Swimming to Catalina

38

They ordered dinner sent to the suite and ate well. Barbara had only one glass of wine, but it seemed to have an amorous effect, since she was playing footsie under the table. Stone, though, was preoccupied. He felt that having Arrington’s car at the Beverly Hills Hotel was a liability, no matter where it was parked; in fact, he was beginning to wonder if he’d chosen the best possible hotel for his purposes. The traffic of movie people through the lobby and the Polo Lounge was phenomenal, he knew, and he didn’t want to run into Louis Regenstein or David Sturmack, or anybody he had met at Vance’s house. He’d deal with that in the morning, but in the meantime, he wanted to get rid of Arrington’s car. He thought it might be time, too, to explain some facts to Vance Calder.

“Let’s go for a drive,” he said.

“I thought maybe we’d…”

“Love to, but later.”

“Where are we going?”

“To Vance Calder’s house.”

“Great!”

“We’re not going inside.”

“Oh.” Her face fell.

“But you can get a good look at it.”

“If we’re not going inside, why bother?”

“I’m going inside, but I don’t want Vance to see you; it might be dangerous.”

“How?”

“Trust me on this, Barbara.”

“Oh, all right.”

While Barbara followed in the E430, Stone drove Arrington’s car, and it made him nervous; the vanity plate was just too conspicuous. Still, he made it to Bel-Air unmolested. A block from Vance’s house he stopped the car, got out, and went back to the sedan. “I want you to wait here,” he said.

“But I haven’t seen his house yet,” she complained.

“I promise I’ll show it to you when I’m finished, all right?”

“All right. Suppose the police come and want to know what I’m doing here?”

“The police are not going to bother a beautiful woman in a Mercedes,” he said. “But if anybody asks, just tell them you’re waiting for a friend.” He wrote his portable number on a card and gave it to her. “If you have any problems, just use the car phone and call me; my cell phone is in my pocket.”

“Okay.”

Stone got back into the convertible and drove around the corner to Vance’s house. He could see lights on inside, but the gates were locked. He was about to press the buzzer outside the gates when he had a thought. He opened the compartment under the center amirest, rummaged around, and came up with what he had been looking for. He pressed the remote, and the gates swung silently open.

Farther up the drive, it forked and he turned toward the garages. Using the remote control again, he opened the garage door, drove the car inside, and parked it next to Vance’s identical, except black, convertible. He didn’t want to enter the house this way, so he left the garage, pressing a button inside the door to close it, and started up the walk toward the front door. As he did, a car’s lights flooded the driveway, and he stopped behind a bush. The car was at the front gate, and a moment later, the gates swung open, and the visitor drove up the driveway.

The visitor parked his car and entered the house, but Stone’s view of the house was not good enough to reveal the identity of the driver. He had wanted to see Vance alone; a visitor was not in his plans, so he started back down the driveway. Another time, he thought.

He reached the gates and found them closed. How would he open them now? From the inside, he reflected, they probably opened on a magnetic sensor as a car approached them; what he needed was some object of ferrous metal large enough to make the sensor react. He looked to his left and right and saw a rake on the edge of a flower bed; that might do it. He walked toward it, and as he did, another car suddenly arrived at the gate. Stone jumped into the shrubbery and waited while the car was admitted and made its way up the drive. The gates closed before he could get to them.

He was about to try the rake when he became curious about who was visiting Vance at this hour of the evening. It was after ten, too late for a social occasion. He dropped the rake and walked up the driveway again, remembering the layout of Vance’s house. Lights were on at the front, so he couldn’t go peeking in windows; then he remembered Vance’s study, which was at the rear of the house, off the living room.

He walked past the garage and around toward the rear of the house. He saw a light in a window ahead and made for that. Keeping low, parting the shrubbery as silently as he could, he made his way to the window and, at a comer, raised his head above the sill. Three men were in the room-Vance, Louis Regenstein, and a man Stone didn’t recognize. He was around forty, casually dressed in a tweed jacket, red-haired, probably of Irish extraction.

Regenstein was saying something, but Stone couldn’t hear what it was. Whatever he was saying, it was making Vance angry. “No!” Vance said loudly, then lowered his voice and continued in a strident manner.

Regenstein and the other man were obviously trying to placate him, but Vance was very angry indeed. Stone looked across the room and saw that Vance was standing near a window on the far wall. Maybe Stone could hear from there. He was about to move to that side of the house when the telephone in his pocket rang, loudly. He flattened himself against the house and scrambled for the phone, finally getting to it after the second ring.

“Hello,” he whispered.

“Vance, it’s Barbara; how much longer are you going to be? I’m getting tired of sitting here.”

“A few minutes; listen to the radio or something, and don’t call me again unless it’s an emergency.”

“What kind of emergency?”

“Just don’t call again.” He snapped the phone shut and peeked into the room again. The three men were looking around, trying to discover the source of the noise. Stone pushed slowly back through the shrubbery, and as he did he was hit from all sides by water. Half blinded, Stone blundered through the flowerbed to the grass, but got no relief from the continuous spray. It must be on a timer, he thought, and the sprinkler heads were placed to give full coverage. He ran to the corner of the house, and as he turned it, lights came on-bright lights, floodlights, activated by a motion sensor, most likely. There was probably a silent alarm, too. There was nothing for it but to run.

The floodlights revealed a tall wrought-iron fence at the rear of the house, and he thought it might be electrified, so the front gate seemed his only chance. He sprinted past the garage and across the lawn, not bothering with the driveway, and as he did, the front lawn sprinklers came on, too. He charged across the grass, grabbed the rake, and started waving it at the gates. Nothing.

Stone looked desperately around for a sensor and saw a small box on a foot-high steel pole. He waved the rake at it and, finally, the front gates started to open; he threw away the rake and ran into the street, legs pumping. The police were going to arrive any second, he reckoned, so it was no time for a stroll. He made the corner, turned it and ran up the block, looking for the car. It was gone. Through some trees to his right he saw a car wearing flashing lights turning a corner. He crossed the road and dived through a hedge, hitting the ground on all fours, then flattened himself on the grass as the car sped past. He caught sight of a car door that proclaimed the vehicle to be from the Bel-Air Security Patrol. The car turned the corner toward Vance’s house, and Stone broke back through the hedge. Somewhere behind him a dog-avery large dog, from the sound of him-had begun to bark. He stood in the street, soaking wet, grass-stained, and completely exposed, and tried to think what to do next.

As he thought, another car turned the corner to his right, and Stone was about to plunge through the hedge again when he realized the approaching headlights were a familiar oval shape. He ran at the car, hoping to God it was not somebody else’s E-class Mercedes, and waved it down. Shielding his eyes from the headlights, he could see Barbara behind the wheel. He flung himself into the passenger side.

“Get out of here!” he said. “Take a left at the corner!”

“Stone, what happened?” she asked. “You’re dripping wet.”

The car had not moved.

“Barbara,” Stone said as quietly and as slowly as he could, “Please drive away and make a left. Do itright now. ”

“Oh, all right,” she said, and she drove slowly away.

“Faster,” he said.

“How fast?”

“Faster than this!” he hissed.

“Maybe you’d better drive,” she said.

“Stop the car.” He got out, ran around the car, and, when she had settled herself in the passenger seat, smoothed her skirt, fastened her seatbelt, and closed the door, roared off into the Bel-Air night.

“Stone,” she said.

“What?”

“I didn’t get to see Vance’s house.”