Free Bannerman's Law by John R. Maxim

chickens coming home to roost. He probably would have said that a stitch in time would have saved nine but I hung up on him .”
    Molly offered no comment.
    “ Christ .” Car l a let out a breath. “ Have you ever met a man named George who wasn't a turkey ?”
    Molly said nothing.
    “ It wasn't the first time, either ,” Carla said.
    “ What wasn't ?”
    “ That I got in trouble, and he changed the locks .”
    “ What kind of trouble ?”
    “ Nothing big. I beat up some girl who was giving me too much crap. And I got arrested a couple of times during demonstrations. Vietnam stuff. And I got pregnant twice by one of my professors. Had a bad abortion the second time. That was when I got shipped off to Paris .”
    ”Um ... in fairness, Carla . . .”
    ”I know. I was not every father's dream .”
    Molly steered for the exit ramp at Sunset Boulevard.
    “ Go straight .” Carla touched her arm. ”I want to see Lisa's apartment .”
    “ Where is it ?”
    “Huntington Park, down past the USC campus. Twenty minutes, tops .”
    “ You have a key ?”
    Carla patted her purse. “ I've been out here a few times. I've stayed with her .”
    Molly swung onto the ramp. “ I'm going to bed, Carla. We'll go in the morning .”
    Carla started to argue but a yawn stopped her.
    “ What does your father do ?” Molly asked, to draw Carla off that subject.
    Another yawn. “ He's retired. He used to be with the water company .” Where they're probably all named George, she thought.
    Molly nodded. It sounded as if he'd made a living but not much more. A modest house. A widower on a pension and social security. Not likely that he could have put Lisa t hrough USC and then graduate school. Lisa, probably at Carla' s urging, had spared his pride by lying to him about a scholarship. He might never have learned otherwise if he hadn't started sticking pins into Ca rl a.
    “ Molly ?”
    ”Uh-huh ?” Ahead, all pink and lit up, she saw the facade of the Beverly Hills Hotel.
    “ You're as tough as I am. How come nobody ever thinks you're a shit ?”
    “ I'm not so tough. But there's tough and there's mean, Carla ,” she said, not unkindly. “ There's a difference .”
    Carla dropped her eyes. She didn't speak for several moments . Then, ”I wish you'd known Lisa. She didn't think I was mean .”
    “ I'm sure that's true. And I do wish I'd known her .”
    Carla fumbled for a tissue. She turned her face as her father had. Molly reached for the back of her neck and squeezed it.
    “ I ' m not always mean ,” she said, shuddering.
    ”I know .”
    “ Do you like me? Even a little ?”
    “ We've kept each other alive, Carla .”
    “ So has penicillin. That's not what I asked .”
    Molly had to smile, although a bit sadly. Paul had told her about their talk on Co m po Beach. That she felt she'd lost the only person who cared about her. And that she might be dangerously brittle for a while, and would need some hand-holding.
    Paul had been tempted to come himself. But, he real ized, ever y time he leaves Westpo r t, someone, not least the U.S. intelligence community, begins to wonder what he's up to.
    Anyway, she could handle it. She, and Paul, had dealt with this sort of thing, or something like it, a dozen times over the years. Contract agents are all a little crazy. And most of them had spent the better part of their lives doing unto others first. Retirin g them, making new lives for them, trying to integrate them into a nice, laid-back com munity like Westport had taken some doing. Teaching

them that you don't break some teenager 's legs for throw ing beer cans on your lawn or for trashing your mailbox, although maybe you torch his car if he makes a habit of it. But also teaching burglars, swindlers, and drug dealers that they'd be better off working some other town if they didn't want to be found in a trunk just over the Westpo r t town line.
    Some of them had needed more teaching than others. Old Billy Mc H ugh, for example,