Indigo Slam

'Later.' What was with this kid?

Teri hustled away in the kitchen, the pots and pans rattling. I'll get started now. Then you can eat whenever you want.' Happy is the little homemaker, happy as a bee. 'Can I bring you a beer?'

'No.'

Winona said, 'Did you find our daddy yet?'

'Not yet.'

Charles eyed Lucy on the couch, then edged closer and craned his head. I watched all the craning, then figured it out. He was trying to see up Lucy's skirt. I said, 'Charles.'

He scuttled away. 'I didn't do anything.' Just another fun evening hiding out with the Cole posse.

Lucy spoke with Tracy, then asked me to give Tracy directions. I did, then they spoke a few more minutes, and Lucy hung up. ' Tracy says it should take her about a half hour to get here.'

Pike glanced up the stairs. 'We should talk.'

Charles said, 'Why ya gotta go upstairs? Why don't ya just say it here in front of us?'

Teri said, 'Elvis knows what he's doing. Leave him alone.' Teri turned back to the stove, and put cool eyes on Lucy. 'I'll call you the second your friend arrives.'

I looked from Lucy to Teri, then back to Lucy. Lucy's eyes glittered and she pulled me toward the stairs.

When we got upstairs and closed the door, I said, 'Do you have frostbite?'

Lucy smiled wider. 'You don't know?'

'Know what?' Mr. Idiot.

Lucy glanced at Pike, and Pike's mouth twitched. I said, 'What?'

'She's got a crush on you, dopey.'

I looked back at Pike. 'You think this is funny?'

Another twitch. Everyone was having a good time with this but me.

Lucy said, 'Think about it. She's always been the caregiver. She's never had a male authority figure take care of her before, and now you're doing that.'

'Great.'

'Also, you're cute.' Lucy bumped me, and her eyes said she was enjoying this, even if I wasn't. 'I can hardly blame her, can I?'

Pike said, 'Tell me about the newspaper.'

I told them, the three of us sitting there on the office floor, me holding Lucy's hand. I told them about the paper, and about the Ferrari and the men with the shotguns, and what I had learned from Eddie Ditko about Dak and Tran. Just having Lucy here made me feel better about things, and I wondered if this is what it would be like when she lived here full time. When I finished, Lucy said, 'They don't sound like terrorists to me.'

I shrugged. 'No, and they don't sound like criminals either, but they've hired a counterfeiter, and three of their people flashed me with shotguns.'

Pike nodded. You could tell he liked the part about shotguns.

Lucy said, 'What are you going to do?'

'The scanner arrives at LAX tomorrow. I'm thinking that Joe and I meet it, then follow whoever picks it up and see if they take it to Clark.'

Lucy's mouth tightened and she shook her head. 'This has grown far and above finding a missing father. I think you should turn this over to the police.'

'If I turn it over to the police, they'll arrest Clark.'

'Perhaps Clark deserves to he arrested.'

'I'm not doing it for Clark. I'm doing it for these kids. Clark isn't the world's greatest father, but if he's arrested, the Markovs will be able to get to him. If I can find him before he does anything stupid, I might be able to scare him into doing the right thing.'

She didn't seem convinced.

'Also, I promised Teri.'

Lucy sighed. 'Everyone else falls for a doctor or an engineer. I fall in love with Batman.'

Pike said, 'It's the cape. Women love the cape thing.'

Someone banged hard on the door, and Charles yelled, 'Some woman is here!' He said it so loud that half the apartment complex probably heard him.

Lucy said, 'That's Tracy.'

We looked at each other and I held her hand tight, feeling that if I let go she would go her way and I mine, and, having lost her, I might not find her again. 'I wish you could stay.'

'I know. Me, too.'

The three of us went down.

Tracy Mannos was standing in the entry, looking tired but determined. I hugged Lucy again, and so did Pike, and then they left. I said, 'Hell.'

Teri said, 'Your dinner's ready.' She said it with a broad bright smile.

I looked at her, then at Charles and Winona on the couch, watching television. 'I might have a line on your father, but to follow it I'm going to need Joe's help. Can you guys stay by yourselves tomorrow?'

Teri filled a plate with rice and chicken and something that looked like stewed tomatoes. She brought it to the table and put it down at a place that had been carefully set. 'Of course, silly.' Silly? 'When we met we'd been alone for eleven days, hadn't we?'

I nodded. I sat.

Teri said, 'Can I bring you a beer now?'

'I'll get it.'

I started to rise but she pushed me down. Hard. 'I'm already on my feet.'

She got the beer, opened it, and set it on the table by my plate. I said, 'Thank you.'

She smiled and sat with me.

'You don't have to sit with me.'

'I want to.'

Pike went upstairs. Guess he couldn't stand it.

I looked at Teri. She looked back. 'Is it good?'

I nodded. 'Very.'

She fluttered her eyes and sighed.

Man.

CHAPTER 24

Pike and I left for LAX early the next morning, leaving the apartment as the sun was torching the eastern sky. That part of the morning, the air was still and cool, and we made good time; the southbound traffic moved easily, even though dense with commuters from the Simi and Antelope Valleys grinding toward the Los Angeles basin. I said, 'We're just another couple of guys on their way to work.'

Pike said, 'Uh-huh.'

The Beretta autoloader was on the floorboard behind our seats. I had the Dan Wesson, and Pike had his Python and maybe even an MX missile. Just another couple of guys.

We left the San Diego Freeway at Howard Hughes Parkway and dropped south through Westchester to LAX. The scanner was due in at nine that morning, and, according to the dispatcher in New York, was to be held at the airport for pickup at the Small Package Delivery office in the baggage claim area. Being a small package, it would come down the carousel with the luggage, where a United employee would pick it up, then take it to be held in the SPD office until it was claimed by someone from the Journal. That person might be Clark, but more probably it would be someone that we couldn't recognize, so we had to be in position to identify the package and follow its movements.

We left Pike's Jeep on the arriving flights level as close to baggage claim as we could, then went into the SPD office. An attractive African-American woman was behind the counter there, stacking small packages for a guy in a gray express delivery uniform. I said, 'Excuse me. Could you tell me which carousel the luggage from United flight five will come down?'

'That would be carousel four. But that flight isn't due in until nine. You're awful early.'

I smiled at her. 'The wife's coming in and I miss her.' The wife.

'Oh, isn't that nice.'

The people in the terminal ebbed and flowed with the early morning flight schedule of the big cross-country flights to New York or Miami or Chicago, then grew steadily as the number of flights increased. At eight-thirty we separated and positioned ourselves with a view to all points of egress in case Clark showed. He didn't. A family of Hare Krishnas came through snapping finger chimes and offering pamphlets for money, moving from person to person until they reached Pike, and then they hurried past. Strong survival instinct.

At exactly nine a.m. the arrival monitor indicated that flight five had landed, and a few minutes later the carousel kicked on and luggage began sliding down its ramp. The fourth piece down was a white cardboard box taped with a bright yellow airbill. Pike drifted to the carousel, watched the package pass, then came back. 'Pacific Rim Weekly Journal.'

Twenty minutes later, almost all of the crowd and luggage was gone. The attractive African-American woman appeared, and took the package into the SPD office. I said, 'Watch for the package, not the people.'