Rafael's Mermaid

------------------

PART 1

Petals

------------------

CHAPTER 2

He tried calling the Hinkley residence the minute he got back to his car. There was no answer. He tried again on the way to Pam's office in Santa Monica. Still no answer.

Her little white toy car wasn't in the parking lot at the law office, but he went to the reception desk anyway. On a Sunday, the fresh-faced, young security guard at the desk didn't have to consult his sign-in book to know she hadn't been in. Maxwell asked him to do it anyway.

Since he was in Santa Monica, he considered driving by her apartment building. He knew she had given the place up shortly after the wedding in January, but he still thought about driving by. That worried him.

He wasn't sure what he wanted to say to her if he found her. It was the finding that was the important thing.

Not for the first time, he wished he'd gotten around to getting Pam her own communicator. It would be the first thing he did when this mess was sorted out. He tried not to think about what else might be different when that time came.

That first night, he drove by the Hinkley house at 2:00 AM. Only Ralph's station wagon stood in the driveway. He parked down the street and watched until morning. Pam didn't come back.

He was at his desk at the Bureau a few hours later, staring at the phone. A quick glance at his watch confirmed what his internal clock told him. It hadn't been quite an hour since the last time he called her office. Fifteen minutes would put him past the top of the hour. If she was in a meeting all morning, she might be back at her desk then.

"Having a productive day, Maxwell?"

Maxwell jumped in his seat. Carlisle was standing at his elbow, glaring down at him with that slightly constipated expression he always wore in Maxwell's presence. The one that made him look like a bad-tempered squirrel.

"Ah, what?" Maxwell said, pushing the phone aside. "Ah, no, no, not really, Mr. Carlisle."

Carlisle blinked.

"Um, yes, well," Carlisle said and straightened his shoulders.

"No," he went on more firmly. "Clearly you haven't, Maxwell. You keep making one phone call an hour and persistently not doing your paperwork. You had a bust yesterday, I understand. Some petty criminals. Where is the paperwork on that? I've been watching you all morning and I haven't seen it yet."

"You've been watching me all morning, sir?" Maxwell said, feeling a little of his old self come back as he gave Carlisle his best wide-eyed innocent look. "So I guess you haven't been feeling very productive either then."

Carlisle screwed up his mouth in a tight frown.

"We're not talking about me, Maxwell, we're talking about you and your lack of initiative," he snapped. "If you need a new assignment, I think McGruder's steno team could use some help transferring the dead files to microfiche. I believe they're up to 'BA'. That could be a nice long-term role for you if field work is getting too strenuous."

Maxwell once again had to marvel at his own remarkable self-restraint. It would be so easy to staple Carlisle's head to the desk.

"As a matter of fact, sir," Maxwell said, pasting on a big smile, "I was about to come to your office. I need a couple of days out in the field to run down leads on this-"

He hesitated a fraction of a second while he performed his peripheral vision trick. Scan the room, see who wasn't there and was likely to be off doing something important then claim to be helping them. It was a skill he'd perfected in the Army, but it still came in handy from time to time.

"-case of Brown's," he finished with barely a pause.

Carlisle narrowed his eyes.

"Brown's," he said slowly.

Maxwell's smile widened. The peripheral vision trick worked even better when the officer didn't know what the other party was actually working on.

"Yes, sir," he said earnestly. "I've been backing him up on this case for a few days and I think it's time to go out and shake a few trees. See what falls out."

He watched Carlisle's mouth open and close wordlessly a few times.

"Yes, well," Carlisle said at last, "Maybe you should brief me on your progress before-"

"Oh, I couldn't do that, sir," Maxwell said with just the right note of concern in his voice. "I should really let Brownie do that. It's his case. I'm just the backup man."

"Of course, well," said Carlisle, stiffening into his 'let's not forget I'm in control here' posture. "Good. Brown's a good agent. You can learn a lot from him."

"Yes, sir," said Maxwell. "I'm going to start right away."

He stood, pushing the chair back with his legs.

"I don't know how often I'll be able to check in, sir," he said, pretending to sift through the small stack of papers at the side of his desk. "I'll let Brownie make the call."

"Obviously," said Carlisle, nodding, "You just follow his lead."

"Absolutely, sir," said Maxwell as he draped his suit coat over his arm and looked down at Carlisle.

He had to admit, this was his favorite part. He really enjoyed seeing Carlisle try to hold a conversation with him without looking up and so demonstrating who was the taller man.

This time, Carlisle opted to stare out the window as he said, "Tell Brown I said he should take some extra time with you. Consider it refresher training."

"I'll do that, sir," Maxwell said, nodding vigorously.

And then came the moment he always half-dreaded. The moment when he had to push his luck.

"Uh, Mr. Carlisle, sir," he said, adjusting the coat over his arm, "There's just one more thing."

Carlisle looked up with a suspicious tilt to his eyebrow then looked away quickly.

"Well, what is it, Maxwell?" he said.

"Well, he, Brownie, I mean, he asked if I could-" Maxwell said. "Well, sir, he asked if I could requisition a new vehicle. For surveillance."

Carlisle's head shot up. His mouth gaped open like a bass going for a fly.

"I told him you wouldn't give me one, sir," he said quickly, "Seeing as how I don't have the best record with company cars, but Brownie, he wanted me to ask, so…"

He watched Carlisle's pinched face contort with the strain of decision. Maxwell played both sides of the argument in his head.

'I can't give Maxwell another car. He'll only wreck it and besides the only way I can control him is with these petty policies. On the other hand, Brown's a good man, a real team player. If I let Brown have the car, that'll really show Maxwell something. Yes, that's what I'll do.'

Maxwell waited patiently, giving Carlisle the full force of his wide-eyed, hopeful look.

"All right, Maxwell," Carlisle said at last. "Agent Brown can have his car. You can pick it up in the motor pool and deliver it."

Carlisle's tiny eyes glittered with satisfaction as he went on, "Pick out whichever vehicle you think Brown would like. An agent like Brown deserves the best equipment"

Maxwell turned his mouth down in a sulky frown, doing his best to look offended. He had to admit, it didn't take a lot of acting skill.

"Yes, sir," he said. "I'll take good care of Brownie's vehicle."

"Excellent," said Carlisle. "I'm confident working with Brown will bring out a new side of you Maxwell. Take all the time you need on this case."

Carlisle apparently couldn't resist pushing the envelope either.

"I hope that at the end of this," he said, "We'll get two good agents out of it, instead of just one."

That crack took another healthy dose of the patented Maxwell self-control, but he managed to get out of the room without leaving a Carlisle-shaped hole in the wall.

And it was worth it, he reflected as he pulled out of the motor pool a few minutes later. Who knew they kept cherry red BMW convertibles in the garage for the "good agents"?

Of course, he reflected, what he ought to do was call Brown on his new top of the line car phone and let him in on the line he'd just fed Carlisle. That'd be the smart thing to do. But what would be the fun in that?

----------

When he hit the Boulevard, he called Pam's office again. This time, after the usual five rings, he held the line while the call cycled back to the reception desk.

"Mrs. Davidson-Hinkley doesn't seem to be answering her line, sir," said the slightly nasal female voice on the other end. "Shall I leave her a message?"

Davidson-Hinkley? Maxwell cocked an eyebrow. That was the first he'd heard of a hyphen. For the last eight months, Pam always went by Hinkley around him.

"Uh, no, listen, honey," he said into the receiver. "Do you have Mrs. Davidson-Hinkley's schedule? I was wondering when she'd be in the office."

"Just a moment, sir," the receptionist answered in the ever-so put upon voice of oppressed functionaries everywhere.

She came back after a 30-second pause.

"I'm sorry, sir," she said, "It looks like Mrs. Davidson-Hinkley stopped into the office this morning to make arrangements to work remotely. She won't be in the office again until… I don't see an end-date, sir."

"She will be calling the office to check her messages," the voice said, apparently moved to be a little more helpful in light of the bad news she'd just delivered. "Would you like to leave your number?"

"Ah, yeah, probably," he said, just to keep her interested. "Does it say where she's working remotely from?"

"I'm afraid I couldn't give out that information, sir," the voice said reproachfully. "Would you like to leave your number?"

"Uh, no, uh-uh," he said absently. "Thanks sweetheart, you've been a big help."

He broke the connection and stared down the long straight vista of Sunset. "Remotely" covered a lot of ground. Pam could be anyplace from Palmdale to the Poconos.

Of course, he reasoned, there were a few places she was likelier to be than watching Schecky Lavine crack up the blue hairs in the cocktail lounge at the Skytop Inn. Minnesota, for one.

He grimaced. Minnesota would be a last resort. Who would want to hear their mother say, "He seemed like such a nice boy," at a time like that?

Maxwell knew he could find her. It wouldn't take the full resources of the FBI LA Field Office to track down one woman. Even a lawyer probably didn't know just how easy it was to follow a person by their trail of credit card receipts.

He could have her pinpointed to a three-block radius if she was eating out. Closer if she was in a hotel.

As he rolled past a line of tour busses parked along the Strip, he noticed the curious looks the car was getting from the good citizens of Boise or Biloxi or wherever the hell they were from.

Probably thought he was a movie star or something, he decided. They could see the car and his mirrored shades and that was about it, but that was enough to build a story on. Half of them would go home saying they'd seen Robert Redford driving around. One gray-haired geezer in a fast car looked pretty much like another from a distance.

He turned northwest and cut a lazy circle back toward Santa Monica. The receptionist couldn't tell him where Pam was, he thought, that didn't mean she didn't know.

The Counselor wasn't likely to appreciate his running her through the system like a common perp. In fact, he knew, she wasn't likely to appreciate his tracking her down at all.

But at least if he took the old-fashioned technique of asking questions, he could always say he was just checking up on her. It would take a little extra work, but it would keep him occupied while he gave her twenty-four hours to break cover on her own.

Then, if he crapped out on the gumshoe approach, which he was admittedly rusty at, he could always call out the sniffer dogs.

He banked the car toward the ocean and cruised toward the Santa Monica Pier. The first thing he needed was a better disguise.

----------

Maxwell adjusted the tilt of his new Floral Creations Delivery Service baseball cap (a bargain at ten bucks slipped to the kid sweeping out the vans) and gave the massive bouquet of blood red roses a quick once-over.

He'd debated about a more restrained arrangement, but figured why risk half-measures when whole-measures were guaranteed to get a reaction? And nothing got a reaction out of an oppressed receptionist like three-dozen long stemmed roses.

He pushed open the glass doors of the law office and strolled inside, bouquet held out like a flag of Parlay. The receptionist's eyes visibly dilated when she beheld the floral masterpiece. He flashed her his best and brightest smile. After that, he just had to relax and let the flowers do the talking.

----------

Twenty minutes later Maxwell was working his way up Venice Boulevard. The roses were stowed safely behind the passenger seat. Between those and the Mediterranean blue bowl in the trunk, he might be able to talk Pam into forgiving him for running the spy routine at her place of business. Maybe.

He braked at the corner of South La Brea, rolled down the passenger window, and tossed the ball cap out the window onto a bus stop bench. He let out the brake and headed on toward West Pico.

If he planned to leave for the Monterey Peninsula at 5:00 in the morning, that gave him a little more than twelve hours to kill. Cleaning his guns, packing a duffel bag, and making a couple of calls to hotels in Carmel would burn through 90 minutes. That left a lot of time for sitting and thinking.

There were better ways to spend the evening than driving himself crazy. He turned into a drive-through liquor store and rolled up to the window.

----------

Ralph Hinkley's phone rang at 11:30. He grabbed the receiver off the cradle and nearly brained himself with the handset.

"Pam?" he said and listened to the silence on the other end of the line.

"So she ain't back then."

It was Bill Maxwell. His voice sounded rough, but more than that, he still sounded angry.

Ralph exhaled a long, shuddering breath. He'd gotten over his anger at Bill not long after he'd taken off from the warehouse loading dock. It hadn't taken him long to figure out he was angrier with himself than he was with his partner. He was very self-aware. It was a mixed blessing.

"No, Bill," he said. "I haven't heard from her and I don't know where she is."

He hesitated, biting his lip.

"Do you know where she is?" he said at last.

"I've got a pretty good idea," Bill said.

Ralph nodded into the phone.

"I assume you used your usual methods," Ralph said noncommittally.

"You got usual methods, too, kid," Bill answered.

Ralph sighed.

"She left a note," he said. "She asked me not to use the suit to find her. She said she'd call when she had some things worked out in her mind. I have to respect her wishes."

Bill snorted.

"That'd be a first," he said.

Ralph felt his blood pressure start to rise again. He struggled to keep his voice even. He wanted to phrase his next words very carefully.

"Bill," he said slowly, "I can't stop you from going to find her if that's what you want to do. Just remember this is something she and I have to work out when she's ready. And I didn't send you, okay? I-"

There was a movement across the room and Ralph looked up at the petite blonde with the angelic heart-shaped face standing in the doorway to the living room. Her light blue eyes were wide and questioning.

"Uh, Bill, listen," he said more quickly than he intended. "Call me in a couple of days either way, all right?"

There was a noise on the other end of the line that sounded distinctly like a growl.

"Rhonda's there right now, isn't she?" Bill said, his voice a low rumble.

"I'll talk to you in a couple of days," Ralph said quietly.

"You jackass," Bill said and the line went dead.

----------

Just north of Santa Barbara, Maxwell put the top down on the BMW. The sun was already climbing over the eastern hills and shining off the waves. He adjusted his aviators to compensate for the double glare and passed a produce truck like it was going backwards.

He was hugging the coast instead of flying up the inland highway. The time difference wouldn't be that much on a weekday morning, and he didn't want to get into Carmel before there were plenty of other pedestrians out and about for cover.

Carmel was a small town as coastal cities went. He'd have no trouble tracking down the Counselor by lunchtime. Especially if she didn't know she was being tracked.

An hour out of Santa Maria, he tried the radio again. There was still no news. The only station that came in clearly was coming to the end of a jangling pop tune. He got as far as the bubbly DJ chirping, "That was 'Tell Her About It' by Billy Joel! Next up, 'Every Breath You Take' by the Police as we spin through Today's Top Tunes!"

He flipped off the sound and drove with just the screeching of the sea birds for company. He was sure he had to be better off ignoring his own thoughts than ignoring his own thoughts and the radio, too.

A half hour later he knew he was kidding himself. His brain kept cycling through the same stale ideas like the DJ cycled through songs.

The same series of images had been showing on the movie screen in his mind for the past eight months. Since Christmas of last year. Since that night at Pam's apartment.

He saw Pam in her flame red dress, shaking her hips playfully, her dark mahogany hair bouncing in loose curls against her bare neck.

Pam sitting next to him at Abrazo. Her lips parted and her eyes shining as she stared in fascination at the couples on the dance floor.

Pam standing spread legged in the alley with her borrowed gun leveled at three street punks, each one three times her size. That one always made him grin.

Pam kneeling beside him in the alley. Her pale hand hovering over his bleeding chest. Her baby blue eyes staring into his, wide and frightened.

Pam sitting cross-legged on the floor of her apartment in her silky white pajamas, looking up at him and laughing.

Pam's beautiful face hovering over his as he caught his breath after the most surprising kiss of his long life.

Pam's body, long and lean and absolutely perfect as her silky pajamas slipped to the floor.

Pam looking up from between his knees with laughing eyes, her lips wet and red.

Pam, glowing like an angel in the pale morning light, and her little sigh as she eased herself down over him.

By the time he got to that one, he was always hard as a rock.

He shifted in his seat and adjusted his jeans. Not for the first time, he decided he must be crazy, going on this fool's errand after his best friend's wife.

What would he say to her when he found her? What could he possibly say that wouldn't sound just as stupid as he felt?

His mouth set in a tight frown and he pressed down on the accelerator. Plenty of time to worry about that when the time came, he thought. Right now, a little bit of tempting fate at 110 mph on a winding coast road was just what he needed to clear his mind.

----------

He pulled into Carmel-by-the-Sea at 10:15 and parked the car under the shady trees on Ocean Avenue. As he reached for the lightweight navy windbreaker in the back seat, he noticed there was just a mild twinge under the bandage on his upper arm. In a week, tops, it would just be another scar.

He slipped the jacket up over his shoulders and adjusted the drape over his leather shoulder holster. The weather was already too warm for even the windbreaker on this August morning, but the jacket would attract less attention than his gun.

He walked east toward Dolores Street. It was as good a place to start as any. Pam would fit right in with the neat rows of galleries and boutique shops.

As he turned onto Dolores his eyes scanned down the line of squat British-village style buildings with their sloped and shingled roofs and the bright bushel-baskets of flowers outside each door.

Even on a weekday morning, foot traffic was heavy on the wide flag-stoned sidewalks of the promenade. He took an easy walking pace, resisting the urge to let his legs eat up the ground in wide strides that would cover the length of the street in five minutes.

Several times he stopped to admire a paint-daubed canvas or set of rose covered dishes in one of the shop windows. He wouldn't be able to describe them afterward to save his life. He was too busy scanning the reflection of the street behind him to tell one brightly colored gewgaw from another.

On his second circuit up the shade-dappled avenue he saw her. She was coming out of a teashop with a small rosy-pink shopping bag over one arm. She had her back to him, but he would've known the long sweep of her mahogany-colored hair anywhere.

She was wearing a white cotton peasant-style blouse. The wide neck had slipped off one shoulder, showing soft skin already turning a light caramel in the coastal sun.

Her white ruffled skirt swirled around her knees as she turned up the sidewalk. One hand with its fine, tapered fingers reached up to sweep the tumbled curls up and over her shoulder. He caught a brief glimpse of the nape of her neck before her hair fell back in a dark curtain to her waist.

At the sight, a sudden surge of emotion caught the breath in his throat. He was so startled by the intensity of it, it took him a full 8 seconds to notice the two muscle-bound hoods in khaki windbreakers pacing her on the other side of the street.

That fact alone was enough to convince him that Pamela Davidson-Hinkley was better off before he fell in love with her.

- continued -

Rafael's Mermaid

------------------