unappreciated, he was angry. She walked around him, knelt on the kitchen floor in front of him and spoke softly, her hands on his knees and moving upward. “Don’t be hurt.” She looked up at him. “Oh. I just thought of something that might make you feel better.” She undid his belt.
Later, when it was over, Paul seemed happy and relaxed again. She watched him take the pieces of the rifle and put them in a plastic trash bag so he could drop them in a Dumpster on the way to see Scott Schelling. Sylvie was feeling confident. She had been very foolish before, but at least she’d had the presence of mind to fix things. Letting Paul stay angry would have been a mistake.
She walked around the house checking to be sure everything was locked or turned off. When she had verified that things were as she wanted them, she joined Paul in the garage, watched him engage the deadbolt, and got into the car.
As Paul backed the car out of the garage, she said, “So we’re off. Do we know where we’re going?”
“Yes. We’re going to his office first. If he isn’t there, he’ll be at home.”
“Where is Crosswinds Records?”
“Burbank, on Riverside. You know where all those other companies are—Warner Records, the Disney Channel and DIC and all that stuff? It’s right along there in one of those buildings.”
He drove eastward on the Ventura Freeway to the 134 Freeway and got off on Buena Vista, then parked the car off Riverside in the lot beneath Dalt’s Restaurant. Instead of taking the elevator into the restaurant, they walked up the entrance ramp to the street. They kept going along Riverside until they came to one of the tall buildings of reflective glass that had sprouted oddly on the island between Alameda and Riverside, like a mirage in the midst of the old one-story stores and restaurants. “This is the one,” Paul said. “Let’s look around.”
Sylvie understood. Looking around meant assessing the security. It was nearly dark, and the street lamps had come on, but it was easy to stay in the dimmer spaces away from them. The building was like the others, all glass and steel and hard corners, set right on the sidewalk a few feet from the curb. When they walked past the front door, she could see into the lobby, where two men sat behind a counter. Above them was a sign that said, “Please check in,” and the counter was situated so nobody could reach the elevators in the alcove beyond without being seen. Sylvie said, “This isn’t looking simple, is it?”
“It’s not impossible. Let’s try the easy way first. Keep walking.” Paul took out his cell phone and a piece of paper, and dialed the number on it. “Hello,” he said. “I’d like to speak with Mr. Schelling, please.”
The woman on the other end had a silky, calm voice of the sort that made people put up with more delay and neglect than they had believed they could. “May I ask what this refers to?”
She had lost him. He said, “It’s a personal call, and he’s expecting it. I’m a friend of his, and my name is Paul.”
“One moment, please.” There was a delay so long that he wondered if she had answered another line and forgotten about him. Just as he considered ending the call and starting over again, she was back. “I’m afraid he can’t speak with you right now, but he asked if you could meet him after he finishes his conference.”
“Where does he want to meet?”
“He suggested Harlan’s, just down the street from the Crosswinds offices. Do you know where that is?”
“Yes. What time?”
“Can you be there in thirty minutes?”
“Tell him I’ll be there.”
“He’ll meet you at the back entrance by the parking lot.”
Paul disconnected and kept walking beside Sylvie. “His secretary says he wants to meet us at that restaurant down the street—Harlan’s. She says he’ll come in the back door in a half hour.”
Sylvie shrugged. “It’s sort of a dark place inside. It’s got booths, and it’s probably not such a bad place to hand over some money.”
“Maybe not. I don’t like letting him choose the place, though. Let’s go check it out before he gets there.”
“Do you want to bring the car?”
“No, let’s keep it out of sight.”
They walked up Riverside past Bob’s Big Boy, a forties-era burger restaurant with a huge chubby-cheeked boy in front. On Friday nights the parking lot of Bob’s was full of people who had brought customized antique cars for other aficionados to admire. At the next block, they turned and began to walk along the alley behind the stores and restaurants on the north side of Riverside. To their left were the back entrances, and on the right were the parking lots.
Harlan’s was a low wooden building that looked as though it belonged on a wharf. Paul said, “He’ll be here in about twenty-five minutes. What do you think of the place?”
“I don’t know. There are a lot of people making a lot of noise down the street and in the front, but it’s pretty deserted back here. I don’t like it.”
“Neither do I. What do you want to do?”
“Anything. I’ll be perfectly happy to write off the money, get in the car, and head for the airport.”
“We may have to do that yet. Let’s go across the street to Marie Callender’s and watch the parking-lot entrance from there. If he drives in, we’ll see him.”
“All right.” They walked back along the alley a few steps, and a big beige Chevrolet sedan swung into the lot from the other end, its front end bobbing upward at the bump and then down, the headlights flashing in Sylvie’s eyes. The car stopped ahead of them, idling. When Sylvie shaded her eyes, she could see the driver was a tall man wearing a red tie and sport coat. A shorter, darker man sat in the passenger seat. The driver opened his door and got out. “Mr. and Mrs. Turner?”
Sylvie whispered to Paul, “Get ready.”
Paul called back to the man, “What can I do for you?”
“Would you come with us, please? We’re here to take you to the meeting.”
Paul and Sylvie had already begun sidestepping apart. “That’s not the arrangement.”
“It’s a precaution. All you have to do is get in the car.”
Sylvie had her gun in her hand inside the jacket pocket. She glanced at Paul, and she could see that his longer legs had carried him to the other side of the car. His right hand was at his belt, and his knees were slightly bent. Sylvie selected her targets. She would fire first at the man who had gotten out, then at the shorter, dark-haired man in the passenger seat, who seemed to have a bandaged head. Sylvie would have little time to react, so she moved her eyes from one to the other, practicing.
Paul said, “I’m not comfortable with this. Call him and tell him.”
The man who was standing beside the car said, “We’re police officers, and you’re going to have to come with us.” He opened his coat to reach for a gun, and Sylvie caught sight of a badge. The man in the passenger seat flung the door open on the other side of the car.
Sylvie shot the man who was holding his coat open, then dropped to her knees and fired into the passenger seat at the dark-haired man while Paul fired into the windshield.
The short, dark man was wounded, but he managed to slide into the driver’s seat and step on the gas pedal. The car lurched ahead at Paul, but he jumped aside and fired three more rounds. The car coasted a few feet, then bumped into a fence made of steel cables strung between poles, and stopped at the edge of the parking lot.
Paul yanked the driver’s door open, dragged the dead man out onto the ground, and took his place. Sylvie climbed into the back seat. Paul drove the car down the alley, up Riverside for a couple of blocks, and then turned to the side street and drove until they were back on the street behind Dalt’s. He pulled to the curb and wiped off the steering wheel and door handles. They climbed out and walked down the ramp to the parking lot beneath the building, and drove out in their black BMW.
They raced along Riverside to Barham, then past the Warner Brothers studios over the hill to the freeway entrance. Paul muttered, “Jesus. Fake cops. I can’t believe I let him set us up like that.”
“That’s really about all I can take,” Sylvie said. “This has been nothing but misery.”
“Giving up?”
“No. But I’m not sure what I’m after is going to be money.”
38
