After Death(13)
Michael is likewise able to replace Woodbine’s name with his own in the Department of Motor Vehicles’ records, assigning ownership of the car to himself, should he care to do so. If his purpose were theft, he’d clean up the chain of title by invading the records of the automobile dealership from which the Bentley was purchased and replacing Woodbine’s name with his own as the buyer; whereafter, it would be necessary to penetrate the files of the bank through which the attorney issued payment to the dealership and erase evidence of the transaction. All that effort would require a few minutes, but it would be a waste of time. Soon Michael won’t be living under his own name, but rather under a long series of false identities crafted with such attention to detail that they can’t be disproven. He has borrowed the Bentley only for a day or two.
To the right of the highway, empty parking lots lay in service of a wide, deserted beach. The sand slopes but two or three degrees to a sea that takes its color from the sky, as always it does, ash-gray now and with no grace of foam on the chop. A wind has come out of the north to whirl fine sand and paper litter into pale robed and hooded ghosts that haunt the day like the spirits of monks sworn to some strange faith, weaving southward on a fitful pilgrimage.
Michael continues to Newport Beach, cruising along the fabled yacht harbor, past water-view restaurants on the right, with luxury-car dealerships and boatyards on the left. Farther south, in that neighborhood of Newport known as Corona del Mar, a bustling place of busy shops, he turns right off the coast highway into a village of tree-lined streets, where quaint single-story homes have mostly been replaced by large houses in an architectural potpourri.
Ocean Boulevard follows a bluff high above a public beach. On the inland side of the street, multimillion-dollar residences crowd one another on narrow lots. Seaward, a grassy park is punctuated here and there with driveways to houses that are pinned to the bluff with steelwork and concrete pillars. It is to one of these that Michael pilots the Bentley, with no need to consult the sedan’s navigation system.
The home is ultramodern, not impressive from the street, toward which it presents only a dark slate roof, a sleek wall clad in slabs of white quartzite, heavily tinted windows, and three garage doors of brushed stainless steel. Having intruded into the computerized records of a company that facilitates the booking of private homes for vacationers all over the world, Michael knows that the owners of this place, Frederico and Jessica Columbia, are currently enjoying someone else’s spacious apartment in Paris for the next month. The family from Paris, at the moment vacationing in Brazil, will arrive to occupy this house in six days. In five days, a housekeeping service will prepare the premises in advance of the French guests. For four days, the place offers Michael a refuge.
He parks in the driveway and walks to the front door and pulls open the drop lid on the large, decorative mailbox. Frederico and Jessica put a three-week stop on mail delivery, while they are out of the country. Michael has gone online to rescind that order, and mail should be delivered starting today. At the moment, the box is empty.
Although he’s sure that no one is in residence, he rings the bell and waits and rings it again.
The deadbolt is automated. Michael lacks an electronic key, but there is also a keypad that can be used by relatives or housekeepers or property managers, to each of whom a personal code is issued. The codes are programmed in the house’s security-system computer, which is always online and accessible by Vigilant Eagle, the alarm company that services the home. Having gone swimming deep in the data sea of Vigilant Eagle’s computer, Michael knows those codes. He inputs the five digits assigned to the property management firm, which unlocks the door and simultaneously turns off the burglar alarm.
The residence has four stories that shelve down the face of the bluff. Michael enters a stunning twenty-foot-square foyer featuring a black-granite floor and blue-glass ceiling. The space is paneled in stainless steel into which has been etched a 360-degree forest scene with ghostly deer among the silvery trees, illuminated so cunningly that the source of the light can’t be directly seen.
This highest level is also occupied by an indoor swimming pool that lies beyond a hidden door to the left and the garages that can be reached through a hallway accessible beyond another hidden door to the right. Directly ahead, elevator doors and a stair-head door are integrated into the dreamlike forest scene.
He proceeds to the garage, where he has parked in front of the first space. Lacking a remote control, he needs to come here and raise the door with the wall switch. He drives the Bentley inside and lowers the segmented door and returns to the foyer and takes the elevator down to the next level.
The top floor of the house sits on solid land, but the floor under it is pinned to the face of the bluff, which gives its main rooms a panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean. The elevator and spiral stairs open to an alcove off the living room. In addition, this level offers a dining room and a chef’s kitchen to the left; to the right are a library, two powder baths, and a generously proportioned guest suite.
The remaining bluff-side floors below contain the master suite, three other family suites, a fully equipped gym, and a ten-seat home theater.
Here on the main floor, the bleached-sycamore library, white and modern, includes a bar with a colorful backlit art-glass wall. An under-the-counter refrigerator contains a selection of beers and cheeses. One wine cooler holds chardonnays and pinot grigios and champagnes, while the other is reserved for superb cabernet sauvignons. In various cabinets of the bar, he finds a selection of nibbles—canned nuts, pretzels, crackers of several kinds—as well as glassware, flatware, plates, and a variety of cloth napkins.