Ramira lowered his pen. Lena checked her watch and got up from the table.
“You gave me your word,” she said.
“I swear I’ll make it up to you.”
“But I won’t be there, Denny. Never again.”
She walked out, bristling with anger and disappointment and thinking about the clouds she had seen in the reporter’s eyes. Something had happened. Something Ramira now wanted to hide.
As she drove home, she couldn’t help thinking that Ramira was just as pressed for time as she was. The reporter was too smart to call her out for a meeting this late unless he had a good reason. Too smart not to cancel if his reason dried up. Too smart to jeopardize his relationship with her and burn everything down over a hunch, a guess, or even a maybe that wasn’t pinned down. By the time she reached Hollywood Hills she became convinced that Ramira had been telling her the truth over the phone. He knew something about the murder. And he was in trouble.
She pulled into her drive and spotted a silver 911 Carrera parked in front of her brother’s recording studio. Skidding to a stop, she ripped open the door and saw Bobby Rathbone walk out from the porch behind the house.
“What’s got you so lit up?” he said.
She shrugged off the question, the two of them standing in the rain. “Thanks for coming on short notice.”
“No problem,” he said. “What do I need to know before we get started?”
“They left a couple of hours ago. They would have had all day to do whatever they’ve done.”
“Pros?”
She shook her head. “It’s not the Special Investigation Section. These guys are from Internal Affairs.”
“What’s with the music?”
She paused a beat, the sound bleeding through the house. She recognized the song by Megadeth and hoped Klinger was enjoying it.
Killing Is My Business. . and Business Is Good.
“I thought I’d give them something to listen to,” she said.
Rathbone laughed. They had met at her brother’s record company and known each other for almost a decade. Rathbone owned a counter surveillance business that dealt exclusively with the music industry. Sweeping a recording studio for bugs had become common practice as corporations bought smaller labels out, left the music behind, and sought an edge that might translate into higher returns for their stockholders. Rathbone was only thirty years old, but had earned a reputation as one of the best techs around. He worked in Los Angeles and Seattle. The last time she saw him he was opening a branch office in Nashville. Lena knew that he planted as many bugs as he found, and that this was part of the business, too. That he was living off the grid and making a fortune doing it.
“Let’s get started,” he said.
He walked over to the Carrera, disabled the alarm and pulled out a black aluminum attache case. She looked at his long dirty blond hair and blue eyes. His jeans and T-shirt and leather jacket. The scarf around his neck and his thin frame. No matter how shady his business, he brought back good memories and she was glad to see him.
“Open up the house,” he said. “Keep the music on. I’ll meet you around back.”
As Rathbone headed for the porch, Lena unlocked the front door, walked through the living room and threw the latch on the slider. By the time she got the door open, Rathbone was already strapping a small electronic device to his chest. He reached inside the attache case for a pair of headphones. Slipping them over his head, he motioned her outside. Then he grabbed a screwdriver and a flashlight, and entered the house.
He started in the kitchen. As he reached the telephone, she noticed the LEDs on the device blinking in sequence. Once he disassembled the handset, he glanced at the contents and moved on. He worked slowly and methodically, paying special attention to her audio equipment and the way the components were cabled. Every so often he would stop at an electrical outlet, remove the face plate, and examine the receptacle and box inside the wall. He made two passes through the living room before disappearing into her bedroom. She couldn’t see what he was doing from her position outside the slider. But after ten minutes he walked out and headed upstairs. Five minutes later he returned to the first floor and stepped outside onto the porch.
He smiled at her, brought his mouth up to her ear, and whispered under the music. “I need to get something out of my car. Do me a favor and turn off all the lights on the first floor.”
She watched him remove the device from his chest and run down the steps through the rain. Then she walked inside and switched off the lights. When she returned, Rathbone tossed another aluminum case on the chaise longue and flipped the locks to reveal several pairs of night vision goggles.
He pulled a set out, switched on the power, and handed them to her.
“You’ll want to see this,” he whispered. “We’ll talk after we come out, but this was done by a rat, Lena. Total garbage.”
He helped her get the goggles on, adjusting the lenses in front of her eyes. Grabbing the second set, he slipped them over his head and led the way into her bedroom. They were walking in total darkness, yet the room had every appearance of being filled with light. An eerie green light. She could see Rathbone in front of her, vanishing around the corner as if a ghost, then reappearing in front of her closet. She could see him waving at her, working his way toward the bathroom. They stepped inside and her friend pointed to the electrical outlet by the sink. He unplugged her hair dryer, and used his screwdriver to remove the face plate. Waving her closer, he loosened the screws on the receptacle and pulled it away from the wall as far as the live wires would stretch. Then he pointed at a small black square set between the two receptacles. It was about the size of a thumbnail and exceedingly thin.
Lena stared at it for a moment, her heart pounding as she finally picked out the microscopic lens.
Rathbone met her goggled eyes and shook his head. Then he turned his back to the outlet and extended his arms out from his body like a film director. Her friend was giving her a rough idea of the view. Lena didn’t need to look, but watched just the same. The view from the camera hidden in her electrical outlet hit all the sweet spots. Her changing area. Her shower and bath.
She followed him out of the house. But as he pulled the slider closed-as if on cue-the music stopped inside the house and the night suddenly turned all too quiet.
They yanked their goggles off, Rathbone staring at her. “What just happened?”
Lena didn’t reply, looking over the hill in amazement. The lights to the entire city were shutting down. One block after the next like a set of dominoes heading for the skyscrapers downtown. When the Library Tower went dark, she listened to the silence for a moment, then counted the seconds before the first siren broke into the night. The first burglar alarm running on auxiliary power in Hollywood.
It was a rolling blackout, the second in as many weeks. According to the power company, the strain on the grid came down to Christmas lights. But the excuse was more lame than real because no one was using their air conditioners this time of year. The system overload was just another ruse. Another way of tapping people for more cash.
Lena turned and watched Rathbone light a cigarette and look out over the basin. The only lights left in the city came from the cars on the roads. The life force of Los Angeles. And the result looked like eye candy. Red and white lights glittering in the blackness as they flowed through the streets and freeways like blood rolling through a human body.