Palm Beach Nasty (28 page)

He just stared at her and kept his hand on the door.

She pushed the button again.

He let go of the door.

“I look forward to spending your money, Mr. Jaynes.”

FORTY-FIVE

N
ick high-fived Lil just inside the front door at El Vedato.

“You were brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.”

Ward Jaynes had come to the Robertson house right after meeting with Dominica.

He was just about to stroke a check for $2.7 million—for a painting which Lil referred to as an “important” Bacon, and an option on two Freuds—when Lil asked him if he would wire transfer the funds instead. Nick was certain he detected a barely suppressed smirk on Jaynes’s face as he left, like he felt he’d gotten one over on Lil.

Somehow, Nick doubted it.

So far—including the $800,000 for the Hopper—Jaynes had committed to a total of $3.5 million. That was after having Lil and Nick sign a twelve-page contract he had his lawyers draw up, ensuring that he got the paintings just as soon as Spencer Robertson went cold. Nick had volunteered—not too eagerly, he hoped—a copy of a bogus will he’d paid a lowlife lawyer 500 bucks for. The guy was a Viggo’s regular who owed him a favor. Jaynes looked over the will carefully, then looked up and said menacingly to Lil, “Hey, if there’s any problem, I know where to find you.”

Before finalizing the sale, though, Jaynes demanded to see Spencer Robertson.

Nick wouldn’t have been surprised if he had shown up with a team of doctors. Jaynes told them the last time he saw Robertson was at the Poinciana five years before. Said the old guy was starting to babble even back then. Giving people weird nicknames, too.

Robertson was asleep when they went in to the dark room. Jaynes clicked on the bedside lights on either side of the bed, but Robertson didn’t wake up. Jaynes pressed in close to the old man, studied his crazy quilt of liver spots and pried open one of his egg yolk eyes with thumb and forefinger.

“Six . . . eight months max,” Jaynes declared.

Then he turned away and, not bothering to turn out the lights, walked out of the room.

Nick slid a pillow under the old man’s head and turned off the bedside lights.

After Jaynes left, Lil asked Nick whether he had any champagne. It was time to celebrate, she said.

Nick said he’d check. He didn’t think there was any left, remembering how Dickie had powered through copious amounts of it, until he wised up and started hiding it.

Nick went to the wine cooler in the kitchen. There was one bottle left, but it was chardonnay, not champagne.

Lil seemed disappointed, but forced it down anyway. The whole bottle, in fact.

L
IL WAS
going around the library, wine glass in her left hand, pad in her right, a pen between her teeth. Going from painting to painting, she was taking inventory of those she hadn’t yet optioned. She’d get to one, stop, put down the glass, write the name of the artist, the year it was painted and—if there was one—the name of the painting.

Nick watched her closely. He got the sense that what she was really seeing were giant dollar signs.

He watched her go into Spencer’s bedroom like Jaynes had done before, and seemingly oblivious to the smell of rot, flatulence and VapoRub, inventory the four paintings on the walls there. Nick waited for her in the living room. He went and turned on the TV and caught the tail end of
The Real Housewives of New York City
.

The bitchy one, Ramona, was going off on the ditzy one, Robin, when Alcie walked in. He had been in his room, apparently fully confident of his partners’ abilities to conduct their flourishing new business.

“Where’s Lil?” Alcie asked.

“Looking at paintings.”

“Think she’d get sick of all that shit.”

The phone rang. A rare sound at 101 El Vedato. Nick looked at Alcie.

“Hey, I’m retired, don’t do phones no mo’.”

Nick noticed how Alcie had gone from speaking the King’s English before to talking street now . . . with a little Ebonics thrown in.

“Hello,” Nick answered the phone.

“This is Avery,” said the voice, “who’s this?”

Ho-ly shit
. Nick felt like someone had bitch-slapped him across the room.

“Ah, this is Nick,” he sputtered.

Alcie inched closer, knowing something was wrong.

“Hi, Nick,” the voice said, “I’m Spencer’s grandson, you work there?”

Nick felt a surge of panic; the whole gig was about to crash and burn.

“Yes, I do,” he said, wobbly.

“Do me a favor, I know my grandfather’s not doing so hot, just tell him I’m coming down to see him.”

“Yes, sir, I’ll tell him.”

“Make sure you do.”

The guy sounded just like his cousin, Dickie.

“When, will you, ah, be arriving, Mr. Avery?”

Alcie flinched when he heard Nick say the name.

“I’ll be there in ten days.”

Thank, God
. At least they had a little time.

“Very good, sir. I’ll tell your grandfather. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled. I look forward to the pleasure of meeting you.”

Avery had already hung up.

Nick’s legs felt shaky.

“Avery Robertson,” Nick said, “gonna be here in ten days.”

“The real deal,” Alcie said, a frown appearing on his shiny face. “Shit.”

Quaking, Nick went and sat down.

“We’re gonna be okay,” Nick said, struggling to focus. “Just need our partner to pick up the pace.”

Lil walked into the living room. She looked a little unsteady from the chardonnay.

“What’s wrong?” she said, seeing their faces.

“Oh, nothing. How long do you figure it’ll take you to option off everything in the house?”

“All of it?” Lil asked, then a pause. “Bet I could get it done in two weeks.”

Nick didn’t hesitate.

“You got a week.”

FORTY-SIX

J
aynes went back to his office, sat down at his desk, put his hands together as if in prayer, and thought about his next move. Number one—the obvious—was to stall Jennifer Montell on the money. Number two, he decided, was to call the “lawyer” and get him to dial up the subcontractor right away, add a bonus to get the job done fast.

Then he relaxed a little. In a little more than twenty-four hours it would all be history. He could go back to busting the kneecaps of Fortune 500 corporations and buying art on the cheap.

T
HE SUBCONTRACTOR
called Fulbright right after he heard from Jaynes’s “lawyer,” a man who he called Mr. Williams, even though he had dug around and found out his real name and identity. The subcontractor told Fulbright that the man who ordered the hit now wanted a double. The girl, Misty, and her older sister, Jennifer. Said the client was a very impatient man and wanted it done yesterday. He had upped the fee to $500K—
if
they got it done in the next twenty-four hours. But he had thrown in a penalty clause, only two fifty if it took longer than that. Fulbright grumbled, but what could he do? He was already on the case. Psychologically committed. That was how he got. Besides . . . $500K. That was serious money, just for offing a couple of low-rent bitches. Just as important, it would catapult Donnie and him to the top of hitter hierarchy. No other guys got that kind of cash.

Fulbright was totally confident that they could do the job on time. He did well when he was under the gun. He didn’t worry about rushing it, or getting sloppy because of the deadline. And Donnie? Goddamn rock solid, fucking champ under pressure.

T
HE SWEAT
poured down Dominica’s face as she got into her car in the parking garage of Jaynes’s building. Her heart was pumping like she’d just done a hundred yard dash. She wondered if she could have gone five more minutes playing tough broad with Jaynes.

To make sure no one was tailing her, she went home taking a long, circuitous route. Then she took a quick shower and did a double application of deodorant before going to meet up with Crawford and Ott. She drove into the parking lot of a church and called Crawford.

Crawford had given her another cell phone, a red one, to call them on. Just to be sure, he had put a piece of white tape on it, which said “Craw/Ott.”

He answered.

“Hi,” she said.

“Call you right back.”

A few seconds later the red phone rang.

“Hi.”

“You called me on the red one, right?” Crawford asked.

“Yes. What’s going on, Charlie?”

“I’m with Ott. Gonna put you on speaker.”

“Okay.”

She heard the click and Crawford’s voice like he was in a cave.

“Jaynes’s guys are on the street,” he said, “got your car bugged. Cell phone, too.”

Dominica tensed.

“How do you know?”

“ ’Cause I followed you into the garage,” Ott said. “Set up a telephoto, got some nice pics of two guys breaking into your car when you met with Jaynes.”

“You’re kidding?”

“No,” Crawford said, “turns out I’ve seen these guys before . . . looking at houses.”

Crawford had called Rose Clarke twice to find out the identity of the two men but hadn’t heard back from her yet.

“Must be a good economy for hitters,” Ott said.

“So how’d it go with Jaynes?” Crawford asked Dominica.

“Guy’s one scary creep. Something I don’t get . . . why would he bother to negotiate with me, if he planned to kill me?”

“Yeah,” Ott looked at Crawford, “why not just say yes to the twenty mill, then dial up his guys?”

“Except I jacked it up to $25 million,” Dominica said.

“Atta girl,” Ott said. “Don’t go selling yourself cheap.”

“To answer your question, why’s he bother to negotiate,” Crawford said, “ ’cause that’s what he does. Got a reputation for negotiating the price of a candy bar. If he didn’t, you might think something was up. This way he makes you think he’s gonna pay, puts you at ease.”

“Makes sense,” Dominica said.

“Where you now?” Crawford asked.

“Parking lot of a church . . . off Flagler.”

“Here’s what you do,” Crawford said. “Check and make sure they’re not on you. Then drive to the parking lot of your building, go into the lobby and wait. We’ll pick you up in five.”

“What about the phones?”

“Bring ’em both. I’m taking you off speaker now—” he clicked the button—“oh, I almost forgot, where do you live?”

“Come on, Charlie, you know,” she said and laughed.

“505 North Flagler, thanks, see you in a few.”

Five minutes later Crawford and Ott pulled up to Dominica’s building. Crawford got out of the car and swept the area with his eyes, then went inside and got Dominica.

“You okay?”

“Fine . . . like you didn’t know where I lived.”

“Ott didn’t need to know that.”

He asked her for her cell, opened it, saw the microchip bug, then snapped it shut.

They walked out to the car and got in. Dominica smiled at Ott. He smiled back.

“So where are we going, boys?”

“Econo Lodge on Palm Beach Lakes. We’re gonna leave your car here ’til this thing’s over. Your cell phone’s all they care about.”

Dominica cocked her head.

“So . . . okay, tell me again why it’s good they got it bugged?”

Crawford thought for a second as Ott turned left on Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard.