“Davenport . . .” Shirley emerged from the back.

“Yeah.” He dropped the magazine on the table.

“Don’t know where he is exactly, what hotel,” she said, “but it’s like in Cedar Rapids, some downtown hotel—”

“Iowa?”

“Yeah. He trolls through there a couple of times a year, Sioux City, Des Moines, Waterloo, Cedar Rapids. So one of his girls says he’s down there, she don’t know exactly the place, but she says it’s a hotel downtown.”

“Okay.” Lucas nodded. “But if he’s not there . . .”

“Fuck you, Davenport, you broke my desk.”

Jennifer liked the flowers. Each table had two carnations, one red and one white, in a long-necked vase. The restaurant was run by a Vietnamese family, refugees who left a French restaurant behind in Saigon. The old man and his wife financed it, their kids ran the place and cooked, the in-laws worked the tables and bar and cash register, the ten-year-old grandchildren bused the tables and washed up.

“The big problem with this place,” Jennifer said, “is that it’s about to be discovered.”

“That’s okay,” Lucas said. “They deserve it.”

“I suppose.” Jennifer looked at the red wine in her glass, watching the light reflections thrown through the venetian blinds from the street. “What are we going to do?” she asked after a moment of silence.

Lucas leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. “We can’t go on like this. You’ve really hammered me. Daniel knows about our relationship, and every time something breaks in the press, he’s looking at me. Even if it’s Channel Eight.”

“I’m done reporting, at least for now,” she answered. She tilted her head and let her hair fall away from her face, and Lucas’ eyes traveled around the soft curve of her chin and he thought he was in love.

“Yeah, but if you get a lead . . . tell me you won’t feed it to one of your pals,” he said.

Jennifer sipped the wine, set the glass on the table, ran her finger around its rim, and suddenly looked up into his eyes. “Did you sleep with McGowan?”

“Goddammit, Jennifer,” Lucas said in exasperation. “I did not. Have not.”

“Okay. But I’m not sure about you,” she said. “Somebody’s feeding stuff to her, and whoever he is, he’s tight with the investigation.”

“It’s not me,” Lucas said. He leaned forward and said, “Besides, the stuff she’s getting . . .” He stopped, bit his lip. “I could tell you something, but I’m afraid you’d quote me and really louse me up.”

“Is it a story?” she asked.

Lucas considered. “It could be, maybe. It’d be pretty unusual. You’d be cutting on McGowan.”

Jennifer shook her head. “I wouldn’t do that. Nobody in TV does that. It’s too dangerous, you’d set off a war. So tell me. If it’s like you say, I swear nobody will hear it from me.”

Lucas looked at her a minute. “Really?”

“Really.”

“You know,” he said casually, as though it were of no importance, “I’ve threatened to stop talking to you in the past, but there were always reasons to get together again. I could always find a way to excuse what you did.”

“That’s big of you.”

“Wait a minute. Let me finish. This time, you’ve made a direct promise. No ifs, ands, or buts. If it gets out, I’ll know where it had to come from. And I’ll know that we won’t have any basis to trust each other. Ever. Even with the kid. I’m not playing a game now. This is real life.”

Jennifer leaned back, looked up at the ceiling, then dropped her eyes to him. “When I was a teenager, I made a deal with my father,” she said slowly. She looked up. “If something was really important and he had to know the truth of it, I would tell him the truth and then say ‘Girl Scout’s honor.’ And if he wanted to tell me something and emphasize that it was important and he wasn’t kidding or fibbing, he’d say ‘Boy Scout’s honor’ and give me the Boy Scout sign. I know it sounds silly, but we never broke it. We never lied.”

“And you won’t tell . . .”

“Girl Scout’s honor,” she said, giving the three-finger sign. “Jesus, we must look ridiculous.”

“All right,” Lucas said. “What I was going to tell you is this. I don’t know where McGowan’s information is coming from, but most of it is completely wrong. She says we think the guy is impotent or smells bad or looks weird, and we don’t think any of that. It’s all courthouse rumor. We think she’s probably getting it from some uniform out on the periphery of the investigation.”

“It’s all bull?” Jennifer asked, not believing.

“Yep. It’s amazing, but that’s the truth of the matter. She’s had all these great scoops and it’s all bullshit. As far as I know, she’s making it up.”

“You wouldn’t be fibbing, would you, Davenport?” She watched him closely and he stared straight back.

“I’m not,” he said.

“Did you sleep with McGowan?”

“No, I did not,” he said. He lifted his hand in the three-fingered Scout sign. “Boy Scout’s honor,” he said.

She toyed with the stem of her wineglass, watching the wine roll around inside. “I’ve got to do some thinking about you, Davenport. I’ve had some . . . passions before, for other men. This is turning into something different.”

They slept in the next morning. Jennifer was reading the Pioneer Press and Lucas was cooking breakfast when the phone rang.

“This is Anderson.”

“Yeah.”

“A cop from Cedar Rapids called. They busted Sparky for conspiracy to commit prostitution, and they’ve got—”

“Conspiracy to what?”

“Some kind of horseshit charge. He said their county attorney will kick their ass when he finds out. They’ll have to tell him this afternoon, before the end of business hours. We got you on a plane at ten. Which gives you an hour to get out to the airport. Ticket’s waiting.”

“How long does it take to drive?”

“Five, six hours. You’d never make it, not before they have to tell the county attorney. Then they’ll probably have to turn Sparky loose.”

“All right, all right, give me the airline.” Lucas wrote the details on a scratch pad, hung up, and went to tell Jennifer.

“I won’t ask,” she said, grinning at him.

“I’ll tell you if you want. But I’d need the Girl Scout’s oath that you won’t tell.”

“Nah. I can live without knowing,” she said. She was still grinning at him. “And if you’re going to fly, you might want to break out the bourbon.”

The airline that flew between Twin Cities International and Cedar Rapids was perfectly reliable. Never had a fatal crash. Said so right in its ads. Lucas held both seat arms with a death grip. The elderly woman in the next seat watched him curiously.

“This can’t be your first time,” she said ten minutes into the flight.

“No. Unfortunately,” Lucas said.

“This is much safer than driving,” the old woman said. “It’s safer than walking across the street.”

“Yes, I know.” He was staring straight ahead. He wished a stroke on the old woman. Anything that would shut her up.

“This airline has a wonderful safety record. They’ve never had a crash.”

Lucas nodded and said, “Um.”

“Well, don’t worry, we’ll be there in an hour.”

Lucas cranked his head toward her. He felt as though his spine had rusted. “An hour? We’ve been up pretty long now.”

“Only ten minutes,” she said cheerfully.

“Oh, God.”

The police psychologist had told him that he feared the loss of control.

“You can’t deal with the idea that your life is in somebody else’s hands, no matter how competent they are. What you have to remember is, your life is always in somebody else’s hands. You could step into the street and get mowed down by a drunk in a Cadillac. Much more chance of that than a plane wreck.”

“Yeah, but with a drunk, I could see him coming, maybe. I could sense it. I could jump. I could get lucky. Something. But when a plane quits flying . . .” Lucas mimed a plane plowing nose-down into his lap. “Schmuck. Dead meat.”

“That’s irrational,” the shrink said.