"Any questions?"
Removing her hat, she brushed back her hair. It smelled of the ocean. She'd been swimming. Ellery experienced a sharp and jolting vision of how it would feel to swim beside her, far from the crowds, far from shore, testing your limits.
Her eyes were on the distant waves.
"Someone broke in last night. Searched the house. Nothing taken. Do I tell the police?"
Again her calm impressed him.
"First time in your neighborhood?"
"No. There’ve been a few others."
He rubbed the back of his hand against his lower lip and thought aloud. "Coincidence, maybe. Nobody knows about your part in this but me and Oliver and possibly his boss. Unless someone already thinks you were mixed up with Yussuf," he added grimly.
He half intended it as bait, but she looked as perplexed as he was. Shrugging, he raised a hand in departure.
"See you at Fun City."
"Ellery."
He turned back sharply at her voice.
"I have a price for this."
He hadn't thought she was that kind. Her words disappointed him.
"Sure. You'll get a per diem."
"Not cash." Her hands were planted on her hips. "Serafin's an illegal. I want him naturalized. And made my ward. Or I don't leave tomorrow."
He was motionless, not sure whether he was feeling anger or the impulse to laugh. Also not sure anymore whether he could believe her earlier promise to do what he said, the way he said to do it. He bit his words off, filled with sarcasm.
"Anything else?"
He thought her lips twitched once.
"One thing. I expect your people to pick up the bill for my underwear."
He eyed her narrowly, trying to figure out what she was getting at and not giving her the satisfaction of asking. But her eyebrows raised. She knew he was stumped.
"Silk panties cause static, which I don't need handling film, Mr. Ellery. I'm damned if I'll wear cotton ones at my own expense!"
Five
At Christmastime, Channing always received a card from her local Jeep dealership. They loved her. She changed models yearly, equipping them with high-priced extras. The one she drove through the hot, barren stretches of southernmost California was blue, and she was glad of its reliability. Compared with the traffic in Los Angeles, this stretch of highway winding toward the plush Palacio Sol was all but deserted.
Seeing a service station ahead, she decided to pull over. Her work in remote places had conditioned her to feel more comfortable when her gas gauge read almost full. Besides, she wanted a cool drink. As she pulled up next to the tanks and jumped down, she heard a muffled pounding from the back of the Jeep where her luggage was stowed.
"Channing! Let me out!"
She stared. Every bone in her body went hard with anger, vexation, and sudden fear. Whipping out keys, she unlocked the large old trunk that held her stage props.
"Serafin! What the hell are you doing in there? You could have suffocated!"
He looked penitent, and despite his dusky skin, she could see he was flushed.
"It's got a good lock. I thought I'd be able to open -- "
"If I hadn't heard you, you could have died in there. Understand? Muerto!" She was feeling progressively weak with the aftershock.
He hung his head, brushing rivulets of sweat from his neck.
"You said we were going to be like partners. Partners stick together." His eyes turned up, pleading. "I want to make sure you stay okay. You're going to this place because of that spy business, aren't you?"
"Not another word about that," she said between her teeth, and to the attendant who approached them, "Fill it."
Grabbing Serafin's shoulder, she began to march him toward the service station.
"Don't get sore," he said, and his expression undermined the toughness she knew she should muster. It told her better than words that he was afraid of being alone. He was afraid of losing her. Maybe he was even afraid her promises wouldn't be kept.
She shoved him toward the men's room.
"Go run water over your head. Lots of it."
When he returned, she handed him a cold canned soft drink.
"You going to send me back?" he asked, his voice subdued.
"No," she said. She'd thought it over. Having Rundell come down to get him would cause more commotion than she wanted right now, and maybe a child's need for security had to count for more than logic in this case. "But don't you ever, ever pull anything like this again. Do you hear me?"
He nodded meekly.
"I can help you set up your props and stuff. I didn't mash anything."
They walked back toward the Jeep. Out on the highway a car pulled off and meandered slowly by to stop at a curio stand a few hundred yards away. Channing frowned. It was brown with a vinyl roof. A small Cadillac. She'd swear it had been behind her when she'd left Los Angeles. She'd liked the color.
"Think there's something wrong with that car?" asked the boy beside her.
She recoiled slightly, irritated that her face had betrayed her thoughts. Serafin read people quickly. It was unnerving.
"Not a thing," she said. But the prowler two nights ago, on top of what she was about to do, made her edgy. "If you want to try reading my mind," she said, climbing into the Jeep again, "try guessing the lessons I'm assigning you for tomorrow. I helped tutor a free-lance photographer's son last year. I have a fair idea what a kid your age is supposed to be learning."
He gave her a somber, unruffled smile. She checked the license plate of the brown car as she passed it. Final digits: 321. Then they made their way through the hot afternoon toward Palacio Sol.
It was a high-priced resort carved out of the desert. Three pools. Tennis courts. Golf and horseback riding. Palm trees and irrigated flower beds made the grounds that housed it an oasis. There was an outdoor art exhibit, and music wafted from one of the numerous lounges. The nearest town was a wide spot ten miles away. Closer to the resort, a few dusty paths suggested an occasional private dwelling lost somewhere in the scrub beyond. Before they had even finished registering, an assistant manager came bounding out to welcome Channing.
"We're so pleased you could fill in for the gentleman who was booked here," he burbled, taking her hand. "A terrible tragedy."
More than you'll ever know, thought Channing. For whatever Yussuf had become, he had been good once.
"I didn't realize you had an assistant," the manager said. His name was Wilbur. He was bald on top but preening for her all the same. With a look of concern at Serafin, he leaned closer to her. "Is he old enough to be in the club?"
"I'm a midget," said Serafin, deadpan.
"Oh." Wilbur's face turned red.
Channing closed her eyes to hide their rolling.
"Well. We've put you in one of our bungalows. Gives our entertainers a little more privacy, we've found." He gestured gallantly after her luggage.
"I'll be along in a minute," said Channing. "I forgot something in the car."
Wilbur wasn't her type, and she wanted to study the layout of this sprawling complex. As she turned, a man on one of the lobby couches cracked open a newspaper. Paranoia, noticing that, she told herself angrily. There was no reason she should think he'd been watching her. Maybe her nerves weren't steady enough for this job.
Outside, just to reassure herself that she was growing over-imaginative, she scanned the parking lot. There it was, at the opposite end from her Jeep, a small brown Cadillac.
Drawing a slow breath, she started to walk. Maybe it was Bill Ellery. Maybe he'd come early. She began to move casually toward the car, picking out details beyond. A shrub-screened path cut away toward what, by the sound of it, was one of the pools. She kept her eyes down, prepared to sweep across the license plate without slackening her steps. The last three digits were 321. Her thoughts raced in the disciplined confines she imposed on them. She moved toward the pool, saw someone appear from the sheltered path, looked up, and fought for breath.
The man facing her had piercing blue eyes. Straight blond hair. Aristocratic features except for rather thick earlobes. His face wore a studied pleasantness that might hide any emotion. It was Henri Ballieu.
He was looking directly at her, as though his eyes were taking a photograph. Channing felt the sudden and chilling realization that she was all on her own. Bill Ellery didn't arrive till tomorrow. She had no way of contacting him, or Oliver Lemming.
"Lovely afternoon," she said, summoning a lazy smile.
Prepare the ground for later, when she made contact, she decided.
A fraction of a second passed, and then Ballieu moved aside. Her nerves tingled as she entered the winding path without looking back, knowing he was behind her. Her ears strained, and for the first time, on a gut level, she understood what Bill Ellery had tried to tell her about this man: He was a killer. As likely to strike as she was to brush her teeth. And probably noiseless.
What was he doing here? He wasn't due till tomorrow.
By the time she emerged into the noise and hot concrete of poolside, her palms felt cold.
She found her way through the pool complex and past tennis courts down to the bungalows, locating hers by the number on the key Wilbur had handed her. Serafin, ensconced in the smaller of their unit's two bedrooms, was watching TV.
"No going out without me," she said, and made her face a blank so he couldn't see her worry. She didn't like this, being here on her own with Ballieu. Should she start the plan into motion? Prudence told her not to, without a backup. Besides, she hadn't been given the names of Yussuf's contacts that were supposed to establish her authenticity.
Closing the door to her room, she showered and changed. Then, removing the large piece of film from her purse, she started to practice. The cotton underpants helped. Or she was getting better. Maybe both. But her movements weren't as deft as she wanted. It had taken fifty hours of practice, at least, to perfect that trick with the coins she'd learned for Yussuf. She didn't have a hundred hours for this one. Grimly she repeated her movements over and over, the part that would make one piece of film vanish, the part that would make another piece take its place.
Outside, the sky grew dark. Stars pricked their way into being. From the other side of the door Serafin's voice, apologetic, broke into her concentration.
"Channing? Should we get some supper?"
She glanced at the clock.
"Oh, Serafin! I'm sorry."
She opened the door.
"Just let me hang up a few things."
Her everyday clothes could wait, but her carefully rigged jackets and her black dress ought to go on hangers. She hung the black dress first, smoothing its seams and straightening its pockets. Her fingers hit something and she stopped, remembering, as she drew out a cassette tape.
"Instructions for a trick of Yussuf's," she said to Serafin's look of curiosity. "He gave it to me." She turned it in her hand. "I'd forgotten ... and I don't think I feel like hearing it just now. Maybe never." She stuffed it down into the side lining of her suitcase. "Come on. I'm starved."
* * *
Still seething from Ballieu's tongue-lashing -- and from her own failure -- Khadija watched the woman and the boy who seemed to be with her leave their bungalow.
Now.
She had to find the tape or Ballieu would report her.
Bastard, she thought. He could have searched that house himself. Had he sent her to prove his own power, or was there something wrong with him? She'd seen him squeezing his belly.
Reluctantly she acknowledged that Ballieu's caution now seemed justified. The woman had come here. She knew something. She was a threat.
Khadija began to move through the darkness, a shadow in black slacks and high-necked black jersey. She was eager to even scores with this woman who had startled her two nights ago, who had come awake and thrown something so unexpectedly and made Khadija fail in her mission. Almost never had she been thwarted in something she set out to do for their cause -- never by another woman.
She would not fail this time. American meddling had deprived her of a homeland. American money had bought the planes and weapons that had killed her mother and little sister. Americans were wolves who fed on the weak. Whether she found the tape or not, killing the Stuart woman would be a triumph for Khadija's people.
Glancing around to make sure she was unobserved, she unscrewed the light on the porch of the bungalow and in only a matter of seconds sprang the lock on the door. The thin black gloves she wore insured there would be no prints. Khadija felt increasing confidence. She was good at locks. Good at rearranging electrical systems. She would show the old bastard Ballieu how good she was. Then perhaps she would mock him with what she knew.
With penlight in hand she began a methodical search of the bungalow. She found what she was after so quickly, she was almost suspicious. Then she decided that was just like a rich American woman, hiding a valuable tape in the side of a suitcase. It proved how stupid and weak such women were.
Khadija stuffed the tape into her pocket, eyes slitted with pleasure. The easy part was all that remained. She removed the electrical switch plate inside the bungalow door. She made a small rearrangement in the electrical wiring. Coming in across the darkened porch, the first thing anyone was likely to do was reach for the light switch. It would look like an accident.
Stepping cautiously, Khadija carried the ice bucket from the dresser into the bathroom, filled it with water, and, when she was safely on the other side, door open behind her, upended it to leave a puddle where the Stuart woman would step. She gave the bucket a toss. It landed agreeably near the wetness, as though it had tipped over, the culprit in all this.
Allowing herself a brief, sullen smile of satisfaction, Khadija closed the door.
* * *
"Aw, Channing, can't I just play a couple more games?"
Channing sighed, glad to find that Serafin was a normal twelve-year-old, at least when it came to addiction to video games. They'd found the arcade when they went exploring the main lodge complex after dinner.
Now, at the edge of one of the terraces, she considered. He'd be safe in the arcade, and she had her kunjar around her waist. On the way to dinner one of the guests had complimented her on her belt.
"All right," she said, shelling out a couple of dollars. "Stay there, though. I'll come and find you."
Relieved to leave the party-time noise of the lodge behind her, she made her way down a walk to the twisting path that led to the bungalows. Of all the resort's accommodations, these were the most private, probably designed for honeymooners, Channing thought. Each sat well back from the path and apart from its neighbors. As she reached the point where she'd leave the main path to walk toward her door, Channing stopped.
The light was out. It shouldn't worry her, yet she was starting to have the feeling of too many coincidences. The break-in, the brown car that had been behind her all the way from L.A., and Ballieu here ....
"I help you, lady?"
A Mexican maintenance man scrambled up from his knees. He'd been fixing a sprinkler, she saw now. She hadn't noticed him there.
"No ... no, it's all right, thanks."
But he'd seen the direction in which she was looking.
"That your cabin? With light out? You twist ankle? I go put on light inside so you can see some."
He brandished keys.
"No, don't bother--"
She started after him as he hurried to help. In the darkness she stumbled and dropped her purse, which spilled its contents.
"Damn!"
Probably she was just imagining things. She paused to sweep items back toward the mouth of her purse. Surely they'd made enough noise to scare off anyone waiting inside, hadn't they?
"I come right back with new bulb for porch," the maintenance man called cheerfully over his shoulder.
He unlocked her door as he spoke and reached inside.
The darkened doorway seemed to explode in sparks, gold against black
, a thin deadly fountain. Channing heard a terrible crackling, high-voltage buzz. She stumbled to her feet as his body fell.
Halfway there, her tightly strung nerves picked up a sound behind her. She whirled.
"Channing?"
The voice, her racing brain told her, belonged to Bill Ellery. He was coming toward her.
"How's everything going?"
The words sounded closer but she could just make out his shape against the backlit path. Her tongue froze.
He wasn't supposed to arrive till tomorrow! What was he doing here? She was suspicious of him. She was suspicious of Ballieu. She pitched her voice to reach anyone near, anyone in the neighboring bungalows.
"Help me!" she called. "Someone please help me! A man's been electrocuted!"
Six
Members of the resort's executive staff darted down the path to the bungalows like bees from a hive. Their hushed and frantic buzzing had nothing to do with the loss of a man's life, everything to do with business.
"Is the body covered?"
"Jesus! Let's hope they don't use a siren and spook the guests!"
"If the press shows up, you handle them!"
They jostled Channing as Bill Ellery began to steer her away from the area. His mouth was set. His grip on her elbow was half protective, half warning. Behind them, the entrance to her bungalow was being roped off. What few guests happened along were being rerouted with some story about a faulty transformer. Only minutes had passed.
"I thought you weren't arriving till morning." Channing fought to control her voice.
"I got restless."
Ellery pulled her out of the way as two more hotel officials came huffing toward the site of the tragedy.
"Are you okay, dear?" one of them asked, pausing to turn.
"Of course she's not all right!" snapped Ellery. "She's just seen a man electrocuted!"
He shoved her into a corridor of the lodge that was mercifully empty. Channing felt glad for the bruising hold he had on her, even for his anger. Was it weak to feel shaken? This was the second time in four days she'd seen someone die.
Touch of Magic Page 5
