“It IS too dangerous,” I said.
“Then what are we supposed to do while you go doing something dangerous?” she demanded. “And what if you don’t save Mom and you both never come back?”
I looked at her, and then at Cody. She was glaring at me with her lower lip quivering, while he settled for a stony-faced expression of contempt, and once again the best I could manage was to open my mouth soundlessly a few times.
And that is how I ended up driving to the Convention Center, going slightly faster than the speed limit, with two very excited children in the backseat. We got off I-95 at Eighth Street and headed over to the Convention Center on Brickell. There was a lot of traffic and no place to park—apparently a lot of other people had been watching public television and were aware of the Art-stravaganza.
Under the circumstances, it seemed a little silly to waste time looking for a parking spot, and just as I decided to park on the sidewalk police-style, I saw what had to be Coulter’s motor-pool car, and I pulled up onto the walk beside it and slapped my department placard on the dashboard and turned to face Cody and Astor.
“Stay with me,” I said, “and don’t do anything without asking me first.”
“Unless it’s an emergency,” Astor said.
I thought about how they’d done so far in emergencies; pretty good, in fact. Besides, it was almost certainly all over by now. “All right,” I said. “If it’s an emergency.” I opened the car door. “Come on,” I said.
They didn’t budge. “What?” I said.
“Knife,” Cody said softly.
“He wants a knife,” Astor said.
“I’m not giving you a knife,” I said.
“But what if there IS an emergency?” Astor demanded. “You said we could do something if there’s an emergency, but then you won’t let us have anything to DO it with!”
“You can’t wander around in public holding a knife,” I said.
“We can’t go totally defenseless,” Astor insisted.
I blew out a long breath. I was reasonably sure that Rita would be safe until I got there, but at this rate, Weiss would die of old age before I found him. So I opened the glove compartment and took out a Phillips-head screwdriver and handed it to Cody. After all, life is all about compromise. “Here,” I said. “That’s the best I can do.”
Cody looked at the screwdriver and then looked at me.
“It’s better than a pencil,” I said. He looked at his sister, and then he nodded. “Good,” I said, reaching once again to open the door. “Let’s go.”
This time they followed me, up across the sidewalk and to the main entrance of the big hall. But before we got there, Astor stopped dead.
“What is it?” I asked her.
“I have to pee,” she said.
“Astor,” I said. “We have to get moving here.”
“I have to pee really bad,” she said.
“Can’t it wait five minutes?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head vigorously. “I gotta go now.”
I took a very deep breath and wondered if Batman ever had this problem with Robin. “All right,” I said. “Hurry.”
We found the restroom over to one side of the lobby and Astor hurried in. Cody and I just stood and waited. He changed his grip on the screwdriver a few times, and finally settled for the more natural blade-forward position. He looked at me for approval, and I nodded, just as Astor came out again.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go.” She breezed past us toward the door to the main hall and we followed. A doughy man with large glasses wanted to collect fifteen dollars from each of us to let us enter, but I showed him my police credentials. “What about the kids?” he demanded.
Cody started to raise his screwdriver, but I motioned him back. “They’re witnesses,” I said.
The man looked like he wanted to argue, but when he saw the way Cody was holding the screwdriver, he just shook his head. “All right,” he said with a very large sigh.