Through the slatted vent he could just make out the shape of the Taurus parked in a position that was out of the line of sight from the windows below him. The agent in the Taurus could just make out the edge of his driveway from there, he reckoned. Last night's exploratory trip had confirmed that the agent could not see the back of his house. He had the freedom he needed.
Kom was quickly across his back lawn and into the woods beyond the tennis court. He paused once under the cover of the trees, listening.
He sensed something strange about the night, something different from all of the other times he had stood here like this, but he could not say why. There were the usual noises of the night, but nothing singular. He scanned the area around him, allowing his eyes to adjust to the darkness. It was a familiar spot, but not one he had memorized. The configurations seemed normal, nonthreatening, and nothing moved, but his eye was struck momentarily by a mound, just one more patch of gray on gray, but somehow different. He moved his head, trying to catch it from different angles. With imagination he could twist it into the shape of a man, but Luv had learned long ago not to trust his imaginings at night Congratulating himself on his good sense and ascribing any unease to his awareness of the agent in the car out front, he moved deeper into the woods. He passed close to the troubling shape, glanced at it and moved on, heading swiftly toward his destination.
He did not turn back to see the shape rise and stand and move after him.
The car was waiting for him where he had thought it would be. He crossed the open playing field, his passage marked only by the stars and a peel of moon so thin he could barely believe it had ever been whole.
Within the border of the hedge he waited as a headlight came and went, then stepped into the black pool of asphalt and crossed to the car. With a final glance around he entered the car. The overhead light came on and off as the door opened and closed but he reached up to shut it off so that it would not happen again.
There was a pay phone designed for a driver to use from his car at another service station a twenty-minute drive to the north. He could not make the call from his home or his office because records were kept.
For the same reason, out of respectful caution, he did not make the call from the pay phone at Clamden Center. If the cops ever tracked it to the center-and they would probably trace every call she had made or received in a day or two-there was no point in bringing them so close to home.
He pulled onto Clamden Road, away from town, watched only by two eyes that peered out from the hedge where he had crouched only moments before.
Luv returned his car to the service station forty-five minutes later, delighted with his work. The plan was in place, and oh, it was brilliant, it was wonderful, it was in "in your face." Daring but so simple, so audacious no one would believe it. It would be just one more achievement that Luv would have to share only with himself. He parked the car where he had found it and stepped out, this time without the illumination of the interior light. After a glance around he trotted across the asphalt of Clamden Road once more and glided through the hole in the hedge. He was never aware of the eyes that followed him, as patient and murderous as a hawk's.
25
In the pre-electronic age Peter Stanhope would have been called a private investigator. Today he was a security specialist who spent more time devising alarm systems and computer safeguards than tracking missing persons or counseling jealous husbands, but for a price he was still willing to do what the customer required. It was unusual for a suspicious man to have another man tailed, but the world was changing and Stanhope saw no profit in prejudice. Passion was passion, regardless of the source.
Stanhope suspected that his client had not given his right name, but he had no problem with that, either. Clients had many reasons to wish to remain anonymous, some of them legitimate, and it was of no real concern to Stanhope what they were. He was paid to provide information and that is what he did, no questions asked-provided the cashier's check for his services was good.
"Dr. Kom is a busy man," Stanhope said now, tapping a folder on the desk in front of him. "Hyperactive, you might say."
"So I've heard," said the client.
"So busy, in fact, that the operatives assigned to him were unable to find out anything about two of the women he was meeting-they had to keep after the doctor when the women left. Since you wanted a twenty-four-hour-per day surveillance of Dr. Kom, you were already employing three operatives full-time. If you wish to assign another operative to the case-which will add to the bill, I'm afraid, there's no discount for more activity-the other operative could determine the identity of the women he's meeting."
"I'm more interested in what you know than what you don't know," the client said brusquely. "Of course," Stanhope said smoothly. He opened the folder and spoke in the semiformal way that clients found most assuring. "You requested a summary of his activities when he was not at home, in his office, or in the hospital. In the past seven days he has had liaisons with three women other than his wife. He rented rooms in two separate motels. He paid in cash in the first instance and did not sign the register, which the clerk said was common practice. The clerk also said he might have seen Dr. Kom before but he was not certain.
Commencing at eight thirty-seven P.m., he spent one hundred and ten minutes in room seventeen with a woman approximately thirty-five years old, shoulderlength blond hair five-foot-six or — seven, fair complexion.
Kom opened the motel door when the woman's car arrived and she went directly into the room. The operative describes her as slim of build and adds that she did not think the blonde was natural. The operative in this case is female and I think we can trust her assessment. There is a good deal of description of the woman's attire if you'd care to hear it…"
Stanhope elicited a response with an arched eyebrow. The client gave a minimal shake of his head. Stanhope continued.
"Different operatives have different strengths," he said. "The woman arrived in a 1994 black Acura sedan and remained in the room after the doctor left the motel. The Acura is registered in the name of Nathan Waxman of Eight seventy-three Summer Street in Darien. The following day Dr. Kom left his office in Norwalk at eleven-sixteen A.M. and drove to New York City via the Merritt Parkway. He had lunch at a restaurant called Enrico's on East Sixtyseventh Street between Lexington and Third.
The client shifted his position in his chair and Stanhope looked up at him expectantly, waiting to be interrupted. The client's expression had not changed, only his body language. Stanhope returned to his paraphrase of the information in the folder before him.
"Kom had lunch at Enrico's with a woman who was already present when he arrived. The woman remained seated throughout Kom's stay, so the operative has no estimate as to size or weight. He describes her as very attractive, brunette with shoulder-length hair, wearing a dark blue business suit. No eye color was noted, as the operative could not get close enough. At one point the pair held hands on top of the table.
When Dr. Kom left they exchanged a kiss. The operative was not yet in position when Kom entered the restaurant and thus says nothing about how they greeted one another. The lunch lasted an hour and five minutes.
Kom left the restaurant, returned to his parking garage, and drove straight back to his office in Norwalk.
"The third meeting took place at a motel in the town of Trumbull, a twenty-minute drive from Dr. Kom's office, again on the Merritt. This was Tuesday, four days ago. Kom went directly from his car to room thirty-six, where the door was partially ajar. Again, in order not to expose himself, the operative was not yet in a position to see who, if anyone, opened the door. One assumes that a woman had preceded him and rented the room herself. The clerk was not forthcoming about details but the operative did manage to get close enough to room thirty-six to hear a woman's voice. He describes it as 'moaning low." The operative assumes sexual congress took place. You can understand that he was not able to remain in that position very long, so he could hear none of the actual conversation-if there was any. Once again, Kom and the woman left separately, Kom tirst. The operative offers no description of either the woman or her car, assuming she arrived in one."