"What kind of trouble?"
I gave him a quick and slightly vague answer, and mentioned Bobby. He didn't press for details, since he knew what we all did for a living, and finally said, "I don't know a guy, but I know a guy who'd know a guy."
"That's cool. We can pay whatever."
"Probably be at least two hundred dollars a day, don't ask, don't tell." Cash, no tax.
"Fine. Let me give you the phone number." I gave him Lane's number and John said somebody would call that afternoon. "Listen," I added, "if you need to get in touch, drop mail at Bobby's. But don't call that number yourself; things could get tricky."
"Home?"
LuEllen shook her head. "We need to go into San Francisco. the Jimmy Cricket Golf Shop, and Lanny Rose's Beauty Boutique. I got directions."
"Golf shop?"
"Yeah. I'm taking up the game. And I want to look good while I'm playing."
Jimmy Crickethe claimed that was his real namewas a nicely weathered gent wearing a black Polo sweatshirt over a golf shirt and jeans, with tassels on his loafers. He was regripping a Ping driver when we came through the door. He smiled and asked, "What can I do for you folks?"
"Weenie called you earlier today," LuEllen said.
"The Gray twosome," he said, as though we'd just shown up for our tee-time, "I thought you were a single."
"Nope," LuEllen said, "Mr. and Mrs. Gray. Weenie said to tell you that all cats are gray in the dark."
"Okay. Well, Weenie's word is good with me. If you'll step into the back."
We went through a flip-up countertop into the back room. Cricket extracted a tan duffel bag from a pile of empty golf-club shipping boxes, placed it on a workbench, and dug out five rag-wrapped hand guns: four.357 Magnum revolvers and a 9mm semi-auto. "I brought the auto just in case," he told LuEllen.
"We're not gonna need it," she said. She picked up one of the guns, flipped out the cylinder, pointed it at one of her eyes, and held her thumbnail under the open chamber, to reflect light back up the barrel. Picked up another and did the same thing. "Can't tell much, but they look okay."
"They're all perfect mechanically," Cricket said. "They are clean and cold."
LuEllen looked at all five, then pushed one at Cricket and asked, "How much?"
"Six." He wouldn't come down on the price but he threw in two boxes of shells, one of.38 Special and one.357. On the way out the door LuEllen spotted a pair of shooter's earmuffs, and gave Cricket another ten dollars.
"Now we can play guns," she said.
Lanny Rose's Beauty Boutique looked like it was permanently closed, with fifteen-year-old pastel green "Walk-Ins Accepted" signs fading and badly askew in the windows. LuEllen insisted on banging on the door anyway, and a minute later, Lanny peered out from behind the "Closed" sign. He saw us, popped the door, and said, "Jesus Christ, you almost knocked the front of the bidnis in."
"Weenie said the world looks better through rose-colored glasses," LuEllen said.
"Yeah, yeah, fuck a bunch of weenies," Lanny said, but he pushed the door open a bit, and LuEllen and I followed him through the gloomy beauty parlor into a back room. When we got there, he was hanging a pale blue drape on a wall, using pushpins.
"Stand there. Smile, but only a little," he said.
I stood, and he took my picture, twice, with a Polaroid passport camera. Then he took two pictures of LuEllen and said, "I'll be back in a minute."
LuEllen said, "I think I'll come along and watch."
She had her hand in her pocket, and Lanny said, "Weenie promised you wouldn't be no trouble."
"We won't be; I'm just coming along to watch," LuEllen said. "My friend will sit out here in front and read a magazine."
They were gone for twenty minutes. I sat in a dusty beauty-parlor chair and read a story in a four-year-old Cosmo about how women can keep their men interested by learning the latest in blow-job techniquesthe techniques themselves were described blow by blow, so to speak, by a panel of successful New York advertising and media women. I was not only convinced, I was supportive.
When LuEllen and Lanny came back, Lanny was complaining. "I never make copies of any faces. Weenie knows that."
"I don't trust Weenie," LuEllen said.
Back in the car, she handed me four cards: two Texas driver's licenses, and two credit cards. One credit card matched each license. "Will they stand up?"
"Unless you're busted, in which case they'll get your prints anyway," she said. "They're both real people, and the accounts are real, although we don't know the credit limits or the billing dates. We could use them in an emergency, but then they'd only be good until the guy's next bill came in."
"Bobby could get us credit limits and billing dates," I said.
"Might be worth doing."
On the way to Lane's, LuEllen launched a little philosophical discussion.
"You know, Kidd, you told me once that revenge doesn't make any sense, because the dead guy won't know what you're doing and won't care, because he's dead. So what I'm wondering is, What are we doing? Jack won't know, and Jack won't care."
"We're not really doing it for Jack anymore," I said. "We never were, really. We're doing it for us. They just pissed us off by killing Jack."
"Not me, especially. I only met him that once. Nice guy, but."
"Then I'm pissed about Jack, and you're coming along because of me. And I don't have much choice. I'm involved in this somehow, and I've got to find out what's going on. I don't want that crew-cut asshole and his pal showing up at my house someday, tidying up some loose end that I don't even know about."
"So I'm involved only because you're involvedand because you say so."
"That's right," I said.
"That's pretty smug. What if I opted out?"
"You won't. You couldn't stand not knowing what happened," I said.
"You'd tell me."
"No, I wouldn't. I'd never say a single word about it. I'd deny all knowledge."
"Bullshit," she snorted.
"So you're in?"
She let her eyes float to the tops of her eye sockets, and then said, "For a while."
At Lane's, we ate Lean CuisinesI had three of them, an appealing mix of Teriyaki Stir-Fry, Swedish Meatballs, and Mesquite Beefand then LuEllen took Lane and the revolver down to the basement.
"I hate the goddamn things," Lane had said, when LuEllen showed her the gun.
"They're the ubiquitous tools of modern life. Even if you don't like them, it behooves you to know how to use one," LuEllen said.
"Oh, boy."
Fifteen minutes after they went down the basement, a single shot cracked through the house. I jumped up, peeked out the windows all around. Nothing moving. I stuck my head down the basement door, "Jesus, LuEllen."
Bang! A second one, and I nearly jumped out of my shoes.
"All done," LuEllen called. The smell of burnt gunpowder coursed up the stairwell, and a minute later, LuEllen appeared at the bottom of the stairs. "Had to squeeze off a round or two so she'd have a sense of the recoil."
"Well, knock it off, for Christ's sakes, it's louder than hell up here," I said.
"Aw, once or twice, no problem," she said.
They were still down the basement when the phone rang. I picked it up and a soft male voice said, "Could I speak to Mr. Kidd?"
"Speaking."
"This is Lethridge Green. I'm a friend of a friend of a man named John. I was told you have a body to guard?"
"Yes. In Palo Alto, although there might be some travel."
"I get two hundred fifty dollars a day plus any expenses," Green said.
"That's fine."
"How long would the body need to be guarded?"
"I don't know. Not just a couple of days, thoughanything from a couple of weeks to a couple of months."
"Good. Don't ask, don't tell?"
"Exactly," I said.