Framed (5 page)

"Yes, I know that, and I appreciate your help." Larry wiped sweat from his forehead with the side of his hand. "But because he's only been here four years he is not protected by the extradition laws, which state that until someone has lived here for five or more years, the British police are entitled to—"

"That is correct," Dominguez interrupted, "but nevertheless I will require substantial evidence to warrant his arrest and subsequent extradition. If he is, as you believe, using false documents, then it is obviously an offense by our law, and if such is the case, it will be my duty to arrest him for questioning."

A uniformed officer came in and approached the desk. He and the Comisario conferred in whispers. Larry wiped his hands on his trousers and looked at the clock. Eleven-thirty. Time always galloped when you felt you hadn't much of it to spare.

When the officer left, Dominguez tilted his head at Larry and did a one-shoulder shrug.

"We have, senor, only a part print. Left thumb and left index finger. I will have them faxed to Scotland Yard."

"He's got a powerful speedboat," Larry said, hearing his words echo in the grubby little room, realizing how irrelevant the remark must sound. "It's imperative we don't tip him off," he added.

Dominguez glared at him.

"He also owns a Monterey, on permanent mooring at Puerto Banus." Dominguez blinked once, his eyes unwavering. "You know, senor, this could be very embarrassing. Until we hear from London I suggest we wait." He tilted his head again. "Do I make myself clear? Stay away from him."

At eleven-thirty in the morning it was easy to comply with the Comisario's wishes. As the day wore on, however, and no word came from Scotland Yard, Larry got jumpy. Clear thinking gave way to groundless speculation. It began to seem that the target was too far away from the action; where exactly was he? Did anybody actually know? Was someone watching him? Did he have friends in the local police who were keeping him notified of developments? Was the bugger possibly,
even now,
making a run for it?

By three o'clock Larry was on the road outside Von Joel's villa, squashed into the hedge, his rented Suzuki jeep parked a couple of hundred yards down the lane. From where he stood he could see the dogs, two young boxers, chasing each other around the grounds, and once, for just a moment, he caught sight of the Spanish girl, Lola. There was no sign of the master of the house.

Larry waited and sweated. Insects nibbled his skin. Cramp took gradual possession of his legs and back.

At a minute to four the Corniche glided up to the gates. Larry wiped his eyes, took a hard look, and felt a swell of relief. Von Joel was at the wheel, and he didn't look the least bit worried, or angry, or even upset. In fact he appeared to be smiling.

The gates opened to let the car through and then closed again. Larry slipped out from his place of concealment and moved nearer to the gates, getting a closer vantage point on the car. He saw Von Joel lean over the side. One of the dogs jumped up to lick his face. He got out and knelt on the gravel, fussing with the animals, talking to them as if they were children.

"Hello, boys, hello. Who's a good boy, then, who's my big fella? Stay down now, Bruno, that's naughty. You too, Sasha . . . Down, now, be good boys . .

Lola came forward from the shadow of the arched doorway. She wore one of the tiniest dresses Larry had ever seen. She held her arms out wide and Von Joel embraced her. As he did, she whispered something. He nodded against her neck, turning slowly as he held her, staring toward the gates. He issued a soft command to the dogs.

Larry leapt back as the animals came running and snarling toward the hedge. They scrabbled at the earth on the other side of the wall, as if they were ready to dig their way through to get him. He tried to step clear of the hedge and realized he had caught his sleeve. He was still untangling it when Von Joel appeared at the gate.

"Do you want something?"

Larry jerked his sleeve free and legged it down the road to his jeep. He leapt behind the wheel, started the engine, and threw it into gear. He had gone five yards when he saw the lane was a dead end. As he reversed past the gates Von Joel was still there, staring at him. There was no way to tell if he recognized Larry or not.

Late that evening, as he sat waiting in the corridor outside Comisario Dominguez's office at police headquarters, Larry was still intermittently cursing himself.

Idiot, idiot, bloody idiot!

Superstition had driven him. He admitted it, though he tried to excuse himself. He had been the victim of an unreasoning fear, one that afflicted most diligent police officers, an intimation deep in his bowels that the distance between him and the quarry was too great, it was too wide for a link to take shape on the basis of suspicion and investigation. Keeping an eye on a suspect was not entirely a logical procedure, it had its voodooistic element. As often as not it was a submission to the mumbo-jumbo rules that operated in spite of logic and reason.

And it was all bullshit.
Bullshit!

He bit his lip, convinced he had said it out loud. He glanced around to see if anyone had heard. There was no one in sight. He took a deep breath and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

Surrender to whims and flights of fancy, he reminded himself, was the worst bullshit of the lot. All it had been aimed at, in this case, was filling in the waiting period while a legal reason was found to take a villain's freedom away from him. Larry knew he should have stayed cool, he should have gone down to the beach with his wife and kids and played with a ball. He should have floundered around in the water and made a complete fool of himself like any other dad on vacation. He should have done anything at all, really, except what he actually had done,
viz,
dwell on the case, worry about it until he set his guts in an uproar, and then practically dynamite his chances of getting a result.

He expected retribution to visit him for being such a clown. In his job it was easy to bring down bad luck on yourself—that was more bullshit, but he couldn't help thinking it.

"Come on," he muttered, "please,
come on . . ."

He crossed and recrossed his legs, staring at the office door, willing it to open as he had been doing for more than an hour.

It opened suddenly. Dominguez appeared, a cigar clenched in his teeth. He held up a fax sheet.

"Am I right?" Larry got up and walked toward the office, fearing the worst.

Dominguez beckoned him inside and handed over the fax. Larry looked at it, watched the words dance before his eyes for a second. Then they settled.

identification established on the basis of 10 points of

individuality on thumbprint and ii points on index fingerprint. confirm subject is edward thomas myers.

"I knew it!" Larry clutched the paper as if it might try to fly away. The certainty of failure evaporated as sweat rolled down his cheeks. "I bloody knew it!" he told Dominguez. He thrust a victorious fist in the air. "I've got him!
Yes!"

4

Detective Inspector Jimmy Falcon and Detective Constable Donald Summers arrived at Malaga airport the following morning, along with a huge Saturday intake for the Costa resorts. Larry met them with the Suzuki and on the way back to Marbella he brought them up to date on the situation. Neither Falcon nor Summers missed the fact that Larry was agitated, bordering on hyperactive.

"Myers is at the gallery right now. I've got two locals covering the Monterey and the speed boat." He shook his head like a man confronting something incredible. "He's rolling in it. His villa's worth two million, the boat's worth three hundred and fifty grand, and wait till you see his women. ..."

His energized state persisted throughout a visit to the police station in Marbella. After that it began to drop away as the red tape piled up. They were eventually told they would have to pursue their business in deeper bureaucratic detail at a nearby government building.

Extradition, it transpired, was not straightforward. It began to look as if it belonged in the category of near-impossible procedures. One sheaf of paper promptly generated another, and each set of regulations they signed— without being offered options—effectively reduced their functional flexibility as police officers on foreign territory. After an hour in the government building Larry said he was going to call the Foreign Office in London and complain. Falcon restrained him.

"Come on now, Larry," he soothed. "Calm down. We've got to go through the procedures—"

"But they agreed! It's him!" Larry could see victory sliding out of his grasp. It was retribution, the penalty for being a fool. "How many more bloody papers have we got to sort through?"

The bureaucratic marathon finished a few minutes after two-thirty. As the three men were shown off the premises they were given a parting piece of information tailored to send Larry into a spiraling depression. Twenty minutes later, kneeling by Susan on the beach, he tried to explain.

"It's unbelievable," he told her, shaking his head. "They won't let us arrest him. They have to—'

"I don't want to hear." She was on her belly, her bathing suit pulled down at the back. The skin across her shoulders had gone deep pink. "I just don't want to hear. Have you got that?"

"Aw, come on," he cajoled, "this'll mean promotion. I knew it was him! I mean, just think what that'll mean, me spotting him and setting all this in motion. . . ."

DI Falcon appeared, still wearing his tie, carrying his jacket over his arm. He was a young man, only a couple of years older than Larry, with the tailor's-dummy tidiness of the career policeman. He dropped down on the sand beside Susan, first slackening the knees of his flannels.

"These bastards have got it sewn up over here," he announced. He had come from ten arduous minutes on the hotel telephone, being updated on the case by Comisario Dominguez. He squinted at Larry. "You remember

they picked up Frankie Day? Six months they held him and then let him go. He was on that bullion raid—we know it, they know it, but he's still here sunning himself. It's a ruddy fiasco!"

"So what about Myers?" Larry said.

"They're gonna get a search warrant, charge him with using a false passport. Shit, it's hot . . ." Falcon thumbed open the neck of his shirt and flapped a hand in front of his face. "Whatever rap we've got, it comes second in line." He frowned darkly at Larry. "I doubt if we'll get him out, you know."

"What?" Larry was incensed. "Myers doesn't come under their extradition policy!"

"Just calm down." Falcon said. "I think Dominguez is on our side." He glanced at Susan and nudged her gently. "You're looking a bit red."

Susan rolled over, deftly covering her breasts with a towel. She sat up, scowling.

"It could be rage," she said. "Larry, just see if the kids are okay, will you? They're in the water . . ."

"And get your skates on," Falcon added. "We've got to get back to the station—eef eet ees con-veen-yenti!"

"Don't bother!" Susan snapped. She scrambled to her feet, furious because Larry still hadn't moved. She hugged the towel about her. "Tony!" she screeched, marching off down the beach. "John!"

DI Falcon watched her go. He turned to Larry.

"Having a bit of aggro, are we?"

Larry started to say something, then he spotted DC Summers running toward them. Summers stopped in a flurry of sand, panting for breath.

"They're going to pick up Myers," he gasped. "The warrant's been issued. They got guys going over to his villa right now. . . ."

The ensuing operation, monitored at its various stages by the three British policemen, went moderately smoothly. In Von Joel's study at the villa Spanish police officers carried out a thorough search in spite of noisy imprecations, dire warnings, and physical resistance from Lola. As one of the officers opened a hollow book from the shelf and took out three passports, all with Von Joel's picture inside, Lola stopped abusing them. She ran to the door and screamed to the housekeeper to call Von Joel at the gallery in Benabana and tell him what was happening.

Events, however, were ahead of anything that could be improvised. Von Joel was in the middle of negotiations with Penaranda, the young Spanish painter whose exhibition had been held at Puerto Banus two nights before. When the housekeeper rang she told Von Joel that rooms at the villa had been searched by the police. Items had been removed, she said, and Lola had been arrested.

Von Joel was on the point of asking which rooms had been searched and what had been taken away when he glanced out of the window and saw two determined-looking police officers about to enter the gallery. He put down the receiver, asked Penaranda to excuse him, and signaled to Charlotte.

"Get back to the villa," he told her. "Check the passports. You know what to do, just get them to my lawyer. Fast. The police have got Lola, they're coming for me now, probably you too. Just keep your cool. Smile! That's my girl. . . ."

From outside the gallery Larry, Falcon, and Summers watched the two Spanish policemen confront Von Joel. He conducted himself calmly, shaking hands and smiling affably at the first officer to enter the gallery. The second one declined the handshake. He stood squarely in front of Von Joel and held up the three passports he had found at the villa. Von Joel took them, frowning delicately, examining them as if he were seeing them for the first time.

"Cool bastard, isn't he?" Falcon murmured.

Von Joel handed back the passports.

"Come on, come on," Larry muttered, his face almost touching the window. "Get the cuffs on him!"

Inside the gallery, in spite of Von Joel's efforts to maintain a disarming calm, the atmosphere was tense. Charlotte, close to tears, was wrecking the mood. When she tried to stand close to Von Joel a policeman restrained her.

"Just a second," Von Joel said, resting his hand lightly on the officer's arm. "It's okay, Charlotte . . ." He spoke firmly, almost imperiously, willing her to stay in control of herself. "Can you finish the arrangements with Penaranda? I want maybe three canvases a year—do it
now,
sweetheart!"

He turned to the policemen and asked them, in Spanish, if Inspector Carreras was in charge, and if he might give him a call. He took his wallet from his pocket, opening it and blatantly displaying a wad of money. Stiffly, the officer with the passports told him no, Comisario Dominguez was in charge, and it was not possible to make calls.

Von Joel pursed his lips, looking from one officer to the other, realizing he was against a wall.

"He's fucked," Falcon breathed.

As Von Joel was led from the gallery, without handcuffs, he looked directly at Larry. For a second Larry was the young uniformed constable again with his back pressed to the wall and there was that smile on Von Joel's face. His eyes were terrifying, like the green ocean one minute, turned almost black with a controlled fury the next, but his voice was casual, mocking.

"This one down to you, is it?" he asked Larry.

A policeman pushed him gently from behind. He moved on, leaving Larry with the feeling he had been threatened.

That evening Comisano Dominguez explained to the Scotland Yard contingent what was happening. Von Joel, he said, was being held in the jail at Malaga, a deeply unpleasant place for anyone, but particularly so for a man accustomed to the finer things in life.

"He has asked to speak with his lawyer," Dominguez said in his careful, deliberate way. "We hold Senorita Lola del Moreno and Senorita Charlotte Lampton also, as we want no one contacted." He held up the three passports that were found in the study, spread out like a hand of cards. "These were taken from his villa. His photograph is on all three, so they are forgeries. His residency is illegal."

"If you charge him," Larry said, "he has to go through a court case . . ."

Dominguez nodded.

"But that could take months."

"He is my prisoner," Dominguez said flatly. "If you wish to have Senor Von Joel formally extradited, then we go by the correct procedure, but—"

"But we know he's Edward Myers," Larry cut in. "We've got proof."

Dominguez blinked patiently. "Listen to me.
Please.
He was arrested in Spain, and legally you cannot just take him back to England. . . ."

Larry threw up his hands and turned away, optimism and patience draining from him.

"It's bloody stupid," he said, walking along the beach ten minutes later with Falcon and Summers. He stopped, determined to impress on the other two just how preposterous the situation was. "They've got us by the short and curlies. Just picture it. How the hell do they think all the villains get to stay put out here? Legal crap can string us out for months, years. If they grant him bail, he'll be out of the country like a shot. Have they impounded his boat? They should sort that."

"Just shut it, Larry," DI Falcon said, sounding weary. "He said Von Joel had asked to see a lawyer. He didn't say he'd permitted it. He's giving us a break."

"Us?
Eddie Myers, you mean."

"No,
us,
" Falcon said, starting to sound angry. "I sussed out what he's up to. He's got Von Joel—or Myers, if you prefer—locked up in a holding cell. Nobody even knows he's been nabbed, and they can keep him there. Understand? How long do you think he's going to wait in that sweatbox

Larry was shaking his head, still unaware that anything subtle was going on.

"I just don't bloody believe it. How long do we have to wait for them to make their minds up?" He almost wagged a finger at the DI, then thought better of it. "I'm warning you, they're messing us about."

"Oh, yeah?" Falcon stuck his face closer to Larry's. "Let's see how long the bronzed wonder can last in a bug-infested cell with two drunks, a druggie and one bucket to piss in!" He laughed. "Great frigging legal system! See— the Spanish authorities don't want all the aggro of dealing with him, but they can't legally release him over to us unless he—"

"He agrees to come of his own free will?" Larry said, catching on. "Right!"

Light dawned full and bright. All at once Larry felt better about everything.

By ten-thirty the sun had gone down and the only light in the cell was from a dim wire-caged bulb set into the ceiling. Philip Von Joel sat on a filthy blanket on the floor. In one corner behind him an alcoholic pickpocket slept unevenly, belching and coughing and keeping up a seamless monologue that was a shade too quiet to hear. It amused Von Joel—though not enough to make him laugh or even smile—that an alcoholic with a bad tremor and no discernible coordination had tried to make a living in a branch of crime that required, above all, slick timing and steady hands.

In a corner by the door the third occupant of the cell, a drug addict who was even smellier than the drunk, appeared to be asleep, too, although he groaned a lot and every two minutes or so his eyes rolled open and a sharp rigor took hold of his body, straightening his spine sharply and making his head strike the wall. He was incredibly thin, dressed only in cut-off jeans. His back, legs, and arms were covered with crops of circular purplish lesions; some of them were blistered, others bled from contact with the cement floor.

The fourth prisoner lay along the wall to Von Joel's left, swathed in rags. He looked dead.

Von Joel sat erect, distancing himself from this place, separating his senses from the confinement and the squalor. It was not easy. He was a compulsively clean man, acutely fastidious in matters of health and hygiene. In his present situation he knew it would be a mistake to think ahead: it would erode his confidence in his own ability to survive the intentions of lesser people.

What he must do, first and foremost, was cling to his sense of himself. He must remain secure in the understanding that he was above matters of simple confinement. Liberty was his medium, he would gravitate to freedom because his karma was in balance. His fundamental condition could not be withheld from him for long, because such a denial went against nature.

It was hard though. The smells were like a fog seeping into his head, clouding his certainty. The filthiness of the cell was disheartening, and there was not one pleasant thing to look at. He closed his eyes tightly, making his breathing slow and shallow. He concentrated fiercely, remembering the primary code for those who would survive and prevail; he saw it printed in silver letters against the darkness of his eyelids:

cling tightly to your personhood, your dignity, your sense of self.

Sense of self was hardest. In here, kept forcibly from all he loved and craved, it felt like old times,
very
old times, back in the days when he was the person they were calling him now, Eddie Myers. Those were the hardest days, days of spiritual darkness. They were gone. He was Philip Von Joel, that was his sole identity, his fresh incarnation.