Picture This (3 page)

But as I told you, this had nothing to do with money; it was all about love. I kept seeing those beautiful eyes! The day the exhibition at the gallery ended, I drove out to Harold Green’s
place on my motorcycle. I watched the house for an hour. I don’t know what I was trying to prove. Rain began to fall. Soon, I was soaked. And to show you how crazy I was, I showed up again the next morning.

But that was more interesting.

The street was quiet, shaded by old maple trees. The big brick house had three stories, with lots of chimneys. At one end, the modern addition stuck out. It was low and made of varnished wood. I knew, from the newspaper story, that this was where Green kept his paintings.

A police car came up the street, a van marked
Security
right behind it. They turned in at Green’s house. Two men got out of the van, and a cop got out the car. The door of Green’s house opened. With the cop watching, the two men carried the pictures inside: they were being returned from the gallery.

Just then, a car pulled away from the curb, about half a block down from me. A blue Toyota. Zena. She had been watching, too. Of course! They couldn’t steal the paintings until they came back from the gallery.

I watched her speed away down the street. She was going too fast for me to catch her, but now I made up my mind. Maybe I was a chicken, maybe I’d lost my head, but I was going to stop running around. I gave the Suzuki a kick and headed for Victor’s shop.

Closed.

But I always know where to find Victor. Within three blocks of his place, there’s a Starbucks and two other coffee shops. He doesn’t usually go to Starbucks. He prefers something special. Today, it was a dark, dim place called the Lively Bean. Ugly booths. Plastic seats. But the room was filled with the wonderful smell of roasting coffee.

Victor was a regular. Instead of a booth, he has his own little table. He was dressed in his usual shapeless hat and grey suit, with a grubby tie knotted around his neck. His watery eyes looked up as I came in. “Paul, dear boy. How lovely to see you.”

“Victor, this isn’t a social call.”

“No? But you’ll have some coffee.” He waved to the waitress. “Mabel, bring my young friend some of the Jamaican.”

As Mabel brought it, I said, “You like to give lectures about discretion. Keeping your mouth shut.”

“It’s a good habit, my boy.”

“Well, I’m going to break it.”

“Dear, dear.”

“You’re going to say this is none of my business, only you made it my business.”

Victor sipped his coffee and murmured, “Did I?”

“Admit it. You told Zena to come to me for those paintings.”

“Perhaps I did.” He put his cup down and looked at me, straight on. “Which is why I’ve been expecting to see you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I knew you’d catch on.”

“But you’ve fooled Zena.”

Victor laughed. “I don’t think so. Paul, the beautiful Zena is far from a fool.”

“Victor, I don’t want her mixed up with you.”

He laughed again. “Dear boy, I believe you’re in love with her. You should see your face. Such passion! You’re going to save this beautiful lady from wicked old
me
!”

“Something like that,” I said.

“Well, you’ve got it wrong. And there are other values in life besides love. Money counts for something, surely.”

“Victor, you know all about that.”

“So does your beautiful friend,” Victor replied. “I hope it won’t shock you to learn that this was entirely her idea. I’m not involving her in anything, she involved
me
. If you don’t believe it, ask her yourself.”

He looked up.

I turned around. Zena had come in. She was wearing a light grey suit, and her hair was pulled back from her face. She looked like the most beautiful businesswoman in the world.

“Hello, Mr. Stone,” she said. And then she smiled. “Hello, Paul, I mean.”

Victor murmured beside me. “She involved me, dear boy. Now we want to involve you.”

I Sign On

“The moment I saw you,” Zena said, “I knew you were perfect.”

The moment I saw
you
, I thought, I knew you were perfect, too. But I only thought this, keeping my mouth shut. Victor would approve; I was being discreet. But then I did ask, “Perfect for what?”

When she smiled, she had dimples, two sweet little hollows in her cheeks. She glanced quickly at Victor. “Well,” she said, “I knew it would be easier with three.”

Victor took a sip of his coffee, then set it down. “Zena is being polite, for my sake. It’s a question of my physical abilities. You are a good
deal younger, stronger, fitter. Those qualities will be a help in our little job.”

“You’re crazy. You want me to hit someone over the head?”

Victor laughed. “No, no, dear boy. Nothing like that. You shock me. Surely you know me better.”

I was a little surprised, to tell you the truth. Victor was no angel, but violence wasn’t his line. “Then you better explain,” I said.

I looked at Zena. It was a great pleasure to look at Zena. This close, I could even smell her perfume: light, spicy. I wanted to press my face in her hair and—I resisted. “Why don’t you start at the beginning?” I said.

She began to talk in a low, quick voice. She’d gone to work for Harold Green as his secretary when Green was writing a book. “It was about peace,” she said. “What a two-faced liar he is! A hypocrite! All he really cares about is being rich.” As she’d worked for him, she’d learned the routine of his house, and how the paintings were guarded.

“Wait,” I said. “Back up a moment. How did you meet Green?”

“I was born in Iran—well, we still like to think of it as Persia. I speak Farsi, the language of Persia, and so does Green, but he can’t write Farsi. He wanted a person who could.”

“Did you live there? In the house?”

“No, but sometimes I did stay overnight.” She looked at me. “No, it’s not what you think.” From the look on her face, I knew it wasn’t. For some reason, she hated Harold Green. I was curious. Why?

“If the paintings are stolen,” I asked, “won’t he think of you?”

“No. Not if we make it look like an ordinary art theft. Don’t people steal paintings? Yes, all the time. Besides, I’m a woman. Harold Green wouldn’t think a woman could be strong enough to do such a thing.”

“Okay, so how
can
you do it?”

She leaned closer to me. She put her hand over mine. That made listening hard, but I did my best. “The whole house is protected by alarms. But they are only turned on at night, at 11:30. The alarms are turned on by a computer in Green’s study, the room where he works. When I
was with him, that’s where I used to work, too. I saw everything.”

“But how can you stop the alarms coming on?”

“Simple. Like all computers, this one has a clock. Before 11:30, you simply set the clock back. Then everything will
seem
to be normal, you see.”

Victor looked at me. “You see how smart this young lady is?”

“All right, but to get to the computer you have to get into the house—”

“Every night, the man who looks after the house—the butler—takes the garbage out to a shed. His name is Bellows. He likes to smoke cigars, but he can’t in the house. It’s bad for the paintings. All over the house are smoke detectors. So, every night, Bellows takes out the garbage and smokes a cigar. Of course, he has to come back inside before 11:30, before the computer sets the alarms. But we can slip in ahead of him and change the clock. Then, he will come back in and go to bed, and we can take the paintings.”

Victor said, “I watched him one night. He walks away from the house and behind the shed. If you’re quick, you’ll be able to go in the back door. He won’t see you. The next part is more difficult. That’s where you come in. I was going to do it, but you’ll do it
much
better.”

I took a sip of my coffee. “So what’s this difficult part?”

Zena leaned toward me. “The computer runs the house alarms. But each of the paintings has its own alarm, built into its hanger on the wall. These alarms work on a spring. If you take the painting away—remove its weight—the spring moves up and the alarm goes off. So here’s what we’ll do. We’ll slip a loop of wire over the painting so it catches on the hanger. Then we’ll run this loop to a turnbuckle, a gadget invented for exactly this job: tightening wires. We’ll attach the turnbuckle to an eye bolt we’ll screw into the floor. By twisting on the turnbuckle, we’ll tighten the wire so it pulls down on the spring. When it’s pulling down with the same weight as the painting, we can take the painting away.”

I thought about it. “All right. That might work. You’d have to do it very carefully.”

“Indeed, dear boy,” said Victor. “It will take young nerves and muscles, and yours are so much younger than mine. That’s why we need you—if I did it, those alarms would be ringing so loudly they’d wake the dead.”

I wanted a moment to think things over. I was really thinking about Zena, asking myself the question,
what is she really up to?
But I looked at Victor and said, “Okay, Victor, I supply steady nerves and young muscle. What’s your contribution? How do you earn your share?”

He leaned forward, folding his hands in front of him. “Well, when you talk about shares—money—you are certainly coming around to me. Think. We have the paintings, but we want to change them into money. We could try to sell them, of course, but that would be dangerous. Soon, every gallery and museum and police force, all over the world, will have photographs of those paintings. But Harold Green is a careful man. Those paintings are insured... for how much, do you think?”

“I’d guess $3,000,000.”

“A very good guess, I expect. So, if the paintings are stolen, Green will claim $3,000,000 from the insurance company. But I’ll arrange to sell them back to the company for only $600,000. We’ll split it three ways, $200,000 each. The insurance company will be delighted, truly happy. They won’t have to pay the $3,000,000 claim, only our—shall we say, our fee? Even Harold Green should be pleased. He’ll get his paintings back. The only person who might be unhappy is Bellows, the butler. I’m afraid he may take a certain amount of the blame.”

“Victor, you’re such a sensitive fellow, to worry about him.”

Victor smiled. “What do you say?”

“I’d like a little time to think about it.”

“Harold Green is in Paris. We should do it before he comes back.”

“And when is that?” I asked.

“Friday.”

“Today’s Wednesday!”

Victor raised his eyebrow. “Are you busy tomorrow night?”

Zena squeezed my hand. I looked into those eyes... those eyes! I keep telling you, it had nothing to do with the money...

“Mabel,” Victor called to the waitress. “Bring us another cup, if you would.”

But I wanted something stronger than coffee... rye whiskey, perhaps.

Break-in

10:00 p.m. A dark night, with no moon.

I crouched down in the lilac bushes behind Green’s house. A breeze rustled through the leaves. Far off, I could hear the rumble of traffic and, beside me, the soft rise and fall of Zena’s breathing.

She wore blue jeans, a grey sweater, black Nikes. As beautiful as ever—that sweater was wonderfully tight. She carried a big cloth bag filled with the tools we’d need to fool the alarms on the paintings. I was wearing jeans and a black jacket. In the darkness, we were almost invisible.

“He won’t be long now,” Zena whispered.

Actually, Bellows didn’t appear until 10:42. A light came on over the back door, and he backed through it, lugging two plastic bags of garbage. He was a tall, old guy with a stoop. He went up the narrow walk to a little shed, and a sliding door rumbled open. Zena put her hand on my arm. “Wait,” she hissed.

She was right. Bellows went back into the house and came out again, with two more bags. He tossed them into the shed and then slid the door shut. A moment later, a match flared. I had a quick glimpse of his face, bent down to the light. Then I could smell his cigar.

He walked slowly away, through the garden, enjoying his smoke. Soon, all I could see was the red tip of his cigar. Then even that disappeared.