you ever made in your life was going to Hollywood, California.”

Megan went to the bathroom to dry her tears and touch up her makeup and then called Nigel Wickland on his cell number. When he answered, she said, “I’ll be there at two o’clock. Are you ready for me?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’ve given my assistant the afternoon off. I’ll be here alone.”

“I won’t be alone,” she said.

“I don’t doubt that,” Nigel said, ending the conversation.

When Jonas Claymore arrived in court, he looked for Megan, but she wasn’t there. He was growing very concerned for his money. Thinking about it made him uncontrollably jittery. When he’d had his fill of waiting, he jumped up and told a bailiff that he demanded to speak to a public defender. He also demanded an own-recognizance release. He said he’d never been arrested before except once for DUI, so he deserved to be OR’ed as soon as possible. He said he wanted immediate access to counsel, any counsel. He said he’d even settle for one that advertises on bus benches and takes his orders from sleazy bail bondsmen.

The bailiff told Jonas if he was smart, he’d zip his lips.

Jonas Claymore was still sitting with other in-custody defendants when court convened after lunch. He had been able to speak with a harried public defender, who had verified that Jonas had only one arrest on his rap sheet, for DUI, and he agreed to represent Jonas and ask for an own-recognizance release. The judge, who was just as harried as the public defender, and who was looking at a roomful of miscreants and their friends and families, granted the OR release. Jonas was set free and his property was returned, which included a cheap wristwatch and a wallet containing the only hundred-dollar bill he had left. He used that money to call a taxi to take him to his car in the parking lot at Pablo’s Taco Shop, where he paid the driver and looked around in vain for someone he knew who might have some ox.

All the way to the apartment he thought of what he was going to say to Megan Burke, who had left him rotting in that filthy jail with smelly savages who’d terrified him. She hadn’t tried to post bail, she hadn’t come to his arraignment, and she hadn’t done shit to help him, despite all he had done for her during the year they’d been together. He had shared his life and everything he owned with that cunt! He had never laid an angry hand on her, but he thought that just might change when he got home. It would all depend on what she had to say for herself.

When he got home, he found out what she had to say for herself. It was on the note. And beside the note were his cell phone, her key, and $1,900. He read the note three times, his rage mounting. Her clothes and bag were gone and so was her cat.

He snatched the money off the table, put it in his pocket, and phoned Wilbur. He was jonesing bad and needed something to smooth him out so he could think. So he could do what he had to do. The bitch had robbed him and he was going to find her if he had to check every motel in Hollywood. He’d get her when she went to Pablo’s to score, or maybe when she called Wilbur for some ox. He’d slip Wilbur a President Grant to tip him off as to where she was staying with his fucking money.

When Jonas looked behind the sofa, he was shocked. The paintings were gone! She had even stolen his paintings. His outrage turned to fury. He felt like he might keel over in a faint. He wished she’d left her cat there so he could kill it.

There was only one thing she could have done with them. She must’ve kept her schoolgirl promise and returned them to the gallery owner. And now she was out there spending Jonas’s money. She’d probably already spent a few grand on ox and was holed up somewhere chasing dragons with some other stupid bastard who was dumb enough to take her in. Well, somebody was going to pay for how he’d been screwed. She’d pay dearly if and when he found her. But until then he wasn’t taking this like some screwed-over pussy. He was going out and getting what was coming to him.

Wilbur didn’t answer, so he got in his car and drove to the cybercafé, where he saw a guy named Beatle who he used to buy crystal meth from, back before Megan, back when he was a tweaker. Beatle used to run a chop shop and would do anything for meth. He was now so strung out, he’d kill you for your liver if he could find a buyer for it. He could slam a gram and think nothing of it.

Jonas gave Beatle a pair of Jacksons, and Beatle showed teeth like jagged licorice drops, and he said, “Dude, you bought yourself a meth run on my shit pipe. Follow me to my crib.”

They went to his nearby rat hole of an apartment, and Jonas smoked crystal meth once again. It was nothing like smoking ox, but it was better than nothing. He remembered how he used to love it, but now he hated it. After riding the ox, meth seemed like nothing but a lowlife drug smelling like cat piss. Nowadays he was way better than this. Still, it beat jonesing, so he smoked a lot of it. And when he was finished, he found that it made him feel agitated. It made him feel paranoid. It made him feel wild!

When he was about to leave Beatle’s apartment, the tweaker showed him eyes as empty as a haunted house and said, “Don’t trip, potato chip.”

It was just after 2 P.M. when Megan and her Sikh taxi driver walked from his parked taxi to the front door of the Wickland Gallery. Megan was wearing a long-sleeved red jersey, jeans, and tennis shoes, and was carrying a tattered suitcase in one hand and in the other hand an airline-approved cat carrier with Cuddles inside it. The tall, bearded Sikh wore a cobalt-blue turban, a guayabera shirt, khakis, and sandals, and carried the two blanket-wrapped paintings, one under each arm.

Megan opened the door and saw Nigel Wickland waiting at Ruth’s desk in the main room of the gallery. He was as elegant as ever in a double-breasted navy pinstripe, a white button-down shirt, and a rose-colored silk necktie. He looked very tense, and there was even a tic working the corner of his left eye.

Nigel stood and said to the Sikh, “You can lean those items against the wall.”

The Sikh looked at Megan, who nodded to him. Only then did the taxi driver comply. Then she handed the Sikh the cat carrier and said, “Arjan, please wait just outside the door with Cuddles. I’ll be in here no more than fifteen minutes.”

The Sikh nodded again and left the gallery, taking Cuddles with him. Nigel could see him through the gallery window, standing on the pavement with the pet carrier firmly in his grasp.

Nigel gave Megan a lopsided smile and said, “Yes, I see that you are well protected. But you have nothing to fear from me. Not anymore. In many ways you have done me a favor.”

“By eliminating your partner?”

He didn’t respond to that but said, “Let’s go back to my office to complete our business.”

Nigel picked up a wrapped painting in each hand, and Megan followed him to his office, and this time she did not feel frightened when he closed the door.

“Have a seat,” he said, indicating a client chair in front of his desk.

She sat and put her suitcase flat on the floor and opened it. He looked at the suitcase and said, “I’m afraid I can’t fill up a bag that big, but I have your entire bonus as requested. Although first I’d like to examine my merchandise.”

He opened a door from his office that led to a storage room with a large sliding door leading from there to the alley. The cargo van was parked inside the storage room, and there were gallery supplies on shelves and benches. Nigel Wickland entered and turned on a light over one of the benches. He cut the duct tape and unwrapped the largest bundle. He lifted the painting and held it under the light, inspecting it closely. Megan stood in the doorway of the storage room and watched him.

“Ah, yes,” he said. “The Woman by the Water. Isn’t she lovely?” He carefully rewrapped the painting and then unwrapped the second one, holding it under the light, and nodded with a smile on his face.

“Satisfied?” Megan said.

Nigel said, “I am, indeed.”

He rewrapped Flowers on the Hillside and opened the side door of the van, putting both bundled paintings inside on the floor. Then he closed the door of the van and said, “Now let’s complete our business before your turbaned friend comes in here and dispatches me with his dagger.”

They went back to Nigel’s desk, where he opened a deep bottom drawer and removed a shipping carton without a lid. He placed it on his desk and said, “Go ahead and count it. I already have.”

Megan picked up a packet of hundred-dollar bills, her heart beating in her ears, and counted. When she got to fifty, she stopped and fanned through the rest of the packet. Then she fanned through each of the other packets without counting. It was too staggering an amount of money. She said, “It looks okay. I trust you, Mr. Wickland.”

Nigel emitted a burst of nervous laughter at that, and even Megan had to giggle. Then she put each packet into her large suitcase among a jumble of underwear, jeans, two books, T-shirts, and tank tops. When she was finished, she closed and locked the suitcase with a small luggage key.

“Yes, that should get through an airport baggage scanner with no problem,” Nigel said. “I’ll bet you’ll be waiting anxiously for it to come down the carousel when you reach your destination, wherever that is.”

Megan smiled without comment. Then she simply picked up the suitcase, opened the door of his office, and walked across the display room of the gallery to the Wilshire Boulevard door.

Before she opened it, Nigel called to her, saying, “Have a good life, Valerie. Your ambition has been for me a blessing in disguise.”

She didn’t respond but wiggled her fingers at him in a final farewell. When she got outside, the Sikh took her suitcase, and she carried the pet carrier to the taxi for the ride to LAX. Megan Burke was so overjoyed that she decided to increase Arjan’s tip to $200.

And on that ride to the airport, with her hand inside the pet carrier stroking her cat, Megan Burke tried to take with her something positive from her two years away from home. But the addiction that had resulted in her physical, emotional, and moral decline had obliterated all positives. And then she thought, no, there was one gift that Hollywood, California, had given her. It came when she had walked into the animal rescue facility fourteen months ago. Hollywood had given her Cuddles the calico cat.