Indigo Slam

I stepped back, and the laughter faded a bit. 'Not long.' I told her about the money. I told her what we were going to try to do. 'I don't know how long this is going to take. I might be busy the next couple of days.'

She had one of my hands in both of hers again, squeezing hard. 'I know. I'll have to get back to Ben tomorrow.' Two ships passing. The price of adulthood.

'Yes, but you'll be back.'

Her smile widened again. 'You bet your buns I will, Studly.'

'Tell me about it, Luce. Tell me everything that happened today.'

They did, some of which they now knew as fact, and some of which was supposition. It was neither complicated nor elaborate, because such things never are. It was merely ugly. Stuart Greenberg wasn't the evil, old-boy-crony that we'd suspected. When Richard had learned it was KROK that offered Lucy the job, he used his position at BM &D as an entree to KROK's parent firm, then suggested to them that Lucy was erratic in the workplace. When the parent firm, concerned that KROK was in the process of hiring an uncertain (not to mention, untested) on-air personality, passed along their concerns to Stuart Greenberg, Greenberg questioned this information, and was told to contact the source, namely one Richard Chenier, a highly respected partner at the Baton Rouge office of Benton, Meyers &. Dane. Greenberg had only been reacting to what Richard reported. Tracy said, 'When Stuart realized what had happened, he spent the rest of the meeting apologizing.'

Sometimes you just have to shake your head. 'And that was it? You've got the job?'

Lucy smiled. 'We agreed to agree. Stuart promised to phone David Shapiro and wrap up the negotiation as quickly as possible.'

Tracy leaned toward me. 'She has the goddamned job.'

I said, 'What about Richard?'

Lucy's game face reappeared. 'I've phoned his office. I've also phoned his boss.'

Tracy said, 'I think she should sue the sonofabitch.'

Lucy's mouth formed a hard knot. Thinking of Ben, maybe. Thinking how far do you take a war like this when some of the fallout might rain on your child. She said, 'Yes. Well. We'll see.' Then she seemed to force the thoughts away, and took my hand again. 'I want to thank you.'

'I didn't do anything.'

'Of course you did. You supported my need to fight this without you.' She smiled and jiggled my hand. 'I know you. I know it couldn't have been easy.'

I shrugged. 'No big deal. You said I could shoot him later.'

'Well, yes. I guess I did.'

Lucy glanced at Tracy, and Tracy smiled. Voiceless female communication. Tracy kissed my cheek, and handed me the bottle of Brut. There wasn't much left. 'You take care of yourself, doll.' And then she walked away.

I said, 'Did you just send her away?'

'I did.'

'Good.'

Lucy and I sat in Tracy 's living room, holding hands. It was late, and getting later, but I did not want to leave. Lucy said, 'I do wish I could stay, Elvis.'

'I know.'

She looked at me carefully, and then she touched my face. The bruise from Seattle had faded. 'I'll be out soon to find a place to live. As soon as Ben finishes school, we'll move.'

I nodded.

'You damn well better still be here.'

I nodded again.

'Please be careful tomorrow.'

'Careful is my middle name.'

'No, it isn't. But it should be.'

'I'll be here when you move out, Lucille. You have my word.'

She kissed my hand, and we sat like that, and not very long after, I drove back to Studio City.

CHAPTER 30

I let myself back into the safe house a few minutes after one that morning to find Mon hiding behind the door with his pistol. Mon shrugged when I looked at him, and said, 'Can't be too careful.'

Walter Junior was stretched out on the floor, sleeping. Dak and Walter Senior were at the dining room table, playing cards. Clark was sitting with them. 'Money come yet?'

Dak was concentrating on his cards. 'Soon.'

'Where's Pike?'

Mon said, 'He left, but he did not say anything.' His eyes narrowed. 'I no like that.'

'He never says anything. Forget it.'

Clark 's skin seemed greasy, and if you looked close enough, you could see that his hands were trembling. ' Clark?'

Clark shook his head.

'How're the kids?'

'Sleeping.'

I joined them at the table and waited. No one spoke. The waiting is often the worst.

At twenty minutes after two that morning, someone knocked softly at the door and handed Dak an overnight bag containing twenty thousand dollars in nice neat hundreds. Real hundreds, printed by the U.S. Treasury on paper milled at the Crane Paper Mill in Dalton, Massachusetts. Dak probably kept them under his mattress.

Clark pronounced them too clean; put the bills in a large Ziploc plastic bag with a half pound of ground coffee and one pound of dried kidney beans, and put the bag into the dryer. It wouldn't hurt the money, Clark said, but it would uniformly color the money as if it had been falsely aged.

Joe Pike returned at just after four. He gave Clark a small brown vial of prescription pills, and murmured something to Clark before moving to a dark corner of the living room. Clark looked at the vial, then stared at Pike for a long time before he went into the bathroom. A little while later he appeared to be feeling much better.

None of us formally went to bed; instead, we perched on the couch or in the big chair or on the floor, and drifted in and out of nervous uncertain catnaps, waiting for the dawn.

Sometime very early that morning, Teri came downstairs and moved between the napping men and cuddled against her father.

I phoned Dobcek at nine the next morning, exactly as I said I would. He said, 'We meet you on the Venice boardwalk in exactly one hour.'

'Let me speak with the boy.'

He put Charles on the line, and I told him that everything would be fine. I told him to stay calm, and to trust that Joe and I would bring him home. Dobcek came back on the line before I was finished. 'You know the bookstore they have there?'

'Yeah.' Small World Books.

'Wait on the grass across from that. We come to you.' Then he hung up.

I looked at Clark. 'You up to this?'

'Of course. Charles is my son.'

'Then let's go.'

Dak agreed to stay with Teri and Winona while Joe and Clark and I went to the meet. We used Joe's Jeep, with Joe driving. Two long cases were on the rear floor that hadn't been there yesterday. Guess he'd gotten them last night.

We used the freeways to get to Santa Monica, then turned south along Ocean Boulevard, riding in silence until we came to Venice. Pike turned onto a side street and stopped. He said, 'What's the deal?'

'They want Clark and me across from the bookstore on the grass. They'll come to us. They're supposed to have the boy, but I wouldn't bet on it.'

Clark leaned forward. He was holding the overnight bag on his lap like a school lunch. 'Why won't they have Charles?'

'They'll say that the boy is in a car nearby, and maybe he will be, but probably he won't. They're not coming here to trade, Clark. They're coming here to kill us. Keep that in mind.'

'Oh.'

'They'll say the boy is somewhere else to get us to go with them to a place they've picked out. It will be a private place, and that's where they'll do the murder. We in the trade call that the kill zone.'

Clark said, 'You say that so easily.'

Pike shrugged. 'It is what it is.'

'But how will we get Charles?'

'We'll show them the money. Your job is to stay calm and convince them that you printed this money and that you can print more. That's very important, Clark. Can you do that?'

Clark nodded. 'Oh, sure.' Oh, sure.

'Markov wants you dead, but if he thinks he can get something from you before he kills you, he might go for it.'

'What if he doesn't?'

Pike said, 'Then we'll kill him.'