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  It doesn’t matter now, he thought. None of that was any excuse for what Megan was doing and maybe had been doing.

  He ate his breakfast quickly and drove to the detective’s office, which was on the second floor of an office building in Brentwood. Anyone would have thought it was a successful lawyer’s office and not the office of a private detective. It was bright and well appointed, with expensive-looking floor tile and oak-paneled walls. The secretary-receptionist in the outer office looked up and smiled as would someone who was expecting him andknew exactly who he was. She looked to be a woman in her fifties and wore a gray skirt suit. She had light brown hair styled neatly about her ears.

  “Good morning, Mr. Lester,” she said. “My husband is waiting for you.”

  She rose to open the inner office door for him. “Would you like some coffee, bottled water, soda?”

  “Nothing, thank you,” Scott said.

  Whatever happened to the Humphrey Bogartstyle private detectives who had dingy offices and disorganized secretaries? He didn’t even think a private eye would have or need a secretary these days. One thing was certain—he wasn’t counting on another person knowing his intimate details, but that’s what would surely happen here, since Ed Marcus’s secretary was his wife.

  The inner office was no less impressive than the outer, and like the outer, it was as immaculate as the office of a bank president. Marcus, a tall, slim man in his midfifties with licorice black hair cut and shaped like that of an actor from the forties, rose to extend his hand. He wore an expensive-looking pinstripe suit.

  “Mr. Lester…Ed Marcus,” he said.

  Scott shook his hand.

  “Please, sit on the sofa. It’s more comfortable.”

  On Scott’s left was a soft black leather sofa, a glass-top coffee table and a big cushioned brown and black chair across from the sofa. Scott sat on the sofa and Ed sat in the chair.

  “Would you like some coffee? Anything?”

  “I asked,” Ed’s wife said, still standing in the doorway.

  “I’m fine,” Scott said.

  “Very good.”

  Marcus looked at his wife, who stepped back out and closed the door.

  “I must say…,” Scott began. “Your offices are not what I expected.”

  Marcus smiled. He has rather big teeth, Scott thought. He smiled to himself thinking that was exactly what Megan would have said after they left. Everything else about Marcus’s face seemed well proportioned. If he kept his mouth closed, he wouldn’t be a bad-looking man at all, Megan would surely add.

  “Your reaction isn’t unexpected. People generally think of film noir when they think about private detectives—rundown offices, tough men of mystery packing revolvers in wrinkled suits and fighting with the police, who always resent them for making them look incompetent.”

  He crossed his legs and smiled.

  “I’ve never had reason to hire a private detective,” Scott said dryly.

  “Right. Actually, most of my work is routine, checking on assets, data. For private detectives these days, half the day is spent on the Internet.

  “As you can see, we don’t lack for business. We are doing well. Most of it involves marital problems, divorces. We have some cases that involve parents checking on their children. One parent I have as a client has been watching her daughter at college for two years, matter of fact.”

  “You handle it all yourself?”

  “I have a partner and we have some associates on a subcontractual basis. So. Let’s get to your problem. Your father told me a little. You’re in the first stages of a divorce, separated, and you suspect your wife is seeing someone and might have been even before the petition for divorce was served?”

  “As usual, my father puts it all succinctly and completely.”

  “Did you bring a picture?”

  “A picture?”

  “I have to know what she looks like if I’m to tail her,” Marcus said, imitating Bogart.

  “Oh. Of course.”

  Scott opened his wallet. Ironically, he would have to thank Megan for this. Just a month and a half ago, she’d given him the picture of her, Jennifer and him to put in his wallet. He handed it to Marcus.

  “Very pretty and an adorable little girl.” He looked at Scott. “This is fairly recent.”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. We’ll draw up our standard contract for you and I’ll get right on this. We’ll stake out the house and we’ll give you a daily report. I assume you’d like the phone tapped, as well.”

  “You can do that?”

  “All I’m saying is, I assume you’d like it. I didn’t commit to doing anything,” Marcus said, smiling.

  “Oh.” Scott smirked.

  “This is uncomfortable,” Marcus said. “I understand.” He leaned forward. “The whole idea of spying on someone is nefarious to start with, Mr. Lester. I’d be the first to admit it. War is nefarious, too, but unfortunately events make them both necessary. I always found the concept of fair play in a shooting war absurd. Armies by their very nature play as dirty as possible to win—to survive, in fact. We proved it ourselves recently in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I’m sure we will in the future.”

  Scott simply stared at him. He hadn’t counted on such a well-to-do private detective and he certainly hadn’t counted on a philosophical discussion concerning good and evil.

  Marcus rose and went to his desk to get a legal pad.

  “Now, why don’t we begin by your telling me as much as you can about your soon-to-be ex-wife, where she likes to go, who are some of her friends, et cetera. I’d also like to know when you saw each other last, what that was like, if your daughter has said anything you think important. Sure you won’t have some coffee?”

  Scott thought a moment.

  “Maybe I will,” he said. “I guess I’ll be here a while.”

  “I guess so,” Marcus said, smiling, and called for his wife.

  Forty minutes later, Scott emerged and went down to his automobile. Despite how civilized Marcus and his wife were, Scott couldn’t help feeling he was in league now with the darker world. Somehow, he had kept himself above the fray all these married years. What happened to others didn’t happen to him. The whole thing made him feel dirty and that made him even angrier. Megan was doing this to him. She was the cause and Jennifer was caught in the middle. One thing was for sure, he wasn’t going to make any of it easier. He got right on the phone with his attorney to make sure he understood that. He also told him about the private detective.

  “I’m sorry about all this, Scott,” he said. “But it will support our position. I’ll call you soon.”

  By the time he got to his office and met his father in the conference room, he felt his insides were twisted like pretzels. His father took one look at him and shook his head.

  “You’ve got to compartmentalize, Scott. When you come here, you put all that out of your mind. Otherwise, you won’t be worth a nickel to us.”

  “It’s not easy.”

  “It’s easy,” his father replied. “You simply tell yourself you’ve hired experts to do the worrying for you. Now let’s look at this portfolio. I’m not happy about the exchange rate they’re suggesting.”

  Scott looked hard at his father. He wasn’t sure if he should envy him for his emotional and psychological strength or despise him for it. Is this really who I am, too? he wondered. Megan surely thought so.

  He sat and opened the portfolio.

  His father began to analyze and Scott looked at him and pretended to listen.

  He couldn’t help it.

  He was agonizing over the very thought that Megan would be intimate with another man.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Paul Stanley noticed early in the day that Steve was different. He kept up with the others, but on Friday he was way ahead of them and evinced more energy and enthusiasm for the job. Now he looked distracted, almost entirely uninterested. He couldn’t help approaching him and asking him if everything
was all right.

  “All right?” Steve pondered the question as if it were earth-shattering.

  “Any problems with the earthquake at your home?”

  “Oh no, no. It did mess up an important date I was having with a perfect woman, however.”

  “Oh.” Paul smiled. “Well, I’m sure you’ll find a way to make up for it.”

  “Me too. I’m sure.”

  “She must be something.”

  “Oh, she is. Believe me. I know a jewel when I see one.”

  “Good for you,” Paul said, laughing.

  The little talk seemed to work. Steve was energetic again. In fact, now he looked as if he couldn’t wait to get his work done and leave, and when it was time to leave, he was off before anyone else.

  “What’s with him?” one of the other workers asked Paul Stanley.

  “He’s in love,” Paul said.

  Steve had decided not to call Megan until he was off. He thought the more time he gave her, the better chance he had of getting her to agree to a second date. As soon as she answered the phone, he knew something wasn’t right. He was encouraged by the fact that he could sense her moods so quickly without having spent much time at all with her. This was a natural, meant-to-be relationship. She was his soul mate. They had simply both taken convoluted paths to this point.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. He could tell she wanted to make the conversation short. “I can hear it in your voice.”

  “Can you?” The fact that he could didn’t surprise her. She was that upset. “I just got off the phone with my attorney. My husband’s attorney is now sounding like they plan to challenge the custody arrangement. I should have anticipated it. The Lesters only know how to play hardball. Compromise is a sign of weakness and defeat to them,” she added bitterly.

  “Well, that’s not right.”

  “In this world, Steve, what’s right often has nothing to do with what happens. I’m sorry. I’m just upset. Thanks for calling.”

  “Well…can I help you somehow?”

  “I don’t see what you can do, Steve. Thanks.”

  “I can cheer you up. How about tomorrow night?”

  “I’m not going to be good company for anyone for a while.”

  “But—”

  “Maybe the end of the week,” she added to cut him off.

  “Okay. Sure. I’ll call again.”

  “Thanks,” she said, and hung up.

  He flung his cell phone. Miraculously, although it bounced off the passenger-side window, it didn’t break. When he got home, the sight of his yellow Corvette in his mother’s driveway only intensified his rage. He didn’t rent it to sit there. He got it to impress Megan and give her some fun. He would have been doing that too, perhaps as soon as tomorrow night, if it weren’t for this soon-to-be ex-husband.

  He had never had respect for wealthy businessmen anyway. To him they were mostly spoiled, weak excuses for manhood who managed either to inherit or manipulate businesses to give themselves a far greater piece of the pie than more deserving, hardworking Joes like himself. He was no socialist by any means, but he did see an injustice at work, an injustice built out of the luck of birth or the sneaky and ruthless deceptions in the business world. Megan’s husband was just another good example of it. She was trying to pull away from it and he was throwing nails on the road.

  He slammed his truck door so hard that it didn’t close. He had to go back to close it softly and then he went into the house, mumbling to himself. The moment he walked through the front entrance, his mother called out.

  “I defrosted a pork chop for you. Hope that’s not too simple a meal for my Beverly Hills son.”

  “I’m not eating home,” he shouted back and went to his room.

  A few moments later she was at the door.

  “What do you mean you’re not eating home? Why didn’t you call to tell me that earlier? What am I going to do with the pork chop? I can’t freeze it again.”

  He opened the door. “I just got to get out, Ma,” he said.

  “Why? What’s got you all twisted up?”

  “Nothing.”

  “That woman? She turn out the way I said she would already?”

  “No, damn it. It’s not her. It’s her husband making things hard for her and her little girl.”

  “Well, you got no business interfering, Steve. It ain’t your affair. Don’t stick your head in places it ain’t supposed to be.”

  “Right,” he said, and slammed the door on her.

  “You better chain up that temper of yours, Steve Gavin Wallace,” she shouted through the closed door. “It’s gotten you into plenty of trouble, and what we don’t need now is more trouble. You hear me? Steve?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I hear you.”

  “Good,” she said, and finally left him alone.

  He pouted for a while and then showered and changed, but he didn’t go to any restaurant. He had no appetite. Instead, he drove to Megan’s house. He just wanted to be nearby in case that husband showed up to make more trouble. When he parked on her side of the street, he noticed another vehicle parked across the way with a man sitting calmly in it. The car was positioned so it wasn’t in the direct illumination of the streetlight. Once in a while, the driver was on a cell phone, but it was clear to Steve that his attention was on Megan’s house.

  “Son of a bitch,” he muttered. “The bastard’s gone and hired someone to watch her.” He waited a while longer and then drove away and circled the area. When he returned, the vehicle was still there.

  He passed it, glancing at the man in the car, and then made a turn and found a place to park. It was safer to get out of his car and observe the man from a position in the shadows. Later, when he checked his watch, he realized that the guy had been there well over two hours. There was no doubt about it. He couldn’t warn her, however, without revealing his own reconnaissance, and she might be turned off by that.

  No, he had to handle this another way. He went back to the Corvette and drove home. Then he got into his pickup truck and returned to Megan’s street. The vehicle was gone. Not satisfied, however, he parked up the street again. Suddenly he realized there was another vehicle with a different man parked not far from where the first had been parked. There was a rotation going on. He should have anticipated it. There was no concern for money spent.

  He noticed the driver had his window open. It wasn’t that hot, but it was warm enough to either have the air conditioner in the car going or keep the window open.

  Perfect, he thought. He put on his work gloves, got out of his truck, went to the rear and found his small sledgehammer. Then he crossed the street and made his way slowly up to the vehicle and the driver, who was now on a cell phone. Steve looked around, waited for another vehicle to pass and then stepped up to the rear of the vehicle and softly made his way close to the driver’s window. Suddenly, the driver noticed him in the side mirror and turned just as Steve swung the sledgehammer with both his hands to drive the head of it squarely into the man’s temple. Blood splattered on the dashboard and windshield and even flew to the passenger-side window.

  The man slumped over on his seat, dropping his cell phone. Steve returned to his truck to throw the sledgehammer into the rear again. Then he went back to the car, opened the door and shoved the man into the passenger’s seat. Ignoring the blood around him, Steve started the engine, closed the door and drove away. He never looked at the man. He took Santa Monica Boulevard, driving as casually as he could, and turned onto Wilshire, going through the heart of Beverly Hills, continuing on to West Hollywood until he found what he considered to be an adequate side street and a parking space. He pulled in, shut off the engine and then finally looked at the man crumpled in the seat.

  He found his wallet and read his identification. He was right. The man was a private detective.

  “You shouldn’t have taken this assignment,” he told him and felt for his pulse, which was very slight. Probably bleeding in his brain, he thought, and then got
out of the car. He decided to keep the wallet and the camera he had, so it would look like a robbery.

  As casually as he had driven to this location, he walked away and found a bus stop. Nearly forty minutes later, a bus came by and he rode it to within five blocks of where he had left his truck. He walked quickly to it and got in. For a while he sat there catching his breath and looking at Megan’s house. The lights were out in the rooms. She and Jennifer, sweet Jennifer, were asleep in their beds safe now from the prying eyes of this hired spy.

  He started the truck and drove off.

  That oughta put a dent in her rich and powerful husband’s surface, he thought.

  In his experience men like her husband were cowards whenever it came to any physical conflict. This will surely terrify the bastard and he’ll back off, he concluded.

  The only regret he had was that Megan wouldn’t ever know why she should thank him.

  Lily Marcus called her husband’s cell phone. It rang and rang, but he didn’t answer. She waited a few minutes and called again with the same result. She tried to keep herself busy with some house chores so she wouldn’t get too nervous. Ed had generally given up the footwork and subcontracted stakeouts and pursuits, but Gordon Lester and his son Scott were too important to relegate completely to subordinates.

  “I want Gordon to understand we put a high priority on his son’s affairs, Lily,” Ed had explained. “He can make or break us with his recommendations. You know the circles he moves in. Just imagine the referrals we’ll get out of this one. Can’t afford any mess-up here.”

  She didn’t disagree. She simply felt street work was not only potentially dangerous but beneath him now. He knew she was unhappy about it, but he went forward, promising not to do more than he could or should.

  She checked the clock and called his cell phone again. It was nearly thirty-five minutes. He surely wouldn’t be in a dead zone for cell phones, and if he was busy with someone,by now he could take a moment. This time she left a message.

  “I want you to call me right away, Ed.” She rattled off the time and her concern and hung up.