Cindy looked past him and shrugged.
“Did she tell you that she was putting herself in danger?”
Cindy looked at her keys, fiddled with them.
He plucked the keys from her fingertips and set them down, with a small clunk, out of her immediate reach.
“Did she tell you that she was putting her mother and me in danger?”
Cindy folded her arms over her small flattened breasts. “She wanted to go to her prom. What’s so dangerous about that?”
Relieved to finally have confirmation of his theory, he asked, “How did she get there?”
The girl shrugged. Her emotions seemed on the verge of breaking through the sulk; the tiredness helped — it took energy to maintain a good pout, even for a kid.
“Did she tell you everything?”
“...Maybe.”
“Did she tell you the kind of people this involves?”
The girl looked away.
Were her eyes damp?
“You didn’t drive her there. If you had, you’d still be in Tahoe, staying till after prom, to make the round trip.”
She smirked, but the curled lips quivered. Somehow the blue eye shadow and mascara only made her look younger.
“What did you do, Cindy?” he asked, casual. “Meet the boyfriend halfway?”
The girl’s forehead tensed a little.
Thinking out loud, Michael said, “You drove halfway, and met Gary at a rest stop or gas station...? And he drove her the rest of the way, right?”
“Why ask if you know?”
“Not a rest stop. I’m going to say... Las Vegas. That’s about halfway, and that sounds like fun. But all that desert driving, it’s no picnic, is it?”
Tiny chin jutted. “What if I did drive her? I’m eighteen.”
“Without stopping it’d be maybe six, seven hours to Vegas. With pee breaks, and grabbing quick bites at diners, maybe eating in the car. You must have air-conditioning in that little Mustang your folks got you...”
“So what if I do?”
He sat forward. He kept his voice even, flat, only vaguely threatening. “Why are you back so late? Why didn’t you stay in Vegas longer?”
“You’re so smart. You tell me.”
“...Well, it sounded like more fun than it was. You’re right, you are eighteen, and you have to be twenty-one to get into the casinos. And those security boys can spot a fake ID at a hundred yards.”
Her eyes tensed; she was staring down through the glass table.
“So you drove up and down the Strip, taking in all those bright lights, and you had some food, drive-in maybe, and maybe shopped a little. Couple nice new malls, there. Did Anna and Gary spend the night in Vegas?”
She said nothing; but she swallowed.
“And then you kids fooled around Sin City this morning, nice breakfast, maybe a little shopping — there’s a record shop Anna likes there, with lots of British releases...”
Her eyes flashed a little. He was obviously dead-on. Seemed to frighten her that he had Anna pegged like that.
“I’m not psychic, Cindy. Our family’s spent a lot of time in Vegas, over the years, is all — I’ve even worked there. So the two of them headed out for Tahoe today, about midafternoon maybe? Three or four? Some more nasty desert driving ahead for ’em. But they ought to be there, by now. Like you’re here.”
She leaned an elbow on the glass table, rested her head against a hand.
“Where are they staying, Cindy?”
“I don’t know.”
“Cindy, how much did she tell you?”
“What do you mean? About what?”
“You know what I mean. And about what.”
She swallowed again; she was trembling. “Everything, I guess. That, that you... you ran casinos and stuff. And you’re testifying against these Corleone-type guys, so you’re, like... hiding here? In Tucson?”
“Right. And now Anna’s actions... and your actions... have put her and Gary, and me and Anna’s mother, and even you and your parents, at terrible risk.”
“What? That’s crazy.”
“It is crazy. These people are ruthless. They take a human life like you might swat a mosquito. Means nothing to them.”
She covered her face with a hand whose hot-pink nails were chipped a little. “I... I really don’t know where they’re staying... I just know they... they’re in Tahoe. I just know... just know Anna wanted to go to her prom.” She looked up with eyes soaked with tears, the mascara streaming in dark ribbons. “Why is that so wrong? Who’s gonna care about that, but her stupid parents?... S-sorry.”
“Anna told you not to tell anybody about us — about my being a witness, didn’t she?”
“Y-yes.”
“Well, that includes your parents, Cindy. Do you understand? That includes your parents.”
The girl nodded a bunch of times, then rose to get some Kleenex from a dispenser on the kitchen counter. He rose and went to her, put a hand on her shoulder.
“I’m not mad at you.”
She was still crying, but not hard.
“I know you were just trying to be Anna’s friend.”
“I... I am Anna’s friend.”
“And that’s why you’ll keep everything we talked about between us — just you and me, Cindy.” He took her face in a hand, gently. “Just you and me? Friends?”
She swallowed and nodded. “Friends.”
He was going off to join her parents when her voice called out, “Mr. Smith!... I’m sorry. Didn’t you ever do anything stupid, when you were a kid?”
“No,” he said, and smiled at her.
She laughed a little, choked on snot, blew her nose, and was crying at the glass table again as he stepped into the living room.
Molly, reading House Beautiful magazine, was seated on a squat low-backed red-and-black sofa that was like a massive unhealed wound against the pale-pink walls. A squat ugly cactus decorated an end table, and a pop-art print of a crying comic-book woman was framed on one wall next to shelves of stereo gear and LPs, opposite another wall of silvered panels reflecting the room back at itself, distortedly.
Sid was at the front picture window, the dark-pink drapes drawn, peeking around an edge. “Goddamned hippies,” he was saying.
Michael stood beside him. “Cindy gave me the information I needed. She was very helpful... What’s wrong, Sid?”
He nodded toward the street. “I noticed this pothead scum earlier today, driving around the neighborhood.”
Leaning in next to his neighbor, Michael looked out and saw a van parked just down the block, almost directly under the burned-out streetlamp, straddling where the Smith property ended and their next-door neighbor’s began... an old faded red panel truck with flowers and peace symbols and the KEEP ON TRUCKIN’ guy painted on it, badly.
Sid’s upper teeth were showing, and he wasn’t smiling. “What are they doing, coming around a respectable neighborhood like this for, anyway? Making their goddamn drug deals...”
The back of Michael’s neck was tingling, but he said, “Don’t worry about it,” and patted Parham on the shoulder. “I’ll check it out.”
“Would you, pal? You, uh... want me to go with you?”
Michael smiled and shook his head. “No. I’ll just run over and tell ’em to go peddle their papers someplace else.”
“Rolling papers, you mean!”
He managed a polite laugh, and said, “Why don’t you two check on your daughter? She’s a little upset.”
Parham nodded, and he and Molly went off in their unisex uniforms, toward the kitchen.
Michael turned off the front stoop light before slipping out of the house.
That van had not been here when he’d crossed the street half an hour or so before. Head lowered, he walked down the sidewalk on the Parhams’ side of the block, away from his house. When he came up from behind, along the driver’s side of the battered van, he stayed down, hoping not to be picked up noticeably in the side mirror.