Wolf in the Shadows - Marcia Muller [119]
“Try to get him outside,” I whispered, and followed. There was no sign of Hy, not even a shadow behind the agave. After a moment a clatter came from inside the house—the guard removing a security bar from the door. It slid open and a short, stocky man looked out at Navarro.
She stayed where she was, near the pool. Pointed at the water and said something that I took to mean she wanted him to have a look at something.
He frowned. “Que?”
“Está muerta.”
The man came through the door, scowling.
Hy’s arm shot from behind the agave and hooked around his neck. The man gagged. Hy dragged him farther outside, applying pressure on his carotid; the man went limp.
I looked around, spotted a big bin near the wall—the kind that’s used to store swim equipment or lounge cushions. Still covering Navarro, I went over and opened it. Empty. I motioned to Hy. He dragged the bodyguard over there.
I knelt and searched him for a gun. There was a .44 Magnum in the pocket of his bathrobe. I took it over and dropped it into the pool. Hy picked the man up and dumped him inside the bin, lowered the lid and secured the latch. At the bottom was a ventilation screen to prevent mildew; the man wouldn’t suffocate, but when he recovered consciousness, any sound he might make would be muffled.
Hy went to the door, stepped inside. I motioned to Navarro, and she and I followed.
We stood in a terra-cotta-tiled room with a bar and a pool table where a game had been in progress. A sconce burned faintly on the far wall. I located its switch and turned it off.
“Now,” Hy whispered, “Mourning’s room.”
We crossed to an archway that opened into the hall. A carpeted stairway rose to the left, and then the hall continued to the right. Hy grasped Navarro’s forearm. She walked a half step ahead of him, past an open door through which I could see a rumpled bed, to a closed door. Nodding, she pointed at it.
I went around them and tried the knob. Locked. I looked back at Hy and shook my head. He grimaced. Then I remembered that Navarro carried the key to her own room. Any given manufacturer’s door locks are guaranteed to be fairly standardized, and in a house this size there was bound to be some duplication, I said to Navarro, “Give me your room key.”
She fished it out and handed it over.
The key slipped easily into the lock, then stuck. I tried jiggling it, felt a loosening. I forced it and the tumblers started to turn, then jammed. I twisted harder. The lock popped with a crack.
I pushed the door open and waved Hy and Navarro inside. Shut the door behind us. No sounds from upstairs, no telltale creak of floorboards.
The room was dark except for a night-light plugged into a socket near the baseboard. Its bulb elongated our shadows, spread them over the ceiling. At the far side I made out a bedstead—and a figure lying on the bare mattress.
He wore badly rumpled jeans and a shirt, its tail untucked. He wasn’t shackled in any way. He lay curled up in the fetal position, face pressed into the pillow. I went up to the bed and touched his shoulder. He gave a faint moan of protest.
I stuck my gun in my waistband and turned the man’s face away from the pillow. It was Mourning. An unkempt beard covered his cheeks; they looked hollowed, his eyes badly underscored. As I moved him, his lips twitched and he mumbled something. I whispered his name. His eyes came open—dull and unfocused.
“Help me sit him up,” I told Navarro.
She hesitated, then came forward. We got Mourning into a sitting position, his head lolling onto my shoulder. I looked at the nightstand for evidence of what drugs they’d been giving him. Saw only his glasses, both lenses shattered and one earpiece ripped off.
“What happened to his glasses?” I asked Navarro.
“Salazar broke them.”
“Deliberately?”
“… Yes. So he couldn’t get away. Tim’s practically blind without them.”
It was the final obscene cruelty. My hands balled into fists.