on Joyce’s door. “It’s Harry. You okay?”
“What happened?” she said, voice muffled by the alarm.
“I don’t know.”
The alarm stopped. The door opened, Joyce was standing in the shadow, pulling her robe closed. “The security guys are downstairs. Stay here. I’ll talk to them.”
“I want to go with you.”
Hess sat 1970 realtor of the year Lenore Deutsch at the kitchen table, aiming the Walther at her‚ tears staining her cheeks blue with eye shadow.
“Okay‚ I’ll tell you, but you’ll never get in. There is a state-of-the-art security system.”
A gun pointed at her, and still she smirked, giving him her insolent tone again. He knew how alarms worked. He had a system at his estate in Schleissheim. “Who is in the house with her?”
“Maybe the housekeeper, I don’t know.”
It didn’t matter. “Do you have rope?”
“Why?”
“So I can tie you.”
Lenore Deutsch said, “You don’t bring your own rope?”
The arrogance of this woman. It was beyond belief.
“It’s in the garage.”
They walked through the kitchen. She opened the door, turned on the light. It was space for a single automobile cluttered with pool supplies and gardening equipment. She handed him a spool of heavy string.
“This is all I have.”
He picked up a shovel with a long handle.
“What are you going to do, bury me?”
It was a good idea, but he had something else in mind. Hess escorted her back through the house to her tidy bedroom and through that into the bathroom, pink tile and towels, large tub in the corner and next to it a glass shower.
“I have to wash my face,” Lenore said.
He could see her in the mirror, wiping off the blue smudges under her eyes and off her cheeks with a wet cloth, and patting herself dry with a towel.
“Get on your knees,” Hess said.
She did, putting her hands behind her back. He walked across the room, closed the window and tossed the spool of string on the floor. He wasn’t going to need it after all. Hess moved toward her, aiming the Walther at the back of her head, firing, spraying the walls with spatter.
Hess drove along the southern perimeter of the estate, parked off the road behind a green wall of foliage on the neighbor’s property. He took the shovel and walked back toward the house, feeling a strong breeze coming off the ocean, palm trees swaying, moon waning behind heavy clouds that had moved in. The estate was sealed off, surrounded by walls on three sides and a gate in front. There was a narrow lane behind the western perimeter, and a wall with a gate in the center extending to the four-car garage.
He held the end of the handle, reached up and swung the shovelhead at the phone line until it broke free from the main line, glanced at his watch. 3:17. He waited behind the wall of foliage on the neighbor’s property south of the estate. Two white security sedans arrived at 3:25. One in front, the other drove along the southern perimeter to the rear of the estate. The alarm sounded at 3:27, delayed ten minutes so the security team could be deployed.
“No sign of forced entry,” the security man said to Harry.
He looked about forty, gut bunching the shirt at his beltline, brown hair over his ears, wispy Charles Bronson mustache. He wore a dark-blue uniform shirt with red epaulets, Harry thinking except for the gun on his right hip he could’ve been an exterminator. He’d introduced himself as Tony Cloutier, a French name he pronounced in down- home English.
Now they were in the kitchen.
Cloutier said, “Did you see or hear anything?”
“Not till the alarm went off,” Harry said.
Joyce said, “I was sound asleep. It scared the hell out of me.”
“Scare an intruder too, there was one,” Cloutier said.
A second security man came in the back door now, guiding Cordell, hands cuffed behind his back. He was younger, bigger than Cloutier and wore a blue jacket over his uniform.
“Harry, will you tell this-”
“What’re you doing?” Harry said, cutting Cordell off. “He’s a guest.”
“Sir, I didn’t know.”
“Cracker see a black man, middle of the night, got to be a criminal.”
The security man unlocked the handcuffs. Cordell rubbed his wrists.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too motherfucker, I can’t pop your dumb ass.”
“Take it easy,” Harry said.
“This is Ms. Cantor and Mr. Levin,” Cloutier said. “Meet my over-zealous partner, Ted Tambke.”
He nodded at Joyce, shook hands with Harry.
“Windy out there,” Tambke said. “Phone line’s down. I have to believe that’s your problem.”
Joyce said, “What does that have to do with it?”
Tambke said, “Severed line triggered the alarm.”
“Can you fix it?” Joyce said.
“Not till morning, I’m afraid,” Cloutier said.
Joyce said, “Are you saying the system won’t be on?”
“I’ll hang around till daylight,” Tambke said. “Keep an eye on things.”
“Just stay out the pool house,” Cordell said, giving him a look.
The security men left.
“I see you’re feeling better,” Harry said. “Got some energy back.”
“Have some cracker rent-a-cop cuff you down, try to break your wrists see how you do.” Cordell still charged up, angry.
“Why do you think he’s a racist?”
Cordell grinned. “Don’t think, Harry, I know. Been dealin’ with motherfuckers like him my whole life.”
“Stay here?” Joyce said. “God knows we’ve got room.”
“I’m cool where I’m at. See you in the morning.”
Cordell went out the door. Harry locked it and walked Joyce back up to her room. It was 4:18.
The lights from the security vehicle were still flashing red and blue off the estate wall when Ted Tambke moved through the gate to his car, pissed off and embarrassed by the way the scene had played out in front of his boss. Fact was, you saw a black guy in the middle of the night he usually was involved in a crime.
Tambke saw something out of the corner of his eye, someone coming around the side of the house, aimed the flashlight, unsnapped his holster and put a hand on his.38. It was an older man wearing a cap and a yellow golf shirt, moving toward him.
“Excuse me,” the man said. “Is there a problem? I live right there.” He pointed to the property directly south.
Tambke glanced over the hood at him. “Sir, you scared the bejesus out of me. What are you doing out here in the middle of the night?”
“I heard the alarm,” the guy said.
“It’s all over. You can go home now.” He didn’t say it mean but just about. “Everything’s under control.”
“What happened?”
