Billy forced a smile.
"I'm just going to give Meachum a wake-up," Thorpe said quietly. "I'm not saving the world or buying my way into heaven. I just want something to keep me busy while I wait for the Engineer to surface. Are you going to help me or not?"
"Of course I'll help you," Billy said, preening, and Thorpe remembered all the reasons he had for not liking him. "What kind of a friend would I be if I didn't? I'll have Ellsworth contact you immediately."
Thorpe stood up.
"You should stay off the Net for a while," said Warren.
Thorpe looked at him.
Warren's fingers danced over the GameBoy. "Me jumping around after the Engineer… if he's good enough, and I'm not saying he is, but if he is, he may be able to backtrack on me. He may be able to smoke out my connections. Billy uses my system when he contacts you, so that's a vulnerability." His fingers stabbed at the keys now. "I've got enough black ice in my program that he's never going to home in on my location, but you, Frank, you got that off-the-rack security. I'd be careful if I were you." He peeked at Thorpe. "If you have to hit the Net, don't hang around, that's all I'm saying."
"Thanks, Warren."
Warren went back to his game. "I just don't like the Engineer playing cute with my trip wire. Pisses me off."
"I'm glad we've got that settled," said Billy. "Go ahead, Frank, give the art dealer a wake-up. Buy the kid a baseball mitt and take him to a ball game, load him up with hot dogs and Cracker Jack. See if it makes him all better. See if it makes you all better. When you're finished, we'll get to work, you and I. It will be just like the old days."
Thorpe didn't answer.
8
"I told you, buddy, you're not on the guest list."
"Just check with Mrs. Riddenhauer," said Thorpe.
"I don't need to check with Missy. The guest list is my responsibility, and I don't see your fucking name on it. No name, no invite, no can do." The man in the doorway jabbed the list, his round face getting redder. He was a beefy redhead in white linen trousers and a short-sleeved sports shirt with a pattern of exploding volcanoes. "You going to take off on your own steam, or am I going to have to help you?"
Thorpe saw Missy walking toward them, dressed in a black leather micromini and a matching halter, her white-blond hair dangling in dozens of braids. An S-M Medusa. Thorpe stood there in a gunmetal gray single-breasted suit and a black silk polo shirt, watching her bear down on him.
"Problem, Cecil?"
Cecil's freckles flared. "Mr. Style Fuck here is trying to crash the party."
"I invited him."
Cecil waved the list at her. "His name ain't on the list."
Missy smacked the paper aside, air-kissed Thorpe, and led him inside. "You'll have to forgive my brother. He's the family idiot."
"DNA plays some nasty jokes," said Thorpe.
"You don't put the names on the list, how can I do my job?" Cecil yelled after them.
Missy's high heels went clickity-clack against the hardwood floor. She squeezed Thorpe's hand as they reached the edge of a huge sunken living room filled with people. Waiters in tuxedos gracefully navigated the room, keeping their silver trays with drinks and canapes aloft. "Ole, Frank."
"Ole?" A young guy patted Missy on the hip, sloshed his cocktail on the carpet. "What does that mean?"
"Private joke," said Missy, her eyes on Thorpe. "Frank, this is my husband, Clark. Clark, this is Frank… something or other."
"Greetings, dude." Clark was a lanky, barefoot beach bum with stringy shoulder-length hair and sleepy blue eyes. He wore baggy madras shorts and an orange tank top with a CAMP RIDDENHAUER logo. A Superman Band-Aid crossed his chin, and even that added to his look of insouciant cool. "Glad you could make the party. Mi casa… well, you know the drill." He tossed his empty glass into a potted palm. "Rock on."
"Mingle, baby!" Missy called as Clark staggered off, bumping his way across the room and down a flight of stairs. "He's a genius, you know."
"Yes, I could tell."
"Clark's really hooked into youth culture, but I hope when he gets older, he dresses more like you. European suits, plain but sharp. Above it all. Is that how you feel, Frank? Like you're above it all?"
"Eight miles high."
Missy squeezed his arm. "I love an arrogant man. They're such a challenge."
The house was a sprawling, gated oceanfront estate with natural wood, high ceilings, and full-length windows open to the beach. The sound of the waves rolled in over the hum of conversation. Nell had filled Thorpe in on the Riddenhauers after Missy had stalked out of the art gallery. Clark Riddenhauer designed a line of sportswear geared toward surfers and would-be surfers-he was a talented slacker, a guy who acted like he would have been happy to live in a VW van, eat fish tacos for breakfast, smoke dope, and surf. Missy's job was to crack the whip.
"Clark started the Camp Riddenhauer line just three years ago, and now we've got five shops." Missy smoothed Thorpe's lapels. "I don't fuck around on my husband, just so you know."
"So you're only practicing now, in case you get divorced?"
Missy started to laugh, then spotted someone across the room- a blue-haired matriarch wearing cat's-eye glasses and a paisley muumuu, a cigarette jutting from the corner of her painted mouth. Missy waved, but the woman ignored her. "I hope that old cunt gets cancer," Missy hissed. She waved again, and the woman acknowledged her with a curt nod this time, ashes floating down. "We'll talk later. I have to make nice right now."
Thorpe watched Missy scurry over, take the older woman's arm, chattering away. He took a passing glass of champagne, then made his way through the house, listening to conversations and checking out the security. Thorpe had met with Gavin Ellsworth earlier in the day, and the master forger had delivered the goods, Ellsworth hunched over a bowl of chicken noodle soup at Denny's, goggle-eyed behind his thick glasses as he crumbled crackers into his soup, reminding Thorpe of the federal penalties if he got caught. Thorpe smiled at the memory. Billy was right, as usuaclass="underline" Thorpe had decided on the simple approach for his wake-up, one that required the minimum of detail work and the maximum of bravado. He touched the wallet in the breast pocket of his jacket, deftly avoided a drunk in a purple tuxedo, and worked his way deeper into the party.
The talk in the room was mostly about the house, the new art, the encroachment of the wrong sort into the colony, and the lovely ass on the new tennis instructor at the club. The crowd was California chic, the women in leather and silk and skin, most of the men in yacht club finery-every man a commodore! Claire would have loved the scene, everyone's ego on full display, with a full-fantasy kicker.
"I was wondering if you were really going to show up," said Nell.
"Nice party."
"I can't wait to leave." Nell pushed back a strand of hair. She was overdressed in a formal blue cocktail dress and jacket, a single strand of pearls around her neck. "What do you think of the art?"
"Who's the woman Missy is talking to?" asked Thorpe.
Nell peered across the room. "That's Betty Berquist, Betty B… local doyenne. Lived here forever, drinks her way through every party and charity gala. Writes a weekly column for the Gold Coast Pilot, very bitchy, very on point. Everyone reads it." She nodded. "Those're the Enersons. He's in commercial real estate; she collects cloisonne pig figurines." Another nod. "Carla Schmidt. Husband owns a Mercedes dealership. Won't come near us. Strictly New York galleries." Another nod. "Mark Kelly. Halogen lighting. Did over a hundred million in sales last year. We did his game room. Contemporary erotica, the cruder the better." She grimaced. "I sometimes think I don't have the stomach for this job. Ah, there's Douglas. I have to go over and schmooze with some prospective clients. Would you like to meet him?"