Point Doom (22 page)

On top of the rear seat, left over from the weekend, was an unread copy of the Sunday
L.A. Times
. It was wrapped with a thick rubber band. I slid the rubber band off the newspaper and put it, too, in my pocket. I’d need the rubber band to hold the floor mat closed around my gun hand.

BACK INSIDE THE
garage at the Sorrento Towers I picked up my supplies from behind the Dumpster. On the second level there was still no Porsche convertible next to the Jeep in space 721.

Returning to seven in the elevator, I paused again outside the car, listening for sounds, then slipped on the cap and goggles and reversed my jacket before again stepping into the hallway.

The door to 721 had remained closed but unlocked. I set my can of spray down on the hallway floor and waited and listened. My back was to the hall camera as I wrapped the rear floor mat from Mom’s Escalade around my Beretta, creating a tube on my hand, then fastened it closed with the heavy rubber band.

Opening the door slightly, I picked up the wasp spray can. I immediately heard the faint sniffing inside and, eventually, the scraping of paws.

As I pushed the door open an inch into the darkness with the wasp spray in my hand, the black nose of a dog appeared for an instant, then backed away. I sprayed a thick stream from my can through the crack of the door and then on to the floor.

The reaction I got was immediate. There was whining and convulsive snorting from the dog.

Pushing the door open about twelve inches, I stepped inside. I immediately sensed the presence of another dog. Number two was whining in a low tone only a few feet away in the darkness.

My spray had done its job. Rottie number one was down and out of commission, rubbing his nose against the floor, writhing in pain.

Now I slipped the floor mat and the gun off my other arm and dropped it on the floor.

I knew that Rottie number two was very close, so I gave number one a final blast, then backed away.

In the dimness of a hallway light I was suddenly able to make out the large dark head of the second dog. He was baring his fangs.

Just as he moved toward me I let loose a stream from the can, concentrating in the direction of his eyes. I missed the eyes but did make connect with his mouth and chest. The skin contact alone caused the monster to first hesitate, then stumble back to regain himself.

My second blast hit the mark and got him across the eyes. Immediately disabled, he went down, whining.

NOW, STANDING COMPLETELY
still, I found the light switch, turned it on, then set myself, looking for a third dog. A full thirty seconds went by before I lowered my can of spray. There’s been only two dogs. Only two! Jesus!

Back at the front door, I opened it and stuck my head out as far as the frame, then began listening. Apparently I had attracted no attention.

TWENTY-SEVEN

W
ith the dogs subdued, I decided not to take any chances. Removing the two sleeping pills that I had taken from Vikki’s medicine cabinet from my pocket, I peeled the cheek skin back from each dog’s mouth and inserted one of the pills. Nightie-night.

Now I was free to have a look around while I waited to kill Sydnye Swan.

I hadn’t known what to expect inside the apartment. I had assumed the place would be a mess, mirroring the psyche of a crazed, computer-geek murderer. It wasn’t. In fact it was just the opposite.

But before I could begin looking around, I had to take more security measures with the dogs. I stepped over to Rottie number 1 and duct-taped both his front and back legs, then his snout. I did the same with the second dog.

NOW I WENT
to the kitchen, where I found the cabinet with the glasses. I removed several, then returned to the front door. I stacked the glasses unevenly against the door at the seam of the opening. If anyone came in, I’d hear the glasses falling on the hard surface and know I wasn’t alone.

Stepping back around the disabled dogs, my eyes took in what looked more like an art gallery exhibit than a home. This room was wide and long, probably twenty by fifty feet. The curtains were open and solid sheets of floor-to-ceiling windows faced the street and overlooked the Pacific beyond.

The walls to my right and left were arrayed with black-and-white photographs, lined up one row above the other, beginning at eye level. All the photographs were in twenty-by thirty-inch black frames. There were, I guessed, forty photographs total.

As my eyes went from one frame to the next I could see that each photograph had something to do with the ocean as its theme. Many of them appeared to be shot from a high, rocky vantage point, in what could have been Carmel or Big Sur. All were professional-photographer quality.

In front of the photographs to my right, or, more accurately, between them, were a dozen pieces of bronze sculpture set on four-foot-high marble pedestals.

I walked to the one nearest to me and looked at the wording inscribed on the brass label. Then I moved to the next sculpture and read that inscription too. They were all the work of the same person: Camille Claudel. Claudel had been the young, obsessed nineteenth-century lover and protégé of the artist and sculptor Auguste Rodin. She had driven herself to insanity over the guy.

I had once seen an exhibit of Rodin’s bronze sculptures at the Met in New York. Camille Claudel’s own pieces were displayed in a side room of that show. She was good—talented. The detail, agony, and boldness in her forms was visually stunning. Was my murderer Sydnye a mutated version of Claudel? Was there a Rodin in her life? Maybe a Rodin-a. All of the sculptures appeared to be originals and worth, I was sure, several million dollars.

IN THE CENTER
of the room, on top of a large, expensive-looking sand-colored throw rug, was the living room furniture: two high brown leather couches set at right angles to each other. There was an oversized glass coffee table in front of them. On the table were three black metal bowls of different sizes. All held unwrapped chocolates—expensive-looking chocolates.

The apartment was large. It had apparently once been two dwellings; then the walls were knocked out and the interior completely redone to accommodate the additional square footage.

I crossed the planked and buffed oak floor back to the open kitchen. It was glass and steel and immaculate. The cupboard where I’d removed the glasses was still open.

The countertops were empty except for a gleaming stainless steel coffeemaker. Everything was too perfect. Antiseptic. It occurred to me that no one used this kitchen.

I began opening more cabinet doors. Everything—utensils, glasses, pots and pans and silverware—all of it was gleaming, stacked neatly, and looked brand new.

The last cabinet I opened made me stop. It once had been a broom closet. Now it had shelves and was full, top to bottom, with Happy Meal toys: Batman, Buzz Lightyear, Spiderman, Avatar, Iron Man, Lego cars and Nerf football. Dozen of the damn things, as yet unwrapped.

DOWN THE HALL
I came to the bedrooms. The first one was empty save for what looked to be a rough handmade wooden table in the center of the room. It had leather hand, foot, and neck restraints attached to its sides and bottom. Sydnye’s torture room. It was twenty by twenty. All the windows in the room had been covered and sealed over with soundproof padding, the type I’d seen in recording studios around Los Angeles when I was in the business of renting exotic cars to rock stars and their pals.

The next, smaller bedroom, fifteen by fifteen, was filled with workout equipment and training machines. The walls were mirrored. Nothing much there.

THE MASTER BEDROOM
at the end of the hallway was the payoff. Opening the door I could tell that this room was the only one in the place used by anyone.

There were clothes thrown around everywhere; on the floor and on several overstuffed purple chairs. Skirts and jeans and sexy lingerie covered the extra-large custom-made bed. A widescreen TV was set diagonally in one corner of the room. Two large dog cushions were on either side of the bathroom door. In one corner was a rolling service table. On it was a microwave, a large coffee brewer, and coffee supplies.

The wall on both sides of the TV contained another set of large black-and-white photographs. A dozen of them. These studies were all of Sydnye. All nudes in different poses. The woman in the pictures was strikingly beautiful but more like an idealized replica of the one I’d seen in the flesh on the two previous occasions. Her wavy black hair fell to just above her waist and was parted in the middle. Her mouth and eyes were large and inviting. Her breasts were full and looked too perfect to be real. It was as if I were looking at a different girl. Like her pal Vikki: two separate personalities.

Another area of the big room was dedicated to two dozen stuffed animals, all horses of various sizes.

On a low bureau beneath a wide mirror were several expensive-looking figure-study photographic books. Stepping over to them, I thumbed a few pages. All nudes, all in black and white. All females.

Opening the drawer beneath the bureau, I discovered DVDs of children’s movies. All the
Toy Story
movies, all the
Shrek
movies,
Finding Nemo
,
Barbie’s Christmas Carol
, and a hundred others. Both bureau drawers were packed with the goddamn things. These were a weird extension of the Happy Meal toys I’d found in the kitchen. Somewhere here was the mind of a deviant psycho-killer.

The bathroom was a mess. It was tiled in black and white with stark, empty walls. All the puffy, oversized towels from the chrome racks were scattered on the gleaming, hard-polished black marble floor.

Across the bathroom, open makeup bottles and lipstick cases were strewn over a white vanity table. Above it was an ornate, out of place Victorian-looking gilded mirror.

At the sink, the medicine cabinet door was ajar and its outward-facing mirror smudged with cream or makeup and finger marks.

I pulled the cabinet open with my gloved hand. Inside, on the shelves, I found what did not surprise me: bottles and bottles of prescription pills: Prozac, Zoloft, Abilify, Xanax, among many others, and several varieties of still-sealed script sleeping meds. The lithium was on the top shelf by itself—four bottles of the stuff.

Opening one, I saw that the pills inside matched the ones I’d found in Vikki’s medicine cabinet—same size and color.

I began popping the tops of all the plastic containers, then dumping the contents of each into the toilet.

When I was done I looked down into the water. It was completely covered in multi-colored pill casings. I hit the flusher. All the pills didn’t go down with the first flush so I waited, then flushed again.

BACK AT THE
front door, I moved the stacked glasses aside, then checked my watch. I’d been here almost an hour—still no Sydnye. My last act before leaving was to cut away the duct tape from the sleeping Rotties’ legs and mouth.

A cell phone began buzzing in my pocket. Pulling it out I saw it was Vikki’s cell that was going off. I looked at the printout: Karl Swan’s private number.

“Go ahead, Swan,” I said. “I’m right here. I’m listening.”

“I hope your mother’s rooms at the Raddison in Santa Barbara are satisfactory. I’m told the restaurant in that hotel features an excellent Southwest chicken curry.”

“Fuck you, Swan. You’re a dead man.”

“You should know that several of my staff are stationed outside and in the lobby, awaiting my further instructions. It’s my impression that your hired men are no match for Russian automatic pistols.”

I whispered my response. “I was going to shoot you but now I’ve decided that I’m going to kill you with my bare hands instead.”

“Allow me to state my intentions clearly: Vaginal penetration, for a woman of your mother’s years, can be very uncomfortable—especially with a pointed, sharp object. May I suggest that you stop by my Malibu home? There are issues between us that require resolution. You have one hour, Mr. Fiorella.”

Then Swan clicked off.

What the psycho movie producer hopefully didn’t know yet was that Mom and Coco were not at the Raddison. I was one step ahead of Swan. I didn’t need Archer’s cops. When we were leaving Mom’s house on Point Dume, when I saw that I’d picked up a tail, I’d made the call. Then, when we arrived at the Raddison, I’d let Mendoza’s ex-cops book the room before I escorted Mom and Coco out the back way to one of the guy’s cars. I had then driven them to the Canary Inn, a few minutes away. I was betting and hoping they were still safe.

IN THE ELEVATOR
I removed the jacket, ski cap, and goggles.

As the car arrived at the garage level and the doors opened, I felt a wave of something . . . I hesitated.

I waited until the doors began closing behind me, then moved out in a crouch, duck-walking beneath eye level of the parked cars, my Beretta in my hand.

LOOKING DOWN THE
long row of front bumpers I saw the high front fender of the black Jeep standing out from the rest of the cars.

I continued shuffling toward it until I caught a glimpse of something bright yellow. The Porsche!

When I was two cars away from Sydnye’s convertible I looked up over the top of a tall SUV. Rudolpho, the boy-toy thug from my mother’s house, was in the passenger seat of the Porsche. Sydnye was behind the wheel.

Rudolpho leaned his head out the passenger window. “We know you’re here, Fiorella. Step out where we can see you—and hold your gun up.”

I waited.

“One call and your mother’s dead, Fiorella! Last time! I said, step out!” Rudolpho barked.

It would have been easy enough to splatter them both right there with one squeeze on the trigger of my 93R. That was my first and best thought, but instead I decided to let the scene play out in a different way, knowing that Karl Swan might yet be holding the best hand. I didn’t want to take any chances with my Mom’s life.

I held my Beretta above my head, then stood upright.

RUDOLPHO MUST’VE REMEMBERED
that he owed me because the kicks and blows to my face and stomach came fast and were delivered with the vengeance and skill of a guy holding a grudge. As I lay on the pavement I felt a rib or two give way.

Now Sydnye was above me, too, with something sharp and shining in her hand. “Did you kill my puppies, fucker?” she whispered.

It took me half a minute to spit out the blood and then hold enough breath inside my chest to say the words. “They’re in dreamland, Syd. Not like sweet little Vikki,” I whispered. “She died slowly. You won’t be so lucky.”

Now Sydnye was on her knees beside me. Her face was calm and expressionless. She might have been ordering a double latte at Starbucks. “I’m going to cut you now, Fiorella. I’m going to cut one of your eyes out. Right here. But just one—I don’t want them both. I want you to be able to see the rest of what’s going to happen. I want you to see it all. I want us to enjoy it together.”

Rudolpho’s hand pushed her stiletto away, then he made two quick moves and the blade skidded across the parking lot’s concrete floor. “No way!” he snapped. “Please back off, Miss Swan! That’s not the deal! Your father’s instructions to me were to bring him back in one piece. He was very specific about that.”