“Around the back, yeah,” Clancy said. “Behind the house, set off to the right. The driveway—you know, that horseshoe shape?—it spins off to the side to connect there.”
“Would you happen to know if—?”
“There’s no alarm. The garage is the same material as the house. Stone. Three-car size. Automatic doors. Free-standing. And there’s a little window on the side.”
“Okay.”
He shook his head.
“What’s the problem?” I asked.
“You are. This isn’t your territory. You’re working alone. You get popped, it’d be bad.”
“I won’t get—”
“That’s right. Because there’s a better way.”
I wasn’t going to drive the way Clancy did, so I left plenty of slack, arrived forty-five minutes to the good. Clancy was ten minutes early. He took the wheel of the Lexus and meandered through the streets until he found a spot he liked, then pulled over in a copse of trees. I stepped over the console into the back of the SUV. The rear seat had been folded down—there was a lot of room. I lay down in the back, pulling three khaki blankets over me until I looked like a puddle of wool. Clancy drove away.
“If she’s home, you’ll have thirty minutes safe,” he said. The Lexus was so quiet I could hear him perfectly. “If she’s not, we’ll have to come back. Give me five minutes. If I don’t come back by then, go for it.”
I felt the Lexus pull into the driveway. I checked my watch. My nice cheap watch with a little button that lit up the face: 7:16.
It was 7:23 when I slipped out the back door, closing it behind me, but blocking the lock with a strip of duct tape. I moved around to the side of the house, saw the light in the kitchen window. I crouched to stay below it. The garage was exactly where Clancy had said it would be. The little window was nothing. I didn’t even have to touch the glass; just slipped a pry bar under the soft wood and worked it back and forth until the seal broke. I climbed inside, let myself down to the floor gingerly.
I took out my mini–Mag Solitaire, a tiny black flashlight with a controllable beam. A burglar’s best friend—you turn it on by rotating the front bezel, no click.
Three cars. The two Mercedes weren’t exactly a matched set—a tiny little SLK, bright yellow, and a big black 480E sedan with AMG badges. The other car was an Audi A4, blue. None of the cars was covered—it looked as if they were used all the time. I looked inside the big black sedan. Couldn’t see any little red lights blinking. No burglar-alarm decals on the windows. No lock on the steering wheel. And … yeah, key in the ignition. What the hell was that all about? I quick-checked the other two cars. Exactly the same, right down to the ignition keys.
I could be out the window and into the bushes at the side of the house in a few seconds if an alarm went off. And if that happened, Clancy would naturally run out here to investigate, telling the woman to stay where she was. More than enough of an edge for the little bit of risk I’d be taking.
The big sedan gave off a whiff of stale air when I opened the door. I felt the muscles at the back of my neck loosen when my brain sent the message to my body:
I carefully turned the ignition key just far enough to light up the electronic instrument panel, noted what I needed. Did the same thing to the little yellow two-seater. Neither glove compartment held anything but the owner’s manual.
The Audi was a different story. The glove compartment was crammed full of junk. I checked my watch: 7:46. Not enough time left. I rifled through the paper as quickly as I could, the mini-Mag in my teeth, gloved hands on the papers. Nothing. I was putting it all back when a roll of pre-printed mailing labels fell out. I looked closer. They were all addressed to the same person, and the return address was a PO box in Winnetka. The person they were addressed to wasn’t either of the names I had for the Russians, but why else would …? The street address was in Vancouver, Washington, complete with bar-coding at the top. I peeled the last label off, then stuck it lightly to the inside of my coat.
Back outside, I checked the window’s appearance. It would pass, unless someone was paying a lot more attention than it looked like they ever had.
I let myself back into the Lexus, got under the blankets, and closed my eyes.
It was at least another half-hour before I heard the driver’s door open.
Clancy drove to where he’d left his Nissan, but said to leave the Lexus where it was—he’d drive me back himself.
It was a quick run—we were going against the traffic. Besides, Clancy drove about 50 percent past the limit, returning pages on his cell phone, concentrating all over the place. He pulled into the drive for the hotel, cut the engine.
“What’d you get?” he asked.
“Pair of Mercedes, just like you said. I couldn’t make out the years—I haven’t been able to do that since the sixties—but they looked pretty new.”
“Colors?” he asked, consulting his notebook.
“Black for the sedan, yellow for the little roadster.”
“Checks out,” he said. “Sedan purchased March of ’98; SLK, purchased May, same year. What did you get for mileage?”
“The sedan has thirty-five hundred and change, the roadster less than three.”
“Sure. Haven’t been driven for years.”
“The keys were in the ignition.”
“Yeah. Marushka probably goes out there, turns them over every once in a while, keeps them from going stale.”
