The problem was positioning. There could be no surveillance from a car. They needed access to one of the other condos, preferably an adjacent one. Using Arnette’s computerized crisscross directory, Dani, with Arnette looking over her shoulder, called each of the adjacent units. The first one answered and Dani asked for a fictitious name and then apologized for the wrong number. The second one had a recording saying they couldn’t come to the telephone right now, leave a message. Dani tapped into the computer for the resident’s occupation. Lawrence Micheson, sales representative for Tectronics Aluminum Fabrications. She called the employer and asked to speak to Mr. Micheson. She was transferred to his secretary who said he was in Phoenix on business and wouldn’t be back until Saturday, could she take a message. No, thank you. Dani tapped into one of the credit bureaus and learned that Mr. Micheson was not married. Odds were: the place was empty.
It was decided that Remberto would go in. Murray would stay outside the complex on a side street that had a clear view of the entrance and let him know when someone was approaching the entrance gates.
The afternoon was still and sweltering, and by the time Remberto walked inside the complex his shirt was beginning to stick to him. That was the thing about Houston, moving here was like having never left Bolivia. The heat and humidity was just like working the Beni River jungles. But of course there had never been air conditioners in the valley of the Beni River. Remberto loved refrigerated air. It made him smile.
While Remberto and Murray were crossing the city, Dani had gone ahead and called the other two condos in the complex. The residents were not home at either of them. So of the five residences, the only ones that were occupied were Connie’s, where Faeber was waiting, and the one on the other side, the one immediately to the right as you entered the compound. Knowing this, Remberto did not have to worry about someone seeing him from behind or across the way. There had not been enough time to determine if there was an alarm system, and even if they had known that there was one, there had not been enough time to bring the electronic equipment to manipulate it or to contact their stringer at whichever security company had installed the system.
So, it was back to the jungle. Remberto was going to have to find a place outside in Micheson’s courtyard where he could watch Connie’s front door without Faeber being able to see him from inside the condo. It was just going to be a matter of scouting it out to see what vantage point best served the purpose.
Locating the right vantage point turned out to be easier than he had expected, though using it was going to be a tedious proposition. The brick wall separating Connie’s front courtyard from Micheson’s was ten inches wide. The design for the brick of which it was made called for a random placement of bricks to stick out several inches from the face of the wall creating a relatively accessible means of ascent The garages of the two condos backed up to each other having a common wall while the wall of the garages facing the entrances formed the front wall of the courtyard. Just inside Connie’s entrance court, in the corner created by the garage wall and the wall dividing the two properties, grew a healthy and shaggy Mexican fan palm, its large and verdant fronds just high enough to reach over the top of the wall.
Remberto used the jutting bricks to climb the wall and found a place to sit atop the wall leaning his back against the garage wall and under its eave. The fronds of the fan palm completely obscured him from the courtyard and from the windows on the front of Connie’s condo. He called Murray.
“Okay,” he said. “I’m in place, on top of the wall in her front courtyard.”
“No shit?”
“Yeah, really. Listen, it’s quiet here. If someone’s coming just buzz me twice.”
“Will do.”
Remberto settled in to wait He was fully aware that he might be there for hours, in fact, he expected to be. He also expected to be uncomfortable. And he was. Both courtyards were lush with vegetation which meant the humidity there was at the top end of the scale; and he felt every percentage point. The sun was just a little past meridian which meant the eave of the garage provided a ribbon of shade for the back of his head, but the ribbon was shrinking by the minute. Pretty soon he would be in full sun for an hour or so until the fan palm began to block it The steam rose out of the courtyards, and colonies of gnats moved in small congregations like clouds from palms to oleanders to azaleas to plumerias and eventually to Remberto whose sweat-drenched clothes attracted them like bees to nectar. That was okay. Remberto had lived with gnats before. Sweat poured from his hairline and ran down the back of his neck, behind his ears, down his forehead and into his eyes. That was okay. He had lived with sweat before.
But the brick wall was something else. Remberto’s butt was wider than ten inches, and after an hour he thought his spine was going to lock up on him. After an hour and a half he was beginning to get worried about what he was going to do. This was not something he thought he could endure for five or six hours. Instead of keeping his legs and feet together, pulled up in front of him, he shifted and dropped one on either side of the wall. That was a great relief-for about eight minutes-then the ridges of the bricks began to cut into his inner thighs, and he felt like his tailbone had no flesh at all between it and the bricks.
Then the handset buzzed twice.
Remberto froze and listened carefully. The signal meant only that a car was entering the compound. It could go to any residence, and he strained to try to determine which. Within a minute he heard the soft wheezing of an idling car pull into the concrete drive in front of Micheson’s garage to his left It idled for a moment and then stopped.
There was a brief wait before he heard the car door open. Girlfriend? Cleaning woman? Micheson sneaking back into town early without telling his employer? He knew Murray had been watching the car since it entered and would be observing where it finally stopped, and that he already would have called in the license plate for verification.
Remberto was not so well hidden from Micheson’s side of the courtyard. In fact he was practically in plain view. His heart raced as his mind rushed past his few options, and then suddenly he heard the car door close… softly… the single click of a door gently pushed to, just enough to keep it from swinging open, though not fully shut He froze. That was not the proper sound.
He heard footsteps leaving the concrete drive, but they faded away rather than growing louder as they should have if the person was approaching Micheson’s gate. Then he heard them getting louder again-but they were at Connie’s gate. Just as they stopped he realized they were a woman’s footsteps, a woman wearing heels.
She had a key to the gate and opened it. Connie? Rayner Faeber deciding to try to reason with her husband? But Graver had told Arnette that the two women had been warned to stay away. Had one of them simply ignored his instructions?
Remberto’s change of position had been a mistake. He could feel the nerves in his groins tingling which meant his inner thigh muscles were being pinched by the ridges in the bricks. But he couldn’t move. Not now.
The woman came into view: early forties, roan hair, a little chunky, but stylishly dressed in a business suit Attractive. She reminded Remberto of a realtor who might deal in the tonier parts of the city. There was something business-like and practical about her-maybe the way she handled her shoulder bag, sure of herself-expeditious in her manner.