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"I'll wait, then. Till you get it straightened out in your mind."

"Thanks."

"Wouldn't be right away anyway. Your place. Your rules."

"Really?"

She grinned. "I wouldn't go that far."

He stared at her, befuddled.

"Make yourself another sandwich if you want," he said. "And there's more soda in there. I'll be right back."

He left her and returned to his den. His cigar had gone out. He relit it, then walked over and shut the door and called May and Elliott Franzine's number in California.

Elliott picked up almost immediately.

"It's Quinn," Quinn said. "I've got Lauri here."

"Thank God!" Elliott said. "She's been gone four days. We thought she was at a girlfriend's house until yesterday. We called the police, and they're about to list her as a missing person."

"Well, she isn't missing. She's here. Said she rode buses in from California."

"May's not here, Quinn. She's out talking to the girlfriend's parents. We've worried out of our skulls."

"I guess so. Lauri get upset about something?"

"Didn't seem to. Well, we did have a bit of a tiff about where and when she'd go to college. A few harsh words. But we've had those discussions before and everybody's cooled down. We didn't think she was mad enough to leave home. Though she's been talking about not liking California, seeing more of the world. We didn't think there was anything to the talk, just Lauri venting, but it seems we were wrong."

"She's planning on going to college?"

"Eventually, she says. After gaining what she calls true life experience, whatever that is."

Quinn knew what it was. It could be painful. Even fatal.

"She intends to stay with me for a while and try to find a job in New York," he said.

"How do you feel about that?"

"Like I've got no choice."

"Well, she is eighteen."

"That's an age when you can get in a lotta trouble," Quinn said. And be a lot of trouble.

"May and I both know she'd be safe with you."

"If I put her on the red-eye to California, she might bounce right back here," Quinn said, thinking out loud.

"Probably would. Or go someplace else altogether. Like Minnesota."

"Why Minnesota?"

"I don't know, but I've always had a bad feeling about Minnesota. It's a place where you can get in trouble if you're eighteen."

"Like plenty of other places," Quinn said.

"If she's really made up her mind to leave California," Elliott said, "she'll go someplace else. Lauri's awfully stubborn. Once she's made up her mind, she usually doesn't change it."

"Stubborn, huh?"

"Very."

Quinn picked up his cigar and toyed with it. Studied it. No sign of an ember. He mentally pronounced it dead.

What a screwed-up world it was.

"We can try it for a while," Quinn said. "On a trial basis. Maybe she'll see how tough it is here and get New York out of her system."

"This is great of you, Quinn."

"Not really. She's my daughter."

"Yeah, she sure is."

"Have May call me when she gets in."

"Okay. Tell Lauri we love her out here in California."

"You wanna talk to her?"

"Of course."

Quinn went back to the kitchen and returned a few minutes later and picked up the phone.

"She said she doesn't want to talk to you," he told Elliott. "Said you were a dork."

"That hurts."

"Tell me about it."

Quinn hung up the phone, smiling around his dead cigar.

17

"You drank just the right amount of wine during dinner," he told Marilyn, as they strolled along the sidewalk toward her apartment. Even though Marilyn was wearing high heels, he was slightly the taller of the two in his Rough Country boots, and he knew the hat added another three or four inches. They were walking very close together and presented a kind of unassailable front that prompted people approaching to veer around them. Power prevails, thought the Butcher.

Marilyn laughed. "I'm afraid to think what you might mean by that."

"I mean you showed restraint."

"And you admire restraint?"

His turn to laugh. "Up to a point."

He rested his right hand lightly on her shoulder as they walked, raising his head slightly and smiling as he let his senses take in the moment. The mingled scents of the city rode on the sultry summer evening. Headlights of approaching traffic starred in the humidity. The slightly sweet smell of curbside trash waiting to be picked up in early morning was like perfume to him. He enjoyed the subtle but persistent wafting of exhaust fumes; the rumble of a bus or truck; a cacophony of blaring horns echoing from far away.

And something else…a delicate hint of nearby scent.

Her shampoo.

"Did you wash your hair just for me?"

She seemed surprised and pleased. "Of course I did. It's perceptive of you to notice."

"There isn't much I don't notice." He realized at once he'd sounded a note of arrogance and moved to temper it. "I'm afraid my job makes me like that."

"You never told me what you did for a living," she said.

I can tell her anything now, on this, her last night.

"I'm a historian."

"You teach?"

"Not now. I'm writing a book on the Civil War."

"About your ancestor."

"General Grant wasn't exactly an ancestor."

"You know that for a fact?"

"Well, no."

"Then maybe you and he are related. Or maybe not. You drank just the right amount of wine for dinner, too. Showed restraint. I don't think General Grant often did that."

They'd reached the entrance to Marilyn's building and stopped walking at the base of the concrete steps up to the stoop.

"You know your history," he said. "The general did enjoy his liquor. Lincoln once said-"

He fell silent as he noticed a woman approaching. As she passed from shadow into brighter light, his glance took her in quickly-medium height, slightly overweight, short blond hair, white joggers, dark slacks, untucked sleeveless blouse, a purse of glittering green sequins slung by a strap over her right shoulder. When she got closer, he saw that she was in her thirties, had protruding teeth, was moderately pretty, and was wearing half a dozen jangling silver bracelets on her left wrist. A necklace. Rings. In love with jewelry. Presents to herself.

The woman smiled. "Marilyn?"

Beside him, Marilyn took a step toward the woman. "Ella? Is that actually you?"

"Of course it's me!" Smiling with her toothy mouth wide open, the woman hobbled toward Marilyn on her high heels, her arms spread like inadequate wings. She reminded him of one of those birds that couldn't fly but because of Darwinian memory still ran and flapped about as if they might take off.

The two women hugged while he stood by awkwardly, making himself smile, putting on the amused and tolerant expression that he thought appropriate. Play their game.

"You did something to your hair," Marilyn was saying. She stood back, hands on hips, and looked perplexed.

"Made it blond," the woman said. "It's something I always wanted to do, and since I lived in New York, I thought it'd be a smart time to do it."

"Oh, you mean because of that Butcher creep."

His smile stayed firm. Only a matter of time. Destiny is on rails, and gaining speed and momentum. Sixty miles an hour. No whistle. No stopping it. No avoiding it. He was the engineer and he knew.

"I thought I saw you on the street a few days ago," the woman said, "only I couldn't be sure. But I decided to try and find you."

"How did you?"

"Called Rough Country. I'd heard some time ago you worked there. They gave me your address."

"If I'd known you lived here-"Marilyn suddenly gave a start. "Excuse my bad manners, I was so excited to see you. This is my friend Joe Grant." She made a sweeping motion toward him with her hand. "This is Ella Oaklie, Joe. She's an old college friend from Ohio State."