Thomas Perry - Dead Aim

“I don’t want a dog.”

“I’ll bring you your next financial statement wearing high heels and a pearl necklace.”

“Really?”

“Well, yes. Other things too, of course. But I really want you to do this for me.” She had frowned. “I need a good investment that includes a tax write-off. This would be a beauty, but only if there aren’t any nasty surprises. You’ve invested in coastal property lots of times since you retired. Won’t you please do me this favor? You’re the only one I know who’s qualified and can’t possibly be interested in making money from it. I need somebody I can trust.”

That had done it. He had come down here with her, and spent three hours on that house. He had climbed onto the roof, checked the crawl space just below it. He had checked the plumbing, and randomly tested a few circuits for her. Finally, he had gone under the house. What he had found was a foundation that had begun shifting because it had not been anchored properly to the rock beneath the sand. A sewer pipe was already stressed, and might break within the next year. She could have paid the million and a half the realtors were asking and come here one day to see that the huge windows on the beach side had popped, and that she couldn’t open the front door anymore.

They had driven home to Santa Barbara speaking in quiet, thoughtful tones. When he had gotten out of the car, she had thanked him warmly, but sadly. “Your friendship was all that saved me. I’ll never forget it.” Then she had brightened. “I’ll never forget the realtor who tried to sell me that place, either. Can you imagine pulling that on a lawyer?”

He had grinned. “Actually, I can.” He had added, “Not you, of course.”

As Mallon remembered that night, he felt reassured. It was the ordinariness of it, the mundane, comfortable history of his relationship with Diane that made him feel his confidence growing. He had known her for eight years. Could she have been planning to do him harm all this time, and never done it? That made no sense. Diane would show up, and she would do exactly as she had promised. They could trust each other.

He heard the sound of an unseen car off to his left. He had been here for an hour, and this was only the second one to come along this narrow lane. In a moment he would see the shine of the headlights while the car was still far off, throwing faint light on the pavement where it curved. Next the light would brighten, throwing shadows and making the trees in front of the house across the street stand out from the undifferentiated grayness. Then the car would come around the bend, and for a second, illuminate this part of the street before it moved past. He lay flat in the brush and waited. If it was Diane, he would have to let her go by the first time without signaling her-just spot her in her unfamiliar new car, watch to be sure she was not followed, and await her second appearance.

Mallon kept his eyes to the left on the house at the bend. The car noise grew louder, closer. In the still air he could hear the tires tossing up bits of gravel, but the house across the street did not light up. Diane’s car must be moving up the street without its headlights. He detected a change in the engine’s pitch. It was stopped, idling. Why would she do that? Was she being followed? Could she be stopping to deceive some pursuer into making a premature move to reveal himself? He considered the possibility that the driver could be somebody other than Diane, and decided it was best to stay where he was and wait.

Mallon kept his body down behind the front hedge, but watched the road. He was staring at the bend so hard, expecting a change, that he was not startled when a man appeared there, walking along the shoulder on Mallon’s side. The man stepped into a pool of dim light from a flood at the peak of a garage and Mallon studied him. He was tall and lean, wearing a sport coat and wool trousers in a drab color, with a pair of shoes that had no shine and had thick rubber soles. The man passed out of the glow, and kept coming.

Mallon felt a chill on the back of his neck, the sensation that hairs were beginning to stand up. The man must have walked past Diane stopped in the darkened car in the middle of the street. Neither of them had spoken, or Mallon certainly would have heard it. What if Diane had not come, and the car had belonged to this man?

Diane might have come by here already, not seen Mallon, and made a mess of looking for him. This man could be someone who had followed her. Mallon heard the car engine stop. That meant the driver was still in it: there were at least two people within a couple of hundred feet of Mallon. It also meant that Diane was not here: she would not have turned off her engine.

Mallon kept watching. This guy probably was a solitary resident out for a walk on a summer night. As he had the idea, it felt false to him. This man seemed wrong, somehow. Mallon tried to analyze the impression, to neutralize it, to argue himself out of it, but it was not working. The man was walking along with a kind of stiffness, his head held high but his arms and legs not quite moving naturally. It was as though he were just pretending to be loose and relaxed. And his clothes gave Mallon a strange feeling. The sport coat and the pants seemed too formal for the beach, and the night was uncomfortably warm. Mallon was wearing a sport coat because it was the darkest piece of clothing he had brought with him. He was using it to conceal himself. Why was this other man wearing one?

The man kept walking along the shoulder of the road, striding purposefully toward the house where Mallon was supposed to meet Diane. Mallon was a longtime daily walker who lived in a city full of walkers, and he was expert in the ways people looked when they walked on trails or the shoulders of roads. This one was strangely different. His body showed tension. He seemed to be straining to get to the house quickly.

The man did not change his pace, but he suddenly turned his head to look at the nearby houses, and then to glance over his shoulder. His head faced forward again, and his right hand reached inside his sport coat. The hand did not emerge. It simply stayed there as he walked. The man passed another driveway while Mallon waited for his hand to reappear. The next house had two pillars at the edge of the driveway topped by small electric lanterns. As the man passed the house where Mallon was hiding, Mallon was only thirty feet away, and he could see the man’s face. Everything became clear and sharp, so he could study the man’s expression. The head was up and slightly forward, the brow was set in concentration, but the eyes were wide, eager, excited.

As soon as the man’s right arm shifted, Mallon was sure. When the man’s right arm came up, Mallon could see the pistol he had known was there. The man walked on toward the deserted house where Mallon was supposed to meet Diane. Mallon watched from his hiding place across the street and three lots away, while the man walked around the house. As soon as the man had stepped out of sight, Mallon used the opportunity to retreat to the deep shadows at the side of the house where he had been hiding. He pried up a heavy piece of flagstone from the walkway where he stood, and watched as the man reappeared on the other side of the house down the street, then widened his search, the gun still in his hand as he prowled around the shrubbery in the garden. At last the man had satisfied himself that Mallon was not hiding there. He walked along the street a few feet, then crossed back to Mallon’s side and started to return the way he had come.

Mallon held his breath, waiting. His hands clutched the heavy flagstone he had found. As the man drew nearer, Mallon suspected that something had gone wrong. The man was still walking, but slightly slower. His head was still held straight, but eyes had shifted to the left, searching. Mallon raised the heavy stone over his head with both hands. Suddenly the man spun, the gun in his hand. He jumped over the hedge where Mallon had been hiding and aimed the gun at the spot on the ground where Mallon had been.