No Such Creature (14 page)

“But he seems different from yesterday. Did something happen in Vegas?”

“We had some bad news. Family news. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I thought all your relatives were in England.”

“I really can’t talk about it.”

“Okay.”

She reached out and touched his cheek, which made him wince.

“You have a nasty bruise,” she said.

“Yeah. Preacher Bill has a wicked jab.”

Sabrina shifted on the couch and planted a kiss, feather-light, on his cheek. “You’ve been really good to me.”

He turned his face slightly, and this time she kissed him on the mouth. She gave it just a second, then sat back.

“It’s too bad you’re not a girl,” she said. “I’d probably rip your pants right off.”

“How about if I put on one of your dresses? Would that help?”

“I don’t own any dresses. And I don’t ever want to see you in one, either. Even though you are pretty cute.”

“Yeah?”

“Now he’s digging for compliments. That’s it, I’m going to crash.”

Owen lay on the couch staring at the blank television while she got ready for bed. He tried not to listen for the sound of her clothes coming off.

Max woke up in a better mood and was
pom-poming
and
tiddle-tiddle-tiddling
under his breath as he fussed around the Rocket’s galley. He sprinkled raisins into the oatmeal, whipping the porridge around the pot as if he were baking a cake. Owen always sat with his back to this, because it gave him a terrible urge to yank the pot from Max’s hand and bonk him over the head with it. Sabrina sat sleepy-eyed over her coffee, not a morning person, apparently.

“We have some time to play tourist today,” Max said. “I trust our navigator has made plans?”

“There’s a couple of options I’m considering.”

He was looking at Sabrina across the table. Even with her eyes all puffy and her hair messed up, she looked great.
Especially
with her eyes all puffy and her hair messed up. Owen began to understand an advantage of marriage: getting to know a person backstage, so to speak.

Max set bowls of oatmeal before them. “Where are we going, then, my prince?”

“I have the perfect spot for our criminal history theme.”

Owen drove them all to Tombstone, where they walked the wooden sidewalks among locals dressed up in period costumes. They saw a horse-drawn hearse once owned by Wyatt Earp, and in the window of the
Tombstone Epitaph
a real-estate ad informed them that “the mild year-round climate and low humidity make Tombstone an attractive place for retirement.”

“Hey, Max. Maybe you could retire here.”

“Please do not mention that word to me again. I have no wish to be buried in Boot Hill.”

They watched an animatronic re-enactment of the shootout at the O.K. Corral, jerky robots playing Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday.

“Appalling wigs,” Max said. “I don’t see why you go to the trouble and expense of building a robot and then ruin it by making the wig out of horsehair.”

Afterwards they sat in the shade at an outdoor café and had sandwiches and lemonade. Beyond the storefronts, the Dragoon and Whetstone mountains loomed. A quiet descended on the three of them, and Owen knew that Max was worrying about Pookie and what it might mean for the rest of the trip.

When they got back to Tucson, Sabrina insisted on moving to a hotel. “Don’t worry,” she said, seeing their reaction, “I’ve managed to save a little bit, thanks to Bill, so I’ll be okay.” She went over to Max and thanked him for everything.

Max rose to his feet with much huffing and exclamation to receive a hug. “Sweet Lady,” he said, “I hope we shall meet again. When I visit your sainted father in Texas, I hope to hear from him that you have fulfilled your filial duty.”

“I’ll think about it,” Sabrina said, but her smile was faint.

Owen drove her to the Delta. He wrote out his cellphone number and handed it to her as the doorman took her suitcase.

“Um, listen,” he said. “I don’t know how you feel, but I’d really like to see you again.”

“You mean in New York?” Sabrina looked up at the tower of the hotel as if consulting it. “Owen, I’ve pretty much decided to leave crime and criminals in the past.”

“I told you,” Owen said, “this is our last road trip. Max is going to retire, and I’m going to be at school full-time.”

“Let me think about it, okay?”

“You have my number. Just think ‘yes,’ okay? Yes is good.”

TWELVE

“W
HAT STATE OR NATION
is divided by the Great Dividing Range?” Roscoe held his beer up to the light, inspecting it like a chemist.

“Existence,” Max said. “It divides the living and the dead.”

Roscoe shook his head. They were sitting at a table in the Red Rose Tavern, the kind of bar that looks friendly at night but in the daytime looks tawdry and forlorn. It reeked of last night’s cigarettes, the fashion for clean lungs having yet to reach Tucson. The only other patrons seemed to be the two blobs sitting at the bar, one in a stetson, the other in a John Deere cap.

“The United States,” Owen said. “We’ll be crossing the Great Divide in a couple of days.”

Roscoe shook his head again. “Australia,” he told them, “is home to the Great Dividing Range.”

“Well, now that we’ve passed Geography,” Max said, “perhaps we can get down to work.”

“We’re not waiting for Pookie?”

“Pookie won’t be joining us on this outing,” Max said.

Roscoe looked from Max to Owen, and back to Max.

“You may not want to join us either,” Owen said.

Max gave him a sour look.

“You have to tell him,” Owen said.

“Pookie seems to have gone astray,” Max said. “We’ve not been able to raise him, and he’s made no effort to contact us.”

“That’s alarming,” Roscoe said. “That’s not like Pookie. You think he’s …”

“Crossed the Great Dividing Range? I’ve no idea.”

“You think maybe he got pinched?” Roscoe said.

“That’s another possibility,” Max said.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to come with us tonight,” Owen said. “It might be a little riskier than we thought.”

Roscoe stared out the window at the parking lot. “You pay me half if I bail now?”

“Expenses. Not half.”

“It’s not my fault Pookie’s … whatever.”

“How do we know it’s not your fault?”

“You’re not calling me a rat, I hope.”

“Roscoe, I have called you many things over the years—base Hungarian, cutpurse, and once I believe a rhesus macaque—never a rat. But perhaps inadvertently you mentioned our adventures to someone less discreet than yourself—possibly you were overheard.”

“I’m not an idiot, Max.”

“Well, I don’t know what happened to Pookie. But I do know I’m not paying you for a job you don’t do. As I say, expenses for getting here, and even your overnight, but the whole fee? Only if you play your part in the show. Look, help us pull this one off and we’re off to bigger and better things in Dallas. Maybe we could cut you in for a one-time percentage on that one.”

Roscoe raised an eyebrow. “What kind of percentage?”

“Five. Am I not the world’s most reasonable man? Mind, this is strictly a one-time offer. And you have to do this show as well.”

“I’m in.” Roscoe shrugged. “I need the dough.”

Bradford Blake had made so much money in hedge funds that even a self-confessed glutton like himself really couldn’t use any more. Once you’ve got the fourth house, the racehorses, the sports team, what can you do? Buy a fifth house? Consequently, he now put his money into political causes, that is to say, the campaign funds of extreme right-wing Republicans. Name it—gun lobby, missile shield—if it upset liberals, Bradford Blake was all for it. Lately he had developed a taste for owning newspapers.

He was aided in this by his pretty wife, Cassandra, a conservative columnist ten years his junior, who had recently become a favourite on the talking-head circuit. She was a piquant presence, not afraid to heap scorn upon the poor and praise upon the lucky. Most liberals were reluctant to appear on camera with her. Somehow those sparkling blue eyes, those erotically swollen lips, rendered greed sexy and concepts such as world peace synonymous with erectile dysfunction.

Owen had gleaned most of this from an unflattering biography. The author had revelled in the details of the couple’s extravagant parties, their sailing adventures, and most of all Cassandra Blake’s insatiable lust for jewels.

The party tonight was to be a relatively subdued affair of eight people, nothing like the San Francisco show. There would be no point trying to sneak in as caterers. This time, speed would be the crucial factor. The plan had originally been for Max, Pookie and Roscoe to work with the guests in the dining room once everyone was seated. Owen would be upstairs emptying everything of value from Cassandra Blake’s jewellery box into a pillowcase. With Pookie out, it was more risky but still doable.

Owen and Max waited for Roscoe in the parking lot of the shopping mall where they were supposed to meet, but Roscoe didn’t show. Five minutes after the appointed hour, Max said, “Our valiant friend must have had second thoughts.”

“The odds
are
different now that Pookie’s missing.”

“Pookie didn’t know what our next show was going to be, so despite his having vanished in a puff of smoke, the odds remain exactly what they were: favourable. How many people know when Bradford and Cassandra Blake got married? Or that they always celebrate their anniversary in Tucson, where they met and where they still keep a house? We do a lot of research, young man, which is why we always come out on top.”

“How do we know it wasn’t the Subtractors who grabbed Pookie, and now they have Roscoe too? And Roscoe
does
know the plan for tonight.”

“How could the so-called Subtractors—who don’t exist in the first place—have got on to Roscoe?”

“Maybe he and Pookie had already decided on a hotel. If they got Pookie, Pookie could have told them where they were planning to stay.”

“Rubbish,” Max said, and started the car. “Absolute twaddle.”

The Blake house was in the exclusive Foothills area, with the Santa Catalina Mountains rising up behind it. Unlike their Connecticut colonial, or their London townhouse, or their Fifth Avenue penthouse, the Blakes’ Tucson abode was a long, low bungalow, mostly glass, with a central living area and two wings branching off to the east, giving it an unexpected, asymmetrical look.

Max himself was looking a little asymmetrical, as this time he had opted for an utterly hairless pate that reflected the street lights as they drove. He finished it off with a straight nose that made him look rather like a window mannequin. Owen was wearing a dark wig, medium long, and an artful goatee, almost perfectly square. With the darkened eyebrows he looked roguish, an up-and-coming film director you might see on the cover of
Details
magazine.
Hollywood’s whiz kid talks about his life, his loves, and his meteoric rise from Juilliard to Hollywood’s A-list
…

Max stopped the car just before the Blakes’ driveway. He switched off the radio and the air conditioner and they were plunged into a deep hush. No houses were visible, not even the Blakes’. The evening light crept across the hills in a thousand shades of gold and red.

“Any questions before we make our entrance?” Max said.

“This is scary, Max. We need at least two guys in the room where they’re eating, and we don’t even have Roscoe. It’s too easy for someone to make a break for it—and then we’re in big trouble.”

“We have the cellphone jammer, do we not?”

“It’s not enough, Max.”

“Here’s what we do: you enter the far end of the house—couldn’t be easier with this Swedish modern monstrosity—you liberate the goodies and come back out.”

“Good. We skip the dining room altogether.”

“We do no such thing.”

“Max, we almost always get more from the bedrooms than from the guests.”

“But Cassandra Blake is a jewellery horse. Her friends will try to outdo her.”

“How do we cover kitchen staff and the dining room at the same time?”

“After you come out, we go in through the kitchen and bring them into the dining room with us.”

“Max, last week this was a four-man job. This morning it was a three-man job. We’re making a mistake here.”

“Cowards die many times before their death, my son.”

“It’s not cowardice, it’s common sense. You’re not thinking clearly.”

“Improv, boy. Improv. You’re an elderly little sod, in your way. I am supple-brained and creative, while you, my infant, are becoming more hidebound by the minute.”

“Max, I really don’t like this.”

“Fine. I’ll do it myself. You wait here. Back in a trice.” Max grabbed the door handle.

“You’ll get yourself killed.” Owen reached out and caught his arm. “And I can’t stand the thought of you dying in that bald head.”

Max cut the phone wire, a largely theoretical manoeuvre since the real threat would be from cellphones and the jammer would take care of those. He was careful not to cut the burglar alarm wire, which would have set the thing off. In any case, with the house full of guests, it was certain to be switched off.

Architectural Digest
had told them which room was which. They used glazier’s tools to remove a windowpane from the master bedroom, and Owen climbed in. Max stood guard in a clump of trees nearby, bald head gleaming in the moonlight.

Once inside, Owen went straight to the door and checked the corridor, which was so long it seemed to taper to a dot. There wasn’t a sound from the dinner party; it was too far away and the house was too well built.

Chokers, necklaces, earrings and bracelets were strewn in magnificent disarray across a mahogany dresser. Owen checked his disguise in the mirror, dark wig and goatee nicely in place, which was good, given the tiny security camera above the door.

With a sweep of his arm he cleared the top of the dresser of three necklaces and several bracelets, all glittering with diamonds. Then he upended a jewellery box into his sack. In a top drawer, a row of TAGs and Breitlings and Rolexes sparkled on a roll of blue velvet. Into the sack with the rest.

He was out the window in less than five minutes. The sack went into the trunk of the car, then it was round to the back door and into the kitchen. It was important not to hesitate here. The Asian couple in the kitchen silently raised their hands at the sight of Max’s revolver.

“Don’t be alarmed.” Max put a finger to his lips. “We have reason to believe there are burglars in this house. Into the dining room, please.”

The couple went in through the swinging door, closely followed by Max and Owen. The guests had not yet sat down to dinner, so they had to continue through the dining room into the living room. Upon stepping onto this new stage, Max became instantly Australian.

“Good evening everybody, my name is Bruce Whittaker of the Australian National Wealth Reallocation Service. Now, pay attention.” He pronounced it
attintion
. “The gun is loaded, and for your own safety I must ask you to deposit all valuables in my assistant’s bag: rings, watches, jewellery of all sorts. Heroics of any kind will have repercussions of the most catastrophic order.”
Ketastrophic
.

“Who the hell do you think you are,” Bradford Blake said, rising from a leather chair. “You get the hell out of here.”

“Sit, mate, sit.” Max brandished his pistol, a new one Owen had never seen. “We don’t want this little thing to go off. Now behave yourself and there’ll be no worries.”

“What do you want?” It was Cassandra Blake who spoke. She was seated on an elegant suede couch between two guests.

“The good life, my dear—comfortable shoes, a fine single malt and a hot tub—same as everyone.” Then, to the group: “Cellphones into the sack, if you please.”

They were robbing one of the most beautiful rooms Owen had ever been in. There was a fire roaring in a shoulder-high fireplace and a huge painting of a picnic scene that looked like something you’d see in a museum. He went from each person to the next, sack extended like a trick-or-treater’s, acutely aware of how undignified a pursuit robbery is.

Aside from the two cooks and a maid in uniform, Owen counted seven people around the room. He was pretty sure he had seen eight place settings on the dining table.

“Aren’t you a little old to be doing this?” Cassandra Blake said to Max.

“
Siventy
,” he pointed out, “is the new fifty. Though I gotta say, doll-o, that necklace looks so fetching on you I’ve half a mind to leave without it.”

“If you had any conscience, you would. My husband gave me this.”

“Into the bag, if you please. Enjoyed your piece on gayism, Mrs. Blake. Canny coinage, ‘gayism.’ I imagine Mrs. Wood found it amusing too.”

He nodded toward Victoria Wood, a fortyish blonde seated on the couch beside her film producer husband. More than one gossip column had hinted that Cassandra Blake and she had enjoyed a torrid lesbian affair the previous summer while their husbands were embarked on a hairy-chested sailing venture in the Pacific, far beyond the reach of tabloids.

“I don’t understand,” Bradford Blake said. “Why would Victoria find it amusing?”

“That looks an exy timepiece, sir,” Max said. “Into the bag, if you please.”

The maid stepped forward with a thin silver and jade bracelet.

“Not necessary, my dear,” Max said.

“Why not?” she said. “I am with them.”

“But not
of
them. Now, if you’ll just be seated …”