The Florentine Deception (11 page)

“No way. I'm doing this myself.”

“Seems like a waste of time to me,” she said. “You could have this thing cracked open this afternoon.”

“I'm not so sure,” said Steven, rapping his knuckles on the steel door. “I don't think the average locksmith would have a chance against one of these things. You'd probably have to call in a specialist or someone from the company that built it.”

“At least let me do some research and see if we can't find a way in,” I said. “I wonder who manufactured it, anyway.” I began scanning the surface for tags or logos, but the perfectly smooth, shiny steel wall was devoid of markings.

“You think you could get in through the air vent?” asked Hillary.

I looked up. The grille covering the duct looked pretty tough, but it was worth a try.

“Maybe. Steven?”

Steven looked up from the keypad questioningly. “Huh?”

“Do you think we could pull that grille off with your hammer, or maybe the crowbar?”

Steven backed up and stared at the grille. “Maybe. Give me a leg up.”

I stepped up to the door, braced myself, and cupped my hands. Steven grabbed Hillary's arm and my shoulder and placed his right foot into my hands, then stood up. He stared for a second, then grabbed a flashlight from his belt and flicked it on.

“I could have the grille off in thirty seconds,” he said, shining his light down the duct. “But there are half a dozen one-inch-wide steel bars right behind it that aren't going anywhere.”

I sighed. Steven re-holstered his flashlight and stepped to the ground.

“Well, it was worth a shot,” I said.

“At least the former owner was kind enough to leave us with some movies to watch,” said Hillary, pointing to a pile of VHS tapes stacked against the wall. We must have overlooked them in our excitement. I picked up the top tape and spun it in my hands. No labels or markings.

“Homemade shag movies?” asked Steven.

“As good a guess as any. You guys have a VCR?”

Hillary looked at Steven.

“Nope,” he said. “Our last VCR broke years ago.”

“I bet my dad has one,” I said, picking up a handful of the tapes. “I'll give him a ring later and find out.”

Chapter 19

As usual, Steven answered on the first ring.

“Oh the pain,” he groaned.

“Brain hurting, huh?”

“Yeah, so this better've been worth it. Out with it—what was on the tapes?”

“It appears that the previous owner was some sort of security freak,” I said. “Every one of those tapes has two hours of closed-circuit video. There must be about six different hidden cameras in that house.”

“Where?” Steven inquired. “We didn't see a single camera.”

“Either they were removed at some point or they're well hidden. He's got one on each door of the house—”

“Inside or outside?” Steven interrupted.

“Inside each door, so he gets you when you enter. He's also got a few covering the backyard. And you'll be interested in this.”

“What?” he asked.

“He's got one covering the library bookshelves, one covering the hallway behind the bookshelves, and one surveying the entrance to his panic room. All motion-sensor activated.”

“Why would I be interested in that?” Steven asked earnestly.

“We've got tape of him opening the panic room.”

“What? You're shittin' me! Can you see the keypad?”

“Not quite,” I admitted.

“What does ‘not quite' mean?”

“It means you can see the left edge of the pad, so we can see one of the six digits. It's a four.”

“Better than nothing,” said Steven, “but that still leaves the remaining five digits, which comes to … one hundred thousand possible combinations.”

“There was one other thing I found interesting. I saw Lister use the mirror next to the panic room door.”

“Use the mirror? Did he check his hair?”

“Nope.”

“Look over his shoulder for burglars?”

“No.”

“Well?”

“It was quite strange. Before he punched the code in, he leaned right into the mirror and pulled down his lower lip.”

“He what?”

“He stretched his lower lip. With both hands. He stared at his mouth for a few seconds and then punched in the code.”

“This is becoming more bizarre by the hour,” said Steven.

“I'd have to agree with you, Holmes.”

“How many times did he do this whole lip-pulling rigmarole?”

“I've fast-forwarded through two tapes so far, and he's five for five.”

“And you couldn't catch any additional key-presses the other four times?”

“Only the one. But I've got a bunch of tapes left to look at, so who knows.”

“So when can I come over to see the tapes?”

“Right now.”

“I'll be there in twenty.”

Steven arrived at my Northridge place fifteen minutes later.

“Take a seat,” I said. I sat down on the couch, grabbed the remote control, and after a bit of wrangling, started the ancient VCR. Steven ignored me, instead crouching just to the right of the TV, a few feet back.

“It's pretty grainy,” he said.

“Probably from being recorded over dozens of times,” I offered.

The camera was mounted on the ceiling, to the left and back about four feet from the door; I was surprised we hadn't seen it. It had a pretty good view of the lower two-thirds of the steel wall, door, keypad, and the mysterious mirror. A fraction of a second after the tape started rolling, a barrel-shaped, curly-black-haired man with a bald spot entered from behind the camera.

“Richard?” asked Steven.

“Must be. Kind of weird to think that the guy's dead now.”

The figure walked up to the door, hesitated, turned about-face, and walked back out of the frame. A moment later, he returned.

“He looks jumpy,” Steven said. Richard Lister gazed over his shoulder twice more before initiating his bizarre ritual.

“There he goes. Pause it,” squawked Steven. “Interesting,” he continued. “He doesn't touch the keypad at all. He goes straight for the mirror.” Richard's hands stood frozen and shimmering, en route to his face.

“He's clearly not looking over his shoulder. He already checked the hallway three times. There must be something in his mouth.”

“All right, let's continue. Can you play it in slo-mo?”

I looked at the remote. “Is it the wide circular dial?”

“Try it.”

I placed my finger in the small depression and jogged the two-inch diameter wheel clockwise.

Over the course of five slow-motion seconds, Richard's stumpy fingers traveled from his chest to his lower lip. Our eyes shifted from his hands to the reflection of his face in the mirror.

“Slowly,” reiterated Steven. I took it two frames at a time. Using both hands, Richard grasped either side of his lower lip with his thumb and forefinger and began leaning into the mirror.

“Stop!” Steven yelled. I'd gone too far, so I jogged the wheel back a few frames and brought the image to a shimmering pause.

“Let's look at his teeth,” he said.

“The guy must be British.” His teeth wore an uneven patina of tea-stained yellow. Steven turned and gave me a look.

“They're dirty, but there's nothing unusual about them,” I said. “That can't be what he's looking at.”

I continued shuttling through the frames, a few every second. After about sixty frames, Lister let go with his left hand and it began a ten-frame journey to the keypad; his right hand stayed put, still firmly clamped onto his stubbly lower lip. Richard started number punching in slow motion, tilting his head from mirror to keypad to mirror, but as I discovered during my first viewing, only the press of the four-key was visible behind his thick neck.

“What's the deal with the lip?” Steven asked, genuinely puzzled. “He's definitely looking at something in his mouth.”

I shuttled through the frames until we arrived at the best view of his mouth in the mirror.

“As far as I can tell, there's nothing there.”

“It's not the teeth. Definitely not the teeth.”

“What about the lower lip?” Come to think of it, the exposed inside of his lip did seem to have an unusual texture.

“There's definitely something there, on the inside,” said Steven excitedly. “Let me see the inside of your lip.”

I repeated Richard's ritual and exposed my gums to Steven.

“Flesh-colored. Check mine.”

I investigated the inside of Steven's mouth, as instructed.

“Rosy,” I concurred.

“But his lip is definitely discolored. Grab the other tape.” Steven pointed to a Post-It-covered tape on my coffee table. I inserted it and we repeated our frame-by-frame advance until Richard flashed his gums again.

This time, we had it.

Chapter 20

“The guy's got digits tattooed on the inside of his lip!” Steven ejaculated. “He can't remember the combination, so he keeps it where he'll never lose it.”

“No wonder he's got such bad teeth. He didn't want anyone to know what was there. It's right out of a movie.”

“They're not really that legible,” Steven said, leaning forward.

“C'mon, for a five-million-dollar diamond, you can read them. But if you're not up to it, maybe I can.”

I gave Steven a playful shove, crouched in front of the TV and stared for a good three minutes, but for the life of me, I couldn't pick out a single shimmering digit.

Rubbing my eyes, I said, “You take over. I'll be right back.”

“Okay.”

“I'll give you an extra five percent of the booty if you find the code before I get back.” Steven had already returned to the screen, oblivious to my offer. If anyone had the patience and obsessive-compulsive personality to find this needle in a haystack, it was Steven.

After a brief visit to the bathroom, I grabbed my laptop and a bag of baby carrots and sat back down on the couch. While Steven continued his scrutiny of the videotapes, I logged into my Gmail account to check my mail. As usual, nothing. But that reminded me. I wondered if Richard had received any new emails in his ZeusMail account, perhaps containing new clues we could use to locate the diamond. I hadn't checked the account in days, so it was worth a try.

I pulled up the ZeusMail website into a fresh copy of the browser and keyed in Richard's credentials.

“I found another sequence of him opening the panic room,” bellowed Steven.

“I'm right here, Holmes.”

“Oh.” He swiveled his head around and gave a sheepish grin. “Still no keypad though.” He returned to the TV.

I directed my attention back to my laptop, and, now that the page had loaded, was ecstatic to find that Richard had received another email from the enigmatic Khalimmy: the buyer interested in the Florentine. It had been sent yesterday. I clicked to open it.

From: Spirited One <
[email protected]
>

To: Antique Collector <
[email protected]
>

Subject: No more games

Clearly, you think this is a game. I do not share the same thoughts
.

Just in case you need any motivation, your brother has decided to disappear for a while. If you don't deliver by Thursday, he may disappear for good
.

“Oh shit. We have an unwelcome turn of events,” I said seriously.

“Huh?” Steven mumbled, still fixated on the grainy video.

“Come over here. This is not good.”

Steven rose from his haunches, walked over and plopped down on the couch next to me.

“What's wrong?”

“Take a look at this.” I pointed at the email. “The bastard kidnapped Richard Lister's brother.”

“Holy shit,” said Steven. “This is bad.”

“Yeah, but what can we do?”

“We have to go to the police.”

“And say what? ‘Excuse me Officer, I broke into a dead man's email account and read his private mail and found out his brother's been kidnapped? Oh and by the way, I bought his two-point-seven-million dollar house and am hunting for a black-market diamond'? That'll go over real well—”

Steven shoved his hand out. “Just give me the phone. I'll call Andy.” Hillary's brother Andy worked for the rape unit down in Torrance.

“Okay, but I'm not telling him anything about the diamond,” I said. “Just that we discovered a threatening email by accident.”

Steven nodded, then dialed the eleven digits and hit the speakerphone button. A few rings later, Andy picked up.

“Torrance Sex Crimes Unit, Officer Jensen speaking.”

“Hey Andy, this is Steven.”

“Oh, hey Steven. What's up?”

“Got a second? It's pretty serious.”

“Yeah, shoot.”

“Thanks. I've got Alex here too.”

“So what did you want, guys?”

“Alex, you found it, you tell him.”

As ordered, I proceeded to tell Andy about the threatening email.

“You found the email in the dead guy's computer you were fixing up? Seriously? That's right out of a movie.”

“No kidding,” I said.

“And it's clear that it's a kidnapping threat?”

“It's pretty unambiguous.”

“You need to file a kidnapping report.”

“But where? I have no idea where this guy Ronald Lister lives.”

He hesitated. “You're still living in Northridge, right? Just go to Devonshire Station and report it there. They'll figure it out.”

Steven dropped me off outside the front entrance to Devonshire Station.

“I'll wait for you in the car,” he said. “No need to complicate things by involving both of us.”

I nodded. “Wish me luck.”

“Good luck.”