Page 68 of Devil's Bargain

“You’re the one flying off to L.A. without backup.”

Good point. Jazz looked around. Nobody seemed to be watching. They’d been free of surveillance for months now, after that initial bout of scariness. “I’m good,” she said. “No bullets whizzing as of yet.”

“Speaking of whizzing, I’d better get back to cleaning toilets.”

“Yeah, right. Listen, I’ll call you from L.A., all right? To check in.”

Lucia agreed. Jazz folded the phone just as the flight attendant made the first boarding call.

Chapter 8

She’d seen the picture of Lowell Santoro, and it was a good thing she had, because otherwise she’d have completely missed him. By the term “film producer,” she’d have been expecting a flashily dressed, heavily bling-blinged guy, probably driving some overmuscled, overpriced convertible.

Lowell Santoro had on walking shorts, a staid-looking Hawaiian shirt and drove a Toyota. His sole concession to Hollywood seemed to be the sunglasses he wore, which were pretty fine, and made Jazz wish she’d thought to pack some, because the morning light was pretty fierce.

From the coffee shop across the street, she watched as Santoro parked in the lot of his office building. She sipped a pretty damn excellent coffee as he locked up his car and plodded up the walk to the front door of the lobby. She noted the time on her PDA, finished her coffee and got another to go. She went back to her rental car—an economy-class Ford, nice and clean, tons more comfortable than most copmobiles she’d ever used for stakeouts. Her small video camera and digital still camera lay on the seat beside her, along with her cell phone and her collapsible baton.Add some CDs, and we’ve got a party,she thought, and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel to the radio, which wasn’t half-bad, really.

She’d parked to be in the shade, with a kitty-corner view of Santoro’s car and a clear shot to pull out in a hurry if necessary. Not that she figured it would be necessary. This was her second day of surveillance, and she’d already gotten the clear sense that Lowell Santoro was a man of rigid habits.

She plugged in the last piece of equipment, using what was labeled as a “utility power outlet” instead of the time-honored cigarette lighter, and flicked on the tiny LCD screen on the palmtop.

It had taken some trial and error in the dead of night, and some real skills, to enter Santoro’s offices and set up the video feed, but she was patient and thorough, not to mention careful. Lucia had given her a solid two-month course in electronic bugging and breaking and entering … apparently, all useful skills taught by government agencies with three letters. Jazz had been a good student.

She watched as Santoro’s tiny little video figure crossed to his desk with a full coffee cup in his hand, exchanged some words with his assistant—indistinct in Jazz’s earpiece—and began to open up his mail. All very normal. This was going to be another of Borden’s “your presence prevents it” things, she already knew it. They’d had two before the debacle with Wendy Blankenship, besides the near-drive-by back in K.C. while she’d been recovering. One of them had been an all-night stakeout in a Denny’s, watching a waitress who hadn’t done anything but yawn, give bad service and drop a plate of food. The other hadn’t been that exciting.

I shouldn’t be doing this.Then again, this would bring in cash, and Jazz was in favor of that. She’d never been a small-business owner before. Having people like Pansy depending on her for rent money made her nervous and greedy.

Santoro’s phone rang. He had a conversation about an upcoming film he was producing, and against her will, Jazz thought that was kind of cool, because they were talking about casting actors she actually recognized. The assistant came and went, bringing him stacks of correspondence once the incoming mail had been disposed of. Santoro had a pair of lungs on him, and from the language he used talking to an MGM executive, he had a pair of brass balls, too. Jazz found herself liking the guy. He called his wife and talked with her, and it sounded nice, too. Comfortable. The kind of conversation adults had who could bicker a little about what color the new refrigerator was going to be, and whether or not the kids needed summer camp or not, but still end with alove youthat sounded heartfelt.

She never had conversations like that. Her arguments always felt so damn important … even when they weren’t.

Santoro seemed like a good guy. Someone you’d want for a friend. Which told her something about Borden, too—because, not only was he friends with somebody warm and generous like this, hecared.Borden had a decent heart.

Around an hour and a half later, the assistant broke into his routine to remind him he had some kind of set visit, which marked the end of the administrative portion of the day, and Jazz gulped down the last of her coffee as Santoro tidied up and prepared to depart.

Apart from having heard half of a conversation—the wrong half, unfortunately—with Johnny Depp, she hadn’t accomplished a damn thing, really. She hadn’t spotted a single person tailing him, watching the office or home, or any suspicious activity whatsoever.

She picked up the still camera and shot a couple of angles of his car while she was waiting for him to emerge from the building.

Her cell phone rang. She flipped it open without taking her eyes from the entrance.

“Anything happening?” Borden. She actually felt a little electric tingle at the sound of his voice, caught sight of herself in the rearview mirror and realized that she was smiling.Thatkind of smile. She wiped it off her face and glared at her reflection, as if it was to blame.

“Not a damn thing,” she said. “Your friend’s doing fine.”

“That’s good.” He sounded relieved. “How about you?”

“Not a damn thing happening to me, either,” she said, “except that I’m about to OD on caffeine. You know the biggest problem about stakeouts without a partner?”

“No conversation?”

“No bathroom breaks,” she said. “Gets pretty difficult.”

“I can imagine.”

“You at the office?” Because he’d have to be, it was almost noon in New York.

“No. I was in court earlier. I have the rest of the day off.”

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