True Detectives

CHAPTER 34

Standing on Lem Dement's private property-a black man in dark clothes and gloves, packing a gun-triggered a rush of what-ifs in Aaron's head.

There could be motion detectors. A guard dog.

A herd of guard dogs.

Maybe even a bodyguard or a rent-a-cop. Or two. Though in all the time he'd watched the house, he'd never spotted any muscle coming in or out.

Unless Ax Dement counted for that.

Less threatening employees could be a problem, too. Maids, butlers, houseboys, whatever. Not spotting any of those meant little if live-in help rarely left the premises.

With a big enough property-your own private town-there'd be no reason to leave. Especially with a gofer like Stoltz as the outside guy.

Black man in the Hills.

Nothing Aaron hadn't considered before vaulting the gate. Lord knew, he'd mulled this move in his head a million times.

Risks he'd chosen to disregard because two girls were dead and so was a baby and he was fed up with being hampered by rules and regs and whatnot bullshit. By the wet-blanket voice-in-his-head that passed itself off as Common Sense.

He was an Uncommon Man, not some damned civil servant.

Groupthink; he'd tasted that thin soup for ten years, spit it out in favor of a gourmet broth seasoned by Personal Initiative and Free Enterprise.

Let Moe and people like Moe deal with wants, warrants, orders from downtown, cover-your-ass freeze-tag. Hurdle after hurdle imposed by a brain-dead system.

Aaron hadn't heard from his brother since the meeting with Delaware.

Someone else who wasn't returning his calls.

Here we go: Intrepid Masai warrior faces the the abyss.

He smiled at the self-inflation. But there was truth to it. Two girls were dead. A baby, for God's sake, and he'd accomplished zero and Mr. Dmitri demanded results. Rules and regs were not going to cut it.

He'd quit the damned system because he was tired of being penned up like some pet pony.

Fearless black stallion stands tall among the dray horses. Snorts and bucks as he races for freedom.

No guard dog yet.

Not smart, Detective Fox.

Better to be a living fool than a dead cog. His life-the life he'd made for himself-was all about tough choices and living with the consequences.

The consequences had been sweet. Three hundred K a year, the Porsche, the private haberdashery, the women-he deserved a vacation once the case was buttoned up.

Once, not if.

Black man in the Hills.

Maybe moments away from the biggest disaster of his life.

He remained still for a long time, standing to the right side of the curving drive, concealed by columnar cypress shadows. Took a step forward. Waited some more.

No stampeding rottweilers, no concealed sensors that he could spot. Those suckers were easy to hide, he'd installed more than his share of them.

Twenty more steps brought no view of the house, just rough, winding concrete beneath his feet. Same for fifty. A hundred. Tree after tree forming opaque green-black walls. The property was vast.

Still no canine growl. No alarms, no warnings canned or live. No padded rent-a-cop footsteps.

Aaron kept going, hand on his Glock. Damned drive was what- half a mile long?

Italian cypresses said it was probably one of those Tuscan villas, maybe an eight-figure teardown-buildup, Lem Dement all flush from his biblical splatter flick.

Or maybe what lay up ahead was one of the old original Italianate mansions that had studded the Hollywood Hills during the Golden Age that Aaron had read about.

He liked that notion, kept most of his head focused on the job but allowed a small corner to be decorated by fantasy.

Big-snouted chromed monsters-Duesenbergs and Packards and Rolls Phantoms-tooling up this very drive on a warm night like this one. Liveried chauffeurs, laughing passengers. Bud-vases, champagne buckets in the trunk-the boot.

Gleaming chariots cruising up silently, dropping off the likes of Harlow and Gable and Cooper and Hedy Lamarr in the porte cochere of a fifty-room wedding-cake mansion. The entire place alive with golden light and witty chatter.

Slim stylish people in gowns and evening jackets talking in that clipped, self-satisfied almost English accent, highball glasses lofted gracefully by manicured hands.

A life filled with one cocktail party after another-in the mansion's great hall, a grand piano-Gershwin himself plinking the keys.

Billiards, brandy, cigars for the men.

Bird-chatter giggles and frothy girl-drinks for the women.

Everyone loving their life… as he trudged, ever watchful for threat, Aaron imagined the mansion's interior. Soaring arched windows offering heart-stopping views. The city spread in repose, a woman of leisure.

From that to Mason Book and Ax Dement in Hyundais and pickups, buying sex at the Eagle Motel. Smoking up and sniffing H in a damned state park.

Guilt and atonement. That crazy woman…

Aaron stopped, listened. Just the traffic buzz, a little louder now.

No parties tonight.

Not the type anyone enjoyed.

He completed another forty yards before the drive finally straightened and the cypresses ended and he was facing a wide, unadorned circular driveway of the same ugly concrete.

No vehicles in sight.

Nothing remotely Tuscan.

Nothing remotely Golden Age.

The house was one-story, free-form, a long, low knife fashioned of iron girders and glass.

Glass-on-glass, no apparent seams. Wedge-like-a spaceship, perched on the edge of a cliff, pointy snout extending well over the precipice.

Prepared to launch.

Below oblique steel struts fastening the structure to the cliff, miles of light. Free fall into oblivion. Staring at it made Aaron feel dizzy and he looked away to clear his head.

Not a trace of green anywhere around the house. A cold, deliberate structure.

Nowhere to hide once he set out across the motor court.

All that glass. Lights on in room after transparent room.

White, wide rooms, the kind of low, black leather furniture Aaron liked.

So cold; maybe it was time to reconsider his décor.

Empty.

Then it wasn't.

♦

Mason Book, wearing a too-large black robe, face gaunt, yellow hair wild, appeared around a white wall and walked-more like hobbled- toward the front of the house-right into the wedge that hovered above empty space.

The actor stood there, staring straight ahead.

Protected by darkness, Aaron jogged forward, positioned himself ten feet from the house, with a side view of the knife-point.

He peered under the building. Just enough backyard for a bright blue infinity pool.

Still no dogs, no alarms and all those interior lights put Mason Book on full display-like one of those performance art pieces.

Book had no clue someone could be watching. Let's hear it for false confidence. Too many years being buffered from reality.

He stumbled, barely caught his balance. His robe fell open.

Lousy skinny body. The actor sat down with apparent pain. Continued staring out at what had to be black, blank space.

Like a kid ready for takeoff.

Aaron edged closer.

Sad kid, weeping.