“What? You trying to pin it on the martinis?”
“Pin what on the martinis?”
“The damage to my shirt.”
I searched my memory. Buttons. I remembered buttons. And cuff links. And a watch. An amazing silver- “What kind of watch do you wear?” I asked.
“A Vacheron Constantine. You liked it.”
“Did we discuss why a civil servant is wearing a Vacheron Constantine?”
“Yes, I’m on the take. You really don’t remember a lot, do you?”
I made a note not to take so much as a decongestant in front of this man. I was so easily disoriented by things-this freeway, for instance. Where was Lake Avenue or Orange-oh. Because I was on the 210 East, not west. Heading to Arcadia, Azusa, Nebraska. “Oh, hell,” I said.
“It’s okay, we left a few things in the planning stages.”
I hoped he was referring to sex. “I’m sorry,” I said, “I’m talking to myself. I’m one of those people who shouldn’t drive and talk, drive and read, drive and trim my hair-”
“You’re scaring me. Good-bye.”
“No, wait. I need to ask you-”
“Call me when you get home.”
I hung up and found my way off the 210 East and onto the 210 West, fighting a sensation of well-being. How could I feel this way, with the day I’d had and all that had happened? Yet the sound of his voice made investigations, drugs, blondes, veal, plumbers, frogs, math, guns, e-mails, and mothers fade into the dust, like the city of San Marino.
It wasn’t until the 210 had become the 134 and then the 101 that I started to worry about what had happened to the pill.
I walked into my apartment to find Joey, Fredreeq, and my mother sitting in the kitchen. Joey was eating Sara Lee cheesecake. Prana, in a peach caftan, was laying out Tarot cards.
“Wollie,” Fredreeq said, “you never told us Prana is a regressionist. She says I was a courtesan in the Manchu dynasty, and Anne Boleyn.”
“Congratulations,” I said, going to the window. “I raised pigs in ancient Greece. Prana, any plumbers show up today?”
“No, dear.”
“Because if anyone tries to get in, if anything suspicious happens-”
“I won’t be here for it. Theo and I are attending the Dances of Universal Peace.”
“And we should hit the road,” Joey said. “Have fun, Prana. Thanks for the reading.”
“Joey, may you find peace in San Pedro.” Prana looked up and removed her glasses. “Wollie,” she said, “what on earth are you wearing?”
Twenty minutes later I was in black jeans, black sneakers, and a black hooded sweatshirt, in the passenger seat of Joey’s husband’s BMW, heading south. Fredreeq followed in her own car.
On the subject of Annika’s e-mail, Joey was unequivocal. “We can’t stop looking. Unless we find her, you’ll never stop wondering, and you won’t feel safe. If you don’t know the source of the danger, you’ll be paranoid around people you should trust, and trust people you shouldn’t.”
“Even if the FBI promised to look for her?”
Joey glanced at me, then back at the road. “Wollie, I don’t know any Feds besides my cousin Stewart in New York, but I’ve known my share of cops. They don’t have a high opinion of informants. That’s you. They pretend to care, if that’s what it takes, because what works for them is surveillance, torture, and informants, and torture’s frowned upon. I’m just saying a promise from them is not the same as a promise from you. If Annika’s vital to their case, they’ll find her. If she’s not…” She changed lanes. “The good news is, cousin Stewart’s heard of Simon Alexander. At least your guy’s the real deal.”
“You had him checked out?”
“Yeah, and the Bentley he drives was seized in a case last month. It’s his bu-car, in Fed-speak.” She looked at me. “Of course I checked, I was worried. It’s weird, someone recruiting you. You’re not ratlike enough.”
“Thanks,” I said, not liking anything about this conversation. “So what about tonight? Are we sure the agency’s even open?”
“Fredreeq checked. She has ways of getting calls returned you can’t imagine. They’re open the Friday after Thanksgiving because of their international business. Till five.”
“And we’ll be back for Biological Clock? I’m spying tonight.”
“Bing couldn’t get the location till midnight, so it’s a late start. You and I’ll be done long before that. In and out. A drive-through burglary. Sorry, did I say burglary? Borrowing.”
I rode to Au Pairs par Excellence with trepidation. Joey’s casual about things I care about, like physical safety and staying within the law. But Marie-Thérèse, Annika’s confidante, was still the most direct means of finding Annika. One phone number, an address, that’s all we needed, and we could be home free. Instinctively, I checked the rear window to see if we were being followed. We were. Half of California was on the 405 South.
“Relax, Wollie,” Joey said. “Even your mom approved this operation. By the way, who was she in a past life?”
“Everybody. She’s a very old soul.”
“Anyone I’d know?”
“Beethoven. Winston Churchill. Cleopatra’s stillborn child.”
Joey nodded. “It could be worse. She could be in the state pen and you’d feel compelled to go visit her every week. Or she could be dead. Of breast cancer, something you’d worry about inheriting and passing on to your daughters.”
“I’m not having any daughters. Or sons. Even if I’m still physically capable, I’m not mother material. I’m broke, uneducated, bad at long-term relationships, really bad at math, and I recently let a three-year-old eat six cupcakes in four minutes. Fredreeq’s still in shock.”
“Well, nobody’s perfect. You may not be the best judge of your maternal instincts; ask Ruby if you’d make a good mother.”
I couldn’t ask Ruby. She was in Asia. And I missed her.
“What my shrink would say,” Joey continued, “is that you’re childless because you fear turning into your mom. That’s what he tells me.”
I hadn’t realized Joey had baby issues. “What does he say to do about it?”
“Since I can’t change her, I have to take a stab at appreciating her so that turning into her doesn’t depress me. Realize I’d like her just fine if she weren’t my mom. Admit she loves me, however imperfectly. Acknowledge she’s not truly bad, she’s just offbeat-bad mothers leave their children alone in locked cars on hot summer days with the windows rolled up.”
“This is good, therapy by proxy,” I said. “Anything else you found out about me?”
“Yes. Your desire to find Annika is a way of wishing someone had rescued you at that age. When you were on your own in a big city, falling for bad men. This wish is unconscious. Consciously, you thought you were having a good time.”
I didn’t know what to say. Didn’t everyone live like that at nineteen?
The rest of the way to San Pedro we talked about Lauren Rodriguez. And Britta and the pill that connected her to Annika, pills Rico was apparently handing out right and left.
“Sounds like he was exporting this to Germany,” Joey said. “But the international drug trade-there are syndicates to go through. You don’t just hang out a shingle and take orders.”
No. You signed on with Vladimir Tcheiko and went global. Little Fish must’ve recruited Rico when he visited the set. Maybe Rico was eager to show some initiative, putting together his own team in preparation for the big merger.
“Joey,” I said, “if someone on the show is into drugs, would you know?”
Joey glanced in the rearview mirror. “Depends on what you mean by ‘into.’ I’ve done everything that doesn’t involve needles or aerosol cans, but I’ve never sold, even when I needed money. Little kink in my moral code. Other people deal them but don’t use. On B.C. I don’t know; I’m the producer, people don’t let their hair down around me. Production sucks.”