“We didn’t order any champagne.”
“With our compliments, sir. It’s on the house.”
“For what? Why do we get free champagne?”
There was a voice in the background. You could barely hear it. It sounded female, and just from context you assumed she was asking who was at the door.
“It’s a man with champagne!” Swanson turned to look back into the room. As he did, he pulled the door slightly more open. There was a flash of white in the background, another bathrobe. Then something obscured the image, taking up the whole screen. There was the sound of impact, then of someone yelling. The camera swung around wildly, then seemed to settle on the ceiling. After a couple of seconds, the screen went black.
“What happened?” I said.
“I tried to get a good shot of Mrs. Vargas,” he said. “I turned the camera in my watch and dumped the tray right on Swanson’s head.”
“Leon, on another day, this would be the funniest tape I’ve ever seen.”
“I’m so glad it has entertainment value,” he said. “Unfortunately, I didn’t get a solid shot of Mrs. Vargas. All it does is make me look like an idiot.”
“So what happens next here?”
After a few more seconds of blackness, another image came onto the screen. It was nighttime, but with all the lights he had on, there was no mistaking whose house we were looking at. Leon hit the pause button and froze the image.
“Let me tell you what’s going on here,” he said. “Before you see this.”
“That’s Vargas’s house,” I said. “This is the night that-”
“Yes. This is still the same night. After my little mishap, I figured I’d check in with Mr. Vargas, see what he wanted me to do next. I called him on the cell phone again. It rang a couple of times, but then the signal went out. I knew he was dying to hear how I made out, so I tried again. But I didn’t get through. The battery on my phone was just about dead-damned thing never did hold a charge-so I figured I’d just call him from a pay phone, although I didn’t want to go back into the hotel to do it. Anyway, I’m trying to think where the nearest pay phone would be. Then I figured what the hell, I was ten minutes away from his house.”
“So you drove up.”
“I parked in the driveway. Right behind this Ford Explorer you see here.”
“That’s O’Dell’s. He gave me a ride in it yesterday, in fact.”
“It’s O’Dell’s vehicle, yes. Anyway, just before I got to the front door, I heard a loud noise, like a window breaking. Instead of knocking, I went around to the side of the house. I saw a telescope flying out one of the back windows.”
“You were there,” I said, “when it was all going down. Did you call the police?”
“Well, I didn’t have my phone right there with me, assuming it would even work. The first thing I did was, I snuck around to the back porch, and tried to get a look inside. I saw a man come right up to the window. It looked like he was wearing a surgical mask. And he had a gun.”
“Yes. The two men who stayed downstairs-while they were waiting, one went and looked out the back window.”
“I ducked down so he wouldn’t see me. Then I made my way back to the car. The first thing I did was back out of the driveway and down the street a little bit. I turned the lights out. Then I tried the phone again. It didn’t work, Alex. It just didn’t work. You know that stupid little cord that plugs into your cigarette lighter? The one that recharges your batteries?”
“Yeah, I’ve got one.”
“I’ve got a two thousand dollar miniature video camera hidden in my wristwatch, but I don’t have the cord that recharges my cell phone.”
“So what did you do?”
“I knew I had to get to a phone. But I had this idea. I took my watch off, and I put it on the dashboard, so it was pointed at the house. There was another house just down the road-I figured I could get out and run down there…”
“And your magic little watch would record whatever happened at Vargas’s house. At least on the outside…”
“Exactly. So I take the watch off, and put it on the dash, get it pointed just right…And then they come out. Just as I’m getting ready to open the door.”
“The three men?”
“Three of them, yes. So now I have a choice to make. Do I wait for them to leave, and then go call the police? Or do I follow them?”
“Oh Leon, you’re not serious…”
“It was a gut call at that point,” he said. “I knew you’d be calling the cops yourselves, once they were gone. I thought the best thing I could do for everybody was to follow them.”
“Okay, so this has to be their getaway car here, right?” I pointed to the car on the left side of the driveway, right behind Jackie’s Lincoln.
“No, I believe that’s Gill LaMarche’s car,” he said.
“Okay, that makes sense. He got there after we did. But if that’s not their car, where is it?”
He hit the pause button again and set the whole thing in motion. What I was about to see would make my head spin.
At a distance of thirty or forty yards, with less than ideal lighting, it was hard to make out exactly what was happening. But not so hard that you couldn’t get the general idea. Three men leaving the house-maybe they still had the masks on, maybe they didn’t. It didn’t matter, because you wouldn’t see their faces anyway. All three of them got into the Ford Explorer, the lights came on, the vehicle backed out of the driveway, and took off down the street.
“That’s O’Dell’s car,” I said. “What are they doing?”
“They’re driving away, Alex. Of course, I didn’t know at the time that it was O’Dell’s car. I was just glad that my car wasn’t parked right behind them anymore.”
“This doesn’t make any sense. Did they steal it?”
“Did he happen to mention that his car was stolen?”
“No, he didn’t. And like I said, he had it yesterday, when he drove me over to the marina.”
On the videotape, Leon’s car was in motion now. O’Dell’s Explorer was about a hundred yards ahead. You could see the arc of the headlights, the glowing red taillights, the lighted rear license plate.
“Wait a minute,” I said, watching the screen. “Who says that’s O’Dell’s car, anyway? You know what? Come to think of it, I don’t even remember seeing his car in the driveway when we got there.” I thought about it. I put myself back in Jackie’s car, pulling into the driveway, wondering why I was coming to this stranger’s house to play poker. I open the passenger’s side door and step out…
“No, I’m almost positive,” I said. “O’Dell was already there when we got there. But I don’t think his car was there. That’s not his car they’re driving, Leon.”
“Keep watching,” he said.
The image on the screen moved from one pool of light to the next. As the car ahead passed under each street lamp, it confirmed that Leon was following the same car, and doing a good job of it.
“Where are they going?” I said.
“You’ll see,” he said. “Soon.”
I looked over at him. He was sitting very still, watching the tape with no expression on his face.
“Here it is,” he finally said, as the brake lights on the Explorer glowed bright red. The vehicle was pulling into a parking lot.
“Where is this?”
“Look closely,” he said. “Do you recognize it?”
I looked. It was a two-story building. There were beer signs glowing in the windows. “That’s O’Dell’s place.”
“Yes it is. And here’s where I had to make another decision. Watch what happens.”
Two men got out, opening up both passenger’s side doors. I still couldn’t see their faces, although it looked like they had taken the masks off. The two men got into a car parked right next to the Explorer. Before they could even start it, the white reverse lights on the Explorer came on, and it started to back up.
“Our men are separating here,” Leon said. “So who do I follow?”
“The Explorer,” I said.
“That’s what I figured. It’s still the ‘object’ vehicle. I did make sure to get the plate number on the other car, though.”
“You gave that to the police, too.”