Nathan G. Cava watched the Mercedes pull into the drive and vanish behind the grove of oak trees. But it was the Ford Explorer with darkened glass following the Mercedes onto the property that he found so disturbing. As the gate closed, he pulled into a construction site just across the street. Someone wanted a new mansion, so they tore down the old one. Nothing was left but a ten-foot wall protecting a bunch of dirt.
Welcome to the Westside. Swimming pools and movie stars.
Cava made a loop, his Hummer grinding up the loose soil. When he had a reasonable view of Fontaine’s place, he slammed on the brakes and watched the cloud of dust rake across the hood. Then he reached for his binoculars, steadying his view through the trees with his elbows pinned to the steering wheel.
Fontaine and his girlfriend from the office were heading for the front door. The two men riding in the Explorer were walking around both sides of the house, sweeping the property.
It looked like the Beverly Hills doctor had hired a pair of bodyguards. All of a sudden things were getting dramatic. And Nathan G. Cava didn’t like dramatic.
He wondered what had spooked Fontaine, and figured that it must have been that story they ran on the news last night. Cava had seen it on one of the stations when it was rebroadcast at 1:00 a.m. He’d just returned to his apartment, popped an Ambien CR, and was lying in bed waiting for the drug to take. That’s when he learned that there had been a witness. That part one of his three-part Hollywood deal wasn’t exactly done yet. There was another loose end. Another screwup, just like all the other screwups he’d endured while overseas.
Someone had been hiding in the parking lot Wednesday night and had the balls to take that picture. The quality of the photograph ate shit and wasn’t worth worrying about. But someone had been lurking in the shadows. Someone had been watching him. No matter how dark it may have been that night, odds were that the witness saw his face and probably knew the make and model of his car. As he played back the night in his head, he had to admit that he’d been a little nervous, a bit rusty and not exactly up to par. He hadn’t expected her to be so young or pretty. And he hadn’t expected her to smile. He had seen her do it through the window when he walked by. He could see the spark in her eyes.
Even worse, he wasn’t really sold on the reason he had been given to talk to the pretty girl and to take her life. It felt a lot like the reasons he had been given during his three tours of duty. When he did the math, it never really added up. Especially the two additional years he had spent in Eastern Europe, where he had been given the nickname Dr. Neat. The truth was that he considered himself a physician-not an information specialist who interviews people and delves into their past with the aid of special tools. Although he had followed orders, he hated the nickname and the people who gave it to him. It felt more like a burden than anything else. A burden placed on him by people he couldn’t trust because he knew that they didn’t have souls and were using him.
Cava needed reasons to do the things he did. The more personal, the better. And if he couldn’t be given a reason, he needed to find one on his own. Something with more resonance than money. Something more real and less tarnished than For God and Country. Sometimes, he found the reason the moment he looked at a person. But usually it took a couple of days to smoke out and feel true. It was part of the creative process. The thing that kept him sane in a world that had stopped spinning eight years ago. The thing that protected his core deep inside. The core no one could get to, that no one could catch or reach or run a jetliner through.
His mind surfaced and he lowered the binoculars. A double-decker bus filled with smiling tourists pulled to a stop in front of the Playboy Mansion at the end of the block. After everyone got their pictures, the bus would stop before the house they’d used to shoot the movie Scarface. Five mansions up the yellow brick road and they would make a third stop in front of Humphrey Bogart’s old house. The place where Sam Spade hung his hat and played with Lauren Bacall’s tits in bed.
Cava knew the route because he’d taken the tour yesterday, shooting pictures like a dumb ass from the upper deck as he tried to get a better feel for the neighborhood. It had been worth the hassle-a reconnaissance mission wearing light touristy clothes purchased directly from Tommy Bahama’s store at the Grove on Third Street earlier that morning. Despite freezing his ass off, he seemed to fit in and managed to get a good first look at Fontaine’s house. The property may have been the smallest on South Mapleton Drive, but still included a pool, tennis courts, a guest house, and a garage big enough to get lost in. But unlike his neighbors, Fontaine only had two cars. This surprised Cava-not ten cars, just a pair of Mercedes. And the convertible looked a little old, like maybe the Beverly Hills doctor was living beyond his means, trying to hold on in a neighborhood where everyone else had enough cash to let go. Still, the house was perfectly placed, the backyard opening like a gate to the Los Angeles Country Club. It seemed to meet Cava’s every need. Getting to Fontaine would be easy when the time came, especially at night.
The tour bus lumbered by, spewing a thick blue cloud of diesel exhaust into air that already smelled like a truck stop. Cava recognized the driver from yesterday and lowered his head, thinking about the growing list of potential witnesses and those two bodyguards.
He had followed Fontaine and his girlfriend home from the office last night. Kept an eye on them until midnight before driving across town to his apartment on Barham Boulevard overlooking Universal Studios and the Warner Brothers lot. When he returned this morning, he noticed the Ford Explorer leading the way to a 7:00 a.m. breakfast at Nate’n Al’s in Beverly Hills. Although he didn’t enter the deli, he glanced through the window in passing and saw Fontaine and the blonde seated with the two men. Probably working out terms and doing the deal.
Cava checked on the tour bus again, watching it wheeze slowly up the hill. Raising the binoculars, he took a last look at Fontaine’s house and wondered if the bodyguards were smart enough to ask for their money up front.
Probably not.
He grinned a little as he kicked the idea around and watched someone lowering the blinds on the first floor. It was beginning to feel right. Beginning to feel true. But first he needed to get rid of his car. He checked his watch. He wanted to hit the dealership before nine.