leased from an FBO and, true to Jose's practice, the Blackstone Corporation was the only name on the lease. Nobody at the airfield even remembered him.
'I'm out of ideas,' Shane said as he limped out of the chiefs office with Tony and Alexa. They walked across the seafoam-green carpet, past the blond-wood paneling, and finally got into the large elevator. 'Jody's so far ahead of us that if he knows where Jose is, he's already working on him like he did on Lisa,' Shane continued. 'Jose will be dead. Jody will have the money and be gone.'
'But nobody knows where Jose is,' Alexa countered. 'Maybe Jody can't find him, either.'
'Maybe,' Shane said, but he didn't have much hope.
They climbed back into the chief's Crown Vic, Tony behind the wheel, Alexa in the front, Shane in the back. His leg was now throbbing horribly, but he clenched his jaw and tried to ignore the pain.
Twenty minutes later they pulled up in front of a very modest two-story Tudor with a small lawn and, judging from the depth of the lot, almost no backyard.
Chooch was waiting out front with his overnight bag at his feet. If the chief looked like a butcher, then Mary Filosiani was equally well cast as the butcher's wife. A pleasant, dark-haired woman in a print dress, she was standing beside Chooch. She kissed him good-bye, and Chooch walked up to the car.
Shane got out and gave his son a hug. 'Boy, am I glad to see you,' he said in Chooch's ear.
Chooch just hung on, his arms unabashedly around Shane. When he finally pulled back, he had tears in his eyes. 'Man, I was so worried about you,' Chooch said, looking at the damage to Shane's face.
'How was quarterback camp?'
'Get the fuck outta here,' Chooch smiled. 'I was only up there for ten hours before you got your big dumb ass kidnapped. So I came right back.'
'Oh, yeah,' Shane grinned. 'I forgot. And watch your mouth.'
The chief let them borrow the Crown Vic to drive back to Venice. 'I been thinkin' I'd trade it in for a fresher model anyway,' he smiled. 'It's one thing tryin' to set a good example for the troops; it's another to ride around in a garbage can with wheels.'
Shane threw Chooch's luggage into the back and got behind the wheel.
They were silent for most of the drive back to Venice. Several times Shane looked over and saw Chooch or Alexa smiling at him.
'What?' he said, and suddenly they all started laughing.
They pulled into the garage at the canal house and parked next to Shane's dusty Acura, then walked into the small kitchen, where Shane opened the freezer and pulled out a package of four frozen New York steaks. He set them on the counter to defrost.
'Let's get the barbecue going, Bud,' he said to Chooch, who grinned and pulled a bag of charcoal briquettes from the cupboard. The boy took it outside and filled the orange Weber barbecue that was sitting on a small patch of poured concrete in the backyard.
It was just about dusk. Shane put his arm around Alexa as they looked out the sliding glass door at his son, starting the fire in the backyard. It was wonderful to be home, but bubbling under that relief was a strange, unsettled feeling.
'I know what you're thinking,' Alexa said softly.
'Now you and Jody both can do it, huh? Walk right inside my head, without knocking.'
'You feel like it's not over, but it is. Sometimes things just don't wrap up perfectly.'
'Yeah, I know… It's just…'
'We're alive and we're together, babe,'
she said. 'You and me and Chooch. What more can we ask for?'
'You're right, as usual.' He snapped his fingers. 'Just a minute. I forgot something.' He turned and limped down the hall into the bedroom, where he opened the top dresser drawer and pulled out the engagement ring in Murray Steinberg's slightly crushed black-leather box.
Shane walked back outside, where he found Alexa and Chooch poking at the briquettes with long-handled tongs, spreading them out.
Shane turned and faced Alexa, took her hand, then slipped the two-carat engagement ring onto her finger. 'There,' he said, 'now it's official.'
'It's about time, is what it is,' Chooch said, smiling. 'But aren't you supposed to ask her first?'
'She said yes two days ago,' Shane told him, taking her in his arms as Chooch smiled his approval.
As the setting sun lit the edges of the rippling canal, Shane cooked the steaks, Alexa made a salad, and Chooch set the table.
They sat in the backyard and ate quietly, counting their blessings, grinning like children.
Later that night, Shane and Alexa made love in his bed while Chooch watched TV in the living room.
Shane felt as if he had completed an impossible journey. He had been looking for something that didn't exist, but in its place he had found something even more valuable.
If only he hadn't lost Jody. If only Jody hadn't confessed that he'd never cared… That he hadn't loved Shane the way Shane had once loved him. That realization caused a sadness that he suspected was produced by betrayal as much as by loss. It touched on old issues of abandonment that he had lugged around his entire life. Shane's parents had dumped him at a hospital's back door like human trash. He had been infant number 732. City Services finally named him Shane. He had picked the name Scully, after his favorite baseball announcer, Vince Scully. But that first betrayal by his parents had caused an ache inside of him that had never left.
Why did my mother leave me like that? Didn't she care?
He had asked himself these same two questions over and over again, day after day, year after year, until they had almost lost their meaning.
The Deans had filled in some of the emptiness, until Jody had snatched it away again, coming back into his life two weeks ago.
Alexa had fallen asleep beside him, but he lay awake, thinking and listening to the TV in the other room.
He fell asleep some time during Leno.
Jody had his back to a field where beautiful horses ran, galloping around the edges of the wooden perimeter fence. The horses came to an abrupt halt each time they reached the rail, sticking their magnificent heads over, snorting angry air from flared nostrils, looking across the fence line at the distant city, before turning and galloping back across the field to the other side. But Jody didn't turn to watch them. His eyes were only on Shane.
'You don't get to play unless you sign up, 'Jody said. 'You have to register first. '
'I know,' Shane answered. 'But it sure would be fun to play. '
'They have rules about that, 'Jody said seriously.
'I know, ' Shane said. 'Rules. '
'It's not like Little League, where everybody can play, 'Jody continued. 'Here, you have to register. They have to know who you are. '
'I know, ' Shane said. 'Rules-you have to register. '
Riders were now magically up on the horses, galloping across the open field in their team shirts, swinging their polo mallets at the little white ball that flew energetically with each whack. As it came close to where they were standing, Shane was surprised to see that it was a baseball they were hitting.
'I have to go, 'Jody said. 'You can stay and watch, but don't get too close. They have rules about that, too.'
'I know… ' Shane said.
Then Jody turned and walked out of the dream.
The horses were now galloping near the fence. The baseball flew by the spot where Shane was standing, and the horses raced to catch it. He could feel the slipstreaming air against his face as they thundered past.
'Rules,' Shane said softly in the darkened bedro om, the word still on his lips as he opened his eyes.
When he spoke, he woke Alexa, and she turned over and looked at him. 'What?' she asked.
Shane wasn't sure. He just knew that he was terribly troubled by the innocuous dream, as if something was lying there on the bottom of his subconscious, something important that he'd forgotten to pursue, but he didn't know what it was. 'Rules in polo,' he said. 'Everybody has to register, or they can't play.'
'What?' Alexa looked at the digital clock. 'God, it's twelve-thirty,' she said, turning on the bedside lamp.
'Maybe we should make sure Chooch got to bed and isn't sleeping on the couch out there.' She got up, put on
