'I thought I'd wait and let it pick its own name when it's older.'
'Marty give you that?'
'Yeah.'
'Neither one of us looking too good today,' Hawk said.
Bibi came out of the bedroom with her suitcase, and stood quietly near the door.
'Okay,' I said.
'What about the hotel bill?' Bibi said.
'We'll let Anthony worry about that,' I said.
Hawk went out first, then Bibi, then me. We let her carry her shoulder bag, because if we had to fight neither of us wanted to be carrying it when the fight started.
But there was no fight. We got into Lester's car out front and drove to the airport.
At the security gate, I handed Hawk my gun and went through with Bibi and walked her to the gate. Before she boarded she hesitated and looked at me.
'What are you going to do?' she said.
'After I leave?'
'I was thinking we might get drunk,' I said.
She nodded to herself and then she smiled and kissed me very carefully on the cheek and went on down the ramp. I stayed at the gate until the plane took off.
CHAPTER 29
The phone rang in my hotel room at 7:35. I was lying in bed awake, when it rang, planning out a full day of volcano watching.
'She never showed,' Chollo said without preamble.
'I waited three flights. With my sign. I don't know what she looks like.
Nobody came up and spoke to me. So I went home, figured it was another gringo trick.'
'Perfect,' I said.
'Anytime you want me go stand around LAX again with a silly fucking sign, be sure and let me know,' Chollo said.
'I'm not happy either,' I said and hung up.
I got out of bed and stood at the window and looked out. Be hours before the volcano erupted. I called Susan but her machine was on which meant she was already downstairs in her office. I called Julius's room, but he'd checked out. I looked at the business card the little guy in the Panama hat had given me. It said Bernard J. Fortunate Investigator, Professional and Discreet.
There was a phone number with a Vegas area code. I called it. No answer. So I called the cops. They're always there. I asked for Homicide, got Romero, and told him what I knew.
'Back in Boston,' Romero said, when I was through, 'when you were on the cops, did you keep losing your gun?'
'I've had better weeks,' I said.
'I hope so,' Romero said.
After I hung up I showered and shaved in the empty large hotel suite, making as big a deal out of it as I could. I called Hawk to see if he wanted breakfast. He did. I dressed carefully, and went down. Bob brought us coffee.
'Hey, Boston,' he said.
'You got yourself some kind of shiner.'
'Any kind will do,' I said.
Hawk drank some orange juice. I had decaf and a couple of bagels. Hawk had scrambled eggs with chives, coffee, and sourdough toast.
'What we going to do now?' Hawk said.
'You may as well go home.'
He nodded.
'You staying around?'
'Another day or so maybe, just make sure I haven't missed anything.'
'Missed anything,' Hawk said.
'We missed every fucking thing there was to miss out here. We lost Anthony, we lost Bibi. Shirley got killed. Julius fired us, and Marty Anaheim whacked you on the bazoo. Probably would have whacked me on the bazoo too, if I was there.'
I drank some decaf.
'You know who I miss,' I said.
