“When was that?”
She thought a moment. “Guess it would’ve been the last month or two of school. Senior year.”
“How did you find out?”
“Sarah Jean told me, of course. She wasn’t a liar or anything. If she said it happened, it happened. She managed to fight him off. He didn’t get her so drunk she passed out, which was a damn good thing ’cause Jonnie wouldn’t have had a problem with that. He was a bastard, once you got to know him, but back then he was the Prize. All the girls loved him. He was mine for a while—in my junior year. Zonker. God, all us girls were as dumb as fucking cows. Sarah Jean got him, senior year. Then they elected him mayor, because he’s got all those faces.”
“Faces?”
“Like one of those lizard things, changes color all the time. Sneaky fuck.” She looked straight at me. “If he’d tried it with me, I would’ve ripped his balls off.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
BUT JONNIE HADN’T tried it with Clair back then, and last month he wouldn’t have touched her with tongs and rubber gloves. He wouldn’t have recognized her, wouldn’t have given her a second glance. He had Dallas, the woman I love.
Jeri dropped me off at the Grand Sierra and told me to be at her office at nine on Monday. “And don’t horse around with this Sjorgen thing until then, okay?”
“Horse around?”
“You know what I mean. Too much can go wrong. We’ll pick up where we left off.”
I thanked her profusely for the vote of confidence. She gave me one last warning look, then sped away. I went up to Room 1122. I hadn’t seen Dallas in a while. I wanted to make sure she was okay.
She was reading a magazine, dressed in white slacks and a teal blouse, bare feet. I love the shape of her feet, ankles, all of her. She gave me a stunned look until I remembered the wig. I took it off, tossed it on a chair. I didn’t give her the blow-by-blow about the Clair Albrecht-Schembri-DeMeo-Briscoe-Hutson circus, because it was too big a mouthful, and dredging up the past for Dallas would have been stirring up ancient muck to no purpose. Nor would it have made her life better or protected her from anything. And how much did I trust anything Clair had to say? Not much.
“Getting anywhere yet?” Dallas asked. God, she looked great.
“No,” I said.
“How’s Jeri? She a good investigator?”
“Better than me. A little slow at finding people, though. I’ll be a terrific addition to her agency.”
“Would you like to stay the night, Mort?”
Yes, of course. “I can’t.”
She tilted her head at me. “Kay?”
I shrugged.
“Is that a yes?”
“I don’t know what it is.” Nor was this the time to tell her who K was. That was Kayla’s call, but I wondered how often they’d met. After all, Kayla was the daughter of the guy Dallas had been thinking of marrying, a twist I found more than a little unsettling. It wasn’t that Kayla wasn’t old enough. I was only seven years older. It was the sum total of our tangled relationships that made my relationship with Kayla, such as it was, seem weird. Which wasn’t her fault, or mine.
“If there was any hope for us, Dal…”
“It’s okay, Mort, really.”
Good enough. I can take a hint. She still liked me, maybe even a lot, but that was all. I flushed the moustache down the toilet, put on the wig, rode the elevator to ground level, caught the airport shuttle to Reno-Tahoe International where I caught another shuttle over to the Golden Goose. All in all, a poor man’s taxi service, but…why not?
From the Goose I walked home through sulfur-yellow pools of high-pressure sodium lights. A vermilion sunset glowed through the leaves of trees. Two vans were still out front. Only two. Without new grist they were starting to back-burner the story. Even so, I went through Velma’s yard and through the fence.
Kayla wasn’t in. She’d left a note:
Out walking, back in a while, K.
Out walking. I didn’t know if that was such a good idea. If I found her head anywhere I would go live in Bolivia and call myself Pepe. Or something. Maybe Helmut.
I pulled drapes across the windows and turned on lights. It was my house. If a media type came to the door, I was prepared to escort him or her back to the sidewalk in a highly aerobic manner. Perhaps I gave off warning vibrations, because no one knocked or rang the bell.
I took a long shower. Still no Kayla.
I read for a while, then went to bed. Still no Kayla.
She came in while Leno was ignoring me for the second straight night—fine with me. I was stretched out, covered by only a sheet in the night’s heat, drowsy, about ready to pack it in.
“Hi,” she said, gazing at me from the doorway.
“Hi yourself.” I hit the remote, killing the TV.
“You naked?” she asked.
“If you can’t tell, then I’m not.”
“I mean, if I yanked that sheet off you.”
“What’s it to ya, kiddo?”
“Okay, don’t tell me. I’ll find out for myself soon enough.”
“Where’ve you been?”
“All over. Down to Meadowood, over to Sparks. Back again. No one’s looking for me, at least not here. I guess I put in about twenty miles.”
“Twenty! You walked twenty miles?”
“Uh-huh, thereabouts. I’m not used to being cooped up. I have to move. You weren’t around. Once the sun got low, I left.”
“Twenty!”
“It’s no big deal, Mort. It felt good.” She gave me an expectant look. “I need a shower, though.”
“Right there at the end of the hall where we left it.”
“How ’bout you?”
“Took one already, thanks.”
“Spoilsport. Look what I bought.” She
