It smelled to Gurney like a gangster’s wake.
With his two hired companions standing by the car, radiating a barely suppressed violence, he approached the intercom on the stone pillar beside the gate. In addition to the camera built into the intercom, two separate security cameras were mounted on poles on either side of the driveway-at intersecting angles, which covered the approach to the gate as well as a wide segment of the adjacent boulevard. The gate was also directly observable from at least one second-floor window of the Spanish-style mansion at the end of the yellow driveway. In such a leafy, flowery environment, it said something about the owner’s obsessiveness that not a single fallen leaf or petal had been allowed to remain on the ground.
When Gurney pressed the intercom button, the response was immediate, the tone mechanically polite. “Good morning. Please identify yourself and the nature of your business.”
“Tell Jordan I’m here.”
There was a brief pause. “Please identify yourself and the nature of your business.”
Gurney smiled, then let the smile fade to zero. “Just tell him.”
Another pause. “I need to give Mr. Ballston a name.”
“Of course,” said Gurney, smiling again.
He recognized that he was at a fork in the road. He ran through the options and chose the one that offered the greatest reward, at the greatest risk.
He let the smile fade. “My name is Fuck You.”
Nothing happened for several seconds. Then there was a muted metallic click, and without another sound the gate swung slowly open.
One thing Gurney had forgotten to do in the rush to do everything else was to check the Internet for photos of Ballston. However, when the mansion door opened as he approached it, he had no doubt at all about the identity of the man standing there.
His appearance fulfilled the expectations one might have of a criminally decadent billionaire. There was a pampered look about his hair and skin and clothes; a disdainful set to his mouth, as though the world in general fell far below his standards; a self-indulgent cruelty in his eyes. There also seemed to be a sniffly twitch in his nose, suggestive of a coke addiction. It was abundantly apparent that Jordan Ballston was a man to whom nothing on earth was remotely as important as getting his own way, and getting it quickly, at whatever cost to others the process might entail.
He regarded Gurney with ill-concealed anxiety. His nose twitched. “I don’t understand what this is all about.” He looked past Gurney down the driveway at the well-guarded Mercedes, his eyes widening just a fraction.
Gurney shrugged, smiled like he was unsheathing a knife. “You want to talk outside?”
Ballston apparently heard this as a threat. He blinked, shook his head nervously. “Come in.”
“Nice pebbles,” said Gurney, ambling past Ballston into the house.
“What?”
“The yellow pebbles. In your driveway. Nice.”
“Oh.” Ballston nodded, looked confused.
Gurney stood in the middle of the grand foyer, affecting the gimlet eye of an assessor at a foreclosure. On the main wall facing him, between the curving arms of a double staircase, was a huge painting of a lawn chair-which he recognized from the art-appreciation course he’d attended with Madeleine a year and a half earlier, the course taught by Sonya Reynolds, the course that had launched him on his fateful mug-shot art “hobby.”
“I like that,” announced Gurney, pointing at it as though his benediction were a form of triage that saved it from the trash bin.
Ballston seemed vaguely relieved by the approval but no less confused.
“Guy’s a fucking faggot,” Gurney explained, “but his shit is worth a lot.”
Ballston made a hideous attempt at a grin. He cleared his throat but couldn’t seem to think of anything to say.
Gurney turned toward him, adjusting his sunglasses. “So, Jordan, you collect a lot of fag art?”
Ballston swallowed, sniffled, twitched. “Not really.”
“Not really? That’s very interesting. So where can we sit down and have a little talk?” From the trial-and-error experience of countless interrogations, Gurney had come to appreciate the unsettling effect of casual non sequiturs.
“Uh…” Ballston looked around him as though he were in someone else’s house. “In there?” He extended his arm cautiously toward a broad archway that led to an elegant, antique-furnished living room. “We could sit in there.”
“Wherever you’re comfortable, Jordan. We’ll sit down. Relax. Have a conversation.”
Ballston led the way stiffly to a pair of white-brocaded armchairs on opposite sides of a baroque card table. “Here?”
“Sure,” said Gurney. “Very nice table.” His expression contradicted the compliment. He sat down and watched Ballston do the same.
The man crossed his legs awkwardly, hesitated, uncrossed them, sniffled.
Gurney smiled. “Coke got you by the balls, huh?”
“Excuse me?”
“Not my concern.”
A long silence passed between them.
Ballston cleared his throat. It sounded dry. “So you… you said on the phone you’re a cop?”
“Right. I did say that. You got a good memory. Very important, a good memory.”
“That doesn’t look like a cop’s car out there.”
“Course not. I’m undercover, you know? Actually, I’m retired.”
“You always ride with bodyguards?”
“Bodyguards? What bodyguards? Why would I need bodyguards? Some friends gave me a ride, that’s all.”
“Friends?”
“Yeah. Friends.” Gurney sat back, stretching his neck from side to side, letting his gaze drift around the room. It was a room that could be on the cover of Architectural Digest. He waited for Ballston to speak.
Finally the man asked in a low voice, “Is there a particular problem?”
“You tell me.”
“Something must have brought you here… a specific concern.”
“You’re under a lot of pressure. Stress, you know?”
Ballston’s face tightened. “It’s nothing I can’t handle.”
Gurney shrugged. “Stress is a terrible thing. It makes people… unpredictable.”
The tightness in Ballston’s face spread through his body. “I assure you the situation here will be resolved.”
“There’s a lot of different ways things get resolved.”
“I assure you that the situation will be resolved in a favorable way.”
“Favorable to who?”
“To… everyone concerned.”
“Suppose everyone’s interests don’t line up the same way.”
“I assure you that won’t be a problem.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that.” Gurney gazed lazily at the big pampered pig of a man across from him, allowing just enough of his disgust to seep through. “You see, Jordan, I’m a problem solver. But I got enough of them on my plate. I don’t want to be distracted by a new one. I’m sure you can appreciate that.”
Ballston’s voice was breaking. “There… won’t… be… any… new… problems.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“The problem this time was a freak one-in-a-million accident!”
“This time”? Mother of God, this is it! I’ve got the bastard! But for Christ’s sake, Gurney, don’t let it show. Relax. Take it easy. Relax.
Gurney shrugged. “That’s the way you see it, huh?”
“A fucking burglar, for shit sake! A fucking burglar who just happened to break in on exactly the wrong fucking night, the one fucking night that fucking cunt was in the fucking freezer!”