The side mirror howls at sixty, but it’s quiet at seventy, and you can’t hear it at eighty over the distressed whine of the engine, so the run up to Gerlach had a bunch of different vocals.
Got there at five after eight. Lights were out at the Texaco station, so all that hustle was for naught, except sometimes it’s good to blow the carbon out of the engine. A purple glow was above the hills to the west as I nosed the Toyota into a slot at the casino, crammed it in between an oil delivery truck on one side and a power company rig on the other.
Dave started a dark draft as soon as I came in the door. He wasn’t there that morning when Reinhart made an appearance and put Gerlach on the map so he’d missed all the excitement, had to watch it on TV and get it secondhand from Deputy Roup.
“On the house,” he said, pushing the brewski toward me.
“Don’t know how you keep this place going, but thanks.”
He cast a hopeful look at the door. “She comin’ in?”
“Nope.”
“Well, hell. Beer’s three bucks then.” I reached for my wallet, but he waved it off. “Kiddin’, dude.”
I downed a third of the beer, then said, “Got a room? I’m dead tired. I didn’t get much sleep last night.”
“Who would? Anyway, this’s your lucky day. I got one room left.”
“So I don’t have to bribe you?”
“Can if you want, but room six is open. Guy got a call from his wife half an hour ago, had to split.”
“Good deal. I’ll take it.”
I signed the register, got the key, took the beer over to the room, and settled in, which amounted to looking the place over to be sure the key worked and the room had a bed, then I took my beer back to the casino.
“That was quick,” Dave said. “Didn’t find any body parts while you were over there, did you?”
“Not a one. How ’bout a dinner menu?”
I ordered a steak, baked potato, corn on the cob, apple pie. He wrote it up, put the order through a slot in the wall to the kitchen, dinged a bell.
“Got a few questions for you, if you have a moment,” I said.
“Gotta keep the booze flowing, but go ahead.”
“Last night I asked about a girl, a little older than high school age, and Roup mentioned a green Mercedes SUV.”
“Uh-huh. I remember.”
“Have you seen an SUV like that around here lately?”
“No. But I’m mostly either in here or at home, which is a shack two blocks off the highway, back of the casino. Fact is, I don’t see much of the highway. Not like Mike or Hank.”
“I know about them. Know anyone else who might’ve seen that Mercedes?”
Dave gave that some thought. Still thinking, he went ten feet down the bar and drew a Guinness draft, went another ten feet and whipped up a daiquiri for a rough-looking fifty-something lady in jeans and a camo shirt. “Depends,” he said when he got back. “If the lady driving it stopped at Empire, at the minimart over there, someone there might’ve seen it. Over here, Mike and Hank are the most likely ones to have spotted it, but really, anyone could’ve. I can’t think of anyone else in particular.”
Well, the place only had about two hundred people. I could go door to door, blanket the town in a day or two. Which felt like a big waste of time, although I knew what Jeri would say about that. A while back she told me gumshoeing was 99 percent boring and if I wanted excitement then alligator wrestling might suit me. I thought maybe it wouldn’t since I don’t much cotton to alligators, but I didn’t argue the point with her.
“How about the girl?” I asked. “Have you seen her around?”
“Still got her picture?”
I got it out and set it on the bar. Dave gave it a long look in a light under the bar, longer than he had before. He handed it back. “No, but leave your number. I’ll call if I see her.”
I did that.
“How about the lady she was with?” I asked. “Tall, shoulder-length dark hair? Hank said she was prissy looking.”
Dave smiled. “Hell of a description. Don’t think you’re gonna get anywhere with that, man.”
“Yeah. Me either.”
My dinner arrived. I took it to an empty table and ate it. Two guys in their thirties were playing pool. Same guys as last night. When I finished eating I got up and showed Allie’s picture around the room. The hunters were a bust since they were from out of town. A few locals gave it a look, but shook their heads. I didn’t bother with the pool sharks since they’d already seen it.
Outside, the land was dark under a bright canopy of stars. Ten-pound barbells attached themselves to my eyelids. I was about to go crash in my room when Deputy Roup went into the casino, so I went back inside. He was already at the bar. I took a stool next to him.
“Aw, jeez,” he said. “If it ain’t my favorite private eye.”
“Nice to know I’m appreciated.”
“You didn’t find the rest of our good senator, did you?”
Probably a rhetorical question since I didn’t have a “cat that ate the canary” grin. In fact, a fair amount of the news was speculation, official and otherwise, about whether or not Reinhart was still alive. The smart money was on not, but a few pundits had pointed out that a person can lose a hand and keep on lying. Those would be pundits on the political right, with whom, this time, I happened to agree.
“Nope,” I said. “Just his head.”
Roup’s head jerked around. “What?”
“Kidding.” Thing is,
