Caveat Emptor Read Online Free PDF Page B

people from Ciao! sitting on the floor in a corner. Outtakes from the movie were being projected on the walls. Edie was there, looking spectacularly beautiful. She was made up like a dewy, owl-eyed doll. She wore jeans and a slinky top cut low down the back, revealing her entire spine. Across the expanse of her exposed back, she had scrawled her telephone number in flaming red lipstick.

    In 1968, Tony’s current girlfriend, Barbara, was tall, sophisticated, and beautiful with long, straight red hair and freckles. She was a model and had been married to a designer for the ultrahip boutique Paraphernalia. One night at Max’s, after they had just returned from a trip to upstate New York, Tony and Barbara told Tom and me about a museum they had visited in Lake George. The museum had been the summer residence of Marcella Sembrich, a famous opera singer in the 1930s. It was filled with antiques and artwork she had collected during her life. Many of the pieces had been given to her by wealthy admirers. Tony was desperate for a big score and came up with the idea of cleaning the museum out. Not long after that, I got a call from Tom. He had received a call from “you-know-who,” and he told me to be at the Castle that evening.
    That night, Tom and I held a vigil. At 1:00 A.M., we spotted a pair of headlights at the end of the road inching slowly up toward the house. We went out on the balcony and held our breath as the car pulled up beneath us. Tony emerged from the car, grinning from ear to ear. He spread his arms wide and took a grand theatrical bow.
    Barbara, coolly dressed in skin-tight black leather jeans and a turtleneck, disembarked from the car and sauntered up the steps to the entrance of the house. Hollywood could not have cast a more glamorous pair of art thieves. “You did it!” Tom cried when Tony entered the room. Barbara, the ultimate picture of composure, sank into an easy chair and lit a cigarette.
    Tom, Tony, and I went down to the car. It was packed to the headliner with boxes containing all the loot. We lugged everything up to the house and began to unwrap the items and spread them out on Tom’s worktables. Our eyes were met with a dazzling array of treasures. There were beautiful Russian cigarette cases by Fabergé, a Tiffany desk lamp, art glass by Lalique, and a complete set of antique Sèvres china, each piece wrapped in newspaper by Barbara’s lovely hands. There were eighteenth-century French clocks and Russian icons, even a collection of early bronze figurines. The most breathtaking sight of all came when Barbara unpacked a priceless collection of eighteenth-century ladies’ fans of indescribable beauty.
    â€œThere was nothing to it,” Tony said, as Tom lit up a joint. Tony explained how they’d checked into a Lake George motel and waited until nightfall to visit the museum. They’d parked in a hidden spot and broken in through a window at the side. Once in, they broke into display cases, grabbing everything in sight and packing the loot into boxes brought in with them. They loaded up the car and sped away into the night.
    We were thunderstruck. Tony was really wired and in a dangerous mood. I kept clear of him and spent my time with Barbara, who was serene as a Persian cat.
    Unfortunately, Tony hadn’t made as clean a job of it as he thought, and the next couple of weeks were frightening. He hadn’t used a stolen car as planned, but rather one owned by his brother. Then he created suspicion at the Lake George motel by asking the management a million questions about the museum, before robbing it. They had taken down his license plate number. The FBI traced it and paid a visit to his family in Brooklyn. Then the feds showed up at Max’s. It was only a matter of time before they’d reach the Castle. We were all in a state of paranoid shock. Tom urged Tony to leave the area at once, but Tony insisted that he needed to sell some of the goods