Barry closed the door. He'd had no intention of asking the guys from the coffee shop up here again, but now he was tempted to invite them for lunch every damn day. He walked upstairs to the kitchen to get himself another beer.
Hell, maybe he'd even give them the code to the gate.
The Bonita Vista Homeowners' Association Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions Article IV, General Provisions, Section 9, Paragraph D:
No member of the Bonita Vista Homeowners' Association shall, within the boundaries of the Properties, socialize with any individual currently residing in the town of Car ban. The only exception to this shall be if a resident of Corban owns a Lot within the Properties and is also a member of the Association.
Maureen had an early meeting with Ed Dexter at the title company, for whom she was doing some freelance account auditing, and since the Toyota was at the shop getting a new water pump and they had only one vehicle, she offered to drive Barry into town and drop him off at the microscopic shack he called his office. He didn't usually leave until after The Today Show ended, but this morning she made him get ready early, and they were out the door before eight.
She drove carefully down the steep winding road, through the neighborhood toward the entrance of Bonita Vista.
The gate had changed overnight. Maureen slowed the Suburban, feeling an icy tingle tickle her spine and then settle like a lump of lead in the pit of her stomach. She glanced over at Barry in the passenger seat, and he, too, seemed dumbstruck and thrown for a loop.
They'd come through the gate just last evening. In what turned out to be a futile effort to cheer up Liz and get her out of the house, they, along with Mike and Tina, had taken her to a late steak dinner in town.
As they probably should have known, the last time she'd been to the restaurant was with Ray, and she'd spent the first part of the meal crying quietly, the second half silently staring at her almost un touched plate. They'd returned to Bonita Vista around ten, Barry driving, and he'd stopped in front of the gate as always, entered the code, and once the creaky metal had swung open, driven through.
Now, though, the old gateway was gone. In its place was an even more elaborate entrance: stone columns on either side of the road, massive ornate double gates that looked tall enough to block a semi.
And a guard shack.
She and Barry looked at each other, although neither of them spoke.
The road had been widened at this point, bifurcating around the small square structure, allowing for simultaneous entrance to and exit from Bonita Vista.
The Suburban coasted up to the gate and stopped.
Maureen rolled down her window as the trim middle aged man staffing the booth stepped outside at the approach of their car, clipboard in hand.
He was wearing the olive uniform of a security guard, and his close-cropped hair accentuated the militaristic appearance.
The guard walked up to the driver's window. "May I ask your name, sir?" He looked over at Barry in the passenger seat, ignoring her completely, acting as though she didn't exist.
Barry met Maureen's eyes and looked deliberately away from the guard, which caused her to smile. "My name is Maureen Welch," she said.
The man looked down at the list on his clipboard. "Welch ... Welch ..." He glanced up. "Here you are. Barry and Maureen." The humorless formality gave way to a fawning smile. "You are free to go. Sorry for the inconvenience."
"Free to go?"
She'd been about to put the car into gear, but Barry's words caused her to stop.
"You mean if our names had not been on that list, we would not have been free to go? You would have forced us to stay here and not let us leave?"
"There've been reports of intruders, and one apparent burglary," the guard said. "My job is to make sure that only residents are allowed in or out of Bonita Vista. If a trespasser has managed to get in, then, yes sir, I am obliged to hold them here until the sheriff arrives to take care of the matter."
Maureen glanced over at Barry, wondering if he was as chilled by the fascistic tone of this exchange as she was.
"So they put up this new gate and this guard booth and hired you because there was a burglary!"
"As I understand it, too many people knew the entry code. It had been given out to plumbers and roofers and contractors; half of Corban knew it. So the old gate was no longer effective as a security measure. It was felt that new measures needed to be taken."
"Are you from Corban ?" Maureen asked, thinking they'd hired a local man to staff the entrance.
The guard shook his head. "No, ma'am. I live here in Bonita Vista."
There was the sound of a car driving up behind them, and she glanced in the rearview mirror to see a red Saturn pulling up.
She put the car in gear, but kept her foot on the brake. "How ... ?"
Maureen did not know how to ask what she was really wondering. "How did this get put up so... fast?"
The guard shook his head. "I don't know, ma'am. I didn't build it, I
just staff it."
There was tacit recognition that this was unusual, strange, but not acknowledgment that it was damn near impossible. The gate swung open before them, and she guided the Suburban through. She glanced at the stone columns as she drove by. The cement did not even appear to be wet. It was as if this whole thing had been here for months, years, and she realized how truly incredible this all was. There was no way that even a large crew of workers could have torn down the old gate, put up an entirely new one, widened the road, and constructed a guard shack between ten o'clock last night and eight this morning.
They headed toward the highway.
She glanced over at Barry. "What are you thinking?" she asked him quietly.
"The Davidsons ," he said.
Maureen nodded. "Me, too." She had not been sure at the time that she entirely believed the couple's story about the gate being built to increase property values and thus drive them out with higher property taxes, but it seemed eminently reasonable now.
"You going to call Chuck Shea or Terry Abbey and ask them what's doing?"
Maureen shook her head.
"Why not?"
"I'm afraid to," she said quietly.
That shut him up, and neither of them said anything as they drove between the two pine-covered hills toward the highway.
She took a deep breath. "Who do you suppose they're trying to get rid of this time?"
She didn't expect an answer and she didn't get one, and they rode the rest of the way into town in silence.
The telephone was ringing when they got home that afternoon, and Barry dashed past her the instant she unlocked and opened the door, picking up the phone from the coffee table where they'd left it that morning.
"Hello?"
Maureen closed the screen and threw her keys in her purse.
"I'm fine," Barry said into the phone.
The call obviously wasn't for her, so she took her purse downstairs and then went to the bathroom. He was still on the phone when she walked back up several minutes later, still standing in exactly the same position. There was a strange expression on his face, one that she could not read, and she could not tell if what he was hearing was good or bad.
Her heart started pounding.
"Barry?" she said.
He held up his hand. "Yes," he said into the phone. "Okay."
She touched his elbow.
"All right. Thanks. Goodbye."
"So?" Maureen asked.
He clicked off the Talk button, looking stunned.
"What is it?"
"A movie deal."
"What!"
"They want to buy the rights to The Friend" he said. "Half a million dollars."
It was still hard to believe.