Now the Dodger was driving slowly through rural residential roads in Orchard Park, the upscale suburb where the Buffalo Bills played their games out at that huge stadium. The Dodger didn't give the slightest damn about football, but sometimes he pretended he did when befriending some guy in a sports bar. Even the women in Buffalo were gaga over football and hockey and assumed everyone else was, too. It was a place to start with people when you were pretending that you were one of them.
Orchard Park was mostly like this streetrural roads masquerading as streets, homes both large and small set back on an acre or less of woods. The house he was looking for was right here. Just as described in the Boss's briefing to him. This rural street ran along a wooded ridgeline and this house, strangely octagonal, was set thirty or forty yards from the road, all but obscured by the trees.
The Dodger drove his van right up the driveway, not hesitating. There was no car parked outside, but the house had a garage so the car might be in there and she might be home. On the lawn, just as described in the briefing, was a stone Buddha.
He parked the van in the driveway turnaround just outside the garage and jumped out, whistling, carrying a clipboard. The van was painted with a common pest control logo and graphic, and the Dodger was wearing coveralls and an orange vest, had a white hard hat over his Dodger cap, and he was carrying a clipboard. The old joke that you could go almost anywhere unchallenged with work coveralls, a hard hat, and a clipboard wasn't really a joke; those cheap props could get you past most people's radar. The Dodger's 9mm Beretta was on his belt, under the orange highway vest, holstered next to a folding seven-inch combat knife.
Still whistling, the Dodger knocked on the front door, taking a half-step back on the stoop as he'd been taught. He'd take another half step back when the door opened, showing how polite he was, how non-aggressive. It was an old door-to-door salesman's trick.
The woman didn't come to the door. The briefing suggested that she'd be home alone on Saturday, unless her boyfriend had slept over. The Dodger was ready for either contingency. He knocked again, pausing in the whistling to look around at the wooded lot and the view from the ridge as if appreciating both even on such a cold and cloudy October day. The air smelted of wet leaves.
When she didn't answer a third knock, he strolled around the house, pretending to inspect the foundation. In the back, there was a cheap deck and sliding glass doors. He knocked loudly on the glass, taking a step back again and arranging a sincere smile on his face, but again there was no answer. The house had that empty feel that he knew well from experience.
The Dodger pulled a multiple-use tool from his coverall pocket and jimmied the door's lock in ten seconds. He let himself in, called "Hello?" a couple of times into the silence, and then strolled through the octagonally shaped ranch house.
The womanRandi Ginettawas in her early forties, a high-school English teacher, divorced, living alone since her only child, a son, had gone to college in Ohio the year before. Still getting alimony payments from her former husband, she was now dating another teacher, a nice Italian man. Randi was also a heroin addict For years Randithe Dodger wondered what kind of name that was, "Randi," it sounded more like a cocktail waitress's name to him than a teacher'sfor years Randi had been into cocaine, explaining her constant runny nose as allergy problems to her co-workers and students, but in the past three years she'd discovered skag and liked it a lot. She always bought from the same source, a black junkie on Gonzaga's payroll in the Allentown section of Buffalo. Randi had gotten to know the junkie-dealer during time she volunteered in an inner-city homeless program. The Dodger hadn't visited the junkie yet, but he was on the list.
He walked from room to room, the combat knife in his hand now, blade still closed. This teacher and skag-addict liked bright colors. All the walls were different colorsblue, red, bright greenand the furniture was heavy
oak. There was a giant crystal on the floor near the front door. New Age-type , thought the Dodger. Trips to Sedona to tap into energy sources, commune with Indian spirits, that kind of crap . The Dodger wasn't guessing. It had all been in the Boss's briefing.
There were a lot of books, a work desk, a Mac computer, stacks of papers to be graded. But Ms. Randi wasn't all that neatthere were jeans and sweaters and bras and other underwear lying around her bedroom and on the bathroom floor. The Dodger knew a lot of perverts who would have lifted that silk, sniffed it maybe, but he wasn't a pervert. He was here to do a job. The Dodger went back across the octagonal living room and into the narrow kitchen.
There was a photo of Randi and her sonhe recognized her from the photo he'd been shownon the fridge, as well as a photo of the teacher and her boyfriend. She was a babe, no doubt about it. He hoped she'd come home soon, and alone, but looking at the photo of the boyfriendall serious and squinty-eyedthe Dodger changed his mind and hoped the two would come back together. He had plans for both of them.