“Stop!” Jennifer’s pleading voice was close. She must have turned on the lights and run down to the pool, but Coltrane paid no attention, too busy avoiding Walt’s attempts to push him under. As Walt lost his balance in the shoulder-high water, Coltrane dove beneath the surface, rocketed to the surface behind Walt, grabbed him from behind, and pushed him beneath the water.

“No!”

A pole banged against the back of Coltrane’s neck. Feeling bristles on the end of it, Coltrane vaguely realized that Jennifer was using one of the pool-cleaning tools to try to stop them from fighting.

Walt wrestled free, gasped for air, spun, and came at Coltrane as Jennifer dropped the pole between them and threw a cushion from a deck chair.

“Stop!”

They had each other by the throat. Coltrane felt his face bulging as he tightened his grip and -

The shotgun blast was so startling that he jerked his hands away. Stumbling back, he lost his footing, went under, splashed to the surface, breathed frantically, saw that Walt had reacted much as he had, and was astonished to discover Jennifer at the side of the pool, holding the shotgun.

Down the street, a dog barked in alarm. Several houses away, a man yelled, “What was that?”

Her movements unpracticed, Jennifer awkwardly racked a fresh shell into the shotgun’s firing chamber. The spent shell arced through the air, clattering onto concrete. “Look at yourselves! It’s what she wants! Don’t you understand you’re being used? For God’s sake, what do I have to do to make you stop?”

Jennifer looked so surprised, her eyes fierce, obviously uncomfortable with the shotgun, doing her best to keep it balanced in her hands, that Coltrane suddenly had a sense of how out of control he had become.

“She’s right.” He stared at Walt. “I don’t want to-”

Laughter interrupted him.

From above. Deep-throated, sensuous laughter.

Baffled, he looked upward and saw Tash leaning over the balcony on the topmost level, her beautiful features radiant with amusement. Her laughter swelled until she had to throw her head back to release it.

“Tash?” Walt murmured.

“Do you understand now?” Coltrane asked.

Peering down from two stories above them, Tash wiped away tears of laughter.

“But…” Walt became speechless with bewilderment.

“Read the documents I had in my briefcase!” Jennifer said.

Tash shook her head in delight. “Make her shoot again! Make her jump in and try to stop you!”

“Tash,” Walt said, this time with realization. “You-” The word sounded like a curse as he splashed through the water. He reached the side, pulled himself out, glared up, dripping, and suddenly broke into a run, charging toward the house.

As Walt disappeared into the bottom level, Coltrane forced his way to the side of the pool. He crawled out, ignored the cold air on his wet skin, and raced after him.

Jennifer hurried next to him, the two of them passing the darkroom and the vault, pounding up the stairs. Higher, Walt was shouting something, Tash continuing to laugh. Coltrane reached the living room and surveyed the wreckage, the incalculable damage that Walt had inflicted on the priceless furniture. He saw the revolver that he had lost during the fight, and he picked it up, but he didn’t see Walt, although he did hear a commotion above him and raced higher. When he and Jennifer came to the third level and rushed into the bedroom, Coltrane was shocked. The bedroom was the only room on that level. A flower-rimmed balcony led along all four sides, and through the windows, Coltrane saw Tash gamboling from one section to the next, taunting Walt as he pursued her.

The effect was dizzying: Coltrane in the middle of his bedroom, turning, peering outward, watching Tash sprint from one section of the balcony to the next. Walt was slowing, his chest heaving. For her part, Tash seemed to have an endless reservoir of energy, skipping, spinning, evading Walt. She wore an all-white ankle-long cotton dress of a type that Coltrane had seen in Mexico. Loose, it flared provocatively as she skipped and spun. A red shawl was draped over her shoulders, tied at her cleavage. Watching her and Walt round another corner, Coltrane turned, dizzier, amazed at the sudden burst of speed that Walt mustered. Thrusting out a hand, Walt grabbed the back of Tash’s shawl and jerked her up short, causing her to gasp, but before Walt could pull her toward him, she ducked her head and slipped free of the shawl’s tied loop. He shot out another hand, clutching her arm as she started to run. When he spun her toward him, he tossed away the shawl and drew back his hand to strike her.

She stared defiantly.

He hesitated.

“What’s the matter? Are you afraid to hit a woman?”

“You’re not a woman.”

“You sure thought I was three hours ago when I-”

“That doesn’t make you a woman.”

Tash laughed. “No? What does it make me?”

Walt said a word, the crudity of which was devastating.

The laughter halted.

“I don’t know what I saw in you,” Walt said. “I’m going to have to burn my clothes and scour myself with bleach to get rid of the slime you left on me.”

Tash’s eyes darkened.

“You’re a cesspool.” Walt turned to enter the bedroom.

“Hey,” Tash said.

Seeing Walt come through the doorway, Coltrane was overwhelmed by the look of absolute revulsion on Walt’s face.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Tash demanded.

Walt came farther into the bedroom.

“I’m not through with you,” Tash said.

“The important thing is, I’m through with you.” Walt kept crossing the bedroom, not bothering to look at her.

“Nobody walks away from me!”

“Watch.”

“Come back here!”

“Go to hell.”

“You first!” Tash grabbed a heavy pot from a row of flowers, rushed into the bedroom, and hurled it against the back of Walt’s head.

For an instant, Coltrane thought that the cracking sound he heard was the pot breaking, but then the pot thudded intact onto the floor, and Coltrane realized that the sound had come from Walt’s skull. The burly policeman staggered toward Coltrane, reached for support, but never got that far. His eyes rolled up. His body became a collapsing rag doll. When his face struck the carpeted floor, the back of his head had an indentation covered with blood.

“Oh,” Tash said.

The room seemed to shrink.

“Now look what you’ve made me do.”

31

COLTRANE WAS SO STARTLED THAT HE COULDN’T MOVE. Next to him, Jennifer gaped at Walt’s unmoving body.

The next thing, Tash was hunkered next to Walt’s body, fumbling through his pockets. “It’s not supposed to happen this way.” She glared up at Coltrane. “You’ll pay for this.”

For the first time, Coltrane noticed that her hands were shiny.

She was wearing plastic gloves.

From Walt’s leather jacket, she pulled out a small black electronic object that resembled a miniature remote control. She picked up Walt’s left hand, wedged his fingers around the device, and used his thumb to press a button on it. “Make you pay.”

“I’m calling the police,” Coltrane said.

Starting toward the bedside phone, he saw Tash grope hurriedly beneath Walt’s jacket, understood, and yelled to Jennifer, “Get back down the stairs!”

Immediately, Tash pulled Walt’s semiautomatic free of its holster, pressed it into his right hand, inserted his index finger into the trigger guard, and squeezed the trigger. The gunshot was deafening, not as loud as the shotgun blast had been, but ear-slamming all the same. The unaimed bullet missed Coltrane by a wide margin, blasting into a wall, but he had the sense that the next bullet would be very deliberately aimed. He scrambled toward the stairs as Tash removed the weapon from Walt’s hand and sighted expertly along it.