A Date You Can't Refuse (39 page)

“Hold up.” Simon was suddenly beside me, his hand on my arm.

“I can't,” I said, walking faster. “I'm in a big hurry.”

“You've got to be kidding, right?” he asked, keeping pace with me.

“There's no way you're going back to Calabasas. How long has this been going on, you being a cooperating witness for Bennett Graham? Graham, of all people—”

“For as long as I've been working for Yuri Milos. And I'm absolutely going back to the compound.” I moved as fast as my tight shantung pants and heels would allow. “I'm returning my dates. I don't leave people stranded. Unless you can transport us all in your Bentley but you can't, and as you pointed out, this isn't your operation.”

“You heard Mains. He's got what he needs. It's some piracy scam anyway, it's not worth risking your life over.”

“As opposed to what you're doing,” I said. “A textiles scam, which is naturally worth—whatever it is you're risking. Ethics, good taste—”

“Wollie—”

“Look. Mains didn't hire me, so I doubt he can fire me. Or accept my resignation. Plus, I'm a double agent, so there's Yuri to consider too. He definitely hasn't fired me. And he's my friend. He's counting on me.”

“Are you mad?”

“As a matter of fact, I'm very mad. But I don't have time for a fight right now.”

Simon pulled me around to face him, gripping my upper arms so tightly I winced. He shook me once, which shocked me. “You're crazy,” he said, between clenched teeth. “No one cares about you. Not Milos, not the feds. You're disposable to them all. Cooperating witnesses are a dime a dozen to us, whatever Bennett Graham told you, and he's the worst. You're being used, don't you know that?”

“I should. Having been used in exactly this way by you once. How do you suppose Bennett Graham got the idea to have me work for him?”

Something flashed in his eyes that told me I'd hit home. Guilt. I pressed on. “And speaking of operations, are you playing both sides of yours? Are you on the take?”

“What gives you that idea?”

“Lucrezia.”

He looked like he'd been slapped. I turned away, but he pulled me back around to face him. “That's my cover,” he said, his voice low. “I'm playing an agent gone bad.”

I knew that. I felt embarrassed by having asked the question, and still I couldn't stop myself. “How bad?” I whispered. “And what game are you playing with Lucrezia?”

He didn't answer, but I saw it in his face. He was sleeping with her. “Wollie—”

“Wollie?” Zbiggo was coming up behind Simon.

“Let me go.” I tried again to wrest my hands from his grip.

“Let her go, you,” Zbiggo echoed. “What you doing to Wollie?”

Without even looking, Simon told Zbiggo to mind his own business, in more colloquial terms.

There are some words that some guys hear as an invitation to fight, the f-word being one of them. Zbiggo put one hand on Simon's shoulder, and before I knew what was happening, Simon let go of me so suddenly I nearly fell over. I regained my balance just as Simon lost his. I didn't see Zbiggo's fist meet Simon's face, but I saw the effect.

Red sprayed across my once-white clothes and then I looked down to see Simon on the ground, looking up at me, blood pouring out of his nose.

S
imon was on his feet and facing off with Zbiggo, both of them impervious to me yelling at them to stop. Simon had six inches on Zbiggo, but Zbiggo had hopes for the world heavyweight title. God knows how it might have ended if not for seven chalk artists intervening. Felix was there too, and Uncle Theo. And the friar, sans cops.

It took a moment to determine that Simon's nose wasn't broken and that his ego was suffering more than his body at having been sucker punched. I didn't waste any more time on him, the way some people— Lucrezia, e.g.—might. I didn't want him dead, but I didn't mind if he lost some blood. These things happen. I grabbed Felix and Zbiggo, with Uncle Theo following, and hurried toward the Suburban.

“Must you go?” Uncle Theo asked. “Because someone's come by to watch our progress and very much wants to meet you. You'll never guess who. The mayor!”

“Whose mayor?” I was practically running now.

“Santa Barbara's. At least, I believe that's who she is. She's with a gentleman, on the Santa Barbara City Council, who wants to discuss the Jungian symbolism in our drawing. Or it may be that he's the mayor and she's on the city council. Anima and Animus!”

“That's very good news, but I still must go.” I gave one last look over
my shoulder at Simon, who was tucking in his shirttail while bleeding onto his shirt. There was something so Simon-like about that, I wanted to make the image into a greeting card, but for what occasion? This wasn't the time to work it out.

Lendall Mains had succeeded in drafting Fredreeq into the search for the DVD Zbiggo had tossed out the window. With a quick prayer that she would forgive me and that Lendall Mains would get her back to Los Angeles, I started up the Suburban and found my way to the 101 South, with Joey playing navigator. I'd figured out something. If I made it back to Calabasas with my three dates before the FBI showed up with their search warrants, I was home free. I'd take any available car and go, my cover intact. Leave the feds, the spies, and the DVD pirates to duke it out among themselves. To quote Mrs. Winterbottom, I had had it.

But I had to make it back before the feds arrived.

Within an hour we were in the IHOP parking lot, where we found the Mercedes, fresh from a trip to the car wash, with little vanilla fragrance squares all over the interior.

Joey gave me her jean jacket to cover up Simon's blood splattered across my eggshell silk blouse, and we headed into the pancake house. Stasik sat eating an omelette. He handed keys and cell phone to Joey. “Good wheels,” he said. “I filled it with petrol. And you just got a call from a friend—Freddie?”

“Fredreeq,” Joey said.

“She'd like you to come pick her up, at some mission. She says hell will freeze over before she'll drive back to L.A. with the man she's with.”

“Oh, good,” Joey said. “Another ride up the coast.” She stole a piece of Stasik's toast and headed for the door.

“Stasik,” I said, peeling off a twenty-dollar bill and setting it by his plate for the waitress. “Did Fredreeq say whether they found the DVD they were looking for?”

“She did. This bloke is heading to Calabasas with it.”

“Then I want to get there first,” I said. “You're driving.”

This produced the first smile I'd ever seen on Stasik's face. He handed me back my twenty. “I know better than to let a girl pick up the check
on a first date.” He turned out his own pockets and found some bills, along with a widget he described as a souvenir from Point Mugu, a piece of surveillance equipment. “And—oh,” he added, handing me something bulky, covered in IHOP napkins. “Forgot to return this to your friend. Careful of it.”

I unwrapped from the napkin Joey's Glock, and rewrapped it just as quickly. “Please tell me you didn't use it,” I said.

“No, but I couldn't leave it in the Mercedes. Anyone could break into that car.”

I slipped it into my jacket pocket and followed him out of IHOP. We were no sooner back in the Suburban and buckled up than Stasik was hurtling down the freeway, weaving in and out of traffic like a police cruiser. We made it back to Palomino Hills in what seemed like twenty minutes. Lendall Mains would have to have a helicopter to be anywhere close behind us.

Driving through the guard gate, I realized I felt sick as a dog, queasy, even though I hadn't eaten a thing since breakfast. It had to be more than Stasik's driving. I was now sure I was being poisoned. I decided that my best course of action was, as soon as I dropped off my passengers, to drive myself to the hospital.

I did not get the chance.

The compound was eerily quiet.

There was no one in the Big House. The kitchen was spotless and empty. For the first time since I'd arrived, there was no pot boiling on the stove, nothing in the oven, no smells of onion, spices, or cooking oil, despite the fact that it was the dinner hour.

Stasik and Felix went to check out Green House. Zbiggo and I headed to House of Blue. We found suitcases lined up near the front door. I recognized them as the team's—bags that I'd loaded into the Suburban and/or dumped onto Sepulveda Boulevard.

“What's going on?” Zbiggo asked. “Peoples is leaving?”

“Looks that way,” I said. “Is your stuff here?”

“No. I go to my room now.”

The bags belonged to Felix, Stasik, Nadja, and Zeffie, the four spies-in-training.

I hurried off to my own room. It was as I'd left it, with my clothes and personal items occupying their normal positions. I heard voices through the window and went to look out.

A car pulled into the drive and passed out of view. I heard doors slam and the unmistakable sound of static. Radio—walkie-talkie—someone was communicating with someone else via walkie-talkie. Cops? FBI agents with search warrants? Or Yuri's people?

Behind me, a door creaked. I whipped around.

“Wollie?” The small voice came from my bathroom. The door opened wider and Parashie's head peeked out. “Are you alone?”

“Yes,” I said, going to her and matching her whisper. “What's going on?”

“Vlad isn't here?” Her head peeked out farther. “Have you seen him anywhere?”

“No. What's wrong, Parashie?”

“He's looking for me. He's—”

“Where's Yuri?” I asked. “Where's your father?”

Parashie's eyes grew huge. “Do you have your cell phone?”

I checked the pocket of the jean jacket. “Yes, but—”

“Wait.” The girl scurried out of the bathroom and over to the window. She looked down at the driveway, then turned back to me. “Okay. Please come. Quickly.”

“Where to?”

“We need a cell signal.” Parashie took my hand and led me out of the bedroom.

“Why? Why can't we use a landline?”

“Vlad will see. The phone lines, they light up. He will see we make a phone call and he will come find us.”

“But what's going on?”

“Vlad,” she said, pulling me toward the stairs. “He found me here alone.”

I was getting a bad feeling about everything. “What happened?”

The words tumbled out. “I have never been here alone with him,
ever. Kimberly always said not to. But Grusha went with Yuri because he needed her help, everyone is in a big hurry but then Kimberly also was gone, she got a phone call and Vlad came back to the house. I didn't know, I was in the library, and he comes in. He—” Parashie began to cry.

“Parashie, it's okay. I'm here now. You're not alone.” I squeezed her hand, trying to slow her, but she hurtled down the stairs, oblivious.

“And he told me,” she said, between sobs, “he told me, ‘Think what happens to Chai, think what happens to people who talk, who tell stories.’ I want Grusha. Grusha will know what to do.” She pulled me outside the house with her and then we stopped, huddling under the protection of the portico. We looked both ways. The coast was clear. “This way,” she said, and she took off, sprinting across the grass.

I followed, more slowly and with difficulty She wore a T-shirt, shorts, and hiking shoes; I did not. She crossed the drive and came to a row of trees and hid herself among them, waiting for me.

“Listen,” I said when I reached her, breathing heavily. “There's no need to run. You're safe now. Stasik and Felix are here and Zbiggo, so there's no way Vlad can—”

“No! They are men. I will not talk to men, only Grusha. I want Grusha.”

She knelt to tie her shoe and I saw with shock that there was blood on her leg. I gave up trying to reassure her. My other concern now was the feds. If there was a raid, if they showed up with search warrants, if Yuri wasn't here and Parashie was taken into custody, to Child Protective Services, with her fear of institutions—

“Let's drive to Gelson's,” I said. “We'll get a cell signal—”

“No, Vlad would find us before we are out of the driveway, he would hear us.”

And if the feds were here, they'd hear us. And in any case, my car keys were in my purse, back in my room. The distant sound of a siren made up my mind. I didn't want to face the feds or Vlad. “Okay, let's go,” I said, and let her take the lead.

We focused on moving rather than talking. I tried not to imagine creepy Vlad accosting a girl who couldn't have been more than a hundred and ten pounds. I wanted to believe she had escaped before anything
horrible had happened, but I was scared to ask, scared to think about the blood on her leg and where it had come from. If grim Grusha was her choice of confidante, we'd get Grusha on the phone, once we reached the top of the hill.

We stopped at the lookout point, at the bench that Yuri and I had sat on the night before. I turned on the phone, got a signal, and handed it to Parashie. She dialed with shaking hands. I didn't hear the little computer beeps of the numbers being compressed, just the word “Grusha” and then Russian. She must be leaving a message. I watched the ground, thinking of snakes. That was all we needed, a snake in the grass, to complete the day. After a minute or two, Parashie hung up and held on to the phone with both hands, as if praying. It reminded me that I hadn't said my ten Hail Marys.

“Did you tell her to come home right away?” I asked. “Was that voice mail?”

She nodded, sniffing. She was pulling herself together.

“Do you have your father's cell phone number? We should call him too.”

Parashie didn't say anything. She just looked at me.

“Okay?” I asked.

She wiped her nose with her hand and wiped her eyes, methodically, first the left, then the right. Parashie was completely relaxed now, as if the phone call to Grusha had flipped off the panic button. “So, Wollie?” she said. “Why don't you tell me what you have done with my brother's DVD?”

It was such a non sequitur, it took a moment for me to understand the question. I saw the light change, the sun glinting off a piece of glass on the trail as it prepared to drop behind the mountain. Everything, it seemed, had just turned a shade darker.

Parashie's eyes, in particular.

Then she did the strangest thing. She threw my cell phone in an arc high over my head. I watched it go down the cliff, bouncing twice before it disappeared among the rocks.