Chapter 11

I looked down at the table, and then directly at Al. "I've got bad news," I said, "and beating around the bush to 'make it easier' don't work. So I'll say it straight out. Al, your dad's in town, and he's looking for you."

She went absolutely white. She would have fallen face forward onto the table if Alan hadn't caught her. I was out of my chair, but by the time I got there Cecelia was ahead of me, for she had a lot less table to get around. Alan was holding her, but Cecelia just lifted Al out of her chair and carried her, like a baby, over to the sofa. I knew my wife was strong, but somehow seeing her carrying a grown woman with such ease brought the fact home in a way her daily workouts hadn't.

Cecelia laid Al on the sofa and stroked her hair back from her face. Alan sat beside his wife, while Cecelia knelt beside the sofa, and I sat on the coffee table. In a moment Al's color began to return, and her eyes opened. "I would swear," she said, "that you said Daddy's in town." I'd learned years ago that whenever she was in emotional distress she reverted to that youthful way of referring to her father.

"I did," I told her. "I wish I could say it was a horribly cruel joke, but it ain't."

"Tell me about it."

"You sure?"

She sat up, with Cecelia's help. Alan squirmed around so he was sitting with his back to the sofa's back, and Al nestled into him. His arm went around her shoulders, and she leaned her head on his chest. "I'm sure, Cowboy." She'd called me that for years, that being my nickname among the lower levels of Albuquerque's society – the criminal levels. Though I hadn't met her until she was with Alan, she'd heard of me long before that from other hookers and from pimps and addicts and dealers and all the other riffraff of Central Avenue.

"Okay." I took a breath. "Friday a guy came to the office wanting me to find his daughter. I thought about it over the weekend – you know how I am about taking cases – and Monday told him I'd give it a shot. He told me he'd traced his daughter from Seattle through any number of cities to here. That didn't set off any bells – Seattle's a big place – but Monday he gave me a file of reports from other PIs. If you didn't know me you'd never believe that I didn't know his full name till I started reading the file, but you do know me. I saw that his name was Vernon Hitt, and the daughter he wanted to find was Alison Burdett Hitt."

"What did you do to him?" Her voice was that of a small child. In some ways she was a small child just then, I thought – forced back 25 years to the time when her father was raping her on a regular basis.

"Nothing," I said. I noticed that Cecelia had captured one of Al's hands, and was gently stroking the palm. For all her appearance of formal coldness, my wife can be amazingly tender when she has to be, or with people she cares about. "By the time I realized who he was he'd signed the contract and left. I did punch the wall..." I showed Al my skinned knuckles, causing her to give me a tiny smile. "And I cussed for the first time in nearly 20 years." Cecelia's head jerked in my direction at that, but I'd talk to her later. "But he was gone, and I'm glad he was, or I might be settin' in a jail cell right now waitin' on charges of murder."

Al was still nestled against her husband, who was gently rubbing her shoulder, but her voice was hard. "If you see him again, kill him." I just looked at her, and after 30 seconds or so her eyes dropped. "No, don't kill him. I hate him. I can't stand the thought of him. I'd hoped he was dead, I'd convinced myself he had to be dead, and now that I know he's alive I don't want to see him. But don't kill him."

"I won't, not if I can help it." I rubbed my hand over my face, feeling the bristles there. "But what do I tell him?"

"Tell him you can't find me."

"That won't work, Al," her husband said.

"Why not?" Al's voice was indignant.

"Because," I told her, "he'll just find another PI, and he won't know you nor care about you, and he'll find you. Or he'll follow the trail out from Albuquerque, to other cities, and eventually it'll lead back here, and your dad will come up with you anyway."

"I don't want him to know I'm alive!" Al sat up now, shrugging off Alan's arm. "Tell him I'm dead, then."

"Al," I told her, "you're not thinking clearly. Nor is that a deprecation – under the kind of shock you've had, no one would be thinking clearly. But the same thing will happen if I tell him you're dead. He'll want to see the grave, and they ain't one. He'll want to know where you were before you 'died, ' and the trail will again eventually lead back to a live an' kickin' Al McGee."

"So I have to meet him?"

"No," said Cecelia from her position on the floor. She still had hold of Al's hand, and now she tugged on it to get Al's attention. "If you do not wish to see your father, you do not have to; you are under no obligations to him at this time. He forfeited all claims to your love and loyalty the first time he forced himself upon you. But we do need to tell him something that will, if not satisfy him, at least keep him away. I propose that we deliver a message containing these essential facts: You are alive, you do not wish to see him or hear from him ever, and you will resist every attempt on his part to discern your whereabouts, including whatever legal means may seem necessary."

"And if he keeps on trying?" Now Al sounded like a little girl again.

"Remember Bennie?" I asked her. Bennie had been her pimp when Alan and I had rescued her from prostitution in 1993.

"Yes."

"Then you remember what Alan did that day at the motel."

"Yes." She looked at her husband, and then leaned back and nestled against him again. "He put himself between me and Bennie." She looked intently at me. "And you put his face in the wall, and I thought you were going to break his arm."

"Yeah. Well, if your father tries to get to you, Alan and I will get between you again, and keep him off."

The measure of how far she'd come since her cynical days on the street was that she trusted Alan and me immediately. "Okay, that's good." She seemed to think for a few minutes. "But I want to tell him myself. I don't want to see him, but I want him to hear it in my own voice, my own words. I want to make a tape."