“Yeah. Sure, Jack … I hate to tell you, but you’re gonna need some new furniture, too. The guy was pretty rough on it.”
“Screw that. Are
“No … but … I don’t know how to tell you this, Jack. Oh, man, it’s kind of embarrassing. And I feel like a real Oscar Meyer wiener, but the guy had a gun.” Johnny sucked a deep breath before continuing. “I told him where you are.”
“You told him the truth?”
“Yeah. I gave him the name of the motel. The Saguaro Riptide. Pipeline Beach, Arizona. Right?”
“Yeah. Good job, Johnny.”
“You’re glad that I told him?”
“Uh-huh … I’m looking forward to meeting the dog-beating son of a bitch,” Jack said, and Johnny could almost picture the evil grin on his face.
They said their good-byes. Johnny hung up.
He patted Frankenstein’s head and opened another can of food.
Frankenstein went to work on that dish of Alpo like he didn’t have a care in the world.
Johnny grinned. The vet had said ol’ Franky was well named. Said the pup had the constitution of a monster, all right.
Johnny didn’t want Jack Baddalach to know that, though.
He wanted Baddalach thoroughly stoked.
Because Johnny was really enjoying the picture that was forming in his mind-one Muslim hitman busted up good, former-light heavyweight-champion-of-the-world style.
Baddalach stared at the phone. Damn. This was getting complicated.
There wasn’t anything much he could do about it right this minute, though.
So he sat there, stewing in his juices.
Jack thought about Vincent Komoko, and then he thought about the Muslim hitman. When Jack was tired of thinking about him, he thought about the address Freddy G had given him when they’d talked earlier in the evening.
Freddy’s lackeys had checked out the Pipeline Beach phone number that turned up so often in Vincent Komoko’s phone records. Just yesterday, Jack had called that number from Komoko’s place, rattling the cage of a young woman who, in Jack’s estimation, had some kind of connection to Komoko that deserved further investigation.
Their first conversation hadn’t done Jack much good. The woman had hung up on him before he had a chance to learn anything.
But now he had her address.
Now they’d have a real heart-to-heart.
Jack picked up the receiver and dialed the girl’s number.
She answered on the third ring.
Jack started talking.
The girl didn’t say much.
Outside, in the junkyard next to the Saguaro Riptide, Sandy Kapalua-Dayton’s pit bull was barking like crazy.
TEN
Priscilla stood in the shadow of Graceland, the desert wind at her back strong enough to muss her heavily sprayed bouffant. It was a hot wind, and dry, like everything else in Arizona.
Everything but the lonely teardrops spilling from her eyes.
Ellis didn’t like her coming out here alone. A lot of time there was no use arguing with him about where she could go and when she could go there-the bruise on her ankle proved that-but tonight he had really surprised her by not kicking up a fuss when she said she was going for a walk. He’d said
Sometimes she could handle him just fine. Mostly he just sat in front of the TV with a cat or two curled up on his lap. But other times. .
Priscilla’s ankle began to ache. She didn’t want to think about those other times. She didn’t want to think about Ellis. He was back there in the trailer watching a letter-boxed video of
Her tears would have been for Vince.
Priscilla had met Vince in Las Vegas two years ago. It was one of the few times in her married life that Ellis let her do something without him, and the only reason he’d let her go was that she made the trip with her big sister.
Just a quick weekend to celebrate Rorie hiring on as a deputy with the Pipeline Beach Sheriff’s Department. Rorie used to love to do crazy stuff like that-take road trips on the spur of the moment. But now Rorie had Wyetta, just the way Priscilla had Ellis. They were still sisters but they hardly ever saw each other, even though they lived in the same small town.
Sometimes Priscilla wished she could talk to Rorie about Ellis. She wondered if Rorie felt the same way about Wyetta, because things didn’t seem to be too great between the two of them. But Priscilla didn’t seem to know how to start that kind of conversation, and neither did Rorie. They always found stuff to talk about, only none of it seemed very important.
Priscilla thought about it. Things seemed to happen so fast. Slip a ring on your finger. . let a stranger share your bed. . and your life changed forever. Priscilla didn’t think that was fair.
She also knew that she couldn’t do one little thing about it.
But she didn’t want to think about that. Not tonight. Tonight she wanted to think about Vince, and how wonderful he’d been on that first night in Vegas.
Vincent Komoko had spotted Priscilla and Rorie in the casino at the Casbah. He had some kind of job there. First thing, he asked Priscilla where the King was. That kind of threw her off guard. For a second she thought Vince must have been a friend of Ellis’s from his days in Vegas. She only thought that for a second, though, because it was plain that Vince was too young to have been around when Ellis was shaking things up as the hottest Elvis impersonator on the Strip. Then Vince gave her that big wink she’d come to know so well, and she realized that her first guess had been wrong-he was only complimenting her because she really did look like the real Priscilla. The way the real Priscilla had looked when she was married to Elvis, before she ran out on him and went Hollywood.
Well, that broke the ice. They got to talking. Vince was easy to talk to, and Priscilla was hungry for that because Ellis didn’t talk much. And then talking led to drinks, and drinks led to dinner, and then. .
Rorie was a good sport about the whole thing. She didn’t even bat an eye when Vince moved in on Priscilla. Certainly, she wasn’t jealous-Rorie wasn’t much interested in male affection. And Priscilla linking up with Vince kind of left Rorie free to cut a path of her own, though she wasn’t the kind to say so in so many words. Besides, Rorie didn’t much like Priscilla’s husband. She said that Ellis was too old for her sister, too set in his ways, said that he might as well have traded his dick for a TV remote a long time ago. It was Rorie’s sisterly opinion that Priscilla should do a Tammy Wynette on the fat old hound dawg and get a D-I–V-O-R-C-E.
And maybe that was what Priscilla should have done. Maybe she should have made a clean break. Instead of sneaking around with Vince, waiting for him to make those little side trips down to Pipeline Beach when he ran the mob’s money into Texas. Satisfying herself with a couple stolen hours at the Saguaro Riptide every month.
Ellis never caught on. Priscilla was sure of that. Because if Ellis had had the least little inkling of what was going on, Priscilla would have never set foot outside their trailer again. If Ellis had even been suspicious, he would
