Full Circle by Collin Wilcox Page A

Freeway Traffic Jam.
    At the thought, the right side of his mouth twisted in a grotesquerie of a smile. It was, after all, a news bulletin with a Los Angeles twist. In the whole world, there was nothing to equal the role of the freeway in the lives and the loves—and, yes, the deaths—of Angelenos.
    Then, weeks later, perhaps months later, there would be another headline:
    Stolen Masterpieces Discovered.
    And under that a subhead: Billionaire’s Secret Gallery Contained Priceless Art.
    Alive or dead, his seventy-eight years were coming down to the last headlines. The jackals were beginning to circle, beginning to take his measure. Ned Frazer, the weakest link, had snapped. The DuBois case file, he’d been warned, was on the United States Attorney’s desk. Meaning that his options were narrowing. If he didn’t move his collection, he would be vulnerable. But, strapped to a wheelchair, he could hardly lift his right hand to push the chair’s control buttons, much less lift a painting. Meaning, therefore, that he must have help, someone he trusted.
    But who?
    Betty was in Europe, fearful that he would have her killed.
    Powers? No. During the months since Nick Ames had died, Powers had been disintegrating, no more than a husk now.
    Leaving, incredibly, only one possibility: Alan Bernhardt, the failed actor-cum-playwright who now supported himself as a private investigator.
    Because, yes, Bernhardt was an honest man. Whatever his shortcomings, he was probably trustworthy. Meaning that he could be DuBois’s only hope.
    He felt the car changing directions. Opening his eyes, he saw that they’d finally reached the off-ramp.
    Soon he would know.

TEN
    “F IRST OF ALL, Mr. Bernhardt, I hope to gain your trust. So if you’ll permit me, I’d like to address the matter of Nick Ames and Betty Giles. I’m going to be completely honest with you. Usually, especially in matters of business, it’s unwise to be completely honest. In fact, it’s usually stupid, at least in the opening game. However, I find myself in an unusual position. That’s to say, I find myself in a situation I can’t control.”
    Bernhardt’s response was a slight, noncommittal smile. He was biding his time.
    “The problem, basically,” DuBois was saying, “is time. Or, more precisely, infirmity. Without assistance, as you know, I can’t get out of this chair. Which means that I’m incapable of dealing with the problems that began when Nick Ames started blackmailing me, several months ago.”
    “The problems began when you bought your first stolen painting,” Bernhardt said. His manner, his inflection, everything suggested that Bernhardt had come to collect his pound of flesh.
    “If that’s your conclusion, Mr. Bernhardt, I can but agree.”
    Grimly Bernhardt nodded. “Thank you.”
    “I suppose,” DuBois said, “a writer of another era might have described me as a mighty stag at bay, surrounded by a slavering pack of wolves. It’s an image that used to stir my boyhood imagination: a huge, majestic stag, wild-eyed, rearing and bucking in the blood-flecked snow while the wolves, desperate for food because of the snow, are lunging at the stag.”
    Bernhardt made no response. He was sitting on a marble bench beside a pedestrian path that led through a small grove of olive trees and up a slope to the Huntington Library. DuBois had positioned his chair on the grass beside the path. From where Bernhardt sat he could see two of DuBois’s bodyguards. Dressed in identical dark blue suits, white shirts, and regimental ties, they might have been IBM salesmen from an earlier era. Each man wore a shoulder holster so bulky that the amply cut suit jackets failed to conceal the bulges. Each man wore sunglasses. Each carried a walkie-talkie small enough to be concealed in the palm of his hand. Doubtless by prearrangement, one guard kept his gaze on Bernhardt while the other continually scanned the surrounding terrain. Since DuBois had arrived, fifteen minutes