16
The moon like a wary cat’s eye searched with its reflected glare, but it couldn’t reach Flip under the eaves of the house. Nothing hampered the moon in the cloudless sky, and he hated it, its unremitting shine, its nightly waxing like a widening eyeball staring at him, and he hated the stars that attended it too. Their patterned glistening only reminded him of nights staring at them out of a cage. He wanted them all wiped away. He would strike them from the sky if he could.
The house was silent and in darkness. Windows like rectangular clefts gaped with a deeper blackness than the stucco face above him. He’d watched it from across the street and walked past it a dozen times. It was empty. So why did he delay?
He knew. He didn’t want awareness of the reasons to surface in his mind, but he knew. It was the ghostly sensation in his knuckles that arose whenever he thought of the boy. As if he’d just hit him, his knuckles remembered the flat concussion and sink of the blow, the boy’s face appearing as a specter in his mind now.
He wrenched his lips. Hatred of his weakness flared his nostrils, and he rose from the brush surrounding the house.
The moonlight was a hateful touch. He stepped quickly around the edge of the house, found the exterior circuit box and switched the main breaker off. His pocket bulged with tools, and he would need them, because the house was locked tight as a vault. Penlight in his mouth, he addressed a window, pried the screen away, and went to work angling the flattened implement toward the lock. In thirty seconds both locks were free, and he slid the window open.
He listened. No sound rose from the house. He moved the curtains aside and stretched his leg over the sill and inside.
His back to the wall, his chest hammered. Gone was the confidence he’d always felt at these moments, the sense of taking ownership and enjoying the shock his presence would inspire if discovered. It was replaced with dread.
He froze against the wall inside the banker’s house, lips wringing, eyes darting, clammy hands pressed flat against wainscoting, waiting for the feeling to pass.
* * *
The valet brought the Monroes’ Range Rover around first, and Jason shook Ed’s hand.
“Thanks for dinner, Ed.”
“My pleasure. Tell Serena no excuses next time.” He pumped Jason’s hand and released it so Ona could take it with her dainty grip. It was like going from an ape to a puppy.
The Range Rover crept off, and the next valet drove up in the Sloans’ Mercedes.
“Keep me posted on the timing of that offering, Randy.”
“Will do. We’ll try to keep most of it on your balance sheet. At least for a while.” Randy stepped closer, holding on to Jason’s hand like a lover. “We’re looking at more acquisitions, Jason. Don’t worry; we’ll go through the cash soon enough, and we’ll be right back at the well for more credit.”
“I’ve always appreciated your appetite.”
Randy winked and slid down into the Mercedes. Jeanne blew Jason a kiss and waved.
Jason sifted through his currency for a five for the valet. He heard the purr of his BMW rolling up and watched it, enjoying the shape and blue tint of the headlights and the spin of the glinting chrome wheels. The valet stepped out, and the engine droned just right.
Jason got in and nearly jammed his knee into the dashboard. Short valet. His fingers found the switch on the side of the seat and it inched backward so he could angle his leg under the steering wheel. He slammed the door and shifted.
Ten o’clock at night, and traffic still persisted on Santa Monica Boulevard. As he accelerated into the flow, a Hummer’s wide eyeballs grew in his rearview mirror, high and dazzling, washing the whole cab of the BMW in brightness and seeping into the side mirror, pounding his eyes.
He changed lanes, and the Hummer moved next to him, high as a house. A glance at the driver revealed a woman perched up there, thirtysomething, ponytail and upturned nose. As she passed him, he saw the padded plastic of a kid’s car seat in back, empty. His mind pieced together this information, slotted her and her hubby in the same category he and Serena planned to occupy one day.
Or used to.
He downshifted and felt the engine whine, then surged around a Honda crouched around its tires by the weight of four passengers.
The house would be silent. Not even a housecat’s distant appreciation of his arrival.
A sign shaped like a blue shield with a red bar across the top announced that he could reach the 10 freeway by making a left down Fourth Street. He shifted and eased into the turn and probed his mind for something to take his thoughts away from the emptiness of the house.
An eighteen-million-dollar payoff. The idea of it knotted him up. He could feel the impact of it on his numbers, dropping his division’s loan totals by—what?—five percent. It would set his growth back again. Runoff of his loans was like a seeping wound. You had to keep pressure on it or pretty soon you got weak and your earnings grew faint.
He made his left and took the on-ramp, pushing the Bimmer hard, shifting like it would speed him away from Vince’s competition, and for a moment it worked as the power of the engine seemed to lift the tires off the pavement, the car jumping with each pop of the clutch, engine screaming to the top of second, then surging into third, and he was faster than the flow of traffic by the time he reached the end of the on-ramp. He sped into fourth, passing a semi and a lumbering SUV and gliding across the lanes like a gazelle among wildebeests.
* * *
Flip forced himself away from the wall, bringing with his jacket the frame of a picture that rattled back to its place, dangling crookedly. With eyes accustomed to the darkness, he regarded it, an off-kilter rectangle offending the other dark angles of the room. He brought a gloved hand up to the corner of the frame and righted it.
Facing the blocky shapes of the kitchen, he looked over the shadowed room. The countertops hosted obscure contours of appliances he tried to associate. A blender, a coffeemaker. A toaster. A bowl with apples or oranges huddling inside. A knife rack angling the handles upward for unsheathing.
He turned.
The staircase ramped upward, beckoning him into greater blackness. He ran his glove along the banister, a touch light as a lover’s caress, rising into the place where the bedrooms would be.
He caught himself rushing. He wanted out of here. He wanted to be back out in the expansive night. The walls seemed to crowd him and box him like a trapped rabbit.
Slow down. Slow. This will be easy.
But still his heart leaped in his chest, making the blood pound in his temples. Out, out—he wanted out.
Three bedrooms vied for his attention. With his penlight he eyed each one. The larger room with the king-size bed and walk-in closet, with its private bath and double sinks—this would be the one. This was the bedroom of a banker and a lawyer.
* * *
Jason steered the BMW down the off-ramp, glided into the turn clutch in, and downshifted, engaging the engine to rev and drop his speed. Stopped alone at the light at the off-ramp’s terminus, he felt the idle through his back and rump, smooth power constrained. He wiggled the gear shift absently, then plunged it into first and waited for the green.
Nearly ten o’clock now.
He got his light and drove onto Robertson, northbound, past Hamilton High. He’d hoped for green lights this time of night, but after being stopped twice, he made a left and began hopping street to street, climbing the hills toward Beverlywood. He managed the gears approaching each speed bump and stop sign like a hurdler would manage his strides, slowing for the bumps just enough to avoid bottoming out and tapping the brake in deference to the stop lines in the street before gliding past into each empty intersection.
He made his right onto Bagley, and after a quick left on David, steered onto Guthrie and entered his neighborhood. Slowing, he loosened himself from his seat belt and let it snap into place behind his shoulder, feeling the familiarity of his street settle his nerves like it always did.
He reached up to the visor to trigger the garage-door opener and pressed the button as he brought the wheels around to enter the driveway.
The garage door faced him, unmoving.
He pressed the button again.
Nothing.
What now?
The pulled the car right up to the garage, lights reflecting straight back from the panel of the door, and turned to the visor and crushed the button five times. The garage door stood stubbornly before him.
He cranked the key to switch off the engine and jerked the parking brake on. Teeth grinding, he stepped out and slammed the door, marching around to the front door while he sifted his keychain for the door key he rarely used.
No porch light. The street light nearby was enfolded by a tree, so he had to tilt the keys until he found the silver gleam of the one he wanted. Its nose blindly poked for the keyhole until it finally slipped in. He turned it and opened the door, one hand reaching inside for the switch that would turn on the light in the foyer.
His fingers found it, and he flicked it up.
Only darkness.
* * *
Flip rose.
A light switch clicked downstairs again and again, as if electricity could be pumped in by the motion. A voice cursed.
Flip stole to the bedroom door. His hands flexed, fingers tense, fisting. Flaring nerves drove his fears aside, and the old power overtook him.
Footsteps paced on tile downstairs. Shuffled uncertainly.
More footsteps.
The front door slammed.
Silence.
For a moment, Flip stood, undecided. His eyes scanned the black room for places to hide.
Instead, he moved into the hallway, to the stairs. Hearing nothing, he descended. At the base of the staircase he paused. His ears searched for sound.
He ducked around toward the back of the house.
A whirring noise stopped him. He turned. It was the refrigerator cutting on. In the kitchen, a clock flashed 12:00 incessantly in the face of a microwave oven.
Outside, through the sheer curtains, he could see landscape lights glowing.
* * *
Jason faced the circuit-breaker box.
His feet would not move.
Kathy’s words came to his mind. The night her boy was killed. Dreaming someone was in her room. The power turned off the next morning.
He turned his head. His spine felt like it was outside his back and naked to the wind.
He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. He could call 911.
And say what? Ask LAPD to swing by because his circuit breaker tripped? He tried to laugh. It came out of his nose in shaky puffs.
He straightened. Walked from the breaker box and went to his car.
Settling in, he reached up for the garage-door opener.
This time the door obeyed, rising like a huge window shade to reveal the empty concrete floor missing Serena’s Mercedes.
He started the BMW and put it in gear, drove forward into the garage, and switched off the engine.
Not moving from the seat, he stared at the door leading to the house. The flat panel of it, doorknob at its edge, revealed nothing of what might lurk beyond it. White familiarity he’d passed through ten thousand times without a thought now reflected his dread.
This is stupid.
He clawed at the handle and sprang the car door open. It slammed closed with the same solid thud he’d loved the first time he drove the sedan.
The door beckoned, and he approached. His hand began to rise to the button that would close the big garage door behind him, but he restrained it. He brought it instead to the knob of the smaller door before him. Felt the friendly ball of it in his hand cool. He turned it.
The gears inside meshed, the latch cleared the jamb. He eased it forward.
A creak like a raven’s crowded the silence as the hinges protested against his entry. He moved ahead, into the space behind the kitchen. He stood in the doorway, the night behind him outside the garage like the promise of escape, and he leaned inside to bring his face around the edge of the door.
No one.
He reached for the light switch.
Fluorescence washed the room. The washer and dryer were in their usual places, surrounded by laundry products and piles of dirty clothes awaiting his attention.
Blood still surged in his veins.
He stepped inside. No sound reached him.
He went to the coat closet and reached inside. An aluminum baseball bat was propped against the doorframe just where he’d left it. He took it up, and confidence came from it.
A smell hovered in the air. Foreign, like spiced rum or cheap cologne, it hung in his nostrils.
The handle of the bat grew slick. He rubbed his palm on his slacks and moved ahead.
He found the kitchen empty, counters shining in the overhead lights. Beyond it, on the family room sofa, the burgundy afghan spread naturally across a corner.
Through sheer curtains and the sliding glass door he saw familiar shapes in the backyard, lit by the softness of the landscape lights.
He went to each lamp. With every turn of a switch, every added glow of a bulb, he hoped for reassurance. But found none.
Bat firmly in his grip, he went to the back window. Shoving against it, he found it solid, unmoving, latched firm.
Next to it was the sliding glass door. He pulled the drape aside with his left hand and stared.
Unlocked.
He seized the handle and pushed the latch down, locking it.
The hairs on the back of his neck tingled. He turned his back to the door and faced the room, every light glaring, no space for shadow.
The weight of his cell phone rested against his thigh.
Well, Officer, my circuit breaker was switched off, and the back door was unlocked, and there was this smell. . . .
He walked to the stairs and stared up toward the hallway. The downstairs lights reached a line of brightness in an angle against the wall up there.
He flipped the switch on the wall and lit the staircase from above.
When his foot touched the fifth step, the lights went out.
He dropped to the steps. Curses rose to his lips, but he sealed them shut. The bat was in both hands now, gripped like a lifeline.
Blind, his eyes groped for purchase in the sudden darkness.
Coward!
He got his feet underneath him and rose, back gliding against the wall, face toward the banister, still blind.
He moved down the stairs and into the living room. Slowly, shapes began to emerge, lit by the streetlight’s weak glow seeping through the front window. A sofa. The neck and odd-shaped head of a lamp and lampshade.
The blood pounded in his ears, a torrent. His eyes held fast on the light outside the window, in the world where the normal scene of his street was painted, still.
Something moved behind him.
He spun around.
“Hello, Jason.”