Robert Crais - Indigo Slam

'Are these new bills?' I was thinking that if Clark was printing again, this is what he was printing.

'Oh no. I'd say these were eight, ten years old, at least.' She snapped off the light tray, but didn't offer the money back to me. 'Looks like you're out two hundred bucks.'

'That's the way it goes.'

She crossed her arms and nodded. 'You want to tell me where you really picked up this money?'

'I did.'

She smiled again, and stood. 'Sure.'

'You keep the money?'

'That's the way it works. You can file a claim for reimbursement through this office or any bank.'

'Thanks.'

'Tell Joe to call me sometime.'

I went out through security, down to my car, and started back toward my office. So Clark and his kids were living on counterfeit money. That's why they paid for everything in cash. If they tried to deposit their money into a savings or checking account, they'd risk being discovered. The few hundred bucks they had in checking was probably the only real money they had, but Teri probably didn't know that, just as she didn't know that her father was a counterfeiter.

Of course, knowing that they were living on counterfeit money didn't mean Clark was currently printing it or intending to. This stuff was probably the money he'd skimmed from Markov.

I nosed up onto Temple, then left toward the Hollywood Freeway. The downtown traffic combined with Caltrans construction projects was slowing the streets. I had gone three slow blocks and had just squeaked past a red light when about four thousand horns started blowing behind me. I looked in my rearview and saw the reason for all the noise: A nice new metallic tan Camaro had jumped into the oncoming lane to muscle its way through the intersection against the traffic. A blond guy with a buzz cut was driving, and a man who looked like the Incredible Hulk was filling the passenger seat.

Alexei Dobcek and Dmitri Sautin.

For the first time since Richard Chenier had walked into my office, it was easy to stop thinking about him. The Russians had arrived.

It was just before lunch in downtown Los Angeles, and maybe eighty thousand people were jamming the sidewalks and streets around us, flooding through the crosswalks against the DON'T WALK lights. In New York that would get you killed, but in LA where pedestrians have the right of way, cars collect in turn lanes like debris in a drain cover. Dobcek wasn't used to that – people in Seattle obey the crosswalk signs.

They didn't close the gap between us; they just tried to keep me in sight. Probably picked me up at my office. Probably hoping that I'd lead them to Clark.

I drove with the traffic flow, letting Dobcek stay with me, and turned north under the freeway to Sunset Boulevard, then into a strip mall. Mr. Nonchalant. Mr. Taking-Care-of-a-Little-Errand. Dobcek and Sautin pulled to the curb in front of a menudo shop a block behind and tried to look inconspicuous. Hard to do when you weigh three hundred pounds.

I called Joe Pike from a pay phone outside a florist. 'Dobcek and Sautin are sitting in a tan Camaro fifty yards away, watching me.'

'Shoot them.' Life is simple for Pike. Like with the cat.

'I was thinking more along the lines of delaying them. They probably picked me up at my office, and they're probably hoping I'll lead them to Clark.'

Pike grunted. 'Or they're hoping for another chance to beat it out of you.'

'Well, there's that, too.' I told him where I was, and what I wanted.

Pike said, 'Try to stay alive until I get there.'

Always the encouraging word.

I pretended to talk for another five minutes, went into the florist to kill more time, then climbed back into my car and continued north along Sunset, making sure that Dobcek and Sautin made every light with me.

When I reached Elysian Park Avenue I turned toward Dodger Stadium, and wound my way up past small residential homes through the mountains to Chavez Ravine. Traffic thinned, and I thought that Dobcek might break off the tail, but he didn't.

Chavez Ravine is a broad flat bowl surrounded by low mountains that wall the stadium from the city. Dodger Stadium sits in the center of the bowl, surrounded by black tarmac parking lots like some kind of alien spacecraft resting alone on its launching pad. All you'd need was a big shiny robot, and you'd think Michael Rennie had come back to Earth.

An hour before game time on a cool spring evening and there'd be fifty thousand people driving past. Noontime on a day when the Dodgers were out of town, and the place was deserted. An ideal place for a conversation or a murder.

The roads there loop and roll around the base of the ravine, and little signs direct you toward the stadium or Elysian Park or any number of interesting places. I followed the signs past palm tree sentinels toward the ticket booth, and increased my speed enough to pull away from the Russians. Dobcek would want to stay with me, but not enough to get crazy and blow his tail. After all, he'd figure that he could always go back to my office and wait until I returned, but he would follow because for all he knew I was heading toward a safe house where I'd stashed Clark and his kids. I pressed it going up the hill to the turnoff to the ticket booth, but I didn't turn there. I turned off the road into the grass and backed my car behind a stand of scrub oak and brush. We hadn't had rain in weeks and the soil was hard as the pavement.

Forty seconds later the Camaro cruised past through the gate. I saw his brake lights come on, and I pulled back onto the road, and stopped in the gate, blocking their exit. Pike's Jeep was across the road in front of them. Pike was leaning across the Jeep's hood, pointing a twelve-gauge Beretta autoloader at them. I got out, walked up to their car, and smiled at them. 'Baseball. The great American pastime.'

Dobcek's hands were on his steering wheel. He nodded. 'Nicely done.'

'Welcome to LA, boys. Now get out of the car, keeping your hands where we can see them.'

Dobcek got out first. When Dmitri Sautin climbed out, the little Camaro rocked.

I said, 'Guns.'

Pike came around the Jeep, the shotgun still at his shoulder. Dobcek fingered the Glock from under his left arm and held it out. I tossed it into my Corvette. I looked at Dmitri Sautin. 'Now you.'

Sautin shook his head. 'No.'

Dobcek said, 'Dmitri.'

Sautin said, 'I think they have to take it, if they can.' He lowered his hands and grinned at Pike. Dmitri Sautin was four inches taller than Pike, and outweighed him by a hundred pounds.

Pike said, 'It's going to hurt.'

Sautin said, 'Ha.'

Sautin was still grinning when Pike hit him on the side of the head with a hard fast roundhouse kick. Sautin took one step to the side and looked surprised, but he didn't go down. Pike kicked him again, and this time Sautin staggered. His eyes filled and his lower lip quivered and he began crying. Pike said, 'Gun.'

Dmitri Sautin held out the Sig. I took it and tossed it in with the Glock.

Dobcek smiled, and it was ugly and predatory. His eyes sparkled in the bright sun and stayed with Joe Pike.

I patted them down, took their wallets, and then I told them to step away from the car. They did. I went through their car and found the rental papers. They had arrived at LAX that morning. I took the keys from the ignition and found two overnight bags in the trunk. I looked through them but found nothing but clothes and toiletries. I put their bags in the Corvette, too. Dmitri Sautin wiped at his nose, and said, 'But we will not have underwear.'

'A criminal's life is an ugly one.' I looked through their wallets, didn't learn anything new, and tossed the wallets in with the guns. I said, 'Markov's really going to be impressed when you tell him about this.'