by Robert Crais
Clark said, “Are we close?”
“Yes.”
Two minutes later I parked at the curb in a spot that left room for Dak’s Mercedes, and then the four of us climbed out of Pike’s Jeep. Dak jerked his thumb at the building, and Mon said, “Let’s go.”
Clark was walking fine, though every once in a while he made a little wince. The cancer.
We reached the condo, knocked twice, and waited for Teri to unlatch her door. It should have been a surprise homecoming, and it should’ve been nice, but it wasn’t.
Teri opened the door the third time I knocked, and I knew something was wrong. “Teri.”
Her eyes made little round O’s when she saw Clark.
“Daddy!”
Clark said, “Hi, sweetie.”
“Teri, what’s wrong?”
Teri’s eyes filled and she threw her arms around Clark and wailed. “Charles ran away.”
27
Mon ran back to the Mercedes, and the rest of us went inside, Clark with an arm around Teri. Winona jumped off the couch when she saw Clark and ran to him, shrieking and grabbing him around the waist. Guess she wasn’t all that worried about Charles, or maybe she was just that much happier to see her father. I said, “How long has Charles been gone?”
Teri wiped her nose. “Since before lunch.” It was after three now.
“Do you know where he went?”
“Uh-uh.” She wiped her eyes again. “He said he wanted to look around the building. He said he’d be back soon, but he never came back.”
I gave her a hug and tried to look confident. “It’s okay, kiddo. We’ll find him.” Charles might be anywhere.
Mon came back with Dak and the two Walters, and nobody looked happy. They stood in a little clump in the front door, Dak angry and firm. “Now what?”
“Clark’s son is missing.”
Dak glared at me as if I had to be kidding.
“We can’t just drive away. We have to find him.”
Dak looked angrier still. “You said this wouldn’t take long. You said we would pick them up and leave.”
Teri had stopped sniffling and was looking at Dak and his pals. She said, “Who are these people?”
Clark said, “These are the men I’m working for, honey.” Like they were Sears, and had a great retirement plan.
I said, “What can we do, just leave him?”
Dak stalked past me, slumped onto the living room couch, and shook his head. Walter Senior and Walter Junior sat next to him. Mon stood by the coffee table and gave Dak a smug smile, the look saying “I told you so.” They talked among themselves, then Dak sighed and looked defeated. “Describe the boy and we will help you look for him.”
Teri told us that Charles was wearing big shorts and the black Wolverine T-shirt, and after a bit the four Viets left, Dak telling them to meet back at the condo in thirty minutes. Revolutionary operation.
I said, “Did Charles take anything with him?”
Teri said, “No.”
“Winona?”
Winona shook her head without looking at me.
“Did he say anything about the park or a 7-Eleven or anything like that?” The Russians didn’t know where we were and had no reason to be in Studio City, so I wasn’t worried about them. The Studio City Park was a block away, and two convenience stores were within a couple of blocks. The convenience stores would have video games and magazines and comic books, any of which would be an ideal way to kill a few hours if Charles was bored.
Teri said no and Winona shook her head again.
Pike and I split up. I cruised the park, getting out of the car and walking around the community center they have there. Half a dozen moms with babies were in the sand pit, but none of them had seen a boy matching Charles’s description. Eight guys were playing basketball, but they hadn’t seen Charles either. I cruised the surrounding streets, then stopped at the little market and the two convenience stores, again describing Charles and again being told that no one matching that description had been around.
Thirty-eight minutes after I left the safe house, I was back, and so were the Viets and Joe Pike, and none of us had found Charles or anyone who had seen him. When I came in empty-handed, Nguyen Dak put his face in his hands. More delay. Teri said, “Didn’t you find him?”
“Not yet. But we will.” I was thinking that if Charles had met another kid here in the complex, he had probably gone home with that kid to hang out. Probably playing Sega right now. I told Clark what I was thinking. “You and the girls could go down to Long Beach with Dak, and I can wait here. When Charles shows up, I’ll join you.”
Dak stood. “That’s an excellent idea.” I think he smiled for the first time in hours.
Clark considered it, but didn’t seem convinced. “Well, maybe.”
Teri said, “What’s in Long Beach?” You could hear an edge in her voice. Tired of always moving. Tired of all the new places.
Clark said, “That’s where I work, honey.”
Winona looked uneasy. “I want to go home.”
I shook my head. “If you need anything there, Joe and I will pick it up for you. Best if you guys go straight to Long Beach.”
Winona looked even more uneasy, and picked at her shoe. “I think we should go home first.”
I stared at her. Teri looked at her, too. “Winona, you know something?”
“No.” Stubborn.
The muscles in my shoulders and neck tightened, and now I didn’t like what I was thinking. Now what I was thinking scared me. “Winona, did Charles say anything to you?”
She shook her head.
“Did Charles tell you that he was going home?”
She picked harder at the shoe and a little piece of rubber came away. “Charles said he’d beat me up if I said.” Charles.
Joe said, “Little girl.”
Winona snuck a glance at him. Joe was standing against the wall with his arms crossed, eyes dark and hidden behind the glasses. If you were Winona’s size he probably looked twelve feet tall. He said, “I’ll protect you.”
Winona still wasn’t happy about telling. “He said he thought waiting around here was dumb because we all knew that Daddy would come home. He said he was going to go wait for him.”
Clark said, “Oh, dear.”
Winona said, “He made me give him my key.” The little troll key ring.
Walter Tran Senior looked at his son and nodded. “Children are a source of great misery.”
I glanced at Pike, and neither of us were liking it. The Russians knew about their house. “Home is pretty far away. Would Charles know how to get there?”
“Charles is good with directions.”
If Charles headed home, he’d probably use Laurel Canyon to get over the mountains to the basin side. If he was walking it would take a long time and he might still be on the road, but Charles didn’t seem like the type who’d hesitate to put out his thumb. If he caught a ride, he might be there now. Of course, the Russians might be there also.
I dialed their number and let it ring fifteen times. No one answered.
Teri said, “May be he’s scared to answer.”
“Sure.” I didn’t believe it, and that gave me hope. If Charles was there he’d have to answer just to say something smart. “Okay. I’ll drive over and see if he’s there.”
Clark and Teri both said, “I’m going, too.”
“No. Stay here and pack your things. If Charles is there, we’ll leave as soon as we get back.”
Dak put his hands together like he was praying. Mon smirked, and rolled his eyes.
I left Pike with them, and drove along the route that I thought Charles would take, cruising slow enough to check out storefronts and lawns and the knots of people standing at pay phones and bus stops. I cruised the parking lot of every minimall I passed, looking in the 7-Eleven and the Subway and the game arcades, and Charles wasn’t in any of them, and little by little, I worked my way over the mountain and down into the basin and along Mel
rose to the house that the Hewitt family called home.
It took me almost an hour and fifty minutes to reach their house, and when I got there I checked the street for Dobcek’s tan Camaro. The Camaro wasn’t around, and that made me feel better about things.
I parked behind the Saturn, went to the front door, and was just fitting the key into the lock when someone opened the door from the inside. I thought it was Charles, but it wasn’t.
Alexei Dobcek stared at me with his bottomless Spetnaz eyes, then pointed a pistol at me. “We knew one of you assholes would show up sooner or later.”
I guess they had parked the Camaro a couple of streets over.
28
Dobcek stepped away from the door, and waved me inside. The house was warm and dark and close, and quiet the way empty houses are quiet. I called, “Charles?”
Dobcek smiled. “What? You think we’d tie him in the bathroom?” He dangled Winona’s key ring, the one Clark had brought her from Seattle, and the one she had given to Charles. The little troll was matted and ugly, and looked pleased with events.
“The boy better be all right, Dobcek.”
Dobcek smiled, telling me that I could be as tough as I liked, but he still had the boy. Sautin was in the living room, sitting in Clark’s chair, watching the Food Channel without sound. The Too Hot Tamales were goofing with each other, smiling and kidding around in total silence, and Sautin was smiling with them. His eye and the side of his face was swollen and purple where Joe had kicked him. Dobcek said, “Don’t you hate being found out a liar, you telling us you know nothing about these people?”
“Sure. I wake up sweating about it every night.”
The house had been turned inside out. Drawers had been emptied onto the floor and plates smashed and living room furniture upended and slit open. Even the dining room table was upside down, its legs pointing to heaven like some dead beast. I guess they’d been searching when Charles showed up. I wondered if he had tried to fight them. I wondered if they had hurt him, and, if they had, I thought that I might kill them. I said, “Where’s the boy?”
“Somewhere safe.”
“Where?”
Dobcek put his hand under my jacket to get the Dan Wesson, and when he did I caught his gun with my left hand and twisted it up and out at the same time that I drew the Wesson and pointed it at his nose. “The boy.”
Dobcek made the shark smile. “Dmitri, you should have seen what he did. That was pretty good.”
“Da.” Dmitri Sautin was still watching Susan and Mary Sue.
I thumbed back the hammer.
Dobcek made the shark smile harder. “And then what happens to the boy?”
I stared at him past the gun. Sautin said, “Da, the boy,” but still didn’t move.
Dobcek said, “What we have here is what you call a Mexican standoff.”
“I’ve got Clark, and you’ve got Clark’s boy.”
“Da. Put away the gun and let’s deal with this.”
I breathed deeply, and then I stepped back and lowered the gun. He held out his hand, and I gave back his gun. A nice new Sig P226. Nine millimeter. Easy to shoot. Since Pike and I had taken his other gun, I wondered where he’d gotten this one. “I reach into my pocket, okay?”
“Sure.”
He took out a hotel card from the Sheraton-Universal. “We’re staying here. The boy isn’t, but we are.” The boy was probably with Markov. “You ask Clark if he wants to see his boy again, then you give me a call and we talk about it.”
“The boy for Clark.”
“That’s right.” He said something in Russian to Sautin, and Sautin came around the chair. The swelling was nasty, and I hoped it hurt.
Dobeck winked at me, and then they left.
I stood in the house without moving for maybe five minutes, watching the Too Hot Tamales, and thinking. The Too Hot Tamales were making something with ancho chiles and tequila, and laughing a lot. They looked like they were having fun, and I wished I was with them and laughing, too, but I wasn’t. I was in a devastated house that had just been vacated by a couple of Russian hit men who were holding a little boy, and I was trying not to let panic overwhelm me. Panic kills. I felt like a juggler with too many balls in the air and more being added. Okay, Cole, take a breath. I said, “Good-bye, ladies,” and turned off the Tamales.
The house had been turned upside down because Dobcek and Sautin were looking for a clue to find Clark. Then Charles had walked in, and Charles was better than a clue. He was a don’t-pass-go E-ticket straight to the big money payoff.
I went into the hall and looked at the attic door and saw that it was undisturbed. I pulled down the door, and went up for the duffel. It was where I had left it, and I thought that maybe I could use it. I wasn’t sure how yet, but maybe. I dropped it out of the attic, closed the hatch, then locked the house and drove back to Studio City. I drove slowly, and thought about Markov, and what he wanted, and Clark, and what he wanted, and little by little the bits and pieces of a plan emerged.
When I let myself into the safe house, Joe and Clark and Teri were at the dining room table, and the Victs were still clumped together in the living room. Winona and Walter Junior were watching Animaniacs on television. Everyone in the room looked at me, and Teri and Clark spoke at the same time. “Did you find him?”
“Dobcek and Sautin were at the house. They have Charles.”
Clark drifted one step to the side, then caught himself on the back of a chair. Teri squinted. “Who are Dobcek and Sautin?”
Pike said, “They work for the man who wants your father.”
“What’s that?” She was staring at the duffel.
I didn’t answer. I looked at Clark instead. “Charles is okay, but we need to talk about this.” Clark was staring at the duffel, too.
Teri said, “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? That’s his counterfeit money.” Her voice getting strained.
Clark said, “Teri, please take Winona upstairs.”
Teri didn’t move.
“Teri, please.”
“Don’t treat me like a child!” It was a sudden, abrupt shriek that caught Clark by surprise. “I’m the one who takes care of him. I’m more his mother than you’re his father! Why don’t you take Winona upstairs?” She was shouting, and Winona was crying, and Clark was looking like he must’ve looked the day he found out he had cancer, as if a truth that he’d believed in with all his heart had now been proved a lie.
Dak turned away. Embarrassed.
I said, “Teri.” Soft. “Teri, it’s not your fault.”
Teri came around the table and hugged me, mumbling something that I could not understand. I think she was saying, “I will not cry. I will not cry.”
I stroked her hair, and held her, and after a time she took Winona and went upstairs.
Clark stared at the floor.
“Clark.”
He looked up at me. “Yes?”
I told them what Dobcek had said. The father for the boy. While I was saying it, Clark ran one hand over the other in a kind of endless wringing motion, and when I was done, he said, “Well, I guess we have to call them.”
Pike said, “They want you dead.”
“They have Charles.” Clark’s face was tinged a kind of ochre green. “I can’t let them hurt Charles.”
Mon said something to Dak in Vietnamese. Probably seeing their revolutionary dream crumble.
I said, “We don’t want them to hurt Charles, but trading you isn’t the answer. They won’t let Charles go if they have you. They’ll kill you both because that’s the only way they can protect themselves.”
Clark shook his head. “What do you mean, protect themselves?”
“Think about it, Clark. They want to kill you. If they do that, and anyone is left alive, what’s to keep Charles or me or someone from going to the police?”
Clark pinched his lips together. “But what do we do?”
Mon mumbled something again, and Nguyen Dak said, “We make
them want to keep you alive.”
I looked at Dak, and Dak seemed dark and enclosed and dangerous. I thought he must have looked this way many years ago. War is war.
Pike said, “Yes.”
Dak said, “The Russian wants vengeance, but he will trade his vengeance for greed. All criminals are this way.”
I watched him. “Are you willing to help?”
“I want the dong. If I have to help you in order to get the dong, then I will help.” There was something hard in his eyes, and maybe a bit of a smile at the edges of his mouth.
Mon said, “Russians.”
Pike’s mouth twitched, and I knew Pike was seeing it, too. Old wars merging with new wars. The Russians had supported the North against Nguyen Dak, and the Russians still supported the North’s Communist regime today. It would all be the same to these guys. A war they needed to win to go home.
I touched the duffel with my toe. “Is this Markov’s money?”
Clark nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“Will Markov know it, and will he know it’s counterfeit?”
Clark dug a packet of the bills from the duffel and flipped through them. “He won’t know they’re his, but he can tell they’re counterfeit. He has people who know how to tell.”
Pike said, “What are you thinking?”
“Markov knows what Brownell knew. That means he knows that Clark is printing again, but he may not know what. He knows Clark is good, but what if he thinks Clark is even better now?”
Clark shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
“What if we buy Charles back?”
“With what?”
“Funny money.”
Clark said, “But he’ll know it’s counterfeit. He can get counterfeit money anywhere.”
“Not just any counterfeit. What if it’s counterfeit that’s so good that it looks exactly like the real thing, so good that Markov couldn’t tell it was funny money, and neither could a bank inspector.”
