Richfield & Rivers Mystery Series 1 - Combust the Sun (19 page)

"What
about you?" she asked worriedly.

"Stay
on the back side of the house after I'm in and listen for me."

A
tall, thin waiter swished over to us and brandished his pad and pencil.
"Do you two need more time...or would that just make things worse?"

Later
in the afternoon, we swung back by Peter Trayber's and picked up the fake
stones. He'd done a brilliant job. I asked him to rough up the corners on the
two fake stones so that I could tell them from the real ones. The duplication
was that good. I then put all four stones in my jeans pocket and zipped it
shut, confident I could tell the real from the fake just by feel.

The
next stop was a florist, where I purchased a magnificent flower arrangement the
size of downtown Detroit, and I wedged it into the car between Callie and me,
this time having her drive. I was barely able to keep the huge vase of flowers
upright, and it occasionally sloshed water on us. She drove over the hill to
Bel-Air conversing through three layers of orchids and tiger lilies, her blue
eyes peering at me like some exotic bird behind the heavily scented foliage.

"I
have a very bad feeling about this," she said.

"Relax.
You're giving a guy this terrific vase of flowers for free!"

We
drove down the 300 block of Bel-Air Canyon Road to make certain we had Talbot's
house staked out. I had Callie let me out fifty yards away. Once I was in
position behind a shrub, Callie pulled up in the Jeep and struggled to lift out
the huge vase of exotic flowers.

A
doorman was already holding the front door open for Callie, who came staggering
up the walkway. She thanked him profusely, saying she was asked to deliver
these to Mr. Talbot. The doorman tried to take them from her, but she said it
would be easier if she could just put them on the hall table. As she was about
to deposit them, she feigned a loss of balance, and for ten seconds she and the
doorman were totally occupied trying to keep the flowers from hitting the
marble floor. I slipped inside the foyer right behind the doorman, thanking God
for the lack of hall mirrors, and hid behind an enormous oriental room divider.
Callie blushed and apologized and left the doorman in a huff, thanking him for
his kindness.

From
behind the Chinese room divider, I checked my watch. It was 5:45 p.m. The
doorman paced and tidied and dusted, as if he sensed something wasn't quite
right. I wore no cologne, so that even a sensitive-nosed doorman wouldn't be
able to detect my presence in the house. At 6:30 p.m. he went back to the
kitchen and told the maid that he was going home. She nodded, saying she was
putting Mr. Talbot's dinner on and she would be going herself soon.

Suddenly
I heard the scuffling of feet, as if someone were being subdued, and then a few
groans and moans. I peeked out through the crack in the Chinese room divider to
see the doorman with his back to me, and the maid sitting up on a low
countertop, her arms clutching him, her legs wrapped around him while he was
banging and grinding away in her. She let out a series of whimpers as he
quickly finished off inside her, tucked himself back in his pants, helped her
slide off the countertop, and gave her a brisk pat on the bottom, in a routine
they obviously looked forward to. "See ya tomorrow, my sweet," he
said and whistled out the door as she straightened her uniform.

Callie
s right. Never eat off a countertop until you've wiped it down.

My
legs were cramping from my tenuous crouch, but I didn't dare move. When the
doorman left the house, I plopped onto my butt and rubbed my legs, certain the
maid would not be touring the domain.

Then
I heard the kitchen door open and the scurry of toenails on marble. My worst
nightmare was unfolding. Robert Talbot had a dog, and it was headed into the
living room. I held my breath. Maybe he was an old dog without a keen sense of
smell. But no. In less than thirty seconds, a compact Boston bulldog flew
around the corner of the Chinese room divider and into my arms, snorting and
licking and letting out a playful growl.

"Rockingham!"
I heard the maid calling. "Rockingham, dinner."

"Rockingham,"
I whispered, trying to hold the squirming animal. "Go get your
dinner." Rockingham wasn't leaving. A minute later, I could hear the maid
shuffling into the living room searching for Rockingham and calling his name. I
was frantic. I had to get the dog away from me long enough to distract the maid
and to allow myself time to move to a new hiding place. The dog was making loud
snorting sounds.

"Rockingham,
are you behind that divider?" The maid was bearing down on my location.

I
grabbed Rockingham by the snout and buttocks and rolled him out into the center
of the room like a fourteen-pound bowling ball heading for a strike against the
Ming vase in the corner. The maid let out a shriek, steadied the vase, and
began shouting at the dog, saying he knew better than to roughhouse in the
living room.

"Out,
out, out!" She chased the hapless animal through the room, back into the
kitchen, and outside.

Sorry,
Rockingham, but it s you or me,
I
thought.

I
made my way to the back of the house, down a cavernous corridor to a large
master suite, and checked the alarm box on the wall to make sure the master
suite wasn't independently armed. I unlocked and opened the window, letting out
a low bird whistle. Callie came around the back of the house clutching her
heart.

"My
God, I thought they'd found you," she gasped, and I was pleased she was
concerned.

"Had
to wait for the doorman to quit boffing the maid. He's having a better day than
I am." I grinned. "Didn't take long." I helped her over the
window ledge just as Rockingham rounded the corner at a dead run. Callie let
out a small yelp at seeing how close the dog had come to getting a piece of her
leg. I put my hand over her mouth and towed her into a large walk-in closet,
suggesting we make camp until the maid went home.

At
7:30 p.m. the front door clicked open and shut. I slipped out of the closet and
peeked out of the large bedroom window in time to see a car pick up the
uniformed maid. We were safe, but the alarm system had been set by the maid, so
we couldn't open any doors. Other than that, we had the house to ourselves.

"Go
through his desk drawers and his bedside table," I said.

"What
am I looking for?" Callie asked.

"Bankbooks,
date books, letters. Anything that'll tell us if Talbot is involved in the
barter deals or skimming studio money off the top."

I
booted up Talbot's computer and began going through his files. They contained a
list of names and phone numbers from his last two trips to the Cannes Film
Festival, an organizing list for a charily golf tournament, a host of personal
correspondence, legal documents, and other miscellany.

Callie
was staring intently at a photo of Talbot at a groundbreaking ceremony at the
studio. "This picture has something to do with the murder. I know it
psychically. I feel the hairs stand up on the back of my neck when I look at
it."

"Looks
like a studio groundbreaking," I said.

"I
don't know, but I'm taking it," Callie replied and lifted it from the
bookshelf.

We
heard a sound in the hallway and looked at each other, our hearts in our
throats. It flashed through my mind that no one had opened any of the doors.
There was someone in the house who had been here all along. But who? Gooseflesh
the size of eggs crawled along my arms as I signaled Callie to be quiet and
follow me.

We
crept down the dimly lit hallway and there, standing in the shadows at the end
of the columned corridor, were two men. Even in the fading light and with the
addition of dreadlocks, I could see that one of the men was Spider Eye, the man
who'd brought the stone to Barrett at Orca's. Apparently, now that we were back
in L.A., Raider had passed the baton and we were being handed over to the first
string, honest-to-God, serious killers.

The
ceilings were roughly twenty feet tall and the corridor sixteen feet wide. That
said, there still wasn't much room to outmaneuver two killers, even if I had a
plan for doing it, which I didn't.

"Your
curiosity has killed a cat," Spider Eye said, almost getting the phrase
correct. "Finish them, Gigante!"

Gigante
was a short, medium-built man who had apparently received his giant name from
the size of his head, which lolled back and forth on his neck as if it were too
great a burden to be carried by a man of moderate frame. He headed our way.

"Get
behind me," I whispered to Callie. "We've got to keep Gigante between
us and Spider Eye, in case Spider Eye decides to shoot." After I said it,
I realized how stupid it was of me to be giving instructions as if I knew what
the hell I was doing. I was just babbling, thinking out loud in a panic, and
hoping to get lucky.

"I
don't think they do things with guns, Teague. Remember the poison and the
ampoules in their mouths?"

Fear
of being murdered on the spot in some bizarre fashion sent adrenaline coursing
through my body.

"Just
chant or pray or do something with white light. Not that I'm relying on it at
this juncture in my evolution, but do it anyway," I muttered with a
sarcasm that masked fear.

Gigante
lunged forward to grab me, and I thrust out my left leg, smashing the sole of
my foot solidly into his kneecap and hearing it crunch. He bent over, giving me
a momentary height advantage, and I unwound, slamming my right elbow down on
his head and glancing up for only an instant to see Spider Eye stripping off
his shoulder holster.
Not a good sign,
I thought somewhere in the back
of my brain.
Why is he taking things off at a time when he should be coming
after us?

I
yanked Gigante's head up by the hair and caught him under the chin with my knee
in a pretty standard defensive combination series that hurt like hell for me. I
hoped it was equally good for him. Ignoring my own pain, I was about to angle a
straight-leg punch into Gigante's jaw when suddenly, as if in poetic answer to
my limited kickboxing techniques, Spider Eye dropped to his knees and bounced
into a handstand position, knees tucked in tight. I recognized the move as
capoeira, an exotic and lethal South American martial arts technique. He
vaulted toward us and launched himself into the air about ten feet above our
heads in a dramatic move designed to inflict psychological damage. Spider Eye
was going for the kind of terror that immobilizes.

"Oh
my God!" Callie screamed as he sailed overhead. "Get down. He's
trying to decapitate us with his legs!"

I
shoved Callie under him as he was airborne and rolled forward right behind her.
He came down in what seemed like seconds behind us and literally bounced off
the floor like a gymnast, doing a one-eighty in midair and spinning toward us
again.

"Grab
the gun!" I shouted to Callie as we raced past the spot where Spider Eye
had dumped his holster. She swooped it up, and we ran the length of the
corridor and rounded the corner into the living room, both men on our heels. We
dove onto the floor behind Talbot's enormous reshaped couch. I grabbed the gun
from Callie and rose up over its white brocade back and fired. Nothing! The gun
had misfired.

Spider
Eye smiled widely, amused that his weapon had refused to turn against him. He
sprang onto the couch and reached over the back, getting a hand on me just as
Callie surprised me by pepper-spraying his face. He fell back hacking and
choking, the legs of the tiny tattooed spider stretching and contracting with
the skin around his eye as he wheezed and gasped for breath. Desperately
seeking air, Spider Eye stood up, with admittedly cosmic timing, at the split
second that Gigante pulled the trigger on his gun, accidentally shooting Spider
Eye in the back. He fell forward and blood splattered onto the white brocade.

"Dios
mio!”
Gigante shouted, running to
Spider Eye's side, apparently caring that he'd hit one of his own.

"You're
fucked, Spider Eye!" I shouted.

"Don't
antagonize them any further. Let's just get out of here!" Callie shouted,
and we hit the front door at a dead run, setting off the burglar alarm.

We
were in our Jeep and down the street before any of the alarm-immune neighbors
had even peeked out through their drapes.

"The
servants didn't know those guys were in the house! They must have been there to
kill Talbot, because they had no way of knowing we were coming," I said as
we clambered into the car.

"What
if that man recovers and identifies us?" Callie asked.

"I
wouldn't worry about that. Professional hit men rarely share the details of
their work with cops," I replied.

"Are
they acrobatic killers? What are they?" Callie asked, shaken now.

"Capoeira.
An ancient martial arts technique that originated with Brazil's African slave
populations, who developed incredible foot moves in response to the brutality
of the slave traders. Capoeira let them fight back even when their hands were
chained. They were able to practice the art because they disguised it as
acrobatics and dance. That's why all the back flips, cartwheels, and handstands.
Now it's been adopted by street thugs, who work so quickly and so gracefully,
you can almost become mesmerized into standing still while your assailant kills
you. No wonder I couldn't break away from Spider Eye in the parking garage.
Nice work with the pepper spray, by the way. Where did you get it?"