All except one.
I pulled it out. Its edges were sharp enough to slice a porterhouse steak and the paper was as white as a dream about nurses. It hadn't even been filed with the rest of the cards but had been slipped into the money slot. The slot held a few hundred bucks' worth of last week's folding paper. It wouldn't have bought a meal then-it couldn't buy a gumball today. Not that it mattered much to Joey now.
I fingered the card, turned it over. On the printed side-in small, dignified letters-was engraved
St. Judas Church of Holy Tribulation
and Tax Evasion
'To Find Love, One Must First Kill God.'
Phone: 666-HWHY
'Was it the archdiocese that had you scared, Joey? Or was it this?'
Having delivered this annoyingly intriguing item, Joey continued to sit there, looking amazed. I reached over to close his eyelids. They resisted at first, then stickily slid shut. He looked less surprised, as though he'd overheard something interesting while dozing but thought it deserved nothing more than raised eyebrows.
I cased my inner office. Carefully. I picked up more cartridges for my automatic and scooped out what money the safe held. The stuff wound up in a briefcase, followed by a few personal items and a change of clothes. I thought a moment and added two extra shirts, a pair of slacks, and a belt.
I had a feeling I wouldn't be coming back for a while. The place didn't seem as secure against the riffraff anymore.
While pulling on some dry clothes, I made one phone call to a number I knew well. It was a number a lot of people knew, though you'd never find it in any phone book.
The line rang once, a receiver lifted somewhere in Los Angeles, and no voice answered.
'Disposal,' I said to the silent other end. 'Arco Tower North, room twelve hundred. Bury this one-he's a friend.'
The party on the other end hung up without a word.
You can get anything you want in L.A.
I snapped the briefcase shut and locked my office up. On the way out, I stopped to look back at the bearish figure of Joey Moreno.
'So long, Father,' I muttered. 'Tell the head honcho I'm on His trail.'
'Here.' I tossed Ann a dark blue pair of pants and a white shirt. 'You too.' The kid got a red-checked Pendleton.
'It smells like fish,' she said graciously. She swam around inside until her head and arms poked out of the appropriate holes.
'Was he up there?' Ann asked, stepping behind the office door to change.
'Mostly.' I cadged a dry cigarette from La Vecque and lit up. The smoke cleared away some of the fuzziness upstairs. 'I may have come across another lead. Let's go.'
I handed our physician a wad of orange paper. 'We weren't here.'
'No one ever is, Dell.' He paused. 'How's your condition?'
'Aside from being sapped and doped and jumped on by little things that scratch, I've been fine. No more internal pains that haven't been externally caused.'
'I'd like to schedule another body scan...'
I blew out a cloud of smoke. 'Some other time, Doc. I'm taking a business trip.'
'Where to now?' Blondie asked. Dressed in my old clothes that were baggy to begin with, she looked sufficiently out of vogue to beg on a Beverly Hills street corner as a fallen socialite.
The elevator creaked like a rattan chair. 'Going back to my office is completely out,' I said, running a few fingers over my lumpy scalp. 'And since you're connected with me now, your place is probably under surveillance.'
The elevator stopped, and the doors considered opening. Then they started working at it in earnest. They jammed partway, permitting us to squeeze our way out.
'Aside from an unpleasant experience at a dive called the Hope and Anchor, Auberge is a pretty safe place to hole up.' I glared mildly at Isadora.
