San Pedro and Newport Beach, there were a couple of dark cumulus out over the water. Looking at them, I smiled. Where I grew up, there was much rain of the beating, pounding, falling-in-sheets variety that Southern California almost never enjoys. I missed it. Rain was a Good Thing. If there were more rain, there would be less smog.
I took out the Dan Wesson, checked the load, then laid it on the desk. If the Eskimo came in, maybe he’d think it was one of those fancy office lighters and ignore it.
I settled in and I waited.
Three hours later the phone rang. “Elvis Cole Detective Agency, we find more for less. Check our prices.”
The Eskimo said, “You made a very bad mistake, Mr. Cole.”
“Would it help to say I’m sorry?”
He said, “We know the woman is at your home and we know a man wearing a sidearm is staying with her. Mr. Duran trusted that you would do as you were told, but you didn’t.”
“That couldn’t be helped.”
“We still have what we have.”
“I know that.”
“Mr. Duran still wants his property. Go home now.”
He hung up. No mention of a trade, no demand for an explanation. I called the house. Pike answered on the second ring.
I said, “I just heard from the Eskimo. They know Ellen’s at the house and they know you’re with her.”
There was a pause. “Spotter. They could have found out your address, then put someone up the hill or in an empty house across the canyon.”
“Better keep her away from the windows and the deck.”
“No reason. Guy with the right weapon could have taken us any time he wanted. I get into that with her, we’ll have to pull all the drapes and lock her in the bathroom. Be worse for her.”
“The Eskimo told me to go home. He’s got to have a reason for wanting me there.”
Pike grunted. “Maybe pulling the drapes isn’t so bad an idea after all.”
“Do it without alarming her.”
“Unh-huh.”
“We need anything?”
“Unh-unh.”
“I’m coming in.”
When I got to the house, the drapes were pulled across the sliding glass doors and Pike was making dinner. Ellen was wearing her cleaned Ralph’s clothes and was standing by the counter, watching him cook. She looked uncomfortable, probably because he was in the kitchen and she wasn’t. I put the bag of her fresh clothes and makeup on the stairs.
“What’s for dinner, girls?” Mr. Nonchalance.
Pike said, “Red beans and rice, ham hocks, cornbread.” He was still wearing the sunglasses and the gun.
“He wouldn’t let me help.” Ellen took a sip of iced scotch from a short glass. The glass was sitting in a puddle of condensation. She’d probably been taking little sips all day. Just enough to keep things manageable.
I nodded. “He’s very territorial about his kitchen.”
I pushed under the drapes, opened the glass doors, then reclosed the drapes. I opened the little jalousie window off the powder room, then the kitchen window.
“Good idea,” Pike said. “It was getting stuffy.” It would be easier to hear with the glass open.
Ellen said, “Janet called.”
“Delightful.”
“She was worried.”
I leaned against the powder room doorjamb. The powder room window opened on the front of the house. If anyone came, they’d have to come from the front. The downslope off the back of the house is too steep for any sort of assault.
Ellen sipped the scotch. “She wanted to put the girls on. I said no. I didn’t know what to say. I don’t think I could talk to them without crying.”
I nodded, listening but not listening, straining to hear outside. Ellen didn’t notice.
“Janet said they need me to be strong now, and I don’t know if I can. I’m thirty-nine years old. I don’t want to be weak. I don’t want to be scared.”
“Then don’t be,” Pike said.
Ellen and I both looked at him. He used the flat of a heavy knife to push diced onion into a small bowl. He covered the bowl with Saran Wrap.
“Don’t be,” she repeated.
“This Janet your friend?” Pike said.
“Of course.”
Pike shook his head and put the bowl in the ice box.
The phone rang. I picked it up.
A thick voice with a heavy Mexican accent said,
“The boy wants to speak with his mother.”
“Who is this?”
“Put on the mother.”
I motioned Ellen over, raising a finger to make her pause as I ran to pick up the living-room extension. She looked confused. When I had the phone I mouthed, “Perry.”
She blurted, “Perry?” into the phone as Pike moved to stand by her, watching me.
The harsh voice said, “Listen.”
There was a thump on the line, then a scuffling, whimpering sound, then a long, piercing little-boy shriek that made a clammy sweat leak out over my face and chest and back. Ellen Lang screamed. Pike jerked the phone away from her. She screamed “No!” and slapped at him, clawing to get the receiver back. He pulled her close, holding her tight against him. She hit and clawed and made a deep-in-the-throat gargling sound and got the edge of his hand in her mouth and bit until blood spouted down along her chin and wrist and onto Pike’s shirt. He didn’t pull away.
I shouted something into the phone.
The shrieking didn’t stop, but the voice came back on. It said, “You won’t fuck up again.”
I said, “No.”
“The boy is alive. You can hear him.”
“Yes.” I felt like I was going to choke.
“We call you again.”
I looked at Pike over the dead connection.
29
Ellen thrashed and cried and finally grew still, but even then her pain was a physical presence in the room.
Pike went into the little bathroom, stayed a few minutes, then came out with gauze taped to his hand and his skin orange from Merthiolate. Ellen squeezed her eyes shut when she saw his hand.
Pike said, “Do you have any Valium or Darvon for her?”
I told him no. He slipped out the kitchen door. I poured more scotch and brought it to her. She shook her head. “I’ve been drinking all day.”
“Sure?”
She nodded.
“Want a hug?”
She nodded again, and sighed deeply as I held her. After a while she said, “I want to wash.”
