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  "Not to worry. It's a natural reaction."

  "I'm afraid I've made a mess."

  "Dale'll clean it up."

  She laughed, just barely, but I took it as a good sign. Then she focused on my left hand. "What's that?"

  "I'm not sure," I said, and opened my hand to see a chunk of metal about four inches long. "I think it's the slide."

  "The slide?"

  "From the gun."

  From the front seat, Dale said, "From the what?"

  "The slide-stop must've snapped when I was trying to force it back," I said. "Came off in my hand, and I was too amped up on adrenaline to drop it."

  Lady Ainsley-Hunter leaned back and used the handkerchief again. "Nicely done," she said. "Taking the man's gun apart like that."

  "Oh, hell yeah," Dale said. "He so meant to do that."

  "How do you know I didn't?" I asked.

  "I know you."

  * * *

  The plane was descending into Kennedy, and I was watching the sunset light slide away from Rockaway below us, thinking it was a beautiful thing, that it would be a beautiful image to keep and preserve. Much more worthwhile than yards of videotape and mountains of photographs that almost, but didn't quite, tell the truth.

  It was the cameras that did it, that lofted me and the rest of KTMH into the same orbits as Skye Van Brandt and Carson Fleet and even Lady Antonia Ainsley-Hunter. The still photos and the endlessly looped videotape that showed, again and again, what appeared to be my magic trick, the effortless one-handed dismantling of Jeppeson's gun. The full-color photo that, for one week, was on the cover of Time, taken the moment after Jeppeson hit the deck, showing me with the slide in one hand, my weapon in the other, and Lady Ainsley-Hunter dashing past, sprinting for the car.

  Within days of the attempt on Lady Ainsley-Hunter, we were swamped with requests for our services, everything from legitimate protection work to puff show jobs to one query asking if we'd be willing to fly out to Idaho for a week and train a militia unit in the finer points of personal protection. We took a pass on that one; we said yes to just about everything else. We were invited on talk shows, including a couple of national ones. We appeared on Charlie Rose and Larry King Live. New York magazine did a cover story, entitled "The New Security." Natalie, certainly the best looking of us, got singled out for particular attention, with one photograph of her running with the caption, "Cover me!"

  We weren't working out of Dale's house in Queens anymore. We had an office in Manhattan, below the West Village by the entrance to the Holland Tunnel, in what was once the Printing District. We were almost rich, and certainly comfortable. We had more work than we could handle, and of late Natalie and Dale had been agitating for hiring on another couple of hands, just to help with the load.

  We were, by all reckoning, successful.

  My dumb luck.

  Chapter 2

  It was six past nine when the cab let me off in front of my apartment building in Murray Hill, and I unlocked the foyer door and checked the mail, discovered the box empty. I took the stairs two at a time to the top and let myself into the apartment. Elvis Costello was playing on the stereo, and beneath his voice I heard others, though those stopped when I shut the door. I locked up after me and tossed my bag into the bedroom, which is inconveniently right off the front hall, then turned around and saw Bridgett Logan as she came around the corner from the living room.

  She smiled when she saw me, and that made me feel better. I'm a sucker for her smile, for the way her mouth opens and the way the lower left corner of her lip kind of tugs off to a side a little bit. Then again, I'm a sucker for just about everything about her, and in more ways than one, from the hoop through her left nostril to the tattoo on the back of her right calf. She's an inch taller than me, long and lean and with pale white skin that makes her black hair and blue eyes all the starker, and I think she's a total knock-out, but I freely admit to a bias. We've known each other just over three years, and in that time we've gotten together, pissed each other off, made separate, concerted efforts to sabotage our relationship, and finally returned to one another in a shaky comfort. A year ago, we were barely speaking.

  Things change. When she got out of rehab, we began spending more and more time together. Now, often as not, Bridgett was at my place as much as her own apartment in Chelsea. She had a shelf in the bathroom for her toiletries, two drawers in the bureau for clothes, and slowly books and music from her collection had been migrating across town.

  In May, I'd asked why she didn't just move in already and get it over with, and she'd told me that this was enough, then cut off further discussion by saying that she didn't want to be pressured. She asked me not to ruin it.

  So I tried not to ruin it.

  That didn't keep me from saying, "Hi, honey, I'm home," though.

  Her smile broadened and she came down the hall toward me, so I moved to meet her. We caught up with each other at the kitchen and necked briefly, and then she pulled off the kiss and I put my face into her shoulder, and we held one another like that for a bit longer. She was wearing a black tank top, and her skin was warm and smelled of the oatmeal soap she now kept in my shower.

  "Never, ever, say that to me again," Bridgett said.

  "Let's go to bed," I told her shoulder.

  "Hmm." She moved her mouth closer to my ear, and I heard her teeth clink against my earrings. "Tempting, but you've got company."

  I let her go, straightening my glasses to see Natalie waiting at the end of the hall, watching us. She was in slacks and her blazer, and she didn't look very happy, and I guessed that she'd come from work.

  "Hey, Nat."

  "Atticus."

  I opened the refrigerator and got myself a bottle of Anchor Steam, then offered one to each of the two ladies. They said no. I had a swallow, then dropped into one of the chairs at the table and began removing my necktie.

  "That Skye Van Brandt's autograph?" Natalie asked.

  "She's got a hell of an arm." I smoothed the tie down on the table, trying to get the creases out.

  "Her manager called this afternoon, screaming his head off," Natalie said. "Says you walked out on her. Then Skye called, asking where you were, if you were coming back, sounding pretty distraught..."

  "She's an actress," I said. "She gets distraught if her makeup isn't right."

  "She's a movie star, actually," Natalie corrected. "Then her agent called, and he got shrill with me, saying that Skye couldn't work like this, whatever that means. Then Skye called back, but this time she had a bitch on, and when I told her I hadn't been able to reach you..."

  "I shut off my phone."

  "So I'd gathered. When I told her I hadn't been able to reach you, she called me several four-letter words, in a variety of combinations, then hung up. Then her manager called back and said you were fired. So, essentially, as a result of whatever happened in El Paso, I was verbally abused by the Skye Van Brandt organization this afternoon. Would you like to tell me what happened in El Paso, Atticus? Because I'm really curious."

  "You know I wouldn't just walk out for no reason," I said.

  "I do," Natalie said. "I also know that Skye Van Brandt's a spoiled brat, and that you should have been done with the job two days ago. Did she do that?" She indicated my forehead with a manicured nail.

  "With an ashtray."

  "Why?" Bridgett asked.

  "I wouldn't carry her luggage."

  They looked at each other. Bridgett began to giggle.

  "That's nice," I said. "I'm glad you're amused, because I sure as hell wasn't. Aside from the pain that comes from being beaned with a glass ashtray, I nearly lost consciousness, I had blood in my eyes, and I couldn't see."

  "You poor thing," Bridgett said.

  I ignored her, speaking to Natalie. "She made it impossible for me to protect her."

  "By walking out on her you left her exposed," Natalie said.

  "To what? Back strain? Skye Van Brandt didn't need a PSA, Nat, she needed a b
abysitter. I was for show, that's all. And, for the record, I wasn't fired -- I quit."

  "It could make it hard for us to get more work."

  "You mean more of that kind of work, and no it won't. We bill them as normal, and if they make a stink, we'll let them know our attorney will be in touch."

  "You'd sue over this?" Bridgett asked.

  "Of course not," I said. "But they won't dare trash our reputation, and if they get even the least bit snarky I've got no qualms about threatening them with a civil suit for assault."

  "Ooh, he is pissed off," Bridgett told Natalie.

  "Damn right I am."

  "You might want to get that under control," Natalie said. "We've got clients coming into the office tomorrow at one, they're going to want to meet with you."

  "Is it a real job?" I asked.

  Natalie looked at me skeptically.

  "One where we actually do what we're trained to do," I explained. "Not another dog-and-jackass show."

  "Is that what you think we've been doing?"

  "Don't you?"

  "No, but this clearly isn't the time to discuss it. I'll see you tomorrow."

  "I'll walk you out," Bridgett told her.

  They left me alone in the kitchen, and I could hear them talking softly at the front door. Natalie and Bridgett have a friendship that predates my knowing either of them, and while it'd been stormy in the past, they seemed to have worked most of their difficulties through. I finished the beer and heard the door close, and Bridgett came back as I was rinsing the bottle out in the sink.

  "Okay, sport," she said. "What are we going to do about your mood?"

  "My mood's fine."

  "True, you do sullen so well."

  "Don't start."

  "And feeling sorry for yourself even better."

  "I asked you not to start."

  "You did not, you told me not to start, and you know how I respond to that." She leaned back against the wall, arms folded across her chest. "I'm going to ask again, what do you want to do?"

  "I want to shower. I want to have something to eat. I want to go to bed."

  "That it?"

  "Well, I'd prefer not to do these things alone."

  "Then we have a problem, because I already ate."

  "I can go without dinner."

  "Problem solved."

  * * *

  A little after midnight I discovered that going without dinner had been a bad idea, and we got out of bed and pulled some clothes on, then went back into the kitchen. I boiled some water for Bridgett's herbal tea, fixed a glass of juice for myself, and we sat at the table and munched on sliced apple and cheese and bread. Bridgett had pulled on her tank top and a pair of my shorts, and I could see the track marks on her arms, puffy scars that were hard to the touch. She caught me looking at them.

  "I'm fine," she said.

  "I know," I said. "They just make me sad."

  "Scars can do that. You've got a couple that make me feel the same way."

  "And now a new one."

  "Skye Van Brandt hasn't earned the right to scar you. It'll heal clean." She put some cheddar on an apple slice, munched, and chased it with a sip of tea. "She's not what's bugging you, though."

  "How about the ennui of the working class?"

  "Try again."

  I swirled the cranberry juice around in my glass. "I shouldn't have walked out on Skye. That bugs me, but I'm not sure if it bugs me more than the fact that I took the job in the first place. I knew it was bogus going into it, but I did it anyway."

  "The money was good," Bridgett said.

  "I didn't do it for the money."

  "Star-fucking, then?"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Not literally, you dope. Just wanting to be close to the glitterati. There's a glamour in it, admit it."

  "The glamour has long since worn thin. I've seen how the other half lives, Bridgett, and I'm not interested. It's not that."

  "Why then?"

  I finished my juice, looked at the empty glass in my hand. "Something to do, I suppose."

  "There are better ways to combat boredom."

  "Don't I know it."

  She finished her tea and we cleared the table, then shut off the lights and got back into bed. Bridgett curls up when she sleeps, and she pressed her back into me, settling, and was asleep in minutes. It took me much longer to relax, and nearly another hour before I managed to doze.

  Then Bridgett was nudging me awake, and I was wincing in the sunlight, listening to her tell me that I was wanted by the FBI.

  Chapter 3

  "How many times are we going to do this?" I asked Special Agent Scott Fowler.

  "Hell if I know," he answered. "Until they don't have any more questions, I expect. Get in."

  I took the passenger seat and Scott waited until I had buckled up before starting the engine and pulling out into the traffic on Lexington Avenue. It was an unseasonably cool summer morning, and pedestrians who had opted for shorts and tank tops were walking with the brisk purpose of people desperate to get warm again.

  Scott himself seemed comfortable, though I knew to him anything below sixty-five degrees was, by his own definition, "freezing." We were both Californians by birth, but Scott was from SoCal, and grew up spending his after-school hours and weekends catching waves along the lower Pacific Coast. He's got four years on me, wears glasses, has two earrings, and looks perpetually ready to hit the beach at the drop of a hat. But for his suits, which are uniformly blue or gray, you'd be hard-pressed to tell just by looking at him that he works for the FBI.

  "You were out of town," Scott said. "The lovely Skye. Nicely done."

  "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "It's in the paper. 'Seen canoodling at The Grey Moss Inn outside El Paso, Texas, smoldering starlet Skye Van Brandt and celebrity protection specialist Atticus Kodiak.' "

  "Whoa," I said. "Backup. What?"

  "Page Six. The Post. There's a copy on the backseat." Scott was grinning like he'd snuck a mouthful of some very tasty and forbidden treat. "Bridgett know?"

  I was twisting around for the paper, finding it already folded open to the celebrity gossip pages. There was a small file photograph of Skye, and the copy was pretty much as Scott had quoted with the addition that, "Van Brandt's publicist denies any involvement between the two."

  "This is utter crap," I said.

  Fowler laughed, negotiating the merge onto the FDR. "They make all that shit up anyway. You'd never be caught dead canoodling anyone at The Grey Moss Inn."

  "Wait until tomorrow," I said. "They'll run a story saying that she and I had a fight and that we're 'headed for Splitsville.' "

  "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. You and Skye were so good together."

  "Shut up and drive." I tossed the paper back behind the seat. "Did something happen?"

  "No idea. The SAIC just told me that the Backroom Boys wanted to see you again, and could I get you into the office this morning. I told him I'd try."

  "That's it?"

  "If I knew anything else, I'd tell you, Atticus," Scott said. "Probably more of the same. Somebody somewhere found something someplace and they're hoping you can shed light on it."

  "Here we go again," I muttered.

  "Here we go again," Scott agreed.

  * * *

  We parked in the garage, and then Scott led me up into the Federal Building, where I got my visitor's pass and was escorted past the metal detectors, then into the elevator and up to the Bureau offices. What had once seemed a maze of corridors and turns had now become familiar, and we went past the pictures of the President, the Attorney General, and the Director, walking along floors carpeted in gray and blue, passing agents and secretaries until we reached the same conference room as every time before.

  They were waiting for us inside, already seated, six of them this time, which was the most who had been present for quite a while. There were five men, three of them at the table, two seated with their backs against the far
wall, and one woman, also at the table. The man at the head of the table was Hispanic and in his fifties, with a stack of file folders to one elbow, and I pegged him for American before he spoke, either CIA or NSA or State, though the odds were he wouldn't identify himself as such. To his right sat two more men, both Asian. The woman was to his left, black, perhaps shy of fifty, and when she spoke, her accent was South African. The men seated at the back were both white, but the lights were dimmed for the presentation, and I didn't get a good look at their features.

  These were the Backroom Boys, and so far they had never been the same group twice. This was the sixth time I'd been summoned to appear before them in the last eleven months, and I was resenting it like hell right now. The first couple of times hadn't been so bad; there'd been a novelty value, and I'd been eager to help the cause of international law enforcement, to offer what small insight and experience I could. Now, even if the cast kept changing, the parts didn't, and I knew all the lines by heart.

  The man at the head of the table rose and said, "Thank you for coming, Mr. Kodiak. My name is Marietta. I work at the State Department."

  "Sure," I said.

  Everyone except Scott put their eyes on me for a moment, taking stock. I was wearing old jeans and a T-shirt and my Army jacket. The butterfly sutures I'd put on my forehead the previous night had come off, and I hadn't had time to shave. I imagined that I looked pretty sordid, less a professional security specialist than some thug who had wandered into the wrong line of work.

  Fine by me. If everyone was going to play a part, I'd play one, too.

  Marietta indicated the woman, introducing her as a representative from Interpol's headquarters in The Hague. The two men on Marietta's right worked for the South Korean Intelligence Agency. He ignored the men behind him, and from his manner I assumed that all of us present were to do the same. Which meant they were probably spooks.

  When the introductions had been completed, Marietta started the presentation, using a sleek black laptop linked to the LCD projector on the table. He directed his speech to the three at his end of the table. The rest of us might as well not have been there.