Ed McBain - Puss in Boots

“Yeah. She was gonna finish the movie Jake was in.”

“ Puss in Boots ?”

“What’s that?”

“That’s the name of the movie we were shooting. Did Jake say she was going to finish Puss in Boots ?”

“He didn’t tell me the name of the movie. He said it was the movie he’d starred in, and she needed a place and the bread to finish it.”

Tick looked at Mose and then turned back to Amber.

“Jake didn’t have the movie with him, did he?” he asked. “He wasn’t carrying reels of film, was he? Or sound tape? Anything like that?”

“No, no.”

Then it’s still here in Calusa, Tick thought.

“While you were down there,” he said, “did you hear she’d been killed?”

“No, I only found out about that when I got back.”

“Do you think Jake knows?”

“I doubt it. You ever been to Mexico? It takes a hundred years to make a call back to the States.”

“Did he try calling her back here in the States?”

“No, ’cause he didn’t yet find what he was looking for. He was still looking when he showed me the door. I had to turn four tricks to get airfare back.” She smiled radiantly. “He can be a pain in the ass sometimes, Jake.”

“So what was the plan?” Tick asked.

“The plan?”

“I mean, once Jake got the money and a place where she could work... ”

“She was gonna join him down there.”

“When?”

“Soon as he scored.”

“How much money was he looking for?”

“Who knows? However much it takes to finish a movie.”

“Does he plan to come back here?” Tick asked.

“No, I think he’s gonna ship the car back to these people he works for, and then stay down there. They were gonna go in business together.”

“Who? Jake and the people he works for?”

“No. Jake and the lady got killed. They were gonna make movies down there. Least, that’s what he told me. He’s full of shit sometimes, Jake.”

“He was starting a business with Prue?”

“And her husband,” Amber said.

Joanna Hope came running into the baggage area, long blonde hair trailing, blue eyes flashing, arms spread wide. “Mom! Dad!” she shouted, and rushed to where Susan and Matthew were standing, waiting for her, and threw her arms first around Susan, and then broke away from her and embraced Matthew, and then hugged and kissed Susan again, and then said, “Wow, it’s great to see you guys, you both look terrific, what a lousy flight it was, the lady sitting next to me spilled Coke all over my blouse, does Coke stain, Mom?”

She looked marvelous.

Fourteen years old, she seemed to have added two inches to her height since she’d left in September. Blue jeans and a white shirt with an amoeba-like blot over the pocket, leather fleece-lined jacket like World War II fighter pilots used to wear — “I’d better take this off before I die from the heat” — brown leather tote bag slung over her shoulder, brown boots. She looked seventeen. She looked like a young lady. Matthew had forgotten how beautiful she was. He hugged her again.

“You look gorgeous, honey,” he said.

“Oh, sure, sweet talker,” she said, “I’ve got a zit right on the end of my nose.”

“You’ve lost weight,” Susan said.

“Soccer,” she said, and flexed her muscles like Wonder Woman. “Also I’ve been eating that crappy food up there, can we go someplace good for dinner tonight? There’s one of them, Dad,” she said, “wow, that was fast ! I’m dying to take a swim, is the pool warm enough? God, what a gorgeous day, it’s been snowing for the past week up there, no, the blue one, Dad.”

He yanked the bag off the luggage belt and set it down on the floor. Susan immediately pulled it back and away from the crowd of people craning and jostling. Just like old times, he thought. A team. Hope to Hope.

“The other one’s a duffel, Dad,” Joanna said, “it’s full of dirty laundry.”

“When are you due back?” Susan asked.

“Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry?” Joanna said, and laughed. “Not till the fifth, ain’t that great? God, I was freezing to death all last week, do you think I can buy an electric blanket to take back up with me? There it is, Dad, the one with all the bulges and the Simms sticker. Could we go for steak tonight? At the Innside Out? I’ve been dying for a good, thick steak. Tommy said the first thing he was going to eat when he got home was a whole roast pig, he loves pork. That’s Tommy I told you about, Thomas Darrow,” she said, and rolled her eyes, “he lives in North Carolina, let me carry the duffel, Dad—”

“No, no—”

“Lotsa muscles, no brains,” she said, and hefted the bag onto her shoulder, and began walking toward the exit door, long-legged strides, tall and beautiful and rattling on a mile a minute.

“I hope the washing machine’s working, I’ve got tons of stuff to do. Also, Mom, if we get a chance, can we go shopping at the Circle one day, because Tommy asked me to the Glooms, and the only formal I’ve got up there is the one I wore to Daisy’s mother’s wedding when she got married again, do you remember the one? I wore it to the Sugarcane Hop when I was flat-chested, the horrible green thing that used to have the big red flower on it that we took off and you tried to fix the bustline? And I have to do all my Christmas shopping, too, there’s no place at all near Simms where you can buy anything decent even if you could rent snow-shoes to get to town, we had four feet of snow , can you believe it, Tommy built a fort and we had a terrific snowball fight, you guys don’t know what you’re missing down here.”

“Yes, darling,” Susan said, and glanced at Matthew.

He knew they were both thinking the same thing.

How come our darling daughter hasn’t yet mentioned the somewhat startling and amazing fact that we are here together to pick her up?

In the car, Susan’s car, the new Mercedes she’d bought this year, trading in the Mercedes she’d got in the settlement agreement, together with the house and half the state of Florida — it still rankled when he thought of the way Eliot McLaughlin, her mealy-mouthed attorney, had taken him to the cleaners because he was the “guilty” party — Matthew asked, “What’s the Glooms?”

“The Glooms? Oh, the Glooms. It’s a big formal thing Prescott has in February, to dispel the February Glooms, you know? You see, what it is, Simms is an all-girls school in name only, bet you didn’t know that when you shipped me up there, did you, Mom? Actually, the Prescott campus is right next door, and we share classes with the boys from Prescott, and it’s really like we’re one school, the Simms Academy — Prescott School, which is terrific, otherwise I’d never have met Tommy. The Glooms isn’t really the Glooms, either, I mean that’s not what it’s really called, it’s really the Winter Moon Ball, but Tommy nicknamed it the Glooms, and it caught on, and now everybody calls it the Glooms, which flies in the face of tradition because it’s been the Winter Moon Ball since Harriet Beecher Stowe went to school there, which she didn’t, you know, but we’re studying Uncle Tom’s Cabin , which Tommy thinks is a hoot! This is new, Mom, isn’t it, what’d you do with the old one? Have you still got the Ghia, Dad?”

“Yes, I—”

“It smells new, Mom. I love the smell of new leather. Boy, am I glad to be home !”

Matthew suddenly hugged her to him.

“Hi, Daddy,” she said.

Checks made out to Jake Delaney, Techno/Industrial Labs, George Ticknor, Tortini Pizza, Ron Sterling, Federal Express, Mosley Jones Jr., Terrence Blair, Alison Lewis, Repro Sound Systems, Franklin Moving & Storage, Betsy Knowles, Alfred Basilio, Palm Deli, Mark Davidson, Philippa Donnelly, Anvil Studios, Klaven Film Supplies, 7-Eleven, Florida Power & Light, General Telephone, Margaret Diehl, and Prudence Ann Markham herself.