The Big Dirt Nap

their asses off. I had that same feeling as I stared at my phone.

If Lucy had sent her message fifteen minutes earlier, O'Malley would still have been here. He would have seen the deer-in-the-headlights expression that was undoubtedly on my face, and would have known what to do. I didn't.

I called up the saved message on the phone and stared at it again, finally thinking to hit reply. Where are you? I keyed in, and waited for an answer. I paced back and forth, jiggling the phone as if to shake out an answer. The phone beeped; another message was coming in. Don't know not more than forty minutes from hotel two brothers DON'T TEXT UNLESS I DO FIRST L

Holy shit. Could she be a little more cryptic? Was she in trouble or was she bragging?

Forty minutes from the hotel wasn't helpful. I'd only been there once. It was on the outskirts of a small town about two blocks long. What was I supposed to do, go to the post office and put up her picture? Shit. I wouldn't tell the cops for now, it could still be an assignation, but I had to tell someone and get a second opinion. I stepped over the piles of papers in my office, grabbed my keys, and went to see my closest adviser, the one person in Springfield I did consider the F word, a friend.

'And for my money, that's the best way to contest a speeding ticket. I've done it three or four times,' she said, hands on hips and arching her back the tiniest bit. 'What are they gonna say?'

'We don't all look like you, Babe,' said a doughy, blond guy with a baby face. 'I'm not sure it would have the same effect coming from someone like me.' Most of Babe's audience nodded their heads in agreement. A few customers in the diner seemed dubious, but I was willing to bet they'd resurrect whatever advice she was dispensing if the situation arose.

I closed the door behind me and looked for a booth near the window. 'Hey, Paula. Have a seat over here. Earl's just leaving. He's going to traffic court tomorrow. I was giving him some pointers.'

Earl struck me as the kind of guy who didn't normally get this much attention from a beautiful woman and I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd made up the traffic-court story just to have an opening gambit with Babe.

I climbed onto the counter stool recently vacated and left uncomfortably warm by the pudgy Earl; I slid over to the next seat. Babe poured me a coffee and gave me a long look as if she once again knew there was something on my mind. 'Take a number,' she whispered, leaning in. 'Look at these guys. I've already found one a new mechanic and told another how to cure his wife's imaginary migraines.'

The rest of Earl's erstwhile legal team hung around for another fifteen minutes debating the merits of Babe's advice despite the fact that she'd given them all bills, her tacit signal that the conversation was over. I nursed my coffee and waited for them to leave. When they didn't, Babe piled a few homemade sugar donuts onto a plate and led me by the arm to a booth at the back of the diner.

'Alba, take over the counter, okay?' Alba did as she was told, happy to play understudy for her idol.

'They take much?' she asked, pulling off a piece of donut. 'Do you need any dough? We were hit once, years ago. I've got protection now.' She jerked her head in the direction of the counter, or maybe it was outside, across the street where the police substation was.

I shook my head. 'It's not about the robbery.' I wasn't sure how much to tell her. I was lousy at asking for help and I didn't want to involve her if this turned out to be something serious.

'A friend of mine is in trouble,' I started.

'First off, that's good. Not good, but at least it's not you. Who is it? The one with the philandering husband? No, don't tell me. Let's keep this abstract.'

Babe lived for this—she genuinely loved solving other people's problems. In another lifetime she might have been a radio shrink.

'Most problems are either money or men. Okay, your friend's a woman and she's having man trouble,' she said, waiting for confirmation.

'Sort of.' I started to think this was a bad idea. What if I didn't like what Babe had to say? What if she said Call the cops now, you idiot!? 'She may be in a place where she doesn't want to be,' I said, dragging my feet.

Babe looked puzzled. 'Literally or figuratively?'

'Could be both.'

'I hate it when the answer is both,' she said, shaking her head and frowning.

Over Babe's shoulder I saw the door open and three of Springfield's finest come in, including Mike O'Malley. Babe turned around to see who I was staring at. 'Stay right here,' she said. 'I give out better advice than a bartender. I'll be right back, I'm just going to go seat those guys. Alba's got her hands full.'

Babe led the cops to a booth just ten feet away and it made me realize the Paradise was not the best place for a private conversation. O'Malley excused himself and came over to where I was sitting.

'Ms. Holliday, I thought it was Chinese food that had you hungry an hour later, not pizza. Have you thought of something else that might help us with your break-in?'

It took me five full seconds to answer. I looked from O'Malley to Babe and back to O'Malley. 'No,' I lied.

Sixteen

Within an hour, I'd gone home and packed, sticking a pair of black leather pants, dressy shoes, and a sleeveless top in my bag, in case I needed to pass myself off as a regular guest at the Titans Hotel. Then I hit the road, stopping only to fill the tank.

Babe and Pete were just closing up as I sped by the Paradise. For the briefest of moments I considered pulling in to get a reality check, but I left my foot on the gas and kept on going.

I was feeling half tired and half wired. There was no way I'd have gotten any sleep after Lucy's message— especially in a house recently pillaged by someone who was likely a thief, a psycho, or at best, a garden-variety creep. Two weird things I could pass off as coincidence, but three was pushing it. I wouldn't have connected Nick's death with the break-in at my house if O'Malley hadn't planted the seed. And now, Lucy's obscure message. What the hell was it that people seemed to think I knew?

When you're consciously looking for links you can find them anywhere, like Nostradamus theories. That side of my brain was now connecting so many dots it wouldn't be long before I convinced myself that this trail would lead me to the remains of Amelia Earhart.

I slid onto the on-ramp and entered the sparse highway traffic with a full tank of gas and a four-pack of diet Red Bull to help me stay awake on the drive to Titans.

My phone was on my lap, plugged into the cigarette lighter and turned to speakerphone on the outside chance that Lucy would call or text-message again. The part about the duct tape was worrying me, but Lucy had a more adventurous sex life than I did. If she was partying, I was going to give her hell. But if she wasn't . . .

Classical music would have put me to sleep so I settled on a college radio station in the middle of its weekly Irish hour. That, the Red Bull, and four open windows were the only things keeping me from pulling over into a deserted weigh station, curling up into a fetal position, and having a snooze. I'm a good sleeper. That's been the consensus with everyone from my mother to my last sweetheart. I know it's supposed to be a compliment, but it's hard to take it as praise when someone tells you they love it when you're unconscious.

Twenty minutes into the drive, I was buzzing on the caffeine and Riverdancing with my shoulders, affecting that haughty head toss that always makes the female dancers look like prancing ponies. The prancing stopped when I passed the gas station/ minimarket where I'd had my encounter with the Michelin Man. A cold wave rippled through my body. Was that incident connected, too, or was I just reaching a new level of paranoia? I checked the rearview mirror as if the MM had been camped out on the highway for the past twenty-four hours waiting for me to reappear. I raised the windows and told myself it was just the early spring weather that had given me the chills.

I was chuckling to myself about what an idiot I was being when the phone rang. I jumped a little in my seat, just enough to knock the phone to the floor of the car and make me have to stretch and feel around blindly through old Mapquest directions, loose change, and empty Red Bull cans until I found it.

I wedged the phone between the gearbox and the driver's seat, squinting until I could make out the sender's name. Jon Chappell. I hit answer.