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 Melrose. 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 changed 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.