Vaggan crept through the open archway, his crepe soles moving from the sibilance of the kitchen tile to the total silence of a thick gold carpet. He stopped and listened again, light off. The music was a bit louder now, coming from the hallway that led from the living area into what must be a bedroom wing. He removed the handkerchief, dropped it back into his pocket, and turned on the flash. A second hallway to the left led into what seemed to be some sort of atrium-greenhouse and beyond that into darkness. Vaggan moved down the carpeted hall of the bedroom wing. He stopped at the first door, listening with an ear pressed to a wooden panel. Hearing nothing, he turned off the flash, tried the knob, turned it slowly, eased the door open. He smelled deodorant, an air freshener, soap, bathroom aromas. A flick of the flash confirmed it. Guest bathroom. Vaggan closed the door and moved to the next one. Silence again, knob turning easily, door easing open. Vaggan aimed the flash at the floor, flicked it on. The reflected light showed him an empty bed, a neat, unused bedroom. He backed out, pausing to examine the door's locking mechanism under the light. A typical bedroom lock. In the hallway again, he noticed the music was loud enough now to make out an occasional word. 'Daniel,' the voice sang, 'my brother…' Vaggan pressed an ear against the next door. Heard nothing. The knob wouldn't turn. He tried it again to confirm it was locked, then extracted a credit card from his wallet and knelt. The lock was new, and the tongue slid back easily without a sound. Vaggan stood and pulled the door open a half inch. He replaced the credit card, fished a section of nylon stocking from his pocket, and spent a moment adjusting the holes he'd cut into it over his eyes. He inhaled, feeling the same exhilaration he'd felt facing the dogs at the fence. Adrenaline. Strength. Power. Vaggan took the .32 from his pocket, held it briefly in his palm, then returned it to the pocket. He eased the door open and looked into a room lit by moonlight reflecting through translucent drapes.
The rent-a-cop had hung his clothing across a chair beside the bed, with his belt and holster dangling from the chairback. Easy to reach, Vaggan thought, when the guard heard the dogs or heard the alarm. A careful man. He extracted a revolver from the holster, dropped it in the pocket of his jacket. The cop was sleeping in shorts and undershirt, on his side, face to the wall, breathing lightly.
Vaggan switched on the flash and shined it on the man. He was young, maybe thirty, with curly black hair and a mustache. He slept on, snoring lightly. Vaggan extracted his .32, leaned forward, touched him.
The man jerked, stiffened.
'No sound,' Vaggan said. He moved the light back so it illuminated the pistol. 'No reason in the world for you to get hurt. They don't pay you enough for that.'
The guard rolled on his back, eyes wide, staring at the gun barrel. The light reflected from dilated pupils.
'What?' the guard said. He said it in a whisper, back pressed against the mattress. 'Who…?'
'You and I have no problem,' Vaggan said. 'But I've got to talk to Leonard, so I got to tie you up.'
'What?' the guard said again.
'You make any trouble, I kill you,' Vaggan said. 'Noise or trouble and you're dead. Otherwise, no harm done. You just stay tied up for a while. Okay? I'll look in now and then, and if you've tried to get loose, then I have to kill you. You understand that? Do you?'
'Yes,' the guard said. He stared at the pistol, and into the light that illuminated it, and above the light, looking for the source of Vaggan's voice.
'On your stomach, now,' Vaggan whispered. 'Wrists behind you.'
Vaggan fished two sets of nylon handcuffs from the jacket. He secured the guard's wrists behind him, then pulled him down the bed by his ankles. He cuffed the ankles together, one foot on each side of the metal bedpost.
The man was shaking, and his skin was wet with perspiration under Vaggan's hand. Vaggan grimaced and wiped his palm against the sheet. This one would never survive, and should never survive. When the missiles came, he would be one of the creeping, crawling multitude of weaklings purged from the living.
'Lift your face,' Vaggan whispered. He taped the guard's mouth, winding the adhesive around and around, in quick movements. 'My business will take an hour,' Vaggan said. 'I can tolerate no sound from this room for one hour. If I hear you moving in here, I will simply step inside and kill you. Like this.' He pressed the muzzle of the pistol against the skin above the guard's ear. 'One shot.'
The guard breathed noisily through his nostrils, shuddering. He closed his eyes and turned his face away from the pistol. Vaggan felt an overwhelming sense of repugnance. He wiped his palm against his trouser leg.
Back in the hallway he used up another full minute listening. He could hear the guard breathing, almost gasping, through the door behind him and, from the door at the end of the hall, music. Elton John had been replaced by a feminine voice singing of betrayal and loneliness. He moved to the door and pressed his ear against it. He could hear only the song. He tried the knob. Locked. He extracted the credit card, slid it through the slit, pressed back the tongue, and eased the door a half inch open. His heart was beating hard now, his breathing quick, the sound of blood in his ears. He made sure the pistol was cocked. Then he opened the door.
This room was also lit by moonlight. It shone directly on thin, translucent drapes pulled across a wall of glass —making the drapes luminescent and illuminating a pale carpet and a huge bed. On it two people slept. Jay Leonard lay on his back, right hand dangling, left arm across his face, legs spread. He wore a pajama top, unbuttoned. The other person was a woman, much younger—a brunette curled on her side away from Leonard, the filtered moonlight giving the smooth, bare skin of her buttocks the look of ivory. Vaggan smelled perfume, human sweat, the inevitable dust of the Santa Ana, and the sweet smell of marijuana. The music ended and became the muted voice of the disc jockey, talking about dog food. The radio tuner was built into the headboard of the bed, its dial a bright yellow slit in the dimness. Vaggan wondered how anyone could sleep with a radio on.
In his pocket, he touched the sharp interlocking serrations forming the teeth of the ear tags and found the plier-clamp that would crimp them together. Outside, the Santa Ana rose again, screaming in the moonlight. Vaggan glanced at his watch. Three eighteen. He'd planned for three twenty, and he waited for three twenty.
'Leonard,' Vaggan said. 'Wake up. I've come to get the money.'
When Vaggan got back to his van it was a little after 4 a.m. He stored the plastic garbage bag with the bodies of the dogs in the back, put away his other gear, and then let the van roll quietly back down the street before starting the engine. He ticked off all he'd done, making sure that nothing had been overlooked. After finishing with Leonard, he'd taken the dog's leg and used it and the ice bag of blood to make a crazy pattern of paw prints across the living room carpet and down the hall to Leonard's bedroom. He'd put the dogs' heads, side by side, on the mantel and poured the remainder of the blood over them. He'd called the hospital emergency room to tell them Jay Leonard, the TV talk show host, was on his way and would need attention. Finally he called the city desk of the
