Hutton took a step closer, dropped his voice, and said, "I don't know where this chick has been for the first part of my life, but she ishot."
"I thought you were married with about nine lads," Lucas said, dropping his voice. He added, "Besides, she sorta likes other girls."
"I only got three kids and I think Jael likes a little of everything," Hutton said, glancing at the door that led into the back of the house and the kitchen. "If she wanted to bring another chick along, I could handle thatconceptually, anyway."
"Except that your wife would stab you to death."
"Fuck my wife. She's history. I'm abandoning her. I figure if I abandon a wife and three kids, the papers will pass on the story. You only get in trouble for five or more."
"I forgot all about stakeouts," Lucas said. "The sexual fantasies, and all that, when you've got nothing to do."
As he walked up the stairs, Lucas could hear Franklin's gravelly voice. He was saying, "All right, hands clear of the counter. Hands clear"
Jaeclass="underline" "I'm arranging the cheese sacks."
"Nope. No good. Gotta be like you just threw them in the 'fridge"
Lucas leaned in the kitchen door, and a second later, Hutton came to stand behind him. Franklin and Jael had their backs to them, and Jael was closing the refrigerator door. Franklin looked at his watch and asked, "Ready?"
"Ready."
"Five seconds four, three, two, one, GO!"
Jael jerked the refrigerator open, pulled out two sacks of grated cheese, threw them at the kitchen counter, snatched a plate out of the cupboard, opened a bag of blue-corn nacho chips, and spilled them on the plate.
"Too many chips, too many chips," Franklin warned. She grabbed a handful of them off the plate, threw them back in the bag, quickly arranged the others on the plate, and Franklin said, "Fifteen seconds." Jael opened the two bags of cheese, working frantically, spread a small handful from one bag over the plate of chips, opened the other, spread another small handful, and asked, "Is that good?"
"You're looking good, but you're a few seconds behind," Franklin said. "Gotta keep rolling."
She picked up the plate and pushed it into the microwave, said, "One minute," pressed a series of buttons, and the microwave started to hum. Then she went back to the refrigerator, grabbed ajar of salsa, popped the top, got a spoon and dumped three large spoonfuls into a small glass dessert bowl, glanced at the microwave timer, put the top back on the salsa jar, stuck it in the refrigerator, and wrapped up the top of one of the cheese bags, while watching the timer. Then she reached out
"Not too soon, not too soon," Franklin said. Jael jabbed a button, popped open the microwave door, thrust the salsa bowl inside, slammed the door, and pushed the Resume button.
"Might be too much time," Franklin said.
"No, I think we're okay," Jael said. Working quickly, she wrapped up the top of the second cheese bag, put both cheese bags back into the refrigerator, took out two beers, stepped back to the microwave, said, "Three seconds."
There was a popping sound, then another. Franklin said, "Shit. I told you. There goes the salsa."
The microwave beeped and Jael opened the door and looked inside. The interior was spattered with little gobbets of salsa. "I'll get it later," she said.
"Classic line," Franklin said with approval.
She pulled out the dish full of chips and the bowl of salsa, turned to the cooking island, saw Lucas for the first time, put the chips on the butcher-block top, and said, "Time."
Franklin looked at his watch. "One minute, twenty-nine seconds. If you add ten seconds going and coming, you could've missed a pass play."
"I don't think I can cut much time," she said.
"You just don't have the moves worked out yet," Franklin said. "You lost time with the chips, arranging them, you lost time getting the salsa out. And now you gotta go back and clean the microwave."
Jael looked at Lucas and asked, "Did you know that if you heat up salsa too fast, the onions pop like popcorn?"
"Everybody knows that," he said as Franklin turned around. Franklin seemed mildly embarrassed.
"I've been cooking seriously for half of my life, and I didn't know that," she said. "Even the idea of heating it up seemed pretty brutal."
"Gotta have it about medium-warm, a little better than room temperature."
Hutton chipped in. "You want boiling-hot cheese on the chips, medium-warm salsa, very cold beer. You want that range."
"Do all men know this?" she asked.
All three of them nodded, and said at once, "Of course."
The house originally had four bedrooms and a full bathroom upstairs. Jael had wiped out the bottom floor as a studio; had rebuilt a kitchen upstairs, in what had been the master bedroom; the other three she'd turned into a snug little living room/dining room, a small library/office, and her own bedroom. The space was carefully assembled and connected, and Lucas felt comfortable.
They'd chatted with Franklin and Hutton for a few minutes, eating the nachos with melted cheese"I can feel my heart clogging up. This stuff is absolute shit," Jael saidand then Jael said to Lucas, "Let's go talk."
As she stepped past him, she caught his wrist in her hand and led him out of the room; Hutton raised an eyebrow. In the living room, Lucas sprawled on a couch while Jael settled back in an oversized chair. Lucas said, "Great chair," and Jael said, "All guys don't really know about that nacho-cheese thing."
"You're right. There's probably some raggedy-ass cowboy out on a ranch in North Dakota somewhere who doesn't have either a TV or a microwave."
She said, "It really wasn't bad."
"If you eat that stuff three days in a row, you'll be as big as Franklin." Franklin completely filled an average doorway. "In fact, Franklin used to be about your size."
She nodded, getting rid of the topic. "I went to see Marcy a couple of hours ago. I just missed you."
"She's hanging on," Lucas said, his face going grim. "But she's harder than goddamn nails. If anybody can make it back, she's the one."
"I feel you know. Guilt, I guess."
"Don't," he said. "This has nothing to do with you, really. It has something to do with a nut, and some asshole who killed Alie'e and Sandy Lansing."
"I can't get Plain's body," she said. "But I finally found Dad. He's on St. Paul Island, which is about as far from here as you can get and still be on Earth. It'll take him a few days to get here."
"How is he?" Lucas asked.
"Devastated. I'd like to get the thing done with."
"I'll see about it," Lucas promised. "This thing with Plain when did that end?"
"A year ago."
"A year? I thought it might be more recent the way he acted."
"Time was not a big deal with Plain. Everything was right now. He could read a history book about Rome and get angry about the Roman empire."
"Tell me about Alie'e," Lucas said. "Was there anybody that she talked about? Anybody who might be a little over the edge?"
"Are you questioning me?" But she smiled, and when she did, her torn-paper face was beautiful, tough and vulnerable at once.
"No, no. Of course not. And if you want to talk about something else, that's fine. But I start brooding about this kind of stuff. You know, why? Most people are freaked out by the idea of shoplifting. If you get somebody killing several people, he's either completely psychotic, delusional, nuts, living in a different world, listening to God or he thinks he's got a reason. This guy we're looking for, he thinks he's got a reason. So there should be some connection to Alie'e. Somewhere, a connection."
"Her dad was weird. He came on to me a couple of times. I often thought he was a little wrong. Not a killer, but he, I think I don't know." She lifted her hands to her temples. "His relationship to Alie'e and the other girls, he tried to act paternal, but he was always looking at them If you know what I mean."