Polk pressed a buzzer set beneath a speaker on the left brick column, keeping his eyes on the house. Constantine noticed a broad figure move into the frame of the wide second-story window that was centered above the front door and its stone portico. The figure held a pair of binoculars to its face, then disappeared. Some time passed and then a voice came from the box above the buzzer.

“Yeah?” the voice crackled.

The old man looked into the box. “Polk, here to see Grimes.”

“What can I do for you, Polk?”

“I’m here to see Grimes, Valdez. Tell him, and open the gate.”

“He’s not in.”

“Tell him, Valdez.”

There was no reply. Constantine listened to the wind rustle the leaves on the trees across the road.

The Latin-tinged voice came back, its inflection stirring a faint recollection in Constantine of the Mexicans he had known in the kitchens and bars south of Los Angeles.

“Wait there, Pops.”

Some chuckling on the other end, and then the box went dead. Polk’s face, his jaw set hard during the entire conversation, did not change.

Constantine patted his breast pocket where his pack of smokes should have been. He looked down the road at the split-rail fence that fell from view at the next curve, and he looked back at the squat brick pillars and the electronic gate. He wondered, Why the gate, when you could just hop the low wooden fence, or drive through it if you had some weight beneath the hood? He stopped wondering when he heard the front door of the house open and shut.

Two men in black suits walked slowly out toward three black cars-a Mercedes, an Olds 98, and a Cadillac-that were parked at the circular end of the asphalt drive. One of the men was tall and heavy. The other looked to be of average height, and skinny. They got into the Cadillac, the skinny man slipping in on the driver’s side. He started the car but let it run for a couple of minutes before he slopped the trans into reverse. Constantine thought that they could have walked quicker down the driveway. He shifted his feet as the Caddy rolled slowly toward the gate.