As the gates clicked and swung open, a voice came behind my left shoulder. “Thank God you’re here.”
I turned to see a man of about sixty, his face square as a brick, his hair pure white and combed back from his head in waves that were truly amazing. I’d never seen hair like that on an old guy. He had a sun-browned tan and flawless white teeth. He was wearing a blue jogging suit and had a little dog on a leash, which he had obviously been walking when he spotted me.
“Excuse me?” I said. I had never seen him before in my life.
The oldster pointed past me to the open gate and the grounds beyond. “The koi pond in back has scum on it,” he said, his tone thick with offense. “And the rose bushes are positively ratty. There’s a view of it from the golf course, and every time I go golfing I can see it.”
I blinked at him. That was what it was, then. He thought I was the handyman. The help.
People are gonna be all over you when this gets out.
I could give this guy some attitude, tell him I was his new neighbor. But I found I had no desire to do that. Absolutely none.
“I’ll get right on it,” I said instead, thinking, What the fuck is a koi pond?
“See that you do,” the oldster sniffed, and went briskly walking on his way.
The inside of the house was beautiful—even someone like me, who knew nothing about decorating, could see that. It was all medium brown earth tones mixed with cream, like the outside. Thick glass in the connecting doors that was like looking through ice cubes. Marble tiled floors and understated art on the walls. It was a little bit 1970’s, but kept up with taste and money. Not like Shady Oaks, which had been built sometime in the sixties and never touched since. You used the same puke-colored fridge some lady in a beehive hairdo had used fifty years ago. This was different. If you’re going to go back in time, you may as well do it with class.
I dropped my duffel bag and wandered from room to room, still clutching the grocery bag. The kitchen, an open expanse of floor-to-ceiling windows and stainless steel appliances. The main rooms, with their sloping ceilings and wide views of the golf course and the hills beyond. Upstairs, the bedrooms, four of them, each beautifully decorated and immaculately clean. The bathrooms, that could fit a freaking football team. I wandered everything, taking it in.
Back downstairs I found a door with another keypad, and when I punched in the code I found it opened into the garage. Granddad, it seemed, had taste in cars too. There was a 1970 Mustang and a 1968 Thunderbird. A newer Mercedes, shiny black and sleek. I poked under the hood and saw that the cars needed restoring, including the Merc. Maybe Graham had fancied himself a mechanic, then never got around to it. The keys were on a hook next to the garage door, as if Graham had just hung him there on the way into the house.
It should have creeped me out, going through a dead man’s house and looking at his things, but it didn’t. First of all, he hadn’t actually died here. And he hadn’t actually lived here—the house was furnished, but it wasn’t lived-in. There were no stacks of newspapers or favorite photos or coffee cups. Graham Wilder had used this as a second home, a place to get away from LA once or twice a year.
I didn’t know who Graham Wilder was. I didn’t know what he was like. Not even what he looked like, come to think of it. It made it easier, that I had no memories here. People inherited houses all the time, right? It was no big deal. So I’d live in Diablo, in this place. It was either that or go back to my place in Shady Oaks. Which meant kicking out my best friend, Max, who I’d given the apartment to while I was in prison.
I stood in the kitchen, staring out the big windows at the back yard—actually about an acre of garden and trees—and thinking. I couldn’t see a single neighbor, the properties were so big here, and I felt like I was the only man in the world. There was a man-made pond back there—the koi pond, I assumed. It really did have scum on it. I should do something about that, like my white-haired neighbor had said. Was I supposed to do it? Or was I supposed to call someone?
Jesus, Devon, get a grip and think.
My cell phone rang. Not the new one that Ben had given me, but the old one from my old life. My pre-prison life.
I reached into my plastic grocery bag and fished it out, answering it. “Yeah?”
“Wilder,” said the voice on the other end. It was Gray Jensen, my old buddy. “Come to the club.”
I’d been out for a matter of hours. How the hell did he know? “Listen,” I said. “I think you figured out I don’t work for you anymore.”
“Sure you do,” he said. He cleared his throat, just a quick split second of sound, and I realized he was nervous about something. “You’re out, and you need work, right? You need money. I have a job. I need a driver.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I tried to keep my voice calm. “I just did two years. I got out this morning. I’m not driving shit.”
“You are driving shit, or you know the consequences,” Gray said. “Your crazy-ass buddy, who lives in your old apartment now. You drive for me or he gets a visit.”
So he knew that Max had moved to town. Fuck. I stomped down my anger and did a quick calculation. Something was different, an undercurrent I felt in my gut. “I don’t take orders from you,” I told him. “I did two years for you, and I never gave you up. We’re done. Unless you’d like me to make some calls and tell the cops who set me up for that TV gig.”
“It wasn’t supposed to go down like that. That was a mistake.”
“It sure fucking was. Did it feel good to give up your own brother?”
“I had no choice in that. Listen, Wilder, the point is that you’re not done until I say so.”
My gut instincts spoke up again. Gray was trying to scare me—because something had scared him. Suddenly I was sure of it. “Until you say so?” I said. “Or until Craig Bastien says so, since you dance to his tune?”
There was a beat of silence. Gray was small-time, but Craig Bastien was not. Gray was stolen TV’s, but Craig Bastien was drugs—lots and lots of them. Craig Bastien could eat Gray for breakfast. Maybe he already had.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gray said finally.
“You think I don’t know where all that Oxy came from?” I said to him. “You think I don’t know who was behind that part? It sure as hell wasn’t you. What did he threaten you with, Gray? You got someone he’s gonna kill if you don’t move his product?”
“It’s me he’s gonna kill, dipshit,” Gray said. He sounded shaky now, worried. Gray had never been all that tough. “And probably you, unless we all do what he says. I do the jobs he gives me, I take the money he cuts me, and I don’t ask questions. And so far I’m still alive. I suggest you do the same.”
I looked around my nice house. Gray had no idea I was in Diablo right now, no idea of what had happened to me. People are gonna be all over you when this gets out. So far I’d just been a low-level driver. What would a drug kingpin like Craig Bastien do if he found out I was worth a billion dollars?
“You get a message to Craig Bastien,” I said to Gray over the phone. Maybe it was a dangerous way to go, but when had I ever cared about danger? A man who has nothing to lose is incapable of being afraid. And despite the house I was standing in, I was still a man with nothing to lose. “You tell him to drive his own fucking getaway van. I quit. And don’t fucking call me again.”