He shook his head. “Jesus H. Christ, Angel.”
“That woman you saw putting gas in that Mercedes SUV over at the Texaco. Would you recognize her if you saw her again?”
“Maybe. Probably would if I saw her in that car.”
“Give me a call if you do, huh?” I gave him my cell number.
“Will do,” he said. “Goddamn, but you sure do stir things up.”
“Not intentionally, Sheriff. I’ll be in room six at the motel if you happen to see her.” I got off the barstool and headed for the door.
“Angel.”
I turned. “Yeah?”
“If you find any more pieces of Reinhart, haul ’em to Reno and find ’em down there, okay?”
“I’ll do that. I’ll tell Sheriff Burnley you said it was okay.”
The door shut off Dave’s laughter as I went outside.
CHAPTER SEVEN
MAN, I WAS tired. I’m at least an eight-hour-a-night person. Three hours the previous night didn’t hack it. I took a quick shower, brushed my teeth, and fell into bed, out cold in less than a minute.
The knock on the door came at 1:55 in the morning, right in the middle of the best sleep I’d had in a month.
“Wrong room,” I yelled.
The knocking continued. Loud, too.
“Sonofabitch,” I growled. My eyelids felt grainy. “Go away and die,” I shouted. I’m not at my best with grainy eyelids, which is a character fault that doesn’t respond to therapy.
The knocking continued.
“Aw, hell.” I turned on all twenty watts of a bedside lamp. The towel I’d used to dry off earlier was on a chair, damp, but faster and easier to put on than fumbling into a pair of jockeys, which I couldn’t locate, right offhand.
I wrapped the towel around my waist and whipped the door open. “What the fu—?”
It was one of the pool sharks, slim and scruffy, in boots, jeans, a denim vest. Could’ve used a comb, too, but it wasn’t my place to tell him that. “Is this yours, man?” he asked. “Says she is.” He had one hand on Holiday’s arm, just above the elbow. His buddy was behind them, also scruffy and lean.
Well, hell.
“Yes, she is. Thanks for returning her.” I didn’t even blink as I said it, I’m that good.
“She’s a goddamn hustler, man.”
“Well, yeah, sure, I didn’t know that,” I said, striving for as much ambiguity as I could muster that early in the morning.
“You oughta keep her under better control, Jack.”
“Control!” Holiday yanked her arm out of his grasp. “You still owe me a hundred bucks, Dell.”
First-name basis with the sharks. Great. I looked beyond her, at her Audi nosed into a slot fifteen feet away. “Got the keys to your car, honey bun?” I asked her.
“Sure do,” she said sweetly, tossing them to me.
I went out in bare feet and a towel—first time for everything—opened the passenger door and got my gun out from under the seat. The things you forget when you’re operating on too little sleep.
“Whoa, dude,” Dell said when he saw it. He backed up two feet, into his buddy.
“Notice that I’m not aiming this at anyone,” I said. “And I’m licensed to carry concealed. Although,” I added, trying to be helpful, “I don’t have my license on me right now.”
“Yeah, I kin see that.”
Holiday held out a hand to him, palm up. “Hundred bucks, pay up.” She had on another one of those tops that would get her a week in jail in Iowa—faux leather, nice shade of burgundy. I went back to the room and turned, stood in the doorway.
Dell dug in a pocket and pulled out a wad of bills. He folded it once and shoved it into her top.
“Never judge a book by its cover,” Holiday said to him as she headed toward me, pulling the money out.
Dell stared at her. “Huh? What’s that mean?”
“Never mind.” She pushed past me into the room, pulled me out of the doorway, and slammed the door in Dell’s face.
“Surprise,” she said.
“Hustler, huh?”
“I played a lot of pool in the Peace Corps. There wasn’t much to do evenings up there in that village, but they had a pool table under a kind of outdoor canopy tent thing. I got pretty good.”
“Dell looked unhappy.”
“Dell only thought he was good. Anyway, Dave said you were over here in room six. He’s the bartender.”
“Yup. We’ve met. Even bumped knuckles.”
“I got two free Tequila Sunrises. Drank most of them so I’m a little woohoo. I went by your house in Reno earlier. Your car was gone. I figured you came back here, so I drove on up.”
“I’ll have your PI license printed up in the morning.”
“Also, Jeri sort of told me she told you to come back here to keep looking for Allie, so that helped a little.”
“Okay, forget the license.” I shoved my revolver under the bed then gave her a once-over. “Is that a new top?”
She looked down at it, then at me. “Sort of. I’ve only had it a month. Like it?”
“It looks like it fits okay.”
“It’s fun. And comfortable. Anyway, here we are. And I’ve just got to take a shower. Last one was last night, in that other room, nineteen.”
“Yeah, you’d be pretty ripe by now.” I got into bed, pulled the cover up to my chin, then removed the towel and tossed it onto the only chair in the room. Come what may, I wasn’t going to spend another night hunkered down in a suit of armor.
She ran a zipper down the front of her top then hesitated before taking it off. “You’re acting pretty cool there, Boy Scout.”
“I’ve given up the fight. But I do have one little question for you.” “What’s that?”
“What the hell are you doing up here?”
“Looking for Allie. I mean, helping you look for her. Really, I can help. I showed her picture to everyone in the casino tonight.”
“So did I.”
“I figured. I got a lot of repeats, but some of the people in there hadn’t seen her
