“Okay.”
“Twenty-seven and frightened. Fear’ll age you quicker than booze.”
“But not overnight.”
“No. Not overnight.”
“So she was just a kid when she first came here.…”
“Yeah. She sends money home. There’s no jobs, she says. So she’s supporting her whole family.”
“Not so bad. She lives in a beautiful house, has a nice car all her own, plenty of time on her hands.…”
“Plenty of time to think, too. She gets deported, her whole family goes down.”
“Why should she get deported?”
“She’s sponsored. The people who own that house, all they need to do is withdraw.”
“She’d still have options.”
“What options? She’s got no special skills. No way she’d get an exemption.”
“You think the people who brought her here are threatening her?”
“No. I don’t think she has any contact with them.”
“She forwards their mail.…”
“I think that’s right. Almost has to be. But there’s no communication coming the other way. Her phone records—no long-distance calls, in or out. She’s got a cellular, too. Those are the best. For us, I mean. So long as the target uses his phone, you can find out where he’s using it
“Did the people who own the place have cellulars?”
“They did. But they terminated service more than two years ago.”
“So that thread has snapped.”
“Yeah …” he said, dragging the word out. “Burke?”
“What?”
“She’s not in this.”
“Who?”
“Marushka.”
“I understand.”
He stood up. I packed my stuff while he waited. If he noticed the plastic-wrapped package I stowed in my duffel, he gave no sign.
Clancy dropped me off at the bus terminal on Harrison. I reached over to shake his hand.
“Thanks. For everything.”
“It was for Wolfe,” he said, keeping everything clear. “Besides, I figure, you get lucky, we may find the kid yet.”
“I know,” I told him, pulling a thick manila envelope from my coat pocket. I handed it to him.
His face flushed and his eyes went alligator on me. “I told you—”
“It’s for Licensed for Life,” I said.
He took a deep breath. Let it out his nose, slowly.
“I need a receipt,” I told him. “You’re a 501(c)(3), right? This is a charitable contribution.”
“Wayne Askew does.”
He reached into the back seat of his Nissan, found the right box, extracted a pad of receipts.
“Make it out for twenty-five hundred,” I said.
“That’s too—”
“There’s twenty large in that envelope,” I cut him off. “But Wayne Askew doesn’t earn the kind of money that he could donate that big to charity, so …”
“Christ!”
“It’s good to have something to believe in,” I said.
I took my receipt and got out. Clancy hauled my duffel out of the trunk. Stuck out his hand again. This time, his grip transmitted.
I bought a ticket to L.A. Round-trip, in case anyone was watching—in person or at an anonymous computer somewhere. A real bargain for two hundred bucks. The woman behind the barred window didn’t even look up as she slid it through the slot.
I had almost an hour before the bus left. Plenty of time. I finally found what I wanted—a tall, rawboned man with a lined Appalachian face. He told the guy on the bench next to him that he was going home. To West Virginia. Chicago was just another bitch who hadn’t kept her promises.
