by Robert Crais
Teri said, “Live with it.”
I took it slow because no one was wearing a seat belt. Elvis Cole, the not-quite-responsible parent, looking over his shoulder for a load of Russian hit men.
Teri and Charles were quiet, but after a while Winona began to chatter about how much she liked riding in the convertible. The top was down and the wind blew through our hair, and Winona said that it made her feel like she was in a parade. Charles neither glowered nor flipped off anyone, and Teri seemed lost in herself. I guess everyone had their own way of dealing with what was going on.
Pretty soon we left the city behind and wound through the trees, and a little bit after that we turned into the carport. Winona said, “Is this your house?”
“Yes.”
“It looks like a tepee.”
“It’s called an A-frame. It’s tall and steep and shaped like the letter.”
Charles slunk out of the car and peered at the trees and natural hillsides. “Are there bears?”
“No bears. Just a few coyotes and rattlesnakes.”
He glanced at the ground, then made a sour face. “What’s that smell?”
Winona giggled. “Charles cut the cheese.”
Teri said, “Don’t be rude.”
“It’s the eucalyptus trees.” I pointed them out to him. “The sun splits their bark, and their sap smells like mouthwash.”
They followed me inside through the kitchen to the living room. I told them to put their bags on the stairs, and I opened the drapes and the big glass doors to let the breeze in from the deck, then checked my answering machine. Lucy had left a message, asking me to call. Teri said, “Is that Ms. Chenier?”
“Yep.”
“Aren’t you going to call her?”
“As soon as we get squared away. You guys can go out on the deck if you want, but nobody climb on the rail. You can play on the slope, just watch out for the snakes.” Summer camp at the Cole residence. They stood in the door and looked at the deck and the slope, but nobody went outside. The snakes.
“There’s soft drinks and milk and water in the fridge. You can help yourself. After we get settled, I’ll make dinner.”
Teri said, “You don’t have to cook for us.” She hadn’t come to the deck. She was standing in the living room by the stairs with her arms crossed.
“Of course I do. But you can help if you like. Is meatloaf okay?”
The three of them shrugged at one another, and Teri said, “That would be nice. Thank you.”
Charles eyed the loft. “What’s up there?”
“That’s my loft. Come on. I’ll show you.”
I showed them the downstairs bathroom, then took them up. Charles and Winona wandered through the loft, but Teri went to the rail and looked down into the house. From the rail you can see the living room and the dining area and through the glass out to the canyon. She looked at the big glass triangle of my back wall, then up at the high pointed ceiling. She looked at my bed, and the built-in dresser, and then down at the living room again. “Do you live here alone?”
“Yes. Except for my cat.”
She let her touch drift along the rail, and then she looked around the room again. “It’s nice.”
“Thank you.” I thought of my house as ordinary, but I realized then that it was probably a different world to her. Life for them had been a series of temporary furnished rentals, other people’s homes and other people’s furniture, just a place to stay until their father decided it was time to leave, no more permanent than a daily newspaper.
I showed them the upstairs bath, and then we went downstairs. When we got down again, Joe Pike was standing silently in the entry. Just standing there.
Charles yelped in surprise and shouted, “Jeezis, you scared me!”
Pike said, “Yes.”
Charles scrambled outside and peered in from the deck. Guess Joe scared him more than the snakes.
I said, “I’ll make dinner in a minute, but first we have to talk. Charles, come back inside.”
Charles crept back inside and the three of them stared at me, Charles snapping nervous glances toward Joe.
“I’m going to look for your father tomorrow, so I need clues. Did he say anything to anyone while he was home?”
They looked at one another, and shook their heads. Teri said, “Not like you mean.”
“Nothing that might indicate where he was going?”
Winona said, “He said we were going to move away soon. He said we could have a really big TV.” Great.
Teri said, “He made some phone calls.”
“Anyone listen in?”
They shook their heads some more, but Charles wasn’t particularly convincing.
“Charles?”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“No. But you might’ve heard something.”
Charles squirmed, then shrugged. “He said something about going to see someone.”
“You hear a name?”
“Ray.”
“He said the name ‘Ray’?”
Shrug.
Pike said, “How about ‘Tre’?”
Charles scrunched his face, but this time he didn’t shrug. “Yeah, maybe that was it.”
Pike shook his head and went out onto the deck.
I showed them my videotapes and told them to pick one. Winona picked Independence Day. I got them going with that, put two pounds of ground turkey in the microwave to thaw, and was just getting ready to join Pike on the deck when Lucy Chenier called again. I said, “I was about to call you. Did you close the deal?”
There was a great silence from the other end of the line. “I’m not sure there’s a job offer to be closed.”
I stood in the kitchen with the phone in my hand. Winona and Charles watched great elliptical spaceships enter the atmosphere, but Teri watched me. I said, “What do you mean, no job offer?” Pike looked in from the deck, curious as to what was keeping me.
“God, I’ve really needed to talk to you, Elvis.” Her voice sounded hollow and empty.
I held the phone tighter. “Lucy?”
“When David got back to them, they reduced the term of the contract. They changed every one of the deal points, and said they were reconsidering the amount of my salary.” I could hear the hurt in her voice. “I just don’t understand it.”
“Maybe it’s just a negotiating tactic.”
“David doesn’t think so. He’s done this a hundred times, and he says it’s as if they’ve changed their minds about hiring me.”
I leaned against the counter and frowned. “Maybe you should call Tracy Mannos.”
“I did. She hasn’t returned my call.”
I frowned harder. I thought about Richard in my office, telling me that he wouldn’t just let Lucy leave. I thought about it some more and shook my head.
“Richard came to see me.”
Silence.
“He hired a man named Epps to follow us when you were here.” I told her about Epps having searched my house, and about Richard coming to my office. You don’t think I’m going to let her leave, do you?
She cleared her throat. “My ex-husband, Richard. Ben’s father.” She cleared her throat again. “He came to see you?”
“Yesterday.”
“And you didn’t call me.” It wasn’t a question. More a statement, more just wanting to make sure she had the facts of her life straight. “You didn’t think that was worth calling me about.”
I sighed. “Mistake, huh?”
Silence again. Pike and Teri were watching me until Pike shook his head and turned away. Sometimes you can’t win.
“I thought about calling you, but it seemed small. It seemed like something between Richard and me, and I didn’t want to bring you into it.”
“A boy thing.” How do you spell “moron”?
“He’s upset because you and Ben are moving away, and he stepped over the line with Epps and this other stuff, but it’s a stretch to think he could have anything to do with KROK.�
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“You don’t know, Elvis. This is exactly the kind of thing he would do.” I could hear her breathing. I had never asked about her former marriage, or what led to her divorce, and I didn’t want to go there now. She said, “I think I should come out there.”
“Talk to Tracy first. You don’t want to come out until you know what you’re up against because if you’re wrong, it will look bad for you.”
She didn’t say anything for several seconds, and then she said, “Elvis, I’m really sorry about this.”
“You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”
“Richard.”
She hung up without another word. I stood in my kitchen, holding the phone and listening to the dial tone, and then I hung up and joined Pike on the deck. The end of the day was approaching, and the sky to the east was hazy with smoke the color of bone. Somewhere, something was burning. Pike said, “What?”
I told him.
Pike listened without comment, then said, “Figured we should kill him.” Always with the helpful comment.
“I just don’t see it, but you never know. What could some guy from Louisiana have to do with a television station here in Los Angeles?”
Pike crossed his arms and leaned against the deck rail. His head tilted ever so slightly, like maybe it was beyond him. I could see the TV reflected in his glasses. “First the Russians, now this. You’ve got a lot to think about.”
“Yes, but I am large.”
He nodded. “Keep your head in the game. Think about the wrong thing at the wrong time, it’ll mean your ass.”
“Thanks.”
“Maybe mine, or those kids’.” You see the way he is?
I said, “You get a safe house?”
“Place in Studio City. Three bedrooms, furnished, phones. We can use it as long as we want.” He told me the address.
“Sounds good. I’m thinking maybe I should stay at Clark’s house tonight. If the Russians haven’t gotten him, Clark might go back there. He might be there now.”
Pike’s mouth twitched. “Sure.”
“Well, miracles happen.”
Pike told me he needed to buy supplies for the safe house and that he would be back later. I went into the kitchen to start dinner. I had half a head of iceberg lettuce and a fresh bag of spring greens and a couple of tomatoes that would do for a salad, and maybe half a dozen new potatoes that I could roast with the turkey loaf. I was gathering things together when Teri came into the kitchen and said, “Can I help?”
“Sure.”
I told her what I planned, then showed her the cutting boards and knives, and gave her a small Maui onion and two carrots to dice. She said, “What are you going to do with the carrots?”
“For the turkey loaf.”
She looked at me.
“We’ll toss in raisins, too, along with a little soy sauce and maybe some peas. You’ll see.”
“Winona doesn’t like peas.”
“Okay, ix-nay the peas.”
She started with the onion. I worked with the potatoes. Teri used the knife carefully and well, and cut the onion into uniform pieces while Charles and Winona watched the destruction of the Earth. Twice I glanced up at her, and twice I caught her looking at me. Both times I smiled, and both times she looked away. After the second time, she said, “How can Lucy be your girlfriend if she lives in Louisiana?”
“We didn’t plan it that way, it just kind of happened.” I guess she’d been listening to my conversation.
“Do you date other girls?”
“No. I did for a while, but I kept thinking about Lucy, so I stopped seeing other people.”
“Does she date other men?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
I frowned at her. “She’s been offered a job out here and she may move out—if she can work out the terms of the job.” If the job is still hers to be had.
Chopping. “What if she can’t move here?”
I chopped harder. “We’ll deal with it.” This kid was worse than Joe Pike.
When Teri was finished with the carrots I had her add them to the turkey, and then we mixed in the raisins and the soy sauce and a couple of eggs. I let Teri shape the loaf while I dug out a roasting pan. We put the meat in the pan and surrounded it with the potatoes. The fresh potatoes didn’t look like enough, so I added a can of whole peeled new potatoes, and sprinkled everything with paprika. We put it in the oven at four hundred and set the timer for an hour. Teri said, “I’m sorry about what happened at our house.”
“What do you mean?”
She looked embarrassed. “When I cried.”
I remembered her eyes filling. I remembered a few tears. Then I remembered her packing it away and shutting it down like a SWAT team cop with twenty years on the job. I said, “You don’t have to apologize for that.”
She shook her head. “I can’t afford to lose control.”
“You’re fifteen. It’s okay to cry.”
She looked at the floor. “I’m all they have. If I fall apart, who will take care of Winona and Charles?”
I stared at her. “What about you? Who do you have?”
She pursed her lips. When she spoke, her voice was soft. “I don’t have anyone.”
I shook my head. “No, that’s not true. You have me.”
She frowned at me, then cocked her head. “Oh, sure.” She stalked out of the kitchen and went up the stairs.
I said, “Huh?”
I stayed in the kitchen, opened a Falstaff, and stared at the oven. The living room was rocked by alien explosions and Winona laughed. It seemed safer in the kitchen.
Charles edged into the dining room, fidgeting like something was bothering him. I said, “What?”
“Nothing.”
I had more of the Falstaff. I glanced at my watch and wondered when Pike would get back. This baby-sitting was damned tough work.
Charles sidled into the door. “I didn’t mean it.”
“You didn’t mean what?”
His hands were in his pockets and his face was red. “I don’t want him to be dead.”
I looked at him and sighed. “I know, Charles. It’s okay.”
Charles edged back into the living room. I stayed in the kitchen.
Joe Pike got back forty minutes later, and not long after that the timer dinged. Joe and Winona ate. The rest of us weren’t hungry.
When the dishes were cleared I drove back to their house to wait for Clark Hewitt.
18
The Saturn was still in its place. The Hewitts’ house was dark, one of only two sleeping houses on their street.
I cruised the house once, parked around the corner, then walked back. The night air was cool, and traffic sounds from Melrose blended with the voices and laughter of children playing and adults taking an evening stroll.
I waited until two young women walking a dog were beyond me, then sauntered up the drive and let myself in using Teri’s key. The lights were off, and I did not turn them on. I wanted to search the house again, but not at the risk of alerting either Clark or a passing car filled with Russians. I took off my jacket and holster, put the Dan Wesson near at hand, and settled in on the couch. After a while I slept, but I woke often at sounds made by the strange house, rising when I did to make sure that those sounds weren’t Clark or Russian thugs. They never were, and little by little the dark brightened to dawn. Clark Hewitt did not return.
Fourteen minutes after six the next morning, it was light enough to work. I did a more detailed search now than I had with Teri, stripping Clark’s bed and checking the mattress seams and the box spring liner, taking out every drawer in the dresser and chest to see if anything was taped behind or beneath them. I didn’t know what I was looking for, or even think that I would find something, but you never know. When the phone company offices opened at nine I planned on checking the calls that Clark had made while he was home, but until then it was either search or stay on the couch and watch Regis and Kathie Lee. At least
this way I could pretend to be a detective.
I went through Clark’s closet, checking the pockets in his shirts and pants and coats, and I looked in his shoes. He didn’t have many, so it didn’t take long. I went through the bathroom, then once more went through the kitchen, and then the kids’ rooms and the living room. At sixteen minutes after eight I was finished, and still hadn’t found anything.
I went back into the kitchen, located a jar of Taster’s Choice instant, and made a cup with hot water from the tap. At least I found the coffee.
I was sipping the coffee and thinking about phoning Tracy Mannos when I noticed a ceiling hatch in the hall. I hadn’t noticed it before because the cord that’s supposed to be there so you can pull down the door had been clipped, and also because most houses in Southern California are built without attics because of the heat. If you have anything, you might have a crawl space. I went into the hall and looked up at the door. It had been painted over a few hundred times, but the door seemed free and usable, and, with finger smudges around the edges, looked as if it had been used. Maybe I could detect more than instant coffee after all.
I used one of the dining room chairs, pulled down the door, unfolded the ladder, and climbed far enough to stick my head into the crawl space. Twelve minutes after eight in the morning and it was already a hundred degrees up there.
I went back to the kitchen for a flashlight, took off my shirt, and went up into the crawl space. Maybe ten feet back along one of the rafter wells was a dark, lumpy shape. I boosted myself up, then duckwalked along the prewar two-by-eights to a military surplus duffel bag, as clean and dust-free as if it had just been put there. I opened it enough to look inside and saw banded packs of hundred-dollar bills. I said, “Aha.”
You hang around an empty house by yourself long enough, you’ll say damn near anything.
I dropped the duffel out of the crawl space, opened it on the living room floor, and counted out a little more than twenty-three thousand dollars in worn C-notes that were perfect mates to the bills Special Agent Marsha Fields had confiscated. Markov money. Money that the Hewitts had been living on for the past three years, money good enough to get by with as long as you didn’t flash it at a bank or in front of a Secret Service agent. Then I said “Aha” again.