Page 114

“I gotta go, Arman,” I said, disconnecting the call.

Thirty seconds later I was following Paulie downhill.

Marconi’s Original Neapolitan Cuisine is situated on Beverly Drive, in what one might call the business village of Beverly Hills. It has two dining areas. The first contains a few tables set across from the bar. The second, larger space is a proper dining room, with maybe fifteen tables of different sizes. The walls in the more formal room are lined with floor-to-ceiling-length strips of mirrors, I can’t imagine why.

When I walked in the man behind the host podium looked up, the question in his eyes.

“I’d like to have dinner,” I said.

“Reservation?” Sporting dyed black hair, the fiftyish host wore an honest-to-goodness tuxedo and was shaped like a bowling pin.

Looking at one of the dining room mirrors, I saw Paulie and Malto occupying a table for four, toward the back.

“No,” I said to the penguinesque host. “Can I sit at the bar?”

I placed myself in a seat that allowed me to peer through the mirrors into the adjacent dining room, and then ordered eggplant Parmesan, a tomato and mozzarella di bufala salad, and focaccia.

The food was great, and I doubted if my targets would tumble to me.

I couldn’t tell what the men were discussing. They weren’t smiling. Now and again Malto would shake his head and twist his lips into an expression of distaste. Paulie’s face was harder to read. The younger man’s emotions showed in his eyes, but like trying to read Oliya’s Romanian newspaper, it was impossible to decipher any meaning.

Right after I turned down dessert, Malto signaled for the check. I did the same, paying the bill in cash and with a generous tip so that I didn’t have to wait for change.

After retrieving my car from an underground car park, I pulled up down the block and across the street from the restaurant—there to wait for someone to follow.

I was five minutes ahead of my quarries.

Sitting there, far enough away from Marconi’s not to be observed, I noticed that another car, a light blue sedan, was parked directly across the street from the Italian eatery. There was a head behind the wheel and the brake lights engaged now and again, indicating that the blue car was ready to roll.

When the criminal conspirators had come out and the valet brought their cars, Paulie climbed into his Rolls while Melton got in his candy-apple-red Lincoln. The blue sedan peeled off to follow Melton. I already knew where Paulie was staying and I was pretty sure that Malto would have abandoned his Brentwood place, so I followed the blue sedan as it tailed the man I should have killed when I had the chance.

Melton drove up to Sunset and headed west; the blue sedan stayed two or three cars behind. About a mile before we’d reach the Pacific Coast Highway, the red car turned right on a slender road. It was turning dark, time to turn headlights on. The candy-apple-red Lincoln did this and could be detected by keeping track of its headlights illuminating the road before it. The blue car and mine did not turn on our lights.

A mile or so up the lane, the red car’s lights made a hard left, traveled a short span, and then were extinguished. At that point I turned on my lights and kept going until I passed the blue sedan, which had stopped across the way from a redwood gate that probably opened onto a driveway.

I kept going until the road curved significantly. At that point I parked on the dirt shoulder, quietly exited my rental, and slowly made my way back down toward the redwood gate and the blue sedan. When I saw the car, I approached it until I could see the windshield, though it was too dark to make out the driver’s face. There I crouched down behind a large stand of bunny-eared cacti.

After ten minutes or so a car drove down the hill, with its lights on, passing both me and the blue car. In that brief moment of radiance, I could see the driver of the blue sedan clearly.

Emboldened, I strode down the road, came up on the passenger’s side of the car, and tapped on the window. Caledonia Reese turned violently, her eyes seemingly generating their own light.

She let down the automatic window and said, “What are you doing here?”

“Same as you, I’d bet.”

“I doubt that.”

“Can I get in?”

“Um… okay.”

I took the seat next to her and put up the window because it was getting chilly outside.

“Why are you following your boss?” I asked.

“Who said I was following him?”

“Come on, now, Ms. Reese. You are not his gardener.”