Thick as Thieves

47

There’s only one place left for Carr to go, but it isn’t late enough yet, and he needs a shower. He takes a room at a Fairfield Inn near the airport and stands under the spray for a long time. He uses all the little bars of soap and all of the shampoo, but still it’s not enough. Wrapped in a towel, lying on the bed, he tries to work the puzzles-the efficient double taps in both bodies, the lack of struggle, the missing laptops, no Mike-but nothing will sit still. He sees Dennis, dumped like lost luggage beside the table. He sees Bobby’s wry, irritated, tired face. Fuckin’ Carr, he hears him say. He can hear the flies and feel them lighting on his hair and arms.

Amy Chun’s gated community has decent security, but the golf course abutting it does not. The cart path that runs along the sixth fairway is bordered on one side by palms and lush plantings, and on the other side by an eight-foot wrought-iron fence. Amy Chun’s house lies just beyond, across an empty street. Crouched on the golf course side, Carr watches. Just past midnight, just after the security cruiser makes its half-hourly run, he climbs over.

The house is modern and glass, all planes and angles, and the landscaping is all about privacy-tall bamboo, fanning palmettos, and long ornamental grasses. Path lights pick out a white gravel walk that disappears into the foliage.

All the windows that Carr can see are dark. He crosses the street quickly, finds heavy shadows, and waits. Nothing moves, nothing but bugs make a sound. Carr is quiet approaching the front door. It is massive and metal clad, and there’s a discreet sign nearby, warning of alarms and armed response. Carr would be more concerned if he couldn’t see the control pad through the door sidelight, and the status indicator glowing green, for disarmed.

He follows a path around the back to a long deck. It looks out on a man-made pond and a garden of rocks and combed gravel. In the dark it looks to Carr like the surface of the moon. Glass doors run the length of the deck, but the glass is dark, and Carr can see nothing inside. He takes out his phone and tries Valerie’s number, and then Mike’s. He gets no answer, and hears nothing from inside. He’s not sure if he’s relieved. Then he punches Amy Chun’s number.

The phone is loud through the glass. It rings five times, and then the voice mail kicks in. Amy Chun’s voice is crisp and businesslike, and her message is brief. Carr closes his phone and pulls on his plastic gloves. He turns on the flashlight, takes out the screwdriver, and takes a deep breath.

Amy Chun’s air-conditioning is efficient, but the cool temperature doesn’t mask the odor. It hits Carr harder this time, and he has to hold the door frame until his head stops spinning. He turns on the flashlight, shrouds the beam with his hand, and follows the smell.

Through the living room, down a short hall, to a frosted-glass door, half-opened and marred by a jagged crack. Amy Chun’s office. Despite the overturned chairs, the crooked pictures on the wall, and the books and papers on the floor, Carr recognizes it from Dennis’s spycam video. The desk is askew, but Chun’s Isla Privada laptop is there, along with the other hardware-the password generator, the fingerprint scanner, and Chun’s cell phone. And there is blood too.

It’s on the edge of the desk, and the arms of the chair, but most of it is on the floor, in the corner, around Amy Chun’s body. Her back is against the wall, and one bare leg is bent beneath her. The other is straight out in front. Her arms are at her sides, and her hands lie palms up on the floor-a supplicant’s hands, Carr thinks. Her head hangs down, and her long black hair hides her torso. Carr is grateful he can’t see her face.

The smell is stronger here, and Carr’s head is spinning again. He can’t look away from her hands, her pleading fingers, and he feels embarrassed-as if he’s come upon her in the midst of something deeply private. The flashlight seems a terrible invasion, and Carr turns it off, but even in the dark he can see her hands.

He remembers her walking with Valerie beneath the arcade, their heads bent close, their fingers brushing. He remembers the bar in Houston, the green paper lanterns hanging, the smell of beer and cigarettes, Bobby and Dennis watching Valerie. He sees Howard Bessemer’s pale hands, and his pale, round face drifting away. And suddenly, desperately, he needs air. Carr turns and the beam hits him full in the face.

It’s a hard blue light, and he can’t see who is behind it, but the glint of the chromed gun barrel is unmistakable, and so is the bass rumble of the voice. Like thunder, but not at all distant.

“Where are you rushing to?” Mr. Boyce says. “And where the fuck is my money?”