He carried the girl down twenty-eight flights. A car was waiting behind the building. No Bentley, not even a Mercedes, just a plain old unmarked Ford. Had she been awake, Cathy would have seen it as a comedown. Talal liked to do her in the Bentley, and she’d told her sister she loved it.
Riyadh had been nothing but deceit . . . stay on task, no time to get distracted.
The lock kit was one of the few things Stahl had taken with him when he’d entered civilian life.
Such as it was.
He entered the apartment’s ground floor. Drummond’s flat was on the second floor toward the back, but a staircase ran from the front. He made his way up the thinly carpeted hallway.
The building smelled of bug spray and hot sauce. Under the carpet was old wood flooring that sagged and creaked; he trod carefully. Two light fixtures in the ceiling; only the one in front was operative. The steps were tile over cement and silent under his rubber soles.
Within seconds, he was at Drummond’s unit, unnoticed. Kit out, penlight on the keyhole. Same make as the back door, the same master popped it.
He shut the door, locked it, removed his Glock from the black nylon holster that rode his hip, stood in the darkness, waiting for a life vibration—some nuance of occupancy—to disturb the silence.
Nothing.
He took a step forward. Whispered, “Kevin?”
Dead air.
He scanned the room. One room, not large. Two small windows, both shaded, looked out to the building next door. Turning on the room light would yellow the shades, so Stahl relied on his other flashlight, the black Mag with the wider beam.
He swept it over the room, careful to avoid the windows.
Kevin Drummond’s living space was occupied by an unmade single bed, a crappy-looking nightstand, and a folding chair positioned in the center of a low, wide desk. Closer inspection revealed the desk to be an unpainted door laid over two sawhorses. Lots of work-space. The right side, bordering the bed, was taken up by a hot plate and provisions. Three cans of generic chili, a bag of potato chips, a jar of mild salsa, two six-packs of Pepsi. A toothbrush in a glass.
To the left were three computers with nineteen-inch flat screens, a pair of color printers, a scanner, a digital camera, a stack of toner-cartridge replacements for the printers, twelve reams of white paper.
Past the equipment a door led to the bathroom. To get there, Stahl had to manipulate his way around piles of magazines. Nearly every free inch of floor space was taken up by boxes.
He checked the lav first. Shower, sink, toilet, no signs of recent usage, but the room smelled stale. Mold in the shower, rings of grime around the sink drain, and Stahl wouldn’t have used the blackened toilet on a bet. No medicine cabinet, just a single glass shelf above the sink. Carelesly squeezed toothpaste tube, OTC sinus remedy, ladies’ hand cream—probably a masturbatory aid—aspirin, Pepto-Bismol, prescription acne pills dispensed three years ago at an Encino pharmacy. Three pills left. Kevin had stopped paying attention to his skin.
No soap in the shower, no shampoo, and Stahl wondered how long it had been since Kevin had been here.
Did he have another crib?
He returned to the front room, stepped among the boxes. Anything he came up with tonight would be useless—worse than useless, if the break-in came to light, he’d have screwed the investigation.
He began checking the boxes’ contents.
Expecting Drummond’s cache of GrooveRat back issues.
Wrong; not a single copy of the zine anywhere in the apartment. The guy was a pack rat, but he collected other people’s creations.
From what Stahl could tell, the junk was divided into two categories: toys and magazines. The toys were Hotwheels cars, some still in their boxes, Star Wars and other action figures, stuff that wasn’t familiar. The pages were Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, InStyle, People, Talk, Interview. And gay pornography. Lots of it, including some bondage and S & M stuff.
The mail-drop lady had told Petra that Drummond was gay. Stahl wondered if she’d told Sturgis. How Sturgis would take to learning about Kevin’s proclivities.