A Place of Hiding (Inspector Lynley, #12)(5)

“Which is why you need a car.”

“Not for what I’ve got in mind.”

“I’ve already said. I’m not lending you my car. I need it for work. And why aren’t you in class? Have you dropped out again?”

“Quit. I needed more free time to do the papers. That’s taken off in a very big way. I’ve got to tell you, the number of conscienceless college students these days just boggles the mind, Chine. If I wanted to do this for a career, I’d probably be able to retire when I’m forty.”

China rolled her eyes. The papers were term papers, take-home essay tests, the occasional master’s thesis, and, so far, two doctoral dissertations. Cherokee wrote them for university students who had the cash and who couldn’t be bothered to write the papers themselves. This had long ago raised the question of why Cherokee—who’d never received less than a B on something he’d written for payment—couldn’t himself get up the steam to remain in college. He’d been in and out of the University of California so many times that the institution practically had a revolving door with his name above it. But Cherokee had a facile explanation for his exceedingly blotted college career: “If the UC system would just pay me to do my work what the students pay me to do their work, I’d do the work.”

“Does Mom know you’ve dropped out again?” she asked her brother.

“I’ve cut the strings.”

“Sure you have.” China hadn’t had lunch, and she was beginning to feel it. She pulled out the fixings for a salad from the refrigerator and from the cupboard took down one plate, a subtle hint that she hoped her brother would take.

“So, ask me.” He dragged a chair out from the kitchen table and plopped down. He reached for one of the apples that a dyed basket held in the centre of the table and he had it all the way to his mouth before he seemed to realise it was artificial.

She unwrapped the romaine and began to tear it onto her plate. “Ask you what?”

“You know. You’re avoiding the question. Okay. I’ll ask it for you.

‘What’s the big plan, Cherokee? What’ve you got going? Why won’t you be needing a car?’ The answer: because I’m getting a boat. And the boat’s going to provide it all. Transportation, income, and housing.”

“You just keep thinking, Butch,” China murmured, more to herself than to him. In so many ways Cherokee had lived his thirty-three years like that Wild West outlaw: There was always a scheme to get rich quick, have something for nothing, and live the good life.

“No,” he said. “Listen. This is sure-fire. I’ve already found the boat. It’s down in Newport. It’s a fishing boat. Right now it takes people out from the harbour. Big bucks a pop. They go after bonita. Mostly it’s day trips, but for bigger bucks—and I’m talking significant big ones here—they go down to Baja. It needs some work but I’d live on the boat while I fixed it up. Buy what I need at marine chandleries—don’t need a car for that—and I’d take people out year-round.”

“What d’you know about fishing? What d’you know about boating?

And where’re you getting the money, anyway?” China chopped off part of a cucumber and began slicing it onto the romaine. She considered her question in conjunction with her brother’s propitious arrival on her doorstep and said, “Cherokee, don’t even go there.”

“Hey. What d’you think I am? I said that I’ve got something going, and I do. Hell. I thought you’d be happy for me. I didn’t even ask Mom for the money.”

“Not that she has it.”

“She’s got the house. I could’ve asked her to sign it over to me so I could get a second on it and raise the money that way. She would’ve gone for it. You know she would.”

There was truth in that, China thought. When hadn’t she gone for one of Cherokee’s schemes? He’s asthmatic had been her excuse in childhood. It had simply mutated through the years to he’s a man. That left China herself as the choice of a source. She said, “Don’t think of me, either, okay? What I’ve got goes to me, to Matt, and to the future.”

“As if.” Cherokee pushed away from the table. He walked to the kitchen door and opened it, resting his hands on the frame and looking out into the sun-parched back yard.

“As if what?”

“Forget it.”

China washed two tomatoes and began to chop them. She cast a glance at her brother and saw that he was frowning and chewing on the inside of his lower lip. She could read Cherokee River like a billboard at fifty yards: There were machinations going on in his mind.

“I’ve got money saved,” he said. “Sure, it’s not enough but I’ve got a chance to make a little bundle that’ll help me out.”

“And you’re saying that you haven’t hitchhiked all the way up here to ask me to make a contribution? You spent twenty-four hours on the side of the road in order to make a social call? To tell me your plans? To ask me if I’m going to Mom’s for Thanksgiving? This isn’t exactly computing, you know. There’re telephones. E-mail. Telegrams. Smoke signals.”

He turned from the doorway and watched her brushing the dirt from four mushrooms. “Actually,” he finally said, “I’ve got two free tickets to go to Europe and I thought my little sister might like to tag along. That’s why I’m here. To ask you to go. You’ve never been, have you? Call it an early Christmas present.”