Black Knight (3 page)

However, Silvia would still be responsible for the necklace. Filing a police report would not make that responsibility vanish. Granted, she probably had insurance, but he’d still be putting her through a ton of grief. And there was still a chance the necklace belonged to her. For all he knew it might have sentimental value.

There were a few other details that made him hesitant to go after her emerald. The exquisite nature of the stone, its uniqueness, the fame of the last celebrity to wear it—all these points would make it difficult to fence. Even if he drove all the way to New York, it was possible he’d have trouble finding a buyer. There was no question the stone’s heart shape would have to be ground away. It was even possible he’d have to break it into a half dozen smaller stones. He was no expert when it came to the craft, but he was no slouch, either. Definitely, it would be safer to break it down.

Yet it was such a beautiful stone.

It would be a pity to ruin it.

“Shut the fuck up, would ya,” Marc told his mind as he headed back to the valet station, which had temporarily moved across the street to the hotel lobby to take care of the last of the evening’s clients. He knew all the cons about stealing the emerald and in the end they were all bullshit. Silvia was a near perfect candidate and she was wearing a near perfect stone.

The bottom line was what the emerald was worth. Retail, it had to cost at least five million, maybe as high as ten. That meant he could get at least a million for it in the Diamond District, maybe two million, more than all his previous jobs combined. No way was he going to walk away from that kind of cash.

It was decided.

He had to get into Silvia’s trunk and soon.

“I’m beat. Would it be all right if I called it a night?” Marc asked Green as he walked up to the counter they had set up in the hotel lobby. All the guests had been previously told that this was the place to pick up their cars.

Marc added a yawn as he made his request and his boss gave him a nod. “I’ve still got Ted, Jerry, and Sandy running the route,” Green said. “They should be enough.” He added, “I hope.”

“I can stay, you know, if you’re worried.”

Green glanced at the key hooks. “Did the party look like it was winding down?”

Marc hesitated. “Why you asking me?”

“Sandy said she just saw you up there.”

Marc kept his outward composure but inside he grimaced. If he managed to steal the emerald, any unusual behavior on his part could later trigger an alarm. Green was a nice guy but no dummy. If the cops came by later and started asking questions, he might remember this exact moment.

Marc spoke causally. “I just took a quick look at the buffet.” He added with a hint of guilt, “Well, actually, I sort of sampled the shrimp.”

Green brightened. “Was it good?”

Marc grinned. “Fantastic. And they have a huge spread of sushi. If you’re quick, you should be able to load up before they put it away.”

Green shook his head. “Got to stay here.”

Now was a perfect opportunity to negate any suspicion. Granted, it might cost him a shot at the emerald, but it would make it clear to his boss that he’d only gone upstairs for the food.

“Bullshit,” Marc said, taking a step behind the counter. “I can handle the stragglers for a few minutes.”

“You sure? You said you’re exhausted.”

“Hey. I’m nineteen years old. I never go to bed till four in the morning. Go now, quick, and put together a bag that will last you the rest of the week. There’s only one caterer left and she won’t care what you swipe. You know they just throw out what’s left over.” Marc added casually, “Oh, I saw some Alaskan crab fish.”

“Are you shitting me?” his boss asked, a gleam in his eyes. Marc had seen Green eating crab fish a month ago and knew they were his favorite. He also knew there were plenty left.

Marc snorted. “Stop yapping and go. I did graduate from high school. I can hand out a few keys for a few minutes.”

The sad truth was he hadn’t graduated from high school.

“Thanks,” Green said, turning for the elevator. Marc wouldn’t be surprised if his boss returned with several bags of goodies. Green had a pregnant wife at home and was always complaining about how hungry she was for exotic food.

As it turned out the Hazens came looking for their car while Green was gone, and Marc had to tactfully tell the bigwig that he was too drunk to drive. Immediately, Mr. Hazen started swearing at him but just as fast Mrs. Hazen jumped in between them and told her husband to shut his trap.

“Larry, you apologize to this nice young man,” she said. “He’s just doing his job and he might have just saved our lives. You know we’re in no shape to drive.”

Mr. Hazen calmed down fast enough, although he didn’t bother to offer an apology. He plopped down on a nearby chair and belched loudly. “Shit. Somebody call us a cab.”

Marc signaled for a taxi that was waiting outside and opened the door for Mrs. Hazen, who slipped him a hundred dollars before climbing inside. Marc shook his head like it was too much but the woman insisted.

“It’s for having to listen to my husband,” she said. “He acts like an old goat when he drinks but I still love him.”

“Just get home safe, Mrs. Hazen,” Marc said. “I’ll leave a note for your car to be sent over in the morning.”

“Thank you, dear,” she said.

Green was gone longer than Marc expected—a full twenty minutes. During that time the Kollets came for their car. Now the decision had been plucked from his hands. Either he went after Silvia or waited until next time. Yet he knew it was unlikely that he’d ever have a shot at such a large stone again. That was what kept him focused. If he could steal and fence the emerald, he’d be able to quit his life as a thief and get on to something important.

Whatever that might be . . .

In reality he’d be forced to quit. As it was he was already playing Russian roulette with the LAPD. Eventually the string of missing jewels would be traced back to the theater’s valet service, and to him. No way he was hanging around until he got caught. Tonight’s job had to be his last.

Clocking out, Marc crossed the street to the mall’s parking structure and headed straight for the janitor’s closet. The battery-operated heater had warmed the confined space to over a hundred degrees. Ordinarily he’d hide the heater in the corner of the closet, but since tonight would hopefully be the last time he’d use it, he decided to dump it and the extra cases somewhere outside the mall.

The decision carried with it its own risks. It was after two in the morning and Silvia and her boyfriend would be wanting their car soon. If he left the mall to dump his equipment, one of the other valets might come for the Jaguar at that exact moment.

Yet he decided it was worth the risk. He couldn’t leave the tools of his trade behind for a detective to find. Collecting his used and unused steel cases, the heater, and two spare tubes of the magic plaster mix, he stuffed everything in a canvas bag and headed for the door.

He was out on Hollywood Boulevard in a minute. He had scouted the surrounding area earlier. Small details mattered. He knew of a family-owned pizza joint three blocks north of the mall. It had a large Dumpster that was unloaded every Sunday morning, which would be tomorrow, before ten. He considered three blocks the minimum distance to safely dispose of his equipment. Even if he managed to steal the emerald, and some brilliant cop quickly traced the theft back to the theater, he or she wouldn’t have time to search several city blocks for clues before his stash disappeared.

Yet the three blocks were long blocks and he had to force himself not to run. Running people looked like guilty people, particularly at night, and especially when they had a bag in their hands. The whole way to and from the pizza joint, he kept thinking that Silvia would have already come for her car and split.

But the Jag was still there when he returned to the mall.

He studied it before trying out his newly minted key. The trunk was on the small size—he’d glanced at it before but had failed to scrutinize it—and there was nothing worse than getting trapped in a trunk. It had happened to him only once, but that had been one time too many.

It had been an old Mercedes, from the sixties, built like a tank, and it had not come equipped with a child’s safety-release lever—the kind that were nowadays standard on most vehicle trunks as well as refrigerators. Worse, the lock on the car’s trunk had not responded to his usual bag of tricks, and he hadn’t even been able to push out the backseat and crawl into the interior of the car. In the end he’d spent an entire night sweating in the garage of a mansion he’d never actually seen and needing to pee so bad he’d finally pissed all over the spare tire.

He had only managed to escape the next afternoon when the owner had taken the car to get washed. Fortunately the guys at the car wash had been mostly illegal immigrants and hadn’t questioned the mysterious character who had suddenly popped out of the trunk in a white shirt, black pants, and black tie—his basic valet attire—and run like hell into a nearby alley.

Since that happened, he never climbed into a trunk without carrying a mini crowbar.

Marc noted that Silvia’s Jag had a high-tech alarm system but was not overly worried. The best alarms had trouble identifying a fake key. However, as a safety precaution, it was still best to pop the trunk from inside the car, from the driver’s seat, after slipping the key in the ignition and turning it partway. A retired owner of a car dealership had taught him that little trick. It
reassured
the computer chip in the most sophisticated car alarms.

For the first time, Marc took out the case that held the Jaguar’s copied key. It had a couple of rough edges but he was able to file them off with a small tool kit he always carried on any job. It
looked
perfect but he nevertheless held it up to the light and gave it a final exam, once again thankful his section of the parking structure was not covered by security cameras.

Then he slid the key in the lock and turned it.

Presto! It opened without a hitch.

Moving fast, Marc climbed in the car, leaving the door open, and slipped the key in the ignition, turning it a millimeter shy of starting the car. At the same time he scanned for an interior trunk release, finding one on the bottom of the driver’s door beside a gas-tank release. He pressed it and the trunk popped open. Turning the ignition off, he withdrew the key and climbed out and locked the door behind him.

Time to get in the trunk. For some reason, for Marc, this part was harder than sneaking into a couple’s bedroom while they were sleeping. He’d read somewhere that everyone suffered from some degree of claustrophobia—it was just a question of how much. He wasn’t sure where he fell on the scale but doubted he would have made it as an astronaut.

The Jaguar’s trunk was clean and empty but tight. It made sense, it was a sports car. Christ, it didn’t even have a backseat. He’d known that ahead of time; nevertheless, it still annoyed him. Or perhaps “intimidated” him would’ve been a more accurate word.

Marc took off his valet vest and pulled out a pair of surgical gloves and a surgical cap and put them on. He’d seen too many reruns of
CSI
,
NCIS
,
CSI: Miami
—and
CSI: Lunar
, he snickered to himself—to dare leave behind any fingerprints or hair in the trunk. He even dabbed his eyebrows with Vaseline. Best to be paranoid when one damn molecule of his anatomy could strand him in the slammer for a decade.

Finally, Marc climbed into the trunk and pulled it shut.

It was dark inside and it felt stuffy. The only way he could fit in and maintain blood flow to all his limbs was to squeeze into the fetal position. He wiggled around with his back to the front and his face toward the rear. He had little room to move his arms and that concerned him. Later, when it was time to leave the trunk, he’d need his hands free if the release paddle failed. Of course there was no reason to think it should fail, but tell that to Murphy and the law named after him. Marc occasionally wondered who the real Murphy had been. The guy must have had a miserable life.

Marc was in the trunk ten minutes when Sandy came for the car. God, he thought, that had been close. He knew it was Sandy because she always sang to herself while she worked. Sandy was a couple of years older—she’d just celebrated her twenty-first by getting drunk with the guys at work. Marc had a lot of respect for her. She hustled to park and pick up the cars and was always polite to the clients. She never bragged when she got a big tip. But what he liked most about her was that she was unimpressed with stars—it didn’t matter how important they thought they were. To Sandy they were just people.

Marc was attracted to her and knew she liked him, but he’d never asked her out because of his side business. The possibility was remote, but if he ever got busted and they were dating, the cops might assume she was working with him, or at the very least knew about the thefts. There was no way he would ever put her in that kind of position. She was a classy chick. She went to college during the day, carried a full load of classes, and was going to be a dentist or a doctor—something like that.

Sandy, though, drove like a maniac. He’d never been in the trunk of a car when she was behind the wheel, and to put it modestly, it was a novel experience. Marc swore if he hadn’t been crammed in so tight, he would have broken bones. She had something against the brake—she never used it, not even on sharp corners. He literally heard bones in his back and neck crack when she swung onto Hollywood Boulevard.

They reached the hotel in record time.

Ray Cota chatted with Sandy as she handed off the Jag to him. Sandy even wished Ray good luck on his upcoming NFL season. But Marc didn’t hear a word from Silvia Summer. Clearly the two were not doing well. They were on the road five minutes before Ray finally spoke to her.

“Are you going to talk to me tonight?” he asked. Marc sure hoped so. There was every possibility the car belonged to Ray, and if he didn’t spend the night with Silvia, then Marc would end up breaking out of a garage and into a house with nothing to steal but sports trophies.