But he smiled, a brief showing of teeth. The window went up. The car went forward.
I stepped back, into the shadows, breathing hard.
Agent Shepphird’s voice was in my ear. “Wollie. Good job. We’re in. The next one’s our guy. He’s got his first lieutenant with him. Yosip Kasnoff. You’ve met Yosip, but only once. But you’ve talked to Karl Marx-sorry, Tcheiko-three or four times on the phone. He likes you. Hold on, Wollie, I’m getting instructions on my headset. Okay. You’re cooking tonight. They found the transcripts of your last conversation. You promised him fusion cooking: applying California spa techniques to French recipes using African ingredients. And that’s the password. What you’re cooking for him.”
“Okay. What is it?”
There was a pause. Agent Shepphird said, “We don’t know.”
My heart stopped.
“Make up something,” she said. “He’s not going to be eating it.”
“I don’t cook.”
“Hold on. Dinner suggestions, anyone? Kermit doesn’t cook.” She paused, perhaps listening to her headset. “Meanwhile, Wollie, here’s the goaclass="underline" get Tcheiko inside the compound and out of his car. We have SWAT guys on the roof, MP5s pointing at both front windows in the limo. They just need to see what they’re shooting at. But if it goes wrong, you panic, you see a gun, hear one, hit the ground. Agents will be on top of you like a football. We’ll take care of you. Hit the ground, Kermit-Wollie. You’ll be fine. Here he comes. Wing it.”
Wing it?
My mother has always talked about out-of-body experiences. I’d never known what she meant. What an interesting time to understand something about my mother. Tcheiko’s car pulled up just as the first had done. I stepped out of the shadows and approached. The driver’s window went down, the tinted window, and I was looking into the face of a man, extraordinarily handsome, much more than Simon, more even than Doc, with a black-and-silver beard and a nearly shaved head and salacious brown eyes. “Hello,” he said.
“Hello,” I said. “I’m glad you’re here. I hope you’re hungry.”
He regarded me calmly, not smiling but not with the fierce look of the man in the first car. I thought of the guns aimed at us. In the dark. I could feel the sweat form under my skin. Now what? Whose turn to speak? What were my instructions? Why didn’t he speak?
“On a fait une réservation pour huit personnes à neuf heures, je crois,” he said.
My heart was pounding. I was in the wrong movie; I needed the one with subtitles. My face quivered so badly I nearly-
“Et le menu?” he said. “What have you for us?”
I’ve never been to Africa. I know nothing about Africa. Except-
“Frog,” I said.
“Les cuisses de grenouille?” he said, frowning. “This is not typically local.”
“Au contraire,” I said. “The West African goliath, Conraua goliath, is native to Cameroon. And happens to be the largest frog on earth. Which I am honored to have in my kitchen. As I am honored to have you in my kitchen.”
“How will you prepare it?”
“I had considered an amuse-bouche in puff pastry, but as the goliath is thirty centimeters, snout to vent, his legs are the size of… forearms. He’s now a main course. À la maison Maizie. A little garlic, a bit of flavored oil. Voilà”
He nodded. He smiled. His window went up. He drove forward.
A movement from across the street caught my eye. The film crew had moved out of sight of the black cars, but I was close enough to the gate to see them run silently across the street, to our side, a hundred feet north of the gate. Dozens of them. Every one with guns drawn.
Car One’s doors opened and men got out, five of them, and walked back to Car Two. They opened the doors of Car Two, driver’s side and passenger’s side. Frito called to me, his accent heavy. “Mrs. Quinn,” he said, with a gesture. “The gate, please. Close.”
There was a movement, and a sound like a crack, like a tree limb breaking.
I hit the ground.
People piled on top of me like I was a football.
41
It was three days later.
I pulled into a parking lot in Woodland Hills, the north end of a dog park. I rolled down the windows and checked my watch. Almost noon. Twenty-four and a half shopping days till Christmas.
“We’re early,” Joey said. “By six minutes. Even with you driving.”
I’d picked up Joey at a car dealer’s in Oxnard, on my way home from Santa Barbara. Joey had sold the BMW. The paparazzo-plumber’s dent had shown Elliot the wisdom of unloading his car before his wife could add more miles or damage. We’d been listening to a news update of planes grounded in Honolulu, damaged by volcanic ash. I turned off the radio.
“I’m nervous, Joey,” I said. “Why would I be this nervous?”
We waited.
Four minutes later a Range Rover pulled into the lot, drove past us, and parked six or seven empty spaces away. Nobody got out.
One minute after that, another car showed up and parked near the entrance. Joey whistled. “Nice wheels.”
“It’s the cheap Bentley,” I said.
“Ready?” Joey said.
“No,” I said.
The passenger door of the Bentley opened. Annika Glück stepped out. She was slight, not twenty years old, brown-haired, apple-cheeked. She was pretty, but what you noticed first was the radiance of her expression.
I opened my door and started to call to her, but she was already running to meet me, and as small as she was, the force of her nearly knocked me over when she arrived. “Ich kann nicht glauben dass ich hier-”
I hugged her back, smiling so hard my face felt stretched. How tiny she was, hardly bigger than Ruby, my almost-stepdaughter. I could feel her ribs shaking through her leather jacket and I was about to tell her I didn’t understand German, but then I realized she was crying and that whatever she was saying wouldn’t be any more coherent in English.
A door of the Range Rover opened, then slammed shut.
Annika looked up, and went silent. Her clutching relaxed; then she let go of me.
Grammy Quinn climbed out of the Range Rover on the driver’s side. Lupe was already out of the car, reaching into the back seat, speaking Spanish. Emma Quinn jumped to the ground, holding Lupe’s hand. Then she turned and saw us.
Annika gave my arm a squeeze and walked toward the little girl. Emma looked back at Lupe, who said something in Spanish. Then Emma turned to Annika again, and stared.
Annika reached her and dropped to one knee. “Hello, Mausi. Shall we go to the swings?” Her accent was slight. Emma nodded and turned away, arms folded, legs marching toward the playground. Annika followed.
How had I ever believed this girl to be a depressed, drug-abusing teen? It had been so easy for Maizie to plant the evidence and to plant the story in my head. She’d have done the same for anyone who came looking for Annika, but she got lucky. She got me. Ms. Gullible.
I looked back at the Bentley. Simon Alexander was leaning against it, watching me. The last time I’d seen him was three nights ago, outside the Quinn house. When the shooting had stopped, he’d picked me up off the ground, found me a blanket, plied me with brandy, and told Agent Shepphird to drive me home. Then he’d left town.
“He’s really tall, isn’t he?” Joey said, from inside the car. “Good luck.”
I glanced back at Lupe and Grammy Quinn waiting by the Range Rover, then walked across the parking lot to the Bentley, gravel crunching under my sneakers. I stopped before I reached him, leaving four or five feet between us. “Hello, Simon.”
“Hello, Wollie.”
I nodded toward the playground. “So she’s okay? Annika?”
“She’s fine. Excited to be here. Thawing out from two weeks in Minnesota.”
“And her mother?”
“Touring Beverly Hills at the moment, with Esterbud. So far, the mother likes Minnesota better. I don’t share her enthusiasm.”