parking lot. Then he twisted around for a better look at the boat parked at the end of the pier.
“Shadowfax,” Martin Fletcher said as he cranked in the line. Then he propped his back against the closest upright post, closed his eyes, and let the baitless hook dangle beneath the red-and-white float.
31
“Shadow One, everything’s locked down?” Sean said into the radio.
“It’s calm,” the voice of one of the local agents, Alton Vance, came back. “Thorne’s package is ten minutes away.”
The young agent turned and discovered that Erin and Reb were staring at him. The boy seemed wide-eyed, excited; the girl seemed as though she was being inconvenienced beyond reason. Sean looked over her shoulder to the television set, where a clown was offering a balloon to a child.
Sean looked at the other agent in the room. He hadn’t been able to get close to Woody, but they hadn’t actually spent much time in anything more than superficial conversation. Woody was like a closed book. Sean didn’t know why Woody alone was allowed to leave the stakeout when he wasn’t officially on duty. The red Volvo was an agency car but was Woody’s when he decided to take off for a few hours. Sean knew Woody wasn’t DEA. He had made a comment about assholes, and Woody had asked him why he always called people, even the elderly owner of the house whom they had never met, assholes. When Sean had said that all civilians were assholes, Woody had smiled a strange smile and had shaken his head, dismissing him. “Asshole” was standard DEA lingo. Any cop would know that. He also knew that Woody hadn’t participated in the agents’ discussions of well-known operations like Condor, Leyenda, and Snowcap. Any DEA agent couldn’t help but be familiar with the three-they were classic operations. That would be like an FBI agent not knowing who the last attorney general had been. Wherever Woody had been trained, it hadn’t been at Quantico.
“What kinda gun you got?” Reb said, breaking Sean’s thoughts.
“A black one,” he replied.
Reb laughed.
“Wowie kazowie,” Erin said flatly. “Can I go upstairs?”
“Sure,” Woody said. “Sean, take her up.”
“Want to see me do a double flip off the couch?” Reb asked.
“Sure,” Sean said.
“You can’t climb on the couch, Reb,” Erin said.
“Just kidding,” Reb said.
Erin thumped the top of his head.
“Shouldn’t you get one of those lady agents to be with me?” she said. “Since I can’t have any friends over, I mean.”
“Orders,” Woody said.
“Two are enough to watch over,” Sean said. “Can’t have our attention split in too many directions. Sorry about your friends.”
“You guys are too cool to breathe,” she said.
“Can I shoot it?” Reb asked.
“What?” Woody said.
“Your gun,” Reb answered.
“Sure, anytime,” Woody said.
Erin watched Woody take the gun from his holster and hold it out to Reb. “Fire it into the cushions so it doesn’t bring people running.”
“Really?” Erin said.
Reb’s face was lit like a lamp as he reached for the proffered Glock.
Woody waited until Reb’s hand was inches from the handle, then twirled the gun and flipped his wrist, ending the maneuver with the gun restored to the holster.
He pointed his finger at Reb and cocked his thumb. “Just kidding!” he said.
“I want to go out,” Erin said. “This is boring.”
“Where to?” Sean asked.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she said.
“Would I?” Woody said. He pulled a chair from the kitchen table and sat with his elbows on the back, his legs crossed. “What’s your idea of a perfect place?”
“Well, it depends.” She smiled coyly.
“On what?” Woody said.
“Well, with a boy or my friends?”
“A boy with Erin?” Reb yelled.
She cut her eyes at him and frowned at the intrusion. “Well, if you’re with a boy, you go to the French Quarter,” she said.
“Why?” Woody looked at his watch.
“Well, it’s romantic. The old buildings and all that stuff.”
“You mean like the Hard Rock Cafe?”
She laughed. “Maybe. But there’s Roscoe’s Tavern, where they serve you if you can order with a straight face.”
“I’m telling Mom,” Reb said certainly.
“I’ll crush your little thorax,” she said.
“Okay, guys,” Sean said, putting his finger to his earpiece, “your mother’s home.”
“Good,” Erin said. “Now you can go back across the street.”
Sean looked up to find Woody staring at him with a complete lack of expression.
32
Paul stepped from his rental car and scooped up the files he had brought along. Sherry had called and asked him to drop by because she had had some ideas she wanted to toss around with him. She said she didn’t want to stay at the office late because she had things to do at home. He knew she had been mirroring his long hours, so he had agreed, and here he was, standing before her door and tapping lightly. He checked over his mental list again as he waited; he had been on and off the phone with Thorne and Joe all day, as usual, and he had been assured that nothing was happening that warranted his attention. Rainey, he hoped, was interviewing the Buchanan child and getting some new information.
Paul could hear music inside. A ten-speed bike was chained to the railing with a lock he decided could be violated in seconds by any crack addict worth his stuff. He shuffled the files into his left hand and was pleased that the hand had developed so much strength over the past few days of vigorous tennis-ball squeezing. He could drum the fingers on a tabletop with relative ease and surprising dexterity.
Sherry opened the door and smiled out at him.
“Any trouble finding the place?” she said.
“No. I followed the opera music.”
“Come in. I’m cooking us a snack.”
Sherry lived in a cozy one-bedroom apartment near Vanderbilt University. In the space of thirty feet the living room became the dining room, which became the kitchen. From what Paul could see from the living room, the bedroom was large enough only for the double bed, covered by a thin Indian-print cotton throw, a dresser, a trunk painted sky-blue with white trim, and a bookshelf filled with books. The living room held two matching shelf units also loaded with books in all sizes and of all ages.
“We’re having lasagna. I hope you like Italian. I guess opera seems highbrow, but it helps me cook Italian to
