"Please do,” said Stanley, delicately fingering the wig where it curled around his ear.
"This has been one of my to-hell-with-it days,” sighed Miranda, “and I get pretty starved for a little girl talk, what with only old Tomas to shoot the breeze with."
"It must be dreadfully lonely for you out here,” Stanley agreed, extending his pinky as he lifted the cup to his lips.
"Honey, lonely don't even come close. Oh, I used to treat myself to little holidays, run up to Vegas or over to L.A. But now I've scraped together a bit of a nest egg and if I can hold out another couple of years without going bananas I'll dump the place on another sucker and move back to L.A. for good."
Stanley forebore to inquire how the poor soul could have acquired much of a nest egg in this barren outpost. “My husband used to say if you've got pluck you don't need luck."
"Hear, hear. What about you, hon? You a widow or ...?"
"No, I have a husband. As of the moment."
"Uh-oh."
Stanley smiled, a smug, bitchy smile, a Doris special. “That's why I'm going to San Rafael, to visit my sister Betty Lou. I had to get away to think things over. Not that there's anything to think about, I'm beyond that stage.” Warming to his performance, Stanley couldn't resist doing the Doris bit to the hilt. “Oh, Stanley was amusing when I first met him. I must admit he had talent. If he'd got the breaks he might have made a name for himself in show business. Or if he'd stayed hungry. Not met foolish old me, in other words. No use denying it, the man used me. I don't think now he loved anything about me but my checkbook. But with his drinking and chasing I've got him by the short hairs. He'll not get a penny out of me."
"Bravo, honey. Hit him where it hurts. He know you're on this decision-making jaunt?"
"He knows. And I'm sure he knows the party's over. I had so much on my mind it's no surprise I got off on the wrong road."
"Well, I'll set you straight in the morning. You're just lucky you came by here. Desert's no place for a lady to be driving alone at night."
"Indeed I was lucky. Remind me to get lost on the way back. Such hospitality!"
"Like I said, love, I try to offer something extra."
The fluttering of Miranda Castero's painted lashes suggested to Stanley the source of much of that nest egg. Well, give her credit. She didn't look bad as it was and probably looked even better to the occasional lonely traveling salesman. For a passing moment Stanley rather wished he himself were not there under false pretences. Miranda reminded him slightly of that exotic dancer at the El Dorado.
Now Miranda sighed with a trace of wistful envy. “At least you can give your old man his walking papers and not wonder where your next meal is coming from. I should have been so lucky."
"Daddy was in oil,” murmured Stanley, fondling Doris's huge diamond on his little finger. And then, deciding he had made the picture so clear to Miranda she would be able to give investigators an earful when sooner or later they stopped to question her, Stanley made sure they would question her by saying he really ought to call Betty Lou and tell her where she was.
"Good idea,” Miranda agreed. “No phone in the rooms, but you're welcome to use the one in the office. More coffee first?"
"Thanks, no, or I'll toss and turn all night."
"Not at the La Miranda, honey. Where else do they give you a complimentary nightcap?"
No doubt about it, Miranda was one smart cookie. Stanley followed her back to the office where he placed a call to Betty Lou explaining that he'd got off on the wrong road and was spending the night at the La Miranda Motel and would get an early start in the morning.
"Is it a nice place?"
Stanley aped one of Doris's mocking laughs. “Heaven in the desert, sis."
Aglow with confidence, Stanley hung up the phone, smiled at Miranda, touched his fingers to his lips in a dainty yawn, and said goodnight.
"Sleep well, hon,” said Miranda. “You'll find ice and a little bottle of champagne in your room, courtesy of the management."
Champagne, no less. Incredible. “Then I'll say goodbye now. I want to be on the road at daybreak, so if I don't see you—"
"You will,” chirped Miranda. “I'm up with the chickens. You'll want a spot of breakfast before you leave."
Nothing, thought Stanley, back in his room, could be more fitting than that wee bottle of champagne. He was in the mood to celebrate the success of his scheme and waited only until he had stripped himself of Doris's clothes and wig and taken a refreshing shower before opening the bottle; while doing this he went over in his mind the following day's agenda. An early start, abandoning Doris's car at a previously determined spot, making sure, of course, that it bore no evidence of his having been the driver; a change into his own clothing, with the added protection of a false beard and glasses; then hitching a ride to the nearest town where he could catch a bus back to Albuquerque.
After that, all he would have to do was wait for Betty Lou's phone call—gad, she'd be hysterical when Doris failed to arrive in San Rafael. And then patience, for however long it took—months, possibly, he hoped—for Doris's body to be discovered.
A towel wrapped around his waist, he sat down in the chair, poured the champagne into a glass, and toasted his good fortune.
* * * *
Miranda Castero, napping in her quarters, awoke slowly to the gentle tapping on her door. Still fully dressed, she got up, yawned sleepily, and went to admit Tomas.
"Well? Is our guest asleep?"
"Si, señora. But—"
"Gimme the ring."
With a shrug Tomas handed over the diamond. A greedy smile dimpled Miranda's puffy cheeks as she examined it more closely than had been possible while it was on its owner's finger. But she had been right, it was a dazzler. She hardly dared speculate on its worth.
"Señora, I theenk—"
"I don't pay you to theenk. Now don't just stand there. You've got a lot to do before sunrise. She didn't look too heavy. Can you get her into the car by yourself?"
Tomas stood there, droopy-eyed, unexcitable, but wearing a look of dull perplexity.
"Señora, I theenk you better come see, por favor. Something, she is not right."
Miranda pierced him with a wary look. “What are you babbling about? You said the señora—"
"That is what I say. The señora—she ees not a señora.” Totally nonplussed by this remark, Miranda wondered if Tomas had been hitting the tequila again. Or the champagne in Number 9. But she knew better than that. He wouldn't be standing there at all had he sampled that very special nightcap. As he turned and padded out of the room she followed him to the door of Number 9. He entered, almost stealthily, as if fearful of disturbing its occupant, then stood aside for Miranda to pass around him.
As she gazed at the figure sprawled across the bed, the sight made no immediate sense to her until Tomas dangled the wig he'd found in front of Miranda's eyes.
"You see?” he murmured. “The señora, she ees not a señora."
"I see,” she replied, taking a couple of steps closer to the bed, and then she added, in the tone of one who no longer finds anything in life more than mildly astonishing:
"El mistako, Tomas."l
(c)2007 by Donald Olson
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