Indigo Slam: An Elvis Cole Novel (11 page)

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 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 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.

We went along the hall to their rooms. Both doors were closed. I rapped at each door. “Charles. Winona. You guys come here.”

Winona’s door quietly opened, and she stepped into the hall. Charles’s voice came muffled from behind his. “Eff you!” He’d been listening, all right.

Teri said, “Charles, we’re going away for a few days. We have to pack.”

“Eff!”

I smiled at Winona. “Hi, honey.” Mr. Friendly. Mr. Don’t-Be-Scared-of-the-Man-Who’s-Going-to-Take-You-Away.

“Hi.” She smiled back, but it was uncertain. It was the first time I had seen Winona as anything but bubbling. I guess if my dad had blown in and out without warning I would’ve been uncertain, too. The little troll key chain was clipped to her belt loop. Guess if you couldn’t have Daddy, you might as well have the troll. Maybe, sometimes, the two were one and the same.

I said, “Teri, why don’t you help Winona with her things. I’ll talk to Charles.”

Charles yelled, “I ain’t goin’!”

Teri said, “C’mon, Winona. You help me pack and I’ll help you.”

They went into their room, and I tapped at Charles’s door. “C’mon, bud.”

“Eff!”

I tapped again, then opened the door, and when I did he ran over and pushed against it as hard as he could, shouting, “Eff you! Stay out of here! Eff!” He was redfaced and crying, and I felt like a turd.

I forced the door, Charles on the other side, crying louder and pushing hard, sobbing from the mucus in his throat, thin chest heaving, shouting “You get outta here!” until I had the door open, and then he ran at me, butting headfirst into me, punching and spitting and screaming for me to get out and I pulled him close and held him, and after a while all the yelling and crying subsided into a sobbing hack. It was a barren room, holding only a single frame bed and a chest, with none of the posters and toys and things you’d expect to see in the room of a twelve-year-old boy. Maybe Charles didn’t think he’d live here long enough to bother. I said, “It’s okay, kid.”

“I hope he never comes back!”

I held him.

“I wish he was dead!”

I held him tighter.

Teri said, “Charles?” She was standing in the door.

I said, “We’re okay, Teri.”

Charles and I stood for a very long time, and when the sobbing subsided I tried to let go, but by then Charles was holding on to me, arms locked tight around my ribs, face buried in my chest. I could feel the wet soaking through my shirt. “It’s okay, kid.” I said it five or six times. Maybe I said it more.

I let Charles hang on to me for another couple of minutes, and then I told him to pack enough for two nights. I told him that we were going to my place, and that when they were safe I would find his father. Charles turned away without looking at me, wiped his nose on the back of his hand, and packed. He said, “Eff’m.”

Maybe I would kill Clark if the Russians didn’t.

I phoned Joe Pike while they packed. “Clark’s gone,” I said. “Again.”

Pike didn’t say anything for a moment. “You’re going to move the kids.”

“That’s right. I’m going to take them to my place, but I don’t want to keep them there overnight. Sautin and Dobcek could show up anytime.”

“Okay.”

“Think you could come up with a safe house?” Pike knew people, and he’d come up with safe places to stay before. Once an abandoned mansion in Bel Air, once an Airstream trailer in the high desert near Edwards Air Force Base. You never knew. Maybe he owned these places and just didn’t bother to tell me.

“Let me make some calls. I’ll meet you at your place later.”

By the time I was off the phone, Teri and Winona and Charles were ready to go. Guess they didn’t have much to pack, or maybe it was because they’d had so much practice.

We locked their house, put their bags behind the seats, and the four of us made the drive up Laurel Canyon, the three of them bunched together in the passenger seat. Teri had offered to drive their car, but I said no. I wasn’t worried that she’d have an accident; I was more concerned that when we got wherever we were going she would simply drive away. Charles said, “I’m all squished up.”

Teri said, “Live with it.”

I took it slow because no one was wearing a seat belt. Elvis Cole, the not-quite-responsible parent, looking over his shoulder for a load of Russian hit men.

Teri and Charles were quiet, but after a while Winona began to chatter about how much she liked riding in the convertible. The top was down and the wind blew through our hair, and Winona said that it made her feel like she was in a parade. Charles neither glowered nor flipped off anyone, and Teri seemed lost in herself. I guess everyone had their own way of dealing with what was going on.

Pretty soon we left the city behind and wound through the trees, and a little bit after that we turned into the carport. Winona said, “Is this your house?”

“Yes.”

“It looks like a tepee.”

“It’s called an A-frame. It’s tall and steep and shaped like the letter.”

Charles slunk out of the car and peered at the trees and natural hillsides. “Are there bears?”

“No bears. Just a few coyotes and rattlesnakes.”

He glanced at the ground, then made a sour face. “What’s that smell?”

Winona giggled. “Charles cut the cheese.”

Teri said, “Don’t be rude.”

“It’s the eucalyptus trees.” I pointed them out to him. “The sun splits their bark, and their sap smells like mouthwash.”

They followed me inside through the kitchen to the living room. I told them to put their bags on the stairs, and I opened the drapes and the big glass doors to let the breeze in from the deck, then checked my answering machine. Lucy had left a message, asking me to call. Teri said, “Is that Ms. Chenier?”

“Yep.”

“Aren’t you going to call her?”

“As soon as we get squared away. You guys can go out on the deck if you want, but nobody climb on the rail. You can play on the slope, just watch out for the snakes.” Summer camp at the Cole residence. They stood in the door and looked at the deck and the slope, but nobody went outside. The snakes.

“There’s soft drinks and milk and water in the fridge. You can help yourself. After we get settled, I’ll make dinner.”

Teri said, “You don’t have to cook for us.” She hadn’t come to the deck. She was standing in the living room by the stairs with her arms crossed.

“Of course I do. But you can help if you like. Is meatloaf okay?”

The three of them shrugged at one another, and Teri said, “That would be nice. Thank you.”

Charles eyed the loft. “What’s up there?”

“That’s my loft. Come on. I’ll show you.”

I showed them the downstairs bathroom, then took them up. Charles and Winona wandered through the loft, but Teri went to the rail and looked down into the house. From the rail you can see the living room and the dining area and through the glass out to the canyon. She looked at the big glass triangle of my back wall, then up at the high pointed ceiling. She looked at my bed, and the built-in dresser, and then down at the living room again. “Do you live here alone?”

“Yes. Except for my cat.”

She let her touch drift along the rail, and then she looked around the room again. “It’s nice.”

“Thank you.” I thought of my house as ordinary, but I realized then that it was probably a different world to her. Life for them had been a series of temporary furnished rentals, other people’s homes and other people’s furniture, just a place to stay until their father decided it was time to leave, no more permanent than a daily newspaper.

I showed them the upstairs bath, and then we went downstairs. When we got down again, Joe Pike was standing silently in the entry. Just standing there.

Charles yelped in surprise and shouted, “Jeezis, you scared me!”

Pike said, “Yes.”

Charles scrambled outside and peered in from the deck. Guess Joe scared him more than the snakes.

I said, “I’ll make dinner in a minute, but first we have to talk. Charles, come back inside.”

Charles crept back inside and the three of them stared at me, Charles snapping nervous glances toward Joe.

“I’m going to look for your father tomorrow, so I need clues. Did he say anything to anyone while he was home?”

They looked at one another, and shook their heads. Teri said, “Not like you mean.”

“Nothing that might indicate where he was going?”

Winona said, “He said we were going to move away soon. He said we could have a really big TV.” Great.

Teri said, “He made some phone calls.”

“Anyone listen in?”

They shook their heads some more, but Charles wasn’t particularly convincing.

“Charles?”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“No. But you might’ve heard something.”

Charles squirmed, then shrugged. “He said something about going to see someone.”

“You hear a name?”

“Ray.”

“He said the name ‘Ray’?”

Shrug.

Pike said, “How about ‘Tre’?”

Charles scrunched his face, but this time he didn’t shrug. “Yeah, maybe that was it.”

Pike shook his head and went out onto the deck.

I showed them my videotapes and told them to pick one. Winona picked
Independence Day
. I got them going with that, put two pounds of ground turkey in the microwave to thaw, and was just getting ready to join Pike on the deck when Lucy Chenier called again. I said, “I was about to call you. Did you close the deal?”

There was a great silence from the other end of the line. “I’m not sure there’s a job offer to be closed.”

I stood in the kitchen with the phone in my hand. Winona and Charles watched great elliptical spaceships enter the atmosphere, but Teri watched me. I said, “What do you mean, no job offer?” Pike looked in from the deck, curious as to what was keeping me.

“God, I’ve really needed to talk to you, Elvis.” Her voice sounded hollow and empty.

I held the phone tighter. “Lucy?”

“When David got back to them, they reduced the term of the contract. They changed every one of the deal points, and said they were reconsidering the amount of my salary.” I could hear the hurt in her voice. “I just don’t understand it.”

“Maybe it’s just a negotiating tactic.”

“David doesn’t think so. He’s done this a hundred times, and he says it’s as if they’ve changed their minds about hiring me.”

I leaned against the counter and frowned. “Maybe you should call Tracy Mannos.”

“I did. She hasn’t returned my call.”

I frowned harder. I thought about Richard in my office, telling me that he wouldn’t just let Lucy leave. I thought about it some more and shook my head.

“Richard came to see me.”

Silence.

“He hired a man named Epps to follow us when you were here.” I told her about Epps having searched my house, and about Richard coming to my office.
You don’t think I’m going to let her leave, do you?

She cleared her throat. “My ex-husband, Richard. Ben’s father.” She cleared her throat again. “He came to see you?”

“Yesterday.”

“And you didn’t call me.” It wasn’t a question. More a statement, more just wanting to make sure she had the facts of her life straight. “You didn’t think that was worth calling me about.”

I sighed. “Mistake, huh?”

Silence again. Pike and Teri were watching me until Pike shook his head and turned away. Sometimes you can’t win.

“I thought about calling you, but it seemed small. It seemed like something between Richard and me, and I didn’t want to bring you into it.”

“A boy thing.”
How do you spell “moron”?

“He’s upset because you and Ben are moving away, and he stepped over the line with Epps and this other stuff, but it’s a stretch to think he could have anything to do with KROK.”

“You don’t know, Elvis. This is exactly the kind of thing he would do.” I could hear her breathing. I had never asked about her former marriage, or what led to her divorce, and I didn’t want to go there now. She said, “I think I should come out there.”

“Talk to Tracy first. You don’t want to come out until you know what you’re up against because if you’re wrong, it will look bad for you.”

She didn’t say anything for several seconds, and then she said, “Elvis, I’m really sorry about this.”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

“Richard.”

She hung up without another word. I stood in my kitchen, holding the phone and listening to the dial tone, and then I hung up and joined Pike on the deck. The end of the day was approaching, and the sky to the east was hazy with smoke the color of bone. Somewhere, something was burning. Pike said, “What?”

I told him.

Pike listened without comment, then said, “Figured we should kill him.” Always with the helpful comment.

“I just don’t see it, but you never know. What could some guy from Louisiana have to do with a television station here in Los Angeles?”

Pike crossed his arms and leaned against the deck rail. His head tilted ever so slightly, like maybe it was beyond him. I could see the TV reflected in his glasses. “First the Russians, now this. You’ve got a lot to think about.”

“Yes, but I am large.”

He nodded. “Keep your head in the game. Think about the wrong thing at the wrong time, it’ll mean your ass.”

“Thanks.”

“Maybe mine, or those kids’.” You see the way he is?

I said, “You get a safe house?”

“Place in Studio City. Three bedrooms, furnished, phones. We can use it as long as we want.” He told me the address.

“Sounds good. I’m thinking maybe I should stay at Clark’s house tonight. If the Russians haven’t gotten him, Clark might go back there. He might be there now.”

Pike’s mouth twitched. “Sure.”

“Well, miracles happen.”

Pike told me he needed to buy supplies for the safe house and that he would be back later. I went into the kitchen to start dinner. I had half a head of iceberg lettuce and a fresh bag of spring greens and a couple of tomatoes that would do for a salad, and maybe half a dozen new potatoes that I could roast with the turkey loaf. I was gathering things together when Teri came into the kitchen and said, “Can I help?”

“Sure.”

I told her what I planned, then showed her the cutting boards and knives, and gave her a small Maui onion and two carrots to dice. She said, “What are you going to do with the carrots?”

“For the turkey loaf.”

She looked at me.

“We’ll toss in raisins, too, along with a little soy sauce and maybe some peas. You’ll see.”

“Winona doesn’t like peas.”

“Okay, ix-nay the peas.”

She started with the onion. I worked with the potatoes. Teri used the knife carefully and well, and cut the onion into uniform pieces while Charles and Winona watched the destruction of the Earth. Twice I glanced up at her, and twice I caught her looking at me. Both times I smiled, and both times she looked away. After the second time, she said, “How can Lucy be your girlfriend if she lives in Louisiana?”

“We didn’t plan it that way, it just kind of happened.” I guess she’d been listening to my conversation.

“Do you date other girls?”

“No. I did for a while, but I kept thinking about Lucy, so I stopped seeing other people.”

“Does she date other men?”

“No.”

“How do you know?”

I frowned at her. “She’s been offered a job out here and she may move out—if she can work out the terms of the job.” If the job is still hers to be had.

Chopping. “What if she can’t move here?”

I chopped harder. “We’ll deal with it.” This kid was worse than Joe Pike.

When Teri was finished with the carrots I had her add them to the turkey, and then we mixed in the raisins and the soy sauce and a couple of eggs. I let Teri shape the loaf while I dug out a roasting pan. We put the meat in the pan and surrounded it with the potatoes. The fresh potatoes didn’t look like enough, so I added a can of whole peeled new potatoes, and sprinkled everything with paprika. We put it in the oven at four hundred and set the timer for an hour. Teri said, “I’m sorry about what happened at our house.”

“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.