Red Queen (51 page)

Most people would have called Marc a thief.

He liked to think of himself as a professional.

Either way he was raking in huge bucks.

During his last trip to New York City and its famous Diamond District—he'd driven cross-country all by himself, in three days no less—he'd fenced a pair of sapphire earrings studded with diamonds and netted twenty grand in cash. The gaudy blue stones had been five carats each, and the lonely eared woman he'd swiped them from had also been wearing a gold bracelet laced with rubies that he'd sold for another ten thousand.

It amazed him that the vast majority of celebrities had no taste. He was something of an expert on the subject. He'd seen with his own eyes how difficult it was, if not impossible, for a certain category of rich or famous women to resist the temptation to drape themselves in the bulk of their jewelry box while attending a red-carpet event.

For Marc that group was easy to spot: female stars who were a few too many years past the cursed number forty, and whose phone had stopped ringing; or else trophy wives who
had visited their plastic surgeons one too many times to suction off fat that would have better been shed with diet and exercise. Either group was, to Marc, the equivalent of walking pawnshops.

“Scratch it and you're dead,” a producer snapped at Marc as he handed over the keys to a black Mercedes sports coupe, while another parking attendant helped the man's wife out through the passenger door.

Marc recognized the guy—Barry Hazen, executive producer on tonight's film. By all rights Hazen should have been the man of the hour. Yet Marc knew—as did anyone remotely connected to the business—that Hazen had not worked on the film at all. The guy was filthy rich. He and his partners owned a medium-size production company. All he did was write checks. He never made creative decisions. Yet, with his cash, he was able to put his name on films he probably couldn't even follow.

That was fine with Marc. Because even though Mr. Hazen was sixty years old with snow-white hair and an Armani tux, Mrs. Hazen was a thirty-year-old redhead wearing a diamond necklace with a central rock the size of a golf ball. It was so big it must have started forming back when the dinosaurs walked the earth. Marc could only dream what he could hock it for.

Marc smiled as he took the man's keys. “Have no fear, Mr. Hazen. I know a secret spot I can stow this baby where God himself couldn't touch it.”

Mr. Hazen nodded his approval. “We'll be here late. Stay behind and pick it up for me and I'll make it worth your while.”

“Absolutely,” Marc said. He always stayed late for the after-picture party so he could prey on that one couple he'd select who would return home so tired and drunk that they'd fall into bed the instant they entered their house. But whoever that couple turned out to be—so far the Hazens looked good, but Marc knew he'd have several candidates before the night was over—he'd have to clock out before they returned for their car.

Why? The answer was simple. He had to be finished with his work so he could ride home with the couple in their trunk.

Marc hopped in the car and headed straight for Hollywood Boulevard without bothering to check the back, tearing around the block. Grauman's had been built ages ago, in the era of black-and-white films, and its parking lot could accommodate only a fraction of the valet traffic. Nowadays the best place to stow a Mercedes was in the mall next door. It had a ten-level parking structure and from experience Marc knew how early the bottom level emptied. It was perfect; it gave him more than enough privacy to keep up his lucrative side job.

He stashed Hazen's sports car in a spot he reserved for his most promising candidates. Besides being physically isolated, it was outside the range of any security cameras and had a seldom-used janitor's closet where he could store the tools of his trade and work without being interrupted.

Marc hurried to that closet and locked the door behind him. From a box hidden in the corner beneath a filthy sink, he took out a flat, two-inch-square steel case loaded with putty. Separating the Mercedes's key from the rest of Hazen's keys, he placed it inside the case and pressed the top shut.

Making the impression of the key was easy—the remainder of the process took patience and skill. Opening the case and removing the key, he reached for a tube of oily brown goo that could best be described as “plaster-glue,” and squeezed it into the impression.

Marc didn't know the exact chemical makeup of the material, nor did he care. All that mattered was that it dried fast and hard, which it did when heated. That was its only drawback and the main reason why it wasn't as easy to duplicate keys as most people thought. To speed up the process he kept a battery-powered heater running in the janitor's closet. He kept extra cases on hand as well. There were nights he'd go through a dozen of them and prepare a dozen spare keys.

Yet in the end he'd use only one key and sneak into only one house—if he was lucky. A lot of factors had to come together for his plan to work. So far, after a year of parking celebrity cars and working over twenty red-carpet events, he'd managed to slip into only seven homes. And out of those seven he'd only struck gold four times.

Of course, the gold had been attached to jewels . . . so he couldn't complain.

Marc finished applying the plaster and again closed his steel case and held the top tight for a minute without moving an inch. Then, after opening it and leaving the case and the key atop the heater to dry, he cleaned Mr. Hazen's original key with a paper towel soaked in alcohol and bleach. Whenever he managed to steal something beautiful and expensive, he knew there was no easier way for the police to trace the crime back to him than if he left even the tiniest residue of putty on the original car key.

Since Hazen was his first candidate of the night, Marc was out of practice and it took longer than usual before he was able to exit the janitor's closet—six whole minutes. The process should have taken him half that time.

Damn,
he thought. His boss, Steve Green—a rough-voiced ex-sailor from Australia and the head of the valet parking—was going to wonder what was taking him so long.

Yet when Marc finally did leave the janitor's closet, he did so without the fake key in hand. From practice, he knew it was best to let it dry on the heater for at least twenty minutes. The hotter it got, the harder it got.

When Marc got back to the theater, his boss did in fact ask where the hell he'd been. “Got caught behind a couple of cop cars while swinging around the block,” Marc lied.

“Did they stop you?”

“Almost. I was speeding.”

Green grinned his approval. He was famous for taking Jags
and Porsches out for a spin during the downtime in the middle of the movie.

Marc grinned along with his boss but cringed inside. The fact Green had noticed the delay was not good. It was reason enough to cross the Hazens off his list of candidates.

“Where'd you park Hazen's Hard-on?” Green asked. It was a common belief among the people who worked valet that most celebrity cars were phallic symbols.

Marc handed over the keys to his boss. “Next door, level G, south corner, slot nineteen, away from everyone else. You know how that asshole is about his wheels.”

Green nodded as he hung the keys on the appropriate hook. “You can't be too careful with the guy who's paying for the party. He can get us all fired.”

Marc relaxed as he noticed how fast his boss dropped the matter. But it was a warning he'd have to pick up his duplicating pace. At the same time, he'd have to be more selective about whom he chose as candidates.

Yet he knew he couldn't control all aspects of the heist. A large part of being a successful thief was luck. For example, how late a couple was going to leave, and how drunk they were going to be—he couldn't predict that ahead of time. That's why he had to make so many extra keys. He had to play the odds.

The time for the premiere drew near and traffic picked up. Marc found himself running back and forth from the valet
booth with hardly a chance to catch his breath. However, he did manage to identify another three targets.

First came Mr. and Mrs. Kollet, who were connected to the studio that was distributing the film. They would definitely be staying late for the after-film party. Mrs. Kollet was wearing a diamond bracelet that literally dazzled Marc's eyes. As an added bonus, the couple stumbled getting out of their car and he needed only a whiff of the vehicle's interior to know they were already drunk—always a plus.

Second was Cynthia Parker, one of the most brilliant scriptwriters in the city. Although she wore a relatively modest red gown, around her neck was a string of pearls that looked like they had once belonged to a European court. The individual pearls were not excessively large but had a silver-white color that gave them what the muse in Ms. Parker might have called an “angelic sheen.” Marc was careful to park her car next to the Hazens' and make a copy of her key.

Finally, there was the star of the film, Silvia Summer, and her football star boyfriend, Ray Cota of the San Francisco 49ers. They arrived late in a white Jaguar and received the loudest cheers from the gathered fans. Ms. Summer was young, but rich and successful—in the top three on the A-list of talent in her age bracket—eighteen- to twenty-five-year-olds. She'd been the lead in two hits; this would probably be her third.

Ms. Summer wore a heart-shaped emerald at the end of a gold necklace. Marc had seen plenty of emeralds in his time and
knew the stone was notorious for its number of inclusions—natural flaws that showed up as dark spots under close inspection. Yet because he opened the door for her and because her breasts would have stolen the eyes out of the head of any red-blooded American male, he inadvertently got a closer look at the emerald than he planned and could have sworn it was close to flawless.

“Welcome,” Marc said with a genuine smile as he shut the car door behind her. “It's an honor. I've seen all your movies. I hear you're great in this one.”

Unlike most stars of her wattage level, she took the time to look him in the eye and reply. She even leaned close so that only he could hear. “I look good because everyone else sucks,” she confided.

Mark had to laugh. “I heard that as well.”

She paused and stared at him. She was blond and beautiful, sure, but sharp as well. He could spot her intelligence in the way she studied him, and it made him wonder if it was wise to choose her as a candidate. Stealing a necklace from a movie star was one thing—not getting caught was another. It might have been a mistake to speak to her. Her gaze continued to linger.

“You don't look like the sort of guy who should be parking cars,” she said.

Marc shrugged. “It pays the bills.”

Again, she came near. “For now. But there's something
in your eyes. Trust me, one day you're going to be somebody.”

It was a moment, a special moment, but it didn't last. At that instant her boyfriend swept around the Jaguar, tossed his keys high in the air to Marc—who caught them without blinking—and led Ms. Summer onto the red carpet and toward the theater entrance.

Marc was fortunate to end up with the keys. Ordinarily the driver handed them to whoever opened the driver's door. Marc was as far from superstitious as a guy could be. Even as a four-year-old, bouncing from one orphanage to another, he'd realized Santa Claus had been invented to sell more toys. But he trusted his gut and didn't feel it was a coincidence that he'd ended up with the keys to Ms. Summer's car. He thought somebody was trying to tell him something.

It turned out her Jaguar was the last car he parked before the film began. Marc put it near the Hazens' Mercedes, on the bottom level of the mall lot. He took his time making an impression of her key, and took even more time cleaning the original.

He had selected only four targets, which was unusual for him—last time he'd had ten at this stage. Yet all four were prime: They had the jewels; their connection to the picture was such that they'd all stay late; he'd been able to make an impression of their car key; and they all had plenty of trunk space.

Now it was all a question of timing.

It was against the rules for the valet crew to watch the film, but Green was a laid-back boss and let Marc and a buddy of his, Teddy Fox, slip into the theater fifteen minutes after the movie started. All the seats were taken and they had to stand at the rear, but Marc didn't mind. He found a marble wall to lean against and rested the back of his head on the cool stone. It was a relief to rest for a few minutes and the film wasn't half bad.

It was a romantic comedy structured around a mystery. A couple were only an hour away from getting married when both their wedding rings vanished. At the start the story focused on a search for the clever thief, but it was the buried doubts about the marriage that the crime suddenly raised in the bride and groom that created the bulk of the laughs. Silvia Summer had been too hard on the film. The crowd spent most of the movie laughing out loud. Ordinarily Marc was demanding when it came to films, but even he couldn't resist chuckling a few times. He especially enjoyed the lead actress. Ms. Summer was even more stunning on the big screen.

He kept thinking how he'd like to see her again, socially. A silly thought, sure—she had a boyfriend and he was a nobody. But the remark she'd made getting out of her car—it had stayed with him.

What had she seen in him? It couldn't have been his face, although there were plenty of girls who thought he was worth a second look. It was like they had connected for an instant in some mysterious way. The simple fact was he liked her, and he
found it ironic that the feeling made his desire for her necklace even greater, when it should have been the other way around.

He didn't dwell too long on the paradox. He knew the way his mind worked. He had two trains racing in the two hemispheres of his brain that unfortunately were usually on the same track and racing toward each other, which was another way of saying that he was pretty sure he was screwed up.