Bleeding Out

'Well...I've got a couple questions that maybe you could help me with.'

Kennedy took an uninvited seat on the couch. Frank was sorry she'd asked.

'You seem to have an angle on this guy we're lookin' for—'

'Which is all speculative,' Frank warned.

'Right, but still you've thought a lot about this. So I'm going through the books, and I'm trying to figure out what's the hook for him? What's gonna make me stand out from any other chick out there?'

Frank considered the question. She started to reach up and stroke her chin but stopped, almost as if she were being interrogated. She refused to give Kennedy even that much.

'A lot of things,' Frank shrugged.

Kennedy was unrelenting.

'Like what?'

She leaned forward eagerly. Frank noticed she'd lost the accent.

'Could be any number of things.' Frank outlined her sketchy victimology, stressing his apparent preference for passive, vulnerable victims.

'So basically, I should be a rag doll,' Kennedy concluded.

Frank nodded. 'Be innocent. Be vulnerable. Make yourself as visible as possible.'

'Kind of contradictory, isn't it?'

'Do you feel like you can't handle it?'

'Not at all. I just want to make sure I do it right.'

Frank's stare was the narc's only reply, so she asked, 'Sure you don't want lunch?'

'Positive.'

At the door she turned and asked, 'What's that music?'

'It's a requiem. Faure's.'

'Hmm. I don't reckon I know what a requiem for A's is, but it shore is perty. I like it.'

'I'm so very glad,' Frank answered coldly.

He was yelling again. He'd lost his job, his pension, everything. And it was the boy's fault. What were they supposed to do now that there was no scholarship? Who was going to take care of things? The old man was crying. The boy stood with his ear pressed to the door.

His mother was crying too.

And a new, nameless fear gripped the boy.

18

Frank knocked on Tracey and Noah's door on Thanksgiving Day, wondering whose truck was in the driveway. Her blood chilled when she noticed the surf logos and parking sticker. Tracey threw the door open, overflowing her flowery one-piece and screaming. She wrapped her arms around Frank's neck, mindless of the wine and flowers she was smashing between them, then yanked Frank inside, yelling, 'Goddamnit, you old hama-zama, where the hell have you been all my life?'

Frank had to laugh.

'Well? Where you been?'

She threw a couple of punches at Frank who raised her offerings, pleading, 'I come in peace.'

'Yeah, well, you come that way but I'm not gonna let it stay that way,' she said, taking the flowers, then sweetly asked, 'For me?'

'Nope. For No. We got a thing going, didn't he tell you?'

'I should be so lucky,' Tracey heaved her eyes dramatically. 'If it would get him out of my pants for a while, he's all yours.'

'You guys bad-mouthing me already?' Noah wandered into the living room in his bathing suit, holding a plate of grilled sausages. He held it toward Frank while Tracey moved like a warship into the kitchen.

'What's your poison tonight, babe? I've got margaritas in the blender.'

'Sounds good,' Frank called after her, snagging a piece of meat. She looked flatly at Noah, chewing.

'Tell me whose truck's in your driveway.'

Noah grinned, 'Hey, you're the lieutenant. You tell me.'

'You didn't tell me she was going to be here.'

'Ah, relax, Frank, it was a last-minute thing. Don't get all nutted up about it. Come on, let's get you oiled so you don't squeak so loud.'

She followed him into the kitchen, dreading hearing Kennedy's drawl, but there it was, screeching through the sliding glass door of the backyard. Frank lingered with Tracey, who slammed a frosty, salt-rimmed glass into her hand and raised her own.

'Skoal, sister.'

'Skoal, Trace.'

They swallowed, and Tracey's eyes admired Frank up and down.

'You are hard like a rock,' she said, squeezing Frank's arm. 'Ouch.'

'And you're as soft as one of those clouds the angels sit on. I can see you've been taking your gorgeous pills every day.'

Tracey flopped a hand against Frank's chest and said, 'Oh, stop teasing. I'm a fat old cow and you know it.'

'You're gorgeous, Trace. Noah's the luckiest man in L.A.'

'And don't think I ever let him forget it,' his wife laughed boisterously. 'Come on, come say hi to the calves.'

Reluctantly, Frank let Tracey lead her out of the kitchen. Kennedy was in the pool playing Marco Polo with the kids.

'Leslie!' Tracey bellowed, and they all stopped. 'Come say hello to Frank!'

Leslie waved happily and hopped out of the pool, all long legs and innocence. She reminded Frank of Cassie Nichols and she felt a quick, hot pang of sympathy for Cassie's father. Leslie gave her a big hug, shocking Frank with her frigid skin and dripping suit.

'What did you bring me?' she asked brightly.

'Les,' Noah warned.

'How do you know I brought you anything?' Frank frowned.

''Cause you always do.'

'What if I forgot?'

Leslie turned on her heel, tilted her head in the air, and said with an imperious flourish of her hand, 'Then you'll have to leave.'

'She got that from her mother,' Noah commented, basting the turkey on the barbecue, and Tracey snapped a towel at him. Frank sighed and stood up, resigned to her banishment.

'No! Don't go,' Leslie squealed, wrapping her dripping blue arms around Frank's legs.

'What's in your pockets?' she asked curiously as Frank shrugged unknowingly.

She pulled her wallet out and handed it to Leslie.

'Not that.'

She pointed silently at Frank's front pocket and Frank hauled out her keys. Leslie shook her head. Then Frank pulled out a new Hot Wheels truck and Leslie shook her head again. Frank reached in and found a package of animal stickers. Leslie examined them, but Frank said, 'I brought those for Jamie. I don't have anything for you.'

'What's that?' Leslie poked at something hard in Frank's back pocket.

'Oh that,' Frank said dismissively. 'That's nothing.'

'What is it?' Leslie insisted.

'You don't want that. It's nothing.'

'Let me see!' Leslie jumped up and down, hugging her goose-bumps.

'You sure?'

'Yes.'

'Alright. But you won't like it.'

'I don't care. Let me see!' Her eyes were glowing with expectation and her brother and sister had joined her.