'Only if you promise me not to do this on your own and you swear you will wait until I get back from delivering Nate.'
'I'll wait,' he said.
'You won't do anything.'
He nodded in reply.
22
Maria sped down to La Jolla with Nate and returned the same day. Her mother took Nate to visit a Florida cousin, also a Fischer, who had a sprawling place, almost a mansion, with kids about Nate's age. Even Dan didn't want to know exactly where they were.
The moment Maria returned, she knew Dan had become a man obsessed. Motioning, he took her outside to the far corner of the backyard.
'They know too much. They knew to look in your purse. They knew to be at the restaurant. They knew we would be in court. They've got the house or the office bugged or both.'
'That's pretty hard-'
But at the house he began ripping up everything, looking under furniture and pulling up the carpets. It took only twenty minutes to find the spike mike. Two hours later a detective and the phone company found the illegal tap. At least now the flow of information would stop.
The sign on Luna's was the worse for wear. In yellow neon, with part of the elements burned out, it looked like Lua's with a big gap after the u. Inside you could smell the burned oil hanging in the air, watch the waitresses with near-popping buttons, and listen to truck drivers hack their morning phlegm while washing down bacon and eggs with black coffee. It was 4:00 a.m.
'No one has ever figured out where to spit,' Dan said as Maria curled her lip in disgust. 'So I think they all swallow it.'
'You just love grossing me out, don't you?'
'Not me.'
'They teach you that at… where did you say you went to law school? Cal Northern in Chico?'
He nodded.
'You talk like a cowboy except when you forget yourself.'
'What do you mean?'
'Oh, I don't know, that you put on this country-boy effect.'
'Most of the girls think it's cute.'
'The girls probably do. What about the women?'
'Sometimes I get the feeling that this 'save the world' stuff is like a telephone pole up your ass.'
Maria laughed. 'Oh, let's get down and dirty.'
'You asked. Besides, I'm serious about what I believe,' Dan said. 'I think the best solution to saving the planet is to harvest and replant temperate forests at a rate that is perpetually sustainable.'
'I'm sorry about Lynette, but fighting with me won't bring her back.'
Dan paused. 'I know; I'm sorry; it's a distraction.'
'Perhaps a distraction other than pounding on me, please. And stop being scared to death to be sincere. Why don't you encourage me by being yourself?''
'What do you mean?'
'You graduated from Harvard.'
'You've been spying on me.'
'Daddy's been spying on you.' They rose to leave and he helped her on with her jacket.
'Now you look really embarrassed,' she said.
She put her hand on his shoulder and looked in his eyes. 'I have my good side. You just need to get there.' They walked outside the cafe. The sun was just over the horizon, the sky tinged with red, the moon still full. It was cold, and the coastal wind whipped through the parking lot. 'Wait,' she said as they were walking to their cars.
'Yeah?' he said, turning toward her. 'What's the matter?'
'These people are big-time dangerous. I don't think you should go.'
'We've got it-'
'All planned. I know. It's all set up, but who cares? It doesn't matter. Listen to me. You have Nate. You're all he's got. He doesn't have a mother. You should think of him and put him first. We don't need to do this. I can go in with the state inspectors and just see what I can see.'
'Oh, and they're going to show you all their secrets.'
'Dan, I know how you feel, but who says you'll learn anything by sneaking around outside?'
'I can try.'
'You swore you wouldn't go in the buildings. Look at me, you bastard. Tell me.'
'I won't go in the buildings.'
'Or any old mines.'
'I'm not promising about that. I want to figure out what they're doing with that pipe, and the tank, and the old shack or mine, or whatever it is. And if I knew that, I might figure out why they feel the need to kill people.' He grabbed her shoulders. 'They almost caused a holocaust at the courthouse. They murdered Lynette. What'll they do next? You make the diversion and don't worry about me. I'll be fine.'
'All right. Forget it. Do your damned macho thing. I'll see you when you get out.'
'All right,' he said as he turned back to his truck, obviously wanting to leave before she tried again to talk him out of it.
'Please be careful,' she said in a tired voice.
Kenji seemed amazingly calm as he sat across the desk from Groiter. Kenji had come to Groiter's office, meaning that he would want him to do something he might not want to do.
'I think you have to get more directly involved. This isn't working out.'
'There was no way to predict that his secretary would get in that car.'
'It didn't work. Nothing else matters,' Kenji said.
'Next time I'll supervise.'
'And now we haven't even got the taps. We don't have a clue what's going on.'
'I'll take Maria Fischer. With Corey. We'll bleed everything she knows; then we'll deep-six her. It's that simple.'
'That simple, huh?'
'It'll take some planning.'
'Why do you need Schneider?'
'Because there has to be a villain, and it can't be me or you.'
Groiter's confidence was boosted by his photo of two corpses-a dead Catherine Swanson and the photographer-he had retrieved from Corey. If everything went to hell and Kenji began to get dangerous, he would use it.
'OK. But this time make it work. Find out everything she knows and then bury her where nobody will ever find her.'
When Kenji left, Groiter went to a phone booth at the nearest strip mall. He found Corey at home. Now that he called her regularly he had learned her patterns.
'You were brilliant,' he reiterated as if he hadn't said it five times before. 'It's incredible that he stuck his secretary in that car.'
''I don't understand it,'' she said. ''I just don't understand. Why would he do that?'
'Papers said she was doing him a favor, taking it to the mechanic. It was a last-minute deal.'
'Shit.'
