by Stuart Woods
No one was out back or on the other side of the house. Outside his bedroom window he stepped over a small pile of flagstones that had been left over from building the patio. After his tour he let himself back in the front door. “It’s me,” he called to Chris. “Don’t shoot.”
There was no response.
He stepped into the living room and looked around. She was gone. The pistol held ready, he ran through the house to the back door, kicked open the screen, and stepped outside, the flashlight ready to point, the weapon ready to fire. Nobody. He ran quickly to both sides of the house for a look, then returned to the back door, looking at the fence at the end of his backyard and wondering if anyone could get over that. Now he was frightened.
From inside the house he heard a door open, then another noise. He opened the back screen quietly and stepped into the hall. As he did, Chris came out of the bathroom to his right, holding her pistol. Suddenly, she turned toward him and raised the weapon.
“It’s me! Don’t shoot!”
“What are you doing there?” she asked, lowering the gun. “I thought you were out front.”
“I came back in and you were gone,” he said. “Scared the shit out of me.”
“I’m sorry,” she said apologetically. “I had to use the bathroom.”
“How the hell did you know where the bathroom was?” he asked.
“I could hear the water running in the toilet. It’s a distinctive sound.”
“I keep meaning to fix that.”
“Don’t—not for a while, anyway; it’s useful.”
He laughed. “Come on, let’s get those steaks on the fire.”
They returned to the kitchen, but he kept the pistol in his hip pocket.
CHAPTER
34
They ate their steaks hungrily, with a salad and a bottle of California cabernet, avoiding the subjects of Admirer, Danny’s accident, or anything that might ruin their dinner. Larsen dug some ice cream out of the freezer and they had dessert, then he cleared the table. Chris insisted on helping with the dishes, and although he had a serviceable dishwasher, he didn’t discourage her. He liked having her standing next to him doing something domestic, even if it seemed a strange setting for a movie star.
“Does the movie actress thing make you at all uncomfortable?” she asked suddenly, as if reading his mind.
“It did a little, at first,” he admitted. “Less so now.”
“Good; it’s an artificial barrier and I don’t want barriers between us.”
“You have to admit we live in different worlds,” he said, handing her a plate.
“We live across town from each other, that’s all.”
“Bel Air is a lot farther than across town. It’s a thousand miles, at least. So is Malibu.”
“I was afraid that might bother you,” she said, wiping a cup. “I wish it didn’t.”
“I had to deal with something like that once before,” he said. “When I was at UCLA.”
“Tell me about it.”
“There was this very beautiful girl, and I was nuts about her, and we were pinned for a while.”
“What happened?”
“She took me home to San Diego—La Jolla, actually—for a weekend. La Jolla is a very ritzy place, and her parents had one of the more noticeable houses there, overlooking the Pacific. Her father was a lawyer, like mine. No, not like mine; he was the managing partner of a very major firm in San Diego, and when at dinner the first night I described my father’s practice, not without some pride, he burst out laughing. I don’t think he meant to, but he was an insufferable snob, and I told him to shut up. He recovered from that and apologized, but Sherry, my girl, was incensed that I would speak to her father that way, no matter what he had said about my father. Make a long story short, I took the bus back to L.A. that night. We were hardly rich, but my father earned a respectable income, and we were solidly middle class. I didn’t think we had to kowtow to anybody.”
“Quite right,” Chris said. “What happened with the girl?”
“I waited for her to apologize for her conduct—I was quite stiff-necked in those days—but instead she mailed my fraternity pin back to me. We didn’t speak to each other again, until last year.”
“Last year?”
“I ran into her on Rodeo Drive. She had gained a lot of weight, and she had two horrible children in tow. We had a minute’s polite conversation—she’s married to a La Jolla dentist—and we went on our ways.”
“I hope you’re not quite so stiff-necked these days.”
“I hope not, too.”
“My father is a pharmacist in Delano, Georgia.”
“Then you’re not far above me?”
“Well, he does own the drugstore.”
“Only one?”
“Just the one.”
“I can live with that, I guess.”
“But Bel Air and Malibu are harder to live with?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Let me tell you about my fabulous wealth and position. About the time I started getting work out here I married an actor—Brad Donner. We were both just getting started.”
“I’ve seen him in several things,” Larsen said. “He’s good.”
“Yes, and he’s done very well—better than I, in fact. It’s easier for men out here. Brad is not the world’s brightest man, but he made one very good career decision. Remember a movie called Man in Blue?”
“Sure; a very good cop flick, I thought.”
“So did the whole world, and Brad was smart enough to take a minimum salary and profit participation. That paid for the Bel Air house and made us fairly secure. When we were divorced, the community property law gave me half the marital assets, including half the house, plus about half a million in cash. I had saved some money, and with smart handling by my business manager, Jack Berman, it grew to about three hundred thousand. So when the Malibu house is finished and the Bel Air place sold, I should end up with a paid-for house and about half a million dollars. Do you think that’s too rich to be comfortable with?”
“Well, due to my father’s diligence in making insurance payments, I’ve got a paid-for house in Santa Monica and about three hundred thousand in investments, and I don’t owe anybody anything, so maybe we’re not so far apart after all.”
“I’m glad you see it that way,” she said.
“Of course, if we’re both reasonably successful at our careers, I’ll end up with a pension in eight more years, and you’ll make millions.”
“Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it,” she said.
“I guess if you’re going to cross a bridge, that’s the time to do it,” he agreed.
“There’s another bridge we have to cross,” she said, slipping an arm around his waist, “and I think it’s time we did it.”
“We seem to keep getting interrupted,” he said.
“Not tonight,” she murmured, kissing him.
They stood at the kitchen sink with their arms around each other, becoming more and more aroused.
“I can’t find my way to the bedroom,” she whispered. “You’ll have to lead the way.”
He swept her into his arms and carried her across the house to the bedroom, then set her on the bed while he got out of his clothes. She was already taking off her heavy T-shirt, and the dim light from the window revealed the lines of her breasts and waist. Larsen sat on the bed and buried his face in her breasts, kissing the nipples; he was already naked, and he helped her with her jeans.
Then they were stretched out on the bed, whispering to each other, kissing, caressing. She reached across his body and pulled him on top of her, then guided him inside her.
Larsen took a deep breath, and before he could let it out, the window next to the bed caved inward with a roar, and, accompanied by thousands of shards of glass, an eighteen-inch-wide slab of flagstone crashed onto the bed next to them.
Chris screamed, and Larsen rolled off the bed, taking her with him, landing on his back,
with her weight crushing the broken glass into him. Larsen turned and shoved her under the bed. “Stay there and don’t come out until I tell you to,” he whispered.
He got to his feet, scooping up his trousers as he ran across the glass shards. He got quickly into his pants and yanked the heavy automatic pistol out as he tore toward the front door, ignoring the pain in his back and feet. From outside he heard a motorcycle engine leap to life and the gears engage.
He fumbled for his car keys as he burst through the front door, in time to catch a fleeting glimpse of the motorcyclist tearing down the street. This time he had a shot at the guy, he thought, and if he could catch him he wouldn’t need to worry about his fingerprints.
His unmarked patrol car was at curbside, and Larsen dived into it, key at the ready. It started instantly, and he was off down the street after the disappearing motorcycle.
Then he felt a series of hard bumps and heard the sound of metal grating on concrete. The car was hardly moving. Swearing, he got out and walked around the car. All four tires had been slashed to ribbons. “SHIT!” he screamed into the night. He heard neighborhood doors and windows opening. Humiliated, he pulled the crippled car to the curb, then ran back into the house.
“Chris?” he shouted as he came through the front door.
“I’m here,” she called back. “I’m all right.”
He ran to the bedroom, then became more careful as he made his way through the broken glass. He picked up the naked girl and made his way to the guest room. “Shhhh,” he whispered over her sobbing. “It’s all right; we’re both all right.”
Her arm was over his shoulder. “Your back isn’t all right,” she said. “You’re bleeding horribly.”
“I’ll get into a shower in a minute,” he said, turning down the bed and tucking her into it. “Then you can put something on it for me.” He brushed her hair out of her eyes and kissed her tears away. “I’ll be right back,” he said. He placed his pistol in her hand. “This will take care of you.”
A few minutes later, still standing under the stinging water, he became the third person to resolve to kill Admirer at the first opportunity.
CHAPTER
35
Larsen greeted Mike Moscowitz and walked him to the bedroom. Outside, a police mechanic had jacked up the patrol car and was changing the wheels. “I hadn’t expected to call you this soon,” Larsen said, pointing at the window. The large flagstone still lay on the floor.
Moscowitz whistled. “That really made a hole, didn’t it?”
“It did.”
“Burglar? Vandal?”
“Neither.”
“This have something to do with what you came to see me about?” Moscowitz asked.
“Yeah.”
“You said somebody was bothering Chris Callaway?”
“She was here last night.”
Moscowitz looked at the floor. “Look, I didn’t realize this was so serious. I’m afraid I wasn’t very cooperative when we talked.”
“Are you feeling more cooperative now?”
“I’ve been thinking; there’s a couple of my subs who’ve got a van like mine. One of them strikes me as, well, a little odd.”
“Which one?”
“Name’s Mel Parker; he’s doing the security system for the house.”
“What’s odd about him?”
“Well, I don’t know, he’s a pleasant enough guy, fairly nice-looking, but…”
“But what?”
“He just makes me a little uneasy. He came highly recommended to me from a friend who’s in the business, and God knows, he’s done a first-rate job with his installation. He’s just a little creepy.”
“How do you mean?”
“It’s not the scar…”
“Scar?”
“His upper lip. Looks like one of those, uh…”
“A harelip?”
“Not anymore. It must have been fixed when he was a kid, and it’s not a bad scar, it just makes his mouth sort of grin all the time, even when he’s not grinning.”
“The teeth are exposed, you mean?”
“Yeah, even when his mouth is closed.”
“Chris didn’t mention that.”
“Well, he smiles a lot, and that keeps you from noticing; it’s when he doesn’t know you’re looking at him that it’s noticeable.”
“What else about him?”
“He’s got dead eyes.”
Larsen paused. “How do you mean?”
“Well, you remember that guy who shot Reagan a few years back?”
“Yeah.”
“And the guy who shot John Lennon? They both had dead eyes.”
“Describe them.”
“Well, it’s like no matter what expression is on their faces, their eyes always look the same—expressionless, dead.”
Larsen knew what the builder meant; he had seen them often enough in mug shots. “What else about him bothers you?”
“Once he told me about this experience he had on a job. He was installing an alarm in a big house in Pacific Palisades, and he was working outside the master bedroom window, and the lady of the house was lying on the bed, naked, you know, doing herself. And he said he just stood there and watched her, didn’t care if she saw him or not.”
“Did she see him?”
“He sort of implied that she did, but she didn’t care. I thought that was weird; I couldn’t have stood there and watched that; I’d have been embarrassed. It bothered me that he wasn’t embarrassed.”
Larsen nodded. “Thanks, I’m glad you told me.”
Moscowitz looked at the shattered window. “I wish I’d told you sooner. I hope I haven’t said something about an innocent man.”
“Don’t worry, nobody’s going to bother him until we’re sure he’s our man.”
“About the window, Jon, I’ll pick one up this afternoon and have it in by tonight. I’ll charge you for the window—my wholesale price—but the labor’s on me.”
“That’s not necessary, Mike.”
“I know it isn’t, but I’d feel better if you’d let me do it.”
“All right, thanks.”
The two men shook hands, then left the house.
Larsen stood and marveled at Danny Devere’s car. “How the hell could anybody survive that?” he asked Bernie, the chief police mechanic.
“The car did what it was supposed to: collapsed in sections, pretty much preserved the integrity of the passenger compartment. He had his seat belt on and, maybe most important, he had an airbag,” Bernie said.
“What did you find?”
“Well, when a car’s this torn up, there’s some guessing involved.”
“What do you guess?”
“There was a hole, like a pinhole, in the hydraulic line to the brakes. It could have been made in the crash, of course, but it looks to me like the hole was so small that not much fluid would leak until the brakes were used. So every time he used the brakes, he’d squirt out some more fluid, until there wasn’t enough left to be effective.”
Larsen nodded. “Anything else?”
“The transmission shift cable was gone, and I would say, though I couldn’t swear in court, that somebody had cut all but a strand or two of the cable, and when the driver is up there at the top of Beverly Glen and his brakes don’t work, he gets a little panicky, maybe, maybe a lot panicky, and he yanks the gear lever around, trying to slow the car down, and the last of the cable snaps.”
“You’re saying we’re not going to get anybody for doing this?”
“You may get him; you’re not going to prove it. The car’s just too much of a mess. But if I was you, I wouldn’t give the driver a ticket, either. The guy ought to get a medal for driving it into that tennis court. Can you imagine what could have happened if he had just ridden the thing all the way down to Sunset and hit that traffic? That was one cool customer.”
Larsen grinned. “Would you believe he’s a very gay little hairdresser?”
“You’re shi
ttin’ me!”
“I shit you not.”
Bernie burst out laughing.
Larsen sat at his desk and pondered how to proceed. He thought of staking out Keyhole Security and waiting to get a good look at Mel Parker, but the idea of tiptoeing around the bastard galled him.
Finally, he picked up the phone and dialed.
“Keyhole Security,” a woman’s voice answered.
“Mel Parker, please.”
“May I say who is calling?”
“A prospective customer. Tell him Mike Moscowitz referred me to him.”
“Just a moment.”
Parker came on the line. “Hello?”
“’Morning, I’m looking for a burglar alarm, and Mike Moscowitz recommended you.”
“That’s nice of Mike,” Parker said, “Mr…?”
“Larsen. Jon Larsen.”
There was a long pause on the other end. “Right, Mr. Larsen,” Parker said finally, his voice steady. “What sort of system did you have in mind?”
“Something pretty comprehensive.”
“Home or business?”
“Home.”
“Why don’t I come and take a look at your situation?”
“Perfect.” Larsen gave him the address.
“I’ve got some service calls to make this afternoon, but I could stop by on my way in. Are you available around six?”
“Absolutely perfect.”
“I know the street,” Parker said. “I’ll see you at six.”
“I’ll look forward to it,” Larsen said. When he put down the phone, his hand was trembling.
CHAPTER
36
Melvin James Parker stood on the opposite side of the screen door and looked at Larsen. “Hi,” he said. “I’m Mel Parker.”
