by Robert Crais
I called Joe Pike from a pay phone outside a florist. “Dobcek and Sautin are sitting in a tan Camaro fifty yards away, watching me.”
“Shoot them.” Life is simple for Pike. Like with the cat.
“I was thinking more along the lines of delaying them. They probably picked me up at my office, and they’re probably hoping I’ll lead them to Clark.”
Pike grunted. “Or they’re hoping for another chance to beat it out of you.”
“Well, there’s that, too.” I told him where I was, and what I wanted.
Pike said, “Try to stay alive until I get there.”
Always the encouraging word.
I pretended to talk for another five minutes, went into the florist to kill more time, then climbed back into my car and continued north along Sunset, making sure that Dobcek and Sautin made every light with me.
When I reached Elysian Park Avenue I turned toward Dodger Stadium, and wound my way up past small residential homes through the mountains to Chavez Ravine. Traffic thinned, and I thought that Dobcek might break off the tail, but he didn’t.
Chavez Ravine is a broad flat bowl surrounded by low mountains that wall the stadium from the city. Dodger Stadium sits in the center of the bowl, surrounded by black tarmac parking lots like some kind of alien spacecraft resting alone on its launching pad. All you’d need was a big shiny robot, and you’d think Michael Rennie had come back to Earth.
An hour before game time on a cool spring evening and there’d be fifty thousand people driving past. Noontime on a day when the Dodgers were out of town, and the place was deserted. An ideal place for a conversation or a murder.
The roads there loop and roll around the base of the ravine, and little signs direct you toward the stadium or Elysian Park or any number of interesting places. I followed the signs past palm tree sentinels toward the ticket booth, and increased my speed enough to pull away from the Russians. Dobcek would want to stay with me, but not enough to get crazy and blow his tail. After all, he’d figure that he could always go back to my office and wait until I returned, but he would follow because for all he knew I was heading toward a safe house where I’d stashed Clark and his kids. I pressed it going up the hill to the turnoff to the ticket booth, but I didn’t turn there. I turned off the road into the grass and backed my car behind a stand of scrub oak and brush. We hadn’t had rain in weeks and the soil was hard as the pavement.
Forty seconds later the Camaro cruised past through the gate. I saw his brake lights come on, and I pulled back onto the road, and stopped in the gate, blocking their exit. Pike’s Jeep was across the road in front of them. Pike was leaning across the Jeep’s hood, pointing a twelve-gauge Beretta autoloader at them. I got out, walked up to their car, and smiled at them. “Baseball. The great American pastime.”
Dobcek’s hands were on his steering, wheel. He nodded. “Nicely done.”
“Welcome to LA, boys. Now get out of the car, keeping your hands where we can see them.”
Dobcek got out first. When Dmitri Sautin climbed out, the little Camaro rocked.
I said, “Guns.”
Pike came around the Jeep, the shotgun still at his shoulder. Dobcek fingered the Glock from under his left arm and held it out. I tossed it into my Corvette. I looked at Dmitri Sautin. “Now you.”
Sautin shook his head. “No.”
Dobcek said, “Dmitri.”
Sautin said, “I think they have to take it, if they can.” He lowered his hands and grinned at Pike. Dmitri Sautin was four inches taller than Pike, and outweighed him by a hundred pounds.
Pike said, “It’s going to hurt.”
Sautin said, “Ha.”
Sautin was still grinning when Pike hit him on the side of the head with a hard fast roundhouse kick. Sautin took one step to the side and looked surprised, but he didn’t go down. Pike kicked him again, and this time Sautin staggered. His eyes filled and his lower lip quivered and he began crying. Pike said, “Gun.”
Dmitri Sautin held out the Sig. I took it and tossed it in with the Glock.
Dobcek smiled, and it was ugly and predatory. His eyes sparkled in the bright sun and stayed with Joe Pike.
I patted them down, took their wallets, and then I told them to step away from the car. They did. I went through their car and found the rental papers. They had arrived at LAX that morning. I took the keys from the ignition and found two overnight bags in the trunk. I looked through them but found nothing but clothes and toiletries. I put their bags in the Corvette, too. Dmitri Sautin wiped at his nose, and said, “But we will not have underwear.”
“A criminal’s life is an ugly one.” I looked through their wallets, didn’t learn anything new, and tossed the wallets in with the guns. I said, “Markov’s really going to be impressed when you tell him about this.”
Sautin said, “You must be stupid to think we would tell him.”
Dobcek said, “Shut up, fool.” Dobcek’s eyes never left Pike.
I said, “It’s like I told you in Seattle, I don’t know Clark Hewitt and I don’t know where he is. You guys are wasting your time.”
Dobcek said, “Da.”
“If you’re smart, you’ll go back to Seattle. If you try to tag me again, I’ll kill you.” Mr. Threat.
Dobcek made the little smile again.
Pike said, “He won’t, but I will.”
Dobcek’s smile faded.
I said, “See the little building at the bottom of the hill?”
They could see it.
“Start walking.”
Sautin started toward the ticket building, but Dobcek didn’t. Dobcek looked at Pike. “This one goes to you, but I think we see each other again, yes?”
The corner of Pike’s mouth twitched, saying here we are, saying we can take this anyplace you want, but wherever we go I will win and you will lose.
Dobcek made a small nod and followed Sautin.
We watched them for a time, and then Pike said, “You lie well. Too bad they didn’t believe you.”
“Yeah, but it’ll buy us enough time to warn Clark. I told Clark they were going to come and now they have, and he’ll have to do something. He won’t like it, but there you go.”
Pike went to his Jeep and came back with an eight-inch stainless-steel hunting knife. He went around the Camaro and cut all four tires. Buy us even more time.
I said, “By the way.”
He looked at me.
“The two C-notes were counterfeit.”
Pike nodded.
“Your friend Marsha Fields kept them.”
Another nod.
“Means we’re down about five hundred now.”
Pike went back to his Jeep. “A criminal’s life is an ugly one.”
I got into my car and went to warn Clark Hewitt.
CHAPTER 16
Twenty minutes later I turned off Melrose and saw the green Saturn. I parked behind it, then went to the door and rang the bell three times. I was thinking that maybe everyone was pretending they weren’t home when Teri opened the door. She wasn’t smiling, and she opened the door only wide enough to look out. “Oh, hello.”
“Great to see you, too.”
Blank.
“I need to see your father.”
“He isn’t home.”
I glanced at the Saturn.
“He walked up to Melrose to go shopping.”
I edged closer to the door. “That’s okay. I’ll wait.”
She didn’t move or open the door. “He might be a while.”
“No problem. When you make the big bucks like me, time is your servant.”
Something crashed through the house like a runaway buffalo and Charles appeared behind her, his face falling when he saw me. “Oh, it’s him.” Him.
I said, “Are you going to open the door or make me wait out here?”
Charles jabbed at Teri’s back and whispered loud enough for me to hear. “Tell’m to eff himself.”
I said, “Charles, for chrissake.”
Teri stepped back to let me in.
Charles screamed, “Oh, frig!” He thundered back through the house and slammed his door.
I went into the living room, adjusted the blinds, and sat on the couch so that I could see the street. The Russians hadn’t arrived, and I didn’t expect them to, but you never know. If they found us, maybe I could just give them Charles. “Where’s Winona?”
“In her room.”
The TV wasn’t going and Winona hadn’t come out to see me. The house did not smell of baking cookies. I watched Teri and Teri watched me, and the close living room somehow felt expectant and tenuous. “Quiet.”
Teri looked smaller than before, and tired. Her eyes were dark caves. I said, “What did he go shopping for?”
“Clothes.”
I sat and listened, and her uneasiness was a physical thing that seemed to magnify sounds. I tapped the couch arm, and the tapping echoed like thunder. I sighed, and heard it as a rush of dry wind clawing across the desert. “He’s gone again, isn’t he?”
She looked at the floor.
“How long?”
She didn’t answer, and I imagined Dobcek and Sautin bombing around town, getting closer and closer, and finally showing up. Maybe it wouldn’t be just Dobcek and Sautin. Maybe it would be other guys. Better guys. “How long has he been gone, Teri?”
“Since yesterday morning.” A voice so small you could barely hear her.
“He didn’t take the Saturn.”
“He walked up to Mekose. He said someone was picking him up.”
“He say who?”
She shook her head.
“Did he say when he’d be back, or where he was going?” I wanted to roll my head and hear the bones crack and feel the relief.
She shook her head again. Of course not.
“And he hasn’t called?”
“Uh-uh.”
I took a deep breath and let it out. The Russians had landed and Clark had disappeared. Again. Maybe he would be home by supper, but maybe not. Maybe Dobcek and Sautin weren’t the only Russians who’d come down, and maybe those guys had Clark right now, but that probably wasn’t the case either. Clark might be sitting with the U.S. Marshals right now, asking to get back into the program, but I wasn’t willing to bet on it. Either way I wasn’t going to leave these kids alone anymore. I said, “Do you have any Tylenol?”
When I had the Tylenol, I excused myself, went to the kitchen, drank one glass of tap water, then went back to the living room. Teri had not moved, and the house seemed even more still. I wondered how often it had been like this. Maybe more often than I thought. I said, “You and I need to talk.”
“He’ll be back soon.” She tried to sound hopeful. “He always comes back.”
“I hope you’re right.” I sat very close to her and spoke in a quiet voice. I wanted her to know before Charles and Winona. “We have to talk about some hard things. I don’t know how much you know, or what you’ve guessed, but I don’t see any other way.”
“About Seattle.” A statement. Like she knew what was coming and dreaded it.
“That’s right. Seattle.”
She remembered the night her family had left, and she remembered the men who had taken them in a dull beige van in the middle of a rainstorm, and the thunder that had not been thunder. She remembered gray federal buildings and airplanes, and she knew that they had moved to Salt Lake City and change their names because bad men were after her father, though she did not know why. I told her. I didn’t want to tell her, and I didn’t like myself for it, but she needed to know. “Your father counterfeited money for a man named Vasily Markov. Markov wanted to have your father killed, so your father turned state’s evidence in order to buy his way into the witness protection program. Do you know what that is?”
Her lips had formed a hard little knot. “I’m not an idiot.”
“Your father learned his trade from a man named Wilson Brownell, up in Seattle. Markov’s people have been watching Brownell, and they figured that something was going on. They staked Brownell and your mother’s grave, and that’s where they saw me.”
The hard lips softened. “You went to my mother’s grave?”
“The men who are after your father have come to Los Angeles. They’ve already found me, because they suspect that I know your whereabouts, and that means they’ll stay here until they find your father, too. Do you understand that?”
“Yes.” Without expression.
“These men are dangerous, and I am not going to walk out of here and leave you alone. That is no longer an option.”
She looked from my left eye to my right, not really seeing me, breathing softly. You could tell she was thinking. I heard something creak in the hall. Charles, probably. Eavesdropping. “What about my father?”
“I think he’s going to print money again, but I don’t know that. I’m pretty sure that’s why he went to see Brownell.” I couldn’t bring myself to tell her about the drugs.
Her eyes narrowed, and her lips moved, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying. She blinked, and I thought she might be trying to keep back the tears.
“I know it’s hard.” I said it as softly as I could.
She was hunched over, elbows on knees, arms crossed, lips pursed. A hard, tight knot. She said something, but I couldn’t hear her.
“I didn’t hear you, Teri.”
She said it again. “He’s such a loser.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“He screws up everything. He’s screwed up all of our lives.” The blinking grew harder, and her eyes filled. “I try to make it better, but it just gets worse. I try so hard.” Tears leaked down across her cheeks and into the corners of her mouth, and I put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed, and I started blinking, too.
“Teri.” Something creaked in the hall again and a door closed.
Teri said, “Please don’t let them hurt him.”
For all I knew they had him now. For all I knew he was dead. “The only way I can help him is to find him before they do, you see?”
She wiped her eyes on her wrist, then took a breath. She hadn’t broken all the way, and now she was pulling herself back together. I guess she’d had a lot of practice.
“But not with you here. I am either going to call the feds and have them take you in, or you’re coming with me. Either way, you can’t stay here.”
She wiped her eyes again, and now the tears were gone. As if they’d never been. “Where will you take us?”
“We’ll go to my house for now, but we’ll have to move to a safe house. I’m easy to find, and the Russians might show up there.”
“What about my daddy?”
“I’ll look for him when you guys are safe.”
“He’s going to come back here.”
“Then I’ll wait here for him, but first we have to get you guys to a safe place.”
She was small and folded, sitting on the edge of the couch, and then she adjusted her glasses and stood. “Okay.” Just like that. “I’d better get Charles and Winona.” The fifteen-year-old mother again. Taking care of her family.
We went along the hall to their rooms. Both doors were closed. I rapped at each door. “Charles. Winona. You guys come here.”
Winona’s door quietly opened, and she stepped into the hall. Charles’s voice came muffled from behind his. “Eff you!” He’d been listening, all right.
Teri said, “Charles, we’re going away for a few days. We have to pack.”
“Eff!”
I smiled at Winona. “Hi, honey.” Mr. Friendly. Mr. Don’t-Be-Scared-of-the-Man-Who’s-Going-to-Take-You-Away.
“Hi.” She smiled back, but it was uncertain. It was the first time I had seen Winona as anything but bubbling. I guess if my dad had blown in and out without warning I would’ve been uncertain, too. The little troll key chain was clipped to her belt loop. Guess if you couldn’t have Daddy, you might as well have the troll. Maybe, sometimes, the two were one and the same.
>
I said, “Teri, why don’t you help Winona with her things. I’ll talk to Charles.”
Charles yelled, “I ain’t goin’!”
Teri said, “C’mon, Winona. You help me pack and I’ll help you.”
They went into their room, and I tapped at Charles’s door. “C’mon, bud.”
“Eff!”
I tapped again, then opened the door, and when I did he ran over and pushed against it as hard as he could, shouting, “Eff you! Stay out of here! Eff!” He was red-faced and crying, and I felt like a turd.
I forced the door, Charles on the other side, crying louder and pushing hard, sobbing from the mucus in his throat, thin chest heaving, shouting “You get outta here!” until I had the door open, and then he ran at me, butting head first into me, punching and spitting and screaming for me to get out and I pulled him close and held him, and after a while all the yelling and crying subsided into a sobbing hack. It was a barren room, holding only a single frame bed and a chest, with none of the posters and toys and things you’d expect to see in the room of a twelve-year-old boy. Maybe Charles didn’t think he’d live here long enough to bother. I said, “It’s okay, kid.”
“I hope he never comes back!”
I held him.
“I wish he was dead!”
I held him tighter.
Teri said, “Charles?” She was standing in the door.
I said, “We’re okay, Teri.”
Charles and I stood for a very long time, and when the sobbing subsided I tried to let go, but .by then Charles was holding on to me, arms locked tight around my ribs, face buried in my chest. I could feel the wet soaking through my shirt. “It’s okay, kid.” I said it five or six times. Maybe I said it more.
I let Charles hang on to me for another couple of minutes, and then I told him to pack enough for two nights. I told him that we were going to my place, and that when they were safe I would find his father. Charles turned away without looking at me, wiped his nose on the back of his hand, and packed. He said, “Eff’m.”
