“I’m a lousy singer,” he said.
“I doubt it.” She leaned against him. “Judging from my experience, you’re excellent at everything you do.”
“Bawdy.”
“I try to be.”
They kissed again, and then he opened the driver’s door for her.
“You’re not going to work today?” she asked.
“No. Not after … Frank. I have to go in and write up a report, but that’ll take only an hour or so. I’m taking a few days. I’ve got a lot of time coming to me.”
“I’ll call you this afternoon.”
“I’ll be waiting,” he said.
She drove away from there on empty early-morning streets. After she had gone a few blocks, her stomach began to growl with hunger, and she remembered that she didn’t have the fixings for breakfast at home. She’d intended to do her grocery shopping after the man from the telephone company had gone, but then she’d heard from Michael Savatino and had rushed to Tony’s place. She turned left at the next corner and went to an all-night market to pick up eggs and milk.
***
Tony figured Hilary wouldn’t need any more than ten minutes to get home on the deserted streets, but he waited fifteen minutes before he called to find out if she had made the trip safely. Her phone didn’t ring. All he got was a series of computer sounds–the beeps and buzzes that comprised the language of smart machines–then a few clicks and snaps and pops, then the hollow ghostly hissing of a missed connection. He hung up, dialed once more, being careful to get every digit right, but again the phone would not ring.
He was certain that the new unlisted number he had for her was correct. When she had given it to him, he had double-checked to be sure he’d gotten it right. And she read it off a carbon copy of the telephone company work order, which she had in her purse, so there wasn’t any chance she was mistaken about it.
He dialed the operator and told her his problem. She tried to ring the number for him, but she couldn’t get through, either.
“Is it off the hook?” he asked.
“It doesn’t seem to be.”
“What can you do?”
“I’ll report the number out of order,” she said. “Our service department will take care of it.”
“When?”
“Does this number belong to either an elderly person or an invalid?”
“No,” he said.
“Then it falls under normal service procedures,” she said. “One of our servicemen will look into it sometime after eight o’clock this morning.”
“Thank you.”
He put down the receiver. He was sitting on the edge of the bed. He stared pensively at the rumpled sheets where Hilary had lain, looked at the slip of paper on which her new number was written.
Out of order?
He supposed it was possible that the serviceman had made a mistake when he’d switched Hilary’s phones yesterday afternoon. Possible. But not probable. Not very likely at all.
Suddenly, he thought of the anonymous caller who had been bothering her. A man who did that sort of thing was usually weak, ineffectual, sexually stunted; almost without exception, he was incapable of having a normal relationship with a woman, and he was generally too introverted and frightened to attempt rape. Usually. Almost without exception. Generally. But was it conceivable that this crank was the one out of a thousand who was dangerous?
Tony put one hand on his stomach. He was beginning to feel queasy.
If bookmakers in Las Vegas had been taking bets on the likelihood of Hilary Thomas becoming the target of two unconnected homicidal maniacs in less than a week, the odds against would have been astronomical. On the other hand, during his years with the Los Angeles Police Department, Tony had seen the improbable happen again and again; and long ago he had learned to expect the unexpected.
He thought of Bobby Valdez. Naked. Crawling out of that small kitchen cabinet. Eyes wild. The pistol in his hand.
Outside the bedroom window, even though first light still had not touched the eastern sky, a bird cried. It was a shrill cry, rising and falling and rising again as the bird swooped from tree to tree in the courtyard; it sounded as if it was being pursued by something very fast and very hungry and relentless.