Jack Be Nimble: Tyro Book 2

by Ben English

  Like the book cases.

  Bryce left his tumbler on the table and walked into the unlit study filled with bookshelves. He could knock one or two of them over, then climb up onto a beam. She’d be looking down. He grinned. It would work. He was beginning to suspect he had a talent for this sort of thing.

  He worked his way in behind a mammoth indoor jade plant, and found a place to grab one of the shelves. It was going to be difficult; they were heavy. There was a tin waste can where he needed to stand, etched with some old-fashioned logo and covered in red enamel paint. It held two umbrellas and a baseball bat, obviously Mercedes’ idea of home protection. Bryce looked closer. An Easton aluminum bat, with a chipped black finish. Old, but still shiny. Those things never wore out.

  Bryce set his shoulder against the wall and gripped the shelf. Heh. This was better than a sneak over the back wall. He gathered his strength, and began to—

  Someone knocked loudly at the front door.

  *

  Jack saw the exit nearly a minute after ending the conversation with Alonzo, not more than half a mile on 101 before the gargantuan complex that made up the North Hollywood Medical Center. He took the Coldwater Canyon Avenue exit and headed south, toward the low rise of the Santa Monica Mountains that shielded this quiet area somewhat from the throngs of decaying Hollywood to the south.

  Mountains. Jack had to smile at that one. Funny how the mountains of his youth always seemed larger, in memory, to practically anything he found anywhere else.

  He liked the hushed community of Studio City. Indian laurels and feathery coral trees blanketed the expanse of orderly, smooth lanes and cul-de-sacs. Most of the houses were single-story and sat a uniform distance from the street, but varied staggeringly in style: Mediterranean, colonial, Tudor, postmodern, Spanish—and Jack was sure he drove past a windmill in the gloom.

  He nearly missed the house on Sarah Circle, surrounded as it was by a vine-cloaked wall. Shrubbery almost obscured the number set in bronze near the gate: 12610. Beyond sat a double garage with a peaked roof, higher than that of the main house.

  Aside from a tricked-out black Jeep Cherokee, the street was clear. Jack pulled past the house and used the cul-de-sac at the end of the block to turn the car around. Drawing abreast again, he noted the high windows blazing with light, throwing illumination against the foliage. A single story, but the ceilings inside must be incredible, he thought. Nice neighborhood. Each house stood on nearly half an acre of walled, heavily-shrubbed property. Jack parked the Mustang a block past the house and walked back to the front gate, marveling at the houses, the foggy quiet, the warm contentment of the evening. The triple shrill of a nighthawk split the air, and there was an owl holding court somewhere nearby.

  With any luck he would live in a place like this someday. Jack shrugged deeper into his jacket. It was an uncharacteristically foggy night for the Big Orange.

  A grove of eucalyptus trees looked down on Jack from beyond the house, whispering secrets to him on a night breeze he couldn’t quite feel. He inhaled their layered scent and put his hand on the gate. There was no paging system and it stood open, as much an invitation into the well-lit front yard as anything.

  A flagstone path led Jack around a fountain and a large, dark pool bordered by matching stones. He looked down into the water as he passed and was disconcerted to see nothing: a sheer, liquid blackness on the other side of his reflection. The pool had been painted black or at least dusky, better to retain heat from the sun. A chill fingered his spine, nonetheless. It was as if the pool had no bottom at all, only an inky veneer beneath which darker, less-than-visible shapes roiled.

  He pressed a hand to the back of his neck, flattening the legion of hairs that had risen. Ridiculous, Jack. So much for sleeping on an airplane. He forced a chuckle and continued on to the front door. Something splashed behind him.

  Jack was barely aware of turning, scarcely aware of his hand slapping the small of his back where a gun should have been. He slid around into a fighting stance—

  And nothing. The still, placid water gazed back at him, made into an eye by a brooding lid of jagged flagstones. The moon turned over in its bed of fog and wind, drawing a murky pupil up out of the pool.

  The trees held their breath.

  He relaxed. The problem was, Jack couldn’t be sure if his jumpiness was due to the yank he’d given his body in terms of time zones—in Paris, he’d be finishing his workout or already well into a day’s writing—or a barely perceived precursor to a real threat. Jack had learned to trust his instinct, but perhaps his body was betraying his mind. The business in London was a barely remembered collection of aches; did he need more time to recover?

  He swept his eyes around the property, seeing thick shrubs instead of coiling demons, and shrugged at the night.

  The front stoop had enough lights to make him squint. “Grow up, Jack. A couple weeks on the beach in Cuba,” he muttered, searching for a doorbell and finding none. Who doesn’t have a doorbell?

  The door on the other side of the screen was open, and even though the hallway on the other side of the door was unlit, Jack could see clearly into the dining room at its end, and further into some sort of living room. Music was playing somewhere deep in the house.

  Jack looked away, feeling like a peeping Tom. “Hello?” he called out, knocking on the screen, then on the molding around the door. “Hello? Sorry to bother you so late. I’m here for those papers?”

  Nothing.

  He leaned into the screen, shading his eyes against the harsh light from the lamp above, and called out again. He could see a stack of paper right there on the dining room table, damn it.

  Jack half expected the neighborhood dogs to start up at any time—better yet, a photo geek from the L.A Times to come bounding out of the brush or up out of the pool. “Sir? Ma’am?” Jack pulled the screen open and peered into the house. Nothing moved. The air in the foyer was faintly stale. Not even the feel that anyone was home. “Hell with this,” he said, and stepped in.

  “I’ll just be a minute,” he said loudly, feeling like an idiot. The front hall was lined with photographs. He intended to walk straight to the table and take the documents, but the photos were extraordinary. In the brighter wash of light near the dining room, Jack made out a well-framed shot of a Great White shark taken from within a steel cage. He could actually count the rows of teeth on the killing machine. Next to it, in almost ludicrous contrast, was a picture of a cherubic-looking, chubby, scaled animal which reminded Jack of an artichoke. The caption underneath read Sobi Sands—Pangolin. On the wall opposite the strangely different, though oddly balanced pair hung a shot of Pagsanjan Falls. He whistled. The photographer was good. Jack had seen the real thing, but he’d never met a photographer who could really capture the cascading sheets of water. Jack looked hard, but found no signs of Photoshop or any other telltale hyper-perfections indicating digital manipulation. Whoever took this picture had the ability to make the Philippine waterfall look fantastic by its own merits. Jack could barely look away.

  The space on the wall next to it was empty, save for a hook; the framed picture rested against the wall below. He picked it up. Again, Jack was impressed. This was some sort of wide-angle photograph, taken from a plane or a helicopter (or a skydiver?) above the California coast. A good match for the shot of the falls. Jack carefully returned it to the wall.

  Other artwork, some paintings, hung throughout the house. Their pine frames matched the glassy hardwood floor.

  “Hello?” Jack called out again, for good measure. His eyes swept left-right, past the well-furnished living room to his left, across the table before him to the den beyond, and finally along the floor-to-ceiling French doors that stood like soldiers-at-muster, the night at their backs. No one was in the kitchen at his right, though all the lights were on.

  A towel hung across the back of one of the chairs, draping a corner over the documents. Jack tossed it aside to read the headings beneath.

  From
a fathom further in the house, Madonna stopped singing about rain, and Harry Connick Jr., immediately took up a jaunty verse about the man-in-the-moon.

  The papers were laid out in a fan on the table; Jack moved each just enough to read the titles and the brief abstract beneath each one, pulling out every document that had the words “electromagnetic” and “resonance” in the first few lines. He whistled along with the sourceless tune, finding himself moving a little with the music. If someone happened upon him, Jack wanted to provide the least-threatening picture he could manage.

  “Hi,” he muttered to himself. “Just rifling through your personal belongings, hoping to find a clue to stop a nutso madman from building another electro-bomb. Check the Sunday morning cartoons for details.” He was almost done.

  Was that a noise? He froze, and looked up. From the stereo in the back of the house the man-in-the-moon had fallen completely in love with the girl-in-the-world in time for Harry Connick, Jr.’s usual slow-song fadeout over a high note, and either the track had reached its end, or the beginning of the next song was pitched so low as not to carry to the front rooms of the house. Either way, there had been a slight change in the house, maybe an air current, so faint as to barely register, but he had felt something. Earthquake season?

  Something tickled at the back of his mind. Jack straightened to his full height and turned slowly in a complete circle. There it was again. The glittering tease of an idea; that odd, surging sensation of knowledge just beyond him, of imminent clarity. Epiphany? Jack held his breath and concentrated, letting his attention flow outward.

  Danger? Perhaps.

  Weapons? Many: kitchen nearby, vase on a corner shelf, letter opener, keys, and a heavy glass dish behind him on a sideboard near the front door.

  Normally Jack was thrilled by the sensation of epiphany, welcomed it with as much relish as a little child thrills to discovery of an unfolding world. Not this time. Now his anticipation was veined with something approaching dread, as though he was grasping at mental straws and sure that one of them would prove to be the proverbial lost needle.

  He released the breath. This was ludicrous. Mixed metaphors were a sure sign of fatigue. Get the papers, get out of the house, get the hell out of Studio City. Pull a Houdini, as Alonzo would say; make the Great Escape.

  But as Jack leaned over the table, the prickly sensation returned. Imminent epiphany. He paused and took another deep breath. Slow it down, Jack. Take a breath.

  The root word of inspiration, after all, was inspire—to inhale.

  He waited. He inhaled.

  Like the kitchen behind him, the dining room was built to gather light. Light clung naturally to rooms like this one, with narrow mirrors and white lace curtains. It seemed a comfortable place to Jack. The sort of place you’d expect a largish family to converge, eager for meals together or the kind of nourishment garnered from shared lives, common ambitions, shared problems. Must be the atmosphere, he thought, the homey undercurrents of the dining room making him hesitate. He’d been inside the house too long already, but –

  He could almost imagine that family now, drawing in tightly around the table, glorious in their raw noise—though his other, mundane senses told him that had never been the case in this particular dining room. This table, these particular chairs had been barely used. Same with the other furniture he’d glimpsed in the adjoining rooms. Everything was new, sturdy. Everything in the house felt ready to be used, ready to be filled suddenly. As though the owners had prepared for the onslaught of a dozen rowdy children, and then inexplicably decided to turn the entire place into a museum instead, a showroom model for the suburban household. Everything bought, nothing collected. Except the framed photographs.

  He took a deep breath. Even smelled like a museum. The vague mustiness he’d noticed earlier still hung in the air, along with a scent of – what the hell was that?

  A large spice rack sat on the kitchen counter a few feet away. Tomatoes, onions, and olives stood at haphazard attention on the cutting board, but – there was something else. A scent of fruit and fog that maddeningly threw a seine across his memory, casting for a particular recollection, something important.

  He looked down. Nothing on the table but the coarse spread of papers and a white cotton towel. Jack sighed and turned away, willing his head to clear.

  *

  Bryce crouched motionless in the competing shadows, peering over the back of a couch. He’d found the handle of the bat easily enough. His first impression was that the intruder had to be some kind of athlete; if looks were any indication, a football player. Maybe still in college—no, a bit too old for that, but he moved loosely, like he was a kid. Bryce smirked in the darkness. Mercedes was picking her man candy young, right off the turnip wagon.

  Physically he was impressive; much the same as Bryce. No; this guy was in better shape, he had to admit. Wide shoulders, a compressed waist; even under the letterman’s jacket Bryce could see layers of muscle and physical angles only built through constant, intense activity. The kind of body he himself planned to get after the next sailing season. He wondered who his trainer was. He was even as tall as Bryce, and blonder. While he couldn’t quite place the intruder’s features, there was a nagging familiarity in the jaw and dark eyes. Bryce was sure he’d seen him before. In a club? Grinding through weight sets on Venice Beach? If nothing else, Bryce recognized the type. That Mercedes had picked such a SoCal cliche to bang actually surprised him; she’d always gotten the biggest laugh making fun of the man-boys who hit on her.

  There were no lights on in the den, and Bryce was far from the entrance, squatting in the collection of uneven shadows cast by a large potted plant with many leaves. There were enough odd shapes and gloomy contours between the two men for Bryce to feel practically invisible. He felt another dark thrill at this, then realized his hands were gripping the baseball bat hard enough to hurt. Even if the man’s identity continued to elude him, Bryce had no doubt what the intruder was; which role he filled in the kitchy, cautionary tale of his wife’s counterfeit home. Bryce waited for Mercedes to come in the door behind her lover, but the newcomer wasn’t acting like there was anyone following him. He looked about the house briefly, said something apologetic about papers which Bryce didn’t quite catch, then started examining the mess on the table. Weird.

  Bryce wondered how they’d met. When they’d gone out as husband and wife, men watched Mercedes. She dated a football player once before, one of the Chargers. Maybe this guy had flirted with her at a party?

  The heat from his hands had worked up into his shoulders, and now spread across his entire body. He’d never sobered this quickly before. They could have met at a party, or at a restaurant when Bryce had excused himself from the table for a few moments. He scoured his memory, trying to remember when Mercedes would have had the chance to flirt with Mr. Football Star. He had to fight the urge to breathe faster. The man in the letterman’s jacket was big, but looked a little uncertain of himself. The Easton bat evened things out nicely in Bryce’s direction. Besides, he was fairly sure he could still claim legal rights to part of the house, which meant he could damn near break the bat over the intruder’s head and insist it was self defense. Bryce waited and watched, and wondered what the other man would do next.

  Bending over the papers, he kept his back to the kitchen and the wall. He picked a number of stapled sheets from the overlapping sheaves on the table, rolled them to fit in his jacket pocket, then he looked up sharply twice, suspicious—no, curious, Bryce decided. Stock-still, he watched as the stranger looked sharply around at the house, at the kitchen. He picked up the empty tumbler Bryce had left on the table’s edge, smelled it, then set it down. He even bent close to the papers and wrinkled his nose. What the hell, Bryce thought.

  The man straightened then, blinked hard, and slowly drew a deep breath. He worked his jaw as he continued to let his gaze drift about the room, until he settled once again on the table. On the white towel.

  He hesitated
, took it up gingerly, then shrugged. The stranger started to laugh at himself as he made to fold the cotton towel, then hesitated again. “Apples and pears?” he muttered.

  The low music from the bedroom ended, and wind gushed through the trees above the house. The frowning stranger drew the towel closer. Bryce had never seen anyone concentrate so hard on a single item before. He’d seen his father scrutinize the bouquet of a wine with the same demanding attention the old man gave a business merger, and he’d watched boatwrights study the damage done to his Argosy by shoals and shallow landings, but the attention the stranger poured over his wife’s lank towel was…complete. Unnerving.

  Then the intruder began to laugh.

  It started with a quick, hopeful smile, then a few half-attempts at actual words quickly overcome by chuckles, then the stranger began to laugh in earnest. Unselfconsciously, he laughed. He stopped for a few seconds, and then laughed again. He threw back his head and howled with mirth. He gasped for air, leaned against the back of a chair, and roared again. At one point it sounded to Bryce like he sobbed with a mixture of relief and shock. It made Bryce’s skin crawl. There was a sadness in the hilarity too, a tinge of remorse that Bryce didn’t quite understand. Wacko. Nobody laughed when they thought they were alone. Mercedes had seduced a lunatic.

  As quietly and slowly as he could, Bryce crawled out from under the spiky plant. He kept the bat firmly in hand. Moving around the couch, he lost sight of the intruder. Bryce had to keep it slow; even though the room was full of cushy chairs, it was still dark, and he could feel the cold giddiness rising in him again, merging with his impatience, gathering momentum. Bryce was suddenly full of energy, blazing. Everything was perfectly clear. He hefted the bat, twirled it in his hand, and stepped closer to the archway. Only a wall and a few feet separated him from the stranger, whose laughter had grown a bit ragged, and Bryce closed his eyes, picturing himself smashing into the other man, hammering him until the haft bent and broke. “Visualize your victory,” his father’s most often repeated mantra. Bryce rode the adrenaline rush for the wave it was, higher, higher.