shrugged. “He wouldn’t have all these people after him if he was stupid.”
“I’m the one who’s starting to feel stupid. He hasn’t dealt with anything that even looks like china white, let alone the real stuff. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear the guy was opening a legitimate business.”
“Maybe he is.”
“Sure, and politics is a clean business.”
Chance shrugged.
“Damn it,” Quisto said, “all he’s done for a week and a half is talk to decorators, food suppliers, and interview chefs.”
“Hey, now there’s a thought. You could sneak in as a chef. We could close him down in a night.”
Quisto scowled. “One little mistake at a home barbecue and they never let you forget it.”
“It’s your mother who can’t forget it.”
“It was only one fire engine, I don’t see—”
Chance cut off the words with a quick gesture as a silver Mercedes coupe pulled into the driveway behind them. He watched it in the rearview mirror until it pulled into a marked parking stall and Pedro Escobar got out.
“Alone,” he said, and settled back down in the driver’s seat of the black BMW he and Quisto were sitting in.
The car had been, along with a luxurious motor yacht that was moored down at the marina, the spoils of the biggest bust ever made by the Marina del Mar police, two years ago. Under the Federal Forfeiture Statute, they got a large chunk of the hapless drug dealer’s cash in addition to the boat and the car. Chance had been instrumental in that case, and it gave him no small pleasure to know that the man’s resources were being used to bring down others like him.
“Speaking of my mother,” Quisto said as the vigil began again, “she wants to know when you’re coming for dinner.”
“Sometime. When there’s less than twenty of you around,” Chance said dryly. He liked Quisto’s family, especially his energetic, vivacious mother, but sometimes they were daunting just in sheer number. For an only child who’d been a loner most of his life, the chaos of seven brothers and sisters, plus assorted spouses and children was a little overwhelming.
“She worries about you, you know.”
“She worries about everyone.”
“Yes, but when she worries about you, I’m the one who constantly hears about it.”
“Tell her I’m fine.”
“You know she won’t believe me.”
“I know.” Chance grinned at him. “Why is that, partner?”
Quisto grinned back. “Never mind. What you don’t know—”
“—I can’t tell your mother, right?”
The grin widened. “Right.”
They watched as a truck pulled into the driveway, then looked at each other with raised eyebrows.
“I don’t get it,” Quisto said. “If he’s not going to open for another week, like the ad said, why is he having food delivered now?”
“I don’t know. Something private, maybe.”
Chance’s eyes were fastened on the reflected truck. It was food, all right. And perishable stuff at that, lettuce, vegetables, fruit. He shifted his gaze to Quisto, then his eyes shot back to the small mirror, searching.
She wasn’t there. He could have sworn he’d seen her somewhere in the background of the tiny scene the mirror held, but she was gone now. If she’d ever been there at all, he thought wearily.
He rubbed his forehead with one hand, remembering all the times over the past ten days when he’d jerked to attention, thinking he’d seen her somewhere in the distance, or turning a corner, or going through a doorway just far enough away that he couldn’t tell where exactly she was.
“Chance? You all right?”
He turned to find his partner’s bright dark eyes fastened on him curiously. He let out a long breath.
“Yeah.” He shook his head as if to clear it. “Maybe I do need that vacation you’re always on me about.”
Quisto’s gaze sharpened, the curiosity changing to concern. “Chance—”
“Forget it, will you? I’m fine.”
Just a minor delusion. Just a strange tendency to jump out of my skin anytime I see a dark-haired woman wearing red. Seeing one woman in particular every time I turn around. Oh, yeah, I’m just fine.
After a moment’s hesitation, Quisto accepted it, at least for now.
“Guess I’ll go see what I can find out, then.”
Although Chance had seen the transformation many times, it never ceased to amaze him. Off came the stylish jacket, and the cotton sweater beneath. Quisto reached behind the seat and tugged out a worn plaid shirt that he slid on over the plain white T-shirt he’d had on under the sweater. His hands went to his hair, pulling it down over his forehead, out of its usual smooth style.
His normally straight, proud carriage changed, slumped. His very features seemed to change, flatten somehow, and he was no longer the aristocratic young Cuban with the flashing dark eyes. He was every brown-skinned Latino day worker seen on the streets of California, the kind that the wealthy people in town looked arrogantly past as if they weren’t there.
“Pick me up around the corner,” Quisto said, and slipped out of the car. He leaned over to look in the window. “Hasta luego, amigo.”
“Yeah, later.”
With an amazed shake of his head, Chance started the car and pulled it away from the curb. Around the corner, as Quisto had indicated, and out of sight of Mendez’s building, he parked again. He picked up the portable radio from the seat, letting Jeff, who was still in the van back in front of the building, know what was going on, then settled down to wait.
It was an unseasonably warm January day, even for sunny-year-round California, and Chance found he had to work to keep his eyes open. He hadn’t been sleeping well lately, and it was starting to catch up with him. That it was because those gray eyes and that full, soft mouth had come too often to haunt his dreams was something he didn’t care to admit.
You’ve been a fool before, he told himself severely, but that doesn’t mean you have to spend so much time mooning over a woman you saw once, for all of three minutes, and will never see again. And it’s not like you to be mooning over a woman at all, he thought wryly now. You’re out of that market for good, remember?
He shifted in the driver’s seat, leaning his head back against the headrest. A mistake, he thought immediately, and tried to lift it. At least he thought he did. When he came awake with a start, he realized he hadn’t made it. Still leaning on the headrest, he let his head roll to the side, to check the rearview mirror for any sign of Quisto. Seeing none, he let
