Navajo rugs, furnished with couches and a heavy antique desk of dark wood. Above it he could see several old documents framed, but not a map.
“This is really a beautiful room,” he said.
“Oh, yes. It’s quiet and private.” She opened a door beyond the desk, and led him into a bedroom. There was a maid in the room, busy arranging something in the drawers of a dresser. “Here it is.” She pointed to the inner wall of the room. The map was larger than Schelling had imagined, a folio-sized sheet in a thin black frame hung on the uneven faux-adobe surface.
“It looks very authentic there,” he said. He was relieved that he didn’t have to pick it out of a whole row of nearly identical maps.
Jill Klein turned to the maid. “Consuelo, make sure we’re not disturbed.”
Consuelo scuttled out of the room. He heard the sound of a lock clicking, then, a few seconds later, another.
She said, “When I’m thanking someone, I think the old ways are best, don’t you?” She put her arms around his neck and kissed him on the lips.
Schelling was shocked, alarmed. He had no response ready. “I don’t think this is smart,” he said. “Your husband is—”
“Downstairs at the party with his mistress.” She took his hands and put them around her waist. “Just be quick, so nobody gets embarrassed.”
The telephone in Scott’s coat began to vibrate again. In the silence it gave an audible buzz, and he jumped as though they had been caught.
“Turn that thing off.”
He dug the phone out and flipped it open. “Yes?”
It was Tiffany’s voice. “Scotty, I’m sorry to call again, but I’m in my car, and the news is saying that the two men you were asking about have been shot to death.”
“Are you sure?”
“The description is the same. And it’s the parking lot behind Harlan’s, where I told them to meet Paul.”
“All right. Thanks.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Go home. Do nothing. Say nothing. I’ll see you Monday morning.” He disconnected.
Jill Klein had turned away from him, and now she was walking toward the door. He said, “Jill. Please wait.”
She stopped and looked over her shoulder as she reached for the doorknob. “Jill? To you I’m Mrs. Klein. I’ll always be Mrs. Klein.” She opened the door. He could see that in the office Consuelo had been sitting on the couch in near-darkness, probably so nobody would see light under the door. She stood up quickly, turned on the light, and unbolted the door so Jill Klein did not have to break her stride on the way out.
Schelling walked through the sitting room past Consuelo, but she did not meet his gaze. As far as he could tell, her eyes had never moved to his face. She was obviously paid never to see or hear.
As Schelling walked to the back stairwell, he saw Jill Klein far ahead of him near the front of the building, turning to go down a different staircase. She looked in his direction, but it was only for a second, and her face was utterly blank. She was timing her descent to coincide with his so it was not possible for anyone downstairs to see them both.
Schelling went downstairs, skirted the group in the living room, went outside to the garden again, and dialed his phone. He heard the voice of Dale, his personal trainer. “Dale here.”
“Hi. It’s Scotty. Are you alone? Can you talk?”
“Sure. I’m at home doing my own workout. What’s wrong, Scotty?”
“I’m in Santa Fe, and I’ve only got a minute or two to talk. You really were a marine, right?”
“Yes.”
“You were trained to kill people?”
“Well, yeah, I guess so. I mean, that’s what it boils down to. That’s what war is. It’s for your country, for the rest of the people, but they train you to fight.”
“Have you ever killed anybody?”
“Me? No. When I was in Desert Storm, they kept me in Kuwait, making newly arrived National Guardsmen do push-ups and squat-thrusts while they got used to the heat. I was sent to Haiti and Liberia, and I didn’t get even that close. Most of that time I was on a ship outside the harbor.”
“But you knew how. And you were ready, right?”
“Sure, but I don’t get why you’re asking.”
“I need a huge favor.”
“Wait a minute.”
“I’ll make it worthwhile.”
“Scotty—”
“Look, I’m in terrible trouble. I’m in Santa Fe tonight on business, but tomorrow I have to get on a plane and go back home. These people have already killed some people who work for me. I’m in danger. It’s a self-defense situation. It’s self-defense.”
“Have you talked to the police about this?”
“Dale, this is way beyond that stage, and I don’t have time to explain it all.”
He heard a deep sigh. “Scotty, I can’t help you on something like this.”
“Please.”
“What?”
“I said please. If you can’t do it, then give me a name. I can take it from there. If you don’t want to have me use your name, I won’t.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t do that kind of work, and I don’t know people who do.”
Scott laughed. He decided the sound was no more false than any other laugh he had given. There was silence on the other end, so he said, “Got you! It was just a joke, Dale. I was just yanking your chain. You fell for it, though. Admit it.”
“Scotty, if you’re in some kind of trouble, I think you’ve got to go to the authorities. If you’re not, and this really is a joke, then your sense of humor is really sick.”
“I’m sorry, buddy. I was just calling to tell you I won’t be back in time for our workout session tomorrow, and the idea came to me, so I went with it. If it wasn’t funny, I apologize. It seemed funny at the time.”
“Are you sure you’re telling me the truth now?”
“Of course I am. Look, I’m in a hurry right now, but I’ll give you a call when I’m free to slip a workout into my schedule. Take care, Dale.”
“All right. Call me.”
Scott Schelling stood motionless for a moment with the dead phone in his hand, every muscle rigid with fear and regret and humiliation. What if he hadn’t convinced Dale that he’d been joking? No, he decided. He had to stop that train of thought now. He couldn’t spend any time worrying about Dale. What was he going to do—hire somebody else to kill Dale? He had to keep from getting crazy.
As he let his brain concentrate on the problem of the Turners, he fought his fear and anxiety and forced himself to think about what he was going to do. He had hired the Turners, promised them a million dollars in cash to kill Wendy Harper. When they had succeeded, he had tried to have them killed, but the Turners had survived. The only person he had left that he could trust was Carl, and Carl couldn’t fix this alone. But Scott still had one other asset—the million dollars. It was in a suitcase in the trunk of his car in Los Angeles.
He heard music, and looked back through the French doors into the hallway and the living room. There was a group of mariachis at the edge of the cocktail party, strumming instruments and singing. There were no signs the guests were going in to dinner yet. He punched Carl’s number into his cell phone.
“Hello?”
“Carl. It’s me. The two jerks who met with the Turners got killed.”
“Holy shit! When?”
“A little while ago, but Tiffany says it’s already on the radio. I want you to talk to the Turners. Tell them I want to pay them what I owe them, but I’m out of town until tomorrow. Tell them those two were trying to turn on
