“Then he’d get what he deserves.”
“And how about the girl?” Lathrop said. “The way these flesh eaters work there’s no guarantee Vazquez gets her back alive no matter what he does.”
Ricci was quiet a second.
“Might be true,” he said. “Still doesn’t make it my problem.”
Lathrop shifted around to look out the rain-streaked windshield, rested back in his seat.
“You ever been to the Sierra Nevada? Out there in the canyons along the mountains between Fresno and Yosemite?”
Ricci shook his head.
“Marissa Vasquez was baited by a slick operator name of Manuel Aguilera,” Lathrop said. “Didn’t know he was connected. He romanced her and set her up to be taken and now she’s somewhere in all that nothing with about eight to ten cholos in guerrilla outfits imported from down around Ciudad Juárez.”
A long silence spent itself between them. It was pouring outside now, raindrops dashing against the windows, beating erratically on the roof of the car.
“How do you know?” Ricci said.
“Where they brought her?”
“Where they brought her, how they did it, everything.”
Lathrop made a low sound in his throat.
“Got it from another Quiros relative. I crashed his party down in Baja three, four nights ago,” he said. “He’s tight with Juan and Aguilera and hooked them up. Pretty much told me everything.”
Ricci flashed a glance at him. “He give you any details about the abduction besides what you told me?”
Lathrop shrugged.
“Some,” he said. And paused. “Won’t be doing any more talking, though.”
Ricci watched the raindrops splash the windshield, slither down over it to further distort the red warning lights on the high towers across the slough. The coffee had succeeded in sharpening his thoughts, but while he was mostly sober now the feeling of inner grayness had persisted.
“I could find Marissa Vasquez on my own,” Lathrop said. “But the banditos would be a problem at ten-to-one odds.”
“Ten-to-two doesn’t sound much better,” Ricci said.
“It does if we’re the two and have each other’s back,” Lathrop said.
Ricci was silent staring out the windshield. The cup had cooled in his hand.
“We pull this thing off, Esteban’s reward would be hefty,” Lathrop said. “Three mil split right down the middle.”
Ricci was silent.
“And,” Lathrop went on, “we’d be saving a damsel in distress.”
Ricci held his silence, his eyes peering into the rainswept night. Then he turned to Lathrop.
“Play your games with me, you won’t have to worry about those mercs,” he said.
Lathrop smiled a little, put his cup into the holder beside him, reached for the key in his ignition.
“Anything else I need to be warned about?” he said.
Ricci shook his head.
“Then I’ll bring you back to your car before its spark plugs get soaked,” Lathrop said, and cranked up the Dodge’s engine.
Roger Gordian seemed pleased with himself as he pulled the Rover to a halt in front of his daughter’s garage. He also seemed braced for what was coming from her, and would be very determined to head it off.
“Mission accomplished,” he said, and shifted into Park. “The paintings have been hung. You’re back home safe and sound. And we managed to beat the rain.”
Julia sat quietly in the passenger seat watching him tick off his successes on his fingertips.
“But not the drizzle and fog,” she said.
Gordian poked a finger at the control panel on his dashboard.
“That’s why I’ve got fog lamps,” he said.
On motion sensors, Julia’s exterior garage and porch lights had instantly begun shining down over her lawn as they turned in from the road. She regarded her father in their brightness now, impressed by how well he’d learned to use the warm and cuddly senior routine to his charming advantage since retirement. But the look of dead-set resolution in his steel gray eyes was no different than ever. It didn’t matter if he was laying the foundation for a backyard dog pen, talking about the Dream of global freedom through communications on which he had built UpLink International, or anticipating an invitation he’d already made up his mind to decline.
Gordian’s problem tonight was that he and Julia were two of a kind when it came to persistence — and he knew it.
She waited beside him for a moment, parked there with the mist draping over the Rover’s windshield, and isolated droplets of moisture splatting onto its hood and roof from the branches of an old sequoia overhanging her driveway.
“You really shouldn’t drive in weather like this, Dad,” she said, getting it over with. “It’s already after eleven. The smart thing would be for you to stay overnight.”
Gordian went from poking at his dash console to tapping his steering wheel column.
“I’ll be fine,” he said. “Thanks, anyway.”
She looked at him.
“You can fix us hot chocolates,” she said. “I’ve got about four kinds of Ghirardelli’s. And a fresh quart of milk and some whipped cream in the fridge.”
He smiled.
“I can fix them?”
“Nobody does it better.”
“I’m proud to see my daughter’s as kind and generous as she is talented,” he replied, still smiling. “Seriously, hon, I appreciate the offer. But I’ll be home inside an hour.”
Which meant his return trip might total almost two hours, assuming the rain didn’t intensify to the extent that it slowed up road conditions, she thought. It had taken them about forty five minutes to get back here to Pescadero from the gallery in Boulder Creek, and a lot of it had been country driving on some of the darkest stretches of Highway 9. Tack on their ride out to the gallery, and it would mean some four hours behind the wheel for him tonight if he headed off into the Palo Alto hills.
“Okay, here’s where the deal really gets sweet,” she said. “I’ll let my adorable canines sleep in the guest room with you. Jack, Jill, Viv, too. So what do you say?”
Gordian suddenly burst out laughing. Julia took that as a good sign considering she’d been braced for his I-flew-fighter-jets-through-enemy-flack-and-canhandle-a-drive-on-the-freeway argument.
“A man’s got to beware of having all his wishes come true at once,” he said. “Any other attempts to buy influence before we say good night?”
Julia gave him a level glance.
“There’s something serious I’ve meant to discuss with you,” she said. “And if that’s not persuasive enough, I might threaten to call Mom and ask her to decide the issue.”
Gordian looked at her and cleared his throat. It was over and they both knew it.
“Do you mean it about wanting to talk?” he said.
Julia nodded sincerely. There were some thoughts that had been bearing heavily on her since she’d gotten together with Megan that afternoon, although she’d wondered whether to keep them to herself. But so much for that.
“I’ll phone Ashley and get those hot chocolates on the burner,” Gordian said, and reached for his door handle.
Thirty minutes later, they were sitting over their cocoa mugs in Julia’s kitchen breakfast nook, cornered by three relentlessly staring greyhounds. The rain was falling in sheets outside.
Gordian looked from Jack, a brindle male, to the two females — Jill, a teal blue, and Vivian the blond bombshell. All of them were stretched out on the floor, their heads cranked toward the table, ears perked, penny-colored eyes fixed on his steaming drink.
“Don’t they know dogs can be deathly allergic to chocolate… or are your constant reminders just for my benefit?”
Julia shrugged. “Ex-racers don’t know anything besides being starved for food and attention,” she said. “They’d crunch their insatiable jaws down on our cups if I gave them half a chance.”