Full Circle (36 page)

“And then?”

“And then back to New York. The hell with larceny. Suddenly my corner office looks pretty good.” Seeing Bernhardt smile, Graham said, “If everything works out, let’s do that lunch.”

“Fine.” Bernhardt waited for the camper’s engine to catch, then activated the door opener. As the big double door began to rise, he heard the door chimes: the camera people were at the living room door, ready to go to work. He arrested the door’s progress halfway up and called out to Paula, “Tell them to meet me outside.” When he heard her acknowledgment, he started the garage door again, waiting for it to roll up.

“Stay inside your car,” Andrea ordered. “Keep the guns out of sight. Keep your eye on me.” As she spoke, she slipped quickly into the BMW, put the Woodsman with its silencer on the floor, nudged it under the driver’s seat. From under the passenger seat she took a 7.65 Walther. She jacked a cartridge into the chamber, lowered the hammer, managed to slip the pistol into the soft leather shoulder holster she wore under the loose-fitting safari jacket without being observed. She opened the driver’s door, got out, dropped the tiny surveillance earpiece and microphone into the pocket of her jacket. As she stepped away from the car and turned to her left, she saw the garage door rolling up. To her right, men and women were getting out of the orange van and car—five people altogether. While some of the newcomers began unloading their equipment, one of the men was walking toward Alan Bernhardt, who stood in the open doorway of the garage. There were two cars inside the garage—the camper and the van. One of them, the camper, had transported the money. The other vehicle, a Dodge van, had most certainly transported the paintings. She realized that her entire attention, her entire being, was focused on the two vehicles inside the garage. Here, now—incongruously—she stood within a few feet of her goal: treasures beyond calculation, hers for the taking.

Or the losing.

“I’m Alec Duncan. Are you Alan Bernhardt?” The newcomer was short and stocky. He wore a wide-brimmed Stetson with a snakeskin band. His manner was brusque, all business.

“That’s right.”

Standing in front of the open garage door, they shook hands perfunctorily. Then Duncan looked at his surroundings with a professional air. “What you’ve got, Bernie says, it’s time-sensitive. He also says you’re an actor. Director, too. So tell me what you want.”

“First there’s an exterior shot of the house and garage.” Falling into the familiar patterns, once his stock-in-trade, Bernhardt began gesturing, blocking it out, improvising. “One exterior camera’ll probably be enough. Setting up on the sidewalk, that should work. A short pan to get the whole house, that’s the opening shot.”

“What about the action angles?”

“The action is just two people in a convertible Jag with the top down coming down the street”—Bernhardt pointed—“then going into the garage, which automatically opens as they approach. The people are very upscale, very with it—the beautiful people. Obviously they don’t belong here. That’s the sense of the opening shot. “Ugh,’ the girl says, looking at the house. ‘Tacky.’ She’s dressed in shorts and a tank top, really built. That’s the opening.”

Duncan frowned, quickly surveyed his surroundings. “Where’s the Jag and the couple?”

“They’re around the corner, waiting.” Bernhardt raised his walkie-talkie. “There’re all set to go, once I tell them.”

“It sounds a little sketchy.”

“Don’t worry. You get set up. Then, when you’re ready, I want you to put one of your vehicles in the garage, once we get the camper out. Maybe you should figure two cameras, come to think about it, one for the interiors, in the garage. See, the entire action takes place in the garage.”

“Hmmm.” Plainly, Duncan was doubtful.

“First thing,” Bernhardt said, “we’ve got to clear the driveway, then move the camper out into the street. That’s first.”

“Whatever.” Clearly disenchanted, Duncan turned, walked back to his sound truck.

Bernhardt turned back to the open doorway of the garage. Yes, Tate and Paula had stepped back deep into the garage, one on either side of the van, in position to reach inside for their weapons. Bernhardt nodded to them both, gestured for them to stay put. Now he turned to face the growing cluster of vehicles and people spilling out into the street. Then, with a sense of heaviness, an unexplained reluctance, he exchanged a long, searching look with the woman he knew as Andrea.

Of course, she
would
be driving a BMW, leaning easily against it, eyeing him inscrutably. And, yes, she wore her khaki safari clothing with unparalleled flair. Her dark, vivid eyes were incredibly alive.

Slowly, with deliberation, he began walking toward her. He watched her shift her stance as he approached, squaring off against him.

“Who are you?” he asked. “Who are you really?”

“Nobody you know, Mr. Bernhardt.”

“You and James—you’re in this together.”

She made no response. Her eyes were dark and calm and calculating. She was, Bernhardt realized, a formidable adversary. Formidable and incredibly desirable.

“There’s someone else. There has to be.”

She made no response.

They were standing close together on the driver’s side of the BMW. Ostensibly, Bernhardt knew, they looked like a companionable couple, deep in discussion. Leading to her right ear, from the pocket of her stylishly cut khaki jacket, he saw a thin, transparent wire that disappeared into her dark, close-cut hair. She was wearing a wire. Or was it a tiny radio, to communicate with James? He looked at her hands, her wrists. Yes, a companion wire led from the pocket to her right hand. It was a miniature surveillance radio, her edge. The radio connected the three of them: the woman, James, and the Uzi.

“We plan to leave with the paintings,” she said. “You take the money. And let us leave. Unblock the driveway. Get these people out of here.”

“If I don’t?”

“James starts shooting.”

“That’s bullshit. There’re a dozen witnesses.”

“All unarmed. The first shot and they’ll all be flat on their bellies.”

“My people are armed. Heavily armed.”

“Your people are in the garage. When it’s time, James will kill them all.” She mocked him with a smile. “Bad tactics, Mr. Bernhardt, keeping them in the garage. They’re sitting ducks.”

“While James is killing them—” He discreetly drew back his jacket to reveal the .357, holstered at his belt. “I shoot you. Then James.”

She made no reply. Instead, her eyes locked with his, she drew back her own jacket to revel a small automatic in a shoulder holster. As she let her jacket fall together, he glanced covertly back over her shoulder. The camera crew was completely set up. Alec Duncan, standing beside the camera, was plainly impatient, looking to Bernhardt for instructions. Duncan tapped his watch. Except for an almost imperceptible shake of his head, Bernhardt did not respond.

But the woman had caught Bernhardt’s covert look, and involuntarily moved her head to follow his glance. Instantly Bernhardt stepped forward. With one short, quick sweep of his hand he hooked the wire leading into her right hand. A sharp tug, and the wire came free, snaked through the air. Following through, he grasped her right wrist, twisted, wrestled with her, threw his full weight into a hammerlock. The silent struggle was fierce; the pain forced her to turn with him, come hard against him, her back to his front. Her body bucked wildly, but she couldn’t break the hammerlock. With her left hand she was trying for the shoulder holster. He switched his grip on her right wrist to his left hand, used his right hand to reach across her body, grasp the butt of her Walther. With possession of the gun, he thrust it into his belt, then put increased pressure on the hammerlock. Even while she writhed in pain, she still fought him, kicking for his shins. As he drew her body tight against his, feeling her struggle, unconquered, as wild and defiant as a trapped animal, he realized that he was sexually aroused. If they were alone, in some elemental descent into the final brutality, he might have raped her.

They struggled silently, secretly, both realizing that witnesses would endanger them both. A last cruel twist of her arm lifted her on her toes; the pain finally wrung from her a gasp of pain. He looked at the nearby faces. Only one face—a boy’s—was watching them; everyone else, curious, was watching the film crew. Breathing hard, Bernhardt bent over her shoulder, whispered into her ear from behind: “Walk over to James.”

“Ah …” It was an inarticulate refusal, another animal response.

“
Walk,
or the arm comes out of the socket.” He shifted his grip again, increased the pressure, felt her body’s involuntary response, heard her gasp, heard her curse him, a vicious string of obscenities.

“
Walk
.”

One step. Two. In the blue Accord, seated behind the wheel, James was motionless, his obsidian eyes revealing nothing as he watched them come closer. With her back to him, their bodies pressed together, they covered the last few feet to the Accord.

Once more Bernhardt shifted his grip on her arm, grasping her right wrist with his left hand. With his right hand he surreptitiously drew the .357. He rested it flat on the woman’s right shoulder, so that James could see the muzzle aimed at her neck.

As, from Bernhardt’s right, where the second camera was now set up, he saw Alec Duncan. Making no effort to conceal his mounting impatience, Duncan once more advanced on Bernhardt. As he drew close, frowning, Duncan said, “Alan, I just talked to Bernie. Maybe he didn’t tell you, but—” Seeing the gun, realizing that Bernhardt held the woman helpless, Duncan broke off, stopped dead in his tracks. Bernhardt saw his eyes widen, saw him swallow hard.

“Hey.” Duncan blinked. “Hey, what—”

“We’re rehearsing. I decided to scrub the Jag. Tell Bernie it’ll be another few minutes. Tell him I’ll pay. I’ll double my original offer. Tell Bernie that.”

“But—”

“
Tell
him, goddammit. Go back to the cameras, and call Bernie.
Now
.”

“Well, Jesus, sure.” Duncan stepped one long stride backward, then turned, began walking fast to the camera truck. Bernhardt watched him take a cellular phone from the truck’s dash, watched him punch out a number, saw him begin to talk. Was it Bernie Penziner, Duncan was talking to—or the police? If it was the police, seconds counted.

Bernhardt shifted his gaze to the open garage. Both Tate and Paula, their handguns concealed, the sawed-off out of sight, had left the shelter of the van, and had advanced almost to the sidewalk, both of them with their eyes fixed intently on him. It was as if they were restrained only by the force of some invisible barrier that had replaced the garage door. As he watched, he saw Paula say something to Tate, who nodded grimly. Still in the camper, Graham and Helen Grant had not moved. They simply sat motionless, eyes front. Graham, then, was out of it, now no more than a spectator, one potential danger neutralized, their rear secured. When the driveway was clear, Graham would take the paintings and leave.

Bernhardt was about to speak to James when he caught a flicker of movement through the van’s rear window. It was one of the dogs. Assessing the variables, Paula had decided to confine the dogs in the van—with the money. He smiled, looked at Paula, looked back at the van, then nodded to her. She’d converted the dogs, wild cards, into assets. In this delicate situation, she’d positioned them perfectly.

Slowly, cautiously, he slightly relaxed the hammerlock, breathing into the woman’s ear: “We’ve got to get out of this. Both of us—we’ve got to get out, or we’re screwed. If that director calls the cops, we’ve had it. Understand?”

She made no reply. But, still holding her close, he could feel her fury subside. Yes, she understood. Still cautiously, he backed off his grip. Lowering the .357, his finger on the trigger, he slipped the pistol inside his open jacket, pointed at the woman.

She stepped away, then turned to face him. Her eyes blazed, her lips were drawn back from tightly clenched teeth. Distorted by fury, her face was no longer beautiful. Still holding the .357 under his jacket, he turned with her so that the concealed pistol remained trained on her.

“You see this gun inside my jacket?”

She dropped her eyes contemptuously down at the bulging jacket, but made no reply. James’s eyes were fixed on her: the hired gun, waiting. Whatever the woman ordered, James would do. Whatever power she held over him, it was absolute.

Ignoring James—but keeping him always in his peripheral vision—Bernhardt spoke to the woman: “James is carrying a nine-millimeter Glock, plus the Uzi. What I want him to do is leave the guns on the floor of the car.” He gestured to the Accord. “Then I want the two of you to go to the BMW and get in. Both of you. Then”—he pointed—“move the BMW about ten feet ahead, so the camper can back out of the garage. You’re to drive very slowly. I’ll be walking beside you—with my gun. When you’re clear of the driveway, I’ll take your keys. The two of you will stay in the BMW. At that point, the camper backs out of the driveway, and leaves the scene. You’ll—”

“The paintings,” she said. “They’ll have the paintings in the camper?”

Bernhardt’s smile was rapacious. “Does that bother you?”

She made no reply. Her eyes said it all. Never, Bernhardt knew, would he face hatred like this.

“Next,” Bernhardt said, “I’ll tell the camera crew to leave. You’re to stay in your car during the time it takes them to pack up and leave. When they’re gone, we’ll leave in our van. We’ll have the Uzi and the Glock. As we pass you, I’ll toss your keys out in the street. And that’ll be the end of it. If you can get away, fine. So far as I know—whatever I could testify to—you’re clean. What problems you have with the law, that’s no concern of mine.”

The woman said nothing. But James, still inside the Accord, said, “You have the money in the van, Mr. Bernhardt?” As always, he spoke quietly, respectfully.

For a long, thoughtful moment Bernhardt studied the big man. Then: “Why, James. Tell me why.”

“I have nothing but good feelings for you, Mr. Bernhardt. And Mr. DuBois, too. I would not harm him.”