Palm Beach Nasty (25 page)

He pulled onto El Vedato, keeping an eye out for police cars, and five minutes later was in front of the Palm Beach Princess. As he expected, the area was dead. No one on the sidewalks or in the Princess’s lobby. He could see from his car that Albert, the night manager, had assumed his usual position at the front desk: splayed out, his head resting on his folded arms, snoring. Nick had observed the sleeping position before and wondered how it could possibly be comfortable.

He popped the trunk button, got out of the car and lifted out the paintings. Then he walked into the lobby and took the elevator to the eleventh floor.

He went into the apartment and looked around for a place to hide the paintings in his cramped closet. He put them behind an old headboard that was standing vertical against the rear wall. Then he smelled something. Perfume. Very faint.

Those weird twin sisters, he figured, snooping around again on the pretext of coming to get his rent check.

He wasn’t ready to go back to El Vedato right away. He wanted to enjoy the change of scenery for a while, even though he had become acutely aware of the tawdry seediness of his condo. It was funny how, a couple of months ago, it seemed just fine. But now that he was under the roof of Spencer Robertson’s stately Mediterranean, as well as having had a peek at the exalted world of the Poinciana, it was time to leave the grubby condo behind. Just as he had done with his childhood split-level ranch in Mineola, Long Island.

He got a beer from the refrigerator and sat down on the couch. He looked around at the minimal furnishings and decided never to return to the depressing hovel except to retrieve the paintings. He leaned back on the couch and smiled . . . life was good, he thought. Even though so far all he had sold were two Seagrave Albarans and the Hopper option, netting him just over $400,000, he knew big paydays loomed ahead. The days of English suits, Italian sports cars and vintage French champagne were right around the corner.

He was sorely disappointed about one thing, though. The fact that he might never enjoy membership in his beloved Poinciana, for it seemed inevitable he’d have to leave Palm Beach behind. He did take some solace, however, in the fact that he’d leave it in style. Flying off in a shimmering G-4, he pictured it.

Nick finished his beer, walked out of the condo and got on the elevator. Albert was still flopped over on the front desk, but it seemed that he might have woken up at one point because Nick heard Lucy and Ricky Ricardo squabbling on the small TV inside the desk’s console, which wasn’t on before. He went outside and immediately spotted a man across the street in a white Ford Crown Victoria. Nick knew right away he was a cop. Sound asleep, his mouth was open like a vast cave, eyes shut tight. The man was obviously on a stakeout. Looking for him. Nick flashed to the paintings upstairs. The stolen goods. His golden future.

He crept back to the elevator, went upstairs, got the paintings out from behind the headboard. He decided he’d take them to his twenty-four-hour storage unit on Okeechobee instead. He’d get the big Bacon out of the front closet, too, and take it over. But not tonight.

Then he came down the elevator, and careful not to wake up Albert, set them down against a wall in the lobby.

He snuck outside to make sure the cop was still asleep. He could have jammed his whole foot in the cop’s gaping mouth. He went back into the building, picked up the paintings and slipped outside. He carefully placed them in the back seat of the car. He didn’t want to put them in the Corolla’s trunk for fear that closing it might wake the cop. He was ready to drive away from the Princess for the last time. He looked back at the building. It was such a dive.

He put the key in the ignition and started to turn it. Then he had an idea. It might be a little risky. Foolhardy, even. But then he thought . . .
What the hell, Why not?

FORTY

T
he envelope was taped to Ward Jaynes’s Sunday
New York Times
, which lay next to the
Financial Times
, under the columned portico of his front entrance. Next to it was a heap of other newspapers, which included
Barron’s
, the
Wall Street Journal
, the
Palm Beach Press
and the
Glossy
. Jaynes liked the ritual of going out and getting his papers himself and didn’t let anyone else do it. First, he’d gut the papers, tossing the advertising circulars and the sections he had no interest in—like book review and arts and leisure—into a pile. Then he’d scour the financial pages for companies in trouble. Rarely, however, did he find anything he hadn’t known about for weeks.

He went into his library, tore open the envelope and saw the four pictures inside a single piece of folded white bond paper. He took the pictures out and looked at them one by one.

The first one was of him and Misty walking into his kitchen. The second was of him handing a can of Diet Coke to Misty, his eyes unmistakably trained on her ample cleavage. The third was of him and the girl going toward a back stairway. The fourth was . . . the one that would ruin him.

Furious, Jaynes flipped it across the room. It ended up face up, leaning against the elaborate molding on the other side of the room. He could see the girl’s naked body under his, her face grimacing into the camera. The five-inch scar on his left shoulder was irrefutable evidence.

He calmed down almost immediately, realizing it was just another situation that needed to be dealt with. In terms of severity, it didn’t even register in his top ten of the year. He read the handwritten note.

“I’ll call at ten a.m. We’ll talk about how much the originals are going to cost.”

Whoever had written it had absolutely no idea who they were dealing with, Jaynes thought. A pathetic attempt by some lightweight to establish himself as a take-charge, we’re-gonna-play-by-my-rules guy. That would go up in smoke in five minutes.

It was just seven thirty which left Jaynes plenty of time to think things through and get set up to deal with the situation in his usual straight-ahead manner. Make sure the blackmailer sorely regretted he had ever heard the name Ward Jaynes.

He took his Blackberry out of his shirt pocket and thumbed seven numbers.

Then he changed his mind and hit the
off
button. He wanted to play out the scenario to its logical conclusion, every detail, every nuance, before he took action.

He thought about the girl’s lowlife brother, Darryl. How he had taken the money shot of Jaynes and his white-trash, teen-dream sister. Climbed up on the roof somehow and used his cell phone camera, Jaynes thought at first. But then he realized that wasn’t it at all. From the angle of the picture, all the kid had done was walk in the open door of the house, go up the back stairs and open the bedroom door a crack. Misty must have told him beforehand where the bedroom was. Left the door open, too.

Jaynes walked across the room and looked at the picture again, then he smiled. He reveled in stuff like this. People trying to hold him up, extort and blackmail him. Getting back at them was almost as much fun as shorting stocks.

He knew exactly what the deal was. The girl had probably hooked up with some bottom-feeding attorney, a guy whose ad she had seen on the back of a bus stop. Similar to what happened a year ago with the Brazilian girl at the Poinciana. Probably some lowlife with just enough of a brain to get himself in way over his head. Jaynes looked forward to the guy’s call.

Jaynes let his mind wander to what would happen if the press got their hands on the photo. Then he imagined a trial, on the charge of sex with a minor. He pictured the lurid testimony of the girl, her cleavage splashed all over the
New York Post
and every other tabloid. Not to mention all the other soft porn purveyors like
Nancy Grace
and
E
!

Jaynes didn’t relish being the subject of the sex scandal of the week. Because his story would be way bigger than the others. It would be a lot more than a flash in the pan like John Edwards, the straying ex-vice presidential candidate on whom Jaynes wasted a hefty campaign contribution. He’d be the next O.J., and have a long shelf life, since his story was not just about sex, but murder, too.

Then Jaynes thought about what the blackmailer would try to hit him up for. A lot more than Darryl Bill had. Millions. Probably at least ten. Maybe he should just pay it? Because, fact was, it was nothing to him. But then he played it out. Having spent some time with Misty, he knew all he needed to know about her. She’d start power driving through designer clothes, drugs, hi-def TVs, boats and cars, like a basketball player after his signing bonus. And her blackmailing partner? He’d probably do the same. Jaynes imagined getting the call . . . within a year, two max. “Hello, Ward, remember us . . . we’re tapped out, need more cash.”

He’d been there, done that, was not about to do it again.

So, bottom line, killing Misty and getting the pictures was the only way to go. He’d need to terminate whoever showed up to do the negotiating, too. Otherwise, they, too, would be coming back to the well whenever they needed grocery money.

He punched seven numbers on his Blackberry. He spoke to his guy, who said he’d call the subcontractor right after they hung up. Jaynes always made sure to put plenty of layers between him and a victim. The subcontractor got back to his guy and said he’d get the two “mechanics” on it right away.

Then Jaynes flashed to the detective, Crawford, and a particularly nasty smile crept across his face. He had come up with something wonderfully, creatively cruel to take the cocky swagger out of him.

He stood up, stretched, and walked out of his den into the living room. The big Kandinsky caught his eye. Lately he had begun to think that it was not quite in the same league with his other paintings. It did nothing to enhance his reputation as one of America’s foremost collectors. Plus, it would be totally outclassed on the wall across from the Hopper, after the old man checked out.

He called Lil Fonseca and told her he had a few more spaces that needed Robertson canvases. She assured him that would be no problem. She had always been so good about accommodating his every desire.

FORTY-ONE

C
rawford was on his way to Dunkin’ Donuts from his apartment at seven thirty in the morning.

He was wondering why Jaynes, the “most powerful” man in town according to Mal Chace, hadn’t come at him with more firepower than the few wrist slaps from Rutledge and Chace. And as far as Jaynes’s lawsuit went . . . it hadn’t really seemed to have gone anywhere. Crawford got the sense that it might go away altogether if he didn’t go near Jaynes for a few days. He guessed Jaynes probably had bigger fish to fry. Or maybe he was just all talk . . . though history certainly didn’t seem to indicate that.

His mind drifted to Dominica, just as the sun popped out from behind a cloud. The symbolism was not lost on him and he felt a flush. He was happy, a word he considered slightly unmanly. But screw it, it was how he felt.

He had thought a lot about her. How they could have something good together.

In the last twenty-four hours he had probably second-guessed himself at least ten times about getting her involved in his high-risk scheme to take down Jaynes. At one point he started walking down to CSEU to tell her again that he was permanently pulling the plug on the whole thing. Explain that he was killing the plan because it could . . . kill her. But he knew she’d push him hard to do it, because of how Jaynes represented some unrighted wrong in her past, and also, he could tell, the idea of an action role had a lot of appeal to her. Like maybe hair follicles and DNA just weren’t doing it for her anymore.

Meantime, Ott had spent a lot of time with Dominica coaching her in the role of blackmailer and extortionist. He told Crawford she was a natural, she had the perfect combination of toughness and gut instincts.

Crawford didn’t volunteer that she had a soft side, too.

He put two quarters in the blue metal box outside of Dunkin’ Donuts and pulled out the
Palm Beach Press
. He saw the headline, then the byline. It was written by the same
Press
reporter, Barrett Seabrook, who had interviewed him right after he came down to Florida. Crawford didn’t want to do the interview, but the Community Relations guy at Palm Beach PD told him it was typical when a new guy came onboard. Reluctantly, he agreed to it.

The reporter had written an embarrassingly sycophantic puff piece about him back then. The headline of the article, he remembered, had read: LAUDED NY DETECTIVE TO SERVE PALM BEACH.

Today’s was far different: PALM BEACH DETECTIVE A NEW YORK THUG?

Crawford knew he was in big trouble at the question mark. Whenever he had seen that dubious journalistic technique employed before it always meant that a reporter, battling a deadline, didn’t have all his facts checked, but had gotten the green light from his editor anyway.

Then he flashed to what Mal Chace had told him. About Ward Jaynes’s majority ownership in the
Palm Beach Press
. This sure wouldn’t be the first time a media owner twisted the truth—or invented it—for his own purposes.

He didn’t need to read past the first paragraph to know this was way more than just a twist of the truth.

The substance of the three-column story was that although Crawford had been a very effective, dogged detective who had cracked many high-profile cases in New York, a trail of violently obtained confessions or sleazy informers, even lower on the food chain than the perp, had always been in the mix. There were a lot of references to “unnamed police sources” and “retired law enforcement officers.” There was one very specific mention of a case where Crawford, “in a blind rage repeatedly administered kicks to the head of suspect Rafael Guittierez, who ended up face-down on the sidewalk.”

Rafael Guittierez had been a habitual wife-beater who had come at Crawford with a broken bottle of cheap tequila ten years ago. Crawford would have been justified to drop him on the spot. That would probably have been the smart thing to do. Instead Guittierez lunged at him and Crawford took him out at the knees with his left foot. That was all. But the guy screamed police brutality and there were always ten lawyers on hand, defenders of the oppressed and downtrodden, looking to knock down high-profile guys like Crawford.