Keeper of the Keys

“The hell you are,” came her muffled voice. “Tell it to 911.” The dog, maddened by their interaction, howled afresh.

“Hush, Kobe,” the woman said. “You hush.”

Amazingly, the dog obeyed.

Well-trained. Not good, Ray thought. “Your neighbor called. A water main broke. You have severe flooding down here.” Then he switched to being a gas man, crying out, “Ma’am, listen. We have to evacuate right away. There’s going to be an explosion!” He pounded upward on the trapdoor, and he wasn’t playacting the terror in his voice. To be found like this-he would be put in jail! Or eaten alive by that monstrous animal.

No answer at first. Then the door opened a crack.

“Ma’am, please let me out. It’s dangerous.”

“Show me your badge.”

“I don’t have a badge!”

“Well, you better have something, or you’re not-” With a titanic effort he gave the trapdoor a sharp push upward. It fell away and he saw brown legs in rubber flip-flops recede. He burst out into the kitchen and landed in a crouch. The woman stood in the corner by the stove holding a butcher knife. “Don’t come near me!” she screeched. “ Kobe, get him!” The dog racing after him, Ray turned and ran for the front door.

Once outside, he ran across the lawn toward the street, wishing he had parked closer, aware that he could not outrun the hellhound who wanted him dead.

A green Echo cruised up, window down. “Get in!” The side door flew open.

He jumped in and Kat floored it. The dog hurtled up the street behind them, barking, until he finally couldn’t keep up and dropped behind.

“You stink,” Kat said, cornering onto the boulevard with one light hand. “No offense.”

Ray looked at himself. His pant leg was covered in a slimy goo. Jelly from an eon ago, most likely.

“Oh my God,” he said. “Thank you, Kat.” He breathed hard for a few minutes, the most elegantly dressed burglar she had ever seen.

“Wait. Stop,” he said finally.

She parked in a liquor store parking lot on Whittier Boulevard and folded her arms.

“I have to go back and get my car.”

He had stashed it by the library and walked to the house. By then, Kat, intrigued, didn’t want him to know she had been following him. She had kept her distance. “I want to know if you hurt anybody at that house.”

“No. I swear.”

“Did you steal anything?”

“No.”

“Why were you there?”

“Why are you spying on me?”

“Listen, you-you know what? I’m taking you right back to Bright Street. I never should have done this.” She kicked the little car up to speed and made a hard right out of the lot.

“No, please don’t.” The look on his face showed real terror. “Just take me to my car. I promise I’ll answer all of your questions.”

“When?”

“Just not right now. I have a big meeting at work. I’ll lose my business if I don’t make it.” As if preparing for it, he worked a handkerchief over the jelly on his trousers. Kat drove up behind his Porsche and gave him a business card.

“Pick me up at that address at nine-thirty,” she said. “I’m working late to make up for this.”

“Jacki, pick up the phone. It’s me. Jacki?”

No answer. Driving back on the Santa Monica freeway, Kat hung up without leaving a message. She needed Jacki to help interpret the peculiar events of the day so naturally, Jacki, always there when you didn’t need her, wasn’t there, or wasn’t answering.

She called again. “Where are you?” she asked Jacki’s voicemail. She didn’t like the plaintive tone of her voice but out it came. “Jacki, I need you to call me right away.”

Where could she be? Jacki always kept her cell phone one inch from her ear. Kat called Raoul’s cell phone, but he didn’t answer. Then she called Raoul at UCLA.

Raoul’s assistant answered. “Can I help you?” asked a calm voice.

“I need to speak with Raoul urgently. It’s his sister-in-law, Kat,” she added, just in case he had what Kat’s boss called a jiggle list, a list where some people got through and some remained forever ba

“Raoul’s out,” the voice said automatically. Then, “You’re his wife’s sister?”

Under the circumstances, the frightening change of the voice on the other end of the phone from calm to solicitous, made Kat want to waffle. “Yes,” she finally admitted.

“She’s at the UCLA Medical Center.”

“She’s having her baby?”

“I don’t know about that. They took her in an ambulance.”

Ambulance? Weren’t those big white vehicles repositories of urgently sick people who might not make it? Didn’t they screech up the street, awakening babies and dogs and making people grind their teeth? “Why?”

“I’m afraid there’s been an accident. She got hit by a car.”

A tap, tap, tap at his office door interrupted Ray. He had rolled in about three-thirty in the afternoon, entirely missing the Antoniou deadline, missing the meeting.

“Come in.”

“Here at last. Praise God,” said Denise. “However.”

“Hi, Denise.” The good news was, she was still willing to talk to him.

She stepped inside the door to his office carefully.

“I want to tell you things can’t go on this way.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean we need you here. We need a leader.”

“Where’s Martin?”

“He came in for the meeting. When you didn’t show up, he sent Antoniou away and left. He didn’t even talk to Suza

Ray shifted in his chair. “I’m sorry.”

Denise sat down hard on a bench under the window. The light picked up a brash red in her dark hair. “Ray, I’m thinking of quitting.”

“Don’t do that.”

“We’re all frightened. Wondering. About Leigh. I’m worried about you every minute. I don’t want to leave you, but…”

Ray said, “What’s that got to do with Antoniou?” But it was obvious. His personal problems were wrecking the firm. “Look,” he said to that unwavering stare. “Don’t quit. I need you. This will all blow over soon. I’ll get Antoniou to sign on. I promise. Don’t worry about it. We put you in a tough position.” She relaxed slightly at this. “This temporary situation isn’t going to change anything. The firm is top priority for both Martin and me.”

“We need this commission,” Denise said. “But-”

“What?”

“When Antoniou got here and looked at the plans, I definitely got the impression he’s unhappy.”

“What doesn’t he like?”

“The design?” And this was accompanied by a look almost of pity. He doesn’t like my design, Ray thought, the incredible modernist manse that would jut like a ship’s prow off the bluff, the glass, the movable walls, the copper cladding, all the great ideas Ray had painstakingly culled and synthesized. Antoniou had nodded and nodded and nodded again as Ray described his vision. The son of a bitch-with a sinking feeling, Ray thought, I don’t have the energy to start all over on this thing.

Thinking aloud, he said, “I just have to sell him on it. What time is it?”

“Almost four. Uh, but…”

“Yes?” He waited.

She gulped. “Please, Ray. Maybe you should see a doctor. You don’t look good. You’re all banged up and your eyes look all starey.”

Martin arrived a few minutes later from his daily visit to the trattoria’s wine bar, bleary-eyed. “Thanks to your no-show, Antoniou is hedging. When you didn’t make the meeting, he refused to sign off on the preliminary design fee. He refused to write a check. You insulted him, Ray. Nice going.”

“I’m surprised you couldn’t handle him without me, Martin. You’re the persuader. That’s your job. You didn’t need me.”

“It was you he wanted to talk to. Because he-can’t-stand-your-design.”