Will started to laugh, breathlessly.
Taylor’s voice dropped lower. “And it feels so good. In a dark, dirty way to let you do that to me…to shove right inside my body, right inside my skin. The friction…the way it feels for you to move inside me. It kind of burns and it kind of scrapes and I feel it in my belly and my chest…”
Will bit his lip hard, hand moving frantically.
* * * * *
On Wednesday they had their first viable threat against Madame.
Well, at least it looked that way for the first few seconds.
They were shopping — what else? — in the Beverly Center, located at the edge of Beverly Hills and West Hollywood. Madame had already chewed them out once that day for hovering too closely. Did she suspect that in the guise of protecting her they were going to snatch a great bargain from under her nose?
A woman with a stroller was passing to the side of Taylor; he was absently tracking her out of his peripheral vision because she was a little closer than he liked. The kid suddenly screamed. There was no mistaking that sound, it was raw pain, and Taylor turned instinctively. It turned out to be nothing more serious than pinched fingers, and he was relaxing as Varga suddenly shouted, “Gun!”
Taylor ducked and spun, pulling his own weapon, and there in his sights stood a beanpole of a kid in dreadlocks holding up one of those little goofy autograph books. His hand was shaking, the color draining out of his face.
He opened his mouth, and no words came out.
Plenty of words, however, were coming out of Madame Kasambala. Varga had knocked her to the department-store floor and was using her own body to shield Madame. Madame was less than grateful and making it clear.
Loud and clear.
“Identify yourself,” Taylor ordered the half-fainting autograph hound. It was already clear to him they had got it wrong and it was probably going to be on the news — not to mention YouTube — in a matter of hours, judging by the cell phones clicking from around the store displays where other customers and staff were hiding.
“Norman Piggot. Little Piggy,” the kid quavered. “I just wanted to get Krista Kross’s a-autograph.”
“Who the hell is Krista Kross?”
Little Piggy barely inclined his head toward the tangle of Varga and Madame Kasambala. Madame was rejecting Varga’s protective embrace for all she was worth, and in another time and place, Taylor would be laughing his ass off at the picture they made. At the moment, not so funny. Pulling their weapons in this kind of a crowd situation? He and Varga would be lucky if they didn’t wind up with an official reprimand.
A voice from behind a display of lady’s hosiery — a chorus line of mannequin feet and shapely, stocking-clad shins — volunteered, “She’s a female rap artist.”
“You’ve got the wrong lady,” Taylor informed Little Piggy.
Little Piggy nodded, eager to show himself cooperative.
It took a few minutes to sort it out: reassure the public that all was well, reassure Madame that they were truly sorry, reassure Little Piggy that he wasn’t going to jail.
“I misread it,” Varga said, chagrined, when they had moved on to Bloomingdale’s.
“Better safe than sorry.”
He knew Will would have been amused to hear him say it.
* * * * *
Jose Valz lived with his wife, parents, brother, sister-in-law, and assorted rug rats in an older Spanish-style apartment in downtown San Diego. Had he lived alone, it would have simplified everything.
The plan was to interview Valz. They weren’t ready to make an arrest yet, and when they did scoop him up, they planned on catching as many of the little fish in their nets as possible.
In fact, Will wanted to do the interview on his own; he suspected — and he turned out to be correct — that Valz was liable to panic when he spotted Bradley’s uniform. But Bradley was adamant that Will was not walking in there on his own, not when they didn’t know exactly what they were dealing with.
So they waited till suppertime, when the odds were in their favor that Valz would be home from a hard day’s work ripping off the US government. Señora Valz opened the door to their knock. Good smells issued forth, along with a babble of non-Spanish.
Nahua, identified Will, who had spent some time in San Salvador. So there was another strike against Valz, who claimed in a couple of documents to be a lawful citizen of Mexico — those would be in the documents where he didn’t claim to be a United States citizen.
A roomful of wary black eyes turned their way, and silence fell.
Bradley began to explain their business in painstaking Spanish. There was the squeak of floorboards behind them. Will turned, and there was Valz rabbiting down the apartment hallway toward the staircase.
Will was after him, shouting a warning for Valz to stop. He wasn’t going to shoot the guy in front of his kids — wasn’t going to shoot him at all. Nothing in Valz’s profile indicated he was dangerous or warranted shooting. In any case, Valz paid no attention.
Will jumped over the railing and gained a flight, dropped over another metal railing, and hit the ground floor the same time as Valz. He could hear the pound of Bradley’s feet behind him — slower and heavier than Taylor, who would have passed Will up by now.
Valz burst out through the side entrance that led to the pool courtyard.
Will shot through the doors a few seconds behind him.
The courtyard was
