“She humiliated me, and you helped her.”
“She made an innocent mistake.”
“If it were innocent, it wouldn’t be a mistake.” She picked up her purse and shawl from the chair and let him escort her to the door. When she got there, she verified that the other members of the class were all far along the upper gallery now, and many were already down the steps, getting into their cars or standing on the asphalt and talking. They were alone with Mindy. Sylvie stopped in the doorway. “Maybe I’ll kill the little bitch.”
“Brilliant, absolutely brilliant!” Sylvie could see that Paul was getting angry. She wasn’t sure why his displeasure was making her sexually aroused, but it was. She had felt the excitement of dancing to the passionate music, then felt so totally bereft and alone, and now she had his attention, all of it. His eyes, his mind were focused only on Sylvie.
She said, “She’s all alone.”
“Twenty-five people know that we’re here, the last ones, and saw you get jealous. You made a joke out of it, but they knew.” As he spoke, he held both her arms in his hands, his face less than a foot from hers.
She lifted her face to him and kissed him. “You’re right. Bad idea.” She went out the door and he followed. It was only when they were outside that she heard the page. “Oh God!” she muttered, and reached into her purse, pawing things aside.
“What?”
“The pager. It’s been vibrating in my purse. I wonder how long that’s been going on.” She looked at the telephone number on the display. “Let’s get to a pay phone.”
They hurried along the second-floor walkway, the heels of Sylvie’s shoes making a pock-pock sound. They were down the stairs and in the black BMW in a moment.
Three minutes later Mindy was still standing inside the storeroom that she used as a dressing room, her ear to the door. She wanted to be sure all of the members of the class had departed before she came out. She could not bear to look at them or hear them talk again tonight. She didn’t bother to analyze her sudden reluctance. She just felt through with them for now. After a few more minutes of silence, she took her purse and costume bag, opened the door a crack and verified that all of them had gone. The outside door was propped open and the hot night air had come in to stimulate the air conditioning system, so the fans were humming, blowing a frigid breeze onto the empty dance floor.
A HALF MILE AWAY, Paul sat in the car with the engine running, watching the mirrors and windshield while Sylvie stood outside at the pay telephone beside the gas station. He didn’t need to look directly at her, because he felt her position automatically. In a moment he felt her beside him again. She slammed the door.
He looked at her and saw the puzzled, thoughtful expression. “Well?”
“Jack Till is on the move. Densmore thinks he’s going somewhere to pick her up.”
Paul smiled as he put the car into gear and drove. “Finally,” he said.
10
JACK TILL DROVE HARD in the summer night, still driving the way he had when he had been a cop, pushing the speed limit just enough to move him past the trucks that were pushing it, too, but letting the future organ donors flash past him. To his left was the endless dark ocean, with only the ruler-straight row of lighted oil platforms in the channel to relieve the blackness. On his right were the high sand hills that in daylight seemed to be held there by goldenrod and wildflowers, but at night were only looming shadows. He had the air conditioning on high, so the interior of the car was cold and kept him alert. Twenty minutes later, he began to pass the Santa Barbara exits. He waited until he had reached the Storke Road exit, took it, and then the second ramp onto Sandspit Road. He went past the airport entrance to the row of car rentals, pulled into the first lot and stopped.
He got out of the car, stepped around to the trunk and removed his suitcase. As he stood there pretending he was searching the trunk for something else, he kept his eyes on the road he had just driven, watching for headlights. When he had satisfied himself that he had not been followed, he closed the trunk and walked into the long, low car rental building.
He had made the only deadline that mattered. The car rentals here would close ten minutes after the last incoming flight of the evening at eleven. He went to the desk and he knew the young man behind it was probably as pleased to see him as he looked. He was alone and undoubtedly had been for most of his shift.
Till showed his rental club card and a set of keys. “I rented a car in L.A., and I’d like to trade it for another model.”
The young man said, “What kind of car would you like, sir? Compact, full size, luxury?”
Till said, “What have you got that’s luxury? Cadillacs and Town Cars?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have any out there and ready to go?”
“Yes, I believe we do.”
“I’ll take a Cadillac.”
The young man tapped his computer keyboard and looked at the screen, quickly produced a rental form from a shelf under the counter and checked the lines Till was to sign, then went to a cabinet to get a set of keys. “Here you are, sir. A Cadillac DeVille. The third space from the right in the second row.”
“Thanks.” Till stepped outside. He went to the car quickly, tossed his suitcase into the trunk, and drove the Cadillac onto the road.
Till had been a private detective for seven years now, and a police officer for twenty before that, and he knew that this was the kind of job that required him to submerge, to go beneath the surface and emerge looking slightly different. He needed to be part of the background, undifferentiated and maybe a bit out of focus. But first, he had to give himself time to be sure nobody was watching.
On the way to Santa Barbara there had been lots of traffic, but no single vehicle had seemed to stay with him for long. Since he had left the freeway, there had been only empty highway behind him. It was disconcerting, because he had expected that there would be people watching him. Whoever had gotten Eric Fuller charged with Wendy Harper’s murder had forced Jack Till to the surface. From the moment when Till had put his name on the advertisements for Wendy, they should have been watching him.
He had made only a halfhearted attempt to hide his departure from Los Angeles, because he wanted to see who was following. Tonight he had given them opportunities to reveal themselves, but there still was no sign of them. He had stopped once for coffee and once to change cars, but no other car had stopped, too.
He turned the car onto Hollister Avenue and doubled back into Santa Barbara. He took a couple of turns onto small streets, parked for a few minutes and waited, but there were no cars that showed any inclination to follow. He returned to Hollister and kept driving. Hollister turned into State Street, and brought him into the center of town to Figueroa. He parked near the police station.
Till stepped into the front entrance and up to the counter and said to the female officer behind it, “I’m Jack Till. Sergeant Kohler was going to leave something for me to pick up.”
She said, “May I see your identification, please?”
He removed his LAPD identification card from his wallet and held it with his index finger over the word “retired.”
She looked at the picture on it, then at his face, and said, “Come with me.” She came around the counter, opened a swinging door, and called over her shoulder to a male officer at a desk, “I’ll be right back.”
Till followed her to an open office with five desks, where several plainclothes police officers were at work. She stopped at one of the desks, picked a manila envelope off the blotter and handed it to Till. “He said you were welcome to look at it here, if you’d like. You can use his desk.”