" What're we gonna do?" he asked.
She put the loaded gun on top of the six-drawer highboy and dragged two suitcases from the back of the closet." I'm going to pack a bag for each of us and then we're getting out of here."
"Where're we going?"
She threw one of the suitcases onto her bed and opened it."
don't know for sure, sweetheart. Anywhere. To a hotel, probably. We'll go someplace where that crazy old hag won't be able to find us no matter how hard she looks."
"Then what?"
As she folded clothes into the open suitcase, she said, "Then we'll find someone who can help us… really help us."
"Not like the cops?"
"Not like the cops."
"Who? "
"I'm not sure. Maybe… a private detective.
"Like Magnum on TV?"
"Maybe not exactly like Magnum," Christine said.
"Like who, then?"
"We need a big firm that can provide us with bodyguards and everything while they're tracking down that old woman. A firstrate organization."
"Like in them old movies?"
"What old movies are those?"
"You know. Where they're in real bad trouble, and they say, 'We'll hire Pinkelton." "
"Pinkerton," she corrected." Yeah. Something like Pinkerton. I can afford to hire people like that and, by God, I'm going to hire them.
We're not just going to be a couple of sitting ducks the way the cops would have us."
"I'd feel a whole bunch safer if we just went and hired Magnum," Joey said.
She didn't have time to explain to a six-year-old that Magnum wasn't a real private eye. She said, "Well, maybe you're right.
Maybe we will hire Magnum."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. I "He'll do a good job," Joey said soberly." He always does."
At her direction, Joey took the empty suitcase and headed toward his room. She followed, carrying the suitcase that she had already packed-and the pistol.
She decided they wouldn't go to a hotel first. They'd go straight to a detective agency and not waste any time dealing with this.
Her mouth was sandpaper-dry. Her heart thudded. She was breathing hard and fast' '
In her mind a terrible vision rose, an image of a bloody and decapitated body sprawled on the back porch. But in the vision, it wasn't Brandy she saw in gory ruin. It was Joey.
Charlie Harrison was proud of his accomplishments. He had started with nothing, just a poor kid from the shabby side of Indianapolis. Now, at thirty-six, he was owner of a thriving business-full owner since the retirement of the company's founder, Harvey Klemet-and was living the good life in southern California. If he wasn't exactly on top of the world yet, he was at least eighty percent of the way there, and the view from his current elevation was quite satisfying.
The offices of Klemet-Harrison were not remotely like the seedy quarters of private investigators in novels and films. These rooms, on the fifth floor of a five-story building on a quiet street in Costa Mesa, were comfortably and tastefully decorated.
The reception lounge made a good first impression on new clients. It was plushly carpeted, and the walls were covered with a subtle grass cloth. The furniture was new-and not from the low end of the manufacturer's line, either. The walls weren't adorned only with cheap prints; there were three Eyvind Earle semigraphs worth more than fifteen hundred dollars apiece.
Charlie's private office was even somewhat plusher than the reception area, yet it avoided the ponderous and solemn look favored by attorneys and many other professionals. Bleachedwood paneling reached halfway up the walls. There were bleached-wood shutters on the windows, a contemporary desk by Henredon, armchairs covered in an airy green print from Brunschwig & Fils. On the walls were two large, light-filled paintings by Martin Green, undersea scenes of ethereal plant life fluttering gracefully in mysterious currents and tides. A few large plants, mostly ferns and pothos, hung from the ceiling or rested on rosewood stands. The effect was almost subtropical yet cool and rich.
But when Christine Scavello walked through the door, Charlie suddenly felt that the room was woefully inadequate. Yes, it was light and well-balanced and expensive and truly exquisite; nevertheless, it seemed hopelessly heavy, clunky, and even garish when compared to this striking woman.
Coming out from behind his desk, he said, "Ms. Scavello, I'm Charlie Harrison. I'm so pleased to meet you."
She accepted his hand and said she was pleased to meet him, too.
Her hair was thick, shiny, dark-dark brown, almost black. He wanted to run his fingers through it. He wanted to put his face in her hair and smell it.
Unaccustomed to having such a strong and immediate reaction to anyone, Charlie reined himself in. He looked at her more closely, as dispassionately as possible. He told himself that she wasn't perfect, certainly not breathtakingly beautiful. Pretty, yes, but not a total knockout. Her brow was somewhat too high, and her cheekbones seemed a little heavy, and her nose was slightly pinched.
Nevertheless, with a breathless and ingratiating manner that wasn't like him, he said, "I apologize for the condition of the office," and was surprised and dismayed to hear himself make such a statement.
She looked puzzled." Why should you apologize? It's lovely."
He blinked." You really think so?"
"Absolutely. It's unexpected. Not at all what I thought a private detective's office would look like. But that just makes it even more interesting, appealing."
Her eyes were huge and dark. Clear, direct eyes. Each time he met them, his breath caught for an instant.
"Did it myself," he said, deciding the room didn't look so bad, after all." Didn't use an interior decorator."
"You've got a real flair for it."
He showed her to a chair and noticed, as she sat down, that she had lovely legs and perfectly shaped ankles.
But I've seen other legs as lovely, other ankles as well shaped, he thought with some bafflement, and I haven't ever before been swept away by this adolescent longing, haven't felt this ridiculously sudden surge in hormone levels.
Either he was hornier than he thought, or he was reacting to more than her appearance.
Perhaps her appeal was as much in the way she walked and shook hands and carried herself (with an easy, graceful minimum of movement), and in her voice (soft, earthy, feminine, yet unaffected, with a note of strength), and in the way she met his eyes (forthrightly), as it was in the way she looked. In spite of the circumstances in which he was meeting her, in spite of the fact that she had a serious problem about which she must be worried, she possessed an uncommon inner tranquility that intrigued him.
That doesn't quite explain it either, he thought. Since when have I ever wanted to jump into bed with a woman because of her uncommon inner tranquility?
All right, so he wasn't going to be able to analyze this feeling, not yet. He would just have to go with it and try to understand it later.
Stepping behind his desk, sitting down, he said, "Maybe I shouldn't have told you I'm interested in interior design. Maybe that's really the wrong image for a private detective."
"On the contrary," she said, "what it tells me is that you're observant, perceptive, probably quite sensitive, and you have an excellent eye for details. Those are the qualities I'd hope for in any man in your line of work."
"Right! Exactly," he said, beaming at her, delighted by her approval.
He was stricken by an almost irresistible urge to kiss her brow, her eyes, the bridge of her nose, the tip of her nose, her cheeks, her chin, and last of all her sculpted lips.
But all he did was say, "Well, Ms. Scavello, what can I do for you?"
She told him about the old woman.
He was shocked, intrigued, and sympathetic, but he was also uneasy because you never knew what to expect from flaky types like this old woman. Anything might happen, and it probably would. Furthermore, he knew how difficult it was to track down and deal with any perpetrator of this type of irrational harassment. He much preferred people with clear, understandable motivations. Understandable motivations were what made his line of work possible: greed, lust, envy, jealousy, revenge, love, hate-they were the raw material of his industry. Thank God for the weaknesses and imperfections of mankind, for otherwise he would have been without work. He was also uneasy because he was afraid he might fail Christine Scavello, and if he failed her, she would walk out of his life forever. And if she walked out of his life forever, he would have to be satisfied with only dreams of her, and he was just too damn old for dreams of that kind.