Hot Pursuit

15

The following day Stone got a call from Bob Cantor.

“Hey, Bob.”

“Stone, we’re done at Pat Frank’s place. We wired her apartment, the front door, and the doctor’s office, after hours, and we changed the relevant locks. She’s about as secure as she’s going to get. Oh, and she does have a gun. When she was an airline pilot she qualified to be armed aboard her flights, and when the airline went belly-up, she kept the gun. She’s licensed to carry in Kansas, but unlicensed anywhere else, except on a dead airline.”

“Did you take it away from her?”

“I tried.”

“Okay, I’ll have that conversation with her.”

“Somebody should. She strikes me as the sort who would use it if she felt the need.”

“She strikes me the same way.”

“And she may have the need,” Cantor said.

“You ran Kevin Keyes’s name?”

“Yep, and I came up with three arrests for incidents of domestic abuse, in one of which a gun got waved around. That was the last one, when he was living with Pat Frank.”

“Who did the waving?”

“He did.”

“Convictions?”

“None. He agreed to take an anger management course after the third one and did a few hours of community service.”

“Did they revoke his carry license?”

“Nope.”

“Figures.”

“It’s Kansas, what can I tell you?”

“Any other concerns, Bob?”

“I talked her into letting me put a really good camera covering the front door. She can check it on a screen in the entryway coat closet before she buzzes anybody in. Trouble is, an intruder could ring any of the rental apartment bells and get buzzed in, if the renter doesn’t take the time to communicate with the one buzzing, or if they’re expecting someone and assume that the one buzzing is their guest, and just buzz ’em in.”

“Maybe Pat should have screens installed in the three apartments.”

“Pat doesn’t know her renters yet, and she’s uncomfortable with asking them to have a screen installed in their apartments. She doesn’t want to frighten them. I offered to frighten them for her, but she wouldn’t let me.”

“Maybe I’ll write them a letter saying that someone has been troubling the landlord and not to admit anyone unless they know for sure who’s at the door.”

“Good idea, if you can talk her into it.”

“She’s coming over to dinner tonight. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Good luck, buddy.”

Stone’s bell rang at the stroke of seven. He tapped a code into his computer, and the screen showed Pat, in color and high definition, waiting at the door. He pressed a button to start a video, then he pressed another button. “Yes? Who is it?”

“How many people could it be?” she asked.

“There are eight million stories in the naked city,” he replied. “You could be any one of them.”

“Would you rather I go home and sulk?”

“I’m in the study.” He pressed the buzzer, and she came in. A minute later, she appeared in the doorway, and he motioned her over to his desk and played the video, with sound.

“Wow,” she breathed. “Can I do that with my system?”

“If you take the trouble to read the manual. I can do that with any outside door and inside the garage, as well. And the three people who live in the house next door — my secretary, my housekeeper, and Fred — can do the same thing. You should give your renters the same equipment, or one night they’ll inadvertently buzz in somebody who’s not delivering Chinese food or pizza.”

“You’ve been talking to Bob Cantor.”

“I certainly have.” He got up from his desk and poured them both a Knob Creek.

“I just don’t want to spend the money to put the equipment in the rental apartments.”

“You’ve been given a free building, but you don’t want to spend a few grand to secure it? If you don’t, then one fine night one of your tenants will buzz in the wrong person, and all the money you’ve spent on Bob Cantor’s services will be for naught. And worse, you’ll probably end up shooting the guy, and you will not believe how much trouble you’d be in and how much it would cost you to get out of it.”

“Are you going to give me the lecture about my gun?”

“You’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy, you’re in the Emerald City, where the local powers frown on the possession of firearms.”

“And I can’t get a carry license here?”

“Nope, not unless you can demonstrate that you regularly walk around in possession of large sums of cash or a briefcase full of diamonds. I can help you get a license to take your weapon to a firing range in the city, which is also a license to have it in your apartment, but you can’t carry it anywhere, except to the range. How about that?”

“Okay.”

“I’ll have Joan get the application sent to you, but remember this: the first thing you have to learn about possessing a firearm is to never, never shoot anybody.”

“What if he’s shooting at me?”

“Maybe if he’s already hit you.”

“Oh, great!”

“All right, let’s say you shoot the guy under perfectly legal circumstances: you then call nine-one-one, ask for the police, tell them there’s been a shooting and to send two ambulances.”

“Why two?”

“One for him and one for you. You must remember that you’re going to be in terrible, terrible shape, knowing that you’ve shot another human being. Spend at least one night in the hospital getting over it. That will impress the assistant DA, who will be assigned to decide whether to prosecute you.”

“Okay, I’ll remember that.”

“And your second call will be to me. I’ll get there before the ambulance takes you away. And, in the unlikely event that the cops arrive before I do, I want you sitting down with the gun unloaded and the slide locked back and at the other end of the coffee table from you. Cops don’t really want to shoot people — not many of them, anyway — but they know that if they enter a room and see a person dead on the floor and another person holding a firearm, they can pretty much shoot first and ask questions later, and you don’t want to put armed cops in that position.”

Pat took a swig of her bourbon. “And why are you going on and on about this?”

“Because I’ve had a look at Kevin Keyes’s arrest record.”

“You mean that incident when I threw him out of the house and he objected?”

“That incident and the two before it with other women.”

She set down her glass. “What other women?”

“Does it matter? You were his third strike, and he’s still not out.”

“Good God.”

“And now, it’s time you told me all about him.”