Coyote blue

them come up and fix the flat tire on that orange Datsun out front. Have them bill it to my card."
    "You have a three o'clock appointment with Mrs. Wittingham."
    "Cancel it." Sam started out of the office.
    "Mr. Hunter, this is a death claim. Mr. Wittingham passed away last week and she wants you to help fill out the papers."
    "Gabriella, let me clue you in on something: once the client is dead we can afford to be a little lax on the service. The chance of repeat business is, well, unlikely. So reschedule the appointment or handle it yourself."
    "But sir, I've never done a death claim before."
    "It's easy: feel for a pulse; if there isn't one, give them the money."
    "I am not amused, Mr. Hunter. I try to maintain a businesslike manner around here and you continually undermine me."
    "Handle it, Gabriella. Call the garage. I have to go."
    It was only five minutes from Sam's office to his condo in the Cliffs, a three-hundred-unit complex on Santa Barbara's mesa. From Sam's back deck he could look across the city to the Santa Lucia Mountains and from his bedroom window he could see the ocean. Sam had once rented the apartment, but when the Cliffs went condo ten years before he optioned to buy it. Since then the value of his apartment had increased six hundred percent. The complex offered three swimming pools, saunas, a weight room, and tennis courts. It was restricted to adults without children or dogs, but cats were allowed. When Sam first moved in, the Cliffs had a reputation as a swinging singles complex, a party mecca. Now, after the rise in real estate prices and the death of the middle class, most of the residents were retirees or wealthy professional couples, and the cooperative agreement they all signed set strict limitations on noise and numbers of visitors. A team of security guards patrolled the complex in golf carts twenty-four hours a day under the supervision of a hard-nosed ex-burglar named Josh Spagnola.
    Sam parked the Mercedes by Spagnola's office in the back of the Cliffs' clubhouse, which, with its terra-cotta courtyards, stucco arches, and wrought-iron gates, looked more like the casa grande of a Spanish hacienda than a meeting place for condo dwellers. The door to the office was open and Sam walked in to find Spagnola shouting into the phone. Sam had never heard the wiry security chief shout. This was a bad sign.
    "No, I can't just shoot the damn dog! The owner is on the way, but I'm not going into his townhouse and shooting his dog, rules or no rules."
    Sam noticed that even in anger Spagnola remembered to use the word townhouse to refer to the apartment. No one wanted to pay a half-million dollars for an apartment; a townhouse was another thing. People were touchy about how one referred to their homes. When Sam was selling to people who lived in trailers he always referred to them as mobile estates . The term added a certain structural integrity; you never heard on the news of a tornado touching down and ripping the shit out of a park full of mobile estates.
    "I am listening, Dr. Epstein," Spagnola continued. "But you don't seem to understand my position on you missing your nap. I don't give a desiccated damn. I don't give a reconstituted damn. I don't give a creamed damn on toast. I don't give a damn. I'm not entering Mr. Hunter's home until he arrives."
    Spagnola looked up and gestured for Sam to sit. Then he grinned, mimed a mimic of the caller he was listening to, looked bored, feigned falling asleep, gestured the international sign language for being jerked off, then said, "Is that so, Doctor? Well, as far as I know I have no superiors since the Crucifixion, so give it your best shot." He slammed down the phone.
    Sam said, "Got something on Dr. Epstein?"
    Spagnola smiled. "He's porking the Cliffs' highly ethical Monday-Wednesday-Friday masseuse."
    "Everybody's porking her."
    "No, everybody's porking the Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday masseuse. Monday-Wednesday-Friday is very exclusive."
    "And highly ethical."
    "Says so in the brochure." Spagnola grinned, then casually picked up a legal pad from his desk and looked it over. "Samuel, my friend, your puppy has kept me on the phone with charming folks like Epstein all day. Shall I read you the log?"
    "I don't know what you're talking about, Josh. I don't have a dog."
    "Then you will want to notify security about the large canine that is currently on your back deck disturbing Dr. Epstein's nap."
    "I'm not kidding, Josh. If there's a dog on my deck I