doing much to help herself. It made her sick to see Nola throwing her life away, and she put the car into reverse and backed it down the drive.
Sherry did care, almost as much about Nola as herself, and she waited until she was a few blocks away before sticking her hand beneath the seat and switching off the tape recorder.
The police had ripped Nola's place apart, then put everything back where it didn't belong. Going to her bedroom, Nola knelt on the floor, pulled a thin cardboard box from beneath the bed, and removed its flimsy lid. A cry escaped her lips.
Her diary was gone, along with stacks of letters and bank statements and other useless paper she dutifully stored for the IRS each year. Whatever the police hadn't known about her personal life before, they certainly knew now.
The clothes Raul kept in her closet were also gone, and she guessed the cops had packed a suitcase for him, having decided to deport him once they'd realized she wouldn't play ball. What Nazis they were! Without evidence, they'd resorted to breaking the same laws they were sworn to protect. But Raul would get even. Thousands of illegal Mexican immigrants were slipping into Texas every week, and it wouldn't be long before he'd be back on her doorstep, panting like a lovesick pup.
The bathroom had been turned upside down. Towels on the floor, her prescription medicine in the sink. She put the bottles back into the cabinet and tossed out those medications that had expired. Done, she ran her finger across the labels, sensing something was amiss.
'For Christ's sake,' she swore.
Her prescription Zoloft, the little blue happy pills that kept her afloat, were gone. Nola's eyes welled with tears. What were the police trying to do, make her go crazy?
In the kitchen, a blinking answering machine awaited her. Six messages. She listened to the first five seconds of each before hitting Erase.
'This is Chantel with MCI-'
'Hi, my name is Robyn with Olin Mott Studios-'
'This is a courtesy call-'
'Fred's Carpet Cleaning here. We're having a special in your-'
'This is AT amp;T-'
The last message was a guy breathing. After ten seconds, the line went dead. Barely able to control herself, Nola punched*69 on her phone.
'Brother's Lounge,' a man's gruff voice answered.
'Tell Frank Fontaine to leave me alone,' she screamed into the receiver. 'Do you understand? Tell him to stop calling me!'
'Frank's not here,' the man said, his tone indicating he was used to such calls. 'Wanna leave a message?'
'Yes. Tell that pond slime to climb back under his rock and leave me alone. And he can go fuck himself while he's at it.'
'… 'fuck himself while he's at it'…' the man repeated, as if writing it down.
'And you can go fuck yourself, too,' Nola exploded.
'… 'go fuck yourself, too'…' the man echoed.
Nola slammed the receiver into the cradle, then ripped the phone out of its jack. Comics. Las Vegas was filled with comics.
Off the kitchen was a closet she'd converted into a study by laying down a square of cheap carpet and sticking an Office Depot secretary in the corner. It was her private space, and Nola slipped inside the tiny room and shut the door, the sudden darkness calming her down like it always did.
She booted up her Compaq Presario, the darkness pierced by seven and a half inches of blue iridescence. Entering Windows, she hit the File button. The program had a function that let her view the last eight files that had been opened. Scrolling through them, she realized that the police had already been here. There wasn't much to see, mostly letters she'd never gotten around to finishing and her finances on a Lotus spreadsheet, but their invasion of her in cyberspace seemed the ultimate insult. She erased everything.
Exiting Windows, she logged onto the Internet through AOL and typed in her password.
'You've got mail!' an automated voice cheerfully announced.
Nola looked in her mailbox. One message had arrived dated this morning. The return e-mail address was unfamiliar. She took a deep breath. Who was looking for her now? Nola, Heard you got busted. Sorry (really). You've never been through this before. Here are some things you need to know. The police have bugged your phone. They have probably moved into an empty house nearby and are watching you right now. It doesn't matter that you are innocent. In their eyes, you are guilty, and since they're the law, you are guilty, unless you choose to do something about it. You need to act fast. I dropped a key in your mailbox. It opens a safe deposit box at the First American Savings amp; Loan near your house. Use the money to hire a good lawyer. I forged your name, so you have access. Love, Frank
She fell back in her chair. Love, Frank? Who did this shark think he was? And how had he gotten her e-mail address? It was a setup, plain and simple. Deleting the message, she shut down her computer.
She sat in the air-conditioned darkness and stared at the screen's muted afterglow. It faded slowly, a great metaphor for her own predicament. Fontaine was right about one thing. She was screwed. She'd been suspected of cheating, and in this town, that was enough to lose your sheriff's card. Without that little piece of laminated plastic, she couldn't work in a casino. And as sad as it sounded, dealing blackjack was the only real skill she had.
This is another fine mess you've gotten yourself into.
Yes, it was. Her inner voice was great at stating the obvious. Another sad chapter in the sorry life of Nola the Victim, an epic novel of stupidity and needless suffering. See Nola lied to, spit on, and treated like a human doormat, only to come back for more like a washed-up fighter who's grown fond of eating punches.
She needed some air. Going out the back door, she stepped barefoot on the patio and started dancing, the bricks hot enough to fry an egg. Hopping onto the grass, she crossed onto her neighbor's property. The owners, a husband-and-wife dance team called the Davenports, had retired to Palm Springs and left the house with Century 21. It had been vacant for months, and Nola put her face to a shuttered back window and tried to peer in, wondering if the police really were inside.
She felt the wall hum; something electric was running inside. Curiosity killed more than just cats, and she crept around back and retrieved the spare key from a rock in the garden.
Clutching the key, Nola contemplated unlocking her neighbors' back door and marching inside, just to see if the police really were there. Did she have the guts?
No, she decided, she didn't. Instead, she went to the Davenports' two-car garage, unlocked the door, and slipped in.
Parked inside was an unfamiliar Chrysler sedan. Nola pressed her face to the driver's window. A two-way radio was mounted to the dash. Cops. She shuddered. Score another round for Fontaine.
Inside the house, she heard a man talking on the phone, his voice gravelly and mean. Nola tiptoed across the concrete floor, remembering all the times she'd watched her neighbors practice their intricate routines, and stuck her ear against the flimsy particleboard.
'The fuck I know what she's doing. It's been silent since she made the call. Can you believe it? Home ten minutes and she calls a bar where Fontaine hangs out. Of course I got it on tape. The guy's got a twelve-inch schlong is what I think. She neeeeds him.'
Nola brought her hand to her mouth. How in God's name was she going to convince the police she didn't know Fontaine now? The fact that Fontaine had called her first would be irrelevant in their eyes. She was doomed.
Okay, Frank, she thought, you win.
She slipped out the garage door and locked it. Retracing her steps, she went into her own house and marched down the hall. Opening the front door, she made a beeline for the mailbox at the curb.
Despite the heat, it was a beautiful day without a cloud to mar the bright blue sky. She worshiped the sun and fresh air and had stayed in Vegas probably longer than she should have because she got to enjoy these things every day. She would not do well in prison, if it came to that.
Her mailbox was jammed with junk mail. One envelope stood out. Her address was hand written, and there
