Sometimes you just have to shake your head. 'And that was it? You've got the job?'

Lucy smiled. 'We agreed to agree. Stuart promised to phone David Shapiro and wrap up the negotiation as quickly as possible.'

Tracy leaned toward me. 'She has the goddamned job.'

I said, 'What about Richard?'

Lucy's game face reappeared. 'I've phoned his office. I've also phoned his boss.'

Tracy said, 'I think she should sue the sonofabitch.'

Lucy's mouth formed a hard knot. Thinking of Ben, maybe. Thinking how far do you take a war like this when some of the fallout might rain on your child. She said, 'Yes. Well. We'll see.' Then she seemed to force the thoughts away, and took my hand again. 'I want to thank you.'

'I didn't do anything.'

'Of course you did. You supported my need to fight this without you.' She smiled and jiggled my hand. 'I know you. I know it couldn't have been easy.'

I shrugged. 'No big deal. You said I could shoot him later.'

'Well, yes. I guess I did.'

Lucy glanced at Tracy, and Tracy smiled. Voiceless female communication. Tracy kissed my cheek, and handed me the bottle of Brut. There wasn't much left. 'You take care of yourself, doll.' And then she walked away.

I said, 'Did you just send her away?'

'I did.'

'Good.'

Lucy and I sat in Tracy 's living room, holding hands. It was late, and getting later, but I did not want to leave. Lucy said, 'I do wish I could stay, Elvis.'

'I know.'

She looked at me carefully, and then she touched my face. The bruise from Seattle had faded. 'I'll be out soon to find a place to live. As soon as Ben finishes school, we'll move.'

I nodded.

'You damn well better still be here.'

I nodded again.

'Please be careful tomorrow.'

'Careful is my middle name.'

'No, it isn't. But it should be.'

'I'll be here when you move out, Lucille. You have my word.'

She kissed my hand, and we sat like that, and not very long after, I drove back to Studio City.

CHAPTER 30

I let myself back into the safe house a few minutes after one that morning to find Mon hiding behind the door with his pistol. Mon shrugged when I looked at him, and said, 'Can't be too careful.'

Walter Junior was stretched out on the floor, sleeping. Dak and Walter Senior were at the dining room table, playing cards. Clark was sitting with them. 'Money come yet?'

Dak was concentrating on his cards. 'Soon.'

'Where's Pike?'

Mon said, 'He left, but he did not say anything.' His eyes narrowed. 'I no like that.'

'He never says anything. Forget it.'

Clark 's skin seemed greasy, and if you looked close enough, you could see that his hands were trembling. ' Clark?'

Clark shook his head.

'How're the kids?'

'Sleeping.'

I joined them at the table and waited. No one spoke. The waiting is often the worst.

At twenty minutes after two that morning, someone knocked softly at the door and handed Dak an overnight bag containing twenty thousand dollars in nice neat hundreds. Real hundreds, printed by the U.S. Treasury on paper milled at the Crane Paper Mill in Dalton, Massachusetts. Dak probably kept them under his mattress.

Clark pronounced them too clean; put the bills in a large Ziploc plastic bag with a half pound of ground coffee and one pound of dried kidney beans, and put the bag into the dryer. It wouldn't hurt the money, Clark said, but it would uniformly color the money as if it had been falsely aged.

Joe Pike returned at just after four. He gave Clark a small brown vial of prescription pills, and murmured something to Clark before moving to a dark corner of the living room. Clark looked at the vial, then stared at Pike for a long time before he went into the bathroom. A little while later he appeared to be feeling much better.

None of us formally went to bed; instead, we perched on the couch or in the big chair or on the floor, and drifted in and out of nervous uncertain catnaps, waiting for the dawn.

Sometime very early that morning, Teri came downstairs and moved between the napping men and cuddled against her father.

I phoned Dobcek at nine the next morning, exactly as I said I would. He said, 'We meet you on the Venice boardwalk in exactly one hour.'

'Let me speak with the boy.'

He put Charles on the line, and I told him that everything would be fine. I told him to stay calm, and to trust that Joe and I would bring him home. Dobcek came back on the line before I was finished. 'You know the bookstore they have there?'

'Yeah.' Small World Books.

'Wait on the grass across from that. We come to you.' Then he hung up.

I looked at Clark. 'You up to this?'

'Of course. Charles is my son.'

'Then let's go.'

Dak agreed to stay with Teri and Winona while Joe and Clark and I went to the meet. We used Joe's Jeep, with Joe driving. Two long cases were on the rear floor that hadn't been there yesterday. Guess he'd gotten them last night.

We used the freeways to get to Santa Monica, then turned south along Ocean Boulevard, riding in silence until we came to Venice. Pike turned onto a side street and stopped. He said, 'What's the deal?'

'They want Clark and me across from the bookstore on the grass. They'll come to us. They're supposed to have the boy, but I wouldn't bet on it.'

Clark leaned forward. He was holding the overnight bag on his lap like a school lunch. 'Why won't they have Charles?'

'They'll say that the boy is in a car nearby, and maybe he will be, but probably he won't. They're not coming here to trade, Clark. They're coming here to kill us. Keep that in mind.'

'Oh.'

'They'll say the boy is somewhere else to get us to go with them to a place they've picked out. It will be a private place, and that's where they'll do the murder. We in the trade call that the kill zone.'

Clark said, 'You say that so easily.'

Pike shrugged. 'It is what it is.'

'But how will we get Charles?'

'We'll show them the money. Your job is to stay calm and convince them that you printed this money and that you can print more. That's very important, Clark. Can you do that?'

Clark nodded. 'Oh, sure.' Oh, sure.

'Markov wants you dead, but if he thinks he can get something from you before he kills you, he might go for it.'

'What if he doesn't?'

Pike said, 'Then we'll kill him.'

When we were two blocks north of the bookstore, Pike turned into an alley, got out, and slipped away without saying a word. He took one of the cases. Clark said, 'Where's he going?'

'He's going to make sure they don't kill us while we're waiting for them.'

'You think they'd do that?'

'Yes, Clark. They would do that.'

I climbed behind the wheel, and at nine forty-two, I left Pike's Jeep illegally parked in a red zone behind the Venice boardwalk. 'Let's go.'

I led Clark along the alley to the boardwalk, and then to the bookstore. It was a bright, hazy day, just on the right side of cool. Street people were already up and walking their endless laps of the boardwalk, and shop merchants were hawking tattoos and sunglasses to tourists come to see what all the excitement was about. Tall palms swayed in the breeze. Joggers and Roller-bladers and male and female bodybuilders with great tans moved through the streams of people with practiced indifference. Clark said, 'Where's Joe?'

'You won't see him, so don't look for him. The Russians will wonder what you're looking for.'

He locked his eyes forward, afraid now to look anyplace other than directly ahead. 'Do you see them?'

'No, but they're probably watching us.'

'Oh.'

The bookstore had just unlocked its doors, and a dark-haired woman with glasses was pulling a wire magazine rack onto the walk. I walked Clark into the store and told him to wait inside with the bag and watch me through the window. I told him not to come out until I waved for him. The dark-haired woman eyed us suspiciously. Probably thought we were shoplifters.