“Mr. Atvar, settle down, or I’m walking right back out of here.”
That put an end to Atvar’s rebellion. He began scratching himself. Over the ten weeks he’d been here, Julio had followed a program that had turned his prisoner into a morphine addict. Julio had no regrets about that.
The Surfer started pacing. Get on with it, Julio silently urged. At the same moment, his attention was drawn away by the sound of a motor. He checked the monitor that gave him a view of the parking lot entrance. Someone else was approaching. He was driving a Maserati Bora.
No one comes around for a week, and now the whole world shows up. Damn it, he wondered, now what should he do?
He made certain that he had easy access to his weapon, but he was fairly sure that anyone approaching in a Maserati was one of the rich kids.
Julio turned back to the screen just in time to see the kid make his move-an awkward attempt to garrote the prisoner.
It wasn’t pretty, but he did get it around the prisoner’s neck, probably because the prisoner was in a weakened state. Still, Julio had to admit, the prisoner was fighting like hell. He bashed his head back into the Surfer’s, making his nose bleed. Julio almost went in at that, but the Surfer was holding on, even though the prisoner kicked and twisted.
Tighten it, kid. Pull on it!
The buzzer for the door rang, and Julio looked at one of the other screens and saw, to his relief, that it was one of his bosses. The dark-haired one. He was dressed in dark leather and was wearing driving gloves. Julio had mentally dubbed him the Mechanic, because he had seen his kind many times before. He figured this one had a love of his work that even Chill was missing.
He hurriedly let him in, then said, “I think your friend needs some help. Want me to go in?”
“No,” this one said. “That’s why I’m here.”
Julio opened the door for him, then locked it. On the monitor, he watched as the prisoner pissed himself. It got all over the Surfer’s suit. The Surfer swore and loosened his grip, and the prisoner took advantage of this to free himself. He had just thrown himself on the thin mattress on the floor when the door opened.
“Cameron?” the Surfer said. “What are you doing here?”
The prisoner began to stand up. Cameron-the Mechanic-pulled out a.38 and shot the prisoner in the kneecap.
Farid Atvar screamed.
Julio heard all of this over the monitor only. Even the shot had been nothing more than a slight popping sound. The cell was virtually soundproof.
Cameron walked calmly over to the Surfer and handed him the gun. “Finish your job.”
The Surfer said, “I thought I couldn’t use a gun.” Julio could barely hear him over the prisoner’s screams.
Cameron looked at him in exasperation. “Finish it, Morgan.”
Morgan-the Surfer-aimed the gun and fired. He hit the prisoner’s shoulder. More screams.
Cameron took the pistol from him, aimed, and fired a shot through Farid’s left eye.
The screaming stopped.
He watched as the one called Cameron holstered the weapon and then pulled out a big black marking pen. He bent over Farid’s skinny, bloody chest.
“Are we going to do all the rest of it?” Morgan asked.
“No time. If Freddy makes as big a mess of his assignment as you did of yours, he’ll be needing my help soon.”
Julio let them out again. He tried not to look at Morgan’s suit pants, which reeked of piss. The smell of gunpowder never bothered Julio, but he couldn’t stand the piss smell.
The Surfer was looking green again and wringing his hands like an old woman.
“Mr. Santos,” Cameron said, “I know he’s shorter than you are, but would you have a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt my associate could change into? I don’t think he’ll want to sit in these clothes in his Maserati.”
“You drove my Bora?” Morgan said in outrage.
“Shut up. Mr. Santos, we need to leave as soon as possible. The body can stay here. I’ll need you to drive the van to Malibu. We’ll pay you there and you can be on your way.”
“Sure,” Santos said, smiling and thinking that it really hadn’t been bad work for five million bucks. He had just started up the stairs toward his apartment when the old instincts kicked in-a moment too late.
He could swear he felt the bullet sting his back, then tear through the front of his chest even before he heard it, but maybe that was his own gun, going off too late. He was losing consciousness, his knees buckling, and he was suddenly struck by the thought that he must look ludicrous. He drew a painful last breath and called out to his laughing God, although he knew it came from his lips as little more than a whisper.
Cameron walked forward and felt for a pulse. There was none.
He turned and tossed the keys to the Bora to Morgan. “You drive the Maserati, I’ll drive the van. Follow me. We’re going to take Mulholland Highway.”
“Mulholland? Why?” He was shaking.
Cameron was distracted for a moment, unlocking a cabinet and removing tapes from the security cameras’ tape decks. But he answered, “We’ve got to meet Freddy there.”
“Don’t tell him about the piss, okay?”
“I won’t.”
“Or-or that I couldn’t do it.”
“You just need practice, that’s all.”
Morgan looked at Santos’s body and said, “Why did you kill him?”
Cameron hesitated, then said, “You said my name when I walked into the room.”
“You said mine.”
“After you spoke mine, it didn’t matter.”
“Oh.”
They began to walk out. Morgan took one last look at Santos. “What was it-at the end-what did he say?”
Cameron smiled. Morgan started shaking again.
But Cameron simply walked past him, saying, “Encore.”
32
Malibu, California
Wednesday, May 21, 4:32 P.M.
Meghan heard someone step out onto the deck behind her and quickly closed the cover of the photo album. She turned to see Kit.
She saw his gaze go to the album. He flinched and looked at her uncertainly. She felt her face turn warm with embarrassment, but smiled and said, “You’re back safely. I’m so glad. Spooky has been worried about you-we all have been. Moriarty said you were doing something foolhardy, but wouldn’t tell us more.”
“Everything went fine,” he said. He seemed distracted. He walked to the edge of the deck and leaned his forearms on its railing. He stood looking out over the canyon, toward the ocean.
“Spooky will be relieved.”
“I’ve seen her,” he said, still not turning around. “She’s swimming with Moriarty. A way of putting off working on her summer reading assignments, I suppose.”
She set the album aside, stood, and walked over to him, but she kept a distance of a few feet between them. “I apologize,” she said.
“For what?”
“Looking in the album. I-I wasn’t trying to pry.”
She saw him reach into one of his pockets. He pulled out a little soapstone tortoise. He began to turn it over and over in his hand. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
