a dame who said nothing but ‘Tell Pop A.F.B.B.’ Said it sounded like she was in a phone booth. That ring a bell?”
“Jesus!” I said, jumping out of my chair. “It sure does. Archie Ferris. I knew it was him in the woods.”
“Who the hell’s Archie Paris?” he asked.
“Ferris,” I said, “like the wheel at a carnival.”
“Oh yeah, your buddy,” Pop said. “Your guardian angel. How come he sounds like a broad?”
“He picked her up. Thank God.”
“What’s B.B.?” Mona asked.
“Big Bear,” I told her, relief flooding my heart. “Archie Ferris, Big Bear. Why the hell’d they go all the way to Big Bear?”
“And who’s Ginny?”
A smile crossed my lips. A hopeful smile. A Hope Diamond smile.
“Your sparkler,” Mona said.
I nodded.
“I’d say it’s time for you to go,” she told me, packing the transparencies in a box. She handed them to me along with the original notes and asked if I wanted her to assemble the rings into the completed Circles on the computer.
“No time,” I told her. “Just make a backup disk of the files. Besides,” I said, waving the box, “I’ve got these.”
Mona copied the files and gave me the disk. I wrapped her in my arms. She reminded me that it was still in her will to let me know when she died. “White it out,” I said. She pressed her cheek to mine.
“Thank you, Mona,” I said, brimming with emotion.
I turned to Pop. “The Baby Face Nelson Suite. And step on it.”
We left Mona standing on the porch, grasping her hair in one hand to keep it from blowing in the breeze and waving to us with the other. Pop winked at me and said it would be inconsiderate of him not to go back there later to personally show his appreciation for what she’d done.
On the ride back to Little River it occurred to me that I didn’t have Archie’s address in Big Bear, nor was there a phone in the cabin.There’d be no message leaving me directions; Archie was too smart for that. His cell phone number was in my car. All I could do was head for Big Bear and hope he had it with him. Worst case, somebody would be able to direct me to his cabin.
At least Ginny was safe.
Back at the Baby Face Nelson Suite I quickly packed. I removed fifty thousand dollars from the satchel and tried to force it on Pop, but he wouldn’t have it. I stashed the money in the trunk of the Jag and had one foot in the car when I looked up at the old guy. There were tears in his eyes.
A rush of gratitude welled as my own eyes got misty. Pop held his arms out to me. I crunched across the gravel and hugged him. He patted me right on the stitches.
“Pop,” I said, ignoring the pain. “Pop . . .”
He took out a hankie and blew his nose so hard I figured a flock of geese was on its way. “I like you way better’n Baby Face. And about you not having a place to live? Well, here ain’t so bad.”
At the fastest speed prudence would allow, I drove down 128 to 101, every fiber in my being yearning to streak through like a Japanese train, ripping up mailboxes and tearing down clotheslines with the sheer force of my wind drag.
The earth slowly rotated out of daylight. I pressed on through San Francisco and San Jose, down 101 to Highway 5, fighting off the inevitable effects of mental and physical overexpenditure. As my eyes grew heavy, thoughts began to flow like sailors’ whiskey.
Suddenly the ride turned bumpy and I jerked awake. I had crossed the breakdown lane and was barreling down the slope of a canyon doing seventy-five. I tugged the wheel, hoping to change direction without fishtailing, but I was going too fast at too sharp an angle and lost control.
One option left. I countersteered hard right and yanked the hand brake, locking the back wheels, throwing the Jag into a spin. When the car was halfway around, I tromped on the gas. The tires smoked. Dirt and gravel kicked up all around me as the full force of the big engine battled my rearward momentum.
Don’t blow, I prayed to the tires as I headed backward down the embankment, rubber squealing, motor growling. In three frantic seconds the tug-of-war ended, the Jag winning out over the sloping ditch.
I sat perfectly still, the smell of burnt rubber wafting through the window. My heart thumped like in a Betty Boop cartoon. I reached for the key; my hand was shaking. I had the heights, two feet from the ground.
Ginny’s hand had steadied me in the garden—before I’d unraveled the secret of the Circles. Just a little tremor, I thought. I turned the key.
The big engine purred as if nothing had happened; the muffler masked the angry boom of sparking gasoline. I threw the Jag into first gear and edged back into the night as the radio played the Beach Boys singing “California Girls.”
Pulling off at Magic Mountain, I ducked into a Safeway, used the facilities, bought a Boulder Bar and some juice, slammed them down, and tried Archie again.
