The Juliet (29 page)

Unasked, Florian explained, “I always felt that The Juliet was like an older sister to me. Jealous and vengeful.”

He used a caping knife to remove Marg’s head. He’d read up on field dressing, and he practiced on a variety of unlucky specimens, sometimes under the observation and spiritual guidance of his cat, Antoinette. Florian brought out the Cavalry saber, hoping to pep up the presentation of his mother’s body, but nothing he tried worked to his satisfaction. He finally covered the mess with a tarp and settled for placing Marg’s head on the shelf. It was supposed to sit upright to greet the gardener the very next morning.

Then Florian waited in his room for the inevitable, but the inevitable was running late. The gardener came and went, as did the gardener’s wife who kept house for the Beales. Neither returned for any future scheduled visits. Florian only knew them by their first names, Denise and Ervin, and his mother had always paid them in cash. Perhaps they had reasons not to call the authorities. Florian puttered around the bungalow on his own for nearly two months before he decided to hit the road.

He wondered how far he’d go, seeing as he was uninterested in escape.

Before he left, he called a real estate agent to let him know he and his mother were traveling indefinitely and wanted to sell the bungalow and all its contents. Could the agency send someone out to assess the value? The key was under the mat.

“And please put out food for Antoinette.” Even though she’d never eat it.

Florian made it to Las Cruces before he surrendered to the authorities.

* *
*

It wasn’t until Florian was sent to live in the hospital that he grew fat and his concentration unraveled. He sometimes wished he’d taken The Juliet with him.

At least he had his devotions. He prayed in the sunny garden of the hospital for hours at a time, motivated by a genuine fear for whoever might possess The Juliet. She embodied prophecy and fate.

Florian was found not guilty by reason of insanity. During the first eighteen months of his hospitalization, he was still very verbal, and he especially enjoyed his chats with Dr. Boyle, with whom he met on a weekly basis, and that was very high level care for a State institution. Boyle had been an ardent fan of Marg Beale.

During these visits, Florian was permitted the opportunity to expand on his fantasies and explore them through words without risk. Some days he would chatter, proposing wild plots and interactions like a child making up a story on the spot. Boyle encouraged Florian to talk as much as he wanted, citing the relative silence of his upbringing as reason enough.

“You have a voice, Florian. A wonderful voice.”

Florian was thrilled for the opportunity. He loved living in the hospital.

And every once in a while, Dr. Boyle would ask a question about The Juliet. “Where do you think she is now?” he might ask, and Florian knew what was coming next. “And your mother? Did she have many lovers after Mr. Oliver died?”

Marg Beale and Mr. Oliver married after making two films together, both of them flops. Mr. Oliver then committed the ultimate flop when his vehicle plunged six hundred meters off the North Youngas Road in Bolivia. He’d been scouting rainforest locations, albeit reluctantly. He often complained that movies were tilting towards an authenticity that was wasteful and expensive. Marg was devastated by his sudden death, and Florian was indifferent until he learned that Youngas Road was sometimes called Road of Fate. That was also the name of the film that Mr. Oliver was hoping to produce.

How many lovers? A few, Florian supposed. He did not want Dr. Boyle to think he was confused by the term, “lover.” All he knew was that his mother was no longer as famous as she used to be, so they spent more time at the bungalow instead of in hotels. Marg even bought Florian a very pretty cat. Antoinette came with her name. Marg said that a pet would help Florian “understand mortality.”

Nearly two years into Florian Beale’s institutionalization, Dr. Boyle became dissatisfied with their talk sessions, so he gave Florian the task of writing a letter to the possessor of The Juliet.

He started well enough.

Dearest Thief,

Then he stopped writing and asked for medicine. Any medicine at all. He was fatigued and wanted care.

The next day he tried again. He added a single line:
I did not survive.

Boyle asked, “What do you mean by that?”

“I will finish,” said his favorite patient, but Florian slipped into a melancholic, quiet mood.

He left the letter for several days. One morning an orderly noticed that there was more on the page. The script was larger, sloppier, and at first Boyle thought it was a prank played by another patient, but Florian confirmed that he had written the words himself:

Here are my instructions. Here is what you must do.

There were no instructions. Days later more words and phrases appeared, but they made no sense, scrawled in the margins of the page.

After more than a week of this, Dr. Boyle came to Florian’s room and read the nonsense letter out loud. Florian sat on the edge of his bed looking like a man who couldn’t remember if it was time to sleep or time to rise. The orderly stood next to the doctor.

Boyle shook his head. “Florian, we’ll return to our former protocol. Won’t you like that? We’ll have our chats again.”

Florian did not respond.

“Shall we meet in my office? Florian?” Dr. Boyle was used to commanding attention, but in this case he had to crouch to look his patient in the eyes. “Or we can start here.”

The orderly’s expression was a mix of sympathy and skepticism that irritated Boyle. He dismissed him.

When they were alone, Boyle asked Florian, “Are you hungry?”

Florian said, “Yes.”

“Are you tired?”

Florian said, “Yes.”

Florian said yes to everything the doctor asked him.

* * *

Eventually, Dr. Boyle stopped treating him altogether. Florian retreated into silence and was transferred to a wing for catatonics. Sometimes he appeared to pray, but no one actually heard him. After a wordless year, he started to make some noises and then words again, but his phrases were gibberish. He’d also started to smile again, but in combination with the nonsense he was talking, his company was unsettling even by lunatic standards. He had no friends, and he’d killed his only family.

His new doctors took the praying seriously and encouraged him to measure his days with the rhythm and repetition of his religion. It was known that Florian had always prayed, even as a child, but there was no history of any formal spiritual education. Marg was never a churchgoer, and no one had any idea what odd orthodoxies the nannies may have left behind.

Florian became a very predictable patient. He could not hold a conversation, but he could wash himself and feed himself. And he could pray. When Florian was released, no one would call him cured. It was as if they’d merely tired of him.

* * *

November, 1956: Hollywood, CA

The day after Thanksgiving 1956, Laskowski and Taylor were ready to rob Bixby’s Jewels. The store was loaded with stock for the holiday season, and there were little crystal statues of Santa Claus draped with gold-plated chains in the front window. Glass beads, molded to look like diamonds and sapphires, hung from the branches of pink and yellow Christmas trees, and under their boughs, tiny filigreed treasure chests lay open, spilling bounty. It was a classy establishment.

Laskowski was not impressed with his blocky figure reflected in the display window, but he and Taylor both knew he was best suited to play the female role. He had the carriage for it and was better in heels. They’d made a decent investment in the blonde pageboy wig. An error they’d seen over and over on the beat: a mope in disguise could always be spotted because he cheaped out on the hairpiece. For similar reasons, Laskowski’s wife was consulted on the shoes: “The counter clerk’ll be watching you like a hawk if you go in there with crummy shoes,” she said. “Only newlyweds and kleptos go into Bixby’s in dime store flats.”

Taylor applied a mustache to his normally clean-shaven face, and that was enough for him.

All put together, Laskowski looked legit. Despite being a little warmly dressed for a sunny California day, he and Taylor made a plausible middle-aged couple. They entered Bixby’s Jewels at four in the afternoon and browsed a while. Bixby’s was a scrappy shop, trying for a high tone with its doorman and white-gloved clerks, but it was no Harry Winston’s. Bixby’s was to fine jewelry as the Brown Derby was to cuisine—a middle-class attempt at glamour, clean and sturdy, but a compromised dream at best.

Laskowski reached into his handbag just to touch his gun. Taylor had his hands clasped behind his back as they both leaned over a case of watches. There was an old man and a young couple being served by two counter men. Taylor waved amiably as one of the clerks assured him that attention was on its way. Earlier, Taylor admitted to Laskowski that he planned to imitate his grandfather for this heist. Laskowski practiced “being feminine” at home, but everyone who had seen his preparations agreed he shouldn’t do that.

It was their first daylight robbery, hence the disguise. Normally, they would break into an establishment after hours to take what they wanted cat-burglar style, right down to the black shirts, but Laskowski had heard about a gang in Europe that was enjoying great success with disguises and daytime raids. Bixby’s seemed like an excellent testing ground. The security was not sophisticated, and the staff-to-customer ratio was stretched thin during the holidays.

The doorman had a look about him that said ex-cop, even though he was dressed up like a monkey. No doubt he was armed, but that didn’t mean he was an idiot. Worst-case scenario would be that he’d recognize Taylor or Laskowski.

Laskowski and Taylor separated, moving to opposite positions in the store for maximum coverage when the doorman nodded to Laskowski, the way a gentleman does to a lady. Laskowski neglected to demur. Instead he locked eyes on the man with the white gloves, and he knew he’d been made.

The doorman blinked, unable to hide his surprise. Laskowski was fairly well known in the department, near-legendary since the Beale case. Taylor assessed the situation as well, and the three men formed a triangle of silent recognition.

Laskowski improvised. He mouthed the word, “UNDERCOVER,” to the doorman. The doorman understood this to be a lie, but he also knew that playing along would be the only way to save himself. Soon the tension in the room was obvious, with Taylor keenly aware that the clerks and the customers were too quiet. The silent alarm had been activated.

“Honey, we’ll be late,” Taylor said, stepping forward and looping his arm around Laskowski’s. The doorman stepped aside and ushered them out of the store.

* * *

Laskowski’s dazed look, with wig askew and baggy nylons, appeared on the front pages of every newspaper, including the international press. Instantly iconic, the photo showed him being led into the police station, bent forward with his arms cuffed behind his back, struggling on the heels that he’d so proudly mastered. Taylor got away with less attention, but under the glare of flash photography his mustache looked cartoonish and colonial.

When The Juliet was found in a safe deposit box belonging to Officer Taylor’s mother, a legendary flame was relit. In the ensuing trial, celebrities packed the gallery. It was easily the most infamous non-crime of the decade, with far-reaching effects. Laskowski’s front page photo showed an image of America that had never been so successfully rendered, and in Europe and Asia the press spared no puns in depicting the US as an effeminate, corrupt power. At home, however, all attention was focused on The Juliet. Shame on those who might suggest that a culture of corruption persisted within the LAPD; it was obvious that good men had been brought down by a cursed jewel.

Every day during his trial, Laskowski made an effort to reassert his masculinity, but reporters constantly referred to his slicked hair and three-button suits as “dapper” and “neat” in an effort to suggest that he might be a sexual deviant, despite the constant presence of the detective’s wife and two daughters. He remained out on bail for the duration of his trial, and when arguments closed and the jury was sequestered, he prepared for the worst.

A good cop takes himself out of play to minimize the damage to those around him. He drove out to the beach and parked there, undecided. Eat a bullet or walk into the sea? He liked the water option, mainly because it was popular in films of late, but under the circumstances a little too fey.

Laskowski split the difference. He walked out into the waves as far as he could, holding a borrowed revolver over his head; his own weapons had been confiscated. When he felt as if he could go no further without losing his foothold on the shifting sands below, he put the barrel end in his mouth and thought about the waves, how they would catch him and carry his body away.

* * *

August 1958: Hollywood,
California

Florian Beale shined under the courtroom lights. His hair was combed and his clothes were clean. Florian’s pupils all but disappeared into his gray-blue irises, and he trembled slightly as he unfolded the lined paper onto which he’d written his statement. The artist’s rendering that appeared in the newspapers exaggerated the size of the rosary beads and crucifix balanced atop Florian’s round belly.