"That's about it. How're you doing?"

"I don't think it's completely sunk in yet-I'm not even sure I want it to." There was so much to process, as Dr. Al would have phrased it. He missed the Corders, especially Dr. Al-it hurt to know he'd never be seeing him again, and hurt even worse to realize that he'd been at least indirectly involved with their murders. If he'd been honest with Dr. Al about the dark place and the occasional voice in his ear, his surrogate father would still be alive.

But on the other hand, he, Lyssy, would still be locked up, and facing a lifetime of incarceration at best, so what was that all about?

Then there was the whole question of his relationship with the alters. He'd always gotten mixed signals from Dr. Al, who'd tell him in one breath not to feel guilty about the terrible things the alters had done, and in the next breath a.s.sure him that the alters were not separate beings, but dissociated aspects of his own personality.

He explained all this to Lilith as best he could (it probably would have been easier for Lily to understand), concluding with the biggest paradox of all: even knowing how their escape had been accomplished, and at what cost, Lyssy told Lilith he couldn't honestly say he wished that he could take it all back, that it had never happened-not if it had brought him here to this room, to this bed, with her.

She told him it was the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to her. Their first kiss, though it took forever for their lips to come together, had an inevitability about it nonetheless; afterward, for instance, neither of them would recall having intentionally closed the distance between them.

8.

Mick MacAlister worked out of a one-room, second-story walk-up located above a bowling alley only a few blocks from the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.

Pender parked the 'Cuda in front of the bowling alley and walked around to the side of the building, the wall of which had been given over entirely to graffiti-Death to the a.s.s-Licking Sons of the Dying Regime was the predominant sentiment.

MacAlister & a.s.sociates Private Investigations Discreet and Effective read the business card taped next to the b.u.t.ton marked 2-C, one of three set into the side of the recessed doorway. Pender pressed the buzzer and a few seconds later the door lurched open a few inches.

The smell of urine faded as Pender climbed the stairs, wearing a single-breasted sport jacket of gra.s.s green and mustard brown over a lavender polo shirt and plaid slacks; a brown Basque beret, argyle socks, and beige Hush Puppies completed the ensemble. He knocked on the wooden door marked 2-C, then let himself in.

The office walls were covered with Grateful Dead posters, and though there was nothing burning at the moment, the air was still layered with tobacco/cannabis smoke and cheap strawberry incense. MacAlister, seated at a rolltop desk placed sideways to the room like an upright piano on a stage, was a charter member of the gray ponytail brigade; a burgeoning belly strained his tie-dyed KPIG T-shirt. "Sorry, no refunds," he said. "How about a cigar instead." Nodding toward a cherrywood humidor.

"Try one of mine." Pender offered MacAlister one of his Green Iguanas, a mild, stubby Dominican cigar named for its olive-green claro wrapper. He had started smoking cigarettes again during his second wife's illness. After her death he had switched to cigars in an effort to wean himself from the cigarettes-Pender's doctors had been promising him a coronary for years if he didn't lose weight, get more exercise, and give up the gaspers-and wound up hooked on stogies.

Giving the Iguana a dubious glance, MacAlister instead flipped back the top of the humidor and turned it so Pender could see inside. It was full of Macanudos, genuine hecho a mano Havanas, each of which probably cost as much as a twenty-stick box of Pender's Dominicans. "Gift of a grateful client," he said.

"Go ahead, twist my arm," murmured Pender, dragging a wooden chair closer to the desk.

The snip of the cutter, the snick of the lighter, cigar heaven. They smoked wordlessly for close to a minute; then through a haze of blue smoke MacAlister asked Pender what he wanted.

"I need to know more about those bikers."

"Sorry, trade-"

Pender cut him off. "Not today, Mick-four people died last night."

MacAlister blew out a perfect smoke ring, waited for it to break up. "Aw, what the hey-why hide my light under a bushel?"

"Why indeed," agreed Pender, holding the cigar between his teeth while he took out his pocket notebook and a stubby pencil.

"Okay," MacAlister began. "Second week of the search, I get a credit card hit in Sturgis, South Dakota. That's where they have the big motorcycle run every summer. I'm there the next day. n.o.body at the restaurant where I got the credit card hit remembers anything, so I paper the town and the encampments with flyers, and hook up with the Wharf Rats-that's a gang of clean-and-sober Deadhead bikers I knew back in Berkeley, in the old days.

"One of the Wharf Rats tells me this story that's going around, about some girl who bit the nose off some s.h.i.t-heel during a gang bang. It never occurs to me that it's our gal from Pebble Beach-I mean, Pebble Beach, gimme a break!-but the next day, the last day of the run, I'm out pounding the pavement, where there is pavement, and two gals who put up a hot dog and loose joint stand in Sturgis every year tell me about a girl who looks "kinda like" the girl on the flyer, and how somebody with her made that old joke about "you don't want to see laws or hot dogs being made," and how the girl joked that at least it tastes better than that a.s.swipe's nose.

"I figure it's worth a trip to the county hospital, where of course everybody remembers the guy who got his nose bit off. Turns out he gave a phony name and address, but I track down the triage nurse, and she remembers their colors. The Redding Menace. One-percenters out of Shasta County. Head of the gang is a mucho mysterioso figure named Carson. Sumb.i.t.c.h keeps a lower profile than a snake in Death Valley. Dirty as can be, has his fingers in everything from meth to money laundering, and forget about finding him-the local cops don't even know whether Carson is his first name or his last name. So I decide to let him find me. I rent a motel room in Weed, put the word out in every bar and biker hangout in Shasta County that I'm looking for him."

Gently, he broke off the silvery, inch-long ash from the Havana into a blackened gla.s.s ashtray on his desk. "I tell you, a week in Redding in August is enough to make a man turn religious."

Pender flicked the ashes off his stogie with his ring finger, George Burns style, and like Burns was quick with the straight line. "How so, Mr. MacAlister?"

"Because after it, Mr. Pender, you've had enough h.e.l.l to last you an eternity. (Thank you, no applause, just throw money.) Anyway, on Sat.u.r.day I finally get the call I've been waiting for. Woman asks me why I'm trying to find Carson. I tell her. She says maybe she knows something, maybe she don't, what's it worth? I tell her about the ten-G reward. All of a sudden she's pretty G.o.dd.a.m.n sure she can work something out, only the reward's gotta be in cash-no checks, no money orders, no paper trail. We set up the meet for the motel coffee shop on Monday morning, and the rest is skip-tracer history."

"Did you get a phone number from her?"

"Negatory-she always called me from a pay phone."

"License plate on her Harley?"

"Sorry."

Pender looked down at his notebook, where he'd scribbled Sturgis, Wharf Rats, Man w'out nose, Menace, Redding, and Carson. Not much to go on, but perhaps it would mean more to the Shasta County sheriff. "Thanks, Mick, I appreciate the help."

"No problemo. Here, take one for the road." He tilted the humidor toward Pender.

"Don't mind if I do," said Pender. "You'll call me if that woman gets in touch with you again?"

"You bet. Drop by anytime."

MacAlister showed Pender to the door and locked it behind him, then retrieved Alice, the office bong, from her customary hiding place inside a hollowed-out boxed set of Remembrance of Things Past, selected for the honor because n.o.body but n.o.body ever browsed Proust. Shaped like a voluptuous nude with a carburetor hole in the side of her headless neck, Alice had been banished from the MacAlister domicile by wife #3.

Mick was on his second toke when the phone rang; he coughed out the hit and answered it as his nonexistent French receptionist. "MacAlister and a.s.sociates, zis is Gabrielle, 'ow may I direct your call?"

"Mr. MacAlister, please."

"'Oo may I say is calling?"

"He wouldn't recognize my name."

"What is zis in reference to?"

"Just tell him it's about Lily DeVries."

"'Old ze line, please." MacAlister, a little surprised at how little surprised he was, put the phone down while he filled his KPIG mug with lukewarm black coffee from the thermos on his desk. "The monkey's got the locomotive under control," he whispered to Alice before picking up the phone again. "MacAlister here. What can I do you fer?"

9.

Lyssy stared in wonder at the naked, sleeping girl. He thought back to the first time he'd laid eyes on her in the arboretum. He felt as if he'd known even then that she was fated to be a part of his life.

But how deep a part, he could never have guessed. Since they'd made love, clumsily at first, then with increasing skill as instinct and muscle-memory took over (for both of them), every inch of her had somehow become precious to him, verging on holy, the curve of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and b.u.t.tocks no more or less so than the curve of her calves or earlobes.

She stirred and rolled over onto her side; a snore bubble formed and popped on her perfectly shaped lips. In this position, he could see the dark shadow between her legs. Lyssy grew aroused again, realized he had to pee.

The bathroom facilities in the attic consisted of a toilet and a low sink hidden behind a blanket at the far end of the room. Before Lyssy could put on his prosthetic leg-he'd taken it off earlier, at Lilith's insistence; she'd said it was like having somebody else in bed with them-Lilith sat up and hugged him from behind.

"Is that a bullet hole?" she asked him sleepily, gently tracing the round, indented scar in the hollow of his left shoulder with her fingertip.

"Nine millimeter, they told me in the hospital."

"Does it hurt real bad, getting shot?"

"I don't remember getting shot-just waking up in the hospital with this shoulder all bandaged, and a thing like an upside-down basket over my knee."

Lilith changed the subject. "If you want, we could do it again. There's lots of ways, you know."

Lyssy could feel himself blushing. "Sure, maybe. I have to pee first, though."

"No you don't," said Lilith mischievously.

"I don't?"

"No, you have to pee second," she told him, hopping out of bed b.u.t.t-naked and racing for the toilet.

"Hurry up," called Lyssy, frustrated but laughing; obviously, sharing a bathroom was something else he was going to have to get used to.

Carson was still in bed when Mama Rose called from town. He smiled when he heard her voice, remembering their spirited romp that morning. Whoever said more than a handful of t.i.tty was a waste must have had some big G.o.dd.a.m.n mitts, he decided. But despite the conjugal workout, he still hadn't changed his mind about tucking into that sweet Lilith at least once before he had to kill her-now that would have been a real waste.

"Hey babe, what's up?" he asked his wife.

"Everything okay on the homefront?"

"So far, so good-they don't even know they're locked in yet."

"Good, good. Listen, I ran into Dennie in town." Dennie, half full-blooded Aleut, half Okie pipeline worker, was Li'l T.'s immensely pregnant ol' lady. "We're thinking about grabbing some dinner."

"No problem, long as you get back before nine o'clock."

"Why nine o'clock?"

"That deal with those guys from San Berdoo? Remember, me and Li'l T., we're supposed to meet 'em in town, drive 'em up to the shop?"

"Oh, right," said Mama Rose. "It completely slipped my mind." A purposeful lie-she'd needed to verify that Carson was still planning to go out that night, but had been afraid that a direct question might have aroused suspicion on his part.

"It's just I don't think we want to leave our friends in the attic home alone."

"Don't worry, I'll be back in plenty of time."

"Okay, see ya then."

"Love ya," said Mama Rose.

"You bet," said Carson, whose thoughts had already turned back to the girl in the attic.

"Lyss?"

"Hmmm?"

"Want to get some fresh air?"

"I thought you'd never ask." Lyssy sat up-they'd moved the two beds together for the second go-round-and started looking around for his leg, while Lilith slipped on her jeans, her brown cashmere sweater, and her sneakers, then bent over and grabbed the handle to the naked-looking wooden trapdoor set into the linoleum. It wouldn't budge.

"f.u.c.k a duck, it's locked. They never locked it when I was here before." She stomped on the closed hatch like a three-year-old having a temper tantrum. "Hey! Hey, the f.u.c.king door's locked."

They heard footsteps on the ladder, the click of a padlock. "Go ahead, open it." Carson's voice.

Lilith yanked. The trapdoor swung up and over, crashing top down against the linoleum; years of such abuse had worn a harelip-shaped gouge in the face of the Ninja Turtle with the blue headband. "You first, lamb chop," called Carson, still wearing his bush hat, bathrobe, and flip-flops.

The ladder was steep, but the rungs st.u.r.dy and wide, of the same unfinished wood as the trapdoor. Lilith scrambled down, but before Lyssy could follow-he hadn't found his pants or his leg yet-Carson sprang up the ladder. Waist-high in the attic, he waved a stubby-looking revolver in Lyssy's direction.

"One customer at a time," he said, keeping his eyes and the gun trained on Lyssy, while he felt around for the handle of the trapdoor. He raised the hatch to the vertical and held it up with one hand, dropped the gun into his bathrobe pocket with the other, then let go and ducked simultaneously. The trapdoor came crashing down, nearly crushing his jaunty bush hat.

Lilith watched from below while Carson reattached the padlock and snapped it closed.

"Lilith? Lilith, what's going on?" There was panic in Lyssy's voice.

"It's okay," she yelled, as Carson scooted nimbly down the ladder, skipping the last few rungs and landing lightly on his flip-flops. "We'll get it straightened out, I promise."

Carson laughed. "Oh, we'll get it straightened out all right," he said. "We'll get it good and straightened out."

CHAPTER SEVEN.

1.

No rewards for Maxwell had been posted by the time Mick MacAlister and E. L. Pender left Santa Cruz Thursday afternoon in a red Cadillac convertible with white upholstery and a Grateful Dead skull-and-roses b.u.mper sticker. But Pender had already called Lily's uncle to tell him they had a line on Lily's whereabouts, and might need to offer a reward, and Rollie DeVries had informally agreed to pony up another ten grand.

This one wasn't about the money for MacAlister, though. It was about glory-or its modern equivalent, celebrity. Bringing in Maxwell while the hot white glare of the media spotlight shone full upon him would all but guarantee Mick his allotted fifteen minutes of fame, which nowadays could be extended almost indefinitely.