"You're moving," Robin said, stepping over to the TV to turn it off.

"Let's get your clothes and your dynamite."

He asked her how come.

On the phone a couple of times she'd mentioned this guy Mankowski, the suspended cop, and Skip didn't like the sound of him. What she told now, about Mankowski knowing he was here, he liked even less, saying to Robin, "I might just go back to L. A. You and Donnell could be cutting me out as it is, once I do the heavy work for you. I've an idea what you want, too. Find out where this Mankowski parks his car and wire it up."

"You'd do it, wouldn't you?" Robin said.

She hooked a leg over the flowery arm of the couch, started fooling with his ponytail, and once again Skip told himself to look out.

"We haven't been able to talk much," Robin said.

Skip knew that. He waited.

"Donnell wants to cut you out."

Skip knew that too. It stood to reason.

"He thinks he's calling the shots, so I play along.

You're going to be proud of me, the way I've worked it out."

Skip let her play with his ponytail.

"I have to call Donnell before we leave," Robin said.

"See if he'll do us a favor."

Skip kept quiet. Let her talk.

"We do need him. At least till Monday morning when the bank opens.

Donnell wants one million even, he likes all those oughts, as he says.

But our take has to be less than his because he's the brains. You believe it? I said fine, we'll go in for seven hundred thousand."

"That's a familiar number," Skip said.

"Our original idea. But if you have no objections let's go for the whole thing."

"Cut Donnell out."

"It wouldn't be hard, the way I see it work."

Skip began to relax, feeling a little better about his one-time old lady.

"Sweetheart, tell me how we get paid."

"Woody gives us a check."

Skip grinned at her.

"You're cuckoo, you know it?"

Robin was shaking her head and stroking her braid at the same time.

"Monday morning, as soon as the bank opens, Woody calls the Trust Department and has a million seven transferred to his commercial account. We see him do it, so we know the check's good."

"We're holding a gun on him, or what?"

Robin shook her head, giving him that faint smile, and Skip closed one eye, looking up at her, trying to see if there was a hole in her idea.

This was kind of fun.

He said, "Well, shit, Woody can stop payment any time right after."

Robin said, "Not if he's dead, he can't."

Skip said, "Uh-huh, and if you don't see giving Donnell his share… I suppose there's a big explosion of some kind and the two of them are found underneath the rubble."

Robin said, "Hey, there's an idea."

Skip looked down the road, thinking about it.

"The cops find out we took a check off him for a million seven… It has to be made out to one of us and we put it in a bank. You don't just cash a million seven. They're gonna find it out."

Why was she grinning at him?

"The check isn't made out to either of us," Robin said.

"It's pay to the order of-you ready? Nicole Robinette."

It took Skip a moment.

"That's you, huh? Your book name."

"Woody doesn't know it yet," Robin said, "but he's buying theatrical rights to all four of my novels, herein referred to as the "Fire Series." Diamond Fire, Emerald Fire-" "Jesus Christ," Skip said.

"Gold Fire and Silver Fire. I'm meeting a lawyer," Robin said, looking at her watch, "guy I used to know. He's coming to his office on Saturday as a special favor. I typed up a Purchase Agreement and Assignment of Rights, pretty much boilerplate, from standard contracts I picked up when I worked in New York. He'll look them over, make sure they're okay."

Skip said, "This guy owe you one?"

"I'm going to pay him," Robin said, "if he asks. Maybe he will, I don't know."

"I bet you make sure he doesn't."

"Anyway, we get Woody's signature on the contracts, so it looks legit, for after. Okay, we deposit his check in Nicole Robinette's account and then-listen to this-I write checks payable to you and me in our own names, and a couple of the names we used when we were underground.

Like good old Scott Wolf will get a check. What do you think?"

"I liked being Scotty Wolf," Skip said, "he was a nice guy. That other one I used-the hell was it? Derrick Powell-when I was living in New Mexico. But, shit, those IDs're old, they've expired."

"For a million seven," Robin said, "I'll bet we can think of ways to get them renewed, or make up new ones.

I'll have to reactivate Diane Young and Betsy Bender."

Skip said, "Man, I remember Betsy Bender, with her 'fro. That motel in L.A. off Sunset. I wouldn't mind bending her again right now." He softened his eyes at Robin, waiting to give her a nice grin.

But she wasn't looking. Robin got up from the arm of the couch sounding like she was thinking out loud, telling him she was going to have to make up contracts between the fake names and Nicole Robinette.

For different services the fake names provided. Otherwise the bank would report the deposit to the IRS and Nicole would owe… Christ, at least five hundred thousand dollars. Or she'd make up invoices or some goddamn thing, from the fake names to Nicole.

Skip watched her turn and head for the phone now, by her mom's canopied bed.

"I almost forgot. I have to call Donnell."

Skip said, "How do you like it?"

Robin dialed before she looked over.

"How do I like what?"

"Being in the straight world."

Mr. Woody, seeming almost of sound mind but wet eyed drunk, hooked onto the word "codicil" from somewhere in his past life, telling Donnell that's what it was, a codicil, like an addendum. You didn't scribble a codicil, it was a legal document and ought to be typewritten.

So they had to look through the cabinets in the library for the typewriter: found a favorite flashlight the man had misplaced; found tapes of monster movies, from when he was on that kick; came across the black athletic bag that had been put there by Mankowski, Mr. Woody wanting to know what was in it and Donnell telling him it was just stuff in there, nothing important. He put the typewriter on the desk and started copying what he'd written yesterday in longhand-about the man leaving him at least two million if and when he ever died-taking forever, looking for each letter as he poked the keys. So the man said to let him type it. He sat down and fussed, abused the typewriter, reading with his wet eyes as he typed, but damn if he didn't get it done. Finished, pulled the sheet out of the typewriter and signed it.

There it was, scrawled right at the bottom in big loops, Woodrow Ricks.

Donnell picked up the sheet of paper and kissed it, the man not looking, stumbling away from the desk, starting to take his clothes off for his afternoon swim.

The phone rang.

Donnell slipped that lovely codicil into a desk drawer, picked up the phone and heard Robin's voice say, "Hi, it's me. How you doing?" He told her he couldn't talk now. But she was in a hurry and said she needed a favor, asking him if he could get somebody to do a job. He told her just a minute and put his hand over the phone.

"Mr. Woody, you take off your clothes at the swimming pool. Go on now. I be right there."

The man shuffled out and Donnell kept his hand on the phone a while longer thinking, Shit, the man could fall in the pool and drown and it would be too soon. The lawyer had to get the codicil first and put it in the will. Then the man could fall in the pool and drown or drink himself to death or hit his head on the toilet…

So he hurried talking to Robin and agreed, okay, to get somebody, yeah, uh-huh, saying he understood when Robin said, "We want to take him out, but not all the way," and let her tell him why it wouldn't be good to have Skip do the job, risk his getting busted. Not at this point, blow the deal. Donnell had questions he didn't ask. He told her he'd see.