Jonathan Kellerman - Survival Of The Fittest

Sanger looked big, sitting high in the seat. Serious expression; smooth, ruddy cheeks well into the jowl stage. Soft around the jowls. A thick, rosy nose. A cigarette dangled from his lips, already half-smoked. He drove quickly, inattentively, flicking ashes out the window.

Daniel followed him toward the airport's outer reaches, passing freight depots, commercial hangars, commuter hotels, import-export sheds, nudie bars.

“I'm on Century approaching Aviation,” said Petra. “How far ahead are you?”

“Approaching the 5 Freeway,” Daniel told her. “We're making good time. He's getting on the freeway, headed for- looks like North- yes, North. We're on the freeway now, merging.”

Sanger stayed in the slow lane for a couple of minutes, then shifted one lane over and maintained a steady speed of sixty.

From Daniel's perspective, traffic was ideal: light enough for movement, no jam-ups with the unpredictability that could bring, yet sufficiently dense to give him three car-lengths' cover. Who'd notice a taxi?

Sanger went past the Santa Monica Freeway interchange and exited shortly after on Santa Monica Boulevard, east. He took the lightly traveled street past Century City into Beverly Hills, turned left on Beverly Drive, and drove north through the wide, residential street lined with mansions.

Trailing him here was a little trickier and Daniel had to work a bit to keep a Jaguar and a Mercedes between the taxi and the brown Cutlass. Petra had just called in; she was a half-mile back, stopped at the Beverly-Santa Monica light.

Sanger crossed Sunset and drove straight into the entrance of the Beverly Hills Hotel, refurbished recently by some oil sultan, reputed to be the richest man in the world. Years ago, during his Olympic assignment, Daniel had done some security work at the hotel, guarding a cabinet minister's wife in a bungalow, finding the place amazingly pink, somewhat decrepit.

Still pink, even brighter. The Israeli Consulate threw no parties here because the sultan was anti-Israel. Plenty of bar and bat mitzvahs, though.

Pink and shiny. Sanger had stayed here last time, but he'd have thought an East Coast corporate lawyer would have chosen something quieter.

Maybe when he came here, he went Hollywood.

The no-tie look for Sanger supported that theory. Preparing for Zena Lambert's casual-dress party?

Without telling Milo, Daniel had driven up Zena's street this morning, early, before the trade school opened. Hoping for a look at this strange-sounding woman as she left the small white house with the blue trim, maybe with one of her guests. Maybe the garage door would be open and he could copy down a license-plate number.

No such luck. But it was good that he'd seen the site firsthand, verifying what Milo had said about a tough surveillance situation.

He'd been driving a pickup truck at the time, a lawn mower and other gardening equipment in the bed. With his dark skin he'd be pegged as a Mexican gardener and rendered, for all intents, invisible.

Not a long-term solution because there wasn't much gardening to do up there, mostly concrete pads like Zena's instead of lawns, and the sloping hillside lots in back were untendable.

He sped away, mentally rationing his time, thinking about when and how to return to Rondo Vista. Wondering about the boundaries of loyalty.

Parking the cab at the mouth of the sloping hotel driveway, he climbed toward the entrance just in time to see a bellman hold the brown Cutlass's door open for Sanger, then open the trunk and take out the two pieces of luggage.

Sanger breezed through the main entrance, seemingly unaware as the doorman held the door open for him.

Accustomed to being served.

The luggage followed moments later.

Daniel retreated down the drive, walked to Sunset and, when the light turned green, crossed the boulevard by foot. On the south side, Beverly and Crescent and Canon met in a confusing intersection. The hub was a park where Daniel had once taken his children to see the Florentine fountain spouting into a pond full of Japanese carp- fish like Delaware's. Now, however, the fountain was dry and most of the flowers he remembered were gone. He waited at the south edge until Petra arrived.

Petra entered the hotel.

Her flight-attendant's uniform minus wings and insignia was just another tailored suit, and with her short dark hair, fine-featured face, and discreet makeup, she looked like just another Beverly Hills working woman.

The black crocodile valise said a very well-employed working woman. She strode confidently to the front desk. The lobby was crowded- lots of check-ins, mostly Japanese tourists. Several harried-looking clerks, male and female pretty-faces, were on duty, typing, dispensing keys. Petra waited in one of the lines, allowed an old Japanese man to go past her, so she could get a male clerk.

Nice-looking guy, blond, struggling actor, yawn, yawn. The poor dear was clicking away, miserable through his smile.

She looked at her watch. “I'm from DeYoung and Rubin with the delivery for Mr. Galton. Has he checked in yet?”

Blondie gave her a half-second lookover, then a real smile, as he tapped computer keys.

“Frank Galton,” she added, a little more impatient. “He phoned from the plane, said he'd be in by now.”

“Yes, he is- just arrived. Shall I call him for you?”

Chest tightening, Petra checked her watch again. “No need, he's expecting this, said to have you bring it right up.”

Blondie looked past her at the undiminished line.

Petra tapped her nails on the granite counter. “Okay, I'll do it- what room?”

“Three fourteen,” said the clerk, refusing eye contact. “Thanks.”

Daniel lit up the off-duty sign and moved his taxi to Hartford Way on the west side of the hotel, where he exchanged it for the gray Toyota and changed into an olive-green uniform with the name Ahmed embroidered over the pocket.

Petra had a Coke in the hotel bar, avoiding the stares of men, making several trips to the third floor.

The third time, Daniel was up there, too, holding a broom, and she returned to the lobby and read a newspaper, looking all-business.

At 9:00 P.M., Daniel saw a room-service waiter bring Farley Sanger a club sandwich, a Heineken, and coffee.

No food at the party? Going late to the party?

He phoned Petra and told her he was returning to the Toyota, to let him know if Sanger came downstairs.

Circling the hotel property, slowly.

At 10:00, just as he pulled up to the mouth of the drive for the fifth time, Petra called. “Still no sign of him. Maybe he's not going to the party, after all.”

Maybe, indeed, thought Daniel. Was this whole evening, like so much police work, a wrong guess based on fine logic?

By 10:15, Daniel was ready to believe the lawyer had turned in- for Sanger, still on East Coast time, it was 1:00 in the morning.

Give it another hour to be safe.

Five minutes later, Petra said, “Here we go. He's wearing a light gray sportcoat, black shirt, black slacks.”

Daniel thanked her and started his taxi, told her to have a nice night.

“Sure you don't need me?” she said.

“I'm fine. Thanks. Stay on call.”

She didn't argue, understood that one strange car near the house on Rondo Vista was enough.

At 10:20, the lawyer pulled out onto Sunset, going east, and Daniel was ready for him.

Sanger stayed on the boulevard, leaving Beverly Hills, and cruising the Strip, the Sunset Plaza boutique district, continuing into Hollywood, where marble and granite and sultans' fortunes were the last things on anyone's mind.

Daniel could see him well enough to know the lawyer was smoking steadily, progressing from one cigarette to another, flicking still-lit butts out the window, where they sparked on the asphalt.