Free Murder by Candlelight by John Stockmyer

relationship with his girl threatened, and had a
friend ... evaporate.
    Like straddling a
California fault line, when your world rocked, all you could do was sweat!
     
    * * * * *
     
    Chapter 5
     
    Finally, Johnny D. had
called. Followed by tonight's adventure, reminding Z of the mission
of Star Trek : "To
boldly go where no man [Z] has gone before."
    It was a dark night -- dark and hot
and sultry. Clouds had moved in, snuffing out the moon and
stars.
    Even from across the street, Z could
make out John's security-- some of it, anyway. A couple of
infra-red, circuit breakers beams; a box near the house that looked
suspiciously like the guts of a motion sensor. Doing some security
installing himself, Z had a better shot than most at spotting the
house's protection.
    No sign of a dog. Neither the front or
backyard fenced.
    Z remembered. Johnny Dosso didn't like
dogs.
    John still lived on North Enrico, in
his parent's house, his parents long gone to meet whatever "Maker"
a crime family had to meet.
    Traditional house, traditional
"family" values.
    Back to security.
    Probably pressure-sensitive pads built
into the decorative rock walkway leading to the front door. That
would have been Z's recommendation, anyway.
    With all the curtains and blinds
drawn, no light showed through to interrupt the quiet blackness of
the night. No other indication that the house was
occupied.
    Fortunately, Z didn't have to
dismantle the security. This being a social call, Z the invited
guest, all he had to do was get out of the Cavalier and walk right
up to the house. Viewed that way, tripping the alarms was the
friendly thing to do. Showed sincerity.
    And still Z sat in the little car,
looking at the house from across the street. Was John looking back?
Did John have the latest in classified, "army surplus" night vision
equipment? If so, it wouldn't be a surprise. John always seemed to
get whatever he wanted.
    Z was hesitating, he told
himself, because it was bad for John's image to be visited by an
"out of the family" friend, moreover, a friend who was a private
eye. Z also didn't want whoever might be watching John's house to
see Z .
    Another fifteen minutes of
watchful waiting went by, Z convinced that, at least on this night, he watched
the Dosso house alone.
    Good.
    Opening the greased-silent door catch,
Z eased himself out of the car, feeling ... strange. In all the
years of their friendship, Z had never visited the Dosso home.
Except for an occasional phone call, Johnny Dosso lived in a closed
society.
    Pushing the door shut, Z crossed the
street, jolted his leg over the curbing, and strode up the front
walk.
    Nice yard, what Z could see of it in
black silhouette: trees, with shadow pools of river rock around
their trunks -- bushes, plantings.
    The place smelled of new-cut grass, a
variety of flowers, chemical fertilizer, and recently applied
insecticide.
    Not John Dosso's handiwork, the place
with that "professional lawn care" look.
    No trumpeted medieval knight made a
grander entrance, Z was sure, meaning that silent alarms inside the
house must be going off like crazy.
    At the carved-wood-looking, solid
steel door, Z was just ready to push the lighted buzzer when the
door opened.
    "Z!" Johnny Dosso, grinning. "Come on
in!"
    John standing to the side, Z entered,
John shutting the heavy door and easing a thick bolt into its iron
keeper. "Here you are in the flesh," John said, the two of them
shaking hands before John turned to lead Z down the long, formal,
laser guarded entrance hall and into a blue-walled living room
where John motioned Z into a plush armchair to the near side of a
fireplace, Johnny Dosso easing his bulk on a short divan not that
far away.
    Called a conversation "pit," this
space was fronted by a huge, cut-stone, never-had-a-fire-in-it
fireplace.
    A number of dried cattails stuck up
from a blue Japanese vase placed on the floor beside the firebox
screen. The room was done in blues, expensive blue-flocked
wallpaper for