Wendy could hear the woman’s voice on the other end say, “Sir? You’ll have—”
“They’re driving eastward on Route 41 at high speed in a full-size beige sedan, possibly a Chevrolet. One man is short and heavy with dark brown hair, wearing a navy suit. The other is taller, over six feet, wearing a gray sport coat, red tie, charcoal pants. They’re armed and dangerous.”
He clicked off, then pressed the phone again with his thumb. This number was in the memory. “Max Poliakoff, please. Jack Till. Max? I’ve got another emergency. I’m on Route 41 heading east, trying to chase down a couple of guys who just tried to kill Wendy in the Seawall Hotel. I’m not having much luck. I can’t see them. I just called the cops in Morro Bay. Can you call and tell them what you need to?” He listened. “Thanks.” Poliakoff was saying something. Till listened for a few seconds, then said, “All right. Got to drive now. Talk to you later.”
Wendy rose in her seat to watch the road ahead. “I still don’t see them.”
Till shrugged. “They’re too far ahead of us.” He let the car slow down, then pulled to the side of the road and made a U-turn.
“What are you doing?”
“We’re not going to get close enough to see them. It’s time to get you to Los Angeles.”
34
SCOTT SCHELLING STRAINED to bench-press the weight, his arms trembling as he pushed the bar and straightened his elbows. “Three more, give me three more.” Dale, his personal trainer, was shouting into his ear. “Three. Two. One.” Schelling pressed the weight into the air above his face, the big hands appeared above Schelling’s head and then the thick, hairy arms and the olive-drab T-shirt, and Dale guided the heavy weight bar onto the support above the bench. “Fair, Scott. Pretty fair. Now we still have time for a quick run.”
Scott Schelling sat up, his arms limp, and looked at the clock on the wall of his exercise room. “I don’t think so. I have a meeting in a few minutes. But I’ll run tonight when I get back, and then take a swim.”
Dale squinted. “I hope you get around to it, Scotty. You’re in a good place now, and you’ve got to keep your heart pumping every day to get to the next level.”
Schelling looked at Dale and nodded in solemn insincerity. He was comfortable lying to Dale Quinlan. Schelling had paid to have him investigated, and found that he really had been a marine, and he really had arrived in California as a physical-training instructor for recruits at Twenty-Nine Palms. Dale had a tattoo of the eagle, anchor, and globe on his left arm, a bristly whitewall haircut, and a brusque, strutting manner. But Schelling knew that he had gotten the tattoo and the haircut only after he had been out of the marines for a year or two, trying to break into the personal-training business. People who had money felt they needed a big jarhead shouting at them as though they were going to war instead of losing five pounds of flab.
Scott Schelling took a towel off the pile and wiped the sweat off his face and neck. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Right, Scotty. I’ll be here at six. Be ready to work.” He walked to the door, where he had left his gym bag, and then he was out in the corridor. Schelling watched him check his complicated-looking military watch, turn his cell phone on, and start along the glass wall up the corridor toward the front of the house. In a few moments, he would be outside, driving to his next appointment.
Schelling walked into his shower room, adjusted the array of showerheads, and let himself be sprayed with hot water from four angles for a few minutes. Then he stepped out, dried himself on two more towels, and walked through the bathroom into his closet, a huge square room with clothes hanging along two walls and drawers and cabinets along the others. He could see that Kimberly, his personal assistant, had selected and laid out his clothes on the long, padded island in the middle of the room. He was color-blind, but he could see well enough to tell that the tie and handkerchief were not a match, and he knew that whatever colors she had chosen for them and the shirt were the most fashionable for this day in Los Angeles. His shoes gave off the proper shine, and the gently laundered condition of the socks and underwear she had chosen did not escape him.
He did not raise his voice. He said, “Kimberly,” and she came in from the desk in the bedroom. She was wearing a headset with a microphone, which meant she was already in a telephone conversation with Tiffany in the office. She held a clipboard, taking notes as she listened, making no acknowledgment that Scott was naked. “We’re on with Scott,” she said to Tiffany. To Scott she said, “Some of the people for your meeting have begun to arrive. Quentin, Ali, and Tara.”
As he dressed, he said, “Treat them as well as you can, Tiffany,” as though he were speaking into the telephone. Kimberly repeated his words exactly as he said them. “Are they in my meeting room?”
“Not yet.”
Schelling liked the way Kimberly and Tiffany connected to become a single intelligence. They conveyed things to each other, asked each other questions in advance because they knew he would want to know. But they weren’t presumptuous. Neither of them ever said no. Everything was “not yet,” which was only a variation on “yes.” “Put them in my office, then, on the couches. Patch me into the room so I can talk to them while you bring them drinks.”
While Kimberly repeated his words she was unclipping the telephone from her belt. He continued dressing, and when Tiffany was ready, Kimberly disconnected the cord to her earpiece and handed the telephone to Scott.
His voice was smooth and unconcerned. “Tara, Ali, Quentin. Thanks so much for doing me the kindness of coming to my office and the courtesy of being on time. I’m apologizing for not being there to greet you, but I had an unexpected delay and I’m on my way. Tiffany will give you copies of the release schedule I’ve worked out. I want all of you to take a look at the projects you’re running and see how the schedule meshes with your progress. If there are differences, I want to hear them. I’d also appreciate it if you would explain what’s up to the others as they arrive, so everybody can be ready when I get there. Thanks.”
He handed the phone to Kimberly and stepped into his pants. She reattached herself to the telephone, clipped it to her waistband, listened to Tiffany, and took notes. After a few seconds, she said, “They took it well, Scotty. They’re getting over being there before the others. Now they’re studying the schedule and working trades so they can move up the releases that are ready now and hold back others.”
“Good. Keep watching them. What else?”
“Good. Keep watching them,” she repeated. To Scott she said, “Ray Klein’s party is tomorrow night at his house in Santa Fe.”
“I remember.”
“The limo will pick you up here and take you to the airport at four P.M. When you arrive, you go to your hotel, the Eldorado. The party is at eight. Your present for Mrs. Klein is an antique map made by Herman Moll in 1719. It shows New Mexico, including Santa Fe, and California is still an island.”
“What did that cost me?”
“Twenty-seven thousand, but you won’t have to worry about her showing it off. The provenance is reliable and clean, and that’s hardly ever true of rare maps. It’s being professionally packed and shipped to their house to arrive at five P.M. tomorrow, so they will have had time to unwrap it and make some calls to find out how grateful to be.”
“What else?”
“You have meetings at three and five with the groups Code 187 and Nine-One-One Bang. Your haircut and manicure are set for five forty-five in your office today. The drafts of the cover notes on next month’s releases are on your desk now, so you can look them over between appointments. Also the sales figures for the week, and the proposals for ad budgets for next week.”