After all, these were our tax dollars at work.

CHAPTER 21

I drove down the backside of Laurel Canyon into Studio City the next morning, going maybe fifteen miles out of my way to avoid detection. If I couldn't slip the Russians and the feds by slick driving, maybe I could wear them out with LA's morning rush-hour traffic.

The condo Pike had found for a safe house sat in the rear of a quiet, two-level garden building just off Coldwater Canyon near the Studio City Park. It was a classic ranch-style building of the kind constructed in the late fifties, all dark-stained wood and used brick, with mature pine trees lining the sidewalk and a parking lot for residents in the rear. Just the kind of place where unsuspecting inhabitants would never dream that the new people in the corner apartment were being stalked by homicidal maniacs from Seattle.

I parked at the curb, gathered the catalogs I'd taken from Clark 's duffel bag, then wandered through the garden courtyard until I found the right door. I rang the bell at ten minutes after nine. Charles's muffled voice came from behind the door as if he'd been waiting there. 'Go away.'

I said, 'Charles.' What a way to start your morning.

The door opened and Pike was there, tall and expressionless. I gave the big grin. 'Well, Joseph, bet you had a fun evening.'

Charles eyed me from the safety of the kitchen. 'It was a joke.'

Pike's head swiveled toward him and Charles ducked out of the kitchen and into the living room. Fun evening, all right.

The entry led past the kitchen to a dining area and the living room beyond, stairs climbing one wall of the living room to open to the second floor. The condo was large and spacious and fully furnished, as if whoever owned the place was away on a short trip. Thriving green plants dotted the room, and the plants were healthy and firm and devoid of yellow. Maybe I should ask whoever owned them for lessons. I nodded at Pike. 'Nice. Better than the Airstream.'

Pike shrugged. Guess it didn't matter to him either way.

Teri and Winona were at the dining room table, and Charles had assumed a position in front of the television. Watching one of those morning exercise shows on ESPN. Kiana Tom doing ab work. Winona said, 'Did you find our daddy yet?' Everyone was dressed and clean and ready to start their day of waiting for the detective to find their father.

'Not yet, hon. But I'm hot on his trail.' Hope is everything.

Teri said, 'Would you like breakfast? Joe and I made cottage cheese pancakes.'

'No, thanks. I ate before I left home.'

She looked disappointed. 'There's fresh coffee.'

I let her pour a cup, sipped some, then nodded. 'Good.'

Teri smiled and seemed pleased.

Joe said, 'We can talk upstairs.'

I followed Pike up with the coffee into one of the three bedrooms. It had been made up as a home office with desk and telephone and fax machine, but there was nothing around to indicate the owner's identity. Maybe Pike owned the place. For all I knew, Pike owned most of Los Angeles. He said, 'What'd you find?'

'Twenty thousand bucks in counterfeit hundreds and these.' I showed him the catalogs. Several pages were dog-eared, and quite a few items had been marked on the dog-eared pages, including two different grades of offset plate blanks from a firm in Finland, a high-end Hitachi digital scanner from a discount mail-order house in New York, a four-thousand-dollar Power Mac from a mail order firm in Los Angeles with a commercial graphics software platform that cost almost as much as the computer, something called a dual-side regulator from a commercial printing firm in London, a high-volume paper shear from the same company, and sixty liters each of indigo #7 and canyon orange #9A oil-based ink, as well as lesser amounts of forest green #2, classic red #42, black, kiss blue #12, and yellow AB1, all of which came from three different ink manufacturers, two in Europe and one in Maryland. Pike said, 'He's printing, all right.'

'Yeah, but what?' Hundred-dollar bills are green and black. 'Why would he need indigo and orange?'

Pike took out his wallet and pulled out a hundred-dollar bill. Walking around money. 'Maybe you have to mix them to get the different shades of black. Maybe he uses them to reproduce the security fibers.'

'Maybe if we just took all this stuff to your pal Marsha Fields she could tell us.'

Pike put his hundred away. 'The new hundreds are too hard to copy. If he's making hundreds, he'll make the older series.'

'If?'

Pike flipped back through the catalogs. 'This is almost forty thousand dollars' worth of material. Wonder where he's getting the money to pay for it.'

I was wondering that, too. He almost certainly wasn't sending counterfeit cash through the mail, and he knew better than to try to buy money orders or certified checks at a bank or at American Express. I said, 'If he ordered this stuff, it had to be delivered. Maybe Clark 's wherever that is.'

Most of the companies had an 800 number for phone orders, so I took a flyer and called the Los Angeles computer wholesaler first. A young woman with a Hispanic accent answered, 'Good morning from Cyber-World! What would you like to order?' Bright and cheery and wanting to help.

'I placed an order a couple of days ago and the machine hasn't arrived.' Just another customer on just another day.

'Why, let me track down that bad boy!' Wanting to make my phone shopping experience a happy one. 'Your name, please.'

'Clark Haines.' I waited a couple of seconds, then said, 'Oh, you know, my secretary placed the order and she might've used our company name, Clark Hewitt. Heh-heh.' Lame, but what can you do?

The young woman said, 'Gee, we're not showing an order to either of those names. Could she have made the order in another name?'

I thanked her and hung up.

I called three more companies, and none of them had or was processing an order for Haines or Hewitt either. When I put down the phone, I said, 'Hell.'

Pike said, 'Maybe he hasn't ordered yet. Maybe he's going to.'

'Maybe.'

I thought about Clark phoning Wilson Brownell, and how they had spoken often, and how Clark was willing to risk the Russians to go see Brownell. I called the electronics wholesaler in New York and told him exactly what I had told the other four companies, only I told him that my name was Wilson Brownell. He came back on the line almost at once and said, 'Oh yes, Mr. Brownell, here it is.'

I gave Pike a thumbs-up.

The order clerk said, 'Mm, your scanner won't go out until tomorrow. Isn't that what you requested?'

'I wanted it today.'

'I'm sorry, sir. Whoever took the order must've made a mistake.'

'Well, as long as you're on the phone let's double-check the destination. I'd hate to think it was going to the wrong place.'

'Yes sir. We show the airbill addressed to Pacific Rim Weekly Journal, hold for airport pickup, on United flight five, direct to LAX.'

I wrote it down. 'And that's tomorrow?'

'Yes sir. It's right here on the form.'

I hung up, then dialed Los Angeles information and asked for the number of the Pacific Rim Weekly Journal. The information operator said, 'I'm sorry, sir. We have no listing in that name.'

'Try the valley.'

'Sorry, sir. Still no listing.'

I thought about Tre Michaels. 'Try Long Beach.'

She said, 'Here we go.' She gave me the address and phone, and I said, 'Touchdown.'

'Pardon me?'

'Nothing, Operator. Thanks.'

I dialed the number, and a woman answered with a heavy Asian accent. 'Journal.'

'May I speak with Clark, please.'

She hung up without another word, and I looked at Pike. 'I think we may be onto something.'