Indigo Slam

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 he 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, forget 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.

CHAPTER 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.