Damage (46 page)

Stoned, mellow, and buoyed by the positive turn of the afternoon’s events with Gloria Serrano, Ro hadn’t objected. And so at seven o’clock, Eztli and the three members of the Curtlee family were all gathered in what they called the “little study”—a quiet, book-lined, relatively small room with a fireplace just off the dining room.

Cliff and Theresa in their black-tie garb were sharing a split of Roederer Cristal champagne, sitting hip to hip on the love seat that directly faced the dancing flames of the fire. Ro, on a wing chair catercorner to them, had showered and changed into a blue silk long-sleeved shirt and a pair of khakis. He had his bare feet up on an ottoman, his hands around a large leaded-crystal brandy snifter with a good strong two fingers of Rémy Martin V.S.O.P. Eztli stood in his own formal wear, across from both the parents and from Ro, closest to the fire, where he could keep an eye on the one entrance to the room. He hadn’t shared any marijuana with Ro on the way up to town, and he wasn’t drinking here tonight with the family, either. Since he would be serving double duty—chauffeur and bodyguard—he was carrying a .40 caliber semiautomatic pistol in a shoulder holster under his left armpit, nothing like the weapon that he’d used on Matt Lewis.

Ro was regaling his parents with his good fortune today in locating Gloria. “It was amazing to see, you guys. The change in her, which is I guess what living with guilt can do to you,” he was saying. “She was like a different person. She told me she had nothing but remorse for testifying against me last time.”

“I should think so,” Theresa said. “I always thought, before she told those lies on the stand of course, that she was a nice girl.”

“Very nice,” Cliff concurred. “And I thought one of the prettiest, really.”

“She still is,” Eztli said.

“Anyway, bottom line,” Ro continued, “and this is the really great part, no way is she going to be testifying again. She even asked me if there was any way she could talk to Tristan and recant some, maybe even all, of what she said last time.”

“Ro,” Cliff said, “that is fantastic. Really fantastic!”

“But I’m curious. How did you find her?” Theresa asked. “I understood from Tristan that that was turning out to be a little problematic.”

“Well, he was using a private eye. I used Ez.”

To whom all eyes turned. He shrugged, self-effacing. “I just put the word out in our community. Not much of a deal. There’s a network of like-minded people. And really, she wasn’t hiding.”

“Yes, well, nevertheless, your efforts were a little bit more effective than the attorneys we’re paying, now, weren’t they?”

Eztli smiled. “We got lucky. But I’ll take lucky over smart anytime.”

“Hear, hear,” Theresa said. “And wasn’t she, this Gloria, wasn’t she the last one? I mean, the last witness who was set to come to your next trial?”

Ro sipped contentedly at his cognac. “Well, never set, as it turns out. She didn’t even realize I’d gotten out of prison.”

Theresa’s nearly immobile face almost managed to look surprised. “How could she be unaware of that?”

Ro smiled at her. “I don’t think she’s a big reader of newspapers, Mother. Or watching the news.”

“She has three small children,” Eztli added. “It looked like they keep her busy.”

“Well, that will explain it,” Theresa said.

And Cliff added, “So that’s pretty much their case, then, am I right?”

“Let’s hope,” Ro said. “They’ve got no new witnesses and now pretty much none of the old ones. That’s what Tristan has been hoping for all along, and now it looks like that’s what we’ve got.”

“So they may not send you back?” Theresa asked.

Ro sipped more cognac, put on a rueful expression. “I don’t want to jinx us,” he said. “You know they’re going to try. I can’t see them just giving up. But now there is some real hope.”

“Glitsky won’t give up,” Theresa said. “He’s such a nuisance. We’ve got to find a way to get him transferred into another department or something.”

But Cliff was shaking his head. “It’s not Glitsky. It’s Farrell. If he’s got no case, they don’t retry. And we can get to him. In fact, I’ve already gotten to him. Again, thanks to Ez here.”

Eztli gave another slight acknowledgment, a tip of the head. “I would think Farrell’s pretty well neutralized,” he said.

Cliff looked down at his empty champagne flute. “Well,” he said, “all this calls for a toast. And just as I’ve run out of champagne. Ez, you might even have a sip, just for the celebration of it.”

“As you wish. I’ll ring, sir.”

Bracco stood outside in a steady drizzle, a full two blocks down the street from the Curtlees’ home, waiting for the last two guys of the ten-man team that Lapeer had put together to effect the arrest of Ro Curtlee. He would have already moved the men into positions all around the house except that he wanted to be sure they didn’t compromise the element of surprise. And unfortunately the last two guys were coming from downtown, and bringing with them the physical arrest warrant.

A pair of headlights cut through the mist as it turned onto the street a couple of blocks down, and Bracco heaved a sigh of relief as the car pulled up and parked behind the small caravan that had already formed behind Bracco’s car at the curb. Unable to calm his nerves, Bracco jogged down and arrived at the car as its driver was just opening his door.

“Warrant?” was about all he could manage to say.

The driver tapped his chest with his knuckles—“Right here”—and from the sound of it, Bracco realized that these guys, too, were already wearing Kevlar, as was the rest of the team.

Nobody taking any chances.

And now everyone was ready. Another wash of relief swept over him. It was time. He counted the men one last time, now all of them having gathered close, ten of them present and accounted for.

“Okay, guys,” he said. “Quiet and careful. Let’s move it out.”

Eztli crossed to a small table at the back of the little study that featured a diminishing selection of nuts and hard candies. He picked up the little silver bell, identical to the ones in the kitchen and living room, and gave it a shake, which produced a melodic tinkle.

And which in turn produced one of the uniformed young women from the kitchen—Eztli did not always bother learning their individual names since he had so little interaction with them, and also because they tended to move along to their next posting to one of the Curtlees’ acquaintances within a year or so. He thought this one might be named Linda, but it wouldn’t do to call her by a name and get it wrong. Eztli prided himself on being unfailingly polite. “Another bottle of the Cristal, please,” he said. “The full-size bottle from the refrigerator. Oh, and two more champagne glasses.”

She looked over at where the Curtlees sat, let her eyes rest on them for a moment, her face, it seemed to Eztli, fighting against itself to keep an expression of resentment at bay. It was difficult, he knew—he was not entirely immune to some resentment himself—to be constantly aware of the unbridgeable gap between staff and principals.

When her eyes came back to him, he gave her what he hoped was an understanding nod, and she returned it, curtsying as she’d been taught. She then glanced at the nearly empty nut tray and went over to pick it up and carry it back with her. His eyes followed the smooth perfection of her hips as she crossed the dining room and disappeared back into the kitchen, and for an instant he thought he might reconsider his firm lifelong policy of never dating the help. This young woman was certainly pretty enough to make the effort worthwhile.

But he banished that thought as quickly as it had appeared. No good could come of it. Just look what problems Ro had had. Even though that was a lot of years ago, it was still wreaking havoc on his life. There were other women who didn’t live under this roof that Eztli could enjoy. It wasn’t as though he was hurting in that department.

It didn’t take the young woman thirty seconds to reappear with the glasses and the champagne wrapped in a plain white dish towel. Carrying the expensive champagne and the dainty expensive glassware obviously made her nervous—the glasses were clinking dangerously against one another—and she set all of the stuff down on the small table with visible relief that she’d made it without breaking anything. With another little bow, she turned to go back to the kitchen.

Eztli brought the champagne bottle over to Ro’s parents. Presenting it for their approval, he got a brisk nod from Cliff. Theresa said, “I believe that will do just fine.”

Half listening to the conversation that had now moved along to Sheila Marrenas and her latest column on Leland Crawford’s assertion of his vision over the police department and how well it was beginning to work, Eztli went back to the table, removed the foil expertly, then the wire, then turned the bottle carefully while holding the cork in place. With a satisfying little pop, the bottle opened with no spillage. First he poured one of the two glasses for Ro and crossed the room to deliver that. Next he would pour for Cliff and Theresa. Only then would he take care of his own half glass.

He was almost to Ro when, behind him, he became aware of the young woman returning again, this time with the tray of nuts under a silver dome. She set it heavily on the small table, clearing a space for it, and then stood still for a moment, her hands holding both sides of the table, as if she needed to do that to remain standing.

Aware of the unusual hesitation, Eztli turned back to see if everything was all right with her just as she removed the dome and placed it in front of the tray so that it blocked Eztli’s view of it. Then she reached down with both hands and lifted an object, and for an instant Eztli found himself confused by something that in this setting was so bizarre and unexpected that it paralyzed him. She was holding the big semiautomatic in both hands, beginning to bring it up.

As the confusion crystallized into a horrified and desperate certainty, Eztli dropped the bottle of champagne from his right hand and, in the same motion, threw Ro’s glass over toward the fire.

“Ez!” Cliff jerked at the sudden noise and movement. “What the . . .”

Eztli’s right hand was reaching for his own weapon, turning to face her, inadvertently giving her a larger target, but with no other real choice, and by the time he got his hand on the grip, she had brought the gun all the way up, centering it on his chest.

He never heard the first blasting report as the slug hit him just above the heart and threw him backward onto the floor. Then, as though from far away, he did hear and this time felt another shot, a searing pain in his shoulder, and then, all the sounds in the world growing fainter, several more reports in quick succession.

Until finally everything went quiet.

And then dark.

Ro didn’t believe that this was happening. This wasn’t how he was supposed to die.

He had been so relaxed with the weed and the glass of cognac that he felt molded to his chair, slumped down into the cushion, just reaching up to grab his glass when Ez turned and suddenly was looking at Linda, then throwing the drinks down and making a move toward his shoulder holster.