Finley’s home was a museum to his ambitions, small and large. Originally built by a director of action films whose love of elaborate construction had soon outreached both his means and his skills, it was tucked high in the hills over Los Angeles.
Finley had purchased it during a flat period in the market, and had immediately set about installing a more elaborate security system, an indoor lap pool for those rare rainy days and a high stone wall that surrounded the property like a moat around a castle.
Finley was a voyeur, but he objected to being watched.
In the third-floor tower, he revamped the director’s lofty screening room, adding a bank of television monitors and a high-powered telescope. Gone were the wide, reclining chairs. In their place, Finley had chosen a large, plush conversation pit in maroon velvet. He often entertained there, while home movies, starring himself, flickered on the screen.
Naturally he had hired decorators. He had gone through three companies during the six months it had taken him to furnish the house to his satisfaction.
The walls in every room were white. Some were painted, some lacquered, some papered, but all were in pure, virginal white, as were the carpet, the tiles, the bleached wood flooring. All the color came from his treasures—the figurines, the sculptures, the trinkets he had accumulated.
In room after room there were acres of glass—in windows, in mirrors, in cabinets, in breakfronts—and miles of silks in the drapes and upholstery, pillows, tapestries.
Every table, every shelf, every niche, held some masterpiece he had hungered for. When one began to bore him, as they always did, Finley shifted it to a less prominent position and set about acquiring more.
He was never satisfied.
In his closet, rows of suits were three deep. Wool and silk, linen and gabardine. All conservatively tailored, all in deep colors: navy, black, grays and a few more frivolous medium blues. There were no casual clothes, no sport jackets, no natty shirts with little polo players on the breast.
Fifty pairs of black leather shoes, all highly glossed, waited on glass shelves to be chosen.
There was a single pair of white Nikes to go along with his exercise clothes. It was one of his butler’s responsibilities to dispose of these every two weeks and replace them with another spotless white pair.
His ties were arranged meticulously according to shade, the blacks giving way to the grays, the grays to the blues.
His formal attire was kept in a stunning rococo armoire.
In his bureau were neatly folded stacks of crisp white shirts, monogrammed at the cuffs, black argyle socks, white silk boxer shorts and Irish-linen handkerchiefs. All were lightly scented with the lavender sachet his housekeeper replaced weekly.
The master suite included the dressing room, two walls mirrored from floor to ceiling. There was a small wet bar in case the gentleman grew thirsty while preparing for an evening out. There was a balloon-back chair and a gilded console table with a Tiffany butterfly lamp, in the event he needed to sit and contemplate his choice of attire.
To the right of the dressing room was the master bedroom. Paintings by Pissarro, Morisot and Manet graced the white silk walls, each with its own complementary lighting. The furnishings here were lushly ornate, from the Louis XVI boulle bureau to the cabriole nightstands to the gilded settee flanked by Venetian blackamoor torchères. Overhead a trio of Waterford chandeliers sprinkled light.
But the bed was his pride, his joy. It was a massive affair, designed in the sixteenth century by Vredeman de Vries. It had four posters complete with tester, headboard and footboard, constructed of oak and deeply carved and painted with cherubs’ heads, flowers and fruit.
His vanity had tempted him to install a mirror in the tester, but the devaluation that would have caused brought him to his senses.
Instead he had a camera, discreetly hidden by the carved lintel near the ceiling, that aimed directly at the bed, operated by a remote control gun kept in the top drawer of his nightstand. He paused and flicked on the monitor.
They were preparing lunch in the kitchen, the pheasant salad he’d requested. He watched the cook and the kitchen maid work in the sunny white-and-stainless-steel room.
Finley switched the monitor to the drawing room. He watched DiCarlo sip at the club soda and lime, rattle the ice, tug at his tie.
That was good. The man was worried. Overconfidence displeased Finley. Efficiency was vital. Overconfidence bred mistakes. He supposed he should let the poor boy off the hook soon. After all, he had brought the merchandise two days ahead of deadline.
Initiative was worth something. Perhaps he wouldn’t have the boy’s arm broken after all.
DiCarlo tugged at his tie again. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched. The sensation had him checking his hair, the line of his suit, his fly.
He took another swallow and laughed at himself. Anybody would feel as though they were being watched, he decided, if they were stuck in a room with a hundred statues and paintings. All those eyes. Painted eyes, glass eyes, marble eyes. He didn’t know how Finley stood it.
He must have an army of servants to dust all this junk, DiCarlo thought. Setting his glass aside, he rose to wander the room. He knew better than to touch. Well aware of how fanatic Finley was about his acquisitions, DiCarlo kept his arms at his sides and his hands to himself.
It was a good sign, he concluded, that Finley had invited him to the house rather than demanding an office meeting. It made it friendlier, more personal. Over the phone, Finley’s voice had sounded pleasant and pleased.
With enough charm, DiCarlo figured he could smooth over the missing painting, convince Finley that it was simply a matter of a little more time. All in all, DiCarlo was certain that they would part amicably and he could return to the Beverly Hills Hotel to find some willing woman to toast in the new year with him.
And tomorrow, he thought, smiling, Mexico.
“Mr. DiCarlo, I trust I haven’t kept you waiting overlong.”
“No, sir. I’ve been admiring your home.”
“Ah.” Finley crossed to a japanned liquor cabinet. “I’ll have to give you the grand tour after lunch. Would you like some claret?” He held up a Victorian jug in the shape of a cockatoo. “I have an excellent Château Latour.”
“Thank you.” DiCarlo’s confidence began to soar.
“Dear me.” Finley lifted a brow and let his eyes scan DiCarlo’s bruised face. “Did you have an accident of some sort?”
“Yes.” DiCarlo touched the bandage at the back of his neck. The memory of Dora’s teeth sinking in had him steaming all over again. “Nothing serious.”
“I’m glad to hear it. It would be a pity if there was any scarring.” He finished pouring the claret. “I hope your plans for the holiday haven’t been upset by this trip. I didn’t expect you for another day or two.”
“I wanted to bring you the results as soon as possible.”
“I like a man with a sense of responsibility. Cheers.” Well satisfied, he tapped his glass against DiCarlo’s. He smiled as the door chimes echoed down the hallway. “Ah, that will be Mr. Winesap. He’ll be joining us to inspect the merchandise. Mr. Winesap is quite excellent with his lists, as you know. Now, I hope you’ll both forgive me, but I can’t stem my impatience any longer,” he said as Winesap entered. “I must see my treasures. I believe they were taken into the library.” He gestured toward the door. “Gentlemen?”
The hallway was tiled in white marble, and wide enough to accommodate a huge box settle and hall rack while leaving room for three to pass abreast.
The library smelled of leather and lemon and roses. The roses were arranged in two tall Dresden vases set atop the mantel. There were hundreds of books, perhaps thousands, in the split-level room, not on wall shelves but in cases and cabinets, some open, some glass-fronted. There was a charming four-tier revolving bookcase from the Regency period, as well as an Edwardian model Finley had arranged to have stolen from a castle in Devon.
He’d wanted the room to have the feel of a country squire’s library, and had succeeded very well, adding deep leather chairs, a collection of antique pipes and a hunting portrait by Gainsborough.
In keeping with the cozy theme, the ubiquitous monitors were hidden behind a trompe l’oeil panel of a bookcase.
“And here we are.” With a spring in his step, Finley walked to the library table and picked up a mermaid bookend.
As instructed, the butler had left a small hammer, a knife and a large wastebasket. Finley picked up the hammer and neatly decapitated a blue-eyed mermaid.
“Mustn’t move too swiftly on these,” he said softly, and continued to chip away, delicately, at the cheap plaster.
“This was made in Taiwan,” he told his guests. “At a busy little plant I have an interest in. We ship merchandise primarily to North and South America, and make a tidy, if uninteresting, profit. These, however, are what we might call one of a kind. Some are excellent reproductions of valuable pieces, excellent enough to fool even an expert.”
He took out a small square of bubbled plastic, tossing the rest of the bookend aside, then using the knife to slit the packing material open. Inside the plastic was a chamois cloth, and in that a small, very old netsuke.
He examined it, minutely, delighted. A woman crouched on hands and knees with a round-bellied man behind her, his hand clasped possessively over her breast. Her ivory head was turned slightly toward her left shoulder and up so that it appeared she was trying to see his face as he prepared to enter her from the rear.
“Excellent, excellent.” After setting it aside, he carefully destroyed the second bookend.
The next piece continued the theme, with a woman kneeling at a man’s feet, her head tilting back and a smile on her face as she clutched his erect penis.
“Such craftsmanship.” Finley’s voice shook with emotion. “Over two hundred years old, and no amount of technology can improve on it. The Japanese understood and appreciated eroticism in art while Europeans were covering their piano legs and pretending children hatched under cabbage leaves.”
He took the knife and disemboweled the parrot.
“And here,” he said, opening a velvet pouch. “Ah, and here.” The lightest of tremors passed deliciously through him when he let the sapphire brooch drop into his waiting palm.
It was set in an intricate gold filigree encrusted with diamonds, a stone of more than eight carats, in a deep cornflower blue, square cut and majestic.
“Worn by Mary, Queen of Scots.” Finley stroked the stone, the setting, turned it over to admire the back. “While she was plotting intrigue and her clandestine love affairs. It was part of the booty good Queen Bess took after she’d had her pretty cousin executed.”
He could all but smell the blood and betrayal on the stones. And it pleased him.
“Oh, the trouble and expense it’s taken me to acquire this bauble. It shall have a place of honor,” he said, and set it gently aside.
Like a spoiled child on Christmas morning, he wanted more.
The engraved Gallé vase in the bowels of the Statue of Liberty thrilled him. Momentarily he forgot his guests as he cooed over it, stroking its long sides, admiring the lithe female forms decorating the Art Nouveau glass.
His eyes had taken on a glassy sheen that had Winesap averting his in faint embarrassment.
From within the hollowed base of the bronze eagle, Finley released a padded box. Saliva pooled in his mouth as he tore the padding aside. The box itself was a smooth rosewood, lovingly oiled and polished. But the lid was the treasure, a micro mosaic panel commissioned in Imperial Russia for Catherine the Great—perhaps by her canny lover Orlov after he’d murdered her husband and lifted Catherine onto the throne.
More blood, Finley mused. More betrayal.
Signed by the artist, it was a wonderfully delicate reproduction of the Imperial Palace fused onto glass.
“Have you ever seen anything more exquisite? The pride of czars and emperors and kings. Once this sat behind glass in a museum where unwashed tourists could come and gawk. Now it’s mine. Mine alone.”
“It’s a beauty, all right.” DiCarlo hated to interrupt, but it was nearly time to make his pitch. “You know the value of art, Mr. Finley. What’s the point in having something priceless if any jerk can walk in off the street and see it?”
“Exactly, exactly. True art must be possessed, it must be hoarded. Museums buy for posterity. The soulless rich for investment. Both processes are abhorrent to me.” His eyes were very green now, very bright and a little mad. “To own, Mr. DiCarlo, is everything.”
“I get your point there, and I’m happy to have played a part in bringing you your merchandise. Of course, there was some difficulty—”
“I’m sure.” Finley waved him off before the mood was spoiled. “But we must finish here before we discuss your trials and tribulations.” He used the hammer on the dog, bursting its belly open. The hound gave birth to a gold cat. “It’s quite solid,” Finley explained as he unwound the heavy wrapping. “A beautiful piece, of course, but all the more because of its background. It’s said to have been a gift from Caesar to Cleopatra. Impossible to prove the validity of that, though it has been dated correctly. Still, the myth is enough,” he said softly, lovingly. “Quite enough.”
His hands shook with excitement as he set it down. “And now, the painting.”
“I, ah . . .” It seemed a good time to stand. “There was a little trouble with the painting, Mr. Finley.”
“Trouble?” Finley’s smile remained fixed. He scanned the room, saw no sign of his final possession. “I don’t believe you mentioned any trouble, Mr. DiCarlo.”
“I wanted to get you this merchandise without any more delay. These pieces represent a great deal of time and money on your part, and I knew you’d want them in your hands at the earliest possible moment.”
“We are speaking now of the painting.” And now the painting was all that mattered to Finley. Cleopatra, Catherine and Mary of Scotland were all forgotten. “I don’t see it here. Perhaps it’s eyestrain. An optical illusion.”
The sarcasm brought a dull flush to DiCarlo’s cheeks. “I wasn’t able to bring it on this trip, Mr. Finley. As I started to tell you, there was a problem.”
“A problem?” He continued to smile pleasantly, though the acids in his stomach had begun to churn. “Of what nature?”
Encouraged, DiCarlo resumed his seat. He explained briefly about the three break-ins, reminding Finley that the first had resulted in the recovery of the china hound. He made sure he highlighted his search for the painting, at great personal risk.
“So I’m sure you’ll agree, sir,” he concluded, as though wrapping up a sales meeting, “that it would be dangerous for all of us for me to return to Philadelphia at this time. I do have a contact who I can put on the matter, at my own expense, of course. Since you’ve recovered six of the seven pieces, I’m sure you’ll be patient. I see no reason why the painting can’t be in your hands within, say, six weeks.”
“Six weeks.” Finley nodded, tapped his forefinger to his lip. “You say you shot a police officer.”
“It was necessary. He was watching the building.”
“Mmm. And why do you suppose he was doing that?”
“I can’t be sure.” Sincerity in every pore, DiCarlo leaned forward. “I left absolutely no sign of forced entry. I did overhear an argument between the Conroy woman and her tenant. He was violent. It might be that she asked for police protection.”
“Interesting that she simply didn’t have him evicted,” Finley commented—very, very pleasantly. “You did say the tenant was the one who battered your face.”
DiCarlo stiffened with wounded pride. “It was probably a lovers’ quarrel. I figure the guy was getting more than a roof over his head out of her.”
“Do you?” Finley let the crudeness of the remark pass. “We will have to discuss this further, Mr. DiCarlo. After lunch, perhaps.”
“Sure.” Relieved, DiCarlo settled back. “I’ll run through all the details with you.”
“That will be fine. Well, shall we dine, gentlemen?”
They enjoyed the pheasant salad along with a chilled Pouilly-Fumé in the formal dining room with its Victorian furniture and sun-swept garden view. Throughout, Finley kept the conversation away from business. It interfered with the palate, as he explained to DiCarlo. He spent an hour playing jovial host, generously refilling DiCarlo’s glass himself.
When the last drop of wine and the final morsel of trifle had been consumed, Finley pushed back from the table.
“I hope you’ll forgive us, Abel, but as much as I regret it, Mr. DiCarlo and I should conclude our business. Perhaps a walk around the grounds, through the garden?” he said to DiCarlo.
Pleasantly buzzed on wine, rich food and success, DiCarlo patted his stomach. “I could use a walk after that meal.”
“Good, good. I’m a bit of a fanatic about exercise. I’d enjoy the company. We won’t be long, Abel.”
Finley led DiCarlo out into a solarium complete with potted palms and a musical fountain, through the atrium doors and into the garden.
“I want to tell you how much I admire you, Mr. Finley,” DiCarlo began. “Running your business, having a home like this. You sure cut a wide path for yourself.”
“I like to think so.” Finley’s shoes crunched lightly over the smooth white stones on the garden path. “Do you know flowers, Mr. DiCarlo?”
“Just that women are usually suckers for them.”
Laughing appreciatively, Finley led him through the garden, finally stopping to admire the view. Finley stood looking out over the Los Angeles basin, drawing deeply of the fragrances around him. Flowers—early roses, jasmine. The tang of freshly watered mulch and clipped grass.
“Your plans, Mr. DiCarlo?” Finley said abruptly.
“What? Oh. It’s all simple. I put my man on it. He’ll take care of the Conroy woman. Believe me, after he gets through with her, she’ll tell him anything.” His lips thinned a moment as he grudgingly accepted he wouldn’t have the pleasure of beating the painting’s location out of her. “Like I said, he might have to wait a week or two, until things cool off. But he’ll snatch her, put on the pressure until she leads him to the painting.”
“And then.”
“He’ll whack her, don’t worry.” DiCarlo smiled a little, professional man to professional man. “He won’t leave any loose ends.”
“Ah, yes, loose ends. Most inconvenient. And yourself?”
“Me, I figured I’d take a few months in Mexico. Odds are they got a look at me. It was dark, sure, but I don’t like to take those kind of chances. If they manage to make me, I’d rather be across the border.”
“Wise, I’m sure.” Finley bent over a rosebush, sniffed delicately at a pale pink bud just beginning to part its tender petals. “It occurs to me, Mr. DiCarlo, that if they make you, they may involve me—however indirectly.”
“No way. No possible way. Rest easy, Mr. Finley, they’d never tie a man like you with a couple of break-ins in a Philadelphia junk shop.”
“Loose ends,” Finley said with a sigh. When he straightened, he held a pearl-handled revolver in his hand. And he was smiling again, charmingly. “It’s best to snip them off.”
He fired, aiming just above DiCarlo’s belt buckle. The sound echoed over the hills and sent terrified birds screaming skyward.
DiCarlo’s eyes widened with surprise, then glazed with pain. The unbelievable fire of the pain. Dully, he looked down at his belly, pressing a hand against the spreading stain before his knees crumpled beneath him.
“You disappoint me, Mr. DiCarlo.” Finley didn’t raise his voice but bent low to let the words carry. “Did you take me for a fool? Did you think so much of yourself that you believed I would take your pathetic excuses and wish you bon voyage?”
He straightened and, while DiCarlo writhed in pain from the gunshot, kicked him viciously in the ribs.
“You failed!” he shouted, and kicked again, again, screaming over DiCarlo’s groaning pleas for mercy. “I want my painting. I want what’s mine. It’s your fault, your fault I don’t have it.”
Spittle ran from Finley’s mouth as he shot DiCarlo’s left kneecap, then his right. DiCarlo’s thin scream of pain faded away into animal whimpers.
“I would have killed you quickly if you hadn’t insulted my intelligence. Now it may take you hours, hours of agony. And it’s not enough.”
He had to force himself to replace the revolver in his pocket. He took out a handkerchief and gently dabbed the perspiration from his brow.
“Not enough,” he repeated. He bent down close again, pressing his face into DiCarlo’s. “You had your orders. Did you forget who was in charge?”
“Please,” DiCarlo moaned, too deep in shock to realize his pleas were useless, and that he was already dead. “Help me. Please.”
In a fussy gesture, Finley replaced the handkerchief in his breast pocket. “I gave you plenty of time, more than enough to redeem yourself. I’d even considered giving you absolution. I can be a generous man, but you, you failed me. Failure, Mr. DiCarlo, is unforgivable.”
Still shaking with rage, he straightened again. He knew he would need an hour of meditation at the very least before he would manage to compose himself for the formal affair he was attending that night.
Ineptitude, he fumed. Inefficiency in employees. He brushed dust from his sleeve as he walked back toward the solarium. Intolerable.
“Winesap!” he snapped.
“Sir.” Winesap tiptoed in, folded his nervous hands. He’d heard the shots, and was very much afraid of what was coming next.
“Dispose of Mr. DiCarlo.”
Winesap’s shoulders slumped. “Of course, Mr. Finley. Right away.”
“Not now.” Finley took out a genuine tortoiseshell comb to straighten his windblown hair. “Let him bleed to death first.”
Winesap glanced through the glass wall to where DiCarlo was lying on his back, babbling piteously at the sky. “Should I wait in here?”
“Of course. How else will you know when he’s dead?” Finley sighed, replaced his comb. “I realize that tomorrow’s a holiday, Abel, and I wouldn’t dream of interfering with whatever plans you might have. So I’ll ask that you focus your attention the following day on gathering all the information you can on this Isadora Conroy in Philadelphia.” He sniffed his hand, wrinkled his nose at the scent of gunpowder. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to take care of this matter myself.”