The morning nurse was a chunky man with long, thick, blond sideburns. Like the drunken redhead, he sat in the corner chair reading, ignoring Nina and Haskill and waiting for the vital signs monitor to indicate some abnormality or an alarm to signal time for medication. Nina was seated in a heavy armchair with embroidered upholstery next to the bed; Haskill had bought it at auction for more than twenty grand—he couldn’t remember how much more—because it had once been John Wayne’s. Bidding had started at eight hundred dollars, and Haskill had gotten himself into a stubborn pissing match with Maury Staines, a former protégé–turned-rival. Staines still had programs on TV, which Haskill watched obsessively, offering a running commentary on their subpar production values, rehashed scripts, dull actors and all-around shoddiness. To Nina, they seemed exactly like everything else on TV, but Haskill’s accompanying rants made them bearable, almost entertaining.
Her feelings this morning were a complex mix of relief and frustration. The former stemmed from the old man’s sudden recovery, the result of the nephrologist’s intervention. This reversal had made her doubt the GP’s competence; when she mentioned this to Rigby, he’d nodded and, after a thoughtful pause, said, “This could work to our advantage.” This notion, she thought, should have filled her with revulsion and shame, but she’d had to admit that it was true.
“Goddamned if I don’t feel like a new man,” Haskill said, sitting up in his bed. He’d applied the black Meltonian to the pencil mustache once again; seeing it fade back to a wispy dishwater-gray had been one of the first and most alarming signs of his deterioration. “Did I dream it, or did my nephew come to see me yesterday?”
“He was here, he’s staying down in Ventura with the Rigbys.”
“The whole last week feels like a hallucination. Why isn’t he staying here?”
“You were doing so badly we didn’t think you should have visitors.”
“Doing better now, he’ll stay here tonight.”
“We’ll see what the doctor says.” The plan was to keep Jerry at as much distance from Haskill as possible.
A couple of hours later, Haskill surprised Nina by going downstairs for lunch. “Where’s Jerry? Thought you called and asked him for lunch.”
“He had plans to visit Solvang with Mrs. Rigby. You’ll see him for dinner.”
The old man leveled an evil smirk at her. “I can understand. That Paula’s something else entirely. He thinks he’s going to make her, doesn’t he? He’s in for a surprise. That Paula’s got eyes for nobody but Rigby.”
“Won’t hurt the boy to dream,” Nina said.
That evening, she stepped into the busy gloom of the Town Crier and squinted. Rigby was nowhere among the crowd at the bar, so she ordered a whiskey sour from a woman who seemed to take an instant dislike to her.
“Five dollars,” the woman said, setting the drink down. Nina gave her a five and no tip, then retreated to a booth against the opposite wall. She was absently checking her email when a figure appeared at her left.
“You work for Rigby, right?”
She started, and looking up saw a young man whose face was familiar in the vaguest way. “No.”
“I met you at my gramps’s house. I’m Keith.”
“Oh.”
“Mind if I sit down?”
“I’m meeting someone.”
“Just until they get here?” He sat without waiting for a reply.
She noted the bartender’s disapproving stare and assumed she had designs on this Keith, who struck Nina as a genial dolt. “I suppose you might as well.”
“So you don’t work for Rigby. You’ve got something to do with this painting business though, right?”
“Not so loud,” she said, her initial impression confirmed.
“Sorry.”
“I work for Mr. Haskill, the owner of the painting.”
“Right. That’s what I meant.”
“And what do you do again?”
“Golf pro.”
“Ah. Must be nice. Outdoors all the time.”
He looked at the ceiling and pursed his lips, considering his response with care. “Yeah, but I’m assistant manager of the pro shop, so there’s a lot of inside time, too. In the long run, I’d like to get into course management, which is where there’s room for advancement.”
It had been a long time since she’d been in a bar by herself, and the absurd notion struck that he was hitting on her. Surely not.
“So you work for the old TV producer guy. Are you married?”
By God, he was. She looked him up and down and, finding him moderately appealing physically, wondered what it would take for her to get over the dolt factor. “No, not anymore.”
“I was wondering if you’d like to maybe go out sometime.”
She hit the telephone icon. “What’s your number, Keith?”
He rattled it off and she punched it into the phone. “I’ll call you when I’ve got some free time.” The bartender was staring daggers at her, and when Nina smiled back at her, she turned away.
Keith was looking pleased with himself and drained half his Budweiser in a triumphant swig. He turned toward the front door when Nina signaled to Rigby, who had just entered, and looked like he was going to spit it out again.
Rigby stopped at the bar and flirted with the bartender, who seemed even more taken with him than with Keith. He jerked his head toward the booth, and her expression soured for a brief moment before resuming its original adoring state.
“I guess I’ll leave you to it,” Keith said, rising.
But Rigby was upon them, holding two bottles of beer and another whiskey sour. “Hey, you can’t leave, I just got here.” He put a hand on Keith’s back, and the younger man looked terrified.
“We do have a business meeting,” Nina said.
“Yeah, but this is good timing. I need your help, Keith, buddy.”
Keith knocked back the dregs of his beer and accepted the new one from Rigby. “Thanks.”
She studied their interaction with a clinician’s detachment. Keith was profoundly ill at ease in Rigby’s presence, and Rigby seemed not to pick up on it at all.
“All right. In a couple of days I’m flying up to San Fran to talk to an auction house man I’m told has a strong connection with the Russian market, who might be willing to break some rules as long as the money’s right.”
“Okay,” Nina said.
“Now I’ve got a variation on the plan. Needs your grandpa’s cooperation, but it’s fucking brilliant. Ready? Three paintings.”
Keith nodded in perfect, blank incomprehension. Nina squeezed her eyes shut. “No. This is too complicated already.”
“Hear me out. Jerry Haskill wants to see the painting. I told him I put it into a safe-deposit box in LA.”
Nina shook her head. “Why LA?”
“Because it makes it more complicated for him to get to see it. I told him only the main Bank of America branch in Beverly Hills has the right climate-controlled vault. He’s a dumb shit so he bought it. I’ve actually got both paintings at the office. It’ll buy us a day or two, I’m feeding him a big guilt trip about not spending time with sick old Uncle Glenn.”
“Buy us a day or two for what?” Nina said.
“Look. Both of our pictures are passable, right?”
“A real Kushik and a great forgery,” Keith said, and Rigby winced.
“Not so loud,” Rigby said. “So your grandpa can paint us another, less passable one, and that’s the one that goes to the school. If they never tumble to it, great. If they figure out it’s bogus, it just means old Evvie got sold a bill of goods back in the day.”
Nina finished her first whiskey sour and nodded. “And we sell the real one and the portrait of Mrs. Kushik to some Russian billionaire.”
“Meanwhile tomorrow I go to LA and rent an actual safe-deposit box, and we put one of the fakes in it so we can show it to the idiot. Hopefully the sloppy one, so I can tell this auctioneer I’ve got my hands on two Kushiks.” Rigby put his hand on Keith’s shoulder. “Think the old man will go for it?”
Shrinking from Rigby’s touch, Keith nodded. “I’ll see if I can’t talk him into it.” Then he made an excuse, left his half-full bottle of beer on the table and walked out the front door.
“He’s a funny guy, isn’t he?” Rigby said.
“He asked me on a date.”
“Yeah? Good for you.” He gave her a funny, appraising look and didn’t say anything, just took a long pull of his beer, and Nina noticed that the bartender was giving her the stink eye again.