Nurse Venus

A lot of people were puzzled about that.

Louis Spotts' fame passed as quickly as it had come. He continued to spend his days and nights in a small cell, alone. Most people forgot about him.

Marvell Jones forgot about Spotts for quite awhile. There weren't any confirmed angel sightings in the winter or early spring, although there were some rumors from Washington state. They existed, and they'd saved Kevin, and maybe they'd saved that little Filipino girl, and maybe some had been in Chicago. But they weren't messing in his business. Of course, he wasn't making things messy He'd taken out B.Q. very cleanly to make a point: It's you who want this war.

The remaining Red underboss in the north made a truce and started taking over B.Q.'s territory. But B.Q.s crew split up into the baby gangs it had formed from, and they went after everybody, Marvell's people, Ivan Grant's people, and even each other. Some of Marvell's baby gangsters retaliated on their own, and the war started again.

But compared to the war down south, it was quiet. All four of the Red underbosses went down, and then one of Marvell's allies turned on the other. Marvell pulled back his men, but there were only five left.

To fill the gaps in his top ranks, Marvell promoted out all his bodyguards except for Tombs, and hired professionals to replace them.

As summer approached, it looked like the war was over in the North. Marvell had time to think about Spotts again. Just a baby gangster, and one of B.Q.'s, but Spotts was about the only one left who might give Marvell a clue about who tipped off B.Q. about where Kevin would be.

But Marvell was beginning to wonder about his brother by this time. Kev was a different man now. Marvell hadn't seen him much since he got out of the hospital after the Lake hit. In fact, only when he visited Moms at her place, which wasn't often--Moms went to "his" place, the mansion where Kev lived with his wife and all her strange friends, a lot more often to visit. Only once had he seen Kev anywhere but Moms' since he was released from Highland Hospital. He'd actually gone to the mansion to see if Kev wanted to come over to Moms'. Kev had said "No," he was busy. Kev had been very short with Marvell.

Stove up or not, Kev was a man of his own now, and Marvell wasn't sure he liked that.

But no matter what he thought of Kev, he had to find out had who tipped off B.Q. if he could. There had been a traitor. He had to be flushed out.

But Spotts was hard to get to now . . .

John Crawford was also becoming interested in Louis Spotts again at this time.

Crawford had had a more prosaic distraction than Marvell since the Lake incident: He ran out of money. A surprise IRS audit had led to confiscation of his accounts and assets. He fought it and had got some of his own back, but in the meantime, he had had to find a living. He'd swallowed his pride and done an authorized biography of J. Kruppenhauer, a wealthy eccentric who was planning to run for President again. Kruppenhauer stayed in Hawaii most of the time, so Crawford had been gone from his home and favorite beat.

Now he was about to go back. He would be doing a column now, nationally syndicated, but based out of San Jose. It wasn't exactly his part of the Bay, but to get a column in one of the San Francisco papers, he would have to wait for someone to die. And he was going to talk to Spotts: he had already roughed out the background for the piece.

But before he went back, Crawford decided to spend a last weekend in Hawaii, free from Kruppenhauer at last. He'd planned nothing more uncomplicated than a day on the beach at Waikiki for his last day, although it would be nice to run into some from the Southbay so he could get an easy column out of it.

He did come across a resident of the Silicon Valley. In the midst of the crowded, noisy beach, he spotted a young woman sitting on a blanket, reading a thick book. Then he noticed two very well muscled companions eyeing him, and he recognized them. They were bodyguards, and the young woman was Dr. Mizuno. A very small child was napping next to her. Also sharing the blanket was a portable playpen with two babies in it, and they were being watched by . . .

Crawford waved, and then turned away and sat down in the sand. The guards were getting too interested, and he wasn't about to ambush Mrs. Suuri in the midst of a day with her family and friends. But her friends . . . the babies in the playpen were being watched by Kevin Jones and, in a beach chair, the paraplegic woman he remembered from his interview with Jones. And, looking out into the ocean, Crawford saw Jones' wife rising from the waves.

Glancing back, he saw the paraplegic woman throw a beach ball at Dr. Mizuno's head, and point at the ocean.

Turning toward the ocean, he saw a vast water and wet-sand fight going on where the water met the beach. Mrs. Jones was in the thick of it, and her long lovely hair was a dowsed, sandy, sea-weedy mess.

Mrs. Jones and the others with her began to troop up the beach after that, and Crawford was not between them and Dr. Mizuno's group. He decided not to approach them, either, but he watched. The ones who came closest were a strawberry blonde who was somewhere near puberty and a smaller, dark-haired girl who rode on her back--not that small; a child of seven or eight. Just behind them were a dark-haired man, Mrs. Jones, and another girl of seven or eight who looked very much like the one on the back of the oldest child. Crawford had a camera and actually took a few shots before he realized might be a bad idea with the guards interested . . . but no one in the group coming from the water seemed to notice him; he was just another graying man in a Hawaiian shirt and shorts and a lot of sunscreen, a stranger among many.

Crawford continued to watch them, wondering what the relationships were. He did not have to wait long. The man he'd first noticed with the girls coming out of the water went straight to the paraplegic lady, as did the oldest child and the one she carried. The man, who picked up the paraplegic and carried her away, had to be her husband--and that was Mamoru Chiba, someone else he hadn't been able to talk to in his last stay in the Bay Area.

They and the larger group--many children, and at least one other man he recognized from the mansion--Kumada, the talker--packed up rapidly and moved up off the beach. In fact, so quickly, Crawford had an idle thought that they must have done this often enough to be practiced, even the children.

When they were gone, Crawford thought about what he'd seen for awhile, sitting in the sun, looking at what other people were up to . . . It wasn't really surprising to find Dr. Mizuno in Hawaii; her husband was wealthy, after all. It wasn't even surprising to find her at a public beach: he knew from the second he had met her, she had no upper-class pretensions. He'd seen her talk to a janitor longer than anyone else while waiting to meet her for the first time at Stanford Hospital.

But seeing her here with Chiba and with Kevin Jones showed Crawford there was a strong connection between them all. In fact, they looked like family . . .

There was one more fact he'd learned about Luther Ponds before leaving the Valley. Ponds had been a police informant. Maybe Dr. Yawada had not been wrong about Chiba . . . maybe he was connected . . . <yakuza?> Professional crime in Japan was a lot more sophisticated now; tattoos and missing fingers were something for bad movies and for old gentlemen who spoke of their exciting youths to each other while feeding ducks in the parks. Chiba claimed to be an orphan, but perhaps his family wasn't dead; merely unacceptable for a spotless professional career . . .

Crawford also thought about his little problem with the IRS. That had smelled of harassment from the beginning, and the particular odor was of a double-cross, by the NSA. But he'd recently begun to doubt it . . . his contact had finally gotten in touch again. His contact hadn't said much, but he did say that crazy theories were not looking so crazy now. But what the contact didn't say was probably more important: he didn't suggest that Crawford stop looking into the anomalies . . .

Crawford had really just started digging into Chiba and the death of Luther Ponds when the IRS had hit him.

The only connection Louis Spotts had to all this was an association with the anomalies. But he might be associated with two of them, including the one Dr. Mizuno was involved in. You helped the little girl in the van, the smaller angel with the third eye had said on the Sauvage tape.

But if that was true, why wasn't Dr. Mizuno helping? All she had to do was say that Spotts had brought Lisette Pinatabo to Stanford hospital, and Spotts would surely be pardoned. Crawford didn't believe in the tiniest portion of his heart that Mrs. Suuri would let concern for her career stop her from helping Spotts or anyone else.

Crawford left the beach. He tried to find out where Dr. Mizuno and her friends were staying, but was not successful. He flew back to California the next morning.

Crawford had expected to have a week to settle into his new position, but the morning after he arrived, he got a call. There was going to be a press conference at the Oakland City Hall, something big. Get there. Don't tell anyone about the press conference.

Feeling like he was a rookie once again, Crawford was out the door in ten minutes.

By the time Crawford arrived, he wondered exactly who he was supposed to be keeping this a secret from. There was a mob of photographers, and several satellite vans. He glimpsed Kate Warfield, one of the queens of trash TV, on the steps.

At least everyone actually allowed inside was a legitimate member of the press; about thirty were so distinguished, including himself. After what seemed like a long wait, the subject appeared at last on the lecture stage, amid her family, some obvious lawyers, and an unexpected friend: none other than Mrs. Kevin Jones. Crawford almost didn't recognize her: she'd either cut her hair short or was wearing a wig, and was wearing a suit that almost make her look like another lawyer. But she was close to the subject: Lisette Pinatubo looked to her as often as to her mother, as she uncertainly came to the lectern to make her statement.

"I am Lisette Pinatabo. I came here to see if the prisoner named Louis Spotts was one of the men who helped save me. He is. My family and I are asking that our Governor and our President pardon him because of what he did."

Every hand went up, but that was all Lisette said. She was led off the lectern and then off the stage by her parents. Crawford noticed that Mrs. Jones moved exactly so as to shield Lisette from the cameras.

Crawford stayed for the rest of the conference, which concerned plans to release Spotts on bail, possibly later in the day. So he missed out on an amusing incident at the foot of the steps, and would actually learn of it later than most people . . .

Marvell Jones liked to catch news; when he had a television on, it was usually tuned to CNN; a radio, to the all-news channel. But he wasn't watching when the news conference started, or even aware it was taking place. Tombs remarked on it when he came to Marvell's office to see if he was needed. "That Pinatabo kid was just on TV. Looks like they turnin' loose of Spotts."

Marvell switched on the set in his office. The conference was just ending, and the feed cut to the outside of City Hall, where the Pinatabo girl was trying to get through the usual mob of press. The camera zoomed in on a woman who cut through to shove a mike in the girl's face--and then someone moving along with the girl made a fast move that put the asshole woman face-into-concrete. Marvell had to laugh, especially when the shot zoomed in to show that the asshole was famous. The woman who had put the move on her was so polite in helping her up--and so clumsy, stepping on the mike and breaking it. She was a lot better looking than the witch she'd taken off that poor Filapino girl, who reminded him of Olivia, though she was still a kid. <In fact, the woman-->

Tombs voiced what Marvell was thinking. "That's your brother's wife! What's she doing there?" Tombs only talked like a movie nigger when he was relaxed enough to joke; when he was serious, he sounded like what Marvell knew he was: a man with education. Could have been a doctor or a lawyer if he hadn't been stopped for DWB (Driving While Black) and had put a white cop on disability. Smart enough to run a crew, cool when trouble came, but he'd never been a baby gangster. That was why Marvell kept him as his driver; he just didn't know the foot soldiers in the Blue army. Marvell was thinking of setting him up with a legitimate business, but Tombs was just so damn useful to have around . . .

"Yeah, what is she doing there? . . . Have to ask Kev that one. But Spotts is the one I want to talk to while we can get to him. Make sure the car is ready; might have to move out fast."

But there wasn't any other news from anywhere for three hours. Then a bulletin came in over the radio: "We have just received a report that Louis Spotts, the San Mateo teenager identified today as one of the rescuers of Lisette Pinatabo, was shot minutes ago outside the Oakland City Jail . . ."

Crawford made sure he was in the room when the Chief of Surgery made the announcement.

"Louis Eugene Spotts, aged 17, was pronounced dead at 6:19 PM. He died during surgery. Resuscitation was attempted for a period of 47 minutes. Mr. Spotts was unconscious on arrival and did not regain consciousness."

Marvell Jones was surprised to see Olivia come into the office. She knew better. But she'd been crying a lot, and she still was a little. "That boy, that helped Lisette. Why did he have to die?"

Marvell got up from his chair and went to her. She backed away as he neared. Then he was sure. And he broke one of his own rules. "I didn't do it. And if I find one of my men had it done . . . well, he'll be very sorry, I guarantee."

"How can I be sure?" asked Olivia.

"If I had wanted him dead, would he have lived this long?"

She stood very still, then allowed him to close and take her into his arms. Holding her, kissing her on her hair like a child, she was so tiny, he thought of how much it would hurt if he had to make her go away. Then he made a decision.

"Tombs," said Marvell.

"Yeah?"

"See if there's room on the Las Vegas shuttle. Buy all the empty seats. If there ain't any, call Otis and charter a plane for at least four; big as they have that can fly tonight."

"Right."

"What are you doing?" asked Olivia.

He decided to do it as right as he knew. He let her go, except for one hand, backed up a bit, and got down on one knee. "Olivia, will you marry me?"

"Now?"

"Yes, tonight." He reached up with his free hand to wipe the tears from her cheeks. "The only business I want to do now is make you happy again."

She started crying again, but she kissed him. Something good was going to come out of this dark day.

Moms would come, of course, and Olivia's mother, an even tinier lady Marvell had brought over to keep Olivia company during his long absences. He had to invite Kevin, of course--and was surprised as hell when Kevin accepted. So he swung by the mansion after picking up Moms. Moms wanted to go in, and so did Olivia and her mother--and she insisted that Tombs come, too; she really liked Tombs, and Marvell suspected she was sweet on him. So Marvell just left a couple of his security-service bodyguards with the car.

It was the first time Olivia and her mother had been inside the mansion, so Marvell was surprised when he caught up with them inside to find them conversing rapidly--in Filipino. He immediately recognized Lisette Pinatubo--who wasn't talking much. He did see her give Olivia a hug, though. Then she came with Olivia back to him--along with Mrs. Chiba, wheeling herself along, looking through him with those old eyes of hers.

"This is a surprise," he said, extending his hand.

Lisette did not take it. She was also staring at him.

Mrs. Chiba did take his hand. "I congratulate you. I hope you will find the same happiness I have found with my husband." After that, Lisette did accept his hand.

The shuttle was full, and Otis Charter wouldn't have a plane available for two hours, so there was no reason for Marvell Jones to leave for awhile, particularly while his mother wanted to commiserate with the Pinatabo family. So did Olivia and her mother Octavia, which left FBI Agent Martin Tiggs free for some blessed moments. He extended a bathroom visit into some exploration of the home. Noting some children using a back stair, he followed it and found a cramped half-floor with an entertainment center--really a little theater, and amazingly well-done.

When he came back down the stairs, he found the lady in the wheelchair waiting. "You are a curious man, Mr. Tombs."

"I guess," said Tiggs. "I would never have guessed you had that little theater there."

"Dr. Han's parents designed it for Dr. Alvarson, the owner. My father works for him; that is how I came to live here. When we first came here, it was all tiny rooms. They were for the colored servants. Hidden away."

Tiggs said, "If you say . . ." The woman had a strange presence about her. "I'd better be getting back to my boss."

"Have some coffee first, Mr. Tombs," said the wheelchair lady.

"Coffee?" said Tiggs.

"Yes. We have Blue Mountain, you know. Extract. Make a cup for yourself and a cup for your boss. You are going to be up late."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome . . . be careful, Mr. Tombs. Your boss hasn't noticed you have been gone so long, but he will remember later."

She wheeled away, leaving Martin Tiggs with the feeling that she knew a lot more that what she was saying . . .

Makoto gave Olivia a bouquet of blue roses and made her promise to come back with it and throw it at a reception she was organizing with Octavia's and Jackie's help. Mamoru watched Olivia take it, and get into the car. It was just big enough for everyone, including Minako, Kevin, and Ishtar, who absolutely insisted--something the accommodating child did not do often at all. And her sisters had also insisted--all too common for Chibi-Usa! Martin Tiggs closed the door for Olivia, then got in the car and drove it off.

As it disappeared into the dark, and as another car that had been parked on the street since a little after it had arrived took off to follow it, Mamoru asked Usagi, "The driver, you are sure?"

"Yes. He is a policeman."

Mamoru said, "Do you want to warn him?"

"The policeman?" asked Usagi.

"You can read my thoughts like anyone else's," chided Mamoru.

"I would rather talk," said Usagi. "Part of me wants to help him. He did not have the boy killed; he wanted to talk to him, to see if he could find out who told his enemies Kevin would be at the lake . . . He is doing a good thing. He truly loves the girl Olivia. She has begun to open his heart more . . . he thought he might have to have her killed to keep his secrets, but he cannot bear to think it. He wants to make babies with her, like his brother has made with Mina-chan."

She put her head in her hands. "But he killed a baby. I saw it in his heart the first time he came here. He did not have to do it to kill the traitor he was after, but he had the baby killed and its mother. To scare the other people thinking about becoming traitors, but also because the mother was white. And there is more evil, deep in his heart. I cannot see as much as I have before, but it is there . . . "

"Usako, are you sick?"

"No . . . But I think of the boy who helped Lisette. He kept silent to help us. I think he must have known Mina-chan was a senshi . . . so brave, and he will never find a girl and marry and make babies with her . . . "

"Could we bring him back?" asked Mamoru.

Usagi said, "No. Naru-chan was able to work a spell. He is beyond even the Grey Lady's art . . . we should have sent one of us to protect him."

Mamor said, "We did not know . . . we can't think of everything. There were police all around."

"Yes . . . there were . . . " She finally looked up. "Let's go to bed. I have had enough of this day."

John Garfield Crawford finished typing up his column. He had reluctantly learned to use word processors when typewriters began to die out, but he liked to use one, once in awhile. He tapped out the final copy on the first portable he'd bought with his first paycheck. It was a mark of respect.