Indigo Slam

'That's what he said.'

'People say anything.' You could tell Pike was interested.

'It's the new world order, Joe. Equal opportunity crime.'

Pike went to the glass doors and looked out. He slid back the glass and the silky mountain air rolled in. 'This isn't good.'

'No,' I said. 'It's not.'

'It won't matter what you told the Russians. They'll figure you've got a line on Clark, and they'll show up.'

'That's what I told Clark. I told him to leave town, or go back to the marshals. They're still willing to help.'

'Will he?'

'I don't know. I told him to call Carol Hillegas. He won't be worth a damn to those kids until he's clean, but who knows what he'll do?' We went out to the deck and stood at the rail and looked down at the canyon. 'Talking to Clark is like talking to your television. He doesn't see that his actions have consequences.'

Pike crossed his arms.

'Also, he told me that our services were no longer needed.'

The corner of Pike's mouth twitched. He'll never smile, but sometimes you'll get the twitch. 'Fired.'

'Well, yeah.'

Another twitch. 'How much money we make?'

Two hundred, less the cost of airfare and hotel. I'd say we're down about three hundred.'

Pike finished his beer.

'But we picked up some frequent flyer miles.'

Pike said, 'You thinking it was the feds or the Russians who went through your house?'

I thought about it, then shook my head. 'It's possible, but I don't think so. If these Russians had a line on Clark, they wouldn't've bothered with me up in Seattle, and the feds would've just knocked on the door. Besides that, I think I've been followed by a guy in a gray LeBaron, and I'm pretty sure the following started before those kids came to my office.' I told him about the black guy in the LeBaron.

'So maybe there's still someone stalking you.'

'Could be.' Always a pleasant thought. 'You want to stay for dinner?'

'No.'

Pike watched a car move along the canyon floor beneath us for a time, then left without another word. No so long, no see you later. Just left.

I finished the Falstaff, crimped the can, and tossed it in my can bag. Recycling. I unpacked, did laundry, and wandered through the house. I felt empty and unfinished, as if there were more to be done only I didn't yet know what to do. Maybe I was bored.

Clark was home, his kids weren't alone anymore, and he was going to do whatever he was going to do. They would leave or they would stay, he would call Carol Hillegas or he wouldn't, he would ask Jasper for help or not, and there wasn't a whole helluva lot I could do about it short of putting a gun to his head. Life in a free society.

I opened another Falstaff, then called Lucy Chenier at her office. 'It's the world's greatest human being, calling for Ms. Chenier.'

Lucy's assistant, Darlene, laughed. 'I see we've upgraded from the world's greatest detective.'

'They're one and the same, are they not?'

'Only when we're talking about you, Mr. Cole.' To know Darlene is to love her. 'I'm sorry, but Ms. Chenier isn't in.' It was just before six in Baton Rouge. Lucy normally stayed in her office until six, unless her son, Ben, had a soccer game.

'Is she at home?'

'You could call her there and find out, I suppose.'

I kidded with Darlene for a few more minutes, then hung up and phoned Lucy's home. She answered on the first ring with 'Hi, David!'

'David?'

'Oh. It's you.'

'Maybe we should hang up and start this conversation again.'

Lucy laughed and said, 'David is David Shapiro, who just happens to be the most experienced news talent attorney in New Orleans, and who also happens to be representing me.'

'KROK made a firm offer?'

She said, 'Negotiations are officially under way.'

The grin started deep and came out big. 'Lucille, that is totally wonderful.'

'It's only their opening offer, and we have to counter, but we're close, Elvis. We are really, really close, and this is going to happen.' You could hear the energy and excitement in her voice. 'David thinks we'll conclude by the end of next week. After that, it's just a matter of waiting for Ben's school year to end, and then we can move out.' The end of Ben's school year was less than six weeks away.

'KROK doesn't have a problem with waiting?'

'Not at all. They've even offered to put me in touch with a real estate agent to help us find a place to live.'

We talked, and as we did the tension slowly seeped away with our sharing, and my home became my home again, warm and enveloping and no longer a place that had been invaded by another. The cat's door clacked, and the cat walked over, bumped against me, and purred. Maybe he could feel the change, too.

Lucy asked about the Hewitt children, and listened as I told her about my trip to Seattle, and the uncomfortable facts that I had learned about their father. She said, 'You took it upon yourself to fly to Seattle to look for him?'

'There's a sucker born every minute, Lucille.'

She sighed, and I could almost see her smile. I could see her in the big overstuffed chair in her living room. I could see Ben on the floor surrounded by Incredible Hulk comic books while he watched Babylon5. I could smell the bay leaf and sassafras of the oyster gumbo simmering for their dinner in the warm safe house near LSU. Exactly the kind of house that Teri and Charles and Winona did not have. Or maybe I'd just drunk too much Falstaff and all of it was wishful thinking. She said, 'You're not a sucker, you nut. You're the man I love.'

'Thanks, Luce.'

We talked for another hour, sharing our excitement and the evolution of our love, and then we hung up, Lucy promising to call with periodic updates on her status with KROK, and me promising to send her the real estate section from the Los Angeles Times, and both of us making those sugary kissing sounds. Sometimes I'm so schmaltzy I embarrass myself.

I brought the remains of my beer out onto the deck and listened to the breeze ruffling the leaves and to the shush of the cars down in the canyon and to the silence in my home. The cat came out and sat with me. I said, 'Lucy will be here soon. You'd best get used to it.'

He rubbed his head against my leg and purred.

It hadn't been such a bad day, after all.

CHAPTER 13

I woke the next morning telling myself that I should take a free day and relax. After all, I was officially unemployed, and when you get beat up by Russian weightlifters in Seattle you deserve time off. Teri and Charles and Winona were no longer my responsibility, and Clark had been warned, so there you go. Portrait of the detective with time on his hands. Unemployment had its advantages.

I fed the cat, then worked my way through forty minutes of tae kwon do katas in the hot morning sun and considered my options: I could run along the Pacific Coast Highway with Joe Pike or drive up to the Antelope Valley to pick fresh peaches or lay on the deck all day eating venison sandwiches and reading the new Dean Koontz. These all seemed like ideal ways to spend a day, but by nine that morning I had shaved, showered, and made my way down the mountains to the Beverly Hills Public Library to learn what I could about the Markov brothers, and what Clark did to get them so pissed off.

Being unemployed is easier said than done.

The Beverly Hills Library is one of the more wonderful libraries in the city. It is clean and neat and Spanish in its architecture, smack in the heart of BH between the Beverly Hills Police Department and the BH City Hall. A slim woman with very short hair showed me how to use their on-line search service and helped me connect with the SeattleTimes. I downloaded every article they had about the Markov brothers and Vasily Markov's prosecution and subsequent sentencing, and when I printed the download it came to eighty-six pages. What's a day at the beach when you can spend your time reading about the Russian mob?