"Maybe. Probably. If she remembers it." Andreno kept looking at the houses on the other side of the street. "What're you thinking?"
"Suppose she's scouted the place, and she spotted a house with some old lady in it. She's got these silenced pistols, right? So she goes up to a house, say, a hundred and fifty yards away, two hundred yards, plugs the old lady when she answers the door, and then just sits there and waits, with that machine gun. Or the sniper rifle she used on Malone. Maybe parks her car in the back so we'll never see her when she pulls out. Ross gets here, and she nails him walking across the parking lot. Just like with Dallaglio."
Lucas considered it, then said, "Look-she had months to work this all out. One thing she always did was her planning, the way she got at people, isolated them, then killed them. She's never expected. We really didn't expect her last night, but now that she's done that… and Malone… she's got to think that we're ready for rifles."
"So maybe she won't use a rifle, but the goddamn things scare the shit out of me. Never see it coming. Whack, and you're dead before you know it." They walked along for a minute, and he added, "Man, that must've been something last night. I wish I could've been there, as long as I wouldn't have gotten shot. That FBI guy, they say he could lose a leg."
"That's not the word anymore," Lucas said. "The word is, he's gonna be okay."
"All right. Still, this fuckin' woman ought to be in the CIA or something. They could use her."
Lucas looked up and down the street. "I'd say we could put a squad at the far end, but then… it'd just scare her off, if she's coming. I'd rather have her come."
"And fuck a bunch of Rosses?"
"He knows what he's getting into… And yeah, fuck him."
Andreno shook his head. "That's harsh, man." He looked down the street again. "Just like standing naked in the window."
They went up the steps and inside, showed their IDs to a guard, went up the interior steps and out the back, past the lighted fountain. To the left, on the other side of a long, low, redbrick building, a group of waiters were setting up tables and lighting mosquito-repelling tiki torches. They turned that way, down more stairs, up a sidewalk edged with button-sized red and blue flowers.
A woman in a blue dress and matching shoes, pearls, and carefully coiffed blond hair was supervising the waiters. She saw them, said something to a waiter, then hurried over: "I'm sorry, this is a private party."
She had a perfectly sculpted nose, and it was quivering like a rat terrier's.
"We're cops," Andreno said laconically. He snapped his gum. "We're… making sure there's no problem tonight."
"Problem?" She looked from Andreno to Lucas. "What kind of problem?"
"A woman named Sally, from the FBI, will be here in a couple of minutes," Lucas said, looking back at the entry building. "She'll explain it all. We're making a routine security check. We hear one of the cellos could… do something crazy."
She wanted more, her nose quivering even more fiercely as they put her off and wandered past a rectangular bed of red and gold chrysanthemums, past a pool, then through a hedge into the rose garden, strolling with their hands in their pockets, looking at the flowers. "Rinker'd have to be thinking about climbing a tree," Lucas said, finally, as they walked out the far side of the rose garden and stopped under a crab-apple tree. There wasn't much contour to the land, but there was some, and the higher ground was to the left, and was covered with trees. "Ross'll be okay as long as he stays in the rose garden. The feds'll have three teams covering out there. They all rented tuxes, they'll come in one at a time, and once they get out in the dark, you won't be able to see them."
"You really think something is gonna happen?"
"I think… I don't know. These things get a rhythm. If I were Rinker, and if I were going after Ross, I'd go after him soon. Not because I had to, but because I couldn't stand not doing it. Getting it over with. Being done."
"But if she's not going after him…"
"Something'll happen. Something to put a period on it. If Ross gets here and he's walking around free as a bird, slapping people on the back, happy-then I'd be inclined to think that Clara's on her way to Paris. But if he's walking around keeping his head down, and his shoulder blades pinched together… it'll be interesting to see."
Off to the right, they could see the glass-and-steel Climatron dome, with more pools in front of it. They wandered down that way.
"Can't see much from here-too many bushes," Andreno said.
"Other side would be better," Lucas agreed. "From a shooting point of view."
They paused next to a pool. A few feet from the corner, two bronze statues, naked dancing women, hung over the water. "Look at the knockers on that one," Andreno said.
Lucas had to laugh, because the same thought had trickled through his mind. "Look at the knockers on both of them."
They walked. Ambled. Hands in their pockets.
"Rinker's not gonna be here," Andreno said after a minute or two. "A: She doesn't know about it. B: He's too protected."
"She fooled us on Levy, she fooled us on Malone, she fooled us on Dallaglio-she shouldn't have been able to do any of those things. We knew she was smart, but she was a lot smarter than we were ready for," Lucas said. "She doesn't miss anything."
Andreno looked past him. "There's Sally. And Jesus, there's Mallard-he looks like he was hit by a truck."
"Man, I just… I think if somebody killed Weather, my fuckin' head would explode," Lucas said. "Let's go talk to him."
"What is it that the feds kept saying? Showtime. "
Mallard was physically shaky, brutally unhappy. "I'm here for today and tomorrow. The funeral is day after tomorrow."
"Are you up to speed on what we're doing?" Lucas asked.
"Yes. Sally… sort of turned out to be an executive. I hadn't seen that before."
Lucas grinned at him, a small wan smile. "Everybody else did. There wasn't even any discussion-she just took it over."
"Good for her," Mallard said. He was wearing a tuxedo, as were the other agents that Lucas could see, and a few men who weren't agents. He and Andreno were wearing sport coats and slacks and loafers. Lucas felt like a radish at a convention of tulips. "You think she'll show up?"
"I can't figure it," Lucas said. "I'm getting the feeling, from what we've seen so far, that she started planning her moves right after she was shot down in Mexico. She's had a couple of months to think about them, and to have her show up and start blazing away-that's out of character."
"That's what she did last night," Mallard said.
"But we didn't see it coming last night," Lucas said. "The thing about last night-we could only see it later-is that she had a source of information that could feed her the Dallaglios in a hurry, somebody who could actually call her, or who she could call. I actually thought running was a great idea, from the Dallaglios' point of view. Once he was out of sight, she was out of luck. But… she knew where and when he was going. Exactly."
"Sally told me about the phone idea, the calls to Ross."
"And here she comes," Lucas said. Sally was wandering toward them, wearing a tight, deep burgundy dress that started low and ended low-below the collarbones and down to the ankles, slits on the sides. She was carrying a small black purse that Lucas decided must hold her pistol, because she couldn't have gotten a pencil under the dress without it showing. As she came up, Lucas said, "Nice purse."
She smiled at him. "Didn't think I could clean up, did you?"
"I thought you might," he said. "We've been talking about Ross, and what the hell's going on here."
"If she comes in, I think we'll get her. We've got teams moving all through the place."
Lucas looked away, staring at a pink rose, trying to work through it. They looked at him, waiting, and finally he said, "I can't nail it down. Can't figure what she'll do next. I've been stymied before, because I didn't know what I needed to know. But I've never felt stupid. She's got me feeling like a moron."
"We'll see," Mallard said. He patted Lucas on the shoulder and said, with a wan smile, "Dumbass."
More people were arriving, men in tuxedos, women in party dresses. A small pop orchestra set up in front of the brick building that acted as a backstop for the party; a dozen long-haired men and women who started off with an even more orchestrated version of Air Supply's "Making Love Out of Nothing at All," as if the original weren't bad enough.
Lucas started away after the first few bars, and Sally said, after him, "Don't like music?"
"Anytime they start by playing Air Supply, there's a risk they'll move on to the Hooters," Lucas said.
Sally said, "My. You listen to rock 'n' roll?"
"It's not rock 'n' roll. It's rock. It's the music I grew up with. Just like you."
She looked at him, doing a readjustment, and said, "I guess you always think that people older than you listen to, like, Big Band or something. Jazz."
"Jesus, Sally, the first music I can remember was the Stones. Mick Jagger was probably in high school when I was born."
"Yeah, but…" She looked past him. "The Rosses."
Lucas moved away more quickly, far out to the edge of the rose garden, watching the Rosses as he moved. John Ross was wearing a European-style notchless tux, black on black. Treena was wearing a cream-colored dress with puffs along the edges that managed to look both expensive and tacky, like a Versace knockoff for 7-Eleven. Ross shook hands with a few people, and seemed to be accepted. If they knew he was a hood, they at least appreciated his support for the performing arts.
Lucas was watching when he saw movement on the roof of the building behind the orchestra. A head. Then a head and a man, with a radio: the red-haired guy, with another man. Lucas lifted a hand to them, and the red-haired guy mimed a rifle. Good.
Andreno came over with a plastic plate full of finger food. "Better get over to the table. The best stuff goes fast. The pвtй is recommended, with them little round yellow crackers."
"Give me one of yours," Lucas said. He tried a little yellow cracker and the pвtй, which was recommended. But he didn't have much of an appetite. The night seemed to be getting warmer rather than cooler, and a large number of good-looking middle-aged women were showing ingenious displays of skin. Lucas and Andreno began to move with them, clockwise, around the rose garden, like migrating geese. The Rosses were on the far side of the clock, and they kept it that way, although Ross caught Lucas's eye once and shook his head, a shallow, dour smile locked on his face.
The clockwork continued, around and around the rose garden, as slow as a minute hand, people clumping and talking, but always seeming, after a few minutes, to move. More people showed up, and as the crowd got denser, there was more of the high-pitched feminine laughter that seemed to accompany a crowd of tuxedos and party dresses, rich people and wanna-bes preening themselves-Lucas checking the women, anybody close to the height and build of Rinker. There were several of them, but none was her.
At eight-thirty, the party was near its peak, the promenade continuing. At the heart of the clock face, Lucas realized after a while, were the principals of the orchestra: the conductor, the president, a couple of violinists, all with shaggy longish hair and cultivated manners, a kind of gardened drollness that led to heavy lids and rolled eyes.
Then Andreno said, "I think I'm in love."
Lucas looked and said, "Jesus Christ, she's fourteen."
"But she thinks like forty. You want some purple fish eggs?"
"This party is too good for you."
"That's possible. Did I ever tell you about the time the Prince of England came here, and I was supposed to be security, and I was wearing this tux, but my Jockey shorts kept riding up in my ass crack and were strangling my balls…"
Lucas listened with mild amusement, and then realized…
"Where's Ross?"
Andreno stopped in midsentence, looked around, and said, "Three minutes ago, he was under that crab-apple tree." They both looked toward the top of the garden, the end away from the brick building. There were two men standing under the tree, talking, but neither was Ross. Treena Ross was also gone. "Maybe in the can."
"Not unless they're peeing in the bushes," Lucas said. They were both moving, passed Sally and Mallard. As they went by, Lucas said, "Ross is gone. You see him?"
They both looked and fell in with Lucas and Andreno, and Sally said, "Shit. He was right there." The four of them continued to the top of the garden, to the two men under the crab apple. Lucas asked, "Have either of you seen John Ross and his wife? It's pretty urgent."
One of them said, "Yes, I think they went to look at the orchids in the Climatron. Treena had a flier of some kind, a special orchid display."
They all looked that way, and saw Treena Ross stepping through the door into the Climatron, with John Ross a step behind. Lucas shouted at them, "ROSS: WAIT."
But Ross was gone, the door was closing, and Lucas started running, as hard as he could, down the sidewalk, running hard, Andreno falling behind, Sally a couple of steps behind Andreno, handicapped by heels, Mallard behind that, Sally shouting into a radio, something unintelligible, and then as Lucas came up to the door, he saw three flashes, muzzle flashes, and heard faint screaming and he shouted, "She got him, she's inside, spread out, block the place…" And he was through the door.
The Climatron was literally a jungle, bamboo and palms and ficuses and probably a fuckin' cockatoo, he thought. Once inside, Treena Ross's screams were shrill and close by, but he couldn't see her. He was on a pebbled sidewalk, and he drew his. 45 and ran down the sidewalk, following a curve around to the right and then back toward the center. As he came around the curve, he saw Treena Ross backed against a low wall of bamboo, a body at her feet, her cream dress blotched with blood.
She saw Lucas coming and screamed, "She went that way, she went that way, she's in the trees. She's in the trees, she shot John, call an ambulance."
Andreno was right behind him and had a telephone out and was calling an ambulance, and Lucas said, "Stay here with Treena," but Andreno caught his arm and said, "We gotta get out of here, man, we gotta get outside. She'll kill you in here, you'll never see her, but we can pen her up inside."
Lucas looked around and then knelt next to John Ross and rolled him. He was dead, three shots to the back of his head at close range, massive exit wounds on his face and forehead. "Let's go," he said to Andreno. "You don't have a gun, get Mrs. Ross out of here." And he ran back to the door and outside and started shouting, "Seal the building, seal the building, spread out and seal the building…"
Mallard and Sally and Derik were already moving, Derik going right with Lucas and Mallard and Sally going left, two more tuxedoed men running through the crowd, more guns coming. Rinker had had time to get out if she was set up for a fast escape, Lucas thought, but not a lot more time than that. If she'd slowed down, if she'd frozen…
They ran around the building, past another exit, and Lucas shouted over his shoulder to Derik, "Block this, block this…" and Derik pulled up and Lucas continued around. There was another exit on the back, and as he came up on it, he saw Sally coming from the other direction.
"What?" he shouted.
"We maybe got her inside, didn't see anybody running."
"Get more people, get everybody here. Ross is shot, Ross is dead…"
And Sally was on the radio, and everybody Lucas could see was running, and they tightened the choke hold on the Climatron.
And then an agent shouted, "Window! We've got a broken window."
Lucas's heart sank, but he ran that way, to the far back side of the dome, where it sat above the landscape, on a concrete retaining wall. Above the concrete wall, one of a band of windows appeared to have been broken out.
"Goddamnit." Lucas looked around. "Somebody give me a step."
One of the agents holstered his gun and made a step with his interlinked fingers, and boosted Lucas up the wall. Lucas did a push-up onto the top, then reached down to the window. A woman-s
ized hole had been knocked in the glass from the inside. She'd cut herself doing it, he thought. There was a smear of blood on the glass.
"I think she's out," he shouted down. "She's bleeding. We need to block this place, just in case she's inside, and then spread out in the park, see if we can push her. She's close… Let's go, let's go…"
Sally had them organized in fifteen seconds, and they began moving in a wide band, behind the Climatron, spreading through the dark, jogging, looking for anything in front of them. Lucas stayed back, looking at the jungle inside the dome. He didn't want to punch out any more glass, and he eventually dropped back down the wall and ran around to the front.
Treena Ross was sitting on the ground, Andreno beside her. "Stay with her," Lucas said, and he went inside the dome. The door moved again, behind him, and Derik was there, with his pistol. "We can't do this, Lucas. We need a team with armor. If she's in here, she'll kill at least one of us, and maybe both of us."
Lucas thought about it, ten seconds, fifteen seconds. So curious that Rinker'd let herself be trapped in here, if she had… but then, she hadn't expected a massive number of cops.
"Come on," Lucas said. He started into the dome.
"Goddamnit," Derik said.
"I gotcha covered," Lucas said. He hurried down the path, through the jungle-saw a pistol lying on the path near a fake cliff and waterfall, called "Gun" and went on, trying to get his bearings. He finally clambered through a hump of bamboo toward the back glass, where Rinker had broken out. Derik followed, scuttling this way and that, his weapon pointed in the air, looking for movement in the trees. Lucas squatted next to the broken window, and as Derik came up, he said, "You don't have a flashlight?"
"I've got one of those things for your car keys… to see the lock."
"Gimme."
Lucas shined the tiny light on the window, at the bloodstain, and then handed the light back to Derik and said "Come on," and stuck his pistol in his holster.
"What…"
"She's not here. But I want you to pretend that she is. I want you to go out and get Andreno, and tell him to step inside to talk to me, tell him we're hunting her down, that she's maybe cornered in the basement, but get him in here. You stay with Mrs. Ross. Okay?"
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