I parked behind the Saturn, went to the front door, and was just fitting the key into the lock when someone opened the door from the inside. I thought it was Charles, but it wasn't.

Alexei Dobcek stared at me with his bottomless Spetnaz eyes, then pointed a pistol at me. 'We knew one of you assholes would show up sooner or later.'

I guess they had parked the Camaro a couple of streets over.

CHAPTER 28

Dobcek stepped away from the door, and waved me inside. The house was warm and dark and close, and quiet the way empty houses are quiet. I called, 'Charles?'

Dobcek smiled. 'What? You think we'd tie him in the bathroom?' He dangled Winona 's key ring, the one Clark had brought her from Seattle, and the one she had given to Charles. The little troll was matted and ugly, and looked pleased with events.

'The boy better be all right, Dobcek.'

Dobcek smiled, telling me that I could be as tough as I liked, but he still had the boy. Sautin was in the living room, sitting in Clark 's chair, watching the Food Channel without sound. The Too Hot Tamales were goofing with each other, smiling and kidding around in total silence, and Sautin was smiling with them. His eye and the side of his face was swollen and purple where Joe had kicked him. Dobcek said, 'Don't you hate being found out a liar, you telling us you know nothing about these people?'

'Sure. I wake up sweating about it every night.'

The house had been turned inside out. Drawers had been emptied onto the floor and plates smashed and living room furniture upended and slit open. Even the dining room table was upside down, its legs pointing to heaven like some dead beast. I guess they'd been searching when Charles showed up. I wondered if he had tried to fight them. I wondered if they had hurt him, and, if they had, I thought that I might kill them. I said, 'Where's the boy?'

'Somewhere safe.'

'Where?'

Dobcek put his hand under my jacket to get the Dan Wesson, and when he did I caught his gun with my left hand and twisted it up and out at the same time that I drew the Wesson and pointed it at his nose. 'The boy.'

Dobcek made the shark smile. 'Dmitri, you should have seen what he did. That was pretty good.'

'Da.' Dmitri Sautin was still watching Susan and Mary Sue.

I thumbed back the hammer.

Dobcek made the shark smile harder. 'And then what happens to the boy?'

I stared at him past the gun. Sautin said, 'Da, the boy,' but still didn't move.

Dobcek said, 'What we have here is what you call a Mexican standoff.'

'I've got Clark, and you've got Clark 's boy.'

'Da. Put away the gun and let's deal with this.'

I breathed deeply, and then I stepped back and lowered the gun. He held out his hand, and I gave back his gun. A nice new Sig P226. Nine millimeter. Easy to shoot. Since Pike and I had taken his other gun, I wondered where he'd gotten this one. 'I reach into my pocket, okay?'

'Sure.'

He took out a hotel card from the Sheraton-Universal. 'We're staying here. The boy isn't, but we are.' The boy was probably with Markov. 'You ask Clark if he wants to see his boy again, then you give me a call and we talk about it.'

'The boy for Clark.'

'That's right.' He said something in Russian to Sautin, and Sautin came around the chair. The swelling was nasty, and I hoped it hurt.

Dobcek winked at me, and then they left.

I stood in the house without moving for maybe five minutes, watching the Too Hot Tamales, and thinking. The Hot Tamales were making something with ancho chiles and tequila, and laughing a lot. They looked like they were having fun, and I wished I was with them and laughing, too, but I wasn't. I was in a devastated house that had just been vacated by a couple of Russian hit men who were holding a little boy, and I was trying not to let panic overwhelm me. Panic kills. I felt like a juggler with too many balls in the air and more being added. Okay, Cole, take a breath. I said, 'Good-bye, ladies,' and turned off the Tamales.

The house had been turned upside down because Dobcek and Sautin were looking for a clue to find Clark. Then Charles had walked in, and Charles was better than a clue. He was a don't-pass-go E-ticket straight to the big money payoff.

I went into the hall and looked at the attic door and saw that it was undisturbed. I pulled down the door, and went up for the duffel. It was where I had left it, and I thought that maybe I could use it. I wasn't sure how yet, but maybe. I dropped it out of the attic, closed the hatch, then locked the house and drove back to Studio City. I drove slowly, and thought about Markov, and what he wanted, and Clark, and what he wanted, and little by little the bits and pieces of a plan emerged.

When I let myself into the safe house, Joe and Clark and Teri were at the dining room table, and the Viets were still clumped together in the living room. Winona and Walter Junior were watching Animaniacs on television. Everyone in the room looked at me, and Teri and Clark spoke at the same time. 'Did you find him?'

'Dobcek and Sautin were at the house. They have Charles.'

Clark drifted one step to the side, then caught himself on the back of a chair. Teri squinted. 'Who are Dobcek and Sautin?'

Pike said, 'They work for the man who wants your father.'

'What's that?' She was staring at the duffel.

I didn't answer. I looked at Clark instead. 'Charles is okay, but we need to talk about this.' Clark was staring at the duffel, too.

Teri said, 'That's what this is all about, isn't it? That's his counterfeit money.' Her voice getting strained.

Clark said, 'Teri, please take Winona upstairs.'

Teri didn't move.

'Teri, please.'

'Don't treat me like a child!' It was a sudden, abrupt shriek that caught Clark by surprise. 'I'm the one who takes care of him. I'm more his mother than you're his father! Why don't you take Winona upstairs?' She was shouting, and Winona was crying, and Clark was looking like he must've looked the day he found out he had cancer, as if a truth that he'd believed in with all his heart had now been proved a lie.

Dak turned away. Embarrassed.

I said, 'Teri.' Soft. 'Teri, it's not your fault.'

Teri came around the table and hugged me, mumbling something that I could not understand. I think she was saying, 'I will not cry. I will not cry.'

I stroked her hair, and held her, and after a time she took Winona and went upstairs.

Clark stared at the floor.

' Clark.'

He looked up at me. 'Yes?'

I told them what Dobcek had said. The father for the boy. While I was saying it, Clark ran one hand over the other in a kind of endless wringing motion, and when I was done, he said, 'Well, I guess we have to call them.'

Pike said, 'They want you dead.'

'They have Charles.' Clark 's face was tinged a kind of ochre green. 'I can't let them hurt Charles.'

Mon said something to Dak in Vietnamese. Probably seeing their revolutionary dream crumble.

I said, 'We don't want them to hurt Charles, but trading you isn't the answer. They won't let Charles go if they have you. They'll kill you both because that's the only way they can protect themselves.'

Clark shook his head. 'What do you mean, protect themselves?'

'Think about it, Clark. They want to kill you. If they do that, and anyone is left alive, what's to keep Charles or me or someone from going to the police?'

Clark pinched his lips together. 'But what do we do?'

Mon mumbled something again, and Nguyen Dak said, 'We make them want to keep you alive.'

I looked at Dak, and Dak seemed dark and enclosed and dangerous. I thought he must have looked this way many years ago. War is war.

Pike said, 'Yes.'