The Monet Murders (28 page)

“So, tell me, Hobey. What kind of name is Hobey?” asked Catherine. “I never knew anyone called Hobey before.”

“Well, formally it's Hobart, but everyone calls me Hobey. My middle name is Amory.”

“Fancy!”

“Yes, isn't it? I come from a long line of Bakers.”

“That's funny. So do I.”

“Charming,” he said, sincerely.

“Yeah, but is that your real name?”

“In a very real sense, yes, it is. It is the name of my secret self. My nom de guerre romantique, so to speak. You know what Yeats said.”

“Not offhand, but I bet
you
do.”

“I will tell you. He said ‘there is for every man some one scene, some one adventure, some one picture that is the image of his secret life.' For me, it is Hobey Baker.”

“I get it. Your stage name.”

“In a way, yes.”

“I've been trying to come up with a stage name for me, too,” she said. “I mean ‘Catherine Moore' is all right for everyday life like going to the supermarket or the Brown Derby, but it doesn't jump off a billboard or a theater marquee, you know? I need something a little snappier, something that'll look good in lights.”

“Yes, I see what you mean. Well, we shall have to solve this problem. As an author, I am an expert at creating character names, if I do say so. So you have come to the right shop.”

“Good. I could use some ideas. I don't have any—when it comes to names, that is.”

He stared at her for a few moments, like the proverbial boy with his nose pressed against the bakery window. She did nothing to discourage him and in fact crossed her legs slowly and meaningfully, making the silky swishing sound that was guaranteed to arouse impure thoughts in Boy Scouts, parsons, and the rest of the male race, with some exceptions, though not many.

Then Hobey suddenly emerged from his sinful meditations.

“I think I have it!”

“Is it catching?” she asked, giggling, for she too had indulged deeply in the Veuve Clicquot.

“No. I'm talking about the name. ‘Diana Hunt!' What do you think? I think it's very attractive. Very alluring. And allusive.”

“Not when you remember what rhymes with Hunt.”

“A baseball allusion?” he asked, playfully.

“Or something.”

They went on discussing the merits of various names, with Hobey suggesting and Catherine rejecting, for good and solid reasons, I thought. I stayed out of it while we finished the lobster and three bottles of champagne, and it was obvious to me that I was not going to get anything useful out of Hobey, especially after Catherine asked him whether he ever wrote books and not just movie scripts. I knew by now that the chance to talk about his writing was like the real Hobey Baker spotting a gaping hole in the middle of the Yale line. His eyes lit up, and it would obviously be full speed ahead until the champagne was gone.

So I drained my glass and excused myself.

“You leaving, Sparky?”

“I'm a little tired,” I said. I glanced at Hobey, and he gave me a lopsided, grateful smile. It was the smile of a fraternity brother, which made me wonder which fraternity we were in. Well, I saw the tie on the doorknob and knew not to interrupt.

“‘Goodnight, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest,'” he said as I started toward the Garden of Allah.

“That's pretty,” said Catherine, smiling sweetly and yet seductively at Hobey. “A little something of your own?”

The next morning, I was sitting around the pool drinking coffee. I was the only one there, because it was still only nine o'clock. I was about halfway through my second cup when Catherine came bounding down the steps from Hobey's second-floor bungalow.

“Hiya, Sparky,” she said, gaily.

She looked as fresh as the morning, and I told her so.

“Thanks,” she said. “Nothing like putting a smile on another human being's face to make you feel good all over, like you've done something worthwhile. You know?”

“I'll take your word for it.”

“You don't have to. Just ask Hobey. Did you ever see someone sleeping and grinning at the same time? Well, I'm off to electrocution. Call me if you get lonely or you need me to do a little more private detecting. I'm available.” She laughed and made her exit with a fine silver-sequined sashay, her high heels clicking on the flagstones. It wouldn't be long before she was a star; I was pretty sure of that. One way or the other, she was going to make it.

CHAPTER TWELVE

L
ater that morning, I went to the office and had Della place a phony long-distance call to Charles Watson. She called him at his office.

“Mr. Watson?” she asked, as I listened on the other line.

“Yes.”

“I'm calling from the Yankee Re-Insurance Company in Boston.” Della's scratchy smoker's voice made it sound like a scratchy long-distance call all right.

“I got all the coverage I need right now,” he said, gruffly. I didn't blame him; no one likes getting those calls.

“Oh, I'm not calling about additional insurance.”

“Well, what, then?” he growled.

Della went on, professionally unfazed. “As you may or may not know, we have been approached by your existing insurance company, Prudential, to underwrite a portion of the risk on your Monet painting.”

“Really? I had no idea.”

“Well, that's not at all surprising. These transactions are always between companies, and the risks generally get sold off on a regular basis without the client's knowledge. Perfectly normal and standard procedure. It's a matter of hedging, so to speak. The painting is insured for one hundred thousand dollars, and we are being asked to reinsure Prudential for exactly half that amount. Prudential will retain the balance. Your coverage is not in the least affected. In the event of a loss, Prudential would pay you the full amount and we would reimburse Prudential for our half. Do you see?”

“So what do you want with me?”

“Well, before we agree to any underwriting of art in a private residence, we need to have one of our inspectors evaluate the security system. Of course, Prudential did an inspection when they wrote the initial policy, but we have to do our own evaluation to satisfy our underwriters. Different companies have different security standards. You can understand that, I'm sure.”

“I guess so. You want to have someone come out and look at my burglar alarms?”

“Yes. If it would be convenient.”

“What happens if you don't approve my system? Am I still covered?”

“I'm sure everything will check out properly,” said Della, smoothly. “Prudential's security standards are extremely
high and will satisfy our own, I'm sure. It's more or less a formality. But necessary. Our representative, Miss Bennett, is in Los Angeles this week and would be available to stop by at your convenience. It won't take very long, I assure you. An hour or so. Would tomorrow suit you? Just after lunch, say?”

“I suppose so.”

“That's splendid.”

“But I assume you wouldn't mind if I call my insurance agent to make sure this is on the . . . that this is standard procedure.”

“Oh, of course. I don't blame you in the least. Our records show that Michael Chomsky is your agent at Prudential. I'm sure he'll be happy to verify everything. Shall we say one o'clock tomorrow?”

“Yes, all right, unless you hear from me to the contrary. What's your number there?”

Della gave him George Eliot's private number in Boston, and then bade him a cheery good-bye.

“Nicely done, loyal employee,” I said.

“Piece of cake, chief.”

The more I thought about it, the less I liked the idea of having Myrtle pose as Elizabeth Bennett. It would be far better in some ways to use Della. She would be able to improvise the role of a security expert, whereas I had my doubts about Myrtle no matter how thoroughly I briefed her. Not that Myrtle was any shrinking violet. To my knowledge, she had already sent two rapists to the infernal regions, and who knew what other skeletons were tucked in the corner of her closet. Plus there
was her unquestionable beauty, of a quality to distract any man, even one who now and then liked to romp in the nude for an effeminate painter. Watson after all had been married, so I had to assume he had some level of susceptibility to a beautiful woman, regardless of what other fantasies he enjoyed. So I was torn about which gal would be the better insurance agent.

Maybe the best idea would be to send them both. I asked Della what she thought and she agreed.

“Myrtle can distract him while I make the switch.”

“You sure you're. . . .”

“Up to it? No sweat, chief. How tough can it be? Besides, if it seems like there's a problem for some reason, we'll abort the mission and think of something else.”

We agreed to meet that evening to go over the plan, but until then I had a few errands to run. First I stopped at a frame shop and had the painting we called forgery number one tacked on to what the frame guy called a stretcher—basically a wooden frame that holds the canvas and fits inside the fancy frame. Fortunately, even when it was tacked to the stretcher, the painting was small enough to slide inside a regulation-size briefcase, so either Myrtle or Della would have no trouble smuggling it into the house.

Then I went to a local print shop and had some business cards made, a set for Della under the name “Elizabeth Bennett,” and one for Myrtle as “Magda Kowalski”—a nod to my cop friend and an exotic-enough-sounding name to account for her accent.

That evening, Perry and Della came out to the house in Malibu, where the four of us went over the plans for the next day. When I finished going over what I thought we should
do and how we should do it, the two women were on board, but Perry was skeptical.

“If you ask me,” said Perry, “you're going about this the Chinese way.”

“Meaning?”

“Well, when I was in the Navy, we stopped a few times in China and I got to see how they do things over there. One time they were trying to move a freight barge upstream in the Yangtze, which is their excuse for a river though you wouldn't want to swim in it or eat any fish that came out of it. Anyway, they had to move this barge, so they got about ten thousand barefoot coolies together and attached them to ropes and dragged the thing upstream an inch at a time. Looked like something Cecil B. DeMille would direct. Seemed to me it'd have been a lot easier to push the barge with a tug.”

“Maybe they didn't have a tugboat, but they did have ten thousand coolies.”

“Maybe. But it still struck me that they made things harder than they needed to be.”

“So you're saying we're going about this the hard way.”

“Well, maybe not the hard way, but certainly the complicated way.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“Wait till the guy goes out one evening, knock the Nip on the head, poison the dog, snip the burglar-alarm wires, make the switch, and bob's your uncle.” Perry had also spent time in England, which is where he picked up some British expressions and where, as a matter of fact, he had also picked up Della.

“Bit messy,” I said. “Besides, the whole idea is to make the switch without Watson suspecting anything at all, anything
out of the ordinary. Various canine and oriental bodies scattered around are mighty suspicious, to put it mildly.”

“That's easy. Steal a few things to make it look like a burglary. Something nice.”

“I could use some silverware,” said Della. “I mean the kind where the silver doesn't rub off.” She looked at Perry in a meaningful way, a look that said she had brought this up with him before—real silverware, I mean.

“It would be wrong to poison the dog,” said Myrtle. “I don't like that idea.”

“Well,” said Perry. “I didn't mean poison, exactly. Just a mickey. A hot dog loaded with sleeping pills. Just something to make him pass out for a while. No harm done. They say there's not even any hangover from those things. It was on the radio.”