A Cold Heart

On the other side was a round brick courtyard surrounded by greenery. Plants in pots. Tiled fountain off to the left; no drip. Soft lighting revealed the house, a split-level Spanish design, tile-roofed, with nice arched windows.

Very good life.

No sign of the BMW or the Expedition, but the courtyard terminated in an attached three-car garage that sat under a wing of the house. A low-wattage bulb revealed a trio of bleached wood chevron doors that matched the gate. To the right, an iron-railed staircase led up to what Stahl assumed was the house’s main entrance. Hard to say how big the place was, it looked good-sized.

He thought about the layout. The door up the stairs would be where you had your guests enter, if you wanted to make an impression. First thing they’d see would be a windowful of city lights.

With no one to impress, Shull would drive in through the garage, take an interior staircase into the house. No BMW in sight said that’s what he’d done tonight. Meaning, he was alone.

Or with someone he didn’t care to impress.

Stahl stood there, perched on the gate frame, figuring this would be another uneventful night. Then a rustle of leaves- several rustles- tightened the back of his neck, and he got down and pressed himself against the ivy-colored wall.

More noise. More than a rodent scurrying. Someone sniffing the air.

Stahl waited. Nothing happened.

Then the sound repeated itself, louder, and twenty feet down, the brush parted and a deer- a smallish doe- began prancing across the road.

The animal stopped in the middle, stood there twitching. Stahl’s heartbeat was way slow- the way it always was after it had been tweaked. Quick recovery… from some things…

The deer considered her options, finally bounded off and ran down a driveway, disappearing between two houses.

A regular; she knew who was home and who wasn’t. Now someone’s garden would be a late-night snack. And, eventually, the doe would be some coyote’s di

Stahl felt himself smiling.

Noise on the other side of Shull’s gate wiped his face clean.

Ignition rumble.

He ran to the gate, regained his foothold, chanced a quick look. The center garage door slid open, and he jumped down, sprinted back to his car.

He barely made it back as the gate swung back.

Headlights, a new set, higher up than the BMW.

The Expedition nosed its way out, paused, sped away.

Black SUV. Blackened windows.

One-man tails were impractical, often impossible, but with an arrogant guy like Shull, the job was easier. Why would the bastard even imagine he was being followed?

Stahl drove with his lights off as Shull sped down the hill way too fast. The Expedition headed north on Cahuenga and over to a jazz club just south of the Valley. Not far from Baby Boy’s apartment. Shull left the Expedition with a parking valet, stayed inside for forty minutes, and retrieved the SUV. Now it was nearly 1 A.M., and with the traffic thi

Shull didn’t go far, just a quick jaunt into Studio City, where he had coffee and a burger at an all-night coffee shop on Ventura near Lankershim. No valet, here. Stahl parked in the half-empty lot, observed the window.

Four cups of coffee, black. Shull inhaled his burger.

Fueling up.

Shull paid in cash, got back in the SUV.

Back to the city on Laurel Canyon, a right turn on Sunset. A few blocks up, Shull pulled in front of a bar called Bambu. Neo tiki-hut décor, bored bouncer in front. Another valet situation.

Stahl drove a block, hung a quick U, watched from across Sunset as Shull got out of the SUV smoking a cigar.

Dressed in a black leather jacket, black jeans, black T-shirt. Swaggering, shmoozing with the parking attendant.

No nerves; obviously, Delaware’s showing up at his office didn’t worry him. Just the opposite: Shull had taken Delaware’s questions about Drummond as proof he was safe.

If Drummond had been Shull’s partner in crime- if Drummond had known anything- Delaware’s asking about him had probably accomplished something else: Drummond was now a severe liability, bye bye, Kev.

Sturgis had opined as much at the last meeting. Drummond’s car near the airport meant Shull had probably taken care of the kid, used the Honda to pick up Erna Murphy, then planted it to imply Drummond’s long-distance rabbit. And it had worked. All those days wasted checking out airline rosters. All the time Stahl had spent watching Drummond’s apartment.

Meanwhile, Drummond was probably moldering somewhere.

Even if Drummond hadn’t been in on the bad stuff, he was a likely corpse. Because his disappearance provided distraction- terrific cover for Shull.

And because Shull liked killing people.

Modern art.

Bambu’s fake-grass door swung open and Shull exited with a knockout blonde in tow. Late twenties, big golden hair, a real Barbie. She wore a red glittery crop top under a short, black jacket, shredded second-skin jeans, high-heeled boots. Breasts way too high and too large to be real, too much makeup; Stahl upped his age estimate: the wrong side of thirty.

Your basic Sunset Boulevard party girl past her prime. But not a pro, she looked too happy positioned on Shull’s leather arm for this to be work.

Giggling. Staggering. Giddy.

Shull smiled back at her but he was composed.

Life is going so well for me.

Stahl sat in his car and watched the two of them flirt. Fixing on Shull’s macho posturing, just about feeling the heft of the sniper rifle on his shoulder.

The Expedition arrived and Shull was careful to hold the passenger door open for Barbie. Taking her hand as he did it. She kissed him in appreciation.

Once the blonde was inside, Shull and the parking valet exchanged conspiratorial glances.

Someone’s getting lucky tonight, bro.

Not the girl.

Shull stayed on Sunset and continued west, through the Strip and into Beverly Hills, speeding into even ritzier Bel Air. At Hilgard, he turned south, drove through Westwood Village, got on Wilshire and resumed a westerly route.

Making Stahl’s job easy, because even at this hour-2 A.M.- the brightly lit boulevard had its share of traffic. He hung three car lengths behind the Expedition, accompanied Shull and the blonde all the way through Brentwood and Santa Monica.

Down to Pacific Coast Highway. The beach. Here, the traffic was sparse, and the job became trickier. Stahl hung back, fixed his eyes on the SUV’s taillights. Shull picked up speed, traveling nearly seventy- twenty miles over the limit- as he crossed the coastal boundaries of Pacific Palisades and continued into the city of Malibu.

Going seventy-five per, eighty, eighty-five. Big hurry. No concern about being stopped on a traffic violation because he thought of himself as the kind of guy bad things didn’t happen to.

Or because a speeding ticket was just money, and he had plenty of that.

Did it also mean anything of forensic value been expunged from the SUV? A perfect cleaning was hard to pull off; one errant hair, a speck of body fluid could tell a tale. Shull didn’t transport his victims, he left them in place but, still, his own garments, the seat of the car- anything could’ve picked up some transfer.