A Date You Can't Refuse Read online

  It wasn't a solid wall, but a panel set into a wall, one of a series of panels. Olive Oyl didn't care about the others; she liked this one. I began to push experimentally all around the edges and, sure enough, on the bottom right section there was some give and then the panel swung toward me. “Ha,” I whispered. “How stupid do I look now, Stasik?”

  Olive Oyl went through the hole in the wall.

  After a look over my shoulder, I went too.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Light.

  The overhead fluorescents must 've been activated by a motion sensor. If I'd hoped to find the editing room Bennett Graham had told me to look for, this wasn't it. But it was clean, well constructed, and well lit, a far cry from the anteroom that preceded it.

  I couldn't figure out the purpose of the room, but it had an industrial look to it, long and skinny with brick walls painted white. The floor was concrete. Black beams traversed the length of the ceiling, some kind of pulley system, reminding me of cable cars. Glass partitions at one end of the room, six of them side by side, split the room into sections, like a bowling alley. Six black boxes were mounted on the ceiling above the partitions, with a green computer screen next to each, just above head height. There were metal clamps attached to the side of the glass partitions like giant paper clips.

  At the far end of the room, away from the glass partitions, the wall slanted. I walked over to check it out and found it was made of metal. Above it was some sort of huge filtering system, making a fanlike noise. The noise had started up along with the lights.

  There were big storage lockers along one wall, shut with combination locks.

  What was this place?

  Olive Oyl, now that she was here, wanted to be gone. My guess was that whoever she'd thought would be here wasn't, and that the room itself held no food, mice, or soft doggie bed on the concrete floor and therefore no further interest.

  Inside a wastebasket was a single torn sheet of paper. I pulled it out. One side was blank and on the other was a stylized image of a man's head, no more than a black rectangle with the suggestion of ears. He appeared to be wearing a backpack, and the paper was torn at his rib cage. I pulled a pen from my pocket and, sitting on the floor, made a detailed sketch of the room. Olive Oyl nudged me with her cold nose. I wanted to be gone too, I realized. I'm not overly sensitive to ambience, but I found this room cold, hard, and prisonlike.

  “Fine with me,” I said, taking a last look around. “Let's go.”

  We retraced our steps, leaving the industrial room, and put the gardening tools back in place in the dirt foyer. I made it back to my bedroom for my keys, purse, and a sketchbook and pens—my artistic emergency kit, in case I got stuck somewhere—and left a note on my bedroom door saying I'd gone for a walk. This was true. The walk was to the garage. My own car was now nowhere in sight, probably getting a new transmission, but the Suburban was there. I started it up and, when no one came running out to stop me, took off.

  I couldn't stop thinking about the room and I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd stumbled onto a key piece of evidence—but evidence of what? If Crispin and Chai were any indication, it was dangerous to know too much. It had to be even more dangerous to know and not to know what it was I knew.

  I kept looking in the rearview mirror to see if I was being followed, but all I saw was blackness.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  I pulled into the parking lot, turned off the Suburban, and sat. I was early. The night was gorgeous and the moon was full. I expected to feel liberated, but in fact, I had a strange, untethered feeling. I wondered what everyone was doing back at MediasRex, and it wasn't professional secret-agent curiosity, it was personal. Having lived alone so much of my life, to suddenly have people cook for me, overhear a conversation, maybe notice my absence, held a certain charm. If only I'd gone to college and lived in a dorm—or even summer camp, a quick hospital stay, prison—this wouldn't seem so exotic.

  But it was more than that. Against my will, and despite their alleged illegal activities, I was growing attached to these people. Never mind that one of them was almost certainly a killer. Was this normal? Did it happen to Simon? Was there any research done on the subject, the emotional drawbacks of spying?

  The silence around me broke into my reverie and I sat up. No, it wasn't my imagination. The mall looked closed. Yogi Yogurt, at the far end, was definitely dark.

  Anxiety clutched at me.

  There were a few parked cars, but no real signs of life. What kind of place was Calabasas, where malls shut down at nine-thirty p.m.? Where were the teenagers avoiding homework, working on their gang skills, loitering? Where was Starbucks?

  It always amazes me how a place that's nonthreatening by day can be so sinister at night. I locked myself into the Suburban and drove across the parking lot. Yes, Yogi Yogurt was closed. Now what? I called Joey both at home and on her cell and left messages, saying where I was and what was going on; in case anything happened to me, I wanted people to worry. And in case nothing happened, I told her where to meet me, if possible, in an hour.

  Did I have to get out of the car to make contact? Probably. My instructions had been shockingly vague. Did they expect me to somehow just know how it was done? What if I was being set up? By whom, I couldn't imagine, but I had a free-floating feeling of terror. I reached for my purse, as per Joey's advice. This was the moment to pretend to have a gun.

  Okay, I'd get out of the car, but should I leave it running so I could jump back in and take off fast? Or would that encourage some lurker to jump into it himself and drive away? I went with option one, and ran to the door of the yogurt store with my hand in my purse, which was neither efficient, graceful, nor threatening. And yes, on the door were the store hours. Yogi Yogurt closed at nine each night. Probably the whole mall did. I knocked anyway.

  “Miss Shelley?”

  I whipped around and pulled my hand out of my purse, clutching a tube of hand cream. I stopped just short of aiming it at him. “You scared me.”

  The man stepped out of the shadows. He wore a sports coat; at the very least, not a gang member. “Let's take your car, okay?”

  I put my hand cream away. “Let's see some ID, okay?”

  He handed me a leather badge. It was exactly like the one Simon carried. His name was Lendall Mains, and the photo on the card was of a man visually unremarkable in every way except for one distinguishing feature, ears that stuck straight out. I looked at the man in front of me. Yup. Same ears. I handed the card back.

  “Okeydokey” I said and held up my keys. “Wanna drive?”

  “Better if you do.”

  Lendall was not a big man, and I had the satisfaction of seeing him open the Suburban's passenger-side door only after a first unsuccessful try. “Whoa,” he said.

  “Yeah, why are the doors so heavy?” I asked.

  “They're reinforced,” he said.

  “How come?”

  “Let's talk in the car,” he said.

  He directed me back to Mulholland Highway, toward Calabasas High School, and I asked again about the reinforced doors.

  “Bulletproofing.”

  I pulled over to the shoulder, parked, turned off the engine, and faced him. “Look, Lendall—or do I have to call you Mr. Mains?”

  “Lendall's fine.”

  “Good. Lendall, where's Bennett Graham?”

  “At this moment? I don't know. But I report to him. He's my super visor.”

  “Can you get him on the phone? Because I thought I'd be seeing him tonight, and I need to. “

  “May I ask why?”

  “I'm living in a bulletproof house and driving in a bulletproof car, and maybe that's the kind of thing that would make you feel safe, but it doesn't make me feel safe, especially in light of the dead people showing up. It's not what I signed on for.” I told him about Poprobuji 31 Aromat, tebe legko budet osmotretsya—Udachi on my bathroom mirror, about Crispin's insistence that Chai's “accident” was murder, and about Crispin then reappear
ing twelve hours later as coyote food. Lendall made notes in a spiral notebook, sometimes asking me to stop so he could catch up. This left me time to study his ears and the subtle plaid of his sports coat.

  “All very interesting,” he said at last, looking up from his notes. “And you think someone in the Milos household killed this person, Miss Shelley?”

  “Call me Wollie,” I said. “I have no idea who killed him, but I need to know what I'm doing there. I need to know what the big crime is that Yuri Milos is supposedly perpetrating.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Why, Lendall? Because only an idiot would just go about her business with people around her dropping like flies, rolling down the hillsides of Calabasas like pebbles. I don't want to be next, I don't want to be a rolling stone, I want to live long, gather moss—”

  “Miss Shelley—”

  “Call me Wollie—”

  “Wollie, you need to calm down, because—”

  “No, Lendall, what I need to do, and I think you can tell by my anxiety level that I will, is walk away from this whole operation, and maybe tell the sheriff on the way out what I know about Crispin, because I feel responsible for him being dead, unreasonably, perhaps, but I do. So unless you can make a compelling argument for me staying, I'm going.”

  “Wollie, I can see that you feel frustrated and, yes, scared and perhaps a little emotional, not that we know each other well, but if you'll just trust that—”

  “Are you not authorized to tell me anything? Is that it? You're not high enough up in the food chain to decide this?”

  He said nothing, but his face took on a mulish look. I glanced away from him and back to the road. “Look,” I said, “I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, I've spent my whole life, practically, at entry-level positions. I'm just saying that if you can't talk to me, I can't talk to you either. Nothing personal. Get Bennett Graham on the phone if you need to, but I either get some answers or I'm out of here.”

  “Okay.” Lendall took out his cell phone, then hopped out of the car.

  Could I do it, though? What if they called my bluff? Would I really leave tonight? I didn't know where my own car was, so I'd have to commit grand theft auto in order to quit my job. Giving notice scared me, and I had no faith that I could stand up to Yuri's persuasiveness. What I could do was drive to an all-night grocery store and leave the Suburban and call Joey or Fredreeq—

  The passenger door opened and Lendall hopped back in and handed me the phone. He looked disgruntled.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “Wollie, Bennett Graham.” His voice was crisp and cold, like the night air. “I understand that you've encountered a peripheral incident. This will be investigated. You are not to worry about it; your instructions remain intact. Tell Mains what you've discovered.”

  “Whoa, Nelly” I said. “There was nothing ‘peripheral’ about it. I got a close-up of this poor kid's face, there was blood in his eyeballs—”

  “You'll get over it. This shouldn't have any impact on what you're there to do.”

  “Of course it has impact, it's inherently impactive, and I can't do this job unless—”

  “Stop. Emotionalism will not help you. I need you to focus on the reasons you came to work for us. Do you remember them?”

  P.B.'s face rose up in front of me. “Yes.”

  “Have those reasons changed? Your brother's situation is still tenuous, I assume?”

  “Yes. No, it hasn't changed, but—”

  “No. And that's the relevant point. So let's move on. What happened today puts you in no additional danger, so there is no reason—”

  “How can you know that?” A motorcycle whizzed by us, engine loud.

  “It's my business. If you think that walking away from MediasRex is a real option, I suggest you reconsider. Milos would be suspicions about you and your reasons for leaving and would easily find you. You have no experience at going underground. Trust me on this.”

  Underground. Apt word. If I were six feet underground, and horizontal, there was a chance Yuri wouldn't find me. Otherwise? “But do you trust me?” I asked. “Because I see another option. I could tell Yuri that you're investigating him and that could buy me enough goodwill for him to let me walk away. P.B.'s interests aren't served by me ending up at the bottom of Malibu Canyon. Who'd take care of him then? You? I don't think so.”

  I hung up.

  My hands shook as I passed the phone back to Lendall Mains, who stared at me openly. I stared back, feeling a coldness run down my spine. The phone rang. Lendall answered it with “Mains,” and then passed it back to me without a word.

  “Miss Shelley, if you ever make a threat like that again, I will file charges,” Bennett Graham said. “Your brother's interests will not be served by you ending up in federal prison. Are we clear on that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Give the phone back to Agent Mains.”

  “You go first,” Lendall Mains said.

  I rattled off the names Sergei, Alyosha, Pyotr, Andrej, and Josip, as Lendall wrote them down. “And there are lots more,” I said. “Guys hanging out around the compound.”

  “How about the trainees and staff? Any strange behavior there?”

  “Lendall, if these people were any more eccentric, they'd have their own reality show. Zbiggo Shpek, for instance. Heavyweight boxer and hit man, according to him.”

  “Tell me some examples of irregular activity.”

  “Alik Milos using the UPS store, back there near Gelson's. To and from Film Estonia, something he does on a regular basis, so I guess it's not irregular at all, but why do that when FedEx is at the house every day?”

  “A package from Estonia? Really?” He made a note. “Anything else?”

  “Today's hike,” I said. “People were running up and down hillsides, climbing into the canyon, risking life and limb and poison oak, and for what? I saw this from a distance, but I wasn't supposed to see it at all, because when I asked about it, no one would talk about it.”

  Lendall perked up at this. “Did they have compasses? Other gear? GPS equipment?”

  “Too far away to see. I think we all just had backpacks. Filled with water.” I remembered then how Kimberly had stopped me when I'd tried to help myself to a pack. “No, wait—mine had water. I don't know what other people had. Why?”

  “Just curious. Go on.”

  I told him about the room Olive Oyl had taken me to, and showed him the paper on which I'd done my artist's rendering. He studied it, front and back.

  “The main thing,” I said, “is Chai, my predecessor. Everyone seems to know her, including the trainees who just arrived, but you guys don't seem to find it odd, her death—nobody finds it odd, and that's what I find odd.”

  He looked up. “How so?”

  “Lendall, a sudden death—that's interesting. That's something people discuss. It's human nature. But this happened recently, and everyone's kind of matter-of-fact about it.”

  “Like they're hiding something?”

  “No. They'll talk about it, but they don't say anything. Normally, people will tell you where they were when they heard the news, what time it was, their relationship with the deceased. At least early on. Yuri said he kept it out of the press, but how can he squash people's tendency to talk about it at home? And why would he?”

  We were back at the mall and I pulled up to where Lendall Mains directed me, alongside a Honda Civic nearly alone in the parking lot, far from Yogi Yogurt.

  “Okay,” I said, turning off the engine. “Your turn.”

  “You must understand,” he said, “that nothing I'm about to tell you is true. We're just having a casual conversation. Shooting the breeze. It would be irresponsible for me to divulge information about an ongoing case, as Special Agent Graham explained.”

  “Of course.”

  “Okay, then.” He talked for maybe ten minutes, after which he gave me a small box with a set of instructions. “And one last thing,” he said. “I have somethi
ng for you. In my car. Wait here.”

  Uh-oh. Was I about to be issued a gun by the federal government? If so, I thought, it had better come with lessons and a personality transplant.

  I peered out the window, toward where Lendall had opened his hatchback. The interior light displayed a cooler. My mind went to body parts. Speaking of transplants. I could use some body parts. A braver heart. A stronger stomach. Bulletproof skin.

  Lendall extracted a package from the cooler and brought it over.

  “Your alibi,” he said. “No charge.”

  Inside the white bag was a quart of Very Vanilla frozen yogurt.

  TWENTY-SIX

  I did not return to the compound, but waited until Lendall Mains had driven off, then headed farther into Calabasas, to the Sagebrush Cantina. Joey was at a table in the back, drinking Diet Coke. Fredreeq, in a cowboy hat, sat opposite her, sipping a margarita.

  “Fredreeq, what are you doing here in the wild?” I asked. “Isn't it your bedtime?”

  “Never mind that. Here are the words I want to hear from you: ‘Fredreeq, I have quit this ridiculous job, which I took on against the advice of people with common sense.’”

  “And I want to hear about the chewed-up body you found,” Joey said, pushing a plate of appetizers to me. “Here, have some.”

  “What are they?”

  “Tijuana egg rolls.”

  I pushed them back. “Okay. I'm going to quit, as soon as I do a tiny favor for—uh—”

  “The FBI,” Fredreeq said. “What's the favor?”

  “Install a bugging device in the dining room at the compound. And one in the office. And in Yuri and Kimberly's bedroom.”