"She's a screwed-up kid with garbage for parents and she came to you looking for something, and you screwed her, too. You had her steal the Hagakure for you."

"No."

"The kids you've got out there are here because they've got no place else to go. Not because of any ideal. The Gray Army movement is dead, and having the Hagakure isn't going to bring it back to life."

Asano stood up. He started to say something, but nothing came out. He looked confused. Frank took a step toward him, then stopped. The Ruger was up now and pointing at me but Frank didn't seem interested in using it. He said, "If that's the way it is, why aren't you here with the cops?"

"Because the cops are going to want a piece of Mimi for setting all this up and wasting their time. If the cops were here they'd drag her home or maybe to juvie detention." I looked at Bobby. "You remember juvie detention, don't you, Bobby?"

Bobby said, "Fuck you."

I said, "Maybe there's a better way to do this than bringing in the cops right now."

Frank looked at me a little more and the gun lowered. "What do you want?"

"The kid doesn't want to go home and I won't know what I should do about that until I talk with her. Maybe there's a way to get her back home that will make things right for her."

Frank said, "Okay."

I looked at Asano. "Either way, the book has to go back. Maybe if the book goes back, nobody has to take a fall. Maybe, if things work out and certain people keep their mouths shut, the cops can be smoothed out."

Frank said, "That sounds good."

Asano went to the wall with all the photographs. There were pictures of Asano speaking to crowds and Asano with his Gray Army recruits and Asano riding in an open convertible in a parade. They weren't recent pictures.

Frank said, "If no one takes a fall, the Gray Army stays in business."

"Yeah."

"Everything stays like it is."

"Maybe so."

Asano blinked the way Traci Louise Fishman had blinked, but he wasn't wearing contacts. He said, "Mimi has indeed been very distraught. Almost certainly due to the state of her home life."

"Uh-huh."

"If there were some way to ease those tensions. If there were some way we could bring the child and parents together."

"My thinking exactly," I said.

Kira Asano let his eyelids flag closed, and then he raised a finger. "Get Mimi, would you, Frank? If Mr. Cole can help the child in any way, we should encourage it."

Frank nodded and left. Asano watched him go, then drew himself up and turned to stare at his photographs, his only army an army of memories.

His shoulders were wide and his arms were muscular and his legs powerful. His neck was taut and corded. Long ago, when his dreams were alive, he had probably been something to see.

Chapter 26

When Frank came back with Mimi, I took her out the back and down along the terraced walks and past the rows of little potted fruit trees with their fruit rotting on the ground. Frank and Bobby walked behind us, the Ruger still dangling down alongside Frank's leg.

At the tennis court, I opened the gate and said, "Let's go out here."

Mimi and I went to a table and some chairs they had near the outer edge of the court. Bobby started out on the court after us, but Frank pulled him back to wait at the gate.

The court had been cantilevered out over the slope, which fell away sharply and bowled down into a deep ravine. On the fall-away side, the chain link fence hadn't been woven with green fabric so you could enjoy the view while you played. Standing there was like being at the edge of a cliff.

I said, "You want to sit?"

Mimi went to the table and sat.

I said, "You don't have to sit if you don't want to."

Mimi stood.

"You staying here full time?"

"Uh-huh."

"Anyone forcing you to do something you don't want to do?"

"Uh-uh."

"Could you leave now?"

"I don't want to."

"If you wanted to."

"Uh-huh." Mimi was staring down at the court. Little scout ants were searching along the white court lines as if they were great white bug highways. Maybe she was watching the ants.

I leaned against the fence and crossed my arms and stared at her. After a while she looked over and said, "Why are you staring at me?"

"Because I am the Lord High Keeper of the Knowledge of Right and Wrong, and I am trying to figure out what to do."

She blinked at me.

"Jiminy Cricket," I said. "He was also Counselor in Moments of Temptation, and Guide Along the Straight and Narrow Path. You need that."

Mimi shook her head. "You can't make me go back."

So much for Jiminy Cricket.

"Yeah, I could. I could shoot Frank and Bobby and throw you over my shoulder and bring you home." The skin around her eyes looked soft and nervous. "But I couldn't make you stay. You don't want to be there and you'd leave again as soon as you could. Besides that, I don't think your going home is necessarily the best thing."

She looked at me with Traci Louise Fishman out-from-under eyes. Suspicious. She said, "You don't bring me home, my dad is gonna fire you."

"He already did."

"He fired you?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Because I was supposed to provide security for his family and it didn't stop his daughter from being kidnapped."

Mimi giggled that sort of nervous, red-nosed giggle, like maybe she was giggling at something else, not what you thought she was giggling at. She took a crumpled pack of Salem Lights out of her pocket and lit one with a blue Bic lighter. She took a quick, nervous puff. I said, "Was Asano part of that?"

She shook her head.

"You get Eddie to help you?"

She cocked her head. "How do you know about Eddie?"

"The Blue Fairy told me."

"You're strange."

"You know what the yakuza is?"

Shrug. "I don't care."

"Eddie's in the yakuza. He's a professional thug. You like him and you think he likes you, but all Eddie wants is the Hagakure."

She took a nervous drag on the Salem, then pushed it out through the fence and let it drop down the slope. Mid-summer with the brush dry, the whole ridge could burn off.

I said, "I'm trying to figure out what to do, kid, and you're not helping me. You have supposedly been kidnapped, and the cops and the FBI are involved.

They are looking for you and they are looking for the book. They are going to find you, and when they do they are going to take you home. They won't stand around and wonder what's best."

She crossed her arms and chewed at her upper lip. The lip was chapped and split and had been chewed a lot. "I won't go back."

I said, "Your parents are assholes, and that's rough, but it's not the end of the world. You can survive them, and you don't need guys like Eddie Tang or Kira Asano to do it. You can work past them to be the person you want to be. A lot of kids do."

For just a moment the nervousness seemed to pass and Mimi grew still. She looked at me as if I were a silly, offensive man and then she rubbed at her face with her hands. She said, "You don't know anything."

"Maybe not. If you don't want to go home, there are other places."

"I like it here."

"Here sucks. You're going to have to talk to the cops and let them know what's going on and deal with them. They don't like it when people steal valuable things and pretend to be kidnapped and cost the taxpayers a lot of time and money."

She recrossed her arms so that her right hand was beneath her left arm. The right fingers began to pinch her left side. Hard, nervous pinches. "You don't understand," she said slowly. "I will kill myself first."

Great. High drama in Teen Town. "You've been found. Sooner or later you are going to have to talk to your parents."