“Don’t think so. I’m here ’bout always. My man’s the cook. Kirby. He’s twenty-seven. I’ll be twenty-four in August.”
“Hey, if I don’t see you in August, happy birthday.”
“Yeah, right. Twenty-four. I’ll be freakin’ old.”
Which made me what? Prehistoric?
“Anyway,” Melanie said, “that helicopter guy come back later that afternoon. He flew in, walked over from that building out there, kinda hunched over like he was hurting, and took off in that black car, the one the girl left. She was already gone, drove off in a car she left overnight outside the diner.”
“You remember all that?”
She shrugged. “Ain’t much goin’ on here. I pay attention to stuff. Like in that shed back of the diner there’s a safe Arlene bought like a week ago on Craigslist, except she didn’t get the combination so she can’t open it. Not like her to be dumb like that, not get the combination to open it for chrissake. So then this guy had to come out all the way from Henderson to look at it, try to bust it open or something. It still ain’t open yet. He’s gonna try again in a couple days. Kirby tole me about it since he works in the kitchen an’ the storeroom in back with the shelves and the freezers. Heard ’em talking in a back room, Arlene an’ her kid, Buddie.”
“Buddie. Guy with a beard? Big guy?”
“Like holy Jesus big, yeah.”
A safe. I would have to think about that.
“Helicopter guy looked like he was hurting, huh?” I said.
“Pretty much. Looked like he got kicked in the balls. Hard, too. Like you see in the movies, guy gets kicked. Except in real life they don’t get up so fast an’ keep on fightin’.”
“Which way’d he go when he drove away?”
She pointed. “That way. Toward Vegas. Came back like four hours later, late afternoon. Looked like he was feeling better. He flew off in that chopper.” She took another drag and blew out a stream of smoke that hung almost motionless in the air. “Christ, I hope I don’t get knocked up an’ have a kid to keep track of, too. That’d be a bitch and a half, everything else I gotta do.”
So, Jo-X had flown back in, hunched over. Maybe kicked in the nuts. Sounded like his luck with Shanna was quite a bit worse than she’d told us. That morning she’d returned in an SUV, not in his helicopter like she said. Another lie.
And the woman who ran the place bought a safe without the combination. If I bought a safe, Craigslist or new, I’d be sure I could open it before I took delivery. I looped around the front of the diner and went back to the motel. In the room, Lucy was in a towel too small to wrap and tuck. She held it pinched at her waist as she glared at me. She needed another towel, but I didn’t point that out since her feathers appeared to be ruffled.
“Find out anything?” she asked. “You’ve been gone half an hour.”
“As a matter of fact, I did.”
Her voice softened. “What? A car pulled up out front while you were gone. It was Timothy Olyphant, wasn’t it?”
“Close,” I said. “It was the Wharf Rat.”
Took her a few seconds to process that. “Wharf rat. That’s that scrawny guy in Reno you said took a picture of you?”
“The very same.”
“Well, hell. That’s interesting.”
“Ain’t it?”
“Ain’t ain’t a word.”
I squinted at her. “That was irony, wasn’t it? I have trouble with irony.”
“Uh-huh. So, where’s the rat now?”
“Probably six feet away, right through that wall.” I pointed. “He might have his ear stuck to a glass against the wall.”
Lucy hit the wall with the pad of her fist. “Take that, Rat.”
“So, how about we keep it down in here?” I said. “Unless you want to end up on the front page of a tabloid.”
“What else did you find out?” Lucy whispered.
“A big backhoe went out into the desert, then stopped.”
“A backhoe? Wow, News at Eleven. Hope you got video.”
“And the gal who cleans the rooms here said Shanna didn’t fly back that morning like she said she did. She drove herself. In a black SUV.”
Lucy thought about that for a moment. “The girl who cleans the rooms told you that? She could be wrong.”
“I don’t think so. She lives here. Don’t think she has a PhD in anything, but she was pretty specific. What she said and the way she said it rang true.”
“So, Shanna lied.”
“Apparently.”
“I wonder why. Might have to give that some thought.”
“Or track her down and ask.”
“That’d work. But now, how about that shower?” She let the towel unwind and held it in one hand.
“You didn’t get wet and clean while I was gone?”
“Uh-uh. I waited for you. The shower looks spooky. In fact this whole place is like that, including the name. I got scared, figured I needed someone in the shower with me to keep me safe and maybe help scrub these.”
Aw, jeez.
I never served in the military. Worse, I was an Internal Revenue thug for sixteen long years, so I’d done more damage to the country than good. Eventually I discovered I had a soul. But a guy by the name of Warley Sullivan was still at the IRS, and he was born without a soul and never managed to acquire one along the way. He was fifty-four, six foot two, had a beak nose and vulture’s eyes, and had never married since no one would have him, for good reason. His greatest joy was finding that mom and pop hadn’t paid enough in taxes four years ago and the penalties and interest had added up enough to make Christmas a mean season for their three kids. I figured I could finally contribute to the welfare of the country by giving him details about that shower with Lucy, at which point Warley would be forced to kill himself. It would be like having served in the Marines.
News at Eleven: Backhoe in the desert.
Lucy was snugged up against me like before, fast asleep. She wasn’t ready for things to go beyond that point. Couldn’t say I was either. Lucy wanted closeness, warmth, contact. We hadn’t known each other forty-eight hours yet. This was only our second night together, though it seemed like a long week. It might have come as a surprise to her that abstinence suited me—if I’d told her—but some things are better left unsaid. Naked and wet, she looked nineteen. Or eighteen. A nymph. My daughter, Nicole, is twenty-one. Lucy had ten years on her, verified so many times I finally had to accept it. It was still a stretch to see her that old. Impossible, really, but in fact she was two years older than Jeri would have been, so this thing, whatever it was, wasn’t the worst thing that had happened to me recently.
The shower took place quietly, though, because Wharf Rat was in the room next door. That put a little damper on things, for which I would have to thank him later without telling him why.
Midnight came and went. I was still awake at 12:55. Lucy was warm, breathing so softly I could barely hear her. We were covered by a sheet and a thin blanket. Every fifteen or twenty minutes a vehicle of some kind blew by on the highway creating a brief flare of light on the walls and ceiling.
Lucy had one of those bodies you don’t get tired of seeing. If she had an ounce out of place, I didn’t know where it was. If she needed an ounce more, I wouldn’t have known where to put it. And, how about focusing on the case, Mort?
Okay . . . Shanna hadn’t come back in Jo-X’s helicopter. She’d driven herself back in a big black SUV, which apparently belonged to the dipshit himself.
She’d lied.
I wondered why.
Later that same day, Jo-X had flown in, evidently in pain, and taken that SUV south, toward Vegas. Came back four hours later and flew away in the helicopter. No black SUV anywhere around now, so it had been driven away. By whom?
The rear window of the bathroom was open a few inches to let in fresh air. It also let in the distant sound of a diesel engine snorting to life. Being a world-class gumshoe, I lifted Lucy’s arm off my chest and rolled out f
rom under, got to my feet to check on the continuing late-night action out back.
I put on jeans sans underwear, shoes sans socks, then went out into the night sans shirt. The Lexus was no longer in front of the motel. The red Cruze was there, so Vinny was in his room. The temperature had finally dropped into the high sixties.
I went around to the back of the motel. The backhoe was lumbering away, moving farther out into the desert.
“Where do you think it’s going?” the Wharf Rat said in the dark, not six feet away.
I nearly jumped out of my skin, which is an expression I hate but understand better now. I was surprised my hide wasn’t lying in folds on the ground.
But the shock wore off quickly and there we were, together in the night, sharing the weirdness of the backhoe headed away from us, taillights looking like the eyes of a vampire bat. For a moment I had the eerie sensation that Ignacio and I were pals, sharing this unlikely apparition.
“Dunno,” I said after a few deep breaths to get my voice right. “What time is it?”
Vince checked his watch. “One fifteen.”
“That Lexus is gone. Guy who was in the end room.”
“I heard it start up. Half an hour ago. Didn’t see which way it went.”
I shrugged, a gesture Vince didn’t catch in the dark. The Lexus wasn’t my concern. We stood there another five minutes, watching, not talking. The backhoe was out about a half mile, well beyond Jo-X’s helicopter shed, no longer moving away. Its lights were small in the distance. The diesel engine revved up and down. No doubt it was digging, but why?
“Kinda strange,” I said.
“Probably putting in an outhouse.”
“That’d be my guess. Long walk to go potty, but it would keep the smell down, so, yeah—outhouse for sure.”
“Whatever it is, I’ll bet it’s nice to get the work done when it isn’t a hundred twenty degrees out.”
“That’s a thought.”
More silence. Finally, he said, “I’m not really a bad guy, Mr. Angel. I just, you know, work for a tabloid. I know they suck if you have half a brain, and my job is pure trash to most normal people, but I’m good at it and it pays really well. Like twenty times better than waiting tables, which I’ve done.”
“How’d you figure out Celine? And when?”
“Two weeks after she first showed up on Xenon’s arm. She got lonely or something and drove up to Tonopah to visit that other girl, Danya, who’d driven down from Reno to be with her. I followed Celine up there. She left Xenon’s place as a black girl and ended up in Tonopah pure white. They stayed the night at a motel, then Celine went back to Vegas. She was black again. I didn’t know anything about that other girl, so I followed her. She went back to Reno. I found out where they live and did some checking, found out Celine’s real name is Shanna Hayes and that she married Danya Fuller in April. Then I went back to Vegas to stay on Celine, see what else I could find out.”
“You kept all of that to yourself the past two weeks?”
“Had to. Break a story too soon and you lose the best part of it forever. Things shut down. Other people move in on it. I had that happen a few years ago, lost the best half of a big story. The only way I would break this one before I’ve got it nailed down is if someone else was about to. I keep a close watch on things, but no one’s been on Shanna’s tail except you, and all you do is find dead people, so I figure I’m the only one near it so far.”
A finder of dead people. Catchy. Something to have carved on my headstone. I would have to get that in my will.
“You think there’s more to Celine’s story than what you’ve got now?” I asked.
“Sure. She’s married to that girl, Danya. So why was she with Jo-X? What was that all about? My guess is that’s the real story. I don’t want to let out what I’ve got before I get all of it.”
“How are you following these people?”
“Just . . . practice. It’s what I do—following people. Well, one of the things. I’ve been doing it for years.”
Good at it, too. The sonofabitch oughta work for me. Or Ma.
I said, “Then Xenon disappeared, and the girls live in Reno. How’d you end up here? This motel, of all places. And Caliente.”
“Long story, sorta.”
“I’ve got nothing but time. Let’s hear it.”
“Celine was the key to the story, so I stayed on her. I mean, Xenon’s been around for years, but Celine was new, big, hot. I followed her from Xenon’s Vegas mansion a second time. She stopped off the highway for a while, finally ended up here, white, not black, and flew off in a helicopter. I didn’t know what that was all about. I watched from the highway with binoculars. I didn’t know who the pilot was or where he and Shanna were going. I waited all that day for her to come back, then finally got a room at the motel here when it started to get dark. I was tired. Nothing was happening. I figured when the helicopter returned, it would wake me up and I’d get back on Celine’s tail.
“But it never did. I woke up about ten that next morning. Celine’s car was gone and a black SUV was parked where her car used to be. So I missed her. I would’ve woke up for sure if that helicopter came back, so I didn’t know what had happened. I went back to Vegas. Two days later, Xenon missed a big concert in Seattle. Celine was missing, too, media starting to go crazy, no one knew what was going on, so I went back to Reno.
“Then that girl, Danya, spotted me at their house so she took off, but I followed her to a motel on Fourth Street. She got a room. Knew where she was, so I went back to their house to try to pick up that other girl, Shanna. The back door was unlocked so I called out names, got no answer, so I went in. Then you showed up and chased me off after roughing me up.”
“Sorry about that.”
“Uh-huh. You owe me an SD card—thirty-two gigs. Then Shanna came back. After a while you found Jo-X in that garage and Shanna scooted. Fast, too. I got pictures, then you came after me. I went back to the motel where Danya had checked in. Her car was still there. I waited half a block up the street, all day and all night. Pizza guy showed up at the motel. The girls never came out. They didn’t come out until that next afternoon, then they got into a different car that some college-looking guy left before he took off in their car, which was weird. They went to that bank—I saw you there in the parking lot—then they took off, went out to Sparks and ditched that car, got into Danya’s car again, which had been parked a block away. They took off, and I followed them all the way from there to Caliente. Easy. Duck soup.”
“On little or no sleep?”
He put a shrug in his voice. “It’s what I do. Red Bull’s a lifesaver. One time I stayed up for seventy-five hours. Had to. Just have to ignore the more lurid hallucinations. After one of those, I crashed for twenty-two hours, which is a little disorienting when you finally wake up. So, who’s the girl with you?”
“About her—keep your distance or I’ll put you in the hospital. I can almost believe you and I might end up friends, but mess with her and you’ll spend a month in traction.”
“Okay, then. Forget I asked.”
“Where’d the expression ‘duck soup’ come from?”
“I Googled it a few years ago. Turns out, no one knows.”
“You Googled it?”
“Sure. You can find out anything on the Internet.”
“Except where ‘duck soup’ came from.”
“Yeah. Except that. If I ever find out, I’ll let you know.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SUNRISE WAS AT 4:58 a.m. It started as a bright orange spark of light in a notch in the eastern hills. The Lexus was still gone—as I’d expected. The backhoe-loader was back on its trailer behind the diner. All was quiet. Ignacio’s Cruze was still in front of the motel. No sign of the Rat.
By five fifteen, Lucy and I were back on the road, headed north. It was eighty miles to Caliente, and I wanted to catch the girls by surprise. The temperature was still in the sixties. I had the top up on the Mustang and the he
ater on low since Lucy was in jogging shorts and that crochet top, which was about as warm as wearing nothing at all.
We got to the Pahranagai Inn at six thirty. I knocked on the door to room nine. A minute later the peephole went dark, then the door was opened by a sleepy-eyed Danya.
“This better be awful goddamn good,” she said with a growl in her voice, possibly because she was in panties and no top, but maybe that was just who she was in the wee hours.
“It is.” I bulled my way past her. She followed me and Lucy followed her. Shanna was in bed with the covers up to her chin.
“What I’m wondering,” I said to her while Danya worked a T-shirt on over her head, “is why you lied about Jo-X flying you back to that motel and diner the next morning.”
“Who says I lied?”
“I have sources. And you lied.”
“What sources?”
“They shall remain nameless, but you lied, Shanna.” In fact, she might not have lied. The girl last night, Melanie, could’ve been mistaken, but I didn’t think so, so I was putting on the pressure.
And, as expected, Shanna caved.
“Okay. So Jo-X didn’t fly me back. So what?”
“So I’m wondering why you lied.”
A moment of hesitation, then: “Because I roofied the rotten son of a bitch, that’s why. Which is none of your business and I didn’t want to advertise it, especially since he turned up dead.”
I stared at her. “You roofied him?”
“Uh-huh. Probably the last thing that asshole ever expected, it happening to him. I asked around and got it from some loser guy at one of Jo-X’s parties, just in case, hoping I would get a chance to use it, which didn’t seem likely. But then Jo-X invited me to his hideout, so that was perfect.”
“No one else around? Just you two?”
“Just us. He doesn’t have anyone up there on a regular basis, like maids or cooks or anything. I think he gets fuel delivered, and maintenance guys probably come up to do stuff on occasion, but he’s got the place looking like it’s sort of a drug rehab facility so delivery people and workers don’t ask questions.”
Gumshoe on the Loose Page 20