“Doesn’t make me feel any better about it,” she said as she got in the car.

After a moment of silence I said, “Well, you like him.”

“Yeah.” And after another moment of silence she asked, “Does that bother you?”

“A little bit.”

“It never bothered you before,” she said.

“That was before.”

More silence, then: “Kidd, you’re making me nervous. I mean, like really nervous.”

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 10

The computer alarm was beeping when we got home, and I phoned Bobby.

Found on-line.

Where?

Animal control.

Dogcatcher?

Number is right; old 300-baud carrier.

Thanx; will check. Could you monitor line, look for access code?

Yes. Will call.

I dialed Marvel’s house and got John.

“You ready?” I asked,

“All set. I’ll go in as soon as the place opens and wait. Mary Wells parks her car in that lot sideways across the street. If you can get a window seat in that Coffee Klatch Café, ‘round about eight-fifty you’ll see her go in the lot. Red Ford. She usually gets there between nine-oh-five and nine-fifteen. You can meet her in the street and walk up with her. I’ll be ready.”

“Marvel says the map books cost twelve dollars?”

“Yeah. Have a twenty ready; maybe a fifty would be better,” John said. “I think she’d open the box anyway, but with a fifty it’d be a sure thing.”

“All right. And you’ve got the focus figured out and all that

“

“I’ve been working with it, and I’ll check it again before I go in to make sure it’s turned on, that it’s on silent mode, that the radio’s attached

It’ll be peeking out of the briefcase.”

“The briefcase handles

“

“Yeah, we thought of that. They’ll be out of the way. We’ve got them taped. And I’ll go out to talk to this Brown dude as soon as we’re out of the place.”

“OK. I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Let me talk to Marvel.”

She must have been standing next to him because she was on the line a second later.

“Everything OK?” she asked.

“Bobby says there’s a computer out at the animal control building. Ballem calls it with his computer and apparently does some work with it. You got anybody out there?”

“There’s a girl I could talk to

but I don’t know. She’s not the most trustworthy.”

“I’ll try to raid it from here, but if I can’t, we might have to go into the place. We could use another key.”

“Oh, man, I don’t know,” she said doubtfully. “My friend’s pretty shaky.”

“Is she a secretary? What?”

“She’s fuckin’ Duane, is what she’s doing.”

“Ah, shit

“

“It’s no big love affair; she thinks she needs the money.”

“Well, talk to her. But don’t give her any hint of what’s happening.”