For breakfast at the café Sanguineus had a sausage omelet, toast with orange marmalade, a half avocado, and hash browns. Eleanor ordered a cinnamon roll, which she ate with a fork, a tiny bite at a time, and black coffee. Her laughter was a thing of the past. Now, with the rising sun split into thin bars across the table by the Venetian blinds, she sat composed like a zoo animal that knows nothing of life beyond its cage.
She watched Sanguineus eat and she occasionally smiled at him. He made small talk about the architecture of golf courses. He was encouraged by her look of disbelief.
"What's the problem?" he asked.
"What is it you REALLY do?"
"Lie," he said.
This almost made her laugh. Her smile was open and tremulous, but he saw again in her eyes that sharp glint of steel.
Eleanor held her coffee cup level with her chin. "I phoned John last night, right after I got back to the motel, here, at the Blue Pelican. I always stay here when I come to the beach. I'm from back east, you know. Delaware. I asked John about you. I asked him to find out what he could. He called me back just after I got into bed. He said there's no public records of you, not since 1987. Your last last known address was Laredo, Texas."
"Well, I'm a private person. What about yourself? Do you put your life story on billboards?"
She sipped her coffee, eyeing him humorously over the rim of the cup. "I'm independently well off," she said, "thanks to my rich husband's early demise. A car accident on the New Jersey turnpike. I gave myself a complete make-over. I intend to be free, and carefree, and just wealthy enough to go wherever I want to, and do whatever I want to. I want to dance on the edge of cliffs. I want life to be risky. I would hate to have TOO much money. No, just enough to plan ahead a few months. Do you like that? Do you have a similar philosophy?"
Sanguineus motioned to the waitress to bring more coffee. He did this to give himself time to think of an answer that would further open up the ego of Eleanor Lyme. He decided to be as truthful about himself as possible without giving any secrets away. When his cup was refilled he put in a dash of cream and stirred it with his spoon, aware that the rare red leopardess was impatient for a reply.
"Living by the rules is not an option for me," he said. "Rules are traps. Sand traps and water hazards. Why use a golf club when I can shoot the ball with an air rifle? And why aim for the hole in the green, when I can drop it in the back pocket of something more rewarding, more interesting?"
"You mean victims?"
"Are they victims, or are they products on a shelf?"
"I'm not sure what you mean. Are you an embezzler, a con man, a sophisticated thief?"
"I'm an opportunist," he said in a stern voice. He saw her surprise when he looked at her with a trace of menace in his expression. "But I'm not a passive one. If there are obstacles, I don't wait for them to change into something less daunting. I uproot them. When I see an opportunity I don't detour my way around things. I plough my way forward, on the most direct route. Does this attitude appeal to you?"
Eleanor set down her cup. She looked around at the clientele. Then turning her head toward the blinds she said, "I don't believe in dreams. You won't find me sleeping in the shade of a tree, dreaming. I don't believe that any Prince Charming will come around and kiss Sleeping Beauty awake. I wouldn't trust him even if he DID come around."
"And what do you do to those whom you don't trust?"
The moment he said that he feared he might have overplayed his hand. What saved him was the coarse tone of voice he used and the harsh look on his face. She was more attuned to his expression than to his words. There was a brief flash of annoyance in her eyes, but her search of his own stern eyes mollified her.
She shrugged, picked up her cup and said, "I stay away from those I don't trust."
"You trust John Huffins?"
"The more someone likes you, the more you can trust them. I don't believe everything he tells me, but it's not because I think he's deceiving me, but that he makes mistakes in his judgment now and then."
"You're sure of that?"
"I sense it," she said emphatically. "Where are you going when you leave here?"
"San Fran. I've a client to see."
"What about?"
"I'd rather not say."
"So, you don't trust me."
"It's not that," Sanguineus said, and snapped his fingers for the check. "It's that you haven't a need to know. And due to the nature of the meeting, the less you know the better. Where do you call home?"
"Santa Barbara. It's where John's law firm is located. I have a condo there, in the hills. Whatever you tell me stays under my hat. The more open you are with me, the more I can trust you."
"I don't have a need for you to trust me," he said, and immediately congratulated himself for playing the right card at the right time. He knew now that he had succeeded in coming across to her as someone who was not trying to gain her confidence. If she had suspected him of being an FBI agent, or any sort of investigator, she no longer harbored that suspicion. He saw it in the softening of her eyes and in the alluring curl of her lips.
He was not surprised when she said, "Would you like to come up to my room?"
"Yours or mine," he said.
In the deep darkness of the mausoleum he heard a squeak and a faint scratching sound. He stood away from the step ladder and turned on the pen flashlight. It was what he expected. A rat. It scurried down the passage and vanished in what was probably a hole in the base of the wall near the door.
A rat.
He frowned at the memory of making a rough love to Eleanor in his room at the motel next to the café.
At first he had his mind on the scheduled meeting at Nob Hill, and what little he had learned in his talk with her. But her ferocity in bed challenged him delightfully. All else was forgotten. He wrestled her down in a tangle of sheets. Each tried to undress the other, giving in to an impatient lust that conjured just enough bare flesh to satisfy itself. They knotted themselves in positions that were dictated by their state of undress, cursing the restrictions in an amusing exchange that had their mouths straying over dishevelled cloth, biting and gnawing on brief exposures of skin, then finding themselves again, sucking kisses that grated on their teeth as a mutual fireball of passion grew in intensity. He held back desperately until he felt her body shivering and her gasping breath thundering in his ear. He let loose then, not caring whether she had taken precautions, and joined her in a last euphoric death.
The rat.
He looked at the green glow of his digital watch. It was three minutes after midnight.
Anytime now, he thought. He weighed the gun in his hand.
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