Page 58 of Pro Bono

“Wouldn’t it be smarter and safer to use a rifle and fire through a window? No prints, no DNA.”

“Have you got one with you?”

“I don’t own one. My cousin’s revolver is the only gun I’ve ever owned.”

Ollonsun looked at his watch. “We’ve got tonight. I don’t know if we’ll have tomorrow to get this done. I think it’s time to go do it.” Heopened the glove compartment and held the revolver by the barrel so the handgrip was in front of Talbert. He stared at it for a moment, then reached out to accept it. They both put on the medical masks and baseball caps and got out.

They walked across the front of the building. There was a front entrance that had a heavy conventional lock and a keypad that might be an intercom or might be an electric second lock. Just past that was the garage entrance, which had a big garage barrier made of steel bars. They could see cars in most of the spaces, but they had no idea which one was Warren’s, and no idea what to do with that information if they had it. They went past the door, turned at the corner of the building, and found themselves in front of a steel door set into a fence with spikes on top that made it around eight feet high.

They kept going past the building and then the next one, and then the next, which was older and had an open walkway. They followed it to the back of the building, which had a pool and a patio. At the other side of it there was a door in the cinder block wall separating it from the next property. It was locked, but the wall was only five feet high, so they scaled it and then crossed the next patio with a pool to another wall. This one was more like seven feet, but they moved a metal table beside it, climbed on the table, and made an even easier crossing to the back of Warren’s condominium building. They found a door at the rear corner of the building near the enclosure that hid the dumpster. Ollonsun tried the door and he was surprised when it opened into the garage. He could see the street through the bars of the garage door from there.

They went into the garage and found a door that led to a half-story staircase. They climbed it and saw doors with the numbers 1, 2, 3, and4 on them. They found the next flight of steps that led to the second floor. The first door on the left was 6. They moved close to it.

“The lock’s not like the others,” Ollonsun whispered. “Look at this. There’s a steel guard so you can’t jimmy it.”

“It looks like the door’s new, too,” Talbert whispered. He leaned close and sniffed it. “Fresh paint.”

“He’s ready for this,” Ollonsun whispered. “It’s like he knew we were coming.”

Talbert gestured to Ollonsun to come and began to descend the steps. They went all the way back down to the garage. They closed the door to the building, went to the corner of the garage, and crouched behind the last of the parked cars. Talbert said, “We could wait here until he comes out to get into his car and shoot him then.”

“I don’t know,” Ollonsun said. As he came closer he stepped across an empty parking space, then stopped. “Look at the floor. The spaces are marked with condo numbers. The two that are empty have sixes painted on them. He’s not even here. I’ll bet they’re at her place.”

“You’re probably right,” Talbert said. “Let’s head for her house.”

Talbert drove up the block where Vesper Ellis’s house was. “Which one is it?” he asked.

“The one with the big trees and the brick facade and the two chimneys. Number 43501.”

“Okay, I see it.” Talbert slowed his car down and crept along the pavement. They both craned their necks to see as much as they could.

“We should go around the block and park out of sight of any cameras on this street,” Ollonsun said.

Talbert went around the block to pull up in front of a house on the street behind the Ellis house. He turned off the lights and the engine. “Okay. What now?”

“Just leave the lights and engine off while we figure this out,” Ollonsun said. “Can you see the upper floor windows from here?”

“They all look dark to me,” Talbert said. “If he’s with her, they’re asleep.”

“That’s perfect. Let’s get out and take a look around.”

They got out of the car and walked on the far side of the street so they could be an extra thirty feet away from the Ellis house and get a view of the whole property. They made a full circuit of the block, studying it. Then they extended the walk another half block and walked up the driveway beside the house. They looked closely at each window and through it at everything they could make out in the near-solid darkness. Ollonsun whispered, “The alarm’s probably got a cover so you can’t see if it’s on or not.”

“I think it’s most likely to be on,” Talbert whispered. “She’s a woman living alone.”

They came around the house to the upper end of the driveway and found a white hybrid Mercedes parked there. Ollonsun said, “There you go. We know she’s home. And I don’t see a car that could be his.”

They both kept going and climbed the steps to the back door. The windows were dark, but there were glowing lights on the microwave, the two wall ovens, and the refrigerator. There was also a flat square plastic object on the wall that Talbert could see reflected in the glass front of one of the ovens. There was a closed cover, but it had a red light on the left side. “The alarm is armed,” Ollonsun whispered.

“You have another idea?”

“I’ve got one that’s so simple and straightforward that it’s beautiful.”

“What is it?”

“First, we cover your car’s license plates. Then we drive it back, park it right in front of the house, and leave the motor running. It’s good that we took your SUV tonight. It’s closer to the kinds of car the LAPD uses than my sedan is. We go to the front door and ring the doorbell. We ring it and knock again and again. I’m pretty sure she’ll come downstairs to the door. She’ll look out a window or the peephole in the door. If one of us is standing on the front steps holding up an ID card she’ll yell, ‘Who are you and what do you want?’ or the equivalent. We’ll say, ‘Police, Mrs. Ellis. We need to talk to you.’ At that point most women will turn off the alarm and open the door. Bang-bang, we each shoot her, go to the car, and drive away. Mission accomplished. We throw the guns into a sewer, take the cover off the plates, and go home.”

“We don’t look much like plainclothes cops. We look like we’ve been in a fight.”

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