“I think maybe I better. We can’t both go to jail—what would happen to Moxie?”
“My mother could adopt her.”
“Very funny.”
“Okay. Well, then I’m gonna go give it a shot,” he says. “Can you get back down okay?”
“Yeah, I think so. Are you going to be okay?”
“Oh yeah—piece of cake. I’m just going to drop down and see if there’s an easy way to open the gate from this side. Maybe I can let you in.”
“Okay.”
“But if it looks like I can’t, I’m not going to waste time with it—it’ll be too suspicious, and I think it makes more sense for me to just go and find my mother before anybody has a chance to throw me out.”
“I guess so. Are you sure we shouldn’t call this off before it’s too late?”
“I’m sure. It’ll be fine, I promise. See you down there.” Henry reaches through the fence and they clasp hands. “If I can’t get the gate open, feel free to go back to the hotel and wait for me. In fact, you probably should.”
“No way! I’m not going anywhere and leaving you here.”
“You’re the one who said we can’t both get arrested. Look, nothing’s going to happen, but it could take me a while to find her. I might have to hunt around, and if I do find her she’s liable to pitch a fit. Whatever’s going on, I don’t want you standing out here by yourself. If I’m late, I’ll find a phone and leave a message for you at the hotel.”
With deep reluctance, Ruby says, “All right…I guess. If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure. I better go before somebody spots us up here. I love you.”
“I love you, too. Wait! Take my camera.”
She hands it through to him and Henry ducks out of sight behind the weedy ridge. A dirt furrow has been worn into the slope, and he slides down it on his butt until he comes to the top of a concrete retaining wall. From there it is a short drop to the pier-like boardwalk connecting the uppermost bank of condos to those lower down. The view is spectacular and somewhat vertigo-inducing: Spanish-tiled buildings descending the mountain on terraces like outlandish golf greens, with quartz-graveled islands and paths, all overhanging the broad expanse of the sea. There is no one in sight anywhere.
Henry doesn’t linger over the view, but hurries down the walkway to the entrance gate. He is annoyed to find that he can’t get to it—there is an inner gate, a second layer of security. It is not fancy wrought iron like the outer one, but plain chain-link, secured with a hefty Yale padlock. It is hidden from the outside by high hedges.
As Henry stands there in consternation, something crashes against the gate, causing him to jump back in surprise.
It’s a dog—a big black German shepherd. The animal looks ferocious, barking frantically, yet the only sound it makes is a pathetic wheezing. No vocal cords, Henry thinks, astonished. Is that just so the old folks aren’t disturbed?—it seems insane. What if he or Ruby had just climbed over the fence without knowing? What if a kid did? The dog run is recessed like a moat, so that from the outside it is invisible, and there are no signs posted.
That’s a deadly weapon, you assholes.
He knows of such dogs being used in war, has heard they have a powerful psychological effect on the enemy. But who’s the enemy here? Where’s the war?
As he starts the camera, other stealth dogs appear, five or six of them, charging up the fenced corridor to silently bay at him. As a security consultant himself, Henry has to shake his head at the overkill. Unless this is the private estate of a Colombian drug lord, he can’t imagine why such measures would be necessary.
Unless…
The dogs are going crazy enough already; Henry doesn’t want to provoke them more, but he has no way to signal Ruby without raising his voice.
As quietly as possible, he calls, “Honey! I’m here!” The dogs go silently berserk. No answer. Cupping his hands around his mouth, Henry tries again, hissing: “Ruby!”
Still no reply. Then her ruffled voice from beyond the hedge: “I’m coming! Give me a chance, will you? God—so much for these stupid Capri pants. They were too tight anyway. Where are you?”
“This is as close as I can get—there are guard dogs in a culvert between us. I gotta go before someone sees me.”