tonight.
13
Hobart drove back along the Ventura Freeway. Even though the drive was short, it was always safest late at night to be on the freeway instead of a residential street, or even a major boulevard. Late at night was when the ratio of police to civilians was highest, and the police were convinced that only cops and robbers were out.
He pulled off the freeway at Reseda, wishing he didn’t have to do this. But now that he had broken into the detective agency, everybody involved with the agency would know within a few hours that someone was searching for something. He had to try to finish this tonight. By this time tomorrow night, she would be scared, and it might be very difficult to find her.
If his visit to the office made the newspapers, it was almost certain that Forrest or someone who worked for him would figure out what had happened and why. The more he thought about it, the better he felt about his decision to leave the young security guard alive. Killing him would have put the small-time office breakin on the television news and in the L.A. Times. As it was, there wasn’t much to re port, and the detective agency, the security company, and the landlord would all have an interest in keeping it quiet.
Hobart went up Reseda Boulevard and then east along Vanowen to the street where he had studied the house in the early evening. He drove around the block and parked on the next street. He sat in his car for a few minutes, considering what he was about to do. He had brought a knit pullover ski mask with holes for the eyes and mouth, just in case he needed it to get out of the detective agency, but he had left it in the car when he had seen that it was best to go in during the early evening. This time he put it under his coat. It was after four in the morning-not a bad hour to go visiting-but he wished he had more time. There were only about two hours before sunrise, when there would be lots of cars out and people on their way to work. At least some of the people in this neighborhood would be up cooking breakfast before then.
Hobart got out of his car and walked quickly up the street and around both corners, then stopped at the Kramer house. He walked beside the house to the back yard and all the way to the far corner. He looked over the back fence to find his car and verify that he had parked where he thought he had. Then he stared at the back of the house.
He looked in the big set of sliding doors that he had seen earlier. A lamp had been left on in the living room, so he could see the layout clearly: two couches and two armchairs arranged to face each other across a big knee- high oval-shaped coffee table, and outward from there, a few chairs and tables with lamps along the wall between the windows. On the second floor above the living room he could see a light on in one of the bedrooms in the back, and the wavering, changing glow of a television screen illuminating the ceiling. She must be having trouble sleeping.
The lights gave him a small hope. Hobart stepped closer to the back windows and looked inside for the alarm-system keypad. It was beside the front door. He shaded his eyes and studied the electronic glow on the liquid-crystal display. There were three red letters: RDY. Ready. The alarm had not been turned on. She must have planned to activate it when she was going to sleep, and never gotten around to it.
Hobart opened his pocketknife, and put on his thin rubber gloves and his ski mask. He tugged the sliding glass door to the side until the hook-shaped lock mechanism caught on its bar, then slid his knife under the strip of aluminum frame that protected the lock and made it waterproof, bent it outward, inserted the blade to lift the hook from its bar, and folded the knife and put it away.
He knew that he would have to be very quiet on the stairs, or she would hear him. He took the gun out of his pocket and held it as he climbed. He reached the upper floor and listened. He heard what seemed to be the soundtrack of an old movie. He followed it to the lighted room at the end of the hall, and peered in.
She was lying on the bed wearing a business suit with a skirt and a little jacket. She had obviously fallen asleep fully dressed with the television on. On the screen was a black-and-white movie from the thirties, with men wearing tuxedos and women in evening gowns shouting dialogue at each other in a room that had a set of huge double doors flanked by pillars and pedestals.
Hobart kicked the bed to shake her, and watched her wake up. She blinked her eyes, raised her head a few inches, and squinted at the television. Hobart could see she was a very pretty woman, with dark shoulder-length hair and a smooth, light complexion and big hazel eyes. She looked childlike this way, in the process of remembering why she was lying on top of the bedspread in a suit. Whatever she was remembering, it didn’t seem to please her.
She sat up, turned toward the nightstand to reach for the remote control, and saw him. She gasped, and Hobart saw her change the direction of her movement to reach lower than the remote control.
“If you reach for a gun, you’re dead,” he said.
Her hand stopped moving and her body stiffened with alarm. “I-no.” Her voice was scratchy from sleep. She was terrified, looking up at him with disbelief. After a couple of seconds, she added, “It’s the phone.”
Hobart stepped into the room and stood beside the bed. He could see that what she had been reaching for wasn’t a drawer. It was just a shelf, and it did have a telephone on it. He was relieved because he hadn’t wanted to kill her. “I see,” he said. “That’s not a good idea, either.”
“What … what do you want? My purse is on the dresser.”
“I’m here to talk. If you cooperate, I’ll leave and you’ll be alive. If you don’t, I can kill you in a second. Do you understand?” He was ready for her to begin screaming. He had to remember not to kill her when he silenced her.
“I understand,” she said calmly. “I want to be alive.”
His right hand shot out and slapped her across the face. Her head bounced to the side and hit the headboard, and a line of bright blood began to run from the corner of her lip. He had needed to hit her. She had begun to manipulate him by being agreeable, and it had made her feel less frightened. He needed her fear. It had to be complete, a fear of his unpredictability and craziness. He said, “You’re living from second to second. Don’t plan, don’t think you know what I want until I say it.” Her cheek was already reddened where he had hit her, and she held her hand over it as she stared at him with wide, teary eyes. Hobart decided that was sufficient for now.
“I want to know what got your husband killed.”
“I don’t know.”
Hobart raised his gun with his left hand and aimed it at her head. “Your husband had something, some piece of information that a powerful man thought he shouldn’t have. The man wanted it. Your husband may have handed over a copy and thought that ended things. If he did, I’m positive that he didn’t give up the only copy.”
“I never heard anything like that. He never said anything.”
“And you didn’t look for it? Your husband gets shot, and you don’t even look for what got him killed?”
“No.”
“Take off your clothes.”
“Oh, no. Please.” She looked sick, horrified.
He gave her a quick backhand, then aimed the gun at her again. This time he cocked the hammer with his thumb.
She swung her legs off the bed, stood and undressed quickly, like a woman in a hurry to get into the shower. Then she stood perfectly still, not looking at him, but at the floor.
Hobart stayed on the other side of the bed, waiting for a sign that her feelings of humiliation and vulnerability and fear had become unbearable. As he watched, her knees began to lose their stiffness. One of them began to tremble. She began to cry, and her hands moved to cover herself.
He said quietly, “Can’t you see the difference between us? If you could keep the information away from me, what would you even do with it? Nothing. The man who wants the information your husband had is powerful. You’re not strong enough to talk to him and make him leave you alive. I can use it. I can make the man who had your husband killed pay a price. You can’t do anything.”
“I don’t have anything.”
“Don’t say that. I can do anything I want to you-make you hurt, destroy your face, kill you-whatever occurs to me. If you don’t have anything, you have nothing to trade that will make me leave you alone.”
She mumbled something, too low to understand.
