“You’re goddamn crazy, Ned Kelly!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.
I hit the accelerator and felt the night sea breeze whip my hair. I was alongside the ocean and the moon was lighting it up and I felt an incredible thrill buzzing through my veins. I thought about Tess. How it could be with her. How I’d been marking time down there for a long time, and now I’d made the perfect score.
Chapter 10
SOMETHING DIDN’T FEEL RIGHT. Mickey sensed it as soon as they stepped through the front gates.
He had an inner feeling about these things.
The house was there in front of them. Spectacular, vast. Lit up like this great Italian palace. Pointed Venetian arches and windows with stone balconies. An arched loggia, ringed with bougainvillea, leading around to the sea. The driveway was probably a hundred yards long, every bush and tree perfectly lit. He heard the crunch of pebbles under their heels. They were in stolen police uniforms. Even if someone was around, no one would suspect a thing. Everything was just the way he was told it’d be.
And still he had this bad feeling in his gut.
He looked at Bobby and Barney. He could see they were nervous, too. He knew them well enough to know what they were thinking.
Never been so close to anything this grand.
Casa Del Oceano. Ocean House.
Mickey knew everything about the place. He had studied it. Knew it was built by someone named Addison Mizner in 1923. He knew the interior layout, the alarms. How to get in, where the paintings were.
So why did he feel nervous?
“So what the hell is
“Birdbath,” Mickey answered, and grinned.
“Birdbath?” Barney shrugged and adjusted the brim of his police cap. “More like a fucking pterodactyl!”
Mickey’s watch read 8:15. Dee had called in; Ned, as expected, had done his job. Cop cars were probably bouncing all over town right now. He knew there were cameras hidden in the trees, so they kept their faces hidden under their caps. In front of the oak doors, he took a last glance at Bobby and Barney. They were ready. They had waited a long time for this.
Mickey rang the bell, and a minute later a Latino housekeeper answered. Mickey knew there was no one else in the house. He explained how there were disturbances all over town, and an alarm had gone off there, and they were sent to check it out. Maybe she noticed Barney’s bag. Maybe she wondered where their car was. But a second later, Bobby whacked her with his Maglite and dragged her into a closet. She never got a decent look. He came back wearing a smirk as wide as the Charles River. A million-dollar smile.
They were in!
Chapter 11
THE FIRST THING WAS to disable the interior alarm. The paintings and sculptures were wired to contact points that would go off if they were lifted. Motion detectors, too. Mickey unfolded a piece of paper he had stuffed in his uniform pocket.
He punched in the numbers on a digital plate: 10-02-85.
This better work. Everything depended on the… next… couple…of… seconds.
A green light ?ashed on.
In front of them, a carved mahogany archway led into the large vaulted living room. Spectacular stuff was just about everywhere. Art all over the walls. There was a large stone ?replace and some scene from Venice over the mantel. A Canaletto, but he’d been told to leave it. Blue and white Chinese urns, bronze Brancusis. A chandelier that looked as if it came from a czar. Six French doors led out to a patio overlooking the sea.
“I don’t know if this is what that guy meant when he said the rich were different from us,” Barney said, gawking, “but, uh… holy shit.”
“Forget it.” Mickey grinned excitedly. “This is cab fare compared with what we’ve come for!”
He knew where to go. The Cezanne was in the dining room. That was to the right. Barney took out a hammer and a ?le from his black case to pry the canvases out of their heavy antique frames.
The dining room had ?ocked red wallpaper and a long polished table with giant candelabra. It looked as though it could seat half the free world.
Mickey’s heart was pounding.
But instead of the $5 million thrill he was expecting to feel, his insides turned to ice. Cold, right at the center of his chest.
The wall was empty. There was no still life. No Cezanne.
Mickey felt a sharp stab through his heart. For a second, the three of them stood there, staring at the empty space. Then he took off, running to the other side of the house.
The library.
The Picasso was over the ?replace on the wall. Mickey’s blood was rushing and hot. Everything had been mapped out. He ran into the book-lined room.
Another chill. No, this was more like a freezer blast.
Mickey ran like a madman back to the front of the house. He bounded up the large staircase to the second ?oor. This was their last chance. The bedroom. There was supposed to be a Jackson Pollock on the bedroom wall. They weren’t going to lose this. He’d worked too hard. This was their ticket out. He had no idea what the hell was going on.
Mickey got there ?rst, Bobby and Barney right behind him. They stopped and stared at the wall, the same nauseated look on all their faces.
“Sonuvabitch!” Mickey shouted. He smashed his ?st through a framed print on the wall, leaving his knuckles bloody.
The Pollock was gone. Just like the Picasso and the Cezanne. He wanted to kill whoever did this – whoever had stolen his dreams.
Someone had set them up!
Chapter 12
SEEMS SILLY NOW…an orange martini…a sailboat drifting on a blue Caribbean sea…
That’s what I was thinking when I ?rst got word something had gone wrong.
I was parked on South County Road, across from the Palm Beach ?rehouse, tracking the cop cars racing by me, lights and sirens blaring. I had done my job really, really well.
I was letting myself think about Tess lying next to me on the deck. In a tight little suit, all gorgeous and
