“And you mine.”
Although she was late for work in her concrete bunker, she drove him to the Strip hotel at which Prock, his taciturn driver from the previous night, had left his luggage. It was Saturday, but Eve worked seven days a week. Roy admired her commitment.
The desert morning was bright. The sky was a cool, serene blue.
At the hotel, under the entrance portico, before Roy got out of the car, he and Eve made plans to see each other soon, to experience again the pleasures of the night just past.
He stood by the front entrance to watch her drive away. When she was gone, he went inside. He passed the front desk, crossed the raucous casino, and took an elevator to the thirty-sixth and highest floor in the main tower.
He didn’t recall putting one foot in front of the other since getting out of her car. As far as he knew, he had floated into the elevator.
He had never imagined that his pursuit of the fugitive bitch and the scarred man would lead him to the most perfect woman in existence. Destiny was a funny thing.
When the doors opened at the thirty-sixth floor, Roy stepped into a long corridor with custom-sculpted, tone-on-tone, wall-to-wall Edward Fields carpet. Wide enough to be considered a gallery rather than a hallway, the space was furnished with early-nineteenth-century French antiques and paintings of some quality from the same period.
This was one of three floors originally designed to offer huge luxury suites, free of charge, to high rollers who were willing to wager fortunes at the games downstairs. The thirty-fifth and thirty-fourth floors still served that function. However, since the agency had purchased the resort for its moneymaking and money-laundering potential, the suites on the top floor had been set aside for the convenience of out-of-town operatives of a certain executive level.
The thirty-sixth floor was served by its own concierge, who was established in a cozy office across from the elevator. Roy picked up the key to his suite from the man on duty, Henri, who didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow over the rumpled condition of his guest’s suit.
Key in hand, on his way to his rooms, whistling softly, Roy looked forward to a hot shower, a shave, and a lavish room-service breakfast. But when he opened the gilded door and went into the suite, he found two local agents waiting for him. They were in a state of acute but respectful consternation, and only when Roy saw them did he remember that his pager was in one of his jacket pockets and the batteries in another.
“We’ve been looking everywhere for you since four o’clock this morning,” said one of his visitors.
“We’ve located Grant’s Explorer,” said the second.
“Abandoned,” said the first. “There’s a ground search under way for him—”
“—though he might be dead—”
“—or rescued—”
“—because it looks like someone got there before us—”
“—anyway, there are other tire tracks—”
“—so we don’t have much time; we’ve got to move.”
In his mind’s eye, Roy pictured Eve Jammer: golden and pink, oiled and limber, writhing on black rubber, more perfect than not. That would sustain him, no matter how bad the day proved to be.
Spencer woke in the purple shade under the camouflage tarp, but the desert beyond was bathed in harsh white sunshine.
The light stung his eyes, forcing him to squint, although that pain was as nothing compared with the headache that cleaved his brow from temple to temple, on a slight diagonal. Against the backs of his eyeballs, red lights spun with the abrasiveness of razor-blade pinwheels.
He was hot as well. Burning up. Though he suspected that the day was not especially warm.
Thirsty. His tongue felt swollen. It was stuck to the roof of his mouth. His throat was scratchy, raw.
He was still lying on an air mattress, with his head on a meager pillow, under a blanket in spite of the insufferable heat — but he was no longer lying alone. The woman was snuggled against his right side, exerting a sweet pressure against his flank, hip, thigh. Somehow he had gotten his right arm around her without meeting an objection—
Uncommonly furry for a woman.
He turned his head and saw Rocky.
“Hi, pal.”
Talking was painful. Each word was a spiny burr being torn out of his throat. His own speech echoed piercingly through his skull, as though it had been stepped up by amplifiers inside his sinus cavities.
The dog licked Spencer’s right ear.
Whispering to spare his throat, he said, “Yeah, I love you too.”
“Am I interrupting anything?” Valerie asked, dropping to her knees at his left side.
“Just a boy and his dog, hangin’ out together.”
“How’re you feeling?”
“Lousy.”
“Are you allergic to any drugs?”
“Hate the taste of Pepto-Bismol.”
“Are you allergic to any antibiotics?”
“Everything’s spinning.”
“Are you allergic to any antibiotics?”
“Strawberries give me hives.”
“Are you delirious or just difficult?”
“Both.”
Maybe he drifted away for a while, because the next thing he knew, she was giving him an injection in his left arm. He smelled the alcohol with which she had swabbed the area over the vein.
“Antibiotic?” he whispered.
“Liquified strawberries.”
The dog was no longer lying at Spencer’s side. He was sitting next to the woman, watching with interest as she withdrew the needle from his master’s arm.
Spencer said, “I have an infection?”
“Maybe secondary. I’m taking no chances.”
“You a nurse?”
“Not a doctor, not a nurse.”
“How do you know what to do?”
“He tells me,” she said, indicating Rocky.
“Always joking. Must be a comedian.”
“Yes, but licensed to give injections. Do you think you can hold down some water?”
“How about bacon and eggs?”
“Water seems hard enough. Last time, you spit it up.”
“Disgusting.”
“You apologized.”
“I’m a gentleman.”
Even with her assistance, he was tested to his limits merely by the effort required to sit up. He choked on the water a couple of times, but it tasted cool and sweet, and he thought he would be able to keep it in his stomach.
After she eased him flat onto his back again, he said, “Tell me the truth.”
“If I know it.”
“Am I dying?”
“No.”
“We have one rule around here,” he said.
