The auction and the ball there has to be a ball, of course were set up by a couple of the women who do all that sort of thing here, with the man from the bank to consult. Everybodywants some of the Miriam Hope Clendon jewelry, because she used to knock their socks off at the charity balls, glittering like a chandelier. And the ball is going to be a week from this Thursday, with the auction the next night.
So right now, all that jewelry is still in the vault in the bank, and you aren’t going to get at it in there, and neither is Roderick, or whatever his name is. On the Wednesday before the ball, the jewelry is all going to be transported by armored car to the Breakers, because the Breakers has the biggest ballroom on the island, and that’s where it’s going to be displayed, under heavy guard, during the ball on Thursday, so people can see it all, under glass and behind electrified fencing.
Then on Friday, the display will be taken down and it will all be moved over to the Fritz estate, because now Mrs Helena Stockworth Fritz is the most important person in Palm Beach society, now that Miriam Hope Clendon is dead, and Mrs Fritz insisted the auction be held at her house. Hundredsof people are invited to the ball on Thursday, but to go to the auction on Friday you have to make a contribution to the library fund and you have to make a sealed bid on at least one piece in the collection. So no freeloaders.
I’m not sure exactly when the jewelry’s all going back to the bank, either late Friday night or early Saturday morning, but that’s what’s going to happen. The successful bidders won’t get to take the jewelry home with them from the auction; they’ll have to go to the bank the next Monday morning and show their bidding slip and collect their jewelry then.
So what’s going to happen is, this huge collection of very important and very valuable jewelry is going to leave the bank on Wednesday, under extremely heavy guard. It’s going to the Breakers to be set up along the sides of the ballroom. Then after the dance it’s going to be moved to Mrs Fritz’s house, still with the same armored car and guards, and it’ll be guarded all the time it’s there, and after the auction it’s going back, all together, to the bank. I don’t know what your friends have in mind, but if they’re going to try to break into the bank, they’ll be caught. If they try to steal it all from the Breakers or from Mrs Fritz’s house, they’ll never get out. If they try to attack the armored car on any one of its three trips, they’ll probably be shot. The people here know what Mrs Clendon’s jewels are worth they’re not going just to leave them lying around.
I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Lesley finished, because I’d like them to get their money, so you can get your money, so I can get my money. But it isn’t going to happen. Forget it.
8
The shadow of the building was a little longer, reaching out across the sand toward the sea. Out near the horizon two boats, widely separated, both slid south. Parker stood and paced, and she watched him. After a minute, he stopped and put his hand on the railing and looked out at the sea. He said, ‘This Mrs Fritz’s house. I’m thinking it’s on the ocean but it doesn’t have a beach.’
‘No, it doesn’t,’ she said, sounding a little surprised. ‘It’s a seawall along there. It’s not far from where that drifting cargo ship ran onto somebody’s terrace a few years ago.’
‘I know these guys,’ Parker said. ‘They’re gaudy. They’re going to like Mrs Fritz’s house because it isn’t a commercial space, it’s a private space, so control can never be one hundred percent. They’re going to like it because they can come in from the sea, go back out to the sea, and duck right back in again down at their own place, while everybody’s searching the Atlantic Ocean for them.’
‘It isn’t that easy,’ she insisted.
‘They don’t expect it to be easy,’ he told her. ‘They expect it to be tough, and that’s why they’ll be gaudy. I don’t know what they have in mind, but it’ll shake people up.’
‘If you mean scare them,’ Lesley said, ‘it would take a lot to scare people in Palm Beach. Not so long ago, you had a militia of these octogenarians on the beach, still in their white pants, with their big-game hunting rifles, marching back and forth on the sand, drilling, ready to repel Castro.’
‘Good thing for them Castro didn’t show up,’ Parker said. ‘But the point is, Lesley, I’m not going to steal the package, Melander and the others are. I don’t have to have a plan, just have to know what theirs is. But I know them, I know what business they’re in, I know they’re sure enough of themselves to sink all their cash into this thing, and I know how their minds work. They won’t mess with bank vaults, and they won’t try to get into the middle of a huge hotel on its own acres of grounds. An armored car on this island is hopeless where would you take it? So that leaves Mrs Fritz, in a private house on the ocean with a seawall. That’s where they’re going to do it, so the question is when.’
‘After everybody’s gone home,’ she suggested, ‘and before the jewels are loaded back into the armored car.’
‘No. I told you, these guys are gaudy, they won’t want to sneak in and out. A lot of rich people all dressed up in one confined place, wearing their ownbig-dollar jewels. That’s the time to come in, when you can make the maximum trouble, the maximum panic. What are guards gonna do if there’s a thousand important people running back and forth screaming?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said.
‘They won’t do a lot of shooting,’ he said. ‘No, I suppose not.’
He said, ‘Show me Mrs Fritz’s house.’
‘I can’t take you inthere,’ she said, surprised. ‘It isn’t on the market.’
‘Drive me by it.’
‘You won’t see much, but all right. We’ll take my car. We’d better find a place where you can put yours in some shade.’
‘Good.’
She stood and looked out at the ocean. ‘Are they really going to do that, do you think? Come in from the sea?’
‘That’s their style.’
‘Like James Bond,’ she said.
He shook his head. ‘More like Jaws,’ he told her.
9
