Last shot

Chapter 34

Lights killed, the oversize Bronco idled beneath an overhang of pepper tree branches, Ted Sands's complaints from the cargo area muffled by a gag. Walker had taken care to dress Ted's visible half appropriately-dinner jacket, bow tie, starched shirt, even a white handkerchief teased into view. Important to observe proper etiquette. Sounds of the party trickled up the unreasonably broad street, reaching Walker at the steering wheel. Of all the Bel Air estates he'd passed, the Kagan mansion had the grandest setback, a rambling garden decorated with stone walls, trickling fountains, koi-stocked ponds, and a leisurely walk that diverged into loops before widening into a circular, bench-fringed patio about ten yards from the imposing front door of the main house.

It was a quarter past ten, and from the jazzish tunes and conversational hum pouring over the house with the glow of strung Asian lanterns, the backyard party was in full swing. The valets remained around the corner, their station positioned before the south entrance's adorned gates that led to the bash. Deliveries to the rear kitchen off the service road appeared to have slowed. The house front, a classic two-story rise, didn't seem of a particular style. Like its neighbors, it just seemed mansiony.

And right now it seemed quiet.

Keeping the Bronco's lights off, Walker accelerated up the dark street, braking sharply at the top of the walk. He got out, his slamming door renewing Ted's stifled pleas. Moving briskly, efficiently, Walker swung out the carrier and opened the tailgate, leaning the two aluminum strips into place. Encased in his concrete block atop the flatbed dolly, Ted jounced down the ramp. Hands on his shoulders, Walker pushed him, jerking in his mold and yelling into a mouthful of balled cotton, up the front walk. At the circular patio, Walker dumped the block off the dolly, the weight of it cracking the flagstone.

He stood over Ted, wide-stanced. A jerk of his wrist and the steel blade flicked out from the handle. "Hold this." Walker spun the knife, reclaimed it in a fist, and punched it down into the dense muscle of Ted's shoulder. Bellowing, veins raised in his flushed neck, Ted fought to free his hands but succeeded only in rebreaking the scabs ringing his wrists.

Walker pulled a grenade from one of his many cargo pockets, and the whites of Ted's eyes seemed to dilate. Ted fought desperately to say something. Walker pulled out his gag. Before Ted could scream, Walker rammed the grenade in his mouth and secured it with electrical tape, which he double-wound around Ted's head. Ted was screaming now, the noise no louder than the distant beat of the swing number struck up by the band.

Walker jogged up the wide steps to the massive porch. Dark strips of plexi-coating showed at the edges of the windowpanes-they were bullet-resistant. He saw deep into the house, past the dark front rooms. In the kitchen an imperious catering captain paced before her cowed waitstaff, barking orders, Patton gone gourmet. A plastered guest loosed his cummerbund and headed into a restroom.

Unspooling a few feet of fishing line, Walker tied an improvised clinch knot around the well-polished brass door handle and rang the bell. An exclamation from within.

The monofilament let out with a zip as he moved swiftly back down the walk. Ted stopped fighting the block once Walker slipped a finger through the grenade pin sticking up above the band of electrical tape. He tugged the knife from Ted's shoulder, freeing a blood flow that saturated the ivory polyester of the dinner jacket. Cutting the fishing line from the spool, he tied the end to the grenade ring.

A shrill, barely audible voice from the house: "Edwin, I don't know why, but someone's arrived at the front door."

Walker set his full weight behind a boot and shoved the block back a few screeching inches, bringing the line taut. Ted leaned forward as far as the concrete would allow, but still Walker could've strummed a high C on the razor-straight line.

Ted hyperventilated in pained grunts, snot flaring from his nostrils, eyes fixed on the burgundy front door.

From inside came the officious approach of heels on marble.

Walker nudged Ted's bow tie straight, drew himself up, and stared down at Ted's contorted form. "In ten seconds your head will explode."

He flashed off, his jungle boots slapping the flagstone.