Headlights, up close. Beverly Hills patrol car cruised by from the police station on the other side of the tracks.
Beverly Hills cops were edgy about people sitting in cars without a good excuse. But the car drove on.
Suddenly, I felt foolish. Even if Cruvic showed, what would I say?
Hi, just a bit of follow-up: What exactly is the Brooke-Hastings Institute and what did you do there—and by the way, what’s with the fertility BS?
I started the Seville and was just about to switch the lights on when a grinding sound behind me drew my attention.
The corrugated door of the building next to Cruvic’s was sliding upward. A car with its lights already on.
Not a Bentley. A small, dark sedan. It edged out, then turned right. Two people inside. The driver, Nurse Anna, of the tight face and lipsticked cigarettes. Next to her, a male passenger.
So the neighboring building was part of Cruvic’s setup, too.
Anna drove to Foothill Drive, made an incomplete stop, and turned right again.
I backed out and followed.
She made two more rights, at Burton Way and Rexford Drive—a long U-turn that took her into the flats of north Beverly Hills with its seven-figure teardowns, up to Sunset, then across to the Coldwater Canyon intersection.
Headed toward the Valley. Maybe nothing more ominous than a working woman returning home with a spouse or boyfriend.
Two cars got between us. The commuter rush out of the city was over but traffic into the Valley was still heavy enough to slow us to twenty miles an hour. I managed to keep my sights on the small sedan and when it caught a red light at Cherokee Drive I shifted to the right to get a closer look. The car was a Toyota, newish. Two heads inside, neither of them moving.
Then Anna leaned to the right and an orange ember appeared inside the car, like a circling firefly. It flew to the left, kept going as she dangled her left hand out the window and let the cigarette droop. Sparks flicked onto the road. The man in the passenger seat still hadn’t budged. Either he was sitting low or he wasn’t tall.
Cruvic was no giant. Catching a lift home from his nurse? Or was their relationship more than business?
Affairs on the brain, Delaware. And I didn’t even watch soap operas.
The light turned green and the Toyota shot forward, adding more speed as it took on the Santa Monica Mountains. There were no more stops til Mulholland Drive, where most of the traffic continued the southward descent to Studio City. But the Toyota hooked east on Mulholland and I found myself behind it.
I slowed down. Anna picked up speed, taking turns with the confidence of someone who knew the route. Years ago Mulholland had been undeveloped from Woodland Hills to Hollywood, miles of black ribbon affording a heart-stopping view of the glitter below. Now roadside houses and landscaping blocked most of it out.
No one behind me. I turned off my headlights. Mulholland got darker and narrower and quieter and the Toyota whipped through the curves for another couple of miles before coming to a sudden stop.
I was a ways back but still had to stop short, managing to avoid tire-squeal and skidding only slightly. The Toyota remained on the road, brake lights on. I pulled over to the right shoulder, kept the Seville in drive, and watched.
A car was coming from the opposite direction.
When it passed, the Toyota crossed Mulholland diagonally, rolling up a driveway and coming to rest on a wide concrete pad in front of a high iron gate.
Two faint lights—fixtures on brick posts. Everything else was foliage and darkness.
The Toyota’s passenger door opened and the man got out, briefly revealed by the dome light, but his back was to me.
He walked up to one of the gateposts and touched it. Pushing a button.
As the gate started to slide open, I edged back onto the road and drove forward a bit.
Then the Toyota backed out and straightened and I waited til it drove off.
The gate was open and the man was walking through. With my lights still off, I zoomed past—just another bad driver. The sound made the man turn, as I’d hoped he would.