“Now let’s try it with your gun in your purse,” he said when he was satisfied.
“How do you know all this stuff?”
He smiled faintly. “Weapons are a passion of mine. My first formal training in defensive pistolcraft was a class designed for certifying security guards to carry weapons on the job. The practical shooting part was minimal, but it did give me a fair grounding in the laws related to firearms. I went to the American Pistol Institute after that.” He paused. “Are we up here to work or chat?”
“I get to choose?” I said.
Apparently not. He had me try the .45, but it was too much gun for me coming off the .32. He relented on that point and let me continue with the Davis. We went back to work, the smell of gunpowder perfuming the air as I concentrated on the process. I’d ceased to think about Mark Messinger as a person. He’d become an abstract-no more than a flat, black silhouette seven yards away-with a paper heart, paper brain. It was therapeutic firing at him, watching his midriff shred. My fearfulness began to fall away and my confidence returned. I fired at his paper neck and hit an inky artery. I pretended to tattoo my initials on his trunk. By the time we packed up and left the range at noon, I was feeling like my old self again.
We had lunch at the Stage Coach Tavern, tucked up against the mountain with a stream trickling down through the rocks close by. Live oak and bay laurel kept the tavern shrouded in chill shade. The quiet was undercut by the gossiping of the birds. Only an occasional car climbed the grade out in front, heading for the main road. Dietz was still vigilant-scanning the premises-but he seemed more at ease somehow, sipping beer, one foot propped up on the crude wooden bench where he sat. I was seated on his left with my back to the wall, watching as he did, though there wasn’t much to see. There were only three other customers, bikers sitting at one of the rough plank tables outside.
We’d ordered the chili verde, which the waitress brought: two wide bowls of fragrant pork and green chili stew with a dollop of cilantro pesto on top and two folded flour tortillas submerged in the depths. This might be as close to heaven as a sinner could get without repenting first.
“What’s your deal with California Fidelity?” he asked, between bites.
“They provide me office space and I provide them services maybe two or three times a month. It varies. Usually I investigate fire and wrongful death claims, but it could be anything.”
“Nice arrangement. How’d you set that up?”
“My aunt worked for them for years so I knew a lot of those guys. She used to get me occasional summer jobs when I was still in high school. I went through the academy when I was nineteen and since I couldn’t actually join the PD till I was twenty-one, I worked as the CF receptionist. Later, after I finally left the police force, I joined a private agency until I could get licensed, and then I went out on my own. One of the first big investigations I did was for CF.”
“A lot more women getting into it,” he said.
“Why not? It’s fun, in some sick sense. You end up feeling pretty hard-bitten sometimes, but at least you can be your own boss. It’s in my nature. I’m curious at
heart and I like sticking my nose in where it doesn’t belong,” I said. “What about you? What will you do if you leave the field?”
“Hard to say. I’m talking to a guy out in Colgate who sets up antiterrorist training exercises for military bases overseas.”
“Simulated attacks?”
“That’s right. Dead of night, he takes a crew in, breaches perimeter fences, infiltrates the compound, and puts the whole maneuver on film to show ’em where they need to beef up their defenses.”
“Cops and robbers without the firepower.”
“Exactly. All the hype and none of the jeopardy.” He paused, mopping the bottom of his bowl with a folded tortilla. “You look like you’ve got all your ducks in a row.”
“I feel that way,” I said. “Vera would disagree. She thinks I’m hopeless. Too independent, unsophisticated …”
“What’s the story on her?”
“I’ve never figured it out, to tell you the truth. She’s the closest thing to a friend I’ve got and even then, I can’t claim we know each other very well. I’m gone a lot so I don’t socialize much. She tends to circulate in the singles scene, which I’ve never been good at. I do admire her. She’s smart. She’s got style. She doesn’t take any guff . . .”
“What is this, a sales pitch?”
I laughed, shrugging. “You asked.”
“Yeah, well she’s one of those women I’ve never figured out.”
“In what way?”
“Don’t know. I never figured that out either. Just something about her puzzles me,” he said.
“She’s a good soul.”
“No doubt.” He finished cleaning his bowl without another word on the subject. It was hard to tell sometimes what he was really thinking and I didn’t know nun well enough to press.
16
we left for the hotel at six. Dietz had already cleaned up and was dressed for the occasion in casual pants, a dress shirt, patterned tie, and dark sport coat, cut western-style: broad across the shoulders, tapered at the waist. He was wearing black boots, visible where his cuffs broke, the toes polished to a hard shine. Under his sport coat, of course, he was wearing a Kevlar vest that would stop a .357 Magnum at ten feet. I’d also watched him strap on a holster that he wore behind the hip on his right-hand side, and into which he’d tucked his .45.
I’d showered and hopped right back in my jeans, turtle-neck, and tennis shoes, intending to slip into the silk jumpsuit once I reached Vera’s room. I’d tried it on quickly just before we left the house. The pants were slightly too long, but I’d bunched ’em up at the waist and that took care of it. I’d packed black pumps, panty hose, black underpants, and some odds and ends in a little overnight case. Dietz had excused me from the bulletproof vest, which would have looked absurd with spaghetti straps. The Davis was tucked in an outside pouch of my big leather handbag, which looked more like a diplomatic pouch than an evening purse. The normally bulky bag was further plumped up by the inclusion of a nightscope Dietz had asked me to carry. The scope only weighed about a pound, but it was the size of a zoom lens for a 35-millimeter camera and made me list to one side. “Why’re we taking this thing?” I asked.
“That’s my latest toy. I usually keep it in the car, but I don’t want to leave it in the hotel parking lot. Cost me over three thousand bucks.”
“Oh.”
Dietz took a roundabout route, saying little. Despite his assurances that Mark Messinger would be laying off me for a day or two, he seemed on edge, which made my stomach chum in response. He was focused, intense, already vigilant. He pushed the car lighter in and then reached reflexively toward his cigarettes. “Shit!” he said. He shook his head, annoyed with himself.
He rounded a corner, downshifting. “Times like this I envy the guys who do government work,” he remarked. “You’d have a squad of bodyguards. They’ve got unlimited manpower, access to intelligence sources, and the legal authority to kick butt. …”
I couldn’t think what to say to that so I kept my mouth shut.
We pulled into the wide brick drive in front of the hotel and Dietz got out, slipping the usual folded bill to the parking attendant with instructions to keep the car within sight. It was still light outside and the landscape was saturated with late afternoon sun. The grass was close-cropped, a dense green, the lawn bordered with pink and white impatiens and clumps of lobelia, which glowed an intense, electric blue. On the far side of the road, the surf battered at the seawall, clouding the air with the briny smell of the thundering Pacific.
In addition to the Edgewater’s sprawling main building, there were a line of bungalows at the rear of the property, each the size of the average single-family dwelling in my neighborhood. The architecture was Spanish-style, white stucco exterior, heavy beams, age-faded red tile roofs, interior courtyards. Under an archway that led to the formal gardens, a wedding party was beginning to assemble: five bridesmaids in dusty pink and a manic flower girl skipping back and forth with a basket of rose petals. Two young men in tuxedos, probably ushers, looked on, contemplating the efficacies of birth control.
As usual, Dietz took me by the elbow, keeping himself slightly in front of me as he walked us toward the entrance. I found myself scanning, as he did, the smattering of guests in the immediate vicinity. He was keyed up, eyes watchful as we entered the spacious lobby, which was flanked by two oversize imported rose marble desks. We approached the concierge and had a brief chat. Dietz had apparently had a second conversation with the management up front because shortly afterward, Charles Abbott, the director of security, appeared. Introductions went around. Abbott was in his late sixties and looked like a retired Fortune 500 executive in a three-piece suit, complete with manicured nails and a Rolex watch. This was not a man you’d ever refer to as Charlie or Chuck. His silver hair was the same tone as the pale gray of his suit and a diamond stickpin winked from the center of his tie. I had the feeling what he did now was lots more fun than whatever he did then. He led us over to a corner of the lobby where three big leather wing chairs were grouped together in the shelter of a ten-foot rubber plant.