“Fontes had the L.C,” she said defensively. “He knew all about the kidnapping. He contacted Diane first, and she contacted me. We decided it was best to come down here and talk with him. Before we did, I spoke with Gilbert; I’d been getting panicky because I hadn’t heard from Stan. He gave me the name of the hotel where Stan was supposed to be staying in Mexico City. I called there; he was registered.”
“But you didn’t talk with him.”
“He wasn’t in his room.”
“You leave a message?”
“Yes.”
“But he never called back.”
“I left to come down here before he would have had a chance. Besides, I knew Stan would need a tourist card to register at a hotel on the mainland, and to get one, you have to show I.D.”
“There was no I.D. on Stan’s body. And you heard Ripinsky’s account of the night of the shooting: Salazar was outside the adobe listening to what he and Stan were saying. That’s how Fontes knew about the kidnapping—and what kind of story to tell you.”
“All right, I’ve been stupid! But you don’t know Fontes, how convincing he can be. Besides, I wanted to believe him. Otherwise, it would have meant that Stan …”
“Which is exactly what it did mean.”
“Stop it!” She pressed her hands to her ears.
I stopped. No matter what this woman had done, badgering her was a cheap indulgence. She’d get plenty of that soon enough from the authorities, the prosecuting attorneys, and her own conscience—providing she had one.
But there were other things I wanted to know. “Ann, why did Diane Mourning contact you and Stan about kidnapping her husband?”
She drew her hands together in her Lap, fighting to regain her composure. The question gave her focus; after a moment she replied calmly, “She contacted Stan. He’d known both Mournings well a few years before. They were heavy contributors to a fund-raising campaign Stan ran for the fishing industry. They needed a source of dolphin cartilage for that drug their company is developing, and they thought if they supported the fishing industry, they’d make contacts who would help them.”
“So Stan met them at a fund-raiser?”
She nodded. “This was back before I knew him. Stan got to be friends with them; they spent a lot of time together. The Mournings were living pretty high back then. Too high, I guess, because a couple of years later they had to sell their boat and vacation home in Laguna Beach, and then their condo in San Francisco. After that, Stan said, he didn’t hear much from them; it works that way when your friends slip into a lower financial bracket.”
“So when did Diane reestablish contact with Stan?”
Navarro’s mouth turned down. “A few months ago— March, maybe. She showed up at his office. She told him the labs were in trouble and Tim had lost interest in his work— in her, too. She’d found out he had somebody else that he was serious about, and she was afraid he was working up to leaving her. She played on Stan’s sympathies.”
Navarro looked down at her clenched hands. Separated them and rubbed them against her thighs, then brought them together lightly. “Stan and Diane started sleeping together. I found that out from his secretary. And next thing I knew, the kidnapping was all planned.”
“Why’d you go along with it?”
She shrugged.
“You must have some idea.”
“Well, the money, partly. Diane was going to split it fifty-fifty with us.”
“Didn’t it bother you to kidnap and kill someone?”
“We weren’t going to kill him!”
“Come on, Ann. Mourning might not have known who you were, but he and Stan had been friends.”
“Stan wore a disguise. And I was the one who took food and stuff to Tim. I even wore a wig.”
“Oh, Ann, Ripinsky saw through Stan’s disguise right away, and from a distance. Of course Stan planned to kill Tim. And on some level you knew that.”
She sighed deeply.
“How could you have believed what Stan told you, when you knew he was sleeping with Tim’s wife?”
“… I don’t know. Maybe I thought if I helped him, I could hold him. Stan slept around a lot; I couldn’t believe Diane was that important to him. But I don’t know. My whole life before Stan, I never trusted any man, never gave in to anybody. I didn’t want to be like my mother, you see—always doing for other people, always having babies, always saying yes, yes, yes. But when I married Stan … he was stronger than me, and I just got weaker. The worst of it is, I don’t know why. And now it’s too late.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
Hy appeared, moving swiftly. I lowered the window, and he leaned toward it. “We better move now. Salazar was out prowling, but he’s gone inside again. When I left off watching him, he was upstairs.”
I nodded. Hy went around to Navarro’s door, gun in hand. I unlocked it, and she got out.
I started the car and turned it around so it was pointed at the road. Left it with the doors locked, pocketed the keys, and joined Hy and Navarro by the path to the beach.
“We’ll go back the way we came,” I told her. “Ripinsky’ll be in front of you, I’ll be behind. When we get to the villa, you’ll take us to Mourning’s room. Don’t try to warn anybody. If you do, I won’t hesitate to kill you.”
Navarro looked more convinced by my words than I was; she compressed her lips and glanced at Hy.
He said, “Don’t look at me. I won’t hesitate, either.”
As he spoke I caught a glimpse of the violence that simmered beneath his civilized exterior. I had no doubt he meant what he’d said. As for myself, I’d never know exactly what I was capable of until I was called to action.
Twenty-Nine
Light still glowed softly in the room off the terrace. Hy vaulted the wall, then gave Navarro a boost up. I followed.
We stood in the shadows for a moment. I could hear nothing but the surge of the tide and the pounding of my own heart, accelerated by the adrenaline flowing through me. Hy tapped Navarro’s shoulder, pushed her forward to the door. She tried to open it, then turned, face set in lines of frustration.
I went over there and tried it myself. Locked. I pulled Navarro back toward the wall and whispered, “Is there any other door that might be open?”
“Maybe off the patio where the pool is.”
“Let’s go.”
She led us across the terrace, down some steps, and along a path bordered by tall agaves. It curved into a walled courtyard with a pool and hot tub. We skirted them in the darkness, and Navarro tried a sliding door to the house. Also locked.
I put my lips close to her ear and asked, “Is that wing to the right where Mourning and the bodyguard are sleeping?”
She nodded.
“What about a window?”
“All barred.”
I looked at Hy. He shrugged.
“You’ll have to wake the bodyguard,” I told Navarro. “Say you were walking on the beach and got locked out.”
Hy was examining the door. He pointed to the side where the opening would be, then slipped behind an agave that grew next to the wall. To Navarro I added, “Ask him to let you in this way.”
“How am I supposed to—”
“Ssh! Knock on his window; say you didn’t want to disturb the others by ringing the bell.”
“I don’t know which—”
“Guess. If you get the wrong window, the only other person you’ll disturb is Mourning.”
She moved toward the wing at the right. I followed, covering her. She rounded the corner, began counting windows. Stopped at the third one, then stepped across a low bed of cacti and knocked. I stopped some five feet away as a man’s voice called out in inquiry.
Navarro replied swiftly in Spanish. I caught enough of the words to know she hadn’t given us away. The man said something else; she snapped at him. Then she turned and walked past me, going back to the door.
“Try to get him outside,” I whispered, and followed. The
re was no sign of Hy, not even a shadow behind the agave. After a moment a clatter came from inside the house—the guard removing a security bar from the door. It slid open and a short, stocky man looked out at Navarro.
She stayed where she was, near the pool. Pointed at the water and said something that I took to mean she wanted him to have a look at something.
He frowned. “Que?”
“Está muerta.”
The man came through the door, scowling.
Hy’s arm shot from behind the agave and hooked around his neck. The man gagged. Hy dragged him farther outside, applying pressure on his carotid; the man went limp.
I looked around, spotted a big bin near the wall—the kind that’s used to store swim equipment or lounge cushions. Still covering Navarro, I went over and opened it. Empty. I motioned to Hy. He dragged the bodyguard over there.
I knelt and searched him for a gun. There was a .44 Magnum in the pocket of his bathrobe. I took it over and dropped it into the pool. Hy picked the man up and dumped him inside the bin, lowered the lid and secured the latch. At the bottom was a ventilation screen to prevent mildew; the man wouldn’t suffocate, but when he recovered consciousness, any sound he might make would be muffled.
Hy went to the door, stepped inside. I motioned to Navarro, and she and I followed.
We stood in a terra-cotta-tiled room with a bar and a pool table where a game had been in progress. A sconce burned faintly on the far wall. I located its switch and turned it off.
“Now,” Hy whispered, “Mourning’s room.”
We crossed to an archway that opened into the hall. A carpeted stairway rose to the left, and then the hall continued to the right. Hy grasped Navarro’s forearm. She walked a half step ahead of him, past an open door through which I could see a rumpled bed, to a closed door. Nodding, she pointed at it.
I went around them and tried the knob. Locked. I looked back at Hy and shook my head. He grimaced. Then I remembered that Navarro carried the key to her own room. Any given manufacturer’s door locks are guaranteed to be fairly standardized, and in a house this size there was bound to be some duplication, I said to Navarro, “Give me your room key.”
She fished it out and handed it over.
The key slipped easily into the lock, then stuck. I tried jiggling it, felt a loosening. I forced it and the tumblers started to turn, then jammed. I twisted harder. The lock popped with a crack.
I pushed the door open and waved Hy and Navarro inside. Shut the door behind us. No sounds from upstairs, no telltale creak of floorboards.
The room was dark except for a night-light plugged into a socket near the baseboard. Its bulb elongated our shadows, spread them over the ceiling. At the far side I made out a bedstead—and a figure lying on the bare mattress.
He wore badly rumpled jeans and a shirt, its tail untucked. He wasn’t shackled in any way. He lay curled up in the fetal position, face pressed into the pillow. I went up to the bed and touched his shoulder. He gave a faint moan of protest.
I stuck my gun in my waistband and turned the man’s face away from the pillow. It was Mourning. An unkempt beard covered his cheeks; they looked hollowed, his eyes badly underscored. As I moved him, his lips twitched and he mumbled something. I whispered his name. His eyes came open—dull and unfocused.
“Help me sit him up,” I told Navarro.
She hesitated, then came forward. We got Mourning into a sitting position, his head lolling onto my shoulder. I looked at the nightstand for evidence of what drugs they’d been giving him. Saw only his glasses, both lenses shattered and one earpiece ripped off.
“What happened to his glasses?” I asked Navarro.
“Salazar broke them.”
“Deliberately?”
“… Yes. So he couldn’t get away. Tim’s practically blind without them.”
It was the final obscene cruelty. My hands balled into fists. When I glanced up at Hy, I saw my rage reflected in the set of his jaw.
Mourning mumbled again.
I slid my arm around his slumped shoulders. “Tim,” I said, “it’s going to be okay now.”
He started to raise his head, then let it fall forward.
“Tim, wake up.” I put my hand under his chin, propped it up. “We’re going to take you home.”
More mumbles. Then, “Kill me.”
“Nobody’s going to kill you. You’re safe now.”
“Safe?”
“But you’ve got to help us. Can you walk?”
“Walk?”
“So we can take you home.”
He flinched. Jerked back, sitting up under his own power. “Not home!”
“Ssh!” I glanced at Hy, who was listening at the door now.
“Diane …”
“It’s okay. She can’t hurt you anymore.”
My words made no impression. Mourning shrank back on the mattress. I followed his gaze, saw he was staring at Navarro. “Get her out of here,” I told Hy.
He grabbed her arm, dragged her over by the door. She pulled away and drew back into a corner between a bureau and the wall.
Mourning’s eyes were wide and panicky now. He struggled to rise, gained a shaky footing. I got up fast and draped his arm over my shoulder. “You take her,” I told Hy. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
Hy motioned for Navarro to come out of the corner. When she didn’t move, he went over and got her. She struggled and he pinned her arm behind her back. “Don’t give us trouble now,” he muttered. “We’ve got Mourning; you’re expendable.”
Instantly she stopped struggling and went with him.
Holding tight to Navarro’s arm, Hy looked out into the hallway. Signaled to me and slipped through the door.
Mourning leaned heavily on me. I took a small step. He said, “Can’t.”
“Try.”
He took a small step that almost matched mine.
“Good. Another.”
“Dizzy.”
“I’ve got you.”
We navigated the space between the bed and the door.
Hy waited in the hall, still gripping Navarro by the arm. When we came out, he turned and moved toward the room off the patio. Navarro went quietly, all the fight gone out of her.
Mourning supported some of his own weight now. We moved as one, lurching from side to side like a large ungainly animal. Partway to the door he slipped and almost fell. I half carried, half dragged him the rest of the distance.
Through the archway. Past the wet bar. Around the pool table. Hy at the door now, checking outside. Navarro beside him, rubbing her arm.
Mourning saw her and stiffened. He made a growling sound and his feet churned against the tiles, as if he wanted to get at her. She shrank back against the wall.
Three feet to the door. Hy moving to help us. Step … drag … stumble. My heart pounding. Mourning’s breath labored. Step … drag … step … step … Hy reaching out—
Lights flashed on around us.
Mourning stumbled again, pitched forward, his arm slipping off my shoulders. As Hy tried to go for his gun, Mourning reeled into him. They went down. I whirled, trying to get at my .45.
Too late.
Jaime stood inside the archway, a .357 Magnum leveled at us. His thick lips twisted in a grotesque smile. He said, “Whatta buncha payasos.”
Payasos: clowns. Of all words, why the hell did I have to understand that one?
He added, “Stick your guns over there on the bar.”
I glanced at Hy, who was getting up from the floor. He didn’t look so much afraid as sheepish. We went to the bar, set our weapons down. I backed up, watching Jaime, until my buttocks pressed against the edge of the pool table. Hy stood midway between us.
Mourning lay on the floor, moaning. Navarro was still flattened against the wall, eyes wild. She pushed away from it, started toward Jaime, arms held out in a placating gesture.
Smiling, Jaime shot her in the head.
As the bullet smashed into Navarro’s skull, I sh
ut my eyes and whipped my head away so fast that pain shot up my neck. My stomach lurched violently. I opened my eyes and caught a glimpse of Hy’s face—slack-jawed, sick. I leaned farther back against the table, hands splayed on the felt. Moved them around until I found a billiard ball.
Jaime was still smiling. He swung his gun toward Hy. “Shouldn’t’ve come back here, asshole.”
I straightened with the ball tightly gripped in my fingers. Moved my arm in a smooth, strong arc, and let the ball fly at Jaime’s head. In the last second I saw it was the eight ball.
Jaime saw me move, but too late. As he started to swing his gun around, the hard ivory ball slammed into his temple with a resounding crack. His eyes rolled up; he went to his knees, losing his grip on the Magnum, then fell sideways.
Hy leaped for the bar, grabbed one of the guns; I went for the other. He picked up Mourning and slung him over his shoulder. There was noise in the other part of the house now— running footsteps. Salazar’s voice called out in Spanish.
We plunged through the door, ran across the patio and down the path. Veered off and zigzagged through the agaves toward the beach.
As we slid down the sandy slope, Hy gasped, “Jesus, McCone, not only’re you playing in the majors but you throw one mean fastball!”
Thirty
Monday, June 14
12:17 A.M.
When we got to the car, all was quiet except for a dog barking somewhere down the road. Salazar hadn’t followed us, and no one had come out of any of the other villas. Still, my heart beat fast and I had to fight off nausea every time I pictured the bullet shattering Navarro’s skull.
Forcing the horrible image from my mind, I opened the door to the backseat of the Seville. As Hy laid Mourning on it, Tim grunted and then fell silent—in shock, I supposed. I got my jacket out of the trunk and started to hand it to Hy. “Better wrap this around him.”
He didn’t reach for it, just stood pressing his hand to his wounded arm. When he removed it, it was streaked with blood. “Damned thing’s opened up,” he said.
“Do you have anything in your bag that you can use as an extra bandage?”
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