“When?”
“About an hour ago. They also say that while he was at it, Teddy killed that woman photographer who took our pictures in Lompoc.”
“Well, shit, Kelly,” Adair said and lapsed into silence. Vines also seemed to have run out of things to say and the silence continued until Adair said, “From the beginning. Everything.”
“All right.”
It took Vines fifteen minutes to tell it. He began with his purchase of candy bars, mixed nuts, whiskey and the paperback novel, and ended with B. D. Huckins’s gloomy assessment of the real purpose behind the sheriff’s proposed task force.
Adair listened, asking no questions, until he was sure Vines had finished. Then he asked, “You know what I’m having?”
“Second thoughts?” Vines said.
“Exactly.”
“Tell me about Dannie and we’ll come back to your second thoughts.”
“Well, she didn’t know me from Adam’s off ox and she thinks you’re some silly but harmless gentleman caller.”
“What about Soldier Sloan?”
“I made the mistake of asking her about Soldier P. Sloan and she immediately wanted to know what the ‘P’ stood for. I told her Pershing and suddenly she was back in junior high school, reciting the first verse of ‘I Have a Rendezvous with Death’ and asking whether I’d also like to hear the one about how poppies blow in Flanders fields.”
Vines closed his eyes and said, “Which doctor did you talk to?”
“Pease. He thinks Dannie’ll do just fine as long as we keep sending the six thousand a month. When I asked him what would happen to her if the money ran out, he said he’d see that she was placed in one of the state’s better mental hospitals where they might keep her for a week or ten days. I believe I told him Dannie wouldn’t make a very good bag lady.”
“No,” Vines said, opening his eyes, “she wouldn’t.” He drummed the fingers of his right hand on the steering wheel and asked, “Anything left in the tube?”
“Sure,” Adair said and passed it to him.
Vines had another swallow of bourbon, coughed and passed the glass tube back to Adair. “So you think there’s no possible connection between her and Soldier Sloan?”
“None,” Adair said.
“Then Dannie’s obviously not the DV in Soldier’s ‘C JA O RE DV.’”
“Obviously.”
Vines again drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he stared out at the night that began just beyond the Mercedes’s three-pointed star atop the radiator. Finally, he stopped the drumming and said, “What about Venable?”
“Who?”
“Dixie Venable.”
Adair bit his lower lip to keep from gaping, then opened his mouth just wide enough to say, “Jesus. Her maiden name.”
“And the name Soldier first knew Dixie by.”
Adair looked at Vines with total suspicion. “When did all this dawn on you?”
“Just now,” Vines said.
“Who do we share this brilliance with?” Adair asked. “Dixie’s sister? Her husband? Maybe with the chief of police?”
“With nobody,” said Kelly Vines.
When Virginia Trice came over to their booth and said, “You got a call,” Vines was drinking a draft beer and eating a bowl of chili that he thought had too much cumin in it and not enough chili pepper. Adair, his mouth full of a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich, shrugged helplessly at Vines, who asked, “Who’s got a call?”
“Either one of you.”
“Who’s calling?”
“He wouldn’t say,” Virginia Trice replied, turned and went back to preside over the bar.
When Vines reached the bar, she had already moved the phone down to a spot in front of the last stool, which was four stools away from the nearest customer. Vines nodded his thanks, picked up the phone and said hello.
“Mr. Adair?”
“This is Vines.”
“Good. It is I, Parvis Mansur.”
“Right.”
“I’m calling from a pay telephone in Santa Barbara so please bear with me should I have to drop in more quarters.”
“How’d you know we were here?”
Vines could hear Mansur’s deep sigh. “Logic and luck. This is the fourth number I’ve called.”
“Just curious.”
“Did Dixie give you and Mr. Adair my message?”
“Yes.”
“Did you inform B. D. and Sid?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Approximately twenty-one minutes ago I received a call on my secure line, which obviously is no longer secure, hence this call from a pay telephone.”
Wondering when he last had heard anyone say “hence,” Vines said, “This call was from the same person?”
“Yes. This time a date was proposed or rather, I should say, insisted upon.”
“When?”
“Four July. Is that satisfactory to you and Mr. Adair?”
“The date’s okay. What about the place?”
“As we discussed, it must be a place to which, logically, the two of you could be lured. By that, I mean, it can’t be under a tree in the middle of nowhere.”
“Right.”
“Do you have a suggestion? If not, I do.”
Vines already had given considerable thought to where he and Adair were to be sold for $1 million. The place he had in mind featured a back door with an aluminum core sheathed in steel, but after deciding it would be prudent to listen first to Mansur’s proposal, he said, “What do you suggest?”
“Cousin Mary’s, primarily because of its location and its excellent security.”
“Sounds okay.”
“Good. I’m glad you agree.”
“Who called you, Parvis?” Vines said, using Mansur’s given name for the first time.
“The same man called both times. Obviously an American with a rather reedy tenor voice and no regional accent-at least none I could detect.”
“How’d he get your phone number?”
“I thought it best not to ask.”
The telephone buzzed and a recorded operator’s voice interrupted, requesting the caller to deposit an additional fifty cents. Vines listened to the quarters clank down into the pay phone. When the clanking was over, Mansur said, “Are you still there?”
“Still. Did you talk to him about the price?”
“Yes, of course, and he agreed to it with a minimum of grumbling.”
“No serious bargaining?”
“None.”
