“You’re going?”
“Yes.”
“Well... what?... I mean... what do I... ?” She felt flustered by his sudden capitulation.
“What are you supposed to do?” He took a card out of his breast pocket, shrugged and dropped it on the island. “Call me if you have any problems.”
“And that’s it?”
He shrugged. “The name of the game is cooperation, not coercion. The law helps those who help themselves. That means you have to be willing to help yourself if I’m going to help you at all. Obviously you’re not. Good luck.”
“But aren’t you going to send me a bodyguard or something? You can’t just abandon me. There’s someone out there been killing my friends.”
“Really? Give Stu a call. I’m sure the network will send somebody around, the lucky guy.”
Sarah glared at him for a moment, then ran her hand through her hair and sighed. “Sit down. Please,” she said. “I’m sorry. This is coming out all wrong. I’m just not used to having anyone around the place. Can’t we work something out?”
Arvo held her eyes for a moment, then put his sport jacket on the back of a chair and sat down again. “I thought we’d worked things out last night.”
She ruffled her hair and pulled a face. “I know. I’m just confused. Scared. I don’t know what to do.” She looked around. “This is all I’ve got. I’ve always felt safe here, secure.”
“Not any more.”
“It hasn’t really sunk in yet. I don’t want to feel like a fugitive.”
“Can I have some more coffee?”
“Sure.” She poured him another cup.
“There are several options,” Arvo said. “None of them perfect. If you stay here, you’ve got a choice of either one live-in bodyguard or two outside: one to guard the front and another to guard the back. Expensive, and the least safe. I talked to Stu briefly last night before he left and he thinks he can get the studio to increase the security around the lot, so you won’t have to worry when you’re at work, and maybe spring for a personal bodyguard for you—”
“But I—”
Arvo held up his hand. “Hold on a minute. Let me finish. What Stu suggested is that you stay with him. Believe me, you’re a lot safer with people around you. There’ll still be a bodyguard around to keep an eye out for you, but he won’t need to be under your feet all the time. Stu owns a gun, and I know he’s qualified to use it. Maybe you don’t know it, but he fought in Vietnam. He even won medals.”
“How long is this going to go on?” Sarah asked.
Arvo shook his head. “I wish I knew. Naturally, if it goes on a long time we’ll have to reconsider our tactics. There’s always protective custody.”
“Jail?”
Arvo shrugged. “Worst-case scenario. For the moment, will you just listen to me and let me take you to the studio? They’ll give you some office space there. You can work on your scripts or something. Then you can go back with Stu tonight.”
“But won’t it be dangerous for him, for Karen and the kids?”
“It’s dangerous for everyone around you right now. Stu cares about you. He’s willing to take the chance, and I think he’s right. He’s sending Karen and the kids off to her mother’s in Santa Barbara for a few days. I told you, Stu knows how to handle himself. He’s no fool. And there’ll be someone else — a professional bodyguard — keeping an eye on the both of you.”
Sarah chewed on her lip and thought for a moment, looking around the kitchen. “You worked all this out between you while I was away, did you?”
Arvo nodded. “After Jack’s murder, yes.”
“All right,” she said finally. “It doesn’t seem like I’ve got much option. It’s just as well I didn’t unpack, isn’t it? Can you give me a few minutes to throw some clean clothes together?”
“Sure.”
Outside, the first thing Arvo did was check the mailbox.
“It’s been redir—” Sarah started to say. But she stopped when she saw him hold up a white envelope between his thumb and middle finger.
Sarah felt her chest tighten. “He’s been here,” she said. “During the night, while we were here.”
“Looks like it.” Arvo put the letter in the plastic bag with the others. “The last one was hand-delivered, too, remember. We’d better lock up and go,” he said.
Sarah was aware of herself nodding, even though all she still wanted in the world was a day alone at the beach house relaxing, unpacking, phoning her family to thank them for having her and to remind them she wanted them to visit her soon.
She watched as Arvo locked the sliding glass doors and pulled the drapes, then she picked up her windbreaker with the show’s logo emblazoned on the back and followed him out to where the overnight bag sat by the door. She set the alarm and they locked the door behind them.
Arvo’s car was parked where he had left it on the dirt shoulder outside her back door. Something looked odd about it, Sarah thought, then she saw how it rested flat on the ground.
“He’s slashed the tires,” Arvo said. “Jesus H. Christ! The bastard. He’s slashed the fucking tires!” He kicked the front wheel then leaned forward and slapped his hands against the hood, leaning forward like a guy being frisked by a cop.
Sarah touched his shoulder. “Tell me the number,” she said. “I’ll phone and get help.”
27
Arvo stabbed at the elevator button again and swore under his breath. Parker Center elevators, he remembered, were always out of order. Finally, it stopped, discharged a couple of passengers and took him, groaning and shuddering as it went, up to the third floor.
Every time he went back to RHD, he became more and more thankful for the TMU’s move to the relatively clean and spacious Spring Street headquarters. He hadn’t noticed it so much when he worked at Parker Center, but Detective Headquarters was definitely run-down. If it wasn’t quite as grungy as the make-believe precinct where Sarah Broughton filmed Good Cop, Bad Cop, it was pretty close.
The third floor was overcrowded, for a start; the air conditioning never worked, so you had to work with fans blowing your papers around all over the place; and there were so many earthquake cracks in the walls that nobody could remember which quakes had caused them.
As he walked into the corridor, he heard a radio playing from the secretaries’ office: The Beach Boys, “Help Me Rhonda.” For some reason, it made him think of Nyreen. California girl.
He opened the door to Robbery-Homicide and popped his head in. All the desks were pushed together in the center of the room to make one long, rectangular island, around which the detectives sat facing one another. The room was hot and sweaty. Telephones rang constantly; papers littered the desks and filing cabinets flanked the walls and corners. Over them all, like some sort of guardian angel, a boar’s head was mounted on the wall.
Fran Jenson was staring at her reflection in her compact mirror as she applied thick red lipstick. She looked up and winked at Arvo. Joe Westinghouse, two chairs down, saw him next and came over.
“Let’s go grab something to eat,” said Joe. “It’s been a long day. I could do with a break. Besides, I need a smoke.”
“After all the trouble I had getting the elevator to come up here, you want to go out.”
Joe grinned. A gold filling twinkled. “I’m buying.”
“You’re on.”
It was easier getting down, and they soon walked out onto Los Angeles Street, office towers glistening in the sun. Downtown was the only really high-rise part of LA apart from Century City, with its bank towers vying with one another for tallest structure, so there were plenty of city workers out for cigarette breaks or late lunches. They didn’t wander far, though; over on Main or down toward Sixth, the streets got grungy real quick.