Fidelity (21 page)

Emily Kramer was not here, and that was as he had expected. He had intended to terrify her on his first visit, and he had never doubted that he would succeed. But he wasn’t sure how to interpret the apparent absence of other people. Could the police have listened to Emily Kramer’s story and not known that Hobart would come back? He had told her what he had come for, and she had seen him leave without it. The cops should be in this house waiting for him. He thought of electronic surveillance again. They could be keeping watch on both the office and the house from somewhere else.

Hobart moved to the side of the house and looked up, traced the power line from the pole at the street to the corner of the house, and moved toward it until he found the meter and the circuit box beside it. He moved his face close to the meter and saw the wheel inside turning. Power was being used, but the wheel was turning very slowly. It was the sort of power that ran the refrigerator and a few electric clocks.

Hobart looked around and chose a spot in the back corner of the yard where there were two trees with thick trunks that appeared to rise from a single spot. He flipped the main switch to turn off the electricity. The click was loud in the silence, and the sound made him move more quickly to the hiding place he had chosen. He stood behind the forked trunks, rested his pistol arm on the nub of a pruned branch, and waited. From here he could see through the rear windows into the living room, and he could see the circuit box. If someone was here, Hobart would probably see him either coming to find out which of the circuit breakers was flipped, or sweeping the back yard with a flashlight.

He waited fifteen minutes. Then he moved to the sliding door where he had entered the house the previous night. He could see the residue of the police technicians’ fingerprint dust all over the area near the lock. Nobody had made any attempt to clean it, or their wipes and smudges would have shown up, too. Hobart used his knife to push up the door latch, then closed the blade and put it away while he watched to see if any of the shadows in the house changed shape. He slid the door open a few inches and listened. There were no footsteps, no creaking floorboards. He entered.

Hobart sidestepped away from the sliding door so his back was to a solid wall and his silhouette would not stand out. There were still no sounds, no lights. He slid the door shut.

If there were surveillance cameras or similar devices in the house, they would be run off the house current, so he was confident he had killed them. He was in, and he was alone. Now he could begin his search. He had already formed a mental map of the house on his first visit. People usually hid things like papers and tapes in places where they would be out of sight, but where they could still reach them in a hurry. They didn’t want them in spots where a routine cleanup would uncover them, or a burglar would know something valuable was hidden-like a wall safe.

Phil Kramer had been devious. He had not been the sort of man who would put papers in a bank safe-deposit box and have to wait for business hours to retrieve them. He was the sort of man who would put papers in with other papers, or put tapes with other tapes, and Hobart already had a theory about where that might be. There was a hall that ran between the living room and the kitchen and then picked up past the kitchen, and led to a room. It must have been a maid’s room at one time, but now it was a den or office. He stepped to the hallway.

“Hold it!”

Hobart spun, dropped to a squat and fired in the general direction of the deep male voice. He didn’t pause, but sprang, launching himself in the direction of the sliding windows in the living room. He knew he couldn’t make it to the one he had unlocked, so he dashed for the other one. As he ran, he held his pistol in front of him and fired through the glass as quickly as he could, spreading his shots over the large pane and shattering it. He managed to get off six shots, crossed his forearms in front of his face and hurled himself through the curtain of still-falling shards.

In that instant, he was aware of shots behind him, but he knew that his best chance was to keep moving. He sprinted to the back of the yard, hauled himself to the top of the wall, and rolled over it just as somebody found the circuit box and a bright light came on, transforming the backyard of the Kramer house into a white glare.

Hobart dashed for the next street, ran across it and up the driveway of the house on the far side. He saw a wooden gate between the two houses, reached over the top to feel for a latch and release it, and ran between the two houses to the next yard. This time there was a chain-link fence with thick shrubbery growing on both sides of it, but he clambered over it to the sound of ringing clinks and breaking branches, and kept running.

He made it to the street where his rental car was parked. He was winded now, but he sprinted up the sidewalk to the car. As he got into the driver’s seat, he heard the growl of an engine. A car was accelerating somewhere nearby, as though it were driving up and down the streets he had just crossed.

Jerry Hobart had been hunted before. He knew he couldn’t stay here in his parked car and hope he wouldn’t be found, and he couldn’t hide in the shrubbery somewhere in the neighborhood. His only chance was to go. He started the engine and accelerated, trying to get out of this small grid of streets and onto one of the big boulevards that would take him to a freeway entrance. He built up speed as he reached the first intersection, then let his foot hover over the brake pedal while he glanced to his left to be sure nothing was coming toward him on the side street, then hit the accelerator again. He ejected the magazine from his gun and clicked the spare into place.

As he reached the second intersection, he looked to his left and saw another car flash across the side street one block to his left. There was somebody driving a parallel course to his. He turned to the left. If the driver was a cop, he would assert his innocence by following him out of the neighborhood. If the cop didn’t buy it, he would have the inevitable confrontation facing the cop instead of looking over his shoulder. When he reached the next street, he turned to the right to follow the speeding car.

What he saw wasn’t what he had expected. The other driver had seen him, too, and the car was swinging into a driveway on the left. He could see it was a dark green Toyota, not a model that cops used. Now it was backing into the street to come back toward him. Hobart pushed the button to lower his side window, gripped his gun in his left hand, and drove toward it. The other car backed quickly across the road to block him.

Hobart opened fire at the driver. He saw the driver’s side window shatter and saw one shot hit the edge of the car’s roof and throw sparks as it glanced off into the night. After that he couldn’t see the driver anymore, but he fired three rounds at the driver’s door, and then he was past the car. As he coasted into a turn at the next block to get away from the small residential streets, he looked into his mirrors, but he couldn’t tell whether he had hit the man or not. The car hadn’t moved yet. Then he turned left onto Vanowen, moving fast toward the east. He tore off his ski mask and put it in his pocket, and felt the cool air on his sweating face.

He turned right on Van Nuys Boulevard to avoid waiting at a red light, then left onto Riverside. At this time of night, he could go fortyfive along unobstructed streets and not look as though he was running from something. In ten minutes he reached Lankershim, and that took him to the entrance of the complex at Universal City. In three more minutes, he was driving up to his hotel on the hill overlooking Universal Studios and the eastern end of the San Fernando Valley.

He gave his car to the parking attendant and watched him drive it away to store it with the hundreds of others in the parking structure. As Hobart walked toward the hotel lobby, he stopped and looked to the northwest, toward Emily Kramer’s house. Far off, he could see a couple of helicopters in the air, weaving back and forth over the flat grid of unidentifiable streets. Now and then one of them would circle, and the strong beam of a floodlight would emanate from its belly and illuminate something below for a few seconds, and then move on.

F or an instant, Emily was in her own bed in her house, with Phil beside her. The warm, comfortable sensation collapsed, and she remembered: Phil was dead. He had been doing something that had brought her into the world of that horrible man in the ski mask. Her eyes opened and she saw that there was a man standing above her in the dark. She jumped and pulled back, pressing herself into the wall.

“Emily,” said the man. She knew it was familiar, then remembered what she was doing here. “It’s me-Ray.”

“Oh,” she said. “You startled me. I must have been sound asleep.” Her voice was hoarse. She cleared her throat. “What’s wrong?” She sat up, holding the blanket to her chest.

“The guy came back to your house a little while ago. Apparently, he got away. I just got the call.”

“Is everybody okay?”

“Yeah. There was some shooting, but he didn’t hit anybody. The cops are looking for him, but I don’t think they’re having much luck.” He paused. “I’m sorry to wake you up, but I think we ought to go over there and have a look.”

“Of course.” Emily couldn’t see his face, just the shape of his body. She could tell he was standing awkwardly, his muscles tense. He still had the phone receiver in his hand. “Just give me a minute to get dressed.”

“Sure.” He turned and moved down the hall toward his room.

Emily sat on the edge of the bed and looked around to get her bearings before she stood up. She stepped carefully to the doorway, closed her eyes, and switched on the light. She squinted so she could move around in the glare. She found the pair of jeans she had worn that day and pulled a shirt from the top layer in the suitcase. She took her sneakers to the bed to put them on.

At first it didn’t seem like Ray Hall to wake her up and make her go. Then she realized he must not feel comfortable leaving her alone.

She stood and snatched the hairbrush off Ray Hall’s dresser and brushed her hair with rapid, hard, painful strokes. She picked up her jacket and purse and hurried out of the room.

Ray was already standing at the foot of the stairs, tapping his keys against his thigh and looking up at her expectantly. As she descended the stairs, she caught herself thinking how good he looked for someone who had just dragged himself out of bed, and how horrible she must look with no makeup and her hair just raked straight.

She ducked past him out the door and hurried to his car. The air was cool now, and she was fully awake. As he started the car and pulled out of the driveway, she said, “You did say everybody was okay?”

“That’s what Dewey said on the phone.” He drove up the street and turned toward Vanowen Street, driving faster now that he was on bigger, wider streets. “Apparently, Billy got carried away and tried to cut the guy off in his car, and the guy opened up on him. Not too surprisingly, he hit the car, but missed Billy. He’s a much smaller target.” “Jesus,” she muttered. “He could be dead. And for what?”

“I don’t know what he’s after,” Hall said. “If we could just figure out what Phil had that this guy thinks is so important, we could-“

“I didn’t mean him, I meant us. I don’t think we’re going to accomplish anything that’s worth getting anybody killed. And Billy’s only twentytwo years old, barely old enough to drink.”

As they moved up the streets toward Emily’s house, there was the deep, gut-shaking throb of helicopters. Emily could see lights turned on in most of the houses in her neighborhood. She craned her neck to look at the clock on Ray Hall’s dashboard. It was two A.M.

Hall pulled up in front of her house, and they both walked up to the front door. When Hall turned the knob and pushed the door open, Emily could see Dewey Burns in the living room move his right hand toward his back, where she knew his gun was. Ray Hall said loudly, “Hi, guys.” He stepped inside and held the door so Dewey and Bill could see Emily step in. “I brought Emily with me.”

As she moved past Ray, she could see the big window at the back of the room had been blown out. “What a mess.” She turned to look directly at Dewey and then at Bill. “But you’re both okay?”

“Yeah,” Dewey said. “When he came in, we tried to get him to put up his hands. He turned and ran for that window. I lost him a block from here and called the cops. Meanwhile, Billy hopped in his car and tried to head him off that way. He fired a few rounds into the car. Billy’s lucky to still be with us.”

Emily stepped to Bill and hugged him. “I’m so glad you’re not hurt, Billy.” Then she hugged Dewey and released him. “You both could have died, and I feel terrible about this.”

“I’m sorry we didn’t get him, Emily,” Bill said.

Dewey frowned. “You knew he had a gun, and you had nothing. Going after him alone was stupid.”

“I didn’t expect to get shot. I was only trying to get a look at his license plate or his face, but he was moving too fast, and then he was shooting.” Bill looked at the empty frame of the living-room window and the spray of broken glass that extended out onto the patio. “He really is one crazy son of a bitch, though. Look at that.”

Emily didn’t know what to say. “The police have seen that?”

“Yes,” Dewey said. “A couple of them stopped by to radio the details to the others that were out looking for him.”

“I suppose I should get that boarded up, or I’m going to have rats in here.”

Ray said, “I can call in a couple of hours and have the glass replaced. There are services that replace glass for businesses. They can probably have it looking normal by noon.”

“I suppose.” Emily looked around the room, and felt the contrast between the way it used to be and the way it was now. This was her house-hers and Phil’s. They had moved in as a young couple, when Phil had just gotten out of the marines, the possibilities were still unlimited, and this typical L.A. bungalow had seemed like a palace to her. They had raised their son here, and after they had lost him, the house had become a retreat.

Now the house seemed to have been revealed as a fraud. The big window that had blown out let the breeze blow through, and reminded her that the house wasn’t even closed to the elements anymore, let alone safe. During any instant in all of the years while she had lived here, anything could have happened-how could glass keep it out?-but she had felt safe. She had been stupid. Now the house had made her a target and an easy victim.