Final Sins (11 page)

Leaving the restaurant, Abby made a point of joking around with the maître d’, asking about take-out and delivery services, and acting—as they said on the late-night TV sex-chat ads—“fun ’n’ flirty.” She managed to drag Brody into the conversation and even mentioned his name. She wanted to be sure the maître d’ remembered them both. More important, she wanted Brody to
know
that the man would remember.

On Brody’s face she saw the same calculating expression he’d worn earlier at the gallery. It was an expression that said he knew what she was up to and he found it amusing. It said she could not outthink him and she shouldn’t try. It said she might put up a good fight, but he would win in the end.

They drove to the guest cottage in separate cars, Abby using the excuse that her car would be towed if it was parked at the curb all night. This was true, but she also needed the car handy so she could make a getaway. Her plan was to slip Brody a Rohypnol tablet, wait for him to conk out, then search his place and see what turned up. Standard operating procedure.

Somehow she wasn’t quite comfortable with it, though. Maybe because Brody hadn’t had much to drink, so there was little chance he would chalk up his loss of consciousness to overindulgence. He would know he’d been drugged. This would preclude her from seeing him again. Without further contact, she might find it difficult to assess his intentions.

Still, she had to dope him. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have the chance to search the premises. Besides, she wasn’t going to give the guy a roll in the hay. Right?

“Right,” she assured herself as she followed his black SUV into the Los
Feliz
district.

They parked near the guest cottage, which sat well away from the main house, screened off by eucalyptus trees and oleander hedges. The lights of the cottage glowed dimly behind drawn curtains.

When Brody opened the front door, an alarm began to beep in a quiet, insistent monotone. He had a security system with a front-entry delay. The delay gave him time to punch a four-digit code into a keypad by the door, silencing the beeps. Abby knew that if he hadn’t entered the code in time, the alarm would have gone off, and the police would have been summoned.

She also knew what the code was. She had clearly seen him input the numbers. Sloppy of him not to block her view. It was the first mistake he’d made.

He led her through the foyer into the living room.

“Home, sweet home,” he announced.

If anything, the classified ad had undersold the place. It was spacious, clean, and furnished in exquisite taste.

“Pretty swank,” she said.

“Think so?”

“If it were any more swank, it would be Hilary Swank.” She frowned. “I don’t know what that means.”

“It was a valiant effort.”

“Sometimes the quips work; sometimes they don’t. That’s one you can edit out.”

“So you
do
have an edit button?”

“If I do, I haven’t found it yet. Then again, I’ve never looked.”

He led her into the kitchen and poured a reprise of the drinks they’d ordered at their table.

“What prompted you to relocate yourself in this pricey neck of the woods?” she asked, while she placed one hand in her purse and found the vial of pills.

“I have expensive taste.”

“You never did tell me what you do for a living.”

“It’s not exactly a nine-to-five job.”

She just bet it wasn’t. “Secret agent? International man of mystery?”

“Nothing that exotic.”

“You’re not living off a trust fund, I hope.”

“My folks never had any money. Never had any hopes for me, either.”

“Ouch.”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to get sentimental.”

“It’s okay. I don’t mind a good moment of shit.”

“A what?”

“That’s what TV writers call it when the characters have to stop being funny or scary or whatever, and open up with some heartfelt emotion. Usually near the end of the episode. The moment of shit.”

“Is that what this is?”

“It can be. I don’t mind.”

He finished making the drinks and turned to replace the two bottles in the cabinet. This was her opportunity. It would take only a second to spike his cocktail while his back was turned.

Inexplicably she hesitated. Then he was facing her again, handing her a Scotch and soda. She took a sip, wondering what the hell was wrong with her.

“Why didn’t your parents have hopes?” she asked, trying to maintain the conversational flow.

“Probably because I gave them no grounds for any.” He walked with her into the living room. “I wasn’t exactly a good kid. More like a bad seed.”

“You seem okay to me, seed-wise.” She sat next to him on the sofa.

“Don’t let appearances deceive you. I did all the usual
juvie
stuff. Cut classes, ran around with the wrong kids, got pulled in by the cops for penny-ante bullshit.”

“Ever do time?”

“Came close.”

“What saved you?”

“I signed up for the ROTC. Got a four-year college scholarship in exchange for a commitment to serve.”

“The military’s a pretty tough gig. Jail might’ve been easier.”

“I wasn’t looking for an easy way out. I wanted some direction. When you can’t discipline yourself, you find people who can do it for you.”

“That’s either an inspiring piece of self-help wisdom or the slogan of a less-than-reputable massage parlor.”

He looked away, and she realized this was something he didn’t joke about. “It worked for me. I got turned around. I learned who I really am.”

Abby wondered just exactly who that was. “After college you went into the service?”

He nodded. “Army.”

“You were a grunt, huh?”

“I was Special Forces.”

“Rangers?”

He shook his head. “Green Berets.”

The elite of the elites. “Wow.”

She had a feeling he was telling the truth. Anybody could claim to be a Green Beret, but that kind of training and experience would go a long way toward explaining his self-confidence, his almost uncanny coolness. Someone who’d done HALO jumps into enemy territory—high altitude parachute drops—wasn’t likely to get rattled by anything.

“How long were you in the army?”

“Twenty years.”

“Guess you saw some action.”

That crooked smile was back. “Desert Storm, for one thing. Though that hardly qualified as combat. More like extermination. The Iraqis were so outmatched, I almost felt sorry for the poor sons of bitches.”

“Anywhere else?”

“Bosnia.”

“I thought we fought that war from the air.”

“Not all of it,” he said darkly.

She knew Special Forces teams could be deployed to direct bombers to their targets, gather
intel
on the ground, or raid enemy compounds. She wondered which of the above he’d been involved in.

“Afghanistan?” she asked.

“We made some noise there, yeah.”

“Iraq? The second time, I mean.”

“For a while. I got out in 2003, after I’d seen a little action.”

“Were you wounded?”

“No, but they were going to reassign me. Bring me back to the States, kick me upstairs to a staff position. It wasn’t what I wanted. So I got out.”

“Was this before or after your adventure in Phnom Penh?”

“After. I’d been to Cambodia while I was on leave. A little R ’n’ R.”

“You must’ve seen a lot more of the world than just combat zones.”

“I have. And you know what? It’s all pretty much the same. You can find a McDonald’s in every big city, and American TV shows running night and day.”

“How about if you get out into the countryside?”

“That’s all the same, too. Chicken coops and thatch-roofed huts and dirt roads. And people wearing T-shirts with pictures of Bruce Springsteen and Madonna.”

“America is everywhere.”

“We’re the new Rome.”

Abby smiled. “I guess that’s better than being the new Carthage.”

“I’m impressed. You know your history.”

“Mostly from movies. Did you know Julius Caesar bore a striking resemblance to Rex Harrison?”

“And Genghis Khan looked a lot like John Wayne.”

He took a generous swallow of his drink. She was glad to see it. Maybe he would be getting drunk, after all. Then the effects of the drug would be ascribed to alcohol.

But it wouldn’t matter unless she got the damn pill into his drink. She had missed one chance. She needed to give herself another.

“You have anything to eat in the fridge?” she asked. “Some crackers, maybe?”

“Still feeling
peckish
?”

“I could use a little something to settle my tummy.”

He got up. “I’ll see what’s there. Can’t promise much.”

She watched him disappear into the kitchen. He had left his drink behind. She would never have a better opportunity.

She removed a tablet from the vial, reached for his drink. And then she knew why she had hesitated in the kitchen, and why she wouldn’t use the pill now.

She didn’t want him drugged and unconscious. That wasn’t where this evening was headed. Some part of her had known it all along, ever since he’d made the first move at the Unblinking I.

So what was this? Revenge on Wyatt for insulting her? She was still pretty damn mad at him, she had to admit. Maybe retribution did play a role. But there was more to it than that.

Brody intrigued her. He was something different in her world. He was a challenge, an enigma. And he was a pro, like her.

A predator—like her.

She replaced the pill in the bottle, which vanished into the crowded abyss of her purse. She was lounging on the sofa when he returned with two small plates.

“Cheese, crackers, and olives. That okay?”

“Very Mediterranean.”

She fixed herself a small cracker sandwich.

“In Italy,” he said, “when the workers brown-bag their lunch, they take some bread and olive oil. Tear off hunks of bread and dip it in the oil, wash it down with a little wine.”

“It makes you wonder how McDonald’s ever caught on over there.”

“Or anywhere else, for that matter. That’s one way people
are
different. Americans want to get things done. The rest of the world is more interested in just letting things happen.”

“How so?”

“There’s a fatalism in most cultures. People accept life for what it is. A piece of bread and some olive oil can be savored for its own sake. In America, we fight with our environment. We want to change it. We want progress, and we’re in a hurry to get it. So we wolf down our Quarter Pounder with cheese, because we’re impatient to get to the next meeting or the next sales call. With us, it’s all about results. With other people, it’s about the process.”

“You’re saying we can’t just enjoy the moment?”

“Not even if it’s a moment of shit.” He winced. “Which I guess this one is.”

She had no idea what to expect from him in the bedroom. Vaguely she thought he would be quick and efficient, giving her a good ten minutes—what she thought of as a speed hump.

She was wrong.

He took his time undressing her, stripping away each article of her clothing and running his hands over her skin, feeling the taut contours of her musculature and smelling the soft golden down on her arms and the nape of her neck.

Most men acted as if there were only three erogenous zones, maybe four on a good day, but he knew the secret of real lovemaking—that every part of her body could be caressed and stimulated, that his mouth on her neck or his hands kneading the small of her back could send a thrill of pleasure through her, a needle shot of pure hedonistic gratification that left her limp.

By the time he explored her breasts, she was already shivering with the of a succession of inner explosions, so exhausted she almost feared she couldn’t take any more. He would have to stop, she must tell him to stop, but she didn’t, because it was so good to feel the slow circles of his palms against her breasts, the friction of skin on skin, her impossible sensitivity heightened more and still more, until just the touch of his lips was enough to release a bloom of warmth that suffused her body.

She wasn’t sure what happened after that, what he did or how he did it, only that it kept on going as he explored the rest of her, moving with expert precision from her wrists to her thighs, from her earlobes to the insides of her knees, until there was nothing but his breath on her skin, his tongue, his touch, the scent of her wetness on his fingers as he brushed them across her lips, her own hand between her thighs as he placed it inside her and then drew her moistened fingers into his mouth.

The end, too, was not what she expected. She found herself on top, straddling his hips, impaled on him, while his hands on her waist pressed her gently downward, then released, then pressed down again, each time driving him in deeper, penetrating her by slow degrees but with escalating urgency, then a final release, and with it a wail rising out of her own throat, emptying her.

When it was over and he was asleep, she pulled on her underwear and blouse and began to search.

The place was too big to be thoroughly tossed while he slept. There was too great a risk that he would wake up and catch her in the act. All she could do was check a few obvious things and make preparations for a return visit.

She started with the clothes he’d discarded on the floor. She’d heard a soft thump as his belt dropped off. Fitted to the belt was a black leather Yaqui slide holster holding a subcompact semiautomatic, a Beretta Mini Cougar
9mm
with a 3.6 inch barrel and a truncated grip. The short grip made the weapon easy to carry concealed; it wouldn’t print against the clothing and give itself away. She smelled the gun—freshly oiled.

She’d been pretty sure he was carrying, but before he’d disrobed she would have bet on an ankle holster. The little Beretta had been invisible beneath his jacket.

In the back pocket of his trousers she found his wallet, which contained a California driver’s license in the name of Mark Andrew Brody. She memorized his date of birth, his address—an apartment in Reseda—and his DL number. He carried credit cards under that name also.

It proved nothing. Her wallet was full of items establishing her identity as Abby Robinson.

She checked the bed. He was still asleep.

To properly inspect the cottage, she would need to be here alone. All she could do now was make it easier to reenter the premises.

She went down the hall and unlatched the rear window but didn’t open it. In a hall closet she found the security box, nerve center of the alarm system. She pulled out some wires, cutting the communication link. Now if the alarm went off, the police wouldn’t be called.

She took note of the system’s layout. Sensors on the front and side doors, motion detectors in the hall and bedroom. The windows weren’t armed, but anyone entering via a window would be picked up by one of the motion sensors before getting very far.

From the bedroom came sounds of movement. He was getting up. She busied herself in the kitchen. When he came in, wearing boxer shorts and an untied robe, she was spooning pancake mix into a measuring cup.

“I guess I worked up an appetite,” she said. “Hope I didn’t wake you.”

“Even if you did, I wouldn’t complain. But you didn’t. You’re as quiet as a mouse.”

He said it as if he knew she’d been sneaking around. She only smiled. “I’m light on my feet. Want some pancakes?”

“I wouldn’t turn ’
em
down.”

She added more of the dry mix to the cup. “Not quite as elegant as our first meal tonight.”

“Looks good to me. Remember, I’ve subsisted on
MREs
for extended time periods.”

“Then this has got to be an improvement. So tell me about the Green Berets.”

“What do you want to know?”

She poured oil on the griddle. “They operate in teams, don’t they?”

“Twelve-man units, typically. Each man has a specific function.”

“What was yours?”

“Chief warrant officer. Second in command.”

“A lot of responsibility.”

“Especially when the commander gets blipped.”

She looked at him. “Did that happen?”

“Once.”

“How?”

“We were on a special reconnaissance mission in Iraq. Scouting the territory south of Baghdad while the infantry guys—the ‘big army,’ we called them—raced north across the desert on their initial push. There’s a bottleneck in a mountain pass, name of Karbala Gap. Obvious place for an ambush, so we had to stake it out, report what we saw.”

“Couldn’t the military have used satellite imagery to find out?”

“Eyes on the ground beat eyes in the sky. That’s the whole idea behind recon missions. Anyway, it should’ve gone smoothly enough. It didn’t.”

“What happened?”

“We got spotted. Pinned down by enemy fire from the high cliffs. We were maneuvering for cover when our captain—young guy, pretty raw, had hardly been tested—well, he took a round in the head. You know how head wounds bleed. Or maybe you don’t.”

She did, but she couldn’t say so.

“He died right next to me. Leaning on me. Crying. Then I was in charge.”

She began spooning the liquefied mix onto the griddle. “You had to get your people out.”

“Like Xenophon,” he said cryptically.

“Who?”

“Soldier in ancient Greece. He and his men got trapped behind enemy lines, had to fight their way home. He made it—and wrote a book about it.”

“I’ll bet you got your guys out, too.”

“Eventually. First I led the team to a
wadi
, a dry riverbed, which afforded some decent concealment. Radioed for a chopper. Took a long time to get there. We kept scrambling from place to place along the riverbed so they couldn’t pick us off. We’d ditched our packs for greater mobility. We ran out of water and ammo. We were pretty much down and out when we saw our ride. Big Chinook bird, beautiful sight. But it couldn’t land too close to the
wadi
or it would be in range of the enemy guns. We had to sprint for the pickup zone, dodging mortar fire. But we made it. Even the captain—we got his body out. We weren’t going to leave it there in the field for those fuckers to ...” He took a breath. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“We all came home. Eleven of us alive.”

She started flipping the pancakes. “And not long afterward, you got out of the military and out of Iraq.”

“I didn’t leave Iraq.”

“You stayed on as a civilian?”

“For a while.”

“Why? What was there for you?”

“Nothing. Not a goddamned thing.” He looked tired as he said it. Tired and older than he’d looked before. “You know what I remember most about Iraq? How bad the place smelled. They’ve got raw sewage running down the streets. They burn their garbage. They cook their meals on open fires. All those smells—food and trash and shit—they all blend together, and you think, Christ, what am I doing here?”

“What
were
you doing there?”

“I was looking for something. Looking for ... Never mind.”

Redemption, she thought. Atonement for letting his captain die. “You can’t blame yourself for anything that happened,” she said quietly.

“I don’t. I’m a realist, like I told you. What’s done is done.”

“Anyway, you’re out of the war zone now.”

“You’re never out of the war zone, Abby. Never.”

It was the first time he’d used her name.

She served the pancakes. He got out some syrup and gave his a generous coating, then began to eat with gusto.

“Looks like you worked up an appetite, too,” she said.

“Not yet.” He gave her a knowing smile. “But I intend to.”

She caught his meaning. “After your first performance, I wouldn’t think you’d have the energy for an encore.”

“Then you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

As it turned out, she was.

* * *

At dawn she left, saying she had to get ready for work.

“I guess you do, too,” she added.

“I work at home.”

“Doing what?”

Another crooked grin. “Getting myself into trouble.”

He still wouldn’t tell her. Weird that he didn’t just deliver a cover story. It was almost as if he felt it would be an insult to their mutual intelligence to indulge in such an obvious lie.

She got into her Hyundai and drove off the premises. As she passed the main house, she saw a woman watching her, the flower-print curtains pulled back from the window. A woman in her fifties, hair set in a bun.

Abby waved to her, one gal to another. The woman didn’t wave back. There was a disapproving downward curve at the corners of her mouth.

“
Somebody
didn’t get any last night,” Abby said to herself. “Well, we can’t all be lucky.”

Her smile faded when she realized that before long she might have to contrive a way to put Mark Brody in jail.

When she thought about that, she didn’t feel so lucky, after all.