Robert Crais - Indigo Slam

Jasper peered through the peephole, then frowned and stepped away from the door. 'I can't see shit.'

If it was Pike, he would make a move.

If it was Pike, the knocking would have been to focus our attention there while he came in from another place.

I looked at Teri and Charles and Dobcek. Dobcek was breathing hard and staring at the door with the kids in front of him and the muzzle of his gun maybe three centimeters from Charles's head. I stood. 'I'd give up, if I were you. It's the cops.' I said it in a normal speaking voice.

Dobcek pointed his gun at me. 'Shut up.'

Markov waved his gun at Dobcek and hissed, 'Make him shut up.'

Something creaked above us, and Dobcek glanced up the stairs, like maybe he'd heard it but wasn't sure. A drop of sweat worked down from his hairline and along his temple.

I spoke even louder. 'What's that smell, Dobcek? You so scared you messed your pants?'

Dobcek took a single step toward me, but he was still between the kids. I wanted him away from them, and thought maybe I could bait him to me. Of course, he might decide to shoot me instead.

I spoke louder still. 'Why don't you chickenshits just open the door and see who it is?' I took a step toward Markov. 'Christ, you want me to do it?'

Markov hissed angrily at Dobcek, 'Make him be silent, goddamn you.'

Dobcek surged past Charles and Teri, and put his gun to my head. He clamped his hand over my mouth and kept the gun there and smiled horribly. His face was red, and his snow-blond buzz cut stood sharp and spike-like up from his head. 'When this is done I will kill you slow.'

I caught Teri's eye and snapped a glance at the floor. She grabbed Charles and pushed him down.

Everything in the room was focused on the door when Markov wet his lips and told Jasper, 'Open it.'

Jasper threw open the door, but no one was there except Winona 's little troll, hanging over the peephole. It looked angry.

Jasper bunked. 'What the hell?'

A shadow flicked at the top of the stairs and Alexei Dobcek must've caught the move because I felt him tense a tenth of a second before Joe Pike shot him once through the temple and Dobcek collapsed away from me as the pressure wave and burnt powder residue blew past me like a hot rain.

Jasper jerked at the blast, but I was already moving. I put my shoulder into Markov, twisted the gun out of his hand, then shot Jasper three times, knocking him through the open door and out into the breezeway, shooting until he was over and out and gone.

When I turned back to Markov, Joe Pike was on him. Markov was still on the floor, confused and blinking up at us, profoundly surprised at how fast his life had taken a downward turn. I said, 'Close.'

Pike shrugged with an absolute lack of expression. 'Not even.'

That Pike is something.

The Hewitts were fine. I said, ' Clark, why don't you make a citizen's arrest, and we'll call the police.'

Pike said, 'Already called them. They're on the way.'

Charles ran over to Markov and kicked him. 'A-hole!' Pike had to lift Charles away to get him to stop.

The police didn't get there in time.

Little by little the angry wolf hunger drained from Andrei Markov's eyes and he was gone. Bled to death before the police arrived.

Pike went out and brought in Winona. He'd put her in his Jeep after he called the cops.

I put my arms around the Hewitt family, and I told them that it was over, and this time it was.

The courtyard and the sidewalk by the street filled with police and gawkers, and pretty soon a news crew from the local ABC affiliate showed up.

The cops on the scene got pretty tense about finding three bodies, especially when one of the bodies was identified as a U.S. Marshal. I called Marsha Fields, but she was still in Long Beach. I finally reached Emily Thornton, and after she spoke to the lead cop, he was only too happy to accept my version of events. It pays to have friends in high places. When the pizza arrived, Charles ate some and the cops ate the rest. No one else wanted it.

When the lead detective told Clark that he could go, Clark came over and asked if he could speak with me. He looked embarrassed.

I took him aside, and he said, 'What about Dak?'

'Call him tonight and set it up for tomorrow. He'll probably send a limo, he wants the dong so badly.'

He looked at his children. The three of them were standing in a little group under a pine tree by the street. He said, 'Well, I might be down there a couple of days. I don't want to just leave them alone.'

I had to smile when he said it. 'Call me, Clark. They can stay with me.'

Clark looked uncertain, and then he went back to his family and the four of them walked away. Joe drove them home.

I left not long after, stopping at Gelson's for a nice salmon steak and a couple of fresh baking potatoes and a six-pack of Budweiser. I would've preferred Falstaff, but they didn't have it. As in all things, you do what you can.

When I got home I set the coals in my Weber, popped the potatoes in the oven, then took a shower while they cooked. After the shower I called Lucy. It was after eight in Baton Rouge by the time I called, and she answered on the second ring. I said, 'It's done.'

She asked me about it, of course, and I told her, speaking for most of a half hour as I watched the coals redden, their heat visibly rising in the cooling evening air. Stuart Greenberg had been good at his word, and now, one day after her meeting with him, he had finalized her deal with David Shapiro, the deal that would bring her to Los Angeles and, I hoped, make her a part of my daily life.

When the coals were ripe for the salmon, I told her so, and promised to send her Sunday's real estate section. She said, 'I love you, Elvis.'

'I love you, too, Lucy.'

Just talking to her made me smile.

I doused the salmon with soy sauce, placed it on the grill, and then the phone rang. I thought it might be Lucy calling back, or Joe, or Clark to tell me when he needed me for the kids, but it wasn't. A man's voice said, 'You didn't win anything.'

It was Richard Chenier.

He said, 'You think it's over, but it's not.'

Then he hung up.

I took a deep breath, then went back to the grill and turned the salmon. It dries quickly if you don't watch out.

I could have called Lucy, I suppose, but, as before, I did not. Before, it would have felt like tattling; now, to call her would have given him more weight in our lives than either of us wanted him to have.

I drank the Budweiser and ate the salmon, sitting on my deck in the liquid night, listening to the coyotes singing against the stars and the black cutout shapes of the mountain. Late that night I fell asleep there, thinking how very lucky I was that she loved me and no one else.

As Pike said, we could always kill him later.

That same night, Clark Hewitt told his children of his cancer, and of his limited time on this earth. He later told me that Teri and Charles had taken it the hardest, but that Winona had borne up the best. I hurt for Teri, but I was glad to hear that she had not denied her pain. I thought of it as progress.

By Tuesday of the following week, Clark had printed one hundred million dong for Nguyen Dak and his fellow revolutionaries. His fee was $250,000 in U.S. currency. He was paid with hundred-dollar bills, none of which were counterfeit. Clark checked each bill to make sure. I guess he's sensitive to such things.

The federal government requires you to pay taxes on all income, even income derived from illegal activities like counterfeiting, but Clark had no intention of splitting his money with the feds. His children needed it more than the national debt, the welfare state, or the military-industrial complex. I agreed. I called a friend of mine who is a bank manager, and asked for her assistance. Normally, banks are required to report any cash transaction greater than ten thousand dollars, but I had once helped my friend's husband out of a very bad jam, and now my friend was only too happy to return the favor. She set up a trust account for Clark 's children with me as executor, and together we distributed the money in a variety of conservative equity and bond fund vehicles. No report to the government was filed.