“Besides,” Graham said, “we got an errand for you.”

“What?”

Graham looked at him quizzically. “Three years’ vacation isn’t enough for you?”

“Vacation! You call hauling wooden buckets of water up this frigging mountain a vacation? Lugging bundles of firewood on my back? Listening to a bunch of religious fanatics chant the same goddamn note for three years-that’s a vacation?”

“To each his own.” Graham shrugged.

“I want to go back to New York, Graham. I want to sit in the Burger Joint, with the ink from my New York Times smudging the bun of a rare Swissburger as the juices run down my wrist. I want an iced coffee sweating there right beside me… where I can just reach out and grab it. I want to walk down the west side of Broadway and then amble back up the east side. I want-”

“I, I, I,” Graham titched.

“Graham!”

“Don’t get all worked up,” Graham said. “I’m just talking about a little job I need your help with. We’ll stop off in Los Angeles, do this thing, and you’ll be back in New York slobbering your food before you know it. I worry about you, though, you know? Locked up all this time and you think about cheeseburgers.”

“What kind of job? What ‘thing’?” Neal asked. The last job had landed him in this place.

Graham peered into his teacup. “I don’t suppose they have egg creams, huh?”

Neal shook his head.

“A missing kid,” Graham said. “Daddy picked him up on Friday for their one weekend a month visitation. Didn’t bring him back on Sunday night. No big deal.”

“What’s wrong with the sheriff’s department?”

“Nothing’s wrong with the sheriff’s department,” Graham answered, “except that they don’t pay much attention to custody cases, even when the mother is famous.”