15
The next day we sighted Quentin Corelli, driving a dark sedan that he parked outside the Laska offices. I’d almost forgotten the way he moved, light on his feet and cocky. And I hadn’t expected the extent to which I bristled on seeing that, an almost literal hackles-of-the-neck feeling. Bastard, I thought, you haven’t changed.
“A*shole,” Serena said next to me, as though she saw as much to hate in him.
Around midday he left Laska’s offices, and we followed him, Serena at the wheel. We tailed him to the south part of San Francisco, near Candlestick Park. It was a mixed-use neighborhood, residential and light-industrial, where there was so little traffic on the streets that Serena dropped back for fear he’d make us. Then Quentin’s dark sedan turned left down a narrow driveway that ran alongside a pale blue stucco house. Serena was forced to drive on or be conspicuous in stopping, but I turned in my seat to keep an eye on him. I only saw him getting out of his car, which was sheltered under a carport, before we’d rolled past.
“Go around the block,” I told Serena. “We’ll scope things out from one street over.”
“I can’t, it’s a dead end.”
I looked ahead and saw that she was right; before us was a low fence and some scrubby bushes. “Then go back,” I said.
“He’s gonna see us.”
“Dammit. Stay here a minute,” I said.
It was true, he might see us if we turned around right away. But if we stayed idling at the street’s dead end, I hoped, he’d go into the house, at which point we could safely backtrack.
I waited, watching the side mirror to see if Quentin or his car emerged from the driveway. Neither did.
“Find a place to park,” I said.
Serena made a three-point turnaround and pointed her car back down the street. I studied the house as we went by again. What looked like the main entrance was on the side of the house, facing the driveway, not the street. It had a double-door system: A security door of tightly scrolled metal allowed access to a cavelike entry area, where the resident could stand and unlock his real front door in safety.
“Do you think he lives there?” Serena said, voicing my thought.
I frowned. “I would have thought he’d live somewhere better.” Quentin had dressed well every time I’d seen him, and for his home I’d envisioned something downtown and coldly modern, with a neo–Rat Pack design aesthetic without signs of genuine individual taste.
Serena eased along the side of the road and killed the engine, then fished out her cigarettes and lit up. “So?” she said, exhaling. “What are you gonna do? Wait until he goes out again and search the place?”
“No,” I said, almost to myself. “No.”
I’d gone to the Eastman place with some stupid, vague idea that I’d find a trace of the grifter, something to help me intuit her identity or her direction. Instead I’d found nothing and nearly gotten caught. I was done with passive searching for hints and traces. Everything I needed to know was between Quentin Corelli’s ears.
“Can I use these?” I pulled a pair of sunglasses, square and glossy black, from the narrow side compartment in the passenger door.
“For what?”
Sunglasses on, I opened the door and bailed out into the street, Joel’s pick gun in my hand.
“Hailey!” Serena complained behind me.
I ran across the street and knelt in front of the security door, sliding the pick in, narrow screwdriver in my other hand, twisted like a tension wrench.
The lock didn’t give. I blew hair out of my eyes, impatient, tried again.
He’s going to hear you. Fine, let him.
The lock on the security door sprang, and I was into the entry alcove. I banged on the door with my fist. “Quentin, it’s me,” I called, giving my voice a sound of familiarity and entitlement. “Open up, I need you.”
When he opened the door, I had only a second to register his expression—slightly irritated, not recognizing but clearly not threatened by this young brown-haired stranger—and then I said, “Thanks,” and swung the pick gun as hard as I could into the bridge of his nose. His eyes crossed, and his body flopped down to the floor like a shark on the deck of a fishing boat. I cocked my arm for a second blow, but it wasn’t going to be necessary.
“Holy shit, Insula,” Serena said, coming up behind me.
“Shut the door,” I said, “and check around to make sure there’s no one else here.”