Bestiary

CHAPTER FOUR

Greer could hear the TV blasting in the living room — sounded like Conan O’Brien — as he gathered his stuff together for a last check. He had his flashlight, with brand-new batteries, his wallet with complete fake ID (just in case he got pulled over or got into any trouble), a large black Hefty Sak with drawstring top, a pair of surgical gloves, glass cutter, and, finally, his Beretta handgun, loaded.

He was wearing black jeans and a black shirt, under a dark blue windbreaker with a lot of pockets for all his gear. He took one last glance in the mirror on the back of his bedroom door and thought, Jesus, with a mask I’d look like Zorro.

He’d hoped his mother might be asleep when he came out, but she wasn’t. She was propped in her easy chair, with one hand on the cat in her lap and the other in a bag of Trader Joe’s soy chips; since the soy chips were low-cal, she thought that meant you could eat as many bags of them as you wanted. It sure didn’t look that way to Greer. She was getting fatter all the time.

“You’re going out?” she said, without taking her eyes from the big-screen TV.

“Yeah.”

“Where?”

Christ, he felt like he was sixteen again. “What do you care?”

“Derek, why would you say that?” she said, doing a good imitation of sounding hurt.

“I’ll be back in a couple of hours.” He went to the apartment door, then said, dryly, “Don’t wait up.”

It was a California-style building, with an open courtyard in the middle and open hallways that looked down into it. But the place had been on rent control for years, and everything now was falling apart at the seams. The concrete floors were stained with God knew what, the plants in the courtyard were mostly dead, and the elevator stalled if more than two people had the nerve to get in at the same time. He wondered if his mother could stall it on her own now.

When he’d come back from Iraq, he’d moved into her back bedroom — where she normally kept her “collectibles”—with the full intention of staying just a few weeks, until he could get his act together and find a place of his own. But the weeks had gradually turned into months, and his disability payments sure lasted a lot longer when he only had to split the rent on a cheap apartment. His mother, who’d been a little put out at first, had also come to accept the idea — along with his cash. She lived on disability, too — for a bipolar disorder that made her no longer able to work for the Social Security Administration in Westwood — so between the two of them, they had things pretty much covered.

But not completely.

Greer had picked up some nasty habits — he liked to blame it on Iraq, but it wasn’t as if he’d been clean before going over there — and he could always use more money than he had. But a regular job would mess up his government money, so the way he looked at it, he was driven to this… sideline.

He’d studied his Thomas Guide before leaving the house, just to make sure he had the route down (along with a couple of ways out, if things went wrong), and he’d even checked to see if there was going to be a full moon that night. There was. That wasn’t actually all that bad; you had to use something to see where you were going, and a flashlight beam wasn’t exactly subtle. Besides, he only worked in the best neighborhoods, where most of the houses were pretty well concealed from any neighbors, anyway.

This place — Dr. Hugo’s, as Greer had learned when he told Sadowski he’d do it — was in the middle of a block with wide lots in Brentwood, just north of Sunset. The problem was always where to put the car; you couldn’t exactly leave it in the driveway, but you didn’t want it so far away that you had to run there dragging a Hefty bag full of stuff in your hand. In this case, Greer decided to park the Mustang across the street, a few doors down. He picked a spot under a shady tree and in front of a house under construction, making sure to angle the wheels away from the curb and to leave the doors unlocked.

The street was perfectly quiet, and Dr. Hugo’s house was dark, except for some stair lights in front that nicely illuminated the little sign that said SILVER BEAR SECURITY—24-HOUR PATROL. Greer looked up and down the street, then casually strolled to the side of the house; he’d taken his painkillers and the leg wasn’t bothering him much at all right now. He put on the surgical gloves.

There was a wooden gate, with a Beware of Dogs placard showing a barking German shepherd. Lots of people, he knew, just put out the signs for effect, and Sadowski had assured him there were no guard dogs on the premises — at least according to the file. Still, Greer was going to keep an eye out for any telltale sign like a water bowl, a leash hanging on the back of a door… or a pair of snarling jaws.

The side of the house sported an immense Weber gas grill, and in back, where the addition had been put on, it looked like a lap pool had been added, too. Some people had all the luck. The walls and window frames of the new room were still unpainted, and the whole place, even out here, still smelled of fresh wood and sawdust. The yard, Greer was pleased to see, was surrounded by trees and, in the rear, a high wall. This was going to be a piece of cake.

Just for the hell of it, he gently rattled the doorknobs of the French doors — you never could tell, some people were really asking for it — but they were locked. Taking out the glass cutter, he neatly removed a pane of glass just above the knob (the putty was still damp), placed it on the lawn, then reached in and opened the door. This was the moment when he’d normally have to be worried about an alarm, but he was trusting Sadowski to be right — though how dumb was that, he thought.

Inside, the wooden floor creaked as he made his way, in new black high-top sneakers, across it, and then into a kitchen, where rows of copper pots hung, gleaming in the moonlight, above a center island. There was a hallway off to the left, with a few rooms opening off it. He had his flashlight in one hand, and the Hefty bag, unfurled, in the other. One room was a den, the next a bathroom, and the third looked like a home office; there was a laptop computer, a printer, stuff like that. If he had time, and room in the bag, he’d check it out on the way back out. No reason to carry anything heavy up and down the stairs.

The master bedroom was what he was looking for—90 percent of what you wanted was always in there. He mounted the stairs slowly — they made a turn on a wide, carpeted landing — and at the top he played the flashlight beam around. Again, there were several doors, but the master bedroom, he figured, would be in back, overlooking the pool and the yard. The walls had mounted, glass-covered photos on them, glamour shots of old movie stars — this Dr. Hugo guy had to be a fag — and at the end double doors stood open to what had to be the master suite.

As Greer approached it, he could see a dresser, with what was unmistakably a digital camera sitting on top. He’d been wanting one of those! The bed, against the far wall, was one of those canopied jobs, with heaps of bolsters and pillows. He was already dropping the camera into the plastic bag when a dog barked.

Not a loud bark — just a yip, really. But it was in the room, very close.

It yipped again, and Greer turned the flashlight beam to the corner. A sleepy old cocker spaniel was sitting up on a dog bed.

Not a problem, Greer thought with relief.

“Brian?”

He flicked off the light and froze in place. This could be a problem.

“Bri?” It was a girl’s voice; she was in the bed. He heard the covers rustle. “You up?”

Shit. He gauged the distance to the door.

“What are you doing?”

Greer didn’t answer. Was she looking at him, or just mumbling from her pillow?

Could he manage to get out? he was wondering, when the bathroom door swung open and a white kid with his hair in dreads came out, in an open robe.

“You say something?”

Greer turned the flashlight on, and shone it right into the kid’s face. “Who are you?” he demanded.

The kid didn’t answer, or move.

“Who are you?” the girl asked. She was sitting up now, with a sheet in front of her.

“Security,” Greer declared. “Silver Bear. Now, answer me!”

“I’m Julia,” the girl said, terror in her voice. “The dog-sitter.”

Greer wasn’t sure what to say next. “Nobody’s supposed to be here.”

“Sometimes I stay over,” the girl said. “Dr. Hugo knows.”

And then she turned on the bedside light. And Greer found himself standing there, wearing a pair of rubber gloves, with the Hefty bag in one hand, the flashlight in the other, between the two of them. There could be no mistaking what was really up.

“You,” he said, waving at the kid — Brian — with the flashlight. “Get on the floor, on your stomach! Now!”

The kid got down on the floor. “And you,” he said to Julia. “Lie down on the bed.”

“Don’t hurt us,” she said, very softly. She was about eighteen, in a football jersey.

The dog yipped again, but didn’t move from the corner.

Greer was thinking fast. He dropped the sack, put one foot on the small of Brian’s back, and yanked the cotton belt free from the robe. Then he went over to the bed and told Julia to put her hands together, behind her.

“Please don’t hurt us.”

“Shut up.” God damn, he thought. What a fuck-up this was. God damn that Sadowski.

He looped the belt around her hands, a couple of times, then, dropping the flashlight on the bed, knotted it.

And that’s when Brian made his move; the kid was fast, up on his feet and running for the door.

Greer lunged for him, but missed. He caught just the end of the flapping robe, which burned through his fingers.

He grabbed the flashlight and raced after him, his bad leg juiced by all the adrenaline. The kid didn’t know the house any better than he did, and flew past the stairs, before having to whip around and tumble down them. Greer was just a couple of steps behind.

The kid wheeled at the bottom and made not for the front door but the back, down the hall, through the kitchen, into the addition. At the French doors he had to stop and fumble with the knobs, and just as he got them open, Greer was able to grab him by the collar, spin him around, and club him in the face with the heavy-duty flashlight.

The kid fell backward, into the yard, but he didn’t fall. There was blood all over his lips. He kept back-pedaling, toward the lap pool, and Greer smacked him again. The kid kept going.

Christ, Greer thought, wasn’t he ever gonna stay down?

The grass was slick, and the kid started to slip. Greer saw his chance and shoved him toward the pool. Just before he toppled over, Greer hit him again, hard, across the cheek.

The kid went in, with a huge splash, and Greer, panting, stood by the side of the lighted pool, waiting. The kid floated, a cloud of blood seeping into the water. Greer waited. Was he dead? Was he faking? The blood began to disperse in the water.

Christ almighty, was he going to have to get into the goddamned pool?

The girl was screaming now; he could hear her even out here.

Greer knelt down and snagged the kid by the collar of his robe, pulled him over to the side. With one huge tug, he had him levered onto the grass again… where he left him, sputtering but alive, before snapping off the rubber gloves in disgust, stashing them in his pocket, and heading back to his car.

Sadowski was going to hear about this.

And his leg, he just knew, was going to give him hell later that night.