by Robert Crais
She frowned. “This is all about control, and he has to know that he can’t control me, or intimidate me.” She frowned harder. “I have to know that, too.”
I stared at her. Lucy Chenier seemed like the most uncontrollable woman I’d ever met, but maybe she hadn’t always been so, and maybe she needed to remind herself. “I could just shoot him. That would solve the problem.” She smiled, and it was warm. “I know, but then you would have saved me, and I wouldn’t have saved myself.
“This is for me.”
“Okay.”
“I am the saver, and not just the savee.”
“You don’t want me to be with you at KROK.”
She squeezed my hand again. “No, you can’t be there.”
I didn’t like it, but I tried not to look sulky.
“Richard and I will be the only two players on the court, and when I kick his ass, and get his good-old-boy buddy up the proverbial creek, Richard will think twice about ever trying anything like this again.”
I looked at her, and thought that she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. “Can I shoot him later?”
She smiled again, and this time patted my hand. “We’ll see.”
Something to live for.
“When are you going to see the KROK people?”
“Tracy arranged a meeting for tomorrow afternoon.”
Tomorrow was when the scanner arrived at LAX. Pike and I would be there waiting. We would be following the scanner, and hoping it brought us to Clark. “I’ll be working.”
She squeezed my hand again. “Of course you will, my dove. That’s as it should be.” She squeezed my hand another time. “And I will be loving you.”
“Good.” We continued up through the Sepulveda Pass into the Valley, and then on toward the safe house, riding in silence.
CHAPTER 23
The condo in Studio City smelled of rosemary and baked chicken. Joe and Teri were in the kitchen, and Winona and Charles were in the living room, but the TV wasn’t on. Guess Pike had drawn the line. I said, “That smells terrific.”
Winona bounced in from the living room. “Teri and Joe made chicken. Hi, Lucy.”
“Hi, sweetie.”
Charles peered at Lucy from the dining room and grunted hello. Teri didn’t say anything. She was behind a little forest of pots at the stove, frowning.
Lucy went into the kitchen and gave Teri a hug. “How are you doing, dear?”
“Fine.” Tight and terse and futzing with the pots.
Lucy said, “That smells wonderful. What is it, rosemary chicken?”
“Um.”
Lucy came back to me and took my hand. Teri frowned harder, then suddenly smiled brightly at me as if Lucy wasn’t there. “I saved some for you, Elvis.” The bright smile turned sad and she looked at Lucy. “But I don’t think there’s enough for two.”
I stared at her.
Lucy said, “Oh, that’s all right. I should call Tracy and tell her how to get here.”
“I’ll take you there.”
Lucy grinned, and you could tell she was trying to keep the grin from growing wider still. “No. We made plans to discuss strategy over dinner. She wants to take me out.”
I stared at Teri some more, then showed Lucy to the living room phone. She sat on the edge of the couch to make the call.
Teri beamed at me from the kitchen. “Heating the chicken shouldn’t take long. When would you like to eat?”
“Later.” What was with this kid?
Teri hustled away in the kitchen, the pots and pans rattling. “I’ll get started now. Then you can eat whenever you want.” Happy is the little homemaker, happy as a bee. “Can I bring you a beer?”
“No.”
Winona said, “Did you find our daddy yet?”
“Not yet.”
Charles eyed Lucy on the couch, then edged closer and craned his head. I watched all the craning, then figured it out. He was trying to see up Lucy’s skirt. I said, “Charles.”
He scuttled away. “I didn’t do anything.” Just another fun evening hiding out with the Cole posse.
Lucy spoke with Tracy, then asked me to give Tracy directions. I did, then they spoke a few more minutes, and Lucy hung up. “Tracy says it should take her about a half hour to get here.”
Pike glanced up the stairs. “We should talk.”
Charles said, “Why ya gotta go upstairs? Why don’t ya just say it here in front of us?”
Teri said, “Elvis knows what he’s doing. Leave him alone.” Teri turned back to the stove, and put cool eyes on Lucy. “I’ll call you the second your friend arrives.”
I looked from Lucy to Teri, then back to Lucy. Lucy’s eyes glittered and she pulled me toward the stairs.
When we got upstairs and closed the door, I said, “Do you have frostbite?”
Lucy smiled wider. “You don’t know?”
“Know what?” Mr. Idiot.
Lucy glanced at Pike, and Pike’s mouth twitched. I said, “What?”
“She’s got a crush on you, dopey.”
I looked back at Pike. “You think this is funny?”
Another twitch. Everyone was having a good time with this but me.
Lucy said, “Think about it. She’s always been the caregiver. She’s never had a male authority figure take care of her before, and now you’re doing that.”
“Great.”
“Also, you’re cute.” Lucy bumped me, and her eyes said she was enjoying this, even if I wasn’t. “I can hardly blame her, can I?”
Pike said, “Tell me about the newspaper.”
I told them, the three of us sitting there on the office floor, me holding Lucy’s hand. I told them about the paper, and about the Ferrari and the men with the shotguns, and what I had learned from Eddie Ditko about Dak and Tran. Just having Lucy here made me feel better about things, and I wondered if this is what it would be like when she lived here full time. When I finished, Lucy said, “They don’t sound like terrorists to me.”
I shrugged. “No, and they don’t sound like criminals either, but they’ve hired a counterfeiter, and three of their people flashed me with shotguns.”
Pike nodded. You could tell he liked the part about shotguns.
Lucy said, “What are you going to do?”
“The scanner arrives at LAX tomorrow. I’m thinking that Joe and I meet it, then follow whoever picks it up and see if they take it to Clark.”
Lucy’s mouth tightened and she shook her head. “This has grown far and above finding a missing father. I think you should turn this over to the police.”
“If I turn it over to the police, they’ll arrest Clark.”
“Perhaps Clark deserves to he arrested.”
“I’m. not doing it for Clark. I’m doing it for these kids. Clark isn’t the world’s greatest father, but if he’s arrested, the Markovs will be able to get to him. If I can find him before he does anything stupid, I might be able to scare him into doing the right thing.”
She didn’t seem convinced.
“Also, I promised Teri.”
Lucy sighed. “Everyone else falls for a doctor or an engineer. I fall in love with Batman.”
Pike said, “It’s the cape. Women love the cape thing.”
Someone banged hard on the door, and Charles yelled, “Some woman is here!” He said it so loud that half the apartment complex probably heard him.
Lucy said, “That’s Tracy.”
We looked at each other and I held her hand tight, feeling that if I let go she would go her way and I mine, and, having lost her, I might not find her again. “I wish you could stay.”
“I know. Me, too.”
The three of us went down.
Tracy Mannos was standing in the entry, looking tired but determined. I hugged Lucy again, and so did Pike, and then they left. I said, “Hell.”
Teri said, “Your dinner’s ready.” She said it with a broad bright smile.
I looked at her, then at Charles and Winona on the couch,
watching television. “I might have a line on your father, but to follow it I’m going to need Joe’s help. Can you guys stay by yourselves tomorrow?”
Teri filled a plate with rice and chicken and something that looked like stewed tomatoes. She brought it to the table and put it down at a place that had been carefully set. “Of course, silly.” Silly? “When we met we’d been alone for eleven days, hadn’t we?”
I nodded. I sat.
Teri said, “Can I bring you a beer now?”
“I’ll get it.”
I started to rise but she pushed me down. Hard. “I’m already on my feet.”
She got the beer, opened it, and set it on the table by my plate. I said, “Thank you.”
She smiled and sat with me.
“You don’t have to sit with me.”
“I want to.”
Pike went upstairs. Guess he couldn’t stand it.
I looked at Teri. She looked back. “Is it good?”
I nodded. “Very.”
She fluttered her eyes and sighed.
Man.
CHAPTER 24
Pike and I left for LAX early the next morning, leaving the apartment as the sun was torching the eastern sky. That part of the morning, the air was still and cool, and we made good time; the southbound traffic moved easily, even though dense with commuters from the Simi and Antelope Valleys grinding toward the Los Angeles basin. I said, “We’re just another couple of guys on their way to work.”
Pike said, “Uh-huh.”
The Beretta autoloader was on the floorboard behind our seats. I had the Dan Wesson, and Pike had his Python and maybe even an MX missile. Just another couple of guys.
We left the San Diego Freeway at Howard Hughes Parkway and dropped south through Westchester to LAX. The scanner was due in at nine that morning, and, according to the dispatcher in New York, was to be held at the airport for pickup at the Small Package Delivery office in the baggage claim area. Being a small package, it would come down the carousel with the luggage, where a United employee would pick it up, then take it to be held in the SPD office until it was claimed by someone from the Journal. That person might be Clark, but more probably it would be someone that we couldn’t recognize, so we had to be in position to identify the package and follow its movements.
We left Pike’s Jeep on the arriving flights level as close to baggage claim as we could, then went into the SPD office. An attractive African-American woman was behind the counter there, stacking small packages for a guy in a gray express delivery uniform. I said, “Excuse me. Could you tell me which carousel the luggage from United flight five will come down?”
“That would be carousel four. But that flight isn’t due in until nine. You’re awful early.”
I smiled at her. “The wife’s coming in and I miss her.” The wife.
“Oh, isn’t that nice.”
The people in the terminal ebbed and flowed with the early morning flight schedule of the big cross-country flights to New York or Miami or Chicago, then grew steadily as the number of flights increased. At eight-thirty we separated and positioned ourselves with a view to all points of egress in case Clark showed. He didn’t. A family of Hare Krishnas came through snapping finger chimes and offering pamphlets for money, moving from person to person until they reached Pike, and then they hurried past. Strong survival instinct.
At exactly nine a.m. the arrival monitor indicated that flight five had landed, and a few minutes later the carousel kicked on and luggage began sliding down its ramp. The fourth piece down was a white cardboard box taped with a bright yellow airbill. Pike drifted to the carousel, watched the package pass, then came back. “Pacific Rim Weekly Journal.”
Twenty minutes later, almost all of the crowd and luggage was gone. The attractive African-American woman appeared, and took the package into the SPD office. I said, “Watch for the package, not the people.”
People carrying packages came and went through the SPD office, but none of them had the white box.
We waited some more.
Pike said, “Maybe you scared them off.”
Nothing like support from the home team.
We were still waiting at sixteen minutes after ten when an Asian guy went into the office and claimed the white box with the yellow airbill. I looked at Pike. “Ha.”
We followed him out to a plain white van, then out of the airport to the San Diego Freeway, then south. It took almost an hour and forty-five minutes to reach Long Beach, but the white van didn’t seem to be in a hurry, and neither were we. Pike said, “Paid by the hour.” Cynic.
The white van left the freeway at the Long Beach Municipal Airport, then cruised north along the west side of the airport into an area of warehouses where he turned into the parking lot between two enormous modern storage buildings. The buildings were painted a plain beige and bore no identifying signs. We cruised past to the next building, then turned back, slowing long enough to see our guy carrying the white box into the north building. I said, “Want to bet Clark is in there?”
Pike shook his head. “We could shoot our way in and grab him.”
You never know when he’s kidding.
The street was lined with similar buildings, most of which were occupied by carpet wholesalers or appliance outlets or metalworking shops. We parked across the street and trotted back, Pike going around the north side of the building, me strolling across the parking lot. The building was divided into sections, with offices in the front and three big truck doors evenly spaced along the parking lot, and no windows. All the better in which to do crime. The people door at the front was heavy and industrial, and it was also closed. The guy from the van had entered a door on the side of the building, but that door was closed, too. In fact, all the doors were closed. Maybe the Roswell aliens were in there.
I had just reached a row of Dumpsters at the rear of the building when the people door kicked open and the guy from the white van came out with three other men, the four of them laughing and yucking it up. One of the men I had never seen before, hut the other two had leaned on me outside the Journal. Pike drifted up beside me, and we watched as the four men climbed into the van and drove away. “The middle two guys fronted me yesterday at the newspaper.”
Pike didn’t respond. Like it didn’t matter to him one way or another.
I said, “Anything on the other side?”
“Two doors, both locked. No windows.”
“I’m thinking Clark’s inside. There might be other people inside, too, but with four bodies out, now might be our best shot.”
Pike said, “We could always just call the police.”
I frowned at him.
“Just kidding.” Then he looked at me. “What if Clark won’t come?”
I looked back at the door. “Clark will come if I have to put a gun to his head. He will come and we’ll sit down with those kids and we’ll figure out what to do next.” I think I said it more for me than for Pike. “But he will come.”
“Optimist.”
We drew our guns, and went through the side door into a long colorless hall that smelled of Clorox. The hall branched left and straight. Pike looked at me and I gestured straight.
We moved past a series of small empty offices to the door at the end of the hall, then stopped to listen. Still no sounds, but the Clorox smell was stronger. Pike whispered, “Stinks.”
“Maybe they’re dissolving bodies.”
Pike looked at me. “Acid to cut litho plates.” I guess he just knows these things.
We eased open the door and stepped into a room that was wide and deep and two stories high, lit by fluorescent tubes that filled the space with silver light. A lithograph machine sat in the center of the floor, surrounded by long cafeteria tables that had been lined with boxes of indigo ink and acid wells and printers’ supplies. A high-end Power Mac was up and running, anonymous screen-saver kittens slowly chasing each other. The scanner was still in its box, the box on the floor by the Macintosh. A color copier was
set up on one side of the litho machine, and three front-loading dryers stood in a row against the far wall. The smell of oil-based ink was so strong it was like walking into a fog. I said, “Clark’s going to print, all right.”
“Yeah, but what?”
Pike nodded toward a row of wooden crates stacked on pallets near the door. The crates were labeled, but the printing wasn’t Arabic. Pike said, “Russian.”
The top crate had been opened and you could see blocks of paper wrapped in white plastic. One of the blocks had been slit open to reveal the paper inside. The sheets were something like eighteen inches by twenty-four, and appeared to be a high-grade linen embedded with bright orange security fibers. The sheets also looked watermarked, though I couldn’t make out the images. I said, “Our money doesn’t have orange security fibers.”
Pike drifted to one of the long tables.
“You think they’re going to counterfeit Russian money?”
Pike reached the table. “Not Russian, and not ours.”
Pike held up what looked like a photo negative of a series of dollar bills, only when I got closer I could see that they weren’t dollars. The denomination was 50,000, and the portrait wasn’t of Washington or Franklin or even Lenin. It was Ho Chi Minh. Pike’s mouth twitched. “They’re going to print Vietnamese money.”
I put down the negative. “We still have to find Clark.”
We went back along the hall toward the front of the warehouse, passing more empty offices. The hall reached a kind of lobby, then turned right to more offices, and as I passed the first office I saw a small camp cot against one wall, covered by a rumpled sleeping bag. “In here.”
We went in. “Guess he’s supposed to stay here until the job’s done.”
Clark had been here, but he wasn’t here now. An overnight bag sat on the floor beside the cot, and a cheap card table with a single folding chair stood against the opposite wall. A little radio sat on the table, along with a few toiletry items and a couple of printers’ magazines. Diet Coke cans were on the floor, along with crumpled bags from Burger King and In-n-out Burger and a large bottle of Maalox and a mostly used tube of cherry-flavored Turns. The room smelled of sweat and body odor and maybe something worse. A candle and a box of matches and a simple rubber tube waited on the table. Drug paraphernalia. I said, “Goddamn. The sonofabitch is probably out scoring more dope.”