Double Take

CHAPTER 3

Most stores on the pier were closed and dark, and tourists were thin on the ground. A woman with two children in tow asked if he needed assistance.

“No, I’ve got things under control. Thank you.”

“That’s nice of her,” Julia said, nodding at the woman, who was staring after them. Cheney grunted. He was wet and cold, his feet squishing in his nicely polished leather boots. Her head lolled on his shoulder.

“Wake up!”

“Yeah, okay,” but her voice was slurred. “Why isn’t your coat wet?”

“I was bright enough to toss it, my gun, my wallet, and my cell on the pier before I jumped in after you.”

After ten minutes of hassle with the parking garage attendant, which included trying to get Cheney to go back to Pier 39 to get his ticket validated so he wouldn’t have to pay the huge parking fee himself, he navigated over to Lombard, left up Fillmore, then right on Broadway until she said, “It’s that one, there, on the left, no lights on.” He pulled into the driveway of a mansion—no other way to refer to the incredibly beautiful three-story brick house with tall thick bushes enclosing it on both sides. He could make out ivy climbing the pale brick walls. He parked in the empty triple driveway, a marvel in San Francisco, where trying to find a parking place to pick up your dry cleaning could make a saint go postal. Cheney was sure the views from all the windows were to die for.

“Nice digs,” he said.

He’d been talking nonstop to her, no, more at her, really, but she’d occasionally murmur an answer so he knew she was hanging on. His car heater had been blasting full force and he wondered why his wet clothes weren’t steaming by now. He knew his bringing her home was absurd. Well, if she needed medical help, he knew a doctor who owed him a favor. He’d never forget Dillon Savich telling him at Quantico that it was always smart to have a physician in your debt because you simply never knew when you’d need to call in the marker. Now was probably the time. She was shivering violently, despite his coat, despite the incredible heat from the heater.

“Your purse,” he said. “You don’t have it.”

“I didn’t have a purse. My house keys were in my pocket wrapped in a twenty-dollar bill.”

He felt inside both pockets of her wet leather jacket and pulled out a crumpled wet Kleenex. “No keys. How am I going to get you inside your house?”

He saw she was trying to figure this out. He waited, then asked her again. “I’m thinking,” she said, and she sounded unsure. That worried him and he wondered what Dr. Ben Vrees was doing this fine Thursday evening on his houseboat in Sausalito.

He took her shoulders in his hands and shook her, hard.

“How do I get in, Julia?”

She said, without pause, “There’s a key beneath the pansies at the bottom of the second pot by the front door.”

“Oh, wow, what a great hiding place,” and he rolled his eyes.

“Let’s just see you find it,” she said, her voice sharp and nasty.

He smiled. She was back with him.

It took him at least three minutes to dig all the way to the bottom of the six-inch pot filled with bright purple pansies to find that damned key, which he then had to wipe on his once-very-nice black wool slacks. He’d pulled them out of the back of his closet for his first date in a good two months. June Canning, a very nice woman, a stockbroker for the Pacific Stock Exchange. He sighed. Oh well, who wanted to spend time between dinner courses outside with a woman who still smoked? And in California?

No alarm sounded when he unlocked the door. Big mistake, he thought. He went back to his Audi, a car that was a bit on the small side for a man his size, sure, but he could park it just about anywhere in the city, even in the narrow alley beside his cleaners. He hauled her out and held her against his side.

Once inside, he found the hall light and flipped it on. He gawked, couldn’t help it. He’d never been in such a spectacular house in his life. Truth be told, he’d visited quite a few beautifully restored homes in Pacific Heights over his last four years in San Francisco, but none of them had been on this magnificent scale. But he didn’t pause, he simply guided her straight up the wide maple staircase with ornately carved pineapples atop the two newel posts. It wound to a wide landing on the second floor and looked back down into the large entry hall. The ceiling over the entry hall was three stories high, cathedral tall, with an antique gold and crystal chandelier hanging down at least eighteen feet. He wondered how much that sucker weighed, and what you had to do to clean it. “Which way?”

“To the left.”

“Which bedroom is yours? Oh, isn’t this a lovely thought—is there a husband lurking around?”

“Not anymore,” she said, her voice as flat as the wet hair on her head. “All the way to the end of the hall.”

The hallway was wide, its lovely polished maple planks gleaming alongside an antique carpet that ran the hall’s full length. He supposed he should have been prepared when he turned on the bedroom light, but he wasn’t. He stopped in his tracks for a full second. It was big, bigger than his living room, with impossibly high ceilings and intricately carved hundred-year-old moldings. He saw another door: it wasn’t the bathroom, but an immense walk-in closet. The next door did lead into a mammoth bathroom laid with creamy yellow tile with an assortment of colorful Italian country-scene squares set at random on the floor and up the walls. He set her on the closed toilet seat and turned on the shower. Tested it. When it was nice and hot, he turned to see her slumping forward again. He stripped her to her underwear, sensible stuff, no fluff and lace, opened the shower stall door, stopped, and eyed her. If he put her in the shower, she might fall on her face and drown. The fact was, he was cold, too.

He set her down again. “Don’t fall over, you got me?”

“No, I won’t,” and he watched her list to the left until her cheek rested against the toilet paper roll fastened to the side of the long marble counter.