MAGUIRE'S PLAN WAS COMING APART.

An hour ago it had seemed close to foolproof. Drop in on Karen, sit around till about ten. Say he was tired or didn't feel good and leave. Park up by the beach and walk back. Marta lets him in the side door. He and Jesus wait in Marta's room for Roland to come. Let him enter the house. Say hi, how you doing? Marta screams (optional). Hit him.

But Marta was in Coral Gables, and Jesus had to talk to her and get her back.

And Karen wasn't home. The house was dark, the three-car garage empty.

He could say to himself, No, it's going to work. Don't worry. Keep your eyes open. You see it's not going to work or too chancy, bail out. You don't have have to be here. to be here.

But rea.s.surances didn't relieve the bad feeling, the doubt beginning to nag him.

Maguire drove the Mercedes into the garage, closed the door from the outside and walked around the house, past the empty patio to the French doors.

There was some definition to the shapes in the darkness: the hedges, the pool, the umbrella table, the yard misty in a pale wash of moonlight. There were specks of moving light on the Intercoastal, the deep darkness beyond the yard. There was the sound of crickets. And now Gretchen barking, inside the house. There was no reason to be as quiet as he might be. Maguire pulled the sleeve of his jacket down over his hand, held it in his fist, punched through the pane of gla.s.s next to the door latch and he was inside, Gretchen running up to him, barking.

Moving through the sitting room, his hand feeling the crown of the Louis XVI chair, he told Gretchen to be nice and wondered: If Karen knew she was coming home after dark, why didn't she leave a light on?

Because Marta must've still been home.

Then why didn't Marta tell them Karen had gone out? If she did, why didn't Jesus mention it?

Because they had no practice in this kind of thing, that's why, Maguire thought. And you better get your a.s.s out of here.

But he moved from the front hall to the back hall to Marta's room, pulled down the shades and turned on a lamp. Okay, Jesus had said yes, he knew knew Marta had gotten the gun from upstairs. But where would she hide it. Marta had gotten the gun from upstairs. But where would she hide it.

Roland said to Lionel, "Look, I ain't gonna argue with you. Go on get drunk, sleep on the beach, I don't give a s.h.i.t where, and pick up the boat in the morning. Now hand the suitcase here and push me off, G.o.dd.a.m.n it." Man, to get through to some people.

The eighteen-footer rumbled away from the dock behind the thin beam of its spotlight, pa.s.sing the fantails of the motorcruisers and sailers tied up in their slips, heading out into the channel now, Roland keeping the revs low, bearing to starboard as he pictured the map of the Intercoastal, this little section of it. Finding his way through ca.n.a.ls and watercourses, natural or manmade, wasn't anything new. Across the Harborage and where it opened up at the river-hearing a cruiser honking at the drawbridge down there-head for the second point of land and the house sitting there. He figured about a five-minute ride. There were support stanchions along the seawall; he'd tie up to one of them. In the meantime-wedging a hip against the wheel and zipping open the canvas suitcase-he'd get his twelve-gauge put together.

It took Maguire nearly ten minutes of looking through every drawer, the closet, and the bed to convince himself the gun, the one Jesus knew knew was in the room, wasn't. was in the room, wasn't.

Andre Patterson would look at him and shake his head, Man, the people you a.s.sociate with. Say to Andre, But look. What do they have to do? Practically nothing. Andre would say, That's exactly what they doing. Nothing. Where they at?

They'll be here.

In the meantime, run upstairs and get the gun. Before Karen comes home. Wherever Karen went.

Maguire turned off the lamp, felt his way out to the front hall and moved up the stairway. Gretchen had gone off somewhere.

When Roland saw the house dark it made him wonder for a moment. How come? Then accepted it as he crossed the yard toward the house. They went to get Vivian, that's why. Both of them.

But at the French doors, about to put the rubber-padded b.u.t.t of the shotgun through the gla.s.s, seeing it busted already, he said, No, they didn't.

Somebody was home, and he bet he knew who it was, too. Somebody besides little Gretchen panting, trying to climb his leg. Roland sat down in the Louis XVI chair to pull off his cowboy boots, whispering, "You like to smell my feet, do you, huh?

Come on up here you little thing. I don't like to do this, Gretchie, no I don't, but I got to." He put his hand over Gretchen's muzzle, clamping it over her nose and mouth and held the squirming furry body until it shuddered and became limp.

Roland went through the hall to the living room, looked in, came back past the stairway and paused. Was that a sound up there? Like a drawer being shut? Roland went through the back hall to Marta's room-no Cubans hiding under the bed- came out and turned into the kitchen. There was a soft orange glow on the telephone to show where it hung on the wall. Roland got an idea. He'd memorized Frank DiCilia's private number once. Now, if he could remember it- Maguire closed the top drawer. He opened, looked through and closed every drawer in the dresser. He looked in the drawers of the two nightstand tables. He looked under the pillows and the mattress. s.h.i.t. Andre Patterson would say, Get your a.s.s out, boy.

No, be cool. Where would she put it?

He went back to the dresser and got the key to the next room out of the drawer. It was possible- she'd decided to put the gun back with Frank's stuff, his papers, his money. Maguire unlocked the door and went in. No light showed in the window; the draperies were closed. He turned on the desk lamp. Straightening then, his eyes went to the pho tographs on the wall, the shots of Karen.

The telephone rang.

Maguire jumped and Andre Patterson, watching, would say, See?

The telephone rang.

Maguire went over to it sitting on the desk and looked at the number in the center of the dial. Not Karen's number, a private line.

The telephone rang.

He'd wait for it to stop. And then thought, What if it's Karen? If she knew, somehow, he was in the house- The telephone rang.

-Didn't want him to answer on her phone and have it recorded, so-no, both lines would be tapped. That wasn't it.

The telephone rang.

But it still could be Karen. Or Marta. It could be anybody. It could be Marta with Jesus, knowing he'd be looking for the gun. No-why this phone?

The telephone rang.

It would stop.

The telephone rang.

The telephone rang.

s.h.i.t, Maguire said and picked it up.

"How you doing?" Roland's voice said. "You coming down or you want me to come up?"

"So this parrot went to take a p.i.s.s, see, and drowned in the toilet. How you doing?" Roland said, coming out of the dark bedroom into lamplight, the pump-action shotgun leading.

"In the commode was the word," Maguire said, sitting in the swivel chair behind the desk, trying to look calm. Where the h.e.l.l else was there to go?

"I think it sounds better toilet. Where's Vivian at?"

"I don't know any Vivian. Vivian who?"

"s.h.i.t," Roland said, "we gonna have a question-answer period or we gonna get to it?"

"I got nothing to tell you," Maguire said.

"Then you might as well be dead, huh?" Roland put the shotgun on him.

"Unless you want to try a few questions and see where they lead," Maguire said.

"I got one," Roland said, "only one. Where's Vivian?"

"I can't do it like that, have it on my conscience."

"How can you do it?"

"I don't see a way yet."

"Then die looking, you dumb s.h.i.t. It's up to you."

"You want to go for two counts, is that it?"

"Two?" Roland said. "If I notched my gunb.u.t.t you'd get splinters running your hand on it, you d.i.n.k. I don't care about numbers. You're just another one."

"But it's money what it's all about. Right?"

"What do you make, two bucks an hour? Want to give me about a hunnert?"

"I don't have it, no. But I know where I could get some." Maguire looked up at the photos on the wall.

Roland glanced over and back to Maguire, then turned to look at the display of photos again.

"What's this all about, you know? Puts up pitchers of herself." Roland stepped closer. "And somebody else there, huh? I thought they was all her when I first seen 'em."

"I think she comes up here and plays pretend," Maguire said. "Get her mind off things."

"Pretend what?"

"The mystery lady, I think. Like that other one."

"Who's she?"

"I forgot her name." Maguire heard the car then.

Roland heard it, too. He came around with the shotgun. "She bringing Vivian?"

"Or cops. You gonna wait and see?"

"Stay put," Roland said. He stepped into the bedroom.

Maguire heard a door, downstairs, open and close. He couldn't see Roland now. But heard his voice from the upstairs hall. "Come on up, join the party."

He could go out the window-if it opened and there was no screen to fool with. He didn't owe Karen anything. It was the other way around, all the time he'd put in. She owed him more than she'd ever know.

But he remained in the swivel chair. Probably wouldn't make it out the window anyway- Roland moved for a big man. So what could he do? Nothing. The h.e.l.l with Andre Patterson there watching, shaking his head.

Karen was coming in, seeing him at the desk. Christ, Karen shaking her head, too. Roland came in behind her saying, "I hope we can get this cleared up, what's going on."

Karen took a cigarette out of a pack in her straw handbag and laid the bag on the desk.

"You have a light?"

"I used to chew, but I never smoked," Roland said. "It's bad for you."

Karen took a lighter from the bag and snapped it several times. "I went to Miami for dinner. Alone." She dropped the lighter on the desk and raised her hip to sit against the corner, picking up the handbag and resting it on her lap now as she felt inside.

"You got a match?" Roland said to Maguire.

"I don't smoke."

"That's smart," Roland said. He looked at Karen. "I believe you. It's this d.i.n.k here causing all the commotion. See, he was gonna bring Vivian here-the way I figure it-and try and get a lot of money out of you to help her get away." He stopped. "You know why?"

Karen looked up from the handbag on her lap, pausing. "Yes, I know."

"Then they did talk to you."

"Not really. I found out on my own"

Maguire kept looking at her as Roland said, "Don't believe everything you hear, it ain't required. So he comes to the house wants to talk to you, see if he can bring Vivian, and you're not home. So what does he do, he busts in."

"Why?" Karen said.

"To wait for you."

"Unh-unh, to wait for you you," Karen said. "That was the whole idea."

"Wait for me? me? Why would he do that?" Why would he do that?"

Jesus Christ, Maguire thought.

"To kill you," Karen said.

"s.h.i.t, he don't even have a gun."

"I do," Karen said.

Her hand came out of the straw bag gripping the Beretta and fired it point blank at Roland's bright-blue suitjacket and fired it again and fired it again and fired it again, until Roland stumbled against the file cabinet and went down on top of his shotgun, tried then as if to do a pushup and fell heavily and didn't move again.

Karen stood up, watching Roland. After a moment she laid the gun on the desk. She said to Maguire, who was staring at her, "How did you get in?"

"I broke in. The gla.s.s door in the sitting room."