“He thinks it’s a mercy killing,” I said. “He thinks something worse is going to happen to us. He thinks the whole world is going to be—” Talbot was still smirking. “Is this funny to you?”
“No no!” he said, smiling wide enough to show teeth. “It’s just …”
“I know.” Talbot didn’t have to say it. He felt like a hero, fighting to save the world, and he loved it.
“There is a dream in my eye,” Csilla suddenly said. “I see strangers and darkness and a thought as large as the universe.”
After a moment of awkward silence, Annalise said: “We know what he wants. Why does he think he can make it happen here, in Los Angeles?”
“I pressed him to find out what he was doing, but …” What was I supposed to say? He started calling me a rock star and I got distracted? “I’m sorry. I was focused on the predators. All he told me is that he needed people to get a puzzle. He had a simple plan to steal it, but he blew it.”
Annalise put down her fork. “He had a simple plan?”
“He’s not a smart guy, boss. I don’t think he could plan a meal, let alone an elaborate crime.”
“Have you seen this?” Talbot asked between bites of toast. He slid a newspaper across the table toward me. At the top was a notice about security preparations for the president to speak at the L.A. Convention Center about renewable energy or something. But below that was a follow-up article on the movie star break-in. Ms. Egan-Jade’s spokesperson said the actress was going to sell her house without returning to it. She’d also set aside a trust fund for the murdered housecleaner’s children. Apparently, the woman had died. To Egan-Jade’s credit, she also blasted unnamed media personalities who had expressed relief that “only” a housekeeper had been killed.
I liked her just for that. At the bottom of the article, it stated that police had no leads but were investigating puzzling aspects of the case.
I glanced up at the others. They were watching me, waiting impatiently for me to finish. “Puzzling aspects?” I asked.
Csilla narrowed her eyes. “So many dreams that they come to life. Puzzling.” I couldn’t tell if she was responding to me or not.
Talbot smiled. If it stretched and hurt his fat lip, he didn’t show it. “See, that’s what I’ve been doing. It’s surprisingly hard to get information out of the cops in this town. Easy to get them to crack you on the head with a stick, but hard to get them to take a bribe.” He spoke like he was giving a performance, and he was so snide about it that I wanted to punch him again.
“We are beautiful children swimming in the belly of the great fish,” Csilla said.
“I found out some interesting things, though,” Talbot continued. I glanced at Annalise; she watched Talbot carefully, absorbed by what he was saying. Not two years ago, she had refused to tell me anything about the job we were on, and now I was allowed to sit at the grown-up table for the grown-up talk. It was a big change, and it felt good. Talbot kept talking: “For instance, Ms. Egan-Jade’s home had a state-of-the-art security system. Cameras everywhere, and even a guard with a twelve-gauge to look over things. The cameras were running, too. The cops have a digital video of the break-in.”
“Who did it?” I asked.
“Nobody,” he said, and he smiled as though he was pleased with himself. “I’ve seen the video. The lock on the front gate breaks apart and swings open a few feet, but no one is there. When the guard shows up to check it out, he collapses from no apparent cause. It was an hour before the cops found him, stretched out in some bushes. He’s in a coma now. Brain damage. They don’t think he’ll wake up, and you don’t hear anyone talking about him on the news, or his kids, but hey, he’s just a white male.
“Anyway, the cops don’t have a recording of the attack, but it’s not the only one. There have been several different break-ins around the city—women’s homes, banks, jewelry stores, all sorts of places.”
“Where? Do you have a map or something?”
Talbot snorted. “No. I don’t have pushpins, either. But some of them take place at different locations at pretty much the same time, so we know it’s more than one of your friends doing it. The cops think someone has a new, superfast version of Photoshop, and the burglars are bringing a laptop to erase themselves from the video files, somehow. There were two break-ins last night, in fact. A jewelry store and a convent. Two women were killed.”
I nodded. Was this Wally’s plan? To create people who could break in anywhere, stir up the cops with these crimes, and … And what? What would he get out of that?
Nothing. Wally wasn’t the type to create chaos. Events were hard enough to predict under normal circumstances, and I couldn’t imagine him drawing more danger to himself.
But he had brought me down to L.A., knowing I wanted to kill him. Caramella had said she was doing a favor by visiting me, and Arne said favors were what Wally expected in return for his “super powers.” Wally wanted me and the Twenty Palace Society to take care of the drapes, yeah, and the drapes allowed people to break in anywhere without getting caught, but what if Wally expected to be long gone by the time we got here?
“Where was the first break-in?” I asked.
CHAPTER NINE
For once, we didn’t drive in Annalise’s battered Dodge Sprinter. Csilla had a black Grand Vitara, which was a little embarrassing, but at least Talbot had to drive. I sat in back.
We skirted a country club, got lost for a short while as Talbot drove in circles, then finally pulled up to a house in Hancock Park. There were iron gates along the front, with heavy green foliage blocking the view of the house.
“This is it,” Talbot said, sounding relieved.
“What’s the story?” I asked.
“This one we don’t know as much about, because my source wasn’t that interested. There was a break-in, same as the others, but the video was shut off two minutes in, which no one bothered with in later invasions. Another difference was that there was no one home at the time; the guy who lives here was in San Diego. The cops checked him out like they always do but couldn’t find anything suspicious. They think the invaders hit the wrong house, waited around for the person they expected, got bored, and finally split.”
That sounded like crap to me. I opened the door.
Csilla roused herself. “Where are you going?”
“Where do you think?” I turned to Annalise. She had put on her fireman’s jacket and heavy boots; they were her fighting clothes, and they made her look a little wacky. “Um, boss—”
“Ray, I’m going to wait here. I’ll keep Csilla company.”
“Go with him,” Csilla told Talbot. She seemed almost lucid.
“Ray.” Annalise stared at me intently. “Be extremely careful in there.” I nodded, wondering what the hell was going on.
Talbot followed me to the front gate. The lock had been broken—I could see the marks of the crowbar—and it hadn’t been repaired yet. A blue supermarket twist tie held the two halves of the gate together.
I undid them and pushed the gate open. The heavy bushes and trees were as thick as a jungle. I was sure the owner received regular visits from the city to discuss his water use.
“Smells nice,” Talbot said. “Big-money Los Angeleeze house. Comes with its own perfume.” He sounded as though he disapproved, but I didn’t know why and I didn’t care.
The house had a stone foundation and green-painted wood above that. I couldn’t say exactly why, but the place looked like a haunted house. There were pry marks on the doorjamb by the dead bolt. That hadn’t been repaired yet, either.
The trees and bushes were growing close enough to the house that I could have climbed up and broken in through an unlocked window upstairs. There was a thin trail that led to the side of the house. I didn’t circle around. Instead I knocked four times with the knocker, then looked up into the camera above the door. I didn’t feel like smiling.