Chapter 21

The neighborhood where we found the address wasn't fancy, but it wasn't trash either. Albuquerque's weird – you can have nice houses and apartments on one side of the street, and utter junk on the other. Letty, who was watching Darlia, lives on Piru, in a very nice large house among other very nice large houses – but if you cross the street and jump a wall, you can find yourself among junk houses and people who if they're not gangbangers sure make it a point to look like they are.

This neighborhood, though, wasn't so close to such a dividing line. You'd have to drive for a little way, or walk for 15 or 20 minutes, to find a transition. It was in the Northeast Heights, which when I came to town had an aura of respectability if not wealth, but these days is a patchwork of respectable neighborhoods, money behind gates and walls, and junky neighborhoods where I don't feel any safer at night than I do along Central.

We parked down the street, where we could see the front of the house we would watch but those at the house couldn't spot us sitting in the Blazer, even with the untinted windows. I'd made it a point to park between street lights, so that it would be as dark in the vehicle as possible. I kept the engine off – not even turning the key to Accessories – so there would be no light from the dash on us. It was a good thing that neither of us had ever smoked, since lighters or matches, glowing cigarettes, and smoke floating out of windows can give away a surveillance real quick.

As we settled in, I said, "I told you that this job could get boring."

"And I believed you, of course. I shall, however, know by experience before this is over."

"Yep." I'd told her on the way over that we'd be there for at least an hour before we could expect anything to happen. I'd parked two hours before the time Joey had given me, and I knew that people would start showing up before then – it takes time to set up lights and microphones, and set the scene so it doesn't look like the same bed in the same room as the last porn flick. "By the way, Cecelia," I said, "when they're redoing the sheets and where the bed is and whatnot, what do they call that?"

"I am not thoroughly conversant with the terms they use in Hollywood, but I believe they say that they're 'dressing' the set."

"I know they did things like that on TOS," I said, using the acronym for Star Trek's original series. "They'd use the same set as different rooms, just changing things around so it wouldn't look the same."

In the darkness I could barely see Cecelia turn toward me. "Are you on this line of conversation because of what you know will happen inside?"

"Yeah. I know them people won't give a flying flip about clean sheets as such, but they'll want it to look at least a little different from the last time they shot something there."

I felt Cecelia's hand on my leg. "You're nervous, aren't you?"

"Yeah, I am. How'd you know?"

"You may not consider yourself a profound thinker, darling, but your thoughts are usually on a higher level than the mechanics of making pornography. You are talking without giving much thought to what you're saying – and I know that to be an unusual state of affairs."

I shrugged, though Cecelia probably couldn't see it. "Don't tell me you ain't nervous."

"Oh, I am thoroughly disquieted. There are many reasons for nerves, from the condition of that poor child to the fact that I am going to help you barge in with guns, if not drawn, at least at the ready. I had not expected you, however, to show your anxiety quite so clearly."

"I think that a lot of it is just that I've got you here to talk to. When I'm by myself I can just sit on my hands and be quiet. But you're here, and that gives me someone to spill it on."

Cecelia's hand moved from my leg to my shoulder, squeezing gently. "I consider it a great honor to be the person on whom you 'spill' what troubles you."

"And I consider it a great honor to have you to spill stuff on."

She must not have found anything to say to that, for she was silent. And so we sat there, moving very little in the darkened Blazer, watching as the porch light on the house – no doubt due to a motion detector – went on and off sporadically as cars or people went past.

Nervous or not, I must have dozed off, knowing that I could trust Cecelia to watch, and to wake me if she found herself drifting. I woke to her shaking my shoulder. "A car has pulled up in front of the house," she whispered in my ear.

"Got the binoculars?" I asked.

"Yes." I felt her putting them into my hands. They're not night glasses, but with the porch light on I knew I'd get a great view – with street lights alone they would have been sufficient for our purposes.

I put the binoculars to my eyes, watching as people piled out of the car. There were three men, and what looked like a child, though the men surrounded the fourth person and I couldn't even determine whether it was male or female, a child or a little person. They trooped up to the porch, where one of the men rang the doorbell – at least I couldn't think of anything else that familiar finger action could be.

While they waited, the shorter fourth person wound up on our side of the group, one of the men holding her hand – pretty tightly, I suspected. It became clear it was a girl, with dark curly hair. And then she turned around. She was terrified, I could see, and that made it even easier to be sure – this was the girl we were after. I handed the binoculars back to Cecelia, and she got a brief look before the door opened and the group went inside. We hadn't seen anyone go in or out since we'd been watching, so someone must have been there all along. That would cut down the preparation time considerably.

"It's her," Cecelia said.

"Yeah." I pulled the key out of the ignition and opened my door, Cecelia going out her side. We closed the doors gently, not locking them, and leaning on them to get them to latch without the usual clunk. Standing there by the Blazer, I drew my gun, worked the slide to put a round in the chamber, made sure the safety was on, uncocked the gun, and reholstered it. I didn't hear Cecelia doing the same on her side of the Blazer, but I knew she had – it was part of the plan.