FIFTEEN days after Cassie Black made contact with Leo, she got the return call. She was sitting in her office, going over the figures on a trade-in sheet with Ray Morales, when the phone rang. Her mind on the work at hand, she grabbed the phone and punched the line without thinking about it.

"This is Cassie Black, can you hold?"

"Sure."

She recognized the voice with that one word. She paused as a cold finger slid down her spine, then she hit the hold button. A palpable excitement rose in her chest.

"You okay?" Morales asked.

"Sure, fine. I have to take this, though."

"Go ahead."

"I mean alone. It's personal."

"Oh. Okay."

Ray looked a little rejected and maybe even annoyed. To him personal probably meant a new boyfriend was calling. Cassie had gently rebuffed him two days earlier when he had asked her out to dinner after work. Now that he had finally made his move, he was too late. Cassie was waiting on Leo and wasn't going to complicate things with Ray. If things went the way she was planning, she would be doing him a favor by not getting involved with him. He'd have no secrets to hide when the cops came to talk to him.

Ray said he would be in his office if she wanted to finish going over the trade-in report. He moved out of her small office and closed the door without Cassie's having to ask. She leaned forward to look over the desk at the bottom of the doorjamb. She could tell that Ray was standing just outside the door, hoping to hear her conversation.

"Ray?"

He didn't respond but Cassie watched the feet move away. She clicked the hold button on the phone.

"Hello?"

"What, did you go for a test drive or something?"

"Sorry."

"Well, I got something for you."

Cassie didn't respond at first. The trilling of adrenaline in her blood was strong. Outlaw juice. She felt a sense of being at the edge of a cliff. It was time to go over. Now or never. Those people who got in padded barrels and floated over the falls had nothing on this.

Leo spoke into the silence, breaking the spell.

"I'm not sure you're going to like it, though."

Cassie swallowed back a catch in her throat.

"How come?"

"We'll talk about it when I see you."

"When and where?"

"Just come here. But make it soon. Either tonight or tomorrow first thing. This has to go down by tomorrow night or we lose it."

"All right, tonight after work. You still in the same place?"

"Always. One last thing. I'm turning on the memo button on the phone machine here so I have this on tape. Kid, you know I love you but it's been a long time. Don't get insulted, because this is just a precaution. Ever since Linda Tripp and Monica Lewinsky, it's standard operating practice around here. Here goes. Are you currently working with any law enforcement agency at this time?"

"Leo…"

"Don't say my name. Just answer the question. I'm sorry but this is a precaution I have to take. People been settin' traps right and left out there."

"No, Leo, I'm not. If I wanted to set you up I could have done it back before I spent the nickel at High Desert. Everybody and their brother wanted me to make a deal then. But I didn't."

"You sure didn't and you know I appreciated it. Didn't I take care of you when I could? What about that PI you wanted to hire – that cost me five grand, you know."

"You took care of me, Leo. I won't forget."

"I wish you'd forget using my name."

"Sorry."

"Okay, good enough. The tape's off. We're good to go. I'll see you in a little while. Take – "

"Did you get the passports?"

A pause.

"Not yet. Next time I'm out I'll make a call to check on that. Okay?"

"Okay, but I need them. Soon."

"I'll deliver the message. See you soon. Take all usual precautions."

After she hung up Cassie's eyes traveled up the wall next to the door. Her eyes held on the poster taped on the wall and facing her. It showed a woman in a string bikini walking on a sun-drenched beach. The word TAHITI! was scrawled in the sand behind her, just out of reach of the surf's wash.

"To the place where the desert is ocean," she said out loud.

CASSIE drove west on Sunset. She had the top down on the Porsche. She loved the thrum of the engine coming through the seat and the deep, guttural tones she heard on the curves. At Beverly Glen she turned the Boxster north and followed the winding canyon road over the hill and down into the Valley.

Leo Renfro lived in Tarzana in the flats north of Ventura Boulevard on a street fronting the 101 Freeway. His house was a small, postwar ranch house without any real defining design or style. It was like every other house in his neighborhood and that was exactly the way Leo wanted it. Leo had survived by being nondescript, by blending in.

She drove by the house without braking and then up and down the surrounding blocks, studying every parked vehicle she passed and looking for the telltale signs of a surveillance vehicle: vans with mirrored windows, cars with more than one antenna, pickup trucks with camper shells on the back. One vehicle caught her attention. It was a plumbing repair van, according to the sign painted on the side panel. It sat at the curb in front of a house one block from Leo's house. Cassie passed it without stopping but then turned around and headed back, pulling to the curb and parking a half block from the van. She sat there watching the vehicle and looking for movement behind the glass, a shifting of the suspension as people moved around inside, any indication of life within. Nothing happened but Cassie maintained her vigil for almost ten minutes before she saw a man in a blue jumpsuit come out of the house and approach the van. He opened the side door and climbed inside. A few moments later he carefully lowered a heavy pipe-snaking machine to the road. He then got out, closed and locked the van's door, and pushed the machine toward the front door of the house. He seemed legit to Cassie. She restarted the Porsche, made one more circuit through the neighborhood and then returned to Leo's house. She parked at the curb out front and reminded herself not to buy into Leo's constant paranoid sensibility. She remembered all the rules and precautions he used to lay on her and Max before a job. Don't bet black before a job, don't eat chicken before a job, never wear a red hat and so on and so on. It was all step on a crack, break your mother's back stuff as far as Cassie had been concerned.

Until that last night at the Cleopatra.

When Cassie got to the front door she looked up at the joists of the roof overhang and saw the old bullet camera was still in place. She was wondering if it still worked and got her answer when Leo answered the door before she knocked. She smiled.

"Guess it still works."

" 'Course it does. Had that there goin' on what, eight years now. Person put it there guaranteed it for life and I believed her. Nobody knew her shit better than her."

He smiled.

"How are you, Cassie? Come on in."

He stepped back to let her in. Leo Renfro was in his early forties, with a trim, medium build. He had thinning hair that was already gray. It had been gray when Cassie met him almost a decade earlier. He'd told her then that it was from having to grow up too quickly. He'd practically raised Max, his stepbrother, after their mother died in a drunk-driving accident. Leo's father was an unknown but Max's wasn't. He was in Nevada State doing ten to twenty-five for armed robbery.

Cassie stepped into the house and Leo pulled her into a fast, tight bear hug. It felt good to her. It felt comforting, like home.

"Hey, kid," he said with a somber and loving tone.

"Leo," she said and then pulled back with a concerned look on her face. "I can say your name now, right?"