Death Notes

glitch in the system.
    I left Blackie at the Quarter Moon and went upstairs to call Mitch. He sounded hurried when he answered.
    ‘Find a sailboat?’ I asked, then listened while he went on for five minutes about his three semi-finalists. Finally, I interrupted. ‘I want to ask you a favor, Mitch.’
    ‘Is it about the house-sit, Ronnie? ’Cause if it’s about that, Myra’s serious about it.’
    ‘You’re really going to go through with this?’
    ‘End of the month.’ He sounded almost giddy. ‘Wesley won’t dissolve the partnership. He said we can talk when I get back. I can decide then.’
    ‘That’s great. Listen, I called to ask how about if we switch cars tonight?’
    There was a long pause.
    ‘Mitch?’
    ‘I’m here. Listen, Ronnie. I drove the Porsche in today. It’s my baby. You know that, don’t you?’
    ‘Sure.’
    ‘Can’t you use the Beamer? How about the Citroën?’
    ‘Come on, Mitch.’ I didn’t want to drive over to Marin to switch cars. ‘I promise nothing will happen to it. I swear.’ He was silent.
    ‘Just tonight,’ I pleaded. ‘I’ll bring it back tonight when I’m done with it, okay?’
    ‘I don’t know...’
    ‘Come on, Mitch.’
    ‘If anything - I mean anything - happens to it, I’ll never speak to you again.’
    I could live with that. ‘It’s in your space?’
    ‘Yes.’ He sounded like a condemned prisoner. ‘Embarcadero Three garage, B level, right?’
    ‘You have to come up for the key. And hey, Ronnie, lock it up, okay? Even if you just stop to buy a newspaper. If Coogan rides in it, don’t let him smoke. And no long-distance runs, okay? Keep it local.’
    ‘Yeah, yeah, sure. No problem.’
     

42
     
    I t was ten o’clock and the neighborhood was quiet when I drove up. I’d driven over from the Embarcadero through parking garages and circling blocks and making impromptu U-turns just in case I was being followed. But I stopped to check my rearview as I pulled into Sharon’s cul-de-sac just the same. A pair of headlights neared the intersection behind me, then continued past and vanished around the corner. I waited another full minute. Nothing. I was alone.
    Sharon Margolis’s house was dark and so was her neighbor’s. I could kick myself now for having asked Rocky Peidras to keep an eye on the place, but three days ago breaking into my own client’s home was the farthest thing from my mind.
    I spun the Porsche into an open spot at the curb a few doors down past Rocky’s house, under the broken street lamp. I shut off the engine, then pulled out my cell phone and dialed Sharon’s number. It rang about fifteen times before I hung up.
    My gym bag full of tools was in the trunk, but I wouldn’t need anything heavy duty - just my lock picks. So I got it out, rummaged out the little case and stuck it in my jacket pocket, then punched redial on the cell phone.
    Sharon’s car wasn’t out on the street and I couldn’t see into the garage, but when I reached the front door I could hear the phone still ringing inside. So far, so good.
    I pulled out my little lock picks and went to work on the front door. The burglar alarm system’s digital control pad was inside, ten feet down from the door, eye level on the left.
    When I’d shown Sharon how it worked, I’d programmed a code into it, then told her to pick her own code and reprogram it after I left. My whole gambit was based on her not following instructions. If I was wrong, just tinkering with the system would set it off. The guards would be on my tail before I could even make it back to the Porsche.
    Luck was with me. Within a matter of seconds, I was inside and down the hall. I snapped open the little protective door to the keypad and started punching numbers. The phone was still ringing.
    It went like clockwork, smooth as pie. The red digital display changed from ‘on’ to ‘off’ so I started to breathe again and looked around.
    I wanted to start with Match’s music room first, just to make sure the saxophone was really gone. It was. And so was the stand. I wondered if Sharon had found a replacement to pawn off on the museum or if she’d just called the whole deal off.
    I scratched around for a few minutes amid the mess of sheet music on the floor, flicking my pen light here and there in the dark, paging quickly through notebooks and papers, and a set of original handwritten scores - Match’s old songs - with the titles and dates inked in a tight little scrawl at the top of