'What do you mean?'

She looked embarrassed. 'When I cried.'

I remembered her eyes filling. I remembered a few tears. Then I remembered her packing it away and shutting it down like a SWAT team cop with twenty years on the job. I said, 'You don't have to apologize for that.'

She shook her head. 'I can't afford to lose control.'

'You're fifteen. It's okay to cry.'

She looked at the floor. 'I'm all they have. If I fall apart, who will take care of Winona and Charles?'

I stared at her. 'What about you? Who do you have?'

She pursed her lips. When she spoke, her voice was soft. 'I don't have anyone.'

I shook my head. 'No, that's not true. You have me.'

She frowned at me, then cocked her head. 'Oh, sure.' She stalked out of the kitchen and went up the stairs.

I said, 'Huh?'

I stayed in the kitchen, opened a Falstaff, and stared at the oven. The living room was rocked by alien explosions and Winona laughed. It seemed safer in the kitchen.

Charles edged into the dining room, fidgeting like something was bothering him. I said, 'What?'

'Nothing.'

I had more of the Falstaff. I glanced at my watch and wondered when Pike would get back. This baby-sitting was damned tough work.

Charles sidled into the door. 'I didn't mean it.'

'You didn't mean what?'

His hands were in his pockets and his face was red. 'I don't want him to be dead.'

I looked at him and sighed. 'I know, Charles. It's okay.'

Charles edged back into the living room. I stayed in the kitchen.

Joe Pike got back forty minutes later, and not long after that the timer dinged. Joe and Winona ate. The rest of us weren't hungry.

When the dishes were cleared I drove back to their house to wait for Clark Hewitt.

CHAPTER 18

The Saturn was still in its place. The Hewitts' house was dark, one of only two sleeping houses on their street.

I cruised the house once, parked around the corner, then walked back. The night air was cool, and traffic sounds from Melrose blended with the voices and laughter of children playing and adults taking an evening stroll.

I waited until two young women walking a dog were beyond me, then sauntered up the drive and let myself in using Teri's key. The lights were off, and I did not turn them on. I wanted to search the house again, but not at the risk of alerting either Clark or a passing car filled with Russians. I took off my jacket and holster, put the Dan Wesson near at hand, and settled in on the couch. After a while I slept, but I woke often at sounds made by the strange house, rising when I did to make sure that those sounds weren't Clark or Russian thugs. They never were, and little by little the dark brightened to dawn. Clark Hewitt did not return.

Fourteen minutes after six the next morning, it was light enough to work. I did a more detailed search now than I had with Teri, stripping Clark 's bed and checking the mattress seams and the box spring liner, taking out every drawer in the dresser and chest to see if anything was taped behind or beneath them. I didn't know what I was looking for, or even think that I would find something, but you never know. When the phone company offices opened at nine I planned on checking the calls that Clark had made while he was home, but until then it was either search or stay on the couch and watch Regis and Kathie Lee. At least this way I could pretend to be a detective.

I went through Clark 's closet, checking the pockets in his shirts and pants and coats, and I looked in his shoes. He didn't have many, so it didn't take long. I went through the bathroom, then once more went through the kitchen, and then the kids' rooms and the living room. At sixteen minutes after eight I was finished, and still hadn't found anything.

I went back into the kitchen, located a jar of Taster's Choice instant, and made a cup with hot water from the tap. At least I found the coffee.

I was sipping the coffee and thinking about phoning Tracy Mannos when I noticed a ceiling hatch in the hall. I hadn't noticed it before because the cord that's supposed to be there so you can pull down the door had been clipped, and also because most houses in Southern California are built without attics because of the heat. If you have anything, you might have a crawl space. I went into the hall and looked up at the door. It had been painted over a few hundred times, but the door seemed free and usable, and, with finger smudges around the edges, looked as if it had been used. Maybe I could detect more than instant coffee after all.

I used one of the dining room chairs, pulled down the door, unfolded the ladder, and climbed far enough to stick my head into the crawl space. Twelve minutes after eight in the morning and it was already a hundred degrees up there.

I went back to the kitchen for a flashlight, took off my shirt, and went up into the crawl space. Maybe ten feet back along one of the rafter wells was a dark, lumpy shape. I boosted myself up, then duckwalked along the prewar two-by-eights to a military surplus duffel bag, as clean and dust-free as if it had just been put there. I opened it enough to look inside and saw banded packs of hundred-dollar bills. I said, 'Aha.'

You hang around an empty house by yourself long enough, you'll say damn near anything.

I dropped the duffel out of the crawl space, opened it on the living room floor, and counted out a little more than twenty-three thousand dollars in worn C-notes that were perfect mates to the bills Special Agent Marsha Fields had confiscated. Markov money. Money that the Hewitts had been living on for the past three years, money good enough to get by with as long as you didn't flash it at a bank or in front of a Secret Service agent. Then I said 'Aha' again.

Mixed with the money were half a dozen printer's catalogs, all of which bore a mailing label addressed to one Wilson Brownell in Seattle, Washington. Clark was definitely printing again, and probably with Brownell's help. Maybe they were partners.

It was two minutes after nine when I put the money back into the duffel, and the duffel back into the attic. I kept the catalogs. I had a pretty good idea who Clark had phoned, and after I stowed the duffel I called my friend at the phone company and had her run a line check on the Hewitts' number covering the past three days just to be sure. It didn't take long. She told me that three calls had been made to two numbers, one of which lasted twenty-six minutes and showed a Seattle area code. Brownell. The other two numbers were both in the Los Angeles calling area, and belonged to Tre Michaels. Charles had called it right on that one.

If I hung around the house long enough, Clark would return. The money was here, and, as far as Clark knew, so were his kids, but considering Clark 's track record I might have to wait for days. Since Clark had phoned Tre Michaels, I was sure he was looking to connect, and that meant either he had been or would be visiting Culver City. Junkies may never go home, but they always go back to their connection. Ergo, Tre Michaels might know something. Maybe they were shooting up together right now.

I washed up, locked the house, and drove south to Culver City and the Bestco. I asked a Pakistani sales-clerk named Rahsheed for Tre, but Rahsheed told me that Tre had the day off. Great. I went along Overland to his apartment, figuring it was a long shot, but as I turned onto his street Michaels passed me going in the opposite direction in a dark blue Acura. Lucky is better than good every time.

I swung around in a fast K-turn, thinking my luck might hold and he might bring me to Clark. He didn't. He turned into the Culver City park and parked next to a rusted-out Dodge van where a couple of younger guys with long, sun-bleached hair were jumping skateboards. The younger guys were well muscled and shirtless, with dark tans and baggy shorts and high-top felony flyers, and they stopped the jumping and opened the van's side door when Tre got out of the Acura. Michaels opened the Acura's trunk, and everybody carried brand-new Sony laser-disc players to the van. Still in their boxes and almost certainly ripped off from Bestco. Tre closed his trunk, and everybody climbed into the van. The van didn't start and didn't move, and its windows were curtained over. Your friendly neighborhood dopemobile.