eye and snapped a picture.
“So,” the Mountain said, lumbering toward me as the tourists climbed hurriedly into their van, “what's the skinnies?”
“You go with me to Sunset Plaza,” I said, maneuvering upwind. “I go into an office and you wait in the car. Then I come out and we see what happens.”
“And?”
“And maybe all hell breaks loose.”
He gave me the kind of gargoyle's smile that you sometimes see in cognac-fueled dreams. If you're lucky, it wakes you up. The last time I'd seen one, I'd sworn off cognac. Temporarily. “Here's hoping it does,” he said.
It was almost four when we rolled into the parking lot at Brussels' Sprouts. The weather was obliging us: an oppressive lead-gray layer of clouds had rolled in from the Pacific, and senior-citizen drivers, alert to any impending emergency, were driving dead center in the street with their headlights on full bright. The lights were on in the stores of Sunset Plaza too, picking out the spangles and bugle beads sprinkled across the fronts of overpriced dresses and the gleam of silk in handmade men's shirts. None of the little spotlights, I noticed, was focused on a price tag.
“Nice neighborhood,” the Mountain said. “How much per breath?”
“If you have to ask, you can't afford it,” I said, quoting J. P. Morgan. “Exhale only.” I opened Alice's door. “You're going to stay right here, right? When I come out we may have to move in a hurry. I don't want to have to go looking for you.”
“What a shame,” the Mountain said, gazing with exaggerated longing at a beauty parlor. “I'm overdue for a facial.”
“If this works out,” I said, “I'll buy you a new face.” I closed the door and started across the parking lot. A muffled rapping sound made me turn back. The Mountain had been knocking on the passenger window. Now he held up two crossed fingers and shook them at me. I returned the salute and went around to the front of the building, checking my watch as I went. It was 4:03.
Morris was supposed to start sending at ten after four.
The doors into Mrs. Brussels' waiting room whispered open. Birdie's desk was empty, and the Flash Gordon door leading into the inner sanctum gaped at me. One of the lines on the phone was blazing away. Woofers' plaster-of-paris pawprint still sat on the desk, but the appointment book was missing. Presumably she'd taken it inside. It was 4:04.
I could hear her voice from the other room. She sounded normal, sane, persuasive. If I hadn't seen obedience school and if Jessica and Morris hadn't figured out the code identifying the pictures in the
The voice stopped.
“Mrs. Brussels,” I called. “Mrs. Brussels, I'm here.”
My pulse was hammering against my wrists. It was pounding with such urgency that I thought it might show, so I jammed my hands into my pockets and waited. After a moment she came out. She was wearing a tailored buff-colored linen suit with the trendy linen wrinkles in all the trendy linen places. A ruff of collar rose up almost to her chin, covering the not-so-trendy wrinkles on her throat. The smile she gave me was professional but hardly warm. It was, if anything, a conspirator's smile.
“Mr. Ward,” she said. “So glad you could make it. I'm afraid we're a bit crazy here, what with Bertram gone missing.” She gestured at the empty desk.
“Does he do this often?”
“Only when he's got boyfriend trouble,” she said, speaking to me as though I were already one of the family. “Frankly, I thought he'd finished with all that a year ago. Birdie's
“Can you trust him?” I asked.
She gave me a measured glance. “He worked for my husband before I took over,” she said. “He's proved himself. Some of the information he handles is
I tried not to imagine the way Birdie would look by then. “I'm sure it is,” I said. “I just need to know.”
“Of course you do,” she said with the barest of smiles. “Jewel's your ward and I'm sure you must love her very much.” She managed to make the words sound as though they'd been coated in rancid baby oil, smooth, shiny, and foully suggestive.
I just smiled.
“Come in,” she said, all business. “I've found your papers.”
She turned her back and vanished through the door. Wisps of hair hung over her collar. As I followed I yanked a hand out of my pocket and sneaked a look at my watch: 4:05.
Mrs. Brussels was fast; she'd already seated herself behind her desk by the time I entered the room. The desk was clean and uncluttered except for a wad of stapled legal-size sheets of paper covered with very small writing. The computer console was turned part of the way toward me. My heart sank as I realized that its screen was dark.
That was something that had never occurred to me. In my projections of the scene, it had always been on. I developed an immediate stomachache.
“The contracts,” she said, lifting one corner of the stack and then letting it flop back onto the desk. Then she sat back and threw one arm over the back of her chair, regarding me like a fisherman estimating the weight of his catch. Without the third-grade teacher's smile she looked older and considerably meaner. Gravity had done its work on her face; gravity and something else, something she supplied from within.
“We're going to need many signatures,” she said, tilting the chair back even farther. “I hope your writing hand is in good shape.”
“I even brought a pen,” I said, pulling out one I'd stolen from Morris. I was trying to figure out how to get her to turn the damned computer on.
“Good, good, good,” she said automatically. “But first, before you sign, I'd better tell you that I think we can put Jewel to work almost immediately. Will that be all right with you?”
“Anything that gets the cash flow going,” I said, trying to keep my eyes away from the empty screen.
“It'll flow,” she said. “You have no idea how it will flow. However, there are technicalities. I already asked you if she could travel, so that's out of the way. But there is one other point, and it's an important one.”
“And what's that?” I was beginning to perspire.
“I need to know that you have the legal right to sign these papers.”
“I told you,” I said, working up a semblance of affronted indignation. “She's my ward.”
“And you told me that her parents are dead.” Her gaze was as steady as a dial tone.
I could hear my watch ticking and I fought down the impulse to check the time. Morris was probably keying in by now. “Dead as Marley,” I said.
“Aunts? Uncles? Cousins two or three times removed? Anybody who might suddenly take an interest in the child? Anyone who might get someone looking for her?”
It had to be 4:10. I leaned forward and put my hands on my knees so I could see my watch: 4:09. “Forget it,” I said. “I'm the whole story. It's just Jewel and me.”
“We both know what we're talking about,” she said. She was looking through me. This was a conversation she'd had many times.
“Honey,” I said, licking my lips. They were drier than dry cleaning. “Even Jewel's not completely in the dark.”
Now she focused on me and gave me the motherly smile. “Well,” she said, “that simplifies things.” She turned the contracts around so that they were right-side-up for me. “Everywhere there's a red X,” she said, “just sign your name.”
“Dwight Ward,” I said.
The motherly smile broadened and turned slightly gamy at the edges. “Anything you like,” she said. “Sign away.”
“Wait,” I said. “I've got a couple of questions of my own.”
She lifted an eyebrow. Four-ten had come and was in the process of going. “You're not going to hurt her?” I