Peter Spiegelman - Thick as Thieves

“So maybe there’s nothing else to talk about,” Rink says, and she drums her fingers impatiently on the bar. Carr appreciates the sentiment.

Prager shakes his head. “Or maybe Greg can think about some of the people he buys stones from. Maybe we can talk to some of them.”

Carr nods, as if he’s actually considering it, as if he’s thinking of anything besides getting to the house. And then he hears another engine drone.

It’s two engines, this time-close, throaty, rough running, like dirt bikes-coming from the water. His three minutes are up. Prager glances toward the beach and knits his brows.

Carr clears his throat. “I’ll think on it,” he says, nodding, and the engine sounds grow louder. And now the ambient chatter of the beach crowd changes. A collective chuckle rises, and then a gasp.

Prager shakes his head and peers down at his bay, and his party guests, gathered on the sand. Carr leans left and catches a glimpse of two WaveRunners chasing each other through the whitecaps, rooster tails flying, engines stuttering and echoing across the bay. Bobby is on the red one, Mike the gray. Both of them wear flowered trunks, muscle tees, and aviators. They weave in close to shore-fifty yards or less-and Carr can hear their whooping and hollering and see the bottle of beer that Bobby is waving around. It’s a nice touch, but Prager doesn’t appreciate it.

He turns to Rink, and his face has darkened. “What’s going on, Kathy? Who are those assholes in my backyard?”

Rink is blushing, and already on the move. She waves to the security man at her side, pointing him to the shore, and she puts her cell phone to her ear, but it’s all too slow for Prager, who strides angrily toward a stairway that leads to the beach. Kathy Rink hurries behind, saying something into her phone. All Carr catches is “boat in the water,” and then she’s gone. He checks his watch and heads toward the main house.

He tells himself not to run, but it’s hard to listen. On his way across the lawn, he sees a pair of security guys who have no such inhibitions: they’re in full sprint toward the beach, with their radios squawking. Carr sees the fieldstone patio ahead, and before he comes within range of the camera, he veers right.

He is quick across the patch of lawn at the corner of the house, and quick into the stretch of heavy plantings. He keeps low as he moves between the greenery and the house, and stifles a yell when two red birds dart screaming from the bushes. He fights to keep his breathing under control, and when he reaches the dense hibiscus and kneels by the window whose latch he has broken from inside, he has to struggle to hear the buzzing of the WaveRunners over his own gasps. But there they are, along with exclamations from the crowd. Carr looks at his watch and figures that Mike and Bobby have begun their game of chicken.

Carr peers into the laundry room, takes a last look around the grounds, and sees no one. He dries his hands on his sleeves, works his fingers around the frame, and swings the window open. He checks the flash drives in his pocket again and climbs quietly in.

Carr closes the window and stands between the washing machine and the utility sink, listening. He hears the cycling of the air conditioner, the gurgle of water in pipes, the pounding of his heart, and nothing else. He looks at his watch again. Bobby and Mike have promised him a minimum of five minutes, of which two are gone. He crosses the room, drops to the floor, and looks through the gap beneath the door. There’s no one in the hall, and he stands and opens the door a crack. A blade of air slips in, and cools his face. Behind it come voices.

They drift down the stairwell-men speaking and, through a screen of radio static, the voice of Kathy Rink. Carr can’t make out her words, but her anger is unmistakable. The men find it funny.

One voice is Southern and deep: “Pine and Colley don’t get that fucking Zodiac going, the old broad’s gonna swim out there herself-turn those drunks into chum.”

The other has a Midwestern twang: “Sounds like she’s gonna make chum out of Pine and Colley. For chrissakes, how hard is it to flip a fuckin’ starter switch?” Carr smiles to himself. They can flip all they want, he thinks, it won’t do much good with the battery unhooked.

The laughing voices recede, and Carr opens the door wider. He touches the flash drive in his pocket again, like a charm, takes a deep breath, and climbs the stairs.

He is in a wide, windowed hall with white paneled walls and a view onto a courtyard garden. Too much glass-not a place to pause. To the left is the game room, and Carr can see green felt-the corner of a pool table. To the right is the music room, and the gleaming lid of a grand piano. Carr goes right, the floor plans unfurling in his head-music room, hallway, office. His ears are straining; the muscles in his legs are quivering.

The music room is an exercise in monochrome-black piano, white rugs, black leather chairs, white leather sofas-but still too much glass for Carr’s comfort. His footsteps are silent on the rugs, and he crosses quickly to the opposite door. And freezes.

A maid comes from behind the curving staircase, and it is only the basket she carries, and its high pile of linens, that saves Carr. He drops beside a white leather settee, crams his heart back into his chest, and listens as she climbs the stairs. Sweat runs down his face and along his ribs, and when he stands again it’s like lifting a boulder. Somehow he manages to place one foot before the other.

He cuts across a sunny atrium and makes it to the final hallway. He pauses, listens, and hears voices in the library. It’s at the end of this same hall, across from Prager’s office. Which means it’s on the ocean side of the house, and has an ocean view. The voices are low, and Carr is trying to decide whether they belong to the security staff when a radio squawks and answers the question.

Carr checks his watch: his five minutes are gone-he’s in overtime now. So, wait or go? The radio chatter cuts in again-an angry, urgent blast: something’s happening on the water. Something worth watching, Carr hopes. And then, behind him, there are footsteps approaching. So much for waiting.

Six paces down the hall. Six paces through quicksand. Through wet cement. Six paces without air or sound, and with his vision a narrow tunnel, the office door at the distant end. And then he’s in. He doesn’t bother to check if anyone else is there, but no one is. His shuddering sigh is almost sexual, and for an instant he’s giddy and light-headed. The windows are big and bright and full of palm trees and sky. The Rothkos rise above him like twin suns. He’s transfixed by them, and imagines lifting them from the wall, prying them from their frames, rolling the canvases. He takes a deep breath, laughs, and shakes his head.

Carr reaches into his pocket for the flash drive and steps to the aluminum desk and stops. He stares at the desk, and at the flash drive in his palm. He squints and his eyes run over the desk, from end to end. He walks around it, and looks beneath it. He looks around the starkly furnished room for a drawer to search, or a cabinet, but there are none. He returns to the desk, thinking he must somehow have missed it. His gaze returns to the nearly bare surface. Phone, monitor, cable .

“Fuck,” Carr whispers.

Prager’s laptop is not there.

“Fuck,” he says again. Only the voices in the library keep him from shouting it.

He puts the flash drive in his pocket and rubs a hand across the back of his neck. Where would Prager take the thing? Not to the Isla Privada offices-he doesn’t go there. So where else? He probably takes it on trips. Trips like the one he’s making tomorrow, to Asia, by way of Europe. Leaving tomorrow, so packing today. So he’s packed the laptop and left it… where? Where’s his fucking luggage?