“If you gotta have gas, really have to,” Deputy Roup said, “I got county gas over at the lockup I’m allowed to sell. It’s damned expensive though. I gotta charge eight bucks a gallon.”
“Do that and I’ll never serve you again,” Dave said to Roup.
“Why’s that?”
“You still haven’t seen what he’s got over in nineteen.”
“Well, okay, then,” Roup said to me. “You’re outta luck. I got no gas either.”
So Holiday and I weren’t stuck here. Fact is, we never were. I could have asked around, got a few guys to let me siphon a few gallons from their trucks for a little cash. We could’ve made it back to Fernley and stayed at a motel with more than one room. But that felt dumb. We’d made it to Gerlach; it seemed pointless to leave, drive eighty miles south then eighty miles back in the morning even if I had to bribe Dave with that hundred dollars. If we’d done that, I would’ve missed out on the opportunity to ask around about Allie this evening, which had—possibly—borne fruit. Allie might’ve been at the Texaco station in a dark green Mercedes SUV earlier this evening. That interrupted phone call hadn’t ended in a cry for help or a shriek. It had ended abruptly, with a little chirp of surprise and, “Hey, what—?” as if the phone had been taken away from her, which could have been for any number of reasons. Allie might not be in trouble. But she might be. So here we were, Sarah—or Holiday—and I, in the last room in town. I was going to have to explain all this to Jeri, but I didn’t see that as a problem—at least, not a big problem. It hadn’t been my idea for Holiday-Sarah to pop out of her clothes the minute we got in the room. And I could keep that sort of thing under control. I already had a plan, good one, too. Anyway, leaving wasn’t an option. Allie might still show up. If not, come morning I had to talk to Texaco Hank.
“Longer you’re here and not in that room over there, stud, the more I’m thinkin’ you’re twelve ways a moron,” Dave said to me, elbows on the bar. “No offense.”
“None taken.” I stood up. “Gotta go. She’s liable to get dressed and come back over here.”
“In that outfit she was wearing? Hold on there, pardner. Set a spell. Have another beer, on the house.”
I went outside. Voices came through the night, then a woman’s distant laugh. An eighteen-wheeler rolled by on the highway, headed north. A dark Mercedes SUV went by, headed south.
I stared at it.
A Mercedes SUV. It might’ve been dark green. Hard to tell in that light. No way to see how many people were inside.
What were the odds? Did it mean anything? If I chased it down, what then? Honk at it, try to get it to stop? And what would I chase it with? A car about out of gas?
I went back in the casino.
“Man, that was quick,” Dave said, grinning. The jerk.
“A Mercedes SUV just went by,” I said to Deputy Roup.
He half-turned on the stool and looked at me. “Uh-huh. They do that.”
“Any chance you could chase it down?”
“Turns out, it’s not illegal to drive through town here. Unless it was speeding or weaving or hit something. See anything like that?”
To lie or not to lie, that was the question. “No,” I said.
“Well then.” He faced the bar and picked up his drink.
I stared at him for a moment, then left.
Holiday was in bed when I walked in. She gave me a benign smile and said howdy. She’d settled down. The covers were pulled up high enough that I figured Sarah was back. If so, maybe I could grab a quick shower and scrub off the day.
“So,” she said. “What was that about logistics?”
“Never mind. I’ve got it worked out.”
“Really?”
“Yes, indeed.”
“Great, tell me how.”
She sat up and the covers tumbled down, so that was it for my shower. However, it simplified the logistics. I found a spare blanket on a shelf in the mini-closet, then went to the door. “Sleep tight,” I said.
“Hey!”
Man, that girl was lightning on her feet. She had a hand on my wrist before I could get one foot out the door. No top, but at least she was wearing panties.
“What the hell are you doin’?” she said.
“Camping out.” I unpeeled her grip and went out, got the door shut, and went to her car. I got in on the passenger side and reclined the seat, arranged the blanket over me, then waited for trouble.
Which took all of twenty-four seconds, then she was out in her panties and her hooker top with one button fixed in the wrong hole, feet bare. She yanked the door open on my side.
“What the hell, Mort!”
“Problem?”
“What’re you doing?”
“Room’s only got one bed.”
“And that’s a problem because . . . ?”
“I’m engaged, that’s—”
“Who said we were gonna like . . . do anything? Which, I can tell you, promise you, we’re not.”
Well, she had me there. Voluptuous mostly naked girl in the only bed in the room—who was I to infer anything from that? But in fact no one had said anything about how that was supposed to play out, so I said, gently, “Go to bed, Sarah. Sleep. I’ll be fine.”
Calling her “Sarah” softened her expression. “Dammit, Mort. You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes I do.”
She stared at me for a moment, then turned and went back to the room, closed the door. I breathed a sigh of relief as I pulled the car door shut. I am a pig, and therefore susceptible.
I shut my eyes, settled in.
Night sounds burbled around me, distant voices, a truck rolled by on the highway. A motel door opened and closed nearby.
Holiday-Sarah opened the driver’s-side door and got in fully dressed, blanket in hand.
“Hi,” she snapped.
“Hi yourself. Now get out.”
“It’s my car. I’ll stay if I want.”
She
