A Death In Beverly Hills (19 page)

Okay, next would be 2697 then 2769 then 2796 and finally 2967 and 2976 at which point all the codes beginning with '2' would be exhausted. He got all the way to 6972 before the green LED glowed and the lock began its electric imitation of cricket. The guard snapped awake and stared at the door. Steve was already halfway to the sidewalk. Half an hour later he was back in his room at the hotel and still trying to figure out how he was going to do this thing.

It had seemed simple back in L.A. as complicated things often do from a distance. Monster kills your wife and flees the country. Follow him and kill him then come home. Simple. But real life's messy and inconvenient details had started to get in the way. What did Fry do with his days and nights? Where did he go? Who did he see? Should he kill Fry secretly in the dead of night? Maybe he should rent a van, hide in the back and jump out when Fry returned home or left. Shoot him down in the street like a mad dog? On the way into the building or on the way out? Or, Steve, wondered, maybe he should sneak into the building when Fry was away, knock out the guard, use the doorman's key to let himself into Fry's room and then shoot the bastard as he came through his own front door. Steve knew he couldn't keep coming back to that neighborhood, that was for sure. But he thought he could risk it one more time.

Around eight the next morning he parked just out of view of the front door. A few cars exited the underground garage and a few more drove past, none of them paying much attention to him. On the way there a quick stop at a local garage had added a small crowbar to his supplies. Dressed in a dark gray suit, white shirt and gray tie at least Steve looked like he belonged in this neighborhood. At about twenty after eight the front door slammed open and a chunky black-haired woman in a red and blue print dress stormed down the walk. Shouting, the guard boiled out of the lobby half a second behind her. She paused only long enough to scream some insult at him and then flounce away. The guard broke into a run and, with a worried glance over her shoulder, she took off a few paces ahead of him.

Without thinking, Steve slipped the crowbar up his sleeve and headed from the door. His fingers sweating, he punched in 6972 and slipped inside. The elevator dinged and he flattened himself against the wall. A maid sauntered out, a net shopping bag in her hand. Steve slipped into the empty elevator just before the doors closed then hit the button for the third floor.

The doors opened onto a small foyer. To the left was a door marked "3A" and to the right "3B." Fry lived in 3B. For two long seconds Steve stood rooted then the elevator trembled and he ducked past the closing doors. For another second he listened but heard nothing.
Shit
! He slipped the crowbar into his hand. The apartment door was locked. Behind him the elevator whined. Leaning his shoulder against the door, Steve slipped the tip into the slight gap. Now it was a matter of leverage. The wood made a little crunching sound and the space widened. He shoved the tip in deeper and pulled. More crunching sounds then a sharp PING immediately followed by the echo of metal clattering across ceramic tile. Steve shoved the bar in all the way and gave it hard, fast pull. The panel resisted for half a second then something snapped and pieces of wood and screws broke loose. The door swung open on silent hinges. Steve hurried inside and pushed the door closed. Unless someone gave it a careful look they wouldn't notice a thing, Steve told himself.

Straight ahead was a glass-walled living room, to the right a large kitchen and to the left a hallway leading to the guest bath and master bedroom suite. Beyond the kitchen was another corridor leading to another bathroom and two more bedrooms. Scattered here and there were pantries, closets, a laundry room and a study-game room. The place was silent except for the faint hum of the AC. Steve cautiously made his way down the hall, placing his ear to each closed door. Only one of them seemed to have an occupant. He paused outside and took a deep breath then, gun in hand, burst through the door and raced for the rumpled bed. The mound under the comforter shifted and a bleary-eyed face peered up. For an instant Fry lay froze then sucked in a quick breath, preparing to scream. Steve rapped the gun barrel across Fry's head before he could make a sound.

The blow made a thudding noise like a blanket-wrapped hammer glancing off a brick. Stunned, Fry bent forward, cradling his head. Droplets of blood dribbled through his fingers and stained the tented bedclothes between his knees. A soft whooshing sound like a pregnant woman's breathing in Lamaze class escaped his lips. By degrees, Fry's cries changed into a mewling whine, 'ooohhh, oooohhh, oooohhhh, oooohhh'.

Steve twisted his victim onto his belly and used his belt to tie Fry's hands behind him. It was the work of a few seconds to rip a strip from one of the sheets and secure his ankles as well. Finally, Steve twisted Fry into a sitting position, his back against the headboard.

Gauzy curtains covered the windows overlooking the pool and through them Steve could see a blurred garden and the gently swaying trees as if a Monet landscape had come to life. An errant thought comparing the bucolic scene below with the gory work that awaited flitted through Steve's head. Blood leaked from Fry's forehead, around the curve of his eye and on down to his chin where it dripped onto his pajamas. Slowly, Fry became aware of his surroundings and a pair of lazy eyes fixed on Steve's face.

"If you try and shout, I'll shatter your teeth and then knock out one of your eyes. Do you understand me?"

Fry didn't answer aloud but he didn't need to. The fear clouding his face said it all.

"Do you remember me? Do you?" Steve swung the gun as if preparing to strike again.

"Lawyer," Fry mumbled.

"Wrong. I'm the husband of your last victim."

Involuntarily, Fry smiled, a smear of blood staining his teeth. Steve jammed a pillow over Fry's face and smashed his kneecap with the butt of the gun. Fry bucked against the pillow and a muted scream trickled through the goose down.

"You think that's funny? You think butchering my wife is funny?" Steve smashed the knee a second time and was rewarded with a protracted muffled scream. Half a minute later he released the pillow. "Who am I?" Steve asked, looming over Fry's pale form.

"Husband of the woman I killed," Fry wheezed.

"Why do you think I'm here?"

"To punish me."

"Right again."

"S-not right," Fry mumbled, then spit out a gob of blood that had drained into his mouth.

"Was killing my wife right, asshole?"

"I'm a sick man. I can't help myself."

"Maybe I'm a sick man too. Maybe I can't help myself."

"You're a lawyer. You know better. You can't do this."

"Did you enjoy it? Killing my wife."

"What do you want me to say?" Another gob of blood hit the sheet.

"The truth."

"Why would I do it if I didn't enjoy it? My father abused me. Screwed me up. It's the only way I can--"

"Shut up!" Steve hissed raising the gun like Barry Bonds wiggling his bat.

"Whatever you say. What are you going to do? You can't get me back home like this. How do you think you're going to get me on a plane?"

"Plane? Who said anything about a plane?"

"Why else are you here?"

"Moron, I'm here to kill you."

"You can't do that. I have a right to--"

"Shit!" Steve growled and a soundless explosion seemed to detonate inside his brain. His head filled with fire in brilliant reds and blacks. In an instant a web of invisible chains seemed to dissolve, releasing a screaming beast inside him. Janson shoved the pillow over Fry's face. The .45's muzzle sunk deep into the goose feathers and Steve yanked the trigger.

Even muffled by the cushion the automatic made a frightful roar and feathers swirled like snow in a squall. Fry let out a muffled scream. Steve lifted the pillow and saw a ragged gray-rimmed hole in Fry's left cheek. Shit, that wasn't going to kill him. Thrashing and screaming Fry tried to escape.

Not thinking about Lynn or about anything except murder Steve folded the pillow around the pistol and pressed it against the center of Fry's forehead. Janson's only emotion was a blood lust as ferocious as a shipwrecked sailor's craving for the sight of land. For half a second he paused then, unable to think of any reason not to, yanked the trigger. The gun kicked and blood splattered in a spray of sodden red feathers. That should be the end of that fucker. Better make sure. Steve grabbed a second pillow and pounded two more slugs into Fry's head, leaving it as broken as a morning-after Halloween pumpkin.

If anyone had asked Steve what he was thinking when he fired those last two bullets into the leaking corpse he couldn't have told them to save his life. At that instant his head was filled only with a swirl of random sounds and twisted images like a traveler on the Kansas prairie suddenly sucked fifty feet up inside a tornado.

Some seconds later the roaring in his brain dissipated and Janson stepped back from the bed. Was Fry dead? Could a man live through that? He should check Fry's pulse but Janson couldn't make himself touch the dead thing on the bed.

Steve wiped the gun then washed his face and hands in the bathroom sink. The water swirled red and little bits of brain and bone poured down the drain. He threw off his coat which seemed, miraculously, to have protected his shirt from all but a few microscopic stains. In the mirror a wild-eyed man stared back at him. Janson paused a moment to study the stranger.

Carefully he combed his hair then, as if waking from dream, grabbed his coat and returned to the bedroom. He retrieved his belt from the body and made his way through the apartment, pausing to wipe his prints as he went. At the lobby he marched out looking neither left nor right. For a moment the guard glanced at him. Was this man a guest of one of the tenants? Had he arrived during the night guard's tour?

He babbled something in Spanish. Steve waved without turning around and opened the door with a handkerchief-wrapped hand. Had someone reported the shots? Was the guard going to check on the tenants or call the cops or just go back to his paper? Steve neither knew nor cared. Only one thought filled his mind: drive to the airport and fly away. Wiped clean of prints the gun went into a garbage bin outside a busy restaurant five miles away. He didn't go back to the hotel, didn't check out, didn't pick up his bag, didn't return the car, just parked it in front of the rental agency with the keys inside and raced for the terminal as if he was late for his flight.

The next plane headed in the right direction was a Mexicana flight to Cancun. Steve didn't care. It could have been headed for Nassau or Caracas for all that it mattered to him. The ticket cost him $984, one way. His VISA was no good down here so he paid with traveler's checks then staggered onto the plane and slept as if drugged. A few hours later he walked onto a half-full L.A. bound flight and landed on U.S. soil a free man.

For several days Steve waited to be arrested but nothing happened.

"Everybody thinks you killed Alan Fry," Greg said as soon as Steve entered his office.

"I did."

"Don't ever admit that to anyone." Markham leaned forward. "Let's go over what they can prove. You were in Cuba--"

"That will be hard for anyone in the States to prove."

"Why?"

Steve laughed. "The Cuban government wants American tourists so they kindly refrain from stamping U.S. passports. As far as my records go, I was in Nassau."

"Credit card charges?"

"VISA and Master Card aren't accepted in Cuba. I bought Traveler's Checks at Barclay's Bank in Nassau."

"Which is out of the subpoena range of U.S. courts," Greg said, making a note on his pad. "So, the U.S. authorities can prove you were somewhere in the Carribean during the period that Fry was killed but they can't put you in Cuba. Did you leave any evidence, the gun, fingerprints, witnesses?"

"It was a black market gun. I paid cash and I never gave the guy my name or where I was staying. I didn't leave any prints or physical evidence behind."

"The clothes you were wearing . . . ?"

"I dumped them in the Cancun airport when I changed planes. They're long gone." Steve looked away. "The only witness was the guard at Fry's building and all he saw was the back of my head. I don't think he could ID me. If they find the gun and trace it back to the guys who sold it to the cab driver and then back to him, he could pick me out of a line-up, but that's not what's bothering me."

"Which is?"

Steve gave a wry laugh. "The courts in Havana aren't exactly on my side. Once I'm back there they don't need any evidence. They'll just lock me up on general principals."

"Are you planning on going back to Cuba?"

"Not voluntarily, but I don't figure they'll give me a choice."

Now it was Greg's turn to laugh. "That will never happen."

"Won't they just extradite me . . . ?" Steve's voice trailed off at the shake of Greg's head. "Why not?"

"Without overwhelming evidence of guilt, and probably even with it, no American court is ever going to extradite an American citizen to Cuba on the charge of killing a Cuban citizen. The more the Cubans scream for your blood, the more the U.S. will tell them to take a hike. But, of course, it will never get that far."